I've been learning a little bit about Napoleon tonight, and he is completely despicable. He was a compulsive liar, a bully, petty, and above all killed MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. Admittedly, I think that's including battles, but even then, some of the stories of how he treated the locals in Egypt and the Near East are disgusting and horrifying. Why isn't this talked about more?
Why isn't this talked about more?
I am not sure where you are from, but these things get talked about quite a bit in the places like the US/UK where Napoleon is not seen as positively as in, say, France. He remains an extremely polarizing figure and the debate surrounding his legacy continues to the current day.
Regardless, the short answer to your question is that Napoleon had enough positive traits and accomplishments to outweigh the negatives in the minds of many people. Keep in mind, when it comes to the veneration/demonization of historical figures, there's a tendency for people to emphasize what they like and downplay what they don't. Look at the way Americans venerate the slave-owning founding fathers or the way many in the UK venerate Winston Churchill despite his complicity in the Bengali Famine and virulent racism against Indians. The question then is to look at those that you venerate and asking if their legacy is more complicated than it might appear at first glance.
We all make choices about who and what we venerate. These choices oftentimes involve downplaying, ignoring, or justifying things that we would otherwise find to be negative. Yes, Napoleon attempted to reinstate slavery in what would become Haiti while maintaining its abolition elsewhere. He was also key in instituting the Napoleonic Code, which maintained equality under the law (among a great other things). Yes, he ordered the deaths of prisoners while campaigning in Syria. He also championed a meritocratic approach to government and bureaucracy that emphasized ability over right of birth (outside of the appointments he gave to his direct family, that is). The point here is that he was a complicated man with a complicated legacy that resists being boiled down to a caricature of the Ogre from Corsica.
Napoleon presents us with the opportunity to reexamine the way we view historical figures and the choices we make in what to emphasize when we discuss them. That critical lens is essential for understanding the past and illuminating the present, especially with regards to learning from the people who shaped it.
As an aside, your assumption that Napoleon, "killed MILLIONS OF PEOPLE," is an oversimplification of a complicated time in European history. This is troublesome for a number of reasons:
It assumes that all of the deaths of the Napoleonic Era can be attributed to Napoleon himself. Something you might be interested to learn is that Napoleon was declared war upon for more often than he declared war upon others. This is not to say that Napoleon was a dove, but rather that the issue was more complicated than Napoleon = killer of millions.
It buys into a Great Man theory of history that most historians would caution against. Despite the name, Napoleon was not solely responsible for every death that occurred during the Napoleonic Wars. These conflicts were driven by social, political, and economic forces that no one person can claim control over. Yes, Napoleon was an exceptional man (exceptional not necessarily meant as an endorsement, by the by), but even still he was subject to the same forces as any other political leader. It's important to remember that other heads of state, other individuals within his own government/army, and the masses of people living at the time also had agency and their role in the events of the era cannot be discounted.
Finally, I would advise reading a diverse set of sources on Napoleon to get a better picture of him. The First Total War by David A. Bell frames the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars in terms of the egalitarian aims of the Revolution and the subsequent reaction of the monarchies of Europe. The Wars Against Napoleon by Ben Weider and Michel Franceschi is also an interesting read that attempts to paint Napoleon as a victim of circumstance, rather than an aggressor. I don't find it completely convincing, but it's a good way to engage with an opposing/unorthodox view.
I just want to get ahead of this real quick: I saw the threads asking something similar, but they were focused on France in particular. I'm interested in the West in general, or even just the US.