The First Law: Difference between revisions

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This is a world filled with bad people who do the right thing, good people who do the wrong thing, stupid people who do the stupid thing and, well, pretty much any combination of those. It's a world that's not merely filled with bad people; it actively makes the good and the decent ones worse. Survival is no lean feat, and at the end of the day, dumb luck might be more of an asset than any amount of planning, skill, or noble intention.

Why would anyone '''want''' to take a jaunt through this hell-hole? Because it's damn fun, that's why.

The first three books were followed in 2009 by ''[[Best Served Cold (novel)|Best Served Cold]]''. It is set in Styria and follows mercenary Monza Murcatto's plan to exact vengeance on those who have betrayed her. It features and makes numerous references to characters and events of the trilogy that came before it.

''This world is [[Crapsack World|one seriously fucked up place]],'' and ''Best Served Cold'' [[Up to Eleven|takes it all up to eleven.]]

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* [[Aristocrats Are Evil]] - But don't worry, so is everyone else.

* [[Armor Is Useless]] - "Armour... is part of a state of mind... in which you admit the possibility... of being hit."

** That said, most characters that see combat use at least ''some'' armor, and many use shields. Armor in this series is overcome via crossbows, maces, and the occasional BFS, as well as stabbing through joints. Not because it's made of paper-mâché.

*** In real life, these real world techniques only worked because either the one using it was also in armor, or the armored foe had already been disabled enough to level the coup de grace. Also, much was made about armor being heavy, but armor at the height of its development was light enough to do cartwheels in. It was certainly lighter than the gear today's Navy Seals would carry. Full body armor only became heavy in response to firearms, and then quickly abandoned.

* [[Artifact of Doom]] - The Seed, also a [[MacGuffin]].

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* [[Ascended Extra]] - Caul Shivers in ''Best Served Cold''. A few other secondary characters from the trilogy play important roles as well, like Nicomo Cosca, Vitari, Sulfur, and Duke Orso.

** Prince Calder and Bremer dan Gorst in ''The Heroes''.

* [[Ax Crazy]] - Logen, when he blacks out.

* [[Awesome McCoolname]] - Logen Ninefingers, also known as "Logen Rip-Your-Fucking-Face-Off Ninefingers" to his friends.

** AKA The Bloody Nine. Now ''that'' is one bad ass nick name, although Logen himself hates it.

* [[Badass]] - Logen and the Named men with him. Ferro.

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* [[Balkanize Me]] - The Old Empire collapsed into a plethora of tinpot dictatorships, petty fiefdoms, and city-states. They've been fighting among themselves ever since.

* [[Barbarian Hero]] - Logen Ninefingers.

* [[Barbarian Tribe]] - Mostly the Shanka, but quite often the Gurkish and the Northmen also, when they aren't on a [[Last Stand]]. Stranger-Come-Knocking {{spoiler|Bragger-Come-Boasting}} and his boys from beyond the Crinna.

* [[The Berserker]] - {{spoiler|Logen's alternate personality of the Bloody-Nine}}, and ''how.''

** In ''The Heroes," {{spoiler|Bremer dan Gorst}}.

* [[Big Bad Ensemble]]: [[Knight Templar|Khalul]] and [[Smug Snake|Bethod]] are set up early on, but as the story progresses we learn that {{spoiler|[[Woman Scorned|Tolomei]]}} is alive and now works for [[The Legions of Hell]], and more shockingly that revelation means that {{spoiler|''[[The Dumbledore|Bayaz]]'' is actually a [[Big Bad]] as well, and maybe even '''the''' [[Big Bad]] since not only does he get [[The Bad Guy Wins|exactly what he was after]], Khalul and Tolomei were both only evil because the [[Jumped Off the Slippery Slope]] trying to ''bring him down'' (and Bethod may or may not have been his [[Unwitting Pawn]], at least once upon a time), and his centuries of [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder|treachery]] and [[Manipulative Bastard|ruthless manipulation]] are responsible, directly or indirectly, for nearly ''every war the Union as ever took part in'', all because he's a [[It's All About Me|self-centred bastard]] with [[Pride|delusions of grandeur]] who pretty much thinks [[Tautological Templar|humanity can't survive without him]]}}.

* [[Bittersweet Ending]] - Possibly even a [[Downer Ending]], depending on your point of view. {{spoiler|''Best Served Cold'' ends on a somewhat higher note, which is surprising, considering the even darker tone of the book.}}

* [[Black and Gray Morality]] - Pushed to the point where you wonder at the end whether the protagonists were really the least evil, or if, perhaps, they weren't actually even worse than their antagonist.

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* [[Blood Knight]] - Ferro. Bremen dan Gorst becomes a more subdued example in ''The Heroes''.

* [[Bolivian Army Ending]] - For {{spoiler|Logen Ninefingers. It's (probably deliberately) unclear whether he survives, although it's worth noting that he survived an almost identical fall at the start of the first novel.}}

** It's worth noting that {{spoiler|Logen was originally a character the author wrote about years before he started this story; ''The First Law'' began as kind of a [[Retcon]] retelling of his misadventures. Basically, he's the main character and this world was built around him, so if you're going to bet on it, he's probably still alive.}}

*** Played with in ''The Heroes'': {{spoiler|his death is kept deliberately unconfirmed, and Dogman uses this to scare the enemy shitless before attacking. His death is still unconfirmed.}}

* [[Book Ends]] - ''The Blade Itself'' begins with {{spoiler|Logen falling in a river from a great height}} and the chapter is called The End. The last chapter of ''Last Argument of Kings'' is called The Beginning and ends exactly in the same way.

** ''Best Served Cold'' begins and ends with a sentence describing "a sunrise the color of bad blood".

** Let's just say a lot of individual POVs in different books end this way. Definitely one of the favorite tropes of the author.

* [[Bow and Sword In Accord]] - Ferro.

* [[Bow and Sword in Accord]] - Ferro.

* [[Brick Joke]] - The Dogman, despite his fame for stealthiness, has a habit of tripping over stumbling over things when silence is vital.

* {{spoiler|[[Brother-Sister Incest]] - Monza and Benna in ''Best Served Cold'' (or, more precisely, before). Shivers is squicked.}}

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** As of ''The Heroes'' {{spoiler|He fits the trope nicely. Worse, he's a Hero.}}

* [[Bullet Time]] - Shenkt in ''Best Served Cold'' can do this.

* [[Chekhov's Gunman]] - {{spoiler|The East Wind (Ishri)}} is first mentioned in ''The Blade Itself'' as one of Khalul's more dangerous disciples, but {{spoiler|she}} doesn't make an appearance until ''Best Served Cold'' and is much more integral in ''The Heroes'' as some sort of {{spoiler|pyrotechnics and weather sorceress.}}

* [[The Chessmaster]] - Bayaz.

* [[Cold-Blooded Torture]] - Several instances in each book, generally performed by Glokta.

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** Played straighter in ''Best Served Cold'', with {{spoiler|Shivers'}} torturers.

* [[Cannot Spit It Out]] - Gorst has been in love with [[Oblivious to Love|Finree]] for years, yet could never muster the courage to confess. {{spoiler|And when he does, he mentions it so off-handedly that it's not clear if she even noticed, caught in her [[What the Hell, Hero?]] rhetoric.}}

* [[Catch Phrase]] -

{{quote|'''Logen''': "You have to be realistic about these things", "Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say he's X", "You can never have too many knives" "I'm still alive", "Shit.".

'''Glokta''': ''Body found floating by the docks...'', "Why do I do this?", "Click, tap, pain", any mention of his teeth.

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** Calder after he loses his father and position.

** Shivers {{spoiler|starts out trying to do the right thing and gradually gives up over the course of Best Served Cold. Losing his eye is the breaking point. By ''The Heroes'', he merits consideration as a candidate for the cruelest character in the series. That's ''no small achievement.''}}

* [[Church Militant]] - The Gurkish Temple, while many civilizations of the world have ''God'', only the Gurkish Temple is headed by a crazy cannibal wizard who thinks that he is God's Right Hand to purify the unbelievers through fire and steel.

* [[Continuity Nod]] - "Oh hey! It's that guy from the trilogy!" Happens numerous times. The dialogue in the stand-alone books also makes plenty of allusions to prior events.

* [[Covers Always Lie]] - The setting of ''Best Served Cold''--obviously modeled after Italy and Spain--as well as the style of the dueling make very clear that Monza's sword is made for fencing, not to mention it being described as thin at one point. Despite this the American hardcover shows Monza with not one but ''two'' arming swords, and the mass-market paperback has a snake curling itself around a ''greatsword'' of all things! As if that weren't bad enough the UK edition--which came out first--very clearly has a rapier on it. [[Insane Troll Logic|Why?]]

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** Also, {{spoiler|Shivers'}} fate in ''Best Served Cold'', although most other characters fare better. Or at least those left alive.

* [[Do You Want to Copulate?]] - "You want to fuck?"

* [[The Dragon]] - Fenris the Feared in the trilogy, Shenkt in ''Best Served Cold'' ({{spoiler|although he turned out to have [[Dragon with an Agenda|an agenda]]}}).

** {{spoiler|Shivers is one to Black Dow in ''The Heroes''... until he turns on him - not because he wants the power, but simply in revenge for bad treatment. Then he becomes one to Calder.}}

* [[Dual-Wielding]] - Jezal dan Luthar and other men of class use a form of swordplay somewhere between the style of the European parrying dagger and Musashi's katana/wakizashi combination, with one vaguely described "long steel" and one "short steel."

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* [[The Empire]] - The Gurkish empire from the south.

* [[Evil Albino]] - Played with in the case of Practical Frost, a large and passive man who just follows Glokta's orders. Played straight with {{spoiler|him again when he betrays Glokta for no real reason.}}

* [[Evil Is Deathly Cold]]: The female Eater Glokta encounters (later revealed to be {{spoiler|Tolomei}}) leaves him with this impression. Given that she has literally {{spoiler|made a [[Deal with the Devil]]}} and implies she has actually been to [[Hell]], this might not be just metaphorical, either.

* [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]] - As explained by Abercrombie [http://writerunboxed.com/2008/09/26/interview-joe-abercrombie-part-3/ here]:

{{quote|"So the Union I based around a kind of Holy Roman Empire (largely Germanic) with some banking and commerce from medieval Flanders and a political system closer to the Venetian Republic. That produced names like Sult, Marovia, Valint and Balk, Bremer dan Gorst. Gurkhul was more like an Ottoman Empire that had absorbed a whole range of Middle-Eastern and African cultures, producing names like Uthman-ul-Dosht, Khalul, Mamun, and Ferro Maljinn. With the North I went for something slightly different, a kind of Viking or Scots culture, but with a northern English tilt to the language, and in which the men were given names when they reached manhood related to some deed they’d done or the place they’d done it — things like Rudd Threetrees, Caul Shivers, Forley the Weakest, and Black Dow."}}

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* [[Fantastic Nuke]] - {{spoiler|The Seed}} in Book 3.

* [[Fantasy World Map]] - averted and spoofed in a very [[Take That]] way (see quote at the trope write up)

** Partially played straight in ''Best Served Cold'', the opening of each section of the book has a map of the locale in Styria that the characters are currently occupying. When pieced together, a coherent map of the continent emerges.

** Justified in ''Best Served Cold'', because the main characters go through about eight different cities, and ''without'' a map it would quickly become confusing to the reader.

** And in ''The Heroes'' we actually get annotated maps of the ebb and flow of battle throughout the book.

* [[A Father to His Men]] - Marshall Burr is this, at least to West.

** Curnden Craw to his dozen.

* [[Five-Man Band]] - the most feared men in the North. {{spoiler|(Threetrees - [[The Hero]], Black Dow - [[The Lancer]], Tul Duru - [[The Big Guy]], Grim - [[The Smart Guy]], Dogman - [[The Chick]].)}} It takes a couple casualties to get them there.

* [[Foreshadowing]] - In ''Best Served Cold,'' {{spoiler|Shivers and another Northman reenact the battle between Logen and Fenris the Feared, a giant.}} In ''The Heroes'', {{spoiler|Shivers gets Logen's sword and kills Black Dow with it--and another giant, Stranger-Come-Knocking, has been introduced...}}

* [[Functional Magic]] - We get this gem from ''The Heroes''

** "Why don't you just use magic?" -Finree

** "Because it's just a lot easier to get people to kill each other." -Bayaz

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* [[Grim Up North]] - the North, played straight.

** "Uh."

* [[Grave Robbing]] - Shanka like it as well as the Gurkish sorcerers, but really no one is ''above'' the practice.

* [[Handicapped Badass]] - Please, don't fuck with Glokta. It won't end well.

* [[Heroes Prefer Swords]] - Logen begins the book with an axe, but while he claims to be equally proficient with all weapons he never lets go of the Maker's sword once he acquires it, and chooses it himself from a very wide selection of weapons. Jezal is a trained duelist and carries [[Dual-Wielding|two]], and Ferro loves her sword almost as much as her bow. The Dogman also picks one up when shooting isn't an option. Of all the trilogy's protagonists, the only one who doesn't use one is Glokta and even he was a masterful duelist and successful cavalry officer in his youth.

** Hell, even Glokta has a {{spoiler|[[Sword Cane]]}}. Sure, it's only used ''once'', but...

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* [[Implacable Man]] - Fenris The Feared.

* [[Insistent Terminology]]: "Fruits". It's always "fruits". From characters of every strata of society, background, and culture, "fruits". You will find no balls, sacks, or even testicles here, just "fruits".

* [[It Gets Easier]] - Logen and the rest of the Named Men basically ''run'' on this trope.

** '''Red''' Beck however is a subversion, after he gets his name he turns his back on the whole business.

* [[It Got Worse]] - Oh boy, did it ever get worse.

* [[It Will Never Catch On]] - Whirrun invents the <s>cheese trap</s> sandwich. No one is impressed.

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* [[The Man Behind the Man]] - A magus. Always a magus. Except when it's a banker. {{spoiler|I lied--still a magus, even then.}}

* [[Manipulative Bastard]] - The series is overflowing with them, but Bayaz takes first prize.

* [[The Magic Goes Away]] - Slowly but surely. At present, though, both magi and Eaters retain quite a bit of power.

** It's not very clear that [[The Magic Goes Away]] affects the [[Powered by a Forsaken Child]] Eaters (the contrary is implicit in Mammun's words). And the Maker's work is stated not to fade with time. So it's a subverted trope, really.

*** Not quite, since Bayaz at least seems to consider the Maker's work as [[Clarks Third Law|sufficiently advanced science]]; magic is explicitly power drawn from The Other Side, and the Maker's work is explicitly ''not'' from The Other Side. And Mammun states that the magic ''is'' going away even if he and his fellow Eater's are not affected by it (yet). And given how [[Ax Crazy]] [[I'm a Humanitarian|Mammun]] is, he could be an [[Unreliable Narrator|unreliable source]], either outright lying or too insane to notice his slowly fading power. But even if they are the exception, the trope is still otherwise in effect.

* [[Magic Versus Science]] - A war not particularly desired by anyone whose torch is nonetheless carried valiantly by Morveer. And even then, the lines are blurry. {{spoiler|As the magic is supposedly leaking from the world, Bayaz seems to have no problem turning to science. If it can help him crush his enemies, he's all for it.}}

* [[Master Poisoner]] - Morveer

* [[Mismatched Eyes]] - Yoru Sulfur. It's the only thing he keeps when he [[Shapeshifting|changes form]].

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* [[No Doubt the Years Have Changed Me]] - {{spoiler|Sergeant Pike, aka Salem Rews,}} to Glokta.

* [[No Immortal Inertia]] - Eaters usually turn to dust when they are killed.

* [[Nostalgia Filter]] - A ''lot'' of Northmen like to imagine that everything was glorious before Bethod set out to make himself king. Only a few characters point out that the "good old days" were even ''more'' pointlessly bloody than the present.

* [[Only Sane Man]] - West, during the Angland campaign. {{spoiler|Subverted when he snaps, bites a man's nose off in a berserker rage, and then calmly murders the Crown Prince.}}

* [[Our Ghouls Are Creepier]] - The Eaters.

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* [[Smug Snake]] - Castor Morveer.

* [[Son of a Whore]] - {{spoiler|Jezal}}.

* [[The Stoic]] - Harding Grim, also an [[The Archer|Archer]]. Shivers after his... ''accident''.

* [[The Straight Will and Grace]] - Curnden Craw and Wonderful in ''The Heroes''.

* [[Sociopathic Hero]]: - Ferro, Black Dow, The Bloody-Nine, eventually, {{spoiler|Shivers}}, although the "hero" part is <s>debatable</s>practically non-existent.

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[[Category:Fantasy Literature]]

~~[[Category~~:~~The~~ First Law]]

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