Fictional characters you have mixed emotions about?

I guess we all have our own interpretations, I have my own as well. The flaw in yours is that Cathy WOULD have definitely gone off with Heathcliff in an instant.
This is from chapter 9
'I think that's the worst motive you've given yet for being the wife of young Linton.'

'It is not,' retorted she; 'it is the best! The others were the satisfaction of my whims: and for Edgar's sake, too, to satisfy him. This is for the sake of one who comprehends in his person my feelings to Edgar and myself. I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it.—My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don't talk of our separation again: it is impracticable; and—'.

Heathcliff overhears the conversation from the other room, but he leaves before he hears her say she IS Heathcliff and can never leave him. It's a big turning point in the book. All Heathcliff hears Cathy say is "it would degrade me to marry Heathcliff, now" and he leaves to make his fortune. He wants to become a man it would not degrade her to marry.