In the book or musical? In the musical he's kind of designed to gain as much sympathy as possible - despite the fact that in the book, we get more backstory etc. We hear less about Raoul as well...and even Christine is SUCH a weaker character. (Also musical!Erik is more sane.) But then again - anywhere - I like characters who are weak and are so obviously faulted ;; I mean, some of my favorite characters are the ones everyone can't stand. I hate to pull a Harry Potter reference, but I'm one of those people who would REALLY like to analyze Peter Pettigrew as he seems the most "real" of the characters. But, I never really got into marauder era stuff. Go figure. But I also wrote up something for Quirrel once. ...I'm rambling again.
And yeah. The sequel is in a world of it's own that doesn't exist.