There is a pretty large scale problem in our community, as well as in so many others throughout the internet, in regards to how "insane" characters are designed and used as villains. This may be a bit of a sensitive topic for some, myself included, and I apologize for the harsh tone, but I feel as though this issue needs to be addressed.
We all have evil characters. Whether they be a dark cult leader, a vicious aberration, or a foul entity seeking vengeance on the living. There is nothing wrong with characters like this. They can make interesting chess pieces in a plotted story, or make for a much different narrative in a story. Popular media such as Silence of the Lambs or Suicide Squad and their fandoms often bring up characters like this in a more positive(?) light, as well as the villain-was-right-all-along stories and spinoffs. Even a serial killer or rage blinded madman can be a tasteful antagonist if written properly. This post is not in reference to these types of characters, however. The issue lies largely in misinformation, stigmas, and harmful stereotypes.
Now, mental issues, especially where I live, are unfortunately treated very poorly. Society always works that way, but let's not get too political. To jump to the point, many villains are undoubtedly coded as, or explicitly stated as having some kind of neurological ailment or neurodivergent characteristics. This is kind of skeevy as is, but it becomes worse with misinformation. Every day I see at least one character built along the basis of "xe's insane and evil! they snap and kill anyone who would touch them for no reason because xe's insane and evil!!!," just as an example. This is an issue for several reasons. One, it's a bit lazy to just use insane as an "evil" trait without giving any sort of backstory or reason why. Two, many people may not realize this, but several mental illnesses or neurotypes have an issue with touch. To be more specific, it is often associated with autism, which is treated with an awful stigma even by well-meaning people. As someone who is mildly present on, and knows many people on the spectrum, I know firsthand that many people are not ok with being touched by strangers, or without permission. Reactions to this are usually a request to remove the touching body part, or a withdrawal/wince away from it, but in some more severe cases, a more physical reaction, such as hitting a hand away. I highly doubt that references to this in the example have any kind of deliberate malice to them, or that someone would even be aware of the correlation, but it does not make it okay. Not only does it feed into the stigmas behind the autism spectrum (which I could go on for pages about) and similar classifications, but it can make someone diagnosed with this kind of issue very uncomfortable should they read the description. Nor is it limited. Even developed disorders such as anxiety or depression, and the handling of a character's suicide feeds into the same issue. Especially since we have such a diverse community, this can be very triggering (triggering as an actual psychological term by the way) to many people.
PTSD and similar trauma disorders are also pretty poorly treated a lot of the time. Yes, many people experience the trauma through violent flashbacks and can become destructive, but just to write them being reminded of their trauma and going on a rampage is not the right way to go about it. Like I said before, neurodivergent and mentally ill people experience enough trouble in daily society, seeing negative depictions of their illnesses such as the "xe was nice but their family was killed and now xe's psycho!!! xe's gonna get flashbacks and kill you!!" just makes things worse. Again, not only is it a lazy and exhausted trope, but is kind of ignorant and contributes to detrimental stereotyping.
Similarly, LGBT or racially coding villains or tyrants also presents a huge issue if they're the only character of that demographic in a plot or group, but that's a rant for another day. (Although if you have opinions on this, this could also be discussed in replies or pms)
I could give countless examples of this, but, this post is becoming long as it is, so I'll just leave the above paragraphs on that topic. But, hopefully you can see what I mean by this now. This doesn't mean that you can't have mentally ill characters, however. It's actually really cool to see good representation of this kind of stuff. It's just when the representation becomes harmful. Again, most of it is kids and teenagers making their edgy OCs for the sake of fun and have no ill intents, but, it's still the issue of people not knowing how to properly create and handle these characters respectfully. Insane-type characters can still be played without even bringing in diagnosed conditions as a safer alternative. For instance, instead of a "psycho XD murderer who turned evil bc hes crazy," perhaps a respectful young character was possessed by some sort of foul entity that used its vessel to carry out it's wicked desires. Maybe they had lived their whole lives in desperate isolation, knowing only to kill or be killed and have a hard time shaking off their instincts among others. Maybe they're just a selfish sadist with no concern for life. There's tons of tasteful archetypes for villains and antiheroes without bringing in harmful stereotypes.
Sorry for the long post, but I do feel like this is a substantial issue and I wasn't sure how I could abridge it while getting all my points across.
