In Richard II: Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition, Volume 9, Charles Forker makes a great point.
"The truth is, here in Richard II is a play without a hero. Richard is constantly represented in an unfavourable light - as weak, dilatory and selfish. The character with elements of popularity, who might easily have been made the central figure of the play, is Bolingbroke, yet, only lightly sketched in as compared with Richard ..."
What the playwright shows is not what there is. You can only see it as one viewpoint. The playwright paints a character in one way, but the reader at the end should know the character for himself.
