Purposely hateable characters is the only reason my husband watched game of thrones with me xD eventually he found other reasons to keep watching with me, but initially it wasn't his jam BUT he HAD to see Joffrey get his comeuppance at the very least
I personally love a good execution of a hate-able character being "redeemed" by someone even worse showing up. That can be such a fun dynamic. Also makes sense from a story-telling perspective, if you want an actual redemption arc of the first character.
I think whenever to make nonvillain character hateable comes from their context in the story. Jaimie started off as a villain so George leaned into it without forgeting his more noble qualities and then chopped his arm off when you were supposed to feel for him. Ahsoka started off as original character squeezed in between series regulars so Dave Filloni leaned into her being an inexperience cocky brat that makes mistakes, then slowly removed her annoying qualities in between killing her squad and human trafficking her. Sapkowski in witcher writing made it pretty much a trope that character gets introduced as one dimensional good/bad guy then do a 180° when situation changes. I remember a guard in "season of storms" that spend her entire introduction exclusively making geralt's life miserable only to then valiantly save people in the climax as her entire home got flooded. No.1 step of redeeming a character for the audiance, kicking it in the teeth :v
Purposely hateable characters is the only reason my husband watched game of thrones with me xD eventually he found other reasons to keep watching with me, but initially it wasn't his jam BUT he HAD to see Joffrey get his comeuppance at the very least
I personally love a good execution of a hate-able character being "redeemed" by someone even worse showing up. That can be such a fun dynamic. Also makes sense from a story-telling perspective, if you want an actual redemption arc of the first character.
I think whenever to make nonvillain character hateable comes from their context in the story.
Jaimie started off as a villain so George leaned into it without forgeting his more noble qualities and then chopped his arm off when you were supposed to feel for him.
Ahsoka started off as original character squeezed in between series regulars so Dave Filloni leaned into her being an inexperience cocky brat that makes mistakes, then slowly removed her annoying qualities in between killing her squad and human trafficking her.
Sapkowski in witcher writing made it pretty much a trope that character gets introduced as one dimensional good/bad guy then do a 180° when situation changes. I remember a guard in "season of storms" that spend her entire introduction exclusively making geralt's life miserable only to then valiantly save people in the climax as her entire home got flooded.
No.1 step of redeeming a character for the audiance, kicking it in the teeth :v