Revenge tales. Stories about revenge are facsinating in a lot of ways. In one manner, you could argue that it is an understandable desire to want to enact, but it's very often seen as immoral to engage in violence, even if it's a understandable desire. Hence, Revenge stories sit in this freaking lovely zone, where it is an entirely logical reason for someone to go off the walls and engage in violence or sadism but it is also still a immoral situation.
Like, take my favourite example of a revenge story, the base plot of Fallout New Vegas. While, F:NV is far from the most overarching revenge tale, at least with base game, the basic desire to get even with Benny is the first part of the games story the player is given. And it's a damn good hook. So good, my brother tried to just walk to The Strip instead of doing any of the "They went that way" quest marks because of how much he wanted to get revenge.
But not all revenge stories immerse the viewer into the emotions of the story. So as a result, most revenge stories allow the viewers enough distance to actually think logically about the justifications of the revenge. This allows the beautiful aspect of people trying to rationalise the overarching morality we are sociatally apart of and the internal ethics people work on.
Case in point. John Wick. While the great majority of fun that comes with John Wick is the fantastic violence, but the story ironically doesn't really make it all that morally upstanding. It is in a grey area, as on one hand, the people John Wick is killing are assassins like he is, but on the other hand, that means he doesn't have any moral highground. This is somewhat interesting that you have a wild collection of morality. It is understandable that a man raised into a job that pays for murder, would default to murder if given no other option. But John Wick isn't any better of a man than the numerous armed assassins and guards he killed in his rampage in act one.
But I much prefer a morally grey revenge story than some others. Namely ones that try to play both a dark revenge story and a power fantasy. You know, the sort of stories that I am talking about, right? You see, the challenge is that revenge stories play with the shadow half of human psyche and trying to turn that into a pure power fantasy feels... Wrong.
The fun of a revenge story is not that is a moral power fantasy but that it's more of a connection to the human desire for immoral justice if you well. We don't like to acknowledge that we, as humans, are still animals, and to an extent our desires to carve out that half of ourselves to uphold civility is admaralible. But, the problem is if a story or idea is meant to explore that shadow half, making it into a pure power fantasy, just feels, odd?