It’s no lie that everyone loves a villain. Admit it, even if you don’t consciously love a Darth Vader or a Voldemort, the most evil villains of modern culture still fascinate us more than they repulse us. After all, they’re a very necessary contrast in movies and video games. What would Batman be without his Joker? Or Professor X without a Magneto?
But that’s not the only reason evil villains are so appealing. According to a new study in the journal Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, there’s a scientific reason we gravitate to bad guys: we desire what we don’t understand, even when it repulses us.