i hate villain discourse thats basically like “liking villains was okay when they were queer coded but now theres no excuse because theyre all representative of white boys with little self control and anger issues and violent impulses and and and” mental illness. that is the term you’re looking for here. villains are coded as mentally ill. mentally ill people are oppressed.
like i don’t think fictional characters need to represent a sufficiently marginalized real life group in order for people to be ““allowed”” to like them but even if you’re working within that paradigm, most villains-and in particular the villains whose fans take the most shit-are coded as mentally ill. and a lot of those fans specifically identify with those villains because they themselves are mentally ill.