A disgraced royal duelist reassigned to the humiliating role of royal observer at the battle in The Heroes, which means he watches the fighting rather than participating in it. Gorst is the finest swordsman in the Union - possibly in the world - and is entirely aware that his skills are wasted in his current role. His interior monologue, bitter and self-lacerating, is one of Abercrombie's funniest and most uncomfortable achievements: a man consumed by violent fantasies who applies to them the same sardonic intelligence he applies to everything else. In combat he becomes something else entirely.

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.

Head of the King's Inquisition and one of the most powerful men in the Union. Immaculately dressed and ruthlessly political, he wields the Inquisition as a weapon against his rivals on the Closed Council.

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.

The self-styled King of the Northmen and Logen Ninefingers' former master. Bethod clawed his way from nothing to unite the fractious North through a combination of military genius, ruthless politics, and men like Logen doing his killing. By the time the trilogy begins he is the main antagonist driving events in the North - a cold, calculating ruler who has discarded everyone who helped him rise.

A terrifying, inhuman giant covered in magical runes on his left side. He serves as Bethod's champion and envoy, and his appearance alone is enough to unsettle hardened warriors.

Collem West's sharp-tongued, unconventional sister who drinks too much and reads too widely for polite society. Her caustic intelligence and refusal to perform the role expected of a woman in Adua make her both magnetic and self-destructive.

A Named Man from the North and one of Bethod's most feared warriors, Black Dow is everything the North respects - brutal, honest about what he is, and capable of surviving anything. His arc extends through the standalones and Age of Madness, where he becomes a significant power in his own right. The North's opinion of him is complicated: he is hated and followed in roughly equal measure.

An exuberant, self-aggrandising Navigator hired by Bayaz. He claims remarkable talents in languages and travel, and talks about himself with boundless enthusiasm.

Bethod's younger son, with none of his father's reputation for violence and all of his father's appetite for power. Calder survives by scheming where other Northmen survive by fighting - he is contemptuous of the heroic ideal and considerably more effective for it. His arc across The Heroes and into the Age of Madness is one of the series' more satisfying long games.

Magister of the Guild of Spicers and a member of the ruling council in Dagoska. Beautiful, confident, and politically astute, she navigates the city's conspiracies with skill.

A young refugee woman with an educated voice and empty, fearless eyes. She joins West's column after fleeing the destruction of her home.

A Northman who tries to go south and be a better man - to leave the violence of the North behind and become something else. He fails, but the manner of his failure and what it costs him make him one of the most interesting characters in the series. Shivers appears first in Best Served Cold as Monza's hired muscle and grows into a recurring presence across the standalones and Age of Madness, each appearance showing him further from who he wanted to be. His arc is the purest expression of the series' central theme: people do not change, and the things that happen to them tend to make them more themselves rather than less.

A Union army officer of common birth who has risen through the ranks on merit, which the nobility around him find faintly embarrassing. West is competent, decent, and perpetually caught between the realities of military command and the political nonsense that surrounds it. He is Jezal's friend and effectively his keeper in the early books - the person who covers for him and quietly despairs of him. His own arc, largely set in the military campaigns of the second and third books, is quieter than the other POV characters but accumulates genuine weight. West is the closest thing the trilogy has to a straightforwardly good man, and Abercrombie treats that with appropriate caution.

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.

A nervous, timid member of the Northern crew who tries to make peace and avoid violence. He earned his unfortunate name honestly.

Tall, gaunt, hard Union general with close-cropped grey hair. Meticulous and dour, his feud with Poulder is one of the campaign's greatest liabilities.

Round-faced, ruddy Union general with tremendous moustaches. Vain and boastful, his bitter rivalry with Kroy hampers the war effort.