I’d read the cliff notes of the book before I read it. I’m not sure if I could have gotten through it without having done that first.

There’s one particular line that I think sums up the theme of the characters not being fleshed out:

fire which does contain within it something of men themselves inasmuch as they are less without it and are divided from their origins and are exiles. For each fire is all fires, and the first fire and the last ever to be.

The reason I think the judge is more fleshed out is he supposed to be a challenge to the readers sense of morality; asking the question “can your sense of right and wrong survive in the face of the existence of the judge, and people like him?”