Expressing Emotions, Part Five: Hatred
Hatred is often portrayed as the opposite of love, being a very strong negative as opposed to a very strong positive. Elie Wiesel once said “The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference..." This may be true, but it depends on how you choose to view it. Indifference is the opposite of strong emotion itself. If you're comparing strong emotions, then indifference doesn't even enter into the category.
Hatred is defined as an intense or passionate dislike. The words aversion, extreme, and hostility are also often associated with it. If you have a character that feels hatred for a person, thing, group, behavior, or idea, it can be a challenge to show it appropriately. Hatred in particular can be difficult to portray. For our purposes, we'll be using hatred of a person as an example.
Physical differences:
Many of the physical signs of hatred are much the same as anger. Typically it's the behavior that signals hatred rather than anger, as one of the only ways to differentiate between extreme anger and hatred is the endurance of their behaviors. Anger typically fades after a time, after which a person can generally be trusted to act as they did before they became angry, and be more reasonable. Hatred, however, is different. Hatred involves a very strong or passionate dislike of something, which may or may not have to do with emotions at the time. Some of the ways that anger is expressed physically, however, can do double duty to express hatred:
flushed faceclenched fiststense musclesangry expressionloud voiceglaring Changes in behavior
Changes in a character's behavior is usually where the real evidence for hatred comes from. Hatred is generally frowned upon, which means obvious expressions of it are relatively unlikely. (The "I hate you!" scream from a teenager notwithstanding.) The behaviors below are generally not the behaviors of someone who only said they hated another person because they were angry in the moment. These behaviors require continuing intense emotion, an emotion that remains after anger would generally have diminished.
refusal to consider others (specifically the hated person) in their actionsacting to harm the person they hate (emotionally, mentally, physically)being unreasonable when it comes to the object of their hatredattempts at violence, or overt hostility
planning or preoccupation with revengestalking behaviorrefusal to share space with the hated personattempts at manipulationattempts at harming people or things the hated person cares aboutloss of appetitediminished desire for things they enjoyed in the past (reading, games, movies)
Hatred can be hot or cold; someone can act out of passion, or be calculating. If your character is overall a good person, they may feel ashamed of their hatred, and try to conceal and overcome it. They might even be unaware of it. If, however, they are not a good person, then they may embrace hatred as a means to an end. Something to make them stronger, give them drive. Either way, it's important for you to keep in mind your character's personality when choosing how they will react to feeling hatred. One change in behavior may work, one may not, or you may need a full list of them to do it justice.
Hatred is defined as an intense or passionate dislike. The words aversion, extreme, and hostility are also often associated with it. If you have a character that feels hatred for a person, thing, group, behavior, or idea, it can be a challenge to show it appropriately. Hatred in particular can be difficult to portray. For our purposes, we'll be using hatred of a person as an example.
Physical differences:
Many of the physical signs of hatred are much the same as anger. Typically it's the behavior that signals hatred rather than anger, as one of the only ways to differentiate between extreme anger and hatred is the endurance of their behaviors. Anger typically fades after a time, after which a person can generally be trusted to act as they did before they became angry, and be more reasonable. Hatred, however, is different. Hatred involves a very strong or passionate dislike of something, which may or may not have to do with emotions at the time. Some of the ways that anger is expressed physically, however, can do double duty to express hatred:
flushed faceclenched fiststense musclesangry expressionloud voiceglaring Changes in behavior
Changes in a character's behavior is usually where the real evidence for hatred comes from. Hatred is generally frowned upon, which means obvious expressions of it are relatively unlikely. (The "I hate you!" scream from a teenager notwithstanding.) The behaviors below are generally not the behaviors of someone who only said they hated another person because they were angry in the moment. These behaviors require continuing intense emotion, an emotion that remains after anger would generally have diminished.
refusal to consider others (specifically the hated person) in their actionsacting to harm the person they hate (emotionally, mentally, physically)being unreasonable when it comes to the object of their hatredattempts at violence, or overt hostility
planning or preoccupation with revengestalking behaviorrefusal to share space with the hated personattempts at manipulationattempts at harming people or things the hated person cares aboutloss of appetitediminished desire for things they enjoyed in the past (reading, games, movies)
Hatred can be hot or cold; someone can act out of passion, or be calculating. If your character is overall a good person, they may feel ashamed of their hatred, and try to conceal and overcome it. They might even be unaware of it. If, however, they are not a good person, then they may embrace hatred as a means to an end. Something to make them stronger, give them drive. Either way, it's important for you to keep in mind your character's personality when choosing how they will react to feeling hatred. One change in behavior may work, one may not, or you may need a full list of them to do it justice.
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