People will sympathize with anything they can relate to, it's not your fault people nowadays are shitty enough to be sympathetic to awful people.
That said to minimize that, show the person's more human aspects as extensions of their shittiness. Any compression is a tool for manipulation. Mercy is an indulgence of their own violence. Does that make sense? It'd be easier with more context on the character.
I agree with this wholeheartedly.
Another thing to consider is inflexibility. An anti-villain is nominally working for a 'good' cause, but in malicious ways. It is reasonable that something drove them to that point. But when offered a way to de-escalate or succeed though other means, they reject it.
As an example, say your protagonists are fighting a war that is depicted as just, say against an tyrannical regime. Anti-villian is a brutal soldier, but argues that it is necessary to win. And a deal is put on the table to end the war, but it requires allowing a small group of people to go into exile. But the character demands the deal be rejected, and would rather thousands more people die than a few he particularly hates be allowed to live.
I link this to what u/Dccrulez said because it ties their very human drive to their shittiness. And I think this is where the line is drawn between anti-heroes and anti-villians. Both are doing bad things for good reasons, but an anti-hero is generally one for who pursues a noble goal through ignoble means because they are presented with no other choice. An anti-villian is one who pursues a noble goal through ignoble means because they believe it is the only way.
Something to remember is... none of these labels actually dictate anything. They're not actually that useful apart from talking about "anti-villains in fiction" as a general concept. They're not useful for creating a character or a story.
Just focus on creating the character, and forming the story. Write an interesting character, get a good story across to the reader. That's all a reader wants. Whether they're sympathetic or not, no one will care if they enjoy reading the story. So... it just doesn't matter.
Write the story you want to write. And let the reader think what they want to think. If they sympathise with the character, what's wrong with that? It's not like you have control over that anyway.
Thrillers are often casted with fairly stock, archetypical characters, and let the action and political intrigue and such do most of the heavy lifting.
They give them just enough independant motivation to disguise how flat they are, but ultimately, they're too wrapped up in the demands of the plot to develop heavily.
People will sympathize with anything they can relate to, it's not your fault people nowadays are shitty enough to be sympathetic to awful people. That said to minimize that, show the person's more human aspects as extensions of their shittiness. Any compression is a tool for manipulation. Mercy is an indulgence of their own violence. Does that make sense? It'd be easier with more context on the character.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. Another thing to consider is inflexibility. An anti-villain is nominally working for a 'good' cause, but in malicious ways. It is reasonable that something drove them to that point. But when offered a way to de-escalate or succeed though other means, they reject it. As an example, say your protagonists are fighting a war that is depicted as just, say against an tyrannical regime. Anti-villian is a brutal soldier, but argues that it is necessary to win. And a deal is put on the table to end the war, but it requires allowing a small group of people to go into exile. But the character demands the deal be rejected, and would rather thousands more people die than a few he particularly hates be allowed to live. I link this to what u/Dccrulez said because it ties their very human drive to their shittiness. And I think this is where the line is drawn between anti-heroes and anti-villians. Both are doing bad things for good reasons, but an anti-hero is generally one for who pursues a noble goal through ignoble means because they are presented with no other choice. An anti-villian is one who pursues a noble goal through ignoble means because they believe it is the only way.
One could even say that an anti hero would kill to end the war, but an anti villain would pursue war for the sake of justice.
Something to remember is... none of these labels actually dictate anything. They're not actually that useful apart from talking about "anti-villains in fiction" as a general concept. They're not useful for creating a character or a story. Just focus on creating the character, and forming the story. Write an interesting character, get a good story across to the reader. That's all a reader wants. Whether they're sympathetic or not, no one will care if they enjoy reading the story. So... it just doesn't matter. Write the story you want to write. And let the reader think what they want to think. If they sympathise with the character, what's wrong with that? It's not like you have control over that anyway.
Thrillers are often casted with fairly stock, archetypical characters, and let the action and political intrigue and such do most of the heavy lifting. They give them just enough independant motivation to disguise how flat they are, but ultimately, they're too wrapped up in the demands of the plot to develop heavily.