The First Law

Glokta a shit

>Say he really should have stayed a bit more connected with the people he travelled to the ends of the world with
He tried, but Ferro was a 100 pounds of pure crazy and Jezal was too busy getting buttfucked by Bayaz
Somebody needs to kill that prick already.

Fuck you, he's great. Though as points out, a little repetitive.

It's also fantastic when you see what an utter cunt he was as Colonel Glotka - he makes pre-adventure Jezal look humble

14?

>Somebody needs to kill that prick already.
A lot of people have tried.

He's tough though, you can't be THAT much of an asshole and live THAT long without being seriously hard to kill.

And I still think Logan could have not had such a shit time if he went back to Adua, but there you go

He's a shit. As you point out he was a cunt to surpass all cunts and once his snarky whining wears off you see he still is just an uglier cunt. That's the entire point of his character; he is a thoroughly unlikable person who believes he deserves more than he got, when he actually deserved worse.

>And I still think Logan could have not had such a shit time if he went back to Adua, but there you go
It's Abercrombie so everything has to suck for anyone likable. Like Shivers. Poor, fucked up Shivers.

At least Shivers learned eventually and didn't do the stupid thing.

Wonder if Ferro will ever turn up again.
Even as nuts as she was and looking for a fight, I can't exactly see her dying yet.

Nah, he's unlikable and gets far more than he deserves, but he definitely knows it by the time the story ends

>Wonder if Ferro will ever turn up again.

Fucking this. Where she at.

I think Abercrombie is ashamed of her. I remember reading some blog post of his where he mentioned he's been trying to write good female characters the whole series and that he was most disappointed wit hi first attempt. A shame, I liked Ferro and Monza the most

The world tends into deep grimderpness for what appears to be no particular reason, though the writing is much better than he's implying.

I could see that, I guess - she's easily one of the flattest characters overall, and it isn't a lot to work from.

Her and Logan were great together though - how often in fiction do you see a relationship that's just a thing of circumstance, isn't really much good other than a few nice moments, and that just kinda falls apart without much drama?

Shivers really drew the short straw, you gotta feel sorry for the guy

so many good characters, but crippled old glokta bitching about his knees all day is still the best.

Dogman's still doing ok though.

I often hear this and I don't agree. I will not defend Abercrombie's world building, as it is pretty damn banal and dull (The Old Empire, seriously?) but I don't see the grimderp angle.

Yes, it might seem that way since all the main characters are a bunch of broken, strange people. But that's what makes them main characters. Everyone else are just people like you and me, going about their lives and whatnot.

Shivers seems to be doing quite okay, going by Red Country.

>Dat final duel

Say he's a psycho. Seriously, read Made a Monster. Bethod did nothing wrong. Logen a shit.

Incidentally, anyone else stoked for more Shivedia and Javre? I want to find out more about that damn templar order. They seem so strange and out of place in the setting.

Bloody Nine a shit. Logen's an okay dude.

Fair enough. But the main question then becomes if the Bloody Nine is an actual part of Logen, a demon or just a good ol' crazy split personality. Bayaz seems like the likely culprit, as always.

I'd like to think it's a spirit, what with his spirit talking power, but that seems long forgotten now and it's probably just a split personality disorder

Yeah, Abercrombie seems to have just dropped the spirit-talker angle all together.

>Shivers seems to be doing quite okay, going by Red Country.
Seems like a lonely crazy person that still lives as another man's lapdog to me. The fact he decided not to do his job and kill Logen shows how much in need of a new start he is even now.

> being this edgy

Then he should bring her back and flesh her out, it wouldn't be hard to retcon her 1 dimensional character portrayal into the influence of her heritage. Now she knows about it and had been altered by the events at the end of the first trilogy, maybe she will 'wake up' a bit.

If you put Brother Longfoot as a NPC in a DND group I wonder how long he'd be allowed to live.

Grimdark and all its 'hilarious' variations is a term that needs to fuck off and die, particularly since it is almost always misapplied. The first law world is in no way grimdark - it has light and hope in abundance, it's just the characters that tend to get shat on by Abercrombie being a sadist.
Similarly, original w40k was not really Grimdark, it was bleak, worn out and slightly anarchic.

Michael fassbender?

He does a needed job, then fucks off while the party has RP-ing time, then comes back to do his job - he's basically the perfect NPC, so it just depends how much tolerance your party has for his stupid-ass way of speaking and boasting.

This time it might stick, but I doubt it.

Still, again I'll say he didn't do the stupid thing, so there's hope for him yet

The usual story structure is that the MCs improve or come into better as time goes on. Abercrombie MCs have a tendency to end up worse than where they started, with only the assholes actually moving up in the world.

Logen regresses into paranoia and contempt, is almost assassinated, runs away, then even loses the refuge he ran to.

Jezal learns to be a better person, then has his will completely broken and becomes a useless puppet king.

West dies of magic cancer.

Ferro abandons what few positive relationships she develops, goes insane then falls off the face of the earth.

Dogman loses most of his friends, his girl, then ends up at odds with the few former friends still alive.

Glokta loses his practicals, the innocent one he tortures out of suspicion and the traitor giving absolutely no reason beyond a shrug for the betrayal. His position moves up, but ultimately he barely progresses as an actual human being.

Shivers tries to abandon his grudges and become a better person, has his fucking eyeball melted out and turns into a sociopath, leading a life of servitude and regrets as a background character for the rest of the series.

The only good wizard we meet his crushed and entombed in a tower for trusting Bayaz way more than a sane man should.

Perhaps only Monza in this whole godforsaken world both improves in position and in character while also not falling into the service of the series' arch-villain, but follows a path of hollow vengeance and dumb luck to get there. Maybe Red too but honestly her whole character arc is a blur to me.

Ultimately the bad guys win and good is crushed or at the very least understated to the point of being almost unnoticable. Bayaz's continued interference in everything forever is a testament to what you should expect from this series. I wouldn't call it wholly grimdark; everything appears fine and dandy on the surface, but ultimately the morality and perspectives shown are very grim and pessimistic.

The folk in Red Country came out OK.

I really can't remember most of Red Country. I just recall one of the kids they went through everything to save didn't want saving and secretly hated her rescuers.

Oh yeah and Cosca degenerated into a pompous, bitter, even greedier old man and got unceremoniously offed by a subordinate.

Yeah, Made a Monster definitely shows that however much Logen would like to blame the Bloody Nine for everything, for a long-ass time he loved it as well. And it really doubles down on exactly why everyone hate/fears him the way they do, even without the Nine he was a psycho for a long time. Kind of wonder how many of his duels he won without Nine coming out, if any.

Red? As in the guy from Heroes?
He gets out okay, but he lives in the North, so some shit's going to happen to him probably.

Shy and Temple (especially Temple, though he's seen plenty of shit) get out alright in the end. Though as says, most of Red Country is forgettable, though I don't recall it being bad, per se.

Yeah, exploring what the fuck is with Logen's spirit talking thing - the actual reason Bayaz needed him in the first place - might be cool, and fleshing out whatever Ferro's been up to would be neat as well.
I could see something exploring those two semi-magical murders being in one book, though given the way pair of them are there's no happy ending there.
Shame the whole "magic is dying" thing works against it.

Shevedieh and Javre are cool, Shev fits into the world 100%, Javre really kind of doesn't, but the time she met Cracknut proves there's occasional weirdness that just kind of happens, and that sword of hers works as one of the Maker's relics (I think it was one of his, anyway?), or at least one from that age.

>Yeah, Made a Monster definitely shows that however much Logen would like to blame the Bloody Nine for everything, for a long-ass time he loved it as well.

It's unclear which persona was in control in Made a Monster. He had the Bloody Nine problem ever since he was a kid; he told everybody the story of how he blacked out and murdered a friend in the First Law. Bethod mentions how unpredictable and impulsive Logen is during Made a Monster and there's several moments where he just stands around with bizarre shifting expressions or seems to see reason, then immediately does the opposite of something he promised. I feel like when Logen hits a depressive state he just sort of drifts along and doesn't resist whenever his psycho side comes out. You see a bit into his mindset at these times at the end of the trilogy; he just becomes so cynical he sees the Bloody Nine as more fit to survive than himself. I imagine during his time under Bethod he was just going along for the ride. Logen wasn't home whenever he did something awful, and the few times he was relatively reasonable he just basked in the rewards of his other half and drowned himself in bitches and booze.

>Red? As in the guy from Heroes?
Sorry, meant Shy.
Fuck I don't even remember who Red was.

He had a vaguely cool name, a powerful dad, and a reputation he wanted to live up to, but the battle in The Heroes soon put paid to that.

I think he's just fully embracing the Nine in Made a Monster, letting it come over him as it will - through the series he's resisting it, resisting it coming over him unless everything's gone to shit, and even then most of the time he still doesn't want it - I think he only welcomes it once, maybe twice. Which is also why Nine coming over him is more painful (and possibly more destructive, it's hard to tell) each time.

Made a Monster would explain why, when he embraces it in everyday life he's an asshole and really mercurial - though Bethod and his wife knows that they're at least a bit separate, something even the Dogman doesn't seem to realise

>Shevedieh and Javre are cool, Shev fits into the world 100%, Javre really kind of doesn't, but the time she met Cracknut proves there's occasional weirdness that just kind of happens, and that sword of hers works as one of the Maker's relics (I think it was one of his, anyway?), or at least one from that age.

I disagree on Javre's sword. The Maker's thing is that he was not gifted with magic, but a perfect understanding of science. All of his stuff is just very advanced technology. Bayaz explicitly says it is not magical, anyway. So I doubt Javre's sword is of the Maker. Compare it to Logen's sword, for example.

I really liked it, overall. Yes, the middle of the novel gets real fuckin' slow, but overall it is good. I actually really liked Cosca in that book, especially his final moments, because they show what he really is: He always wanted to be a dashing hero, but never had the balls or the will for it. That's why he's such a lovable, tragic guy despite being, well, a cunt.

Yes, Abercrombie does tend to shit on his characters, but not all of them. Monza got a good ending, as did Calder (and he wasn't really as big a dick as he seemed) as do others. I like it, because it makes the books unpredictable because you never know how it's gonna turn out.

But all that aside, I still don't see how any of that makes the world grimdark. The stories are about people who tend to be unstable criminals of some sort or another - but the world is still fairly reasonable.

>Yeah, exploring what the fuck is with Logen's spirit talking thing - the actual reason Bayaz needed him in the first place - might be cool, and fleshing out whatever Ferro's been up to would be neat as well.

I can't say I don't want to see that, but what I really want to know is how Eaters work. It can't just be cannibalism - else we'd have a lot more random Eaters. It has to be something more to the process.

Calder fell under Bayaz, which qualifies as a bad end in my book

Point on the Maker, though there was that half Other Side blade-thing he made. And his house.
Also Bayaz was kind of dismissive of that sword being one of the least things the Maker made, despite the fact that as regular swords go it's basically perfect.

Still, you're probably right, it seems like something else

Eaters probably do have something, but it's likely not much more - the 2nd Law is "don't eat the flesh of man", after all.

Though anything with Ferro in it is likely to have them turn up

I did like Red Country, but much like a fair bit of the Heroes, I don't remember much outside the characters and a few scenes - if anything, the Heroes is even less memorable, but it only covers one battle so that's understandable.

Nah, that's the great bit about Calder's end - at the end of the Heroes, there's an agreement with the Empire, and the Northmen get Scale back.
Calder immediately gives (or plans to give) him the crown, quite happy to fall into Bethod's original plan of him being his brother's adviser, and seeing as Scale is too dumb and stubborn to be Bayaz's pawn he basically gets out of it

I always took the House to be a feat of some kind of crazy-ass fifth dimensional geometry. Science so advanced it might as well be magic, in other words. But who knows.

But the thing with the Eaters is that it can't be just flesh eating. Cannibalism is not so rare as we think it is. Especially not in times of famine. And if every famine-stricken farmer turned into a kung fu vampire, we'd kind of notice.

I see what you mean about both books, too. The scenes themselves can be rather forgetabble, but the character arcs are superb in my mind. Especially Gorst. Fuck, I love that delusional psycho.

What I really want is to meet Khalul, tho. See if he is the nice guy to Bayaz' cunt after all.

I don't know, there are some excellent scenes, and the character arcs are solid, though the actual meat of the story can be a bit lacking - I couldn't tell you about the kids in Red Country, but the bit where the old actor pulls off a big fake-out (for whatever reason), or Glama Golden's massive "oh shit" moment when he realises who he's fighting.

Still, they're always good when you're actually reading them.

The only thing I can suggest is that it being a Law makes a massive taboo, and that being an Eater doesn't automatically save you from starvation, but I really don't know.

I'd put money on Khalul being nearly as much an asshole as Bayaz.
But I'd definitely want to meet him, especially as he seems to have a big temple or mountain-palace or something (I forget the name). Which might be the Southern Library.
At least it'd make sens for him to be in a Ferro book, so if we ever get one he'd likely be there. Though there's also something to be said for not seeing the guy and removing a bit of the mystique.

>What I really want is to meet Khalul
This. The whole setting can be boiled down to a very convoluted wizard duel and we've seen nothing of one of the participants.

He got shafted by shitty writing.

The First Law is something of a sore spot for me, because as much as it got me invested in the characters, the Plot was almost nonexistent and stretched out waaaay too long, and the guy simply cannot write endings to save his life. This was only a little bit irritating for the first two books, which don't end so much as stop, but for the third book that's supposed to wrap everything up (you know, an ending) I still couldn't shake the feeling that the editor had somehow lost the last 2-3 chapters before it went to print.

Logen Ninefingers gets screwed over in the end basically just because Abercrombie thinks its gritty. This is actually a pretty good microcosm of The First Law's problems with pacing and plot. Logen gets betrayed and forced to run for his life yet again because everyone sees him as a teamkilling fucktard, because occasionally he goes berserker mode and kills pretty much anyone he can get his hands on. Which is:

1) a thing we never see him do or have any hint of until the very end of book one, so it feels more like a weird addition to his character than anything central to him conceptually.

2) Something that isn't hinted or said to be in any way negative until the middle of book 2, because every time Logen's crew talks about him before that its with fondness and respect, despite the fact that they know he can be a teamkiller

3) treated like its not actually Logen at all. Super weirdly, any time Logen goes berserk we get a chapter break like we are focusing on a new character entirely now, and the writing even refers to him as The Bloody Nine, not Logen Ninefingers. Consistently. Whats more, Logen actively tries to resist going berserk, and the Bloody Nine resents not being let loose more often and hates losing control when the bloodlust subsides. Everything about this is treated more like Logen is being possessed than if he occasionally just lashes out.

[cont]

4) None of the above is ever actually explained. We don't know why Logen occasionally switches over to a dangerous lunatic who kills everything.

Which makes Logen getting punished for the shit the Bloody Nine does seem really just weird, because they are presented to us as different characters entirely. But even if that punishment didn't happen for the sake of what passed for an ending for Abercrombie, that fact that you introduce this recurring aspect to a character that we are supposed to consider central and never explain what the fuck is going on is just sloppy writing.

Dude can talk to spirits sometimes, so I kept expecting that to somehow play into things with his weird possession by the Bloody Nine, but it never happened.

And its a shame, because I liked the characters. I gave a shit about Logen. But everything in the books that's not the characters is a sort of slow, wet fart that gets stretched out for way too long and then ends unsatisfyingly.

>1) a thing we never see him do or have any hint of until the very end of book one, so it feels more like a weird addition to his character than anything central to him conceptually.
He loses his shit repeatedly throughout the story. His other self makes frequent declarations of having no friends and being death incarnate, he even tells us a story of how he murdered a friend as a kid during his first frenzy.

Third book had serious pacing problems, but this complaint makes no sense.

Abercrombie said the third book of the trilogy did drag on and he's not proud of it, which is part of the reason he's mostly stuck to single book stories since. iirc the trilogy was part of his introductory deal with the publisher or something; as a starting author with them they wanted a series from him to launch him off. Apparently that's not uncommon with fantasy publishers.

>Which makes Logen getting punished for the shit the Bloody Nine does seem really just weird, because they are presented to us as different characters entirely. But even if that punishment didn't happen for the sake of what passed for an ending for Abercrombie, that fact that you introduce this recurring aspect to a character that we are supposed to consider central and never explain what the fuck is going on is just sloppy writing.
If it's a genuine split personality, how could you even explain that in setting? Does he sit down with a union therapist and have his disorders listed out in a neat fashion? Everything possible to indicate it's a personality disorder has been done as you pointed out yourself. The only reason it's in doubt is because the genre is fantasy and we're all expecting it to be some supernatural shit.

I'll give you pacing problems and plot issues, but for 1, that's the entire point - he spends a lot of the first book as pragmatic and bemoaning that he's got no friends and that he knows exactly why.
It comes off as kind of unjustified, maybe it's a "hero puts himself down" kind of thing you see some times... but then at the end you see why. It is actually justified

Admittedly this only really works as a Part 1 book, but that's kind of okay because it is one.

His crew think he's dead, and at this point he's been with them as a rebel crew of Named Men against Bethod for a while - they've been friends for a time, especially the Dogman, and all of them, most notably Black Dow, regret that the guy's gone, but don't actually want him back.

3 and 4 is kind of the point, we don't know what the deal is - it's quite possibly magical (which is why I will say the spirit-talker thing is under-used), but it adds questions that keep you interested in the character. Also Logen probably doesn't know either, and his struggle to deal with it is huge for him. It's also important that outside Logen, very few people know there's a difference - to most of them they just think it's him, as a lot of Named Men are very tough and nasty.

It also makes more sense if you've read the Heroes, which gives more insight into how crews of Named Men operate, and Made a Monster is an excellent short that shows us Logen at his very worst, with the Bloody Nine unrestrained and coming and going as it pleases.

Say he'd have more interesting stories if the author could let go of the grimdark for a bit.

I do like Abercrombie's stuff, but jesus christ all it's really making me want is Bayaz to lose, preferably in a shitty way that he should have seen coming. Say if Jezal just goes full Wormtongue and stabs him at some point.

IIRC Bayaz doesn't actually have that much by way of magical defenses or similar, he's basically just got intimidation and just-as-planned armour?

Saying that I actually don't know how one of Khalul's dudes hasn't just sniped him with a crossbow or something.

I just started re-listening to this. Long winded but pretty interesting

Abercrombie has said on his blog that he is working on a mega-sequel. A trilogy of trilogies, as it were. It is said to take place some fifty years after Red Country, in the wake of an emerging industrial revolution.

My personal dream story is that the next set of books will focus on the Union invading Gurkhul by the might of the gun and the train. It will all turn into a clusterfuck, as these things often do, and we will get to see a lot more of the Gurkish as the novels focus on their home turf. This includes Khalul and Ishri.

I reckon that an aging Jezal will be there as Bayaz' puppet-king. A broken man who has tried his entire life to do good despite being under the thumb of the biggest cock in the setting. A very old (80, by my count) Glokta will also be there, perhaps as an Eater or just an old man still doing Bayaz' dirty work. Shenkt will also be there, of course, gunning for revenge against Bayaz.

Going by this, I want the events to play out like this: The entire thing will build towards the climactic showdown between Bayaz and Khalul. Complete with a lot of schemes, proxy fights and all that jazz. We will be given insight into Khalul and see that he considers himself to be in the right, but uses deplorable means to do so. Shenkt will ally with him against Bayaz and in the process, say, murder Glokta. But Shenkt will see that Khalul is a jerk as well, so he will turn on him.

In the end, Shenkt will fail to kill either Magi and die for his efforts. Khalul and Bayaz will face eachother and Bayaz will triumph, messily caving his rival's skull in with a rock. He will stand up in triumph, worn out from his battle but very much alive... only to be literally shanked by Jezal, who finally worked up the balls to stab Bayaz in the gut.

And that's how Bayaz will die. Killed by his own mistreated pawn. Dying like a complete punk, his corpse abandoned in the desert. That's how I want Bayaz to die.

>I do like Abercrombie's stuff, but jesus christ all it's really making me want is Bayaz to lose, preferably in a shitty way that he should have seen coming. Say if Jezal just goes full Wormtongue and stabs him at some point.

See here: I really can't agree more. Bayaz is an incredible cunt. But imagine how sweet and delicious it will be if he finally does go down like a punk.

Incidentally, anyone read the Shattered Sea trilogy Abercrombie wrote? I liked it overall, especially the post-apoc stuff. I'm still trying to figure out what exact guns they were using.

>when you read that last chapter in Sharp Ends after having read everything else and realize Logen is actually an irredeemable cunt and a coward

We know the old hag was using a large ass six shooter and a grenade launcher.

Are we sure? I wasn't sure if it was a grenade launcher or a LMG.

That's the problem, tho. The entire rest of the trilogy is written like Logen is possessed by a literal demon.

The thing she used in the battle after they return from Strokom caused big explosions. Doesn't sound like an LMG.

It could also be stuff from the near future since they detail voice recognition stuff in military complex in Strokom. And I never could put my finger on what type of construction material elf glass was supposed to be.

I think it was mentioned that when he went about going from "Juvens' second apprentice" to "the Prophet" Khalul walked through a rain of arrows, and while he doesn't do much magic, his chat with Jezal proves he's got power, even with the much diminished state of magic in the world.
But yeah, being taken out by something like a stray cannonball wouldn't be the worst end for the fucker.

I don't know that I'd want a one-on-one battle and showdown, also I revisited his blog - it's 15 years, not 50
>a trilogy set in the first law world some thirty years after the Blade Itself, so maybe fifteen after Red Country. The central characters are new but a lot of familiar faces crop up in the background. Mostly takes place in the Union and the North, and so picks up the threads of the first trilogy a little more directly than the standalone books did, as the world (or parts of it, at any rate) moves into a more industrial era.

Sadly not in the South though, but at least it means Logen's likely to not be ancient

Eh, I wouldn't say totally to either of those things, but yeah, especially as a younger man, before he sees all the shit that he's done without his blood-drunkeness for the first time (presumably in years), he's an absolute cunt.

The rest of his life is basically "oh shit what have I done" interspersed with running away from what he's done and killing people horribly.

Though the way he completely fails to move past who he used to be and keeps up a bit of the pretence when he returned to the North was kinda heartbreaking, but then again everyone else won't move past it (you know, because he was a psycho)

My mistake, 15 it is. Still, the reason I want there to be a showdown is because it will be all dramatic and shit, with you as the reader going "Oh, fuck you Bayaz, you won again!?"

... Right before he gets shanked by Jezal. The cannonball idea isn't bad, but I want it to be Jezal who stabs Bayaz after having been his lapdog his entire life. It's just so wonderfully anticlimatic for such a prideful ass.

It could be future weapons, aye. Or a rocket or grenade launcher. Or it's just described as causing big explosions because to the medival warriors, a LMG tearing chunks out of people would pretty much seem like it.

>Though the way he completely fails to move past who he used to be and keeps up a bit of the pretence when he returned to the North was kinda heartbreaking
That's the overarching theme of Abercrombie's work. Nobody can forget their past. Shivers can't be a better person, everyone will always see Monza as fearsome, Ferro can't let go of her vengeance, Glokta can't trust people, Gorst will never find joy in anything ever, Shiv can't quit chasing Carcolf, nobody can move the fuck on.

He has more fingers than Bob 8-Fingers

A lot of people are Bayaz's lapdogs.

I almost think Abercrombie's aversion to anything particularly heroic will mean either nothing happens and the Magi continue to fight, or that if he does get killed it's completely incidental and none of the MCs (or the old ones, at least) do it.

True enough.

Man, Red County was such a let down. I love westerns and I really enjoyed First Law but it all fell flat.

>cosca: "oh hey, its old old friend shivers"
>shivers: "sup bye."
>end of book
>"i finally found you logen, nothin personell kiddo"
>logen: "ok"
>"haha see ya"

What the fuck was the point.

The point was that Shivers overcame his grudge and learned to put the past behind him. Thus going against the central theme of the books.

I personally found that duel to be the best part of the entire book. Well, that and Cosca talkin' shit about the Dragon.

I fear you may be right, but I hope that Jezal will get to off him still.

>The point was that Shivers overcame his grudge and learned to put the past behind him.

Didn't he do that in the original trilogy, though? After Logen saved him... or was it vice-versa. I can't remember. Same reason he walked away when Logen was betrayed by Black Dow.

Just never saw the point in him spending an entire book just to stare a guy down and walk off.

I wonder if Jezal ever got to do that good he and Glotka planned when they were agreeing at the end just how much Bayaz had them by the balls.

Given that they sent armies against Murcatto post-Best Served Cold (and lost), I assume not all that much.

Also Javre and Shev seem to have had some pretty crazy adventures in the background of their stories

Well, my impression was that he only changed his mind at the moment he was face-to-face with Logen. I thought it was fantastic. I can see your point about needless repetition, though.

It felt like a "gaiden game" to me, so I forgave it for not giving me what I really wanted. It sort of felt like "payoff" for reading 5 books filled with mostly downer endings for everybody involved. The knife is still twisted into the reader with Logen and the little sister hating her old life, but otherwise it was a nice change of pace.

That's far too handsome to be Glokta, the G-man is painfully ugly, to the point that people recoil when they look at him

Say he's not to be fucked with