In The Kite Runner, who is good, who is bad, and who is in between?

One of the wonderful things that Khaled Hosseini does is to include characters that are not so simple as to be all good or all bad. There are some characters that are flat in that way: Assef is pure evil from start to finish, and Hassan is so devoted, so loyal, so good that it can be difficult to take him seriously.

You also have characters like Amir and Baba, however, who make mistakes and have...

One of the wonderful things that Khaled Hosseini does is to include characters that are not so simple as to be all good or all bad. There are some characters that are flat in that way: Assef is pure evil from start to finish, and Hassan is so devoted, so loyal, so good that it can be difficult to take him seriously.

You also have characters like Amir and Baba, however, who make mistakes and have to try to make up for them in order to redeem themselves. Amir, of course, is trying to make up for the fact that he didn't stop Assef from raping Hassan and then drove Hassan away when his guilt was eating away at him. Baba wanted to keep Hassan close because Hassan was actually his illegitimate son. Even though he couldn't acknowledge it, he tried to make a good life for him as much as possible.

Characters like Assef and Hassan act as good contrasts for the more complex and dynamic characters in the novel, particularly Amir, who can be seen as both good and bad at different times in the story.