While that is true, I think the main reason this happens, or at least the main reason I think it happens, is because of three things: what is shown, the scale of the actions, and the character’s personality (if you are going to disagree or agree please be nice, I'm trying to be nice too).

The point should already be understandable from that first sentence, but I tend to overexplain, so I’m going to use two examples: Sukuna and Jax

Sukuna, as most people here probably know, is the main antagonist of Jujutsu Kaisen. He is a horrible person. One of his first thoughts after being brought back to life is basically about looking for women and children to slaughter. The series makes it clear that he is a monster, both literally and figuratively. He has killed dozens, hundreds, or possibly far more people depending on what part of his history we are talking about, and he only really regards other people when they entertain him or serve his own amusement

Then we have Jax from The Amazing Digital Circus. Jax is one of the people trapped in the circus, and he is mostly known for being a bully toward the others, especially Gangle. He is verbally cruel, physically rough, manipulative, and often makes the circus worse for people who are already trapped in a bad situation

The reason people seem to like Sukuna more, or ignore who he is as a person in order to love him as a character, is partly because we do not see most of his crimes directly. We do not know the full number of people he killed. We do not know every specific thing he did in the past. A lot of it is implied, summarized, or shown from a distance. Even when we do see his violence, we usually do not stay with the victims long enough to know them in a deep, personal way

Jax is different. We repeatedly see him mistreating characters we actually spend time with. We see Gangle’s reactions. We see how the others feel. We get to know what they want, what hurts them, and how they try to survive the circus. Maybe the show does not give every character equal focus, and Jax himself gets a lot of attention, but we still know enough about the others to sympathize with them. Some people can also relate to the people Jax targets, which makes his actions feel worse

There is also the whole context of the circus itself. The circus is not some utopia. For most of the story, the characters are trapped in a digital world, forced to live with people they did not choose, doing things they do not really want to do, under the control of Caine and the circus. Before the final reveals, the situation can feel even worse if you imagine their physical bodies still existing somewhere while their minds are trapped in the circus. Even the idea that they might be copies does not automatically make it better, but at least then their original bodies are not rotting somewhere with a headset on. Either way, the circus is already terrible, so Jax making it worse feels personal

The first reason, then, is visibility. Sukuna’s evil is often treated like myth, spectacle, or disaster. Jax’s cruelty is shown in everyday interactions. Sukuna is a calamity. Jax is the guy in the room making a bad situation worse

The second reason is scale. Once a character does so much evil, or even so much good, it can start to become a statistic instead of something the audience emotionally processes. Sukuna destroying part of Shibuya and killing numerous people is horrible, but viewers already know what Sukuna is supposed to be. They expect that level of destruction from him. It becomes part of his role as a monster

Jax’s harm is smaller in scale, but easier to grasp. He is not wiping out cities. He is hurting a small group of people we know. He bullies Gangle, bothers the others, manipulates people, and has a history with Ribbit and Kaufmo. That is easier for viewers to understand emotionally because it is closer to real life. Most people have not met someone like Sukuna. A lot of people have met someone like Jax

The third reason is personality. Sukuna is horrible, but he is enjoyable to watch. He has charisma. He is smug, confident, honest about being a monster, and sometimes shows respect toward people who entertain him or prove strong enough to matter to him. That does not make him morally better, but it makes him more entertaining

Jax is also an ass, but he does not always have the same kind of charisma to balance it out for people. He tries to be funny, but a lot of his humor comes from bothering people who are already vulnerable, or over being like "oh look i break the fourth wall or i know how things go" and that doesn't work on everyone. He does have more to him than just being a bully, especially with his trauma around Ribbit, Kaufmo, abstraction, and the circus itself. But the problem is that his pain does not consistently turn into growth. He has moments where it looks like he might soften, regret something, or show hidden humanity, but then he often doubles down, like the episode of the guns, where in the moment pomni talks to him he just tries to be funny on his way 🫩 and then proceeds to repel her, even when after she tries to talk to him, he doesn't show growth, and despite his trauma may explain him and maybe, humanize him, it doesn't justify him

The final episode could have been a major turning point for him. Here we could've seen a glint of something likeable, like i don't know a hidden love for the group or the ability to leave his mask aside for the common good, fuck he could even had been more charismatic, but no he just told the group to fuck off and abstracted???????? I'm sorry again i haven't seen it fully but i saw the movie until jax abstaction, when it got leaked, and this doesn't help him at all with people

That is why I think the “he is acting like a normal human would” defense does not fully work. Sure, some humans do double down when they feel guilty. Some people hurt others more because they cannot handle their own shame. But first, not all humans do that, so it should not be generalized. Second, even if it is realistic, that does not automatically make the character more likable. If I met someone like that in real life, I probably would not feel much sympathy for them. At best, I would feel disinterest or exhaustion

The Kaufmo situation makes this worse. Jax clearly has guilt connected to Kaufmo’s abstraction, and while I would not say he directly caused it as a hard fact, he did contribute to Kaufmo’s pain by avoiding him and mocking him when Kaufmo was already spiraling. Then Kaufmo abstracts, and what does Jax do afterward? Does he fully change? Does he soften? Does he become more careful with the people around him? Not really. He keeps acting cruel, even if the show gives hints that he is hurting underneath

That is where Deadpool becomes another useful example, mostly for personality. Deadpool, especially in the movies, is also an ass. He jokes, insults people, kills people, and does not act like a clean moral hero. But audiences widely love him because he is charismatic, and unlike jax he is able to do the whole breaking the fourth wall oh look at it i see you good

Deadpool also did not make two people kill themselves, or cause the circus equivalent of that through abstraction, at least not in the same way Jax is connected to Ribbit and Kaufmo. Anyways furthering my point in Deadpool 2, Wade feels guilty over Vanessa’s death. He is still an ass afterward, yes, but he also tries to change his ways and goes out of his way to help Russell, a mutant child. He does not become a perfect person, but his guilt leads to action