Tragic death ? More like dumb death. How he keep beating people for no reason is why people fed up with him. Even after the hero spared his life he keep fighting against them for no fucking reason, even becoming a slave for the demon who were the enemies of him and die like a dog.
How people consider this tragic anyway ? After knowing his background I just feel he is dumb and his death is just deserved.
Aye, that was sloppy writing. It would have been far better if he became unreasonably violent from being provoked. Like some kids from an older noble family called his (adoptive) family upstarts, and he would have kicked their asses immediately, blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Pile a bunch of such incidents, with some "harmless" school drama betrayals, with escalation. Similarly his first encounter with the hero should have been more morally gray in reality, even though for the player it would have looked like a black and white situation. Like he would have been working in the gray area of the law, but the hero got a mission to destroy his business, presented as fighting evil.
All of this could have been made to present Lobelia as rather wicked when a gamer was playing the game, but then the backstory would reveal the missing details. Now, with the half-assed backstory, it's exactly as you said.