I've never read/watched this

Positive traits =/= sympathetic traits.

True, but there's still a ton of (SPOILER)bad things he did and not a single good thing (that i can think of). That kind of puts him in the "bad person all the way through"-territory for me, even if there were some explanations as to why he turned out that way

Season 1/Book 1 SpoilerI only felt bad for him when he lost his dad.

I keep forgetting to do that.