I imagine Lewis probably meant it that way. The idea of sympathy for and forgiveness of people we don't particularly like shows up quite a bit in his more serious writings (Mere Christianity, for starters). 

In this case, I'd definitely say yes, he does deserve a bit of pity. Ahoshta is in a hard place, for all the reasons you pointed out. His marriage to Aravis is a dreadful idea, but perhaps it was the best means available to secure his high status. His wrongdoing comes from disregarding Aravis' wishes ( and, um...  trying to marry a minor ). Horrible of him,  to be sure, but it's important to see what might be driving him to do it so one can avoid writing him off as a malicious, one-dimensional person. 

I still read it as a comical line, to be honest.  Lewis has a lot of harsh opinions of the adults in the series and he had to know kids would be eager to laugh at the adults.  And the adult readers need to learn to laugh at themselves.  It seems that under normal circumstances you would pity Ahoshta but he was so despicable himself you can't help taking some pleasure in what happens to him.  There may be some pity for him but it's also clear he brought it all upon himself and it serves as a warning.  Get yourself into trouble after being miserable and unkind and others are less inclined to feel sorry for you or help you.  But I still feel hesitant to read too much into that moment.  I really do think it was meant for comedic effect.    

What was interesting was that my son really didn't like reading about Ahoshta being kicked as it was "mean" but my daughter thought it was just and funny because "he looks like an ape".  I think she really was on Aravis' side there.  haha

It struck me, as I reread the thread, that Lewis does not have great respect for people who crawl and flatter their way up unsafe ladders in life.

His other fiction includes people who wanted to get into the in-crowd, or to succeed in a career that required unethical behaviour.

Perhaps the funniest and strangest example is Wormwood in The Screwtape Letters, whose very life depends on the evil work his superior is mentoring him in. 

We can laugh at such people when they have become ridiculous and usually no longer a threat to the characters we like. 

Yes, he is a laughable character in his grovelling state, but uncomfortably reminds me another such creature who served evil lords, and who we meet in The Last Battle!

Posted by: @col-klink

A line from The Horse and his Boy struck me afresh recently.

I am afraid that Aravis did not feel at all sorry for the Vizier.

I've always read that as an example of Lewis's classic British (and Irish!) ironic sense of humour. I actually do that myself — use phrases like "I'm afraid that..." or "I'm sorry to say that..." when I mean I'm NOT sorry at all. It's pretty standard over here. Which would mean in turn that Lewis is counting on his young audience to catch his drift and side with Aravis, because they can understand very well why she doesn't feel at all sorry for Ahoshta.

Of course, in this same story we also have a prime example of Aravis having no compassion when she should have had it — not caring that her slave girl was whipped after Aravis drugged her and escaped. That lack of mercy is taken so seriously that Aslan himself inflicts the same wounds on Aravis because she "needed to know what it felt like". But the slave girl in this case was being punished for something that clearly wasn't her fault. Ahoshta, on the other hand, is presented as a totally unsympathetic character — he's purposely flattered and wheedled his way to the top of a system that is inherently corrupt (as @coracle points out), and he has to deal with the consequences.

Aravis, interestingly, was born into that system (the Calormene upper class), which Ahoshta wasn't, but by the time she's on the verge of adolescence, she starts seeing through it and rejecting it, even though that means having to reject great wealth and status and all the material comforts she's grown up with (in complete contrast to Lasaraleen). She does have a lot to learn about humility and empathy, but that's what she progressively learns on the different path she has chosen. Lewis always puts a lot of emphasis on how people's choices shape their character and their future — and Ahoshta himself presumably could have made different choices when he was younger, but he didn't.

Posted by: @mrs-smooshy

I still read it as a comical line, to be honest.  Lewis has a lot of harsh opinions of the adults in the series and he had to know kids would be eager to laugh at the adults.  And the adult readers need to learn to laugh at themselves.  It seems that under normal circumstances you would pity Ahoshta but he was so despicable himself you can't help taking some pleasure in what happens to him. 

Posted by: @courtenay

I've always read that as an example of Lewis's classic British (and Irish!) ironic sense of humour. I actually do that myself — use phrases like "I'm afraid that..." or "I'm sorry to say that..." when I mean I'm NOT sorry at all. It's pretty standard over here. Which would mean in turn that Lewis is counting on his young audience to catch his drift and side with Aravis, because they can understand very well why she doesn't feel at all sorry for Ahoshta

That's how I've always interpreted it in the past. But C. S. Lewis also wrote a book called Till We Have Faces in which the characters tend to be kind of complicated. (I'm sorry for referring to a book not everyone has read or necessary will have liked it they have read it. I find it's necessary to find explain the thought process behind my original post. )

The characterizations in the Narnia books are, of course, much more black and white than that. But, hey, it's not like C. S. Lewis was incapable of nuanced characters and maybe some of them aren't so black and white if we stop to think about it. 

I'm sorry to say 😉 I still laugh heartily at that line.  

I find the Calormene culture pretty sad when a young girl is married off to a much older guy. I can understand how Aravis feels about when she's about to be married off to Ahoshta.

I find him a tragic character, feeling bad for him because it was flattery that got him to be grand vizier.