Nice Characters Finish Last: BoJack Horseman, Tyler Durden, and the Poetics of Negative Empathy

This article explores the enduring appeal of morally ambiguous characters by examining how negative empathy enables audiences to emotionally invest in figures who at once seduce and disturb. Through an intermedial analysis of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club (1996) and Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s BoJack Horseman (2014–20), this article investigates how allegiance, identification, and moral disengagement sustain empathetic involvement with morally transgressive protagonists despite the harmful consequences of their actions. After outlining the narrative techniques and medium-specific storytelling practices that enhance affective engagement in both media texts, this article questions how BoJack Horseman and Tyler Durden complicate the definition of the antihero, exposing the seemingly paradoxical correlation between emotional discomfort and aesthetic appreciation that fuels their lasting popularity. Engaging with empirical reception studies, this article reflects on how fiction’s ethical suspension allows audiences to be affectively captivated by characters that resist moral resolution, confronting ambiguity rather than resolving it. Ultimately, the interplay between empathy and moral discomfort enhances both narrative engagement and intellectual reward, demonstrating how, as André Gide suggested, beautiful feelings might indeed make for bad literature (1928).