This is not a happy book, but (because) it is a real book. All the characters are flawed, they make mistakes and hurt each other and themselves. But in reading the "Brothers Three"'s story, you learn a lot, about people in general and about the complicated relations between Africa and Europe.
I can find little redeeming qualities in Ade, he is one of the worst characters I encountered (and I mean this as a compliment to the author). 
With Santigie I identified the most, the studious peacekeeper. In the end he, too, becomes horrendous

turning his frustration into violence against white women, when he is powerless to punish white men otherwise.

There is something said about the misogyny in the book in general and I'm having a hard time discerning what is just a depiction and what is actually the author's. 
Joe, the nicest of the three with the toughest fate to bear, is the only one of them who ends up in a loving and stable romantic relationship -

with a man. Which was very progressive for the time, but I can't help but feel like the men in this book just never see women as human enough to be actual companions. Also, Joe is clearly bisexual, and while I see that in the book itself, where there is so much prejudice about homosexual relations he is labelled as such, why do contemporary discussions do the same?