As in most fairy tales, the characters in The King of the Golden River are relatively one-dimensional. For instance, Hans and Schwarz are thoroughly evil.

They fail to turn the river to gold because their evil natures prevent their making the right moral choices. On the other hand, "little Gluck" is so kind and innocent that the reader expects his generous nature to triumph in the end.

Like the heroes in many fairy tales, Gluck's innocent goodness may even tend to get boring. However, his brothers are such believable and powerful characters that Gluck retains the reader's empathy.

These characters are allegorical in the sense that they seem to embody concepts—Hans and Schwarz represent greed or selfishness, while Gluck represents goodness or charity—instead of being real human beings, with complicated personalities. However, though the characters tend to be one-dimensional, they are still...