When reading this page it is important to realize that this is a rare case of the character's sympathy not being the fault of the author. Most characters here either have personality traits people like, or get the Draco in Leather Pants treatment.
Also given the nature of this novel, spoilers will be left unmarked.
Keep in mind, Agatha Christie intended nearly every character to be an Asshole Victim.
- Anthony Marston: A lot of readers (indeed even the killer catches this) may note that he seems to have a medical condition that prevents him from feeling empathy or remorse. He does seem to realize that being the two kids he ran over must have been painful but only after someone points it out to him. The fact that he's the first to die helps this a bit, as does the fact that the murderer was, in his own words, trying to remove him as a threat to society.
- Mrs Rogers is probably the most sympathetic out of everyone because she clearly feels a great deal of remorse from her murder, and has never truly gotten over it. It's also extremely implied that her husband was the driving factor and she was unable to resist him.
- General MacArthur is the only other character to rival Mrs Rogers in the Woobie department. Not only was his victim his friend. Not only is the motive that his friend was sleeping with his wife. Not only did he give his friend a potentially avoidable death (he sent him on a mission to Paris, which was occupied at the time), his wife died of grief and Spanish flu a year later and everyone suspects him of it anyway, causing him to have no friends.
- Rogers gets the least of this, but it's rather notable that he is the only character to not confess to his crime. It's reasonably possible he was innocent and wrongly suspected of a crime he never committed. Note that the only "proof" of his crime is his wife's panic attack and his own shock at hearing the accusation (As well as the fact that Wargrave thinks he's guilty).
- Emily Brent: Several things in this case.
- Firstly, she's the only character in the book who actively hates racism and tries to correct Vera when she dismisses Lombard's murders as "just natives". That alone would put her into this trope but...
- She's given a rather nasty Freudian Excuse of having religion hammered into her head as a child and being repressed. This makes her murder a little more understandable.
- Her "murder" so to speak, is that she would not allow a pregnant teenager to live in her house because she saw her as an immoral sinner, the girl commits suicide, which she sees as a greater sin. Thing is, she didn't actually have an obligation to let her stay. The way she drove her off was undeniably cruel, and it would have been nice if she'd let her, but nothing she did was intentional murder. It's implied that she has trouble reading people so this might also be an issue here. A certain amount of the guilt for Beatrice's death lies with the man who got her pregnant and her family, if she had any.
- The hallucination she has before her death shows she clearly has some repressed guilt over what happened, no matter what she says to everyone.
- Edward Armstrong: ...Is generally more hated than not, thanks to being the idiot who gets everyone killed but most will agree that the guilt he feels over the death he caused, as well as it being a mistake he'll never repeat makes his death at least a little sad, especially since he gets murdered by the one guy he trusted.
- Blore is one of the least sympathetic characters of the bunch. He was threatened by a mob who offered to get him out of a financial hard spot if he covered up a murder, and he actually has some remorse upon reconsidering the case. It goes nowhere and he dies (in an EXTREMELY violent fashion). He's also slightly likable in his focus chapter near the end of the book, where he handles the nighttime incident as carefully as possible.
- Vera Claythorne murdered a child to help her boyfriend inherit some estate that he would have inherited had the child not been born. Hugo refused to marry her because he couldn't provide for her. Read that sentence again and you'll at least get a grasp on why Vera gets a little sympathy.
- Wargrave is a sadist and a serial killer but, much in the same line as Dexter Morgan, he only goes after guilty people, therefore he keeps the audience's sympathy even though he makes it clear that he killed people first and foremost for his own twisted amusement, with justice being served as a indirect bonus. Plus he offs himself at the end. Also, he makes it clear that he's never done anything like what he does on the island before, he always kept the urge in check and settled for punishing the guilty with death sentences. It's only the knowledge that he has a terminal illness and is going to die badly that pushes him to end up doing what he does, and as we find out, everyone there pretty much deserves it.
