The world is not new to antiheroes, or protagonists who bend the rules. But in recent years, we’ve seen crop up many of what I like to call “lovable assassins”: Barry, Dexter, Villanelle in Killing Eve, Joe in You, and other entertaining, sympathetic, immoral protagonists. But entertaining and especially sympathetic immoral protagonists carry a weight, and it is vital that creators understand it.
I love these stories like anyone else. The characters are certainly real, with motivations we viewers can understand. Villanelle, or Oksana, is a troubled, neglected, queer orphan raised as an assassin. Dexter is an abused killer who kills killers. Barry is a war vet socialized to kill, with a stark lack of self-awareness. Joe is...hot? (And the least sympathetic)
These characters have strong value. They’re new, fresh, interesting, entertaining. There are things we can explore with the premises of Barry and Oksana that other characters do not yield. The assassinations in Killing Eve are, well…fun. The value of unique vehicles for storytelling cannot be overstated. However, these vehicles in particular are also very powerful. When we tell these stories, we must be aware of their power.
Lovable assassins are a weapon that should not be wielded lightly. Holding an audience is power. Content, and knowledge, are power. It's a principle we have for tech products as well; if your feature gets usage, or views, you're responsible for what you show users. When we bend morals in entertainment, it is absorbed by our audience, whether we want it or not. We are responsible for what we justify and normalize. BoJack Horseman has a responsibility not to serve purely as a tool that gross dudes use to justify their assholery. They must ultimately make a moral judgment on BoJack and who he is, or becomes. You has a responsibility to show Joe as a villain - because that's what he is, plain and simple. Thirteen Reasons Why has a responsibility to address a perceived glorification of suicide, barring adaptation concerns. It's the same reason search engines and facial recognition are responsible for the bias in their results. They are trained on ML models. Making one of those is a little like making a show. Afterward, you ship it out there, and whatever happens, happens. But if you forgot something, didn't have enough diverse input, or did something wrong, some unlucky person will figure that out for you later. Now, at the end of the day, you can do whatever you want, cover your legal ass, and hope most people are happy. That's why we need to all agree: we are responsible for the direct lessons our content imparts, including its relativism and relationship to morality. We are responsible for our protagonists and our plots, for what we judge and what we deem acceptable. We are responsible for the judgments and opinions we put into our work. We are responsible for what we ignore. Stories with sympathetic immoral protagonists can be extremely entertaining and genre-bending, sometimes with cult followings. Characters, even more than other literary devices, create strong bonds with viewers and readers. Immoral characters thus hold dangerous power over a consumer. This makes the creators’ self-awareness – which is always apparent in the creation – ever more important. Powerful story devices influence viewers’ minds. This one must be underlaid by strong ethical principles.
I love Villanelle, Barry, and all the other lovable assassins. I'm not advocating against these characters. I have a character like this too, a deuteragonist and antagonist. She has a sad backstory and human motivations, but I am actively positioning her as an antagonist, while the protagonists are sympathetic. But how can we make responsible lovable assassins, particularly as sympathetic protagonists?
Barry is my favorite example of a sympathetic immoral protagonist. The creators clearly have a character development in mind. It has the strength of Breaking Bad's Walter White or Better Call Saul's Jimmy McGill, where the morality is also clear. Spoilers!, but White becomes a villain. He is seen is a villain. It is clear. With sympathetic immoral protagonists (the line being beyond Jimmy McGill), this is more difficult. Barry tackles it spectacularly. Search Party is also a show that handles morality well, while remaining darkly comedic. But rather than pass some judgment on each of these shows, I'll say it is just important to remember our moral responsibility as a principle when creating our work, which we have in the forefront of our and our staff's minds when we have a lovable assassin, or any other sympathetic immoral protagonist or main antihero. I believe these are some of the most powerful, dangerous literary devices that exist. They must be treated carefully. I simply ask all creators to treat them as such.