With You Season 3 releasing to wide acclaim and a new Dexter revival on the way, it seems as though serial killers are all the rage these days. While shows such as these usually come with solid writing and acting, they also star murderers who kill multiple people over the course of their shows. Why are characters such as these, people who can murder without feeling true remorse, so popular?

"Psychopath," though not an officially recognized term in psychology (the more accepted clinical term is a person with antisocial personality disorder) has long been used as a catch-all for unemotional or detached characters, often killers, in shows and movies. These characters are often more manipulative, charming, and can often lead normal lives. This general understanding does apply fairly well, especially for those characters that have reached popularity.

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Early depictions of these types of characters often placed them as the villains, most often in horror movies. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, and numerous others show their characters as being antagonists that the protagonist must attempt to outlive. The forward push of these stories comes from the audience wanting to see how the villain will be defeated.

Halloween-Kills

With Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, however, the dynamic was somewhat changed. Already known for being ahead of his time, Hitchcock shocked audiences when he killed what was thought to be the “final girl” of the film rather quickly. Psycho then followed Norman Bates as the ancillary characters closed in on discovering what he did. The thrill, in this case, came from watching the near-misses of Bates almost getting caught multiple times. Audiences really only felt creeped out by Norman rather than endeared by him as is the case with modern depictions of similar characters.

Psycho is a far more accurate parallel to You than may be apparent at first glance. Both have a lead who murders women. Both characters come across as innocent to outsiders while covering up their crimes in secret. Both characters even murder women due to underlying issues stemming from their mothers, and often also have overly obsessive views of these women as a result. With all of these similarities, what makes one preferred over the other?

One of the biggest differences between these two characters is who their respective properties started with. Psycho begins with Marion Crane and looks as though it’s going to be her story, however this shifts when she’s suddenly killed in a shower. The audience had been told, via the inherent nature of Marion being the first character the movie follows, that they are meant to care about her. The movie then following her killer keeps audiences engaged by wanting to see him caught.

You, on the other hand, instead follows Joe, thus engendering the audience to his character. When he begins performing all of the creepy acts he’s known for, audiences are much more likely to excuse away a lot of this due to him being the protagonist. The tension of whether or not he’ll be caught seems to stem more from audiences wanting to see how he’ll outsmart people rather than wanting to see him be caught.

Something that sets the likes of Dexter Morgan and Joe Goldberg apart from Norman Bates is that they’re given seemingly noble reasons behind what they do. Dexter serially murders those he deems evil, and it has torn him apart before when he’s murdered someone who turned out to be innocent. Joe makes his kills out of what he deems to be necessary to protect the object of his obsession.

Killing evil people and helping loved ones through killing, while certainly extremes, at least have a basis in something people can agree with. These characters can therefore be endearing, especially when these characters are then given sad backstories to explain away their behavior. Audiences are willing to excuse these objectively bad behaviors and just blame them on a given character’s upbringing.

Joe Goldberg in France You season 3 ending

Something else that makes a difference is whether or not the murders are shown on screen. While Dexter’s murders are more clearly shown, these are often with bad enough people that the audience feels as though they deserve it. When Joe murders, it’s often not shown directly and the character simply stops appearing.

In addition to the leads in shows such as these having some attractive nature about their appearance, and how the murders are portrayed, the point about their upbringing seems to be the central factor as to why audiences fall in love with them as leads. Audiences are given a chance to learn more about these characters, and a sad enough backstory endears them to a given character. This points to why Joe seems like the good guy in season three of You whereas Love is nearly an antagonist even though both commit murders regularly. Although following, and rooting for, a murderer seems objectively strange, the psychology behind why audiences can become so endeared to these characters makes some sense. After all, it’s the same reason these characters are able to find so many love interests and friends in their respective shows.

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