In Defense of Loving Demona Honestly: Why Criticism Is Not Hate
One of the strangest accusations I’ve had to endure over the years is the charge that I don’t really love Demona. That I’m somehow a “fake fan.” This accusation has been hurled at me despite the fact that I’ve spent decades discussing her, writing about her, debating her, and analyzing her. Despite the fact that she’s my favorite fictional character of all time. Despite the fact that I have her tattooed on my skin.
And yet, in certain corners of the fandom, the belief persists: that because I don’t excuse her actions, or because I won’t indulge in certain fan wish-fulfillment fantasies about her redemption, I must secretly hate her. That’s not only wrong, it betrays a very shallow understanding of what it means to actually love a character.
For many fans, “loving a character” has been reduced to one thing: always defending them. If you excuse every action, justify every crime, or paint over every flaw, you’re a “real fan.” If you don’t — if you dare to say the character was wrong, monstrous, or even irredeemable — then you must dislike them.
It’s a binary mode of thinking: either you’re in their corner 100%, or you’re against them. Nuance, complexity, and honest critique don’t fit in this model. Which means that for characters like Demona — characters written with deliberate tragedy, ambiguity, and horror — this fandom logic simply collapses.
I refuse to defend the indefensible. I can empathize with Demona, understand her, and mourn her tragedy — but I won’t excuse her genocide attempts, her betrayals, or her willingness to kill even other gargoyles who oppose her. And because I draw that line, some people leap to the conclusion that I don’t love her.
Here’s the thing: loving a character does not mean shielding them from criticism. It means engaging with them deeply enough to take them seriously. It means resisting the temptation to flatten them into a mascot for your own comfort. It means allowing them to be complex, contradictory, even terrifying.
That’s why Demona is my favorite character of all time. Because she resists simplification. She is tragic, but she is also guilty. She is sympathetic, but she is also monstrous. She is brilliant and beautiful, but also consumed by hatred. She is, in short, human — in the most flawed and dangerous ways imaginable, despite not being human at all.
To love her is to love her complexity, not to whitewash it.
So why do people insist otherwise? Why do they claim I “hate” Demona?
1. Because I Won’t Coddle Her
Some fans want Demona to be coddled. They want her actions to be excused as “understandable.” They want her massacres written off as righteous vengeance. When I refuse to play along with that — when I call murder what it is — they hear it as hostility. But it isn’t hostility. It’s honesty.
2. Because I Separate Empathy from Justification
I’ve always said that Demona is understandable. Her trauma is real. Her pain is genuine. But empathy doesn’t erase responsibility. And for many fans, those two things are indistinguishable. If you empathize, you must justify. If you refuse to justify, you must lack empathy. It’s a false dichotomy, but it’s common.
3. Because They Want Redemption, and I Don’t
Another huge sticking point is redemption. Fandom is hooked on the idea that Angela’s love could redeem Demona. That all she needs is a hug and some acceptance and she’ll change her ways. I’ve argued for decades that this is naive at best, dishonest at worst. Demona’s problem isn’t a lack of exposure to humans; it’s her refusal to take responsibility for her own role in her clan’s destruction. Angela’s love doesn’t fix that. And when I say so, the pushback is always: “You must hate her if you don’t want her to be redeemed.” No — I want her to remain true to what makes her compelling.
4. Because Attraction Clouds Judgment
Let’s be blunt: Demona is sexy. Her design is gorgeous, her performance magnetic. For many fans, that attraction turns into moral blindness. “She’s hot” becomes shorthand for “she’s right.” When I cut through that and say, “Yes, she’s attractive, but she’s also a genocidal maniac,” some fans react like I’ve insulted them personally. Again, critique gets confused with contempt.
5. Because I Make the Character Uncomfortable Again
Demona is a warning. She shows how guilt becomes externalized, how trauma turns into ideology, how righteous anger metastasizes into mass hatred. She’s not safe. She’s not cozy. She’s not there to comfort us. When I insist on this, I strip away the fanon soft-focus versions of Demona that people have built to soothe themselves. And when you take someone’s comfort away, they often lash out. The easiest way to dismiss me is to claim: “Well, you just don’t love her like we do.”
What makes the accusation especially absurd is that I have given more of my time, thought, and passion to Demona than any other fictional character. I’ve debated her endlessly. I’ve defended the writing of her character when people complained she was “too evil.” I’ve tattooed her on my body — something you don’t do lightly.
If anything, my love for her is deeper than that of the so-called apologists. Because I don’t need her to be safe, or fixable, or right. I love her in all her terrifying, tragic complexity. I don’t confuse comfort with love.
At the end of the day, the accusation that I “hate” Demona says more about fandom than it does about me. Fandom too often reduces characters to mascots, to be defended unconditionally, redeemed at all costs, or excused because they’re attractive. It treats criticism as betrayal. It treats nuance as hostility.
But if we do that, we don’t really love the character. We love our idea of the character. We love what they do for us. Demona deserves better than that. She deserves to be engaged on her own terms — as a fully realized creation whose tragedy is that she is both sympathetic and horrifying.
So let me say it clearly: I love Demona. I always have, I always will. She is the greatest fictional character ever created. And precisely because of that, I will not lie about her. I will not excuse her crimes, erase her guilt, or force her into a redemption arc that cheapens her.
If that makes me a “fake fan” in some people’s eyes, so be it. I’d rather love her honestly than worship her dishonestly. Because real love — whether for a person or for a character — doesn’t require coddling. It requires truth.
And the truth about Demona is that she is magnificent, monstrous, tragic, terrifying, and unforgettable.
That’s why I have her on my skin. That’s why I’ll keep writing about her. And that’s why I’ll never apologize for loving her in the only way that matters: by refusing to reduce her to something she isn’t.
