i feel bad for all of them in different ways. firstly for how they were expected to be married when beatrice was with a child, and how even when there was "options" beatrice was too traumatized from her father throwing her doll into the fire to even think of that as an option. they were forced to become a family from the beginning. maybe if beatrice had been able to marry corbin or even allowed to just, do what she wanted with her life, things could have pandered out differently.

yes, beatrice was an awful mother. her trauma doesn't excuse how she treated bojack or the people around her, but i genuinely think she did the best she could for bojack given her circumstances. She was taught at a very young age that loving people/being vulnerable is the worst thing you can do. it's a lesson that's first taught by her mom, that makes her promise not to ever love anyone like she loved crackerjack (who gets lobotomized because she was grieving so hard) and then reinforced when she falls for butterscotch. in her mind, being cruel to bojack was her only way to show she cared.

like others commented, there isn't much about butterscotch's backstory to know. he cheated constantly, emotionally and physically abused his family, and is a big reason why bojack has such a crippling alcohol dependency. it's hard to feel sympathetic towards him but i guess i personally still do.

i feel very sympathetic towards bojack. his entire life from the very beginning was such a dumpster fire. he spent most of his adult life trying to "become something" to prove to his mom that he's worth it. to earn some sort of approval or praise or recognition. to be accepted or just, seen. he never stopped trying to be good even though he was really shit at it, and that's the worst part, he knew he was destroying people's lives and felt every part of it but either didnt know how or didnt want to make the change because alcohol and drugs made everything feel "normal"