Understanding Abercrombie's character hype

Submitted by Aplakka t3_zt2eno in books

I'm trying to understand what is the reason for everyone telling that Abercrombie's characters are better than anything before or after the invention of sliced bread. I'm not telling that they are bad characters, I am just genuinely trying to understand why they are liked _so_ much. Maybe this is because I'm not native English speaker and I'm missing something? Could you please explain me the reasons for liking your favorite First Law characters?

Whenever fantasy books are mentioned, generally many fans will be telling everyone to read Joe Abercrombie because his characters are absolutely awesome in every way even though they behave in every horrible way possible.

I have now read the First Law trilogy. I'm still trying to figure out why people are hyping up Abercrombie's characters that much. Probably a lot of my annoyance is hype blackslash. Based on Abercrombie fans, I expected to have the characters actually manifest in my apartment and at the very least to wash all my dishes, or at the very least be a lot better than anything I have ever seen.

Overall I did reasonably enjoy the trilogy. The world does have its points and the plot was cool once it eventually got started around the second book. The ending made me suitably depressed about everything. I just expected more based on everyone hyping it so much. It's just... Yes they are horrible people doing horrible things. But then what makes them awesome? Could you please explain what I missed with each point of view character? Should I continue reading Abercrombie?

Spoilers for The First Law trilogy:

- Logen Ninefingers: In the end I felt like he just didn't achieve enough. He was almost going to improve himself after finally doing something useful and understanding the horrible things he had done so far. But in the he just ended up falling from a cliff just like he did at the start of the trilogy, ironically cancelling everything he had developed. I guess his fate was supposed to be a tragic echo or something?

- Collem West: He develops during the series, then he randomly dies from disease during the ending and gets nothing from his development.

- Ardee West: Okay yeah she was cool I guess, developing during the trilogy and I understand her motivations.

- Ferro Maljinn: She wasn't that interesting, felts like she might develop somewhere as a character but then at the end she returns to randomly avenging people like she did at the beginning of the trilogy, just with more powers now.

- Dogman: I just didn't get what his point was, he was mostly around for others to die around him.

- Jezal dan Luthar: Okay now I get why people like Abercrombie's characters. He developed from an arrogant noble asshole into a king with a lot of troubles.

- Savine dan Glokta: Okay yeah I get it why Glokta is the favorite of many people. He's awesomely horrible and horribly awesome, no problems here.

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wjbc t1_j1bcj8c wrote

>Probably a lot of my annoyance is hype blackslash.

Yep. Clearly you heard too much hype.

What I like about Abercrombie's characters is the mix of good and bad. He makes me feel for bad people because it's a world full of bad people and difficult choices. Also, there's a lot of black humor and badassery involved.

Glokta's private thoughts are full of black humor. If I were not privy to his thoughts he would just be a conniving torturer.

Logen is such a badass that I love to see him let loose even though he's just as likely to kill friend as foe. He's literally insane, but he is a badass. And yes, in the end he doesn't accomplish anything. That's Abercrombie's black humor at work.

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Aplakka OP t1_j1bdynh wrote

Yeah I agree, there's a lot of difficult choices, badassery, black humor, etc. That's what kept me reading the trilogy.

I guess I just didn't understand Abercrombie's black humor about Logen just failing in the end, it just seemed too "Aristocrats!" to me :P

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wjbc t1_j1bew8e wrote

Abercrombie is the most nihilistic fantasy author I know. In the end he doesn't offer a glimmer of hope or heroism. West is the most heroic character in the trilogy, so of course Abercrombie gives him a random and meaningless death.

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Aplakka OP t1_j1bgp9q wrote

Makes sense... Maybe this kind of "no glimmer of hope" stuff just isn't for me.

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wjbc t1_j1bi6sg wrote

I recommend the three standalone novels. I may like them even better than the first trilogy.

But you might want to skip the last trilogy. It really doubles down on the lack of hope.

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Aplakka OP t1_j1biq3k wrote

Thanks for the recommendations!

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arkaic7 t1_j1gnlfn wrote

I think "nihilistic" is a little much. He's not that dark of an author. Reading the first trilogy, I find he does pull some of his punches. There were some places he could have gone, but didn't. In the end, I felt the tone was YAish with R rated violence.

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wjbc t1_j1hhoja wrote

Have you read the second trilogy?

Also, what author is more nihilistic? Maybe that’s not an author I know.

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arkaic7 t1_j1iu8r4 wrote

I was thinking more along the lines of tone. Like brutality of song of ice and fire or Bakker's Second Apocalypse. I find Abercrombie more cynical and darkly humorous

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wjbc t1_j1iui47 wrote

I haven’t read Bakker. But I don’t consider aSoIaF to be nihilistic. There’s a definite sense of good and evil in George R.R. Martin’s work. It’s brutal, but not nihilistic.

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arkaic7 t1_j1v2e27 wrote

In asoiaf, for me, the nihilism comes out of the realism in the events of the story, just like the randomness of real life, which makes me think there isnt anything behind the scenes. Things just play out regardless and you can never expect a happy ending that doesn't get paired with the most evil of things.

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RespectableRedditor_ t1_j1c139s wrote

For me it's that everyone feels like a real human. Their motivations feel legit, their flaws make sense. I like every one of his characters in some way. There's never one that I'm like "oh no a bran chapter."

I also think that they just have a lot of personality. I think a real problem with fantasy characters is they can be quite bland / predictable. But you get the epic tales and badass battles, etc. With Joe Abercrombie, for me at least, I actually stick around for the characters. The stories are cool, don't get me wrong, but I legit will laugh at their jokes and shit while I listen, these people are interesting. Can't say I ever laughed at a character's joke in wheel of time or LOTR.

I really liked First Law but his later books are even better and definitely worth a read if you even moderately enjoyed First Law.

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Aplakka OP t1_j24u6e1 wrote

It's true that they have personality, feel very distinct, etc. But while I enjoyed many of them, I did occasionally feel like "oh no a Ferro chapter." Also I feel that I'm probably not as character focused reader as many Abercrombie fans. I felt like some characters such as Ferro should have changed more during the story.

Several people have said that the later books get better, so maybe I should continue after all. I am interested in finding out which direction the world is going.

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HunterRoze t1_j1bnuhn wrote

To me, it's two big things - unique characters and backgrounds AND how few tropes he uses. All too often within pages, I can tell how a book will go - not with Abercombie.

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Aplakka OP t1_j1boxe1 wrote

He for sure is unpredictable, like ending the second book in the trilogy with most of the book being a waste of time (some of it was useful in the third book though).

I just don't understand what's the deal with everyone hyping the characters: What are the factors that make the characters awesome?

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HunterRoze t1_j1btk1i wrote

They are unique and do not follow well-established tropes for their roles.

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Aplakka OP t1_j24uzqn wrote

That's true. Maybe I'm not giving enough credit for that. Or maybe I kind of thought of the trope subversion etc. as a part of the plot or worldbuilding, but it is a significant part of the characters too.

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a_bear_there_was t1_j1bgxx2 wrote

If forget where I read it, but Abercrombie acknowledges these issues himself. It was probably in an interview or in the author's notes in one of the books. He's pretty honest about the fact that he's riding a wave of "grimdark" fantasy being popular in the wider culture, and it's not something he invented.

I don't know how much fantasy you read in the 90s and early 2000s. There's a huge swath of what I tend to think of as Lord of the Rings fan-fiction. Not that a lot of those books aren't good, and very entertaining to read, but they are obviously and totally buying into the sort of framing that you got in LotR.

That is, there is good and there is evil, and it's very obvious which is which. A lot of the characters tend to be ancient and powerful, and they are always true to their nature. There are noble kings, and powerful wizards, greedy dwarves, and wise elves, and so on and so forth.

Also, usually there's a hero's journey that is very explicit. The naive farm boy becomes the chosen one who saves the world, etc.

Abercrombie's books, and the First Law especially are basically just a rejection of that kind of fantasy. They're not making a wider point about how the world really is, but they are exploring parts of human nature that those books never could.

Does that make him a master of character? Not really. I think there are a lot of novel writers that do that better. But he is bringing something refreshing to the fantasy genre at least.

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Aplakka OP t1_j1bhyuh wrote

Overall I agree that it's cool that Abercrombie is subverting hero's journey etc. It's just that from my point of view it seems that people keep telling me that I need to ignore everything else and just love his characters. I just don't see why his character work would be _that_ amazing.

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Ok-Spray2 t1_j1d6agz wrote

Unsolicited advice: Don't be swayed by others' great opinions of fantasy books. It's a genre where people exaggerate all opinions to the max and it has a younger audience, who feel a greater need for self-validation through their tastes. If you don't think it's the best thing you've ever read, it's probably because it isn't, and that's okay.

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Aplakka OP t1_j24uklz wrote

Yeah I generally try to not care too much if others like/dislike something differently than I do. In this case it just sometimes feels like I'm missing some sort of punchline that others are seeing and got curious.

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Hartastic t1_j1eacsm wrote

Probably you did mainline too much hype. That said...

  • He does a good job of writing the characters and their voice very distinctly. He doesn't need to tell you which character is talking, for example -- it's obvious.

  • In Abercrombie's novels, as in life, things don't always go great for the characters. Sometimes their deaths or endings aren't especially noble or heroic. Sometimes they try to become a better person and fail. Sometimes a character thinks they're a pretty good person, but the people around them who have to live with the consequences of their actions have a different view. Your tolerance or enthusiasm for these kinds of things probably has a lot of influence on how well you like Abercrombie's characters.

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Aplakka OP t1_j24yc2l wrote

It is true that the characters are very distinct from each other, I have to give him that.

Maybe part of it is that I'm just not that into grimdark as a genre, because at some point I get "grimness exhaustion" where I feel that if everything is miserable and pointless for the characters, it starts to feel pointless as a reader to continue reading.

But there are cases where I do like tragic things. I actually did like the point where Logen was told that his bloodlust had effectively forced King Bethod to rebellion by killing people Bethod tried to negotiate with etc. It did bring the earlier mentions of successful duels etc. to a different light, while fitting his character.

With Logen I was mainly annoyed at the ending cliffhanger (or cliffjumper maybe?), it just felt a bit too "on the nose" as a bookend for the start of the trilogy, and not the type of conclusion that I like. I think it partly soured me on him retroactively.

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FridaysMan t1_j1cd71u wrote

Just one bit here, Sand Dan Glokta is the father. Savine is the daughter in the Age of Madness trilogy.

The characters in the third trilogy are really much better. For me the first law is a great story, but not great writing initially. I love how there are so many reluctant or incompetent leaders, and everyone just feels human with understandable self deception and flaws. The nice people turn out to be assholes in a lot of cases, and the assholes turn out to have really kind moments as well.

I disagree on the tropes though, Abercrombie is quite a master of taking a very standard trope and then subverting it. He uses them repeatedly.

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Aplakka OP t1_j24w2op wrote

You're right, I copy pasted it from a Wiki list of PoV characters and got the wrong one.

Those are good points. The characters often do have plenty of shades of grey, and there are a lot of trope subversions, such as the great wise wizard not being very nice in the end.

I think I may have gotten too focused on some characters feeling like they didn't change enough during the story (e.g. Ferro) or just having somewhat pointless feeling fates (e.g. Collem West). Maybe it's just part of grimdark genre where pointless bad things happening to (somewhat) good people is just normal. As people have listed, there are a lot of good things.

Many people have said the later books continue improving, so maybe I should continue.

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TheGreatDragonOfDawn t1_j1cqgd1 wrote

I agree with you. Glokta is fantastic, but the rest are ok. The rest are good, but that’s it imo.

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Aplakka OP t1_j24wqji wrote

Glad to find that I'm not the only one who didn't enjoy every character :D Although most of them did have quite good elements, for some I'm more annoyed about the ending rather than the journey.

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CycleResponsible7328 t1_j1e7yf1 wrote

The writer Abercrombie reminds me of the most is Elmore Leonard. He writes fantasy with the same sharp eye for criminal behavior and ethics and the plots that result from them. That’s fairly novel in fantasy.

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Aplakka OP t1_j24wa2w wrote

I haven't read Elmore Leonard, but thanks for the recommendation. Looks like one of his stories was adapted to Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, so it sounds interesting.

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Executioneer t1_j1f6y07 wrote

For me, its that everyone feels real and authentic. They are not the heroes in shining armour, nor generic dark lords or villains. They all have good and bad in them. Even the 'old mentor' trope has a twist. Bayaz is an asshole and power hungry, callously pragmatic, full of dark secrets.

Its a fucked up world full of interesting, real people, trying their best to survive while Bayaz and Khalul are playing their games of power behind the curtains.

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Aplakka OP t1_j24wj2c wrote

All good points, and I agree. Maybe I was just feeling overly annoyed when I wrote the post, because I keep agreeing with majority of things that people say.

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