The audience is relieved of its empathy via its fantasy. So respectively, we have empathy, fantasy, and catharsis. This is the essence of entertainment. Essentially, the cathartic process is vicarious as well. Vicarious identification must be differentiated from the normal process of identification.
Normal identification is familial or gregarious.
At the strongest point of vicarious identification, the propagandist attaches to the hero the ideas and sentiments with which he wishes to indoctrinate the audience. Simultaneously the propagandist attaches to the villain the ideas and sentiments he wishes the audience to reject. The most effective technique is to attach to the villain the ideas and sentiments intrinsic to the audience, the goal being the audience's rejection its own ideas and sentiments. Simultaneously, it is forced to reject the ideas and sentiments of the villain which are more often than not, its own. This manifests itself as the hero's masochistic rejection of everything, which on a deeper level is manifestation of the instinct of flight.