Ananda the Fully Human

Unlike Sariputta, who, as a liberated arahant, is never shown displaying a hint of emotion, Ananda gives free rein to his feelings. It is this capacity—which, from the point of view of orthodoxy, is a sign of unenlightened weakness—that renders him fully human and sympathetic. In some ways, Ananda prefigures the later Mahayana ideal of the bodhisatta, one who rejects the transcendent peace of nirvana in order to respond to the suffering of myriad others in the world.

~Stephen Batchelor, in after buddhism