Here is an index dealing with characters expressing sympathy towards others and the lack thereof as well as characters who inspire the audience's sympathy. Don't you just feel sorry for this index?
Contrast Apathy Index. May overlap with This Index Has Had a Hard Life.
Characters who express sympathy (or the lack thereof):
- Alas, Poor Villain: A villain's death garners sympathy from other characters or the audience.
- Asshole Victim: An unlikable character suffers a horrible fate related and/or unrelated to their actual misdeed, but the other characters don't feel sorry for them because of how unlikable they are.
- Condescending Compassion: A character shows sympathy for another in a manner that's intended to insult them.
- Defusing the Tyke-Bomb: A character tries to get through to a messed-up kid who's used as a weapon.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: A character rejects the sympathy from other characters.
- Enemy Compassion: Two characters with noted antipathy and hostility to one another showing compassion and mercy to one or the other.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: The character doesn't sympathize with the villain who had a Freudian Excuse, especially because it doesn't excuse the villain's horrible behavior or bad actions.
- Lack of Empathy: A character is incapable of feeling or expressing sympathy for (most) other people.
- No Sympathy: A character shows no sympathy for another character's plight.
- No Sympathy for Grudgeholders: A character shows no sympathy for another character holding a grudge against someone who wronged them badly.
- Pity Sex: Sleeping with someone out of pity.
- Playing the Victim Card: A villain or an unsympathetic character plays victimhood to gain sympathy from others in order to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.
- Punished for Sympathy: A character is rebuked for expressing sympathy for another character who is considered undeserving of it.
- Revenge Is Not Justice: A character isn't given sympathy for taking revenge against someone who wronged him or her.
- Quit Your Whining: A character expresses a lack of sympathy for another character by telling them to stop wallowing in their sorrows.
- Sympathy for the Devil: A hero shows sympathy for a villain.
- Sympathy for the Hero: A villain shows sympathy for a hero.
Character who inspire sympathy from the audience:
- Adaptational Sympathy: A villain who had no sensible motive in the original work is rewritten in an adaptation so the audience can identify with him or her.
- Adopt the Food: Characters are meant to eat an animal, but one feels sorry for it and decides to keep it as a pet instead.
- Angst Dissonance: The character is angsty, but the audience doesn't sympathize with him.
- Broken Bird
- Childhood Friends (the unlucky kind, or if they're Locked Out of the Loop)
- Cry for the Devil: The audience sympathizes with the villain for his/her dark past.
- The Cutie (in Break the Cutie scenarios)
- Delicate and Sickly: A character (usually, but not always, female) is sick, and this inspires sympathy from the audience.
- Designated Monkey: An unlucky character who the audience feels sorry for, even though that wasn't the author's intent.
- Heartwarming Orphan: An orphan, who is usually also poor and a child, is meant to inspire sympathy in the audience.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: The villain fails so often that the audience feels sorry for him.
- Littlest Cancer Patient: A child with a terminal illness, meant to make the audience cry.
- Sentimental Homemade Toy: A homemade toy symbolizes the emotional connection between two characters, usually a parent and child. Often the last reminder of a dead parent.
- Sympathetic Murderer: The audience sympathizes with a murderer if he had a Sympathetic Murder Backstory.
- Sympathetic P.O.V.: Audience sympathy depends on the point-of-view of a character.
- Sympathetic Sentient Weapon: A sentient weapon is unhappy with their role, and the audiences feels sympathetic for them.
- Tiny Tim Template: A character based on Tiny Tim from A Christmas Carol, usually being a little kid with a serious injury or illness that makes him sympathetic.
- Tragic Abandoned Toy: A sentient toy grieves after being lost or forgotten.
- Troubled Abuser: An abusive character can inspire sympathy from the audience by his or her abusive background.
- Troubled, but Cute: A character has an angsty and/or tough background and personality, but also a softer, endearing side.
- Troubled Sympathetic Bigot: A character is sympathetic, though their bigoted views are not.
- Unintentionally Sympathetic: The character is intended to be unsympathetic, but the audience thinks otherwise.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The character is intended to be sympathetic, but the audience thinks otherwise.
- Unpopular Popular Character: The audience feels sorry for a character who isn't liked In-Universe.
- The Woobie: A miserable, pitiable character whom the audience feels sorry for.
- Iron Woobie: A sympathetic character who seems to take all their problems in stride.
- Stoic Woobie: Though we may feel sorry for this character, they just brush off whatever pain they feel inside.
- Jerkass Woobie: A character who is seen as sympathetic despite all their unpleasant qualities.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: A sympathetic character whose misery has driven them to villainy.
- Wheelchair Woobie: A disabled character draws sympathy from the audience.
- Woobie Family: An entire family of people whom we can sympathize with.
- Woobie of the Week: A minor one-shot character who exists mostly so we can feel bad for them.
- Woobie Species: An entire race or species who we can sympathize with.
- Iron Woobie: A sympathetic character who seems to take all their problems in stride.