I don't hate Vito or Michael. And I don't condemn them as purely evil, despite the evil things each of them had done. I even have a certain degree of sympathy for them, as I would for anyone caught up in such a life as that - notwithstanding their own choices, and their own complicity in their suffering, and the suffering of those around them.

I don't think that being a tragic figure and being a villain are necessarily mutually exclusive states. On the contrary, as it is the wicked who ultimately suffer the most, it could be argued that a life of villainy is the ultimate tragedy.

The entire Godfather story bears this out in vivid detail, as we see - bit by bit - the ways in which maintaining, protecting & expanding a criminal enterprise eats away at all that is good and wholesome, i.e. love, trust, innocence, compassion, forgiveness...even one's very family and all whom one holds dear. We see the specific ways in which such criminal activities are basically incompatible with those good things - and how, if persistently pursued, they will ultimately consume them and destroy them.

Kay got it right during the D.C. hotel scene, when she stated: "Oh, Michael! You are blind!" Because Michael had become blind. And desensitized. And cold. And hateful. And what is that, if not tragic?