Coined by Twitter user @buggy_con, the John Walker Effect is when in any form of media, the writers unintentionally make the antagonist characters
-Far more
entertaining
-Far more believable as characters
-More sympathetic
-More heroic than the stale and downright evil protagonists/heroes
Typically
you will see the writers project all the attributes they view as evil onto these characters in order to make a straw man to pit against their oh so perfect heroes. However, this unintentionally causes these characters to be beloved by the audience (or at least a section of the audience who
believe that the ideas they embody are good), for they are the only ones who
-Call out the protagonists' bullshit for what it is
-Have actual ideas and motivations that aren't selfish
-In some way or other represent the ideal of the ideology they embody (since a writer cannot tear down an idea without first building it up)
Oftentimes these characters have to be amped up to
cartoonish levels of evil in order to try and make the audience root against them, which usually does not end up working and in some cases just makes the audience love them more.
