Over the past 40-plus years, Star Wars has done a great job with its villains. The franchise could quite easily rely on one-dimensional evil bad guys but so often provides fans with some complex and incredible characters. While some villains like Darth Sidious are flat-out deplorable, some antagonists have more complicated layers and lives, often making them sympathetic.
Whether it be down to them being manipulated or to them being good deep down, the franchise has presented fans with some confusing feelings, making them sympathetic with characters that, on the surface, they should be disgusted by.
The Clones
It is harsh to call the clones post-Order 66 villains, but that is why they are so sympathetic. They are not bad, they are far from evil, and they are simply brainwashed into following orders from a cruel, vicious Sith Lord.
Clones like Cody, Jesse, and Gree could not fight their inhibitor chips and so they were forced into murdering Jedi and fighting for the Empire. As a group of characters, they are improved massively by The Clone Wars, which shows them as individuals and makes audiences understand them and their actions on a higher level, which makes them even more sympathetic.
Count Dooku
Count Dooku is unquestionably a bad guy when he chooses to become a Sith Lord. However, it is hard not to feel bad for him in the end, knowing he was being puppeteered and manipulated to such a brutal extent.
Dooku, arguably rightfully, became disillusioned by the Jedi and lost possibly his closest friend in the Order, Qui-Gon. In the end, he was just another pawn. He did not redeem himself and cannot be forgiven for the things he did. However, fans can hold a small fraction of sympathy for Dooku, who seemed to realize how wrong he was in the end.
Crosshair
Fans of The Bad Batch remain confused as to whether or not Crosshair has had his inhibitor chip removed and so they do not know if he is acting for the Empire against or at his own will. Neither outcome affects the sympathy he induces from fans, though.
If he has removed his chip, he feels as though his friends and family abandoned him. While he is wrong in believing so, it is easy to understand his point of view. If he did not have his chip removed, then he is still being controlled by it, which speaks for itself. Either way, there is dramatic irony in that the audience knows the Empire is using him, whereas he believes that is where his place is.
Kylo Ren
Fans still debate whether or not Ben Solo really did enough to redeem himself for what he did as Kylo Ren, and even more, fans argue about whether trying to redeem him was the right path for the sequel trilogy to take. Either way, he does earn at least a little sympathy.
Ben Solo is another character who felt abandoned, with the final straw being Luke's moment of weakness. That alone would not have turned him into the powerful, unhinged, murderous villain Kylo Ren, but Snoke in his ear did the trick, and he became another pawn used to fulfill the wishes of a higher evil power. It was clear through Adam Driver's awesome performance that Kylo had a lot of internal turmoil and did still hold a love for his family. His moments of vulnerability with Rey really showcase how arguably misunderstood or at least broken he is.
Trilla Suduri
Not all fans will know Trilla Suduri, a.k.a the Second Sister, but players of Jedi: Fallen Order will know her as one of the best canon video game characters to date and perhaps the most complex and sympathetic of the Inquisitorius.
It is hard not to sympathize with someone who is cut down so mercilessly by Darth Vader, but that is not the only way she draws out sympathy from fans. When players find out about the torture that Trilla endured that twisted her into the Second Sister, it establishes her as far more than just a one-dimensional Jedi hunter. The way she was about to forgive her old master before Vader struck her down makes for one of the most emotional moments in Fallen Order.
Boba Fett
It is hard to sympathize with or invest in a character who gets no real-time to shine in the original trilogy. Then, in The Book Of Boba Fett, he is the protagonist. In The Clone Wars and prequel trilogy, though, that is where he gets pity from audiences.
Boba was raised by his father to follow in his footsteps and had to witness his fairly brutal death with his own eyes while he was just a child. The Clone Wars shows a side to Boba that fans never knew before, a good side, showing him to have a conscience deep down when he does not want to kill the cadets. In this era, Boba is a bounty hunter that audiences commiserate with.
Maul
By way of his time in Star Wars animation, Maul has become one of the best and most layered characters - not just villains - in the Star Wars canon. Still, one of the most underrated aspects of the character is how tragic he is.
Maul is never redeemed for the atrocities he commits, and he just was never able to escape the hate and the anger that he was raised into since he was a child. That is where his tragedy stems from. He never knew anything but deep, burning feelings of pure unadulterated hatred and vengeance. Maul never knew peace until he had his final dying words in Obi-Wan's arms.
Asajj Ventress
By looking into her past, showcasing the tragedies she had endured, The Clone Wars showed Asajj Ventress to be far more sympathetic than fans had realized, and those feelings only got amplified as her life came to an end.
Ventress is shown to actually have a good side, to be far more than another pawn deep down the ladder of individuals puppeteered by Sidious. Her time with and loss of Ky Narec, her helping Ahsoka, her time with Quinlan Vos, and her eventual sacrifice, all add up to make her a villain turned anti-hero and one of the most sympathetic outside of the films.
Darth Vader
The redemption of Anakin Skywalker will likely forever be the greatest story in Star Wars, and that would not be the case if Darth Vader was not such a deeply tragic, sympathetic villain.
Anakin was a severely flawed person, oftentimes unlikable even, but endured heartbreak and serious turmoil time and time again prior to becoming Darth Vader. Whether it be getting used and lied to by the Jedi Council, losing his mother twice, being manipulated by Sidious, losing Ahsoka, or any one of a hundred different things, fans understand how he fell to the dark side. It is not like the pain ended there either, Vader was in constant agony, not just physically but emotionally and mentally too. That does not excuse the unspeakable acts he committed, but it does make him Star Wars' most sympathetic villain.