Do you think that authors really dislike their villainous protagonists as much as they claim to?

I started reading Anthony Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds, which is about the machinations of a very wealthy and dishonest and villainous widow. And I love her. She's pretty much the best. But Trollope does not love her. He's constantly talking about how evil she is and shit.

In fact, lots of Victorian novels are about very evil characters, and they alwa…