Are the victims in Poe's stories really deserving of empathy? Do we know them well?

Poe delves deep into the consciousness of his characters, by portraying their irregularity and even insanity. Montresor unlike the narrators in Poe’s other stories such as “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Pit and the Pendulum” becomes obsessed with the memory of his victim. The line “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.”, makes the readers speculate about Montresor’s motivations and desires for revenge. Everything is told solely from the perspective of Montresor and this restricted point of view may cause the readers to imagine a distorted reality.
Fortunato's character is revealed and described to the readers through the perspective of Montresor—as a pompous and arrogant man. Poe’s literary style of juxtaposing Fortunato’s flat character with Montresor’s round complex character creates a disillusioned reality. On the one hand, the readers want to empathize with Fortunato for his ghastly fate while on the other hand, his lack of inquiry and being blinded by his conceit makes the readers detached from him. Thus, Poe allows the readers a window to the “deepest vault” of psychological aspects of his enigmatic characters.

In "The Cask of Amontillado," as with most of Poe's stories, the victim is presented through the eyes of an unreliable narrator. The only information we have about the unfortunate Fortunato is provided by the man who kills him, Montresor, and we can't be sure that he's telling us the unvarnished truth. Montresor tells us that he is motivated to carry out his terrible revenge in response to " a thousand" unspecified injuries that Fortunato is alleged to have inflicted upon him. As he never tells us the precise nature of such injuries, it's difficult to sympathize with Montresor, especially given the gruesome nature of his revenge.
By the same token, we develop empathy for Fortunato because we don't know what, if anything, he's done to deserve such a hideous fate. If Montresor's description of what happened on that fateful day is in any way accurate, then at worst Fortunato comes across as a bit of a fool, appropriately dressed in the motley garb of a jester. He certainly doesn't come across as someone who deserves to be buried alive.