A vain, lazy, self-regarding nobleman whose talent with a sword is the only thing he has worked for, and even that mostly because it offers social advancement rather than out of any love for the craft. Jezal begins the trilogy as one of the least sympathetic protagonists in fantasy and ends it as something more complicated. His arc is the most conventionally structured of the three - the journey that should make him a better person - but Abercrombie's refusal to let the journey deliver its expected payoff is one of the trilogy's most pointed observations. What happens to Jezal is not what the story of Jezal suggests should happen to Jezal.

A Named Man from the North - one of the most feared warriors alive, with nine fingers and a reputation for survival that has outlasted everyone who tried to end it. Logen has spent his life fighting and is very good at it, which is not something he is proud of. He is trying to be better than he has been, with limited success. The problem is the Bloody-Nine: something that takes over when Logen is cornered, a killing fury that he cannot control and cannot always remember. His arc across the trilogy is a sustained examination of whether people can change, and Abercrombie's answer is characteristically uncomfortable. He is one of the great characters in modern fantasy precisely because his decency and his violence are both entirely convincing.

A crippled Inquisitor who was once the most celebrated swordsman in the Union - winner of the Contest at eighteen, celebrated throughout Adua, the kind of young man who expects the world to keep giving him things. Then he was captured by the Gurkish, spent two years in their prisons, and came back unable to walk properly, unable to eat solid food, in constant pain, and in possession of a very clear understanding of what people will say under sufficient duress. He applies the same methods to his work for the Inquisition with a mixture of professional efficiency and caustic self-awareness that makes him one of the most compelling POV characters in fantasy. Glokta knows exactly what he is. He just can't see a way to be anything else.

The First of the Magi, one of the most powerful practitioners of the Art in the world, who arrives in Adua claiming to be the legendary founder of the Union and demanding access to the royal library. He is old, irritable, occasionally charming, and completely accustomed to getting what he wants. Bayaz announces himself as a figure out of legend, but a thousand-year absence has left even those closest to the crown uncertain how much of the wizard's history is true and how much has accreted around the name.

A former slave from the Gurkish Empire with golden eyes, exceptional combat ability, and a hatred of the Gurkish so deep and consuming that it has become her entire identity. Ferro does not trust anyone, does not want anyone's help, and is not interested in friendship or alliance - she is interested in killing Gurkish. She joins Bayaz's group reluctantly and remains reluctant throughout. Her arc is about what happens when the thing that keeps you alive - pure, focused hatred - is also the thing preventing you from living. She is one of Abercrombie's most uncompromising characters and one of his most affecting.