Joe Abercrombie’s gritty First Law fantasy series features a rogue’s gallery of main characters. There are no clear heroes and plenty of villains, many of them unique and intriguing.
This series offers up a pair of the most interesting, layered characters ever to grace a page. Neither is a fine, upstanding citizen, a d both have to deal with circumstances over which they have little control.
The two lead characters have little in common and wildly different backgrounds, but both have a surprising amount of empathy for others and a lot of self-loathing borne of how their lives have played out and what they’ve become.
The two most intriguing characters from The First Law series
Sand dan Glokta is a monster, and there is no doubt about that. That wasn’t always the case. He began as a dashing young hero, a nobleman, the winner of a Contest (a government-sanctioned yearly duel), and a man with a bright future.
His capture by the Ghurkish Empire resulted in two years of imprisonment and torture. He emerges alive but broken. Most of his teeth had been pulled, his toes chopped off, his ankle crushed, and his spine and neck twisted. Each step, each movement, brings him great pain.
His life as a soldier is over. His ambitions are dashed, and his options are extremely limited. His experience in the Ghurkish prison made him an expert in torture, so he became an Inquisitor.
Glokta is an incredible character because of his inner monologue, which is expectedly sad about what he was and what he has become, but also surprisingly humorous. He is completely self-aware about his appearance and ruthless in his duties as an Inquisitor.
He is in constant pain; every movement is excruciating, yet his running mental battle with stairs offers rare light moments despite readers having a complete understanding of the pain they bring him.
Abercrombie masterfully intertwines Glokta’s innermost thoughts within nearly every conversation the man has in these books. Sometimes, they are humorous; more often, they are painful and gut-wrenching. At other times, they are brutal and unforgiving.
Glokta's life experiences have given him a bleak, realistic, practical outlook on life and his place in it. That place is often stark and violent, but he never loses his self-identity within the violent nature of his job.
It is brilliant character development. Abercrombie can make readers feel empathy for a violent, loathsome person. Readers understand that Glokta has been molded into who he is and know those changes were beyond his control, just as Glokta knows.
This character could have been a standard villain, hardened by his experiences. Yet Abercrombie gives us a few glimpses of the man he was before he was tortured. On occasion, he shows a surprising soft-heartedness that endears him to readers.
Logen Ninefingers
Logen Ninefingers is a brute, a massive man who, on the surface, seems nothing more than a thoughtless warrior. As readers learn more about him, they see great depth in the character. He regrets many parts of his life and longs for something simpler.
The Logen readers are introduced to in The Blade Itself, the first book in Abercrombie's original trilogy, doesn’t seem so bad. It’s evident that he’s led a brutal, violent life as a respected warrior, though he is tired of it. Logen is fleshed out more in Before They Are Hanged, the second book in the original trilogy. We see his personality in his relationships with characters like Ferro and Jezal. He slowly earns their respect and friendship.
Readers start to learn more about Logen from the point of view of Dogman, Logan's oldest friend and a member of his crew. At the beginning of The First Law series, Logen is the leader of a small band of brutes, but is separated from them. Through the Dogman, readers realize that the men Logen once led were great warriors whom Logen defeated in hand-to-hand combat. They are men to whom he showed mercy by not killing them, and they owe him their allegiance.
What slowly becomes apparent is that Logen is a berserker, someone who is taken hold of by battle rage during combat. In that state, he is a killing machine, unaware of his actions. He does not see friend or foe while in the battle rage, and he can’t be defeated. He has another name in this state: the Bloody Nine.
Readers first see this incarnation of Logen in the second book when he travels to the edge of the world with the magi Bayaz. But we don't fully understand what Logen can fully do when is in this state until Last Argument of Kings, the third book in the original trilogy. Readers see the awful, unsettling results that come from Logen falling into a full battle rage. The people around him hate him for what he does but fear him because of his capacity to do powerful violence.
Logen must live with the fact that almost everyone hates him, and nearly everyone would kill him if they thought they could. He is like Glokta in that he is self-aware of the feelings of those around him and regrets them, but he has no control over himself when the battle rage overtakes him.
Like Glokta, Logen is practical about his situation. He is what he is, no matter how much he wishes otherwise. He wants to change and be a better person, but circumstances continually push him toward a destiny he doesn’t like.
The most telling thing about Logen comes toward the end of the third book, when he prepares to head back north, where he has been declared king. He runs into Jezal, now a king himself. Jezal tells Logen that he is the best man he knows. Abercrombie just lets that statement lie. It is a testament to what Logen could have been if he had not grown up where and when he did.
Jezal knows little of Logen’s life in the north and doesn’t understand his reputation there. He doesn’t know the things Logen has done or the hatred his presence breeds among the warriors of the north.
Logen knows he can never have peace. That becomes even more apparent when he returns to the north and tries to take his place as king. He knows that no matter what he does or what changes he would like to see happen, he is a marked man. He is what he is.
These two characters are crafted so well, yet so differently. Both have degrees of likability, but circumstances prevent their peers from seeing it. The readers can see it, but their peers are blinded by what life has created out of these two men. They are both tragic figures, but characters readers come to understand and sympathize with despite their violent nature and past evil deeds.
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