[awa]

Personally, I feel the characters in Mahabharata are more shades of grey (rather than just Good or Bad) unlike Ramayana which is portrayed as a fight between Good vs Bad.

Even Krishna's role has a lot of valid criticism in terms of the little he does to avoid the war (being a god and all). The closest clean character seems to be Karna who is on the losing side.

[drieddust]

> Even Krishna's role has a lot of valid criticism in terms of the little he does to avoid the war (being a god and all). The closest clean character seems to be Karna who is on the losing side.

My apologies but both statements doesn't stand if you read the original work of Ved Vyasa or a faithful translation of it. One single incident disproves both the statement. I am not a Mahabharata expert but this proves how false legends have spread around texts like Mahabharata and Ramayana.

Krishna went as diplomat to settle the dispute without war. As a final proposal, he offered to settle the dispute just for 5 villages. Duryodhana under influence of Karna said "I will not give land worth a needle's tip." and that was the end of all negotiations.

Edit: Please refer to my other comment for details about Karna's Character.