Mahabharatha vs Ramayana

Among the Indian epics, I feel Mahabharatha is more realistic than Ramayana. In Ramayana, all the characters are either white or black whereas in MahaBharatha they are all sorts grey. Look at Dharmaraya, he is supposed to be the epitome of truth and honesty so much so that when he says "Ashwaththamo hatah kunjarah ", even Drona believes it. But he does not hear kunjaraha because of Krishna and that is another story. So Yudhistira or Dharmaraya is supposed to be without flaws. But what does he do when playing dice? He bets his own wife Draupadi and loses her and causes her to be humiliated in front of the entire court.

Look at Krishna. He is supposed to be the incarnation of Lord Vishnu. But he has his own ideas of what is fair and what is not fair. When his sister is pregnant with Abhimanyu, he tells her all about the war of mahabharatha and about a formation of army called chakravyuha which will be used by enemy Kauravas. He explains her how to enter into the Chakravyuha. Then he realises that it is not her who is responding to him story but the baby inside. He stops the story and causes Abhimanyu to know how to enter Chakravyuha but not how to come out of it. This ultimately causes his death - death of Krishna's own nephew.

Look at our villian Duryodhana. He is supposed to be evil, ruthless, cunning. (My vocabulary stops here). But listen to this story to know how he valued his friend Karna. One day Karna comes to Duryodhan's house. Duryodhana is not around. Duryodhana's wife Bhanumathi and Karna start playing chess. She bets her pearl necklace. She loses the game.but is not ready to give the necklace. He pulls and necklace breaks. Karna starts picking up the pearls.  At that moment Duryodhana enters. He does not suspect, does not get angry on Karna but helps him in picking up the pearls.