No kidding. The older I get, the less time I have for both approaches, especially when combined. One thing I appreciated about Parke Godwin's Sherwood which puts the Robin Hood tale right in the middle of the original Norman conquest is that there sympathetic and dislikeable characters represented both with the Saxons and Normans (and the (Norman) Sheriff isn't the villain, though he is Robin's antagonist, he's the co-lead, given the same depth and narrative sympathy).