Single word that combines the meaning of fascination and hate?
The story I am writing involves a character that is simultaneously fascinated and disgusted by the ways of a certain race. Is there a single word that can convey this feeling?
EDIT: It's not racism. I'm writing a pokemon fanfiction, and my character (a pokemon creature) feels disgust towards humans, due to their inability to function as one, among other things. I didn't think this would be an issue...
Solution 1:
I don't think there is a single word in English that covers all the nuances that you want. My best suggestion would be fixation:
1 An obsessive interest in or feeling about someone or something: our fixation with diet and fitness
Unlike love or hatred, fixation doesn't have specifically positive or negative connotations towards the subject in question.
Solution 2:
While it's not a single word, I would suggest something like
Macabre fascination
This seems to get at the feeling you're describing better than any single word could, and can probably be used anywhere a single word could be used.
Solution 3:
As Terry Pratchett once wrote hate is an attractive force. If you want to hate something properly you have to spend some quality time with it. If you are repulsed by something you don't hate it. You loath it. Don't want to be near it or get it on you. But a good hate is something you do up close and personal.
So yes, the word you're looking for is hate.
This fascination is also why two kids that hate each other at the start of a movie end up together.