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The First Law

1076 statements
212 feature instances
117 referencing feature instances

The First Law	type	TVTItem
The First Law	label	The First Law
The First Law	page	thefirstlaw
The First Law	comment	Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_content_3'); })The First Law is a series of Low Fantasy novels and short-stories written by British writer Joe Abercrombie. They are characterized by extreme grittiness, grim wit, being on the far cynical hand of the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism, and the intention to subvert and deconstruct a certain number of Fantasy tropes.The first three novels form a trilogy; the remaining stories are stand-alone (and some have their own pages). The novels are: The Blade Itself Before They are Hanged The Last Argument of Kings Best Served Cold The Heroes Red CountrySharp Ends, a short fiction collection, appeared in April 2016. The stories in it take place throughout the timelines of all six novels.The setting is a fictional world that mimics several facets of the ancient to classical world. The action takes place mostly in, and regards people from, a central realm known as the Union, a region beset upon on all sides by savages and orc stand-ins from the North (not just a direction, but the name of the continent, according to Union cartographers and Northmen), the mighty Gurkhish Empire to the south, mercenary bands from the continent of Styria to the southeast, and the machinations of the crumbling magocratic Old Empire in the far west. The Union appears to be in a state of near-perpetual war, constantly maneuvered into seemingly useless conflicts by an uncompromisingly proud foreign policy.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_content_2'); })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 the above. It's a world that's not merely filled with bad people; it actively turns the good and the decent into them . Survival is no mean 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.In August 2016, the author confirmed that the next installment will be a cycle of three trilogies, which will be set twenty-five to thirty year after the events of the original trilogy in a world moving towards early industrialisation. The focus will be on a new cast of characters, though previously established ones will make appearances.
The First Law	fetched	2018-10-14T11:58:35Z
The First Law	parsed	2020-06-25T17:23:10Z
The First Law	processingComment	Dropped link to AFateWorseThanDeath: Not a Feature - UNKNOWN
The First Law	processingComment	Dropped link to BestServedCold: Not a Feature - ITEM
The First Law	processingComment	Dropped link to RedCountry: Not a Feature - ITEM
The First Law	processingComment	Dropped link to ShaggyDogStory: Not a Feature - ITEM
The First Law	processingComment	Dropped link to TheHeroes: Not a Feature - ITEM
The First Law	processingComment	Dropped link to lampshadehanging: Not a Feature - UNKNOWN
The First Law	processingUnknown	AFateWorseThanDeath
The First Law	processingUnknown	Lampshade Hanging
The First Law	isPartOf	DBTropes
The First Law / int_1237828f	type	AnyoneCanDie
The First Law / int_1237828f	comment	Anyone Can Die: The Heroes, mostly, but also present a bit in the trilogy.
The First Law / int_1237828f	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_1237828f	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_153299b4	type	BoisterousBruiser
The First Law / int_153299b4	comment	Boisterous Bruiser: Javre in Sharp Ends loves fighting, drinking and fornicating.
The First Law / int_153299b4	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_153299b4	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_157c6c4f	type	My Grandson, Myself
The First Law / int_157c6c4f	comment	Somewhat overlapping with My Grandson Myself, Bayaz claims, apparently truthfully, that following his disappearance centuries before, he's been returning to the Union under different identities to serve as advisers to various kings. Of particular note, he was also Arch Lector Zoller, the notoriously harsh founder of the Inquisition. He's also both Valint and Balk.
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The First Law / int_157c6c4f	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_1869b4b1	type	UnreliableNarrator
The First Law / int_1869b4b1	comment	Unreliable Narrator: In Best Served Cold, Morveer often thinks about his mother's death and how it has traumatized him, and we sort of sympathize with him as he recalls how he was bullied in the orphanage. That is, until we find out that he actually poisoned his mother, as well as just about every person he ever had more than a passing acquaintance with.
The First Law / int_1869b4b1	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_1869b4b1	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_19d06ef7	type	A Father to His Men
The First Law / int_19d06ef7	comment	A Father to His Men: Marshall Burr is this, at least to West. Curnden Craw to his dozen.
The First Law / int_19d06ef7	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_19d06ef7	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_1a303edf	type	Our Orcs Are Different
The First Law / int_1a303edf	comment	Our Orcs Are Different: The Shanka are essentially orcs in everything but name.
The First Law / int_1a303edf	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_1a303edf	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_1b5fa24a	type	The Brute
The First Law / int_1b5fa24a	comment	The Brute: With his brawny physique and Lightning Bruiser fighting style, Bremer dan Gorst is built up to be this, but turns out to be a very humble and respectful man in his interactions with Jezal. He fits the trope better in The Heroes, after he's become bitter and bloodthirsty. Practical Frost is the muscle for Glokta.
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The First Law / int_1ba17583	type	The Ghost
The First Law / int_1ba17583	comment	The Ghost: Khalul.
The First Law / int_1ba17583	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_1bf4581	type	Being Tortured Makes You Evil
The First Law / int_1bf4581	comment	Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Deconstructed with Glokta; he was the military's golden boy until he was captured and viciously tortured. His choice to turn to torturing as his own profession isn't motivated by evil, but by pragmatism; he's badly crippled and unable to make use of any of his Master Swordsman skills, but his experiences give him an excellent first-hand knowledge of how to break people. Torturing for the Inquisition is the only way he has to make a living. As the series goes on, Glokta develops a pretty strong conscience in spite of his brutal methods, which is in stark contrast to the shallow asshole he was in his youth. In Best Served Cold, Shivers is a straight example, although more realistic than most. He tries to be a good man, but circumstances drive him to increasingly amoral action. In the end, though, his mutilation at the hands of his torturers leads him to snap much harder than he would have otherwise. He loses pretty much all his compassion for the rest of humanity, thanks in part to a side order of Then Let Me Be Evil, and becomes one of the most terrifying characters in the series.
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The First Law / int_1c3423d6	type	The Quest
The First Law / int_1c3423d6	comment	The Quest: The focus of most of the second volume, subverted when they do not find the McGuffin at the end of their journey.
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The First Law / int_1c5002bc	type	The Stoic
The First Law / int_1c5002bc	comment	The Stoic: Harding Grim, also an Archer. Shivers after his... accident.
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The First Law / int_20860a0e	type	Punch-Clock Villain
The First Law / int_20860a0e	comment	Punch-Clock Villain: A very common occurrence. Hired thugs are often motivated not by a nefarious scheme, but simply because they've been hired to do a job and don't see any alternatives to make a living. In the North, Logen often notes how various Named Men find themselves on different sides of a battle purely by circumstance, even after fighting side-by-side in the past.
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The First Law / int_2139c878	type	Church Militant
The First Law / int_2139c878	comment	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 (though it's implied that Khalul uses his station as Prophet to control the Empire, much like how Bayaz has a permanent seat on the Union's Closed Council).
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The First Law / int_21d70919	type	Crapsack World
The First Law / int_21d70919	comment	Crapsack World: Not just a shitty place to live, but a place that actively makes decent people shittier.
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The First Law / int_22071825	type	I'm a Humanitarian
The First Law / int_22071825	comment	I'm a Humanitarian: The Second Law is about eating the flesh of people, and the Eaters have broken it. Grants superhuman abilities, including differing levels of increased speed and strength. Aside from the speed and strength, some are given unique abilities like taking on the form of the eaten or use of High Art.
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The First Law / int_2207b002	type	Ambiguously Brown
The First Law / int_2207b002	comment	Ambiguously Brown: The magus Bayaz's servant Yoru Sulfur is described by another character as having a somewhat ethnically ambiguous appearance, being darker skinned than is the norm for someone in the Union (a European Fantasy Counterpart Culture) but lighter than people from the neighboring Gurkhal (The Empire, home to people of Arabic and African appearance). This ties into Sulfur's blandly pleasant manner and blandly pleasant features that make him The Nondescript, able to fit in everywhere. It's implied that the ambiguity relates to the fact that like his master, Sulfur is Really 700 Years Old, and thus came from a culture which no longer exists. Temple, one of the main protagonists of Red Country is darker skinned than most of the cast and other characters wonder (sometimes offensively) at his ethnicity. At one point, Temple asserts that he's the Son of a Whore and that his mother was Dagoskan (which evokes both India under the British Raj and Constantinople) and his father was a Styrian (a stand in for Italy during The City State Era) mercenary.
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The First Law / int_22cf536c	type	Chekhov's Gun
The First Law / int_22cf536c	comment	Chekhov's Gun: Red Country mentions a few times that Iasiv has yet to make his finest performance, which he finally makes by the end. Also, the Mayor's contract with the Empire that Temple writes.
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The First Law / int_230d64	type	Screw the Rules, I Have Money!
The First Law / int_230d64	comment	Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: The Banking House of Valint and Balk. It's the primary means through which Bayaz maintains his influence over the world and its inhabitants.
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The First Law / int_23781532	type	Ironic Name
The First Law / int_23781532	comment	Ironic Name/ Ironic Nickname: Often used or played with throughout the series: The Northman Jolly Yon is naturally a Perpetual Frowner. Friendly is a deadpan psychopath (albeit one who realizes he has a problem, tries not to hurt people and is generally very polite). Lamb is a meek townsman who adopted that persona to suppress his true identity as Logen "The Bloody Nine" Ninefingers. Shy South is an abrasive tsundere.
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The First Law / int_23ff95fb	type	Brutal Honesty
The First Law / int_23ff95fb	comment	When Glokta mutters to himself about bad things happening to him after he is independently betrayed by both Frost and Severard with Ardee nearby, she answers with Brutal Honesty:
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The First Law / int_24321e44	type	Only Sane Man
The First Law / int_24321e44	comment	Only Sane Man: West, during the Angland campaign.
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The First Law / int_25b7257f	type	Red Right Hand
The First Law / int_25b7257f	comment	Red Right Hand: Yoru Sulfur has mismatched eyes, one blue, one green. It's mentioned every time he appears. It's the only thing he keeps when he changes form.
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The First Law / int_263bb4ec	type	Wave-Motion Gun
The First Law / int_263bb4ec	comment	Wave Motion Gun: Wave Motion Vortex Spell Of Death
The First Law / int_263bb4ec	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_263bb4ec	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_266a9dd6	type	Heel–Faith Turn
The First Law / int_266a9dd6	comment	Heel–Faith Turn: Temple from Red Country. Oh so much.
The First Law / int_266a9dd6	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_266a9dd6	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_26d2817c	type	Russian Reversal
The First Law / int_26d2817c	comment	Russian Reversal: In a short story, Jolly Yon asks Whirrun of Bligh if he ever sharpens the Father of Swords. Whirrun replies, "It sharpens me."
The First Law / int_26d2817c	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_28114487	type	Bald of Evil
The First Law / int_28114487	comment	Bald of Evil: Logen should have known better than to trust a man with no hair.
The First Law / int_28114487	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_2ae29c0d	type	The Dreaded
The First Law / int_2ae29c0d	comment	The Dreaded: The aptly named Fenris the Feared, though he's ironically a unknown entity prior to Bethod's invasion of Angland. Logen Ninefingers is the most feared man in the North. Black Dow is known as a merciless bastard. Even in a company of famous Named Men, it's Dow's name they usually use to make threats. In The Heroes, Craw notes that, these days, there are no harder names in the North than Cracknut Whirrun.
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The First Law / int_2cd22076	type	Fantastic Drug
The First Law / int_2cd22076	comment	Fantastic Drug: Aside from alcohol, there seem to be two main vices in Abercrombie's world: husk, which appears to be an expy of opium, and chagga, a weed smoked by the Northerners and frequently chewed by Cosca's motley band of mercenaries, which seems to combine elements of both marijuana and tobacco.
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The First Law / int_2cd6b637	type	Fantastic Nuke
The First Law / int_2cd6b637	comment	Fantastic Nuke: The Seed in Book 3, down to a mysterious illness very similar to radiation poisoning.
The First Law / int_2cd6b637	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_2cd6b637	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_2d4fa515	type	Ax-Crazy
The First Law / int_2d4fa515	comment	Logen in his Bloody-Nine persona is an Ax-Crazy
The First Law / int_2d4fa515	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_2d4fa515	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_2dc0d2bf	type	Hidden Depths
The First Law / int_2dc0d2bf	comment	Hidden Depths: In spite of being a hulking, laconic brute with a speech impediment, Practical Frost occasionally displays historical knowledge and a dry wit. He also has beautiful penmanship. In spite of barely ever talking (and being a Captain Obvious when he does speak up), Grim reveals that he speaks the Common Tongue without accent and gives an eloquent eulogy for Rudd Threetrees.
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The First Law / int_2f62653b	type	Borrowed Catchphrase
The First Law / int_2f62653b	comment	Borrowed Catchphrase: Characters often repeat Logen's various catchphrases. After Logen has come to her aid, Ferro intercepts him and expresses her satisfaction that he is still alive. Shev recalls that someone in Squaredeal told her that you can never have too many knives.
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The First Law / int_30085ea8	type	Can't Use Stairs
The First Law / int_30085ea8	comment	Can't Use Stairs: The anti-heroic Torture Technician Inquisitor Glotka was himself previously the victim of debilitating torture, with the result that while he can use stairs, it causes him agonizing pain, since his torturers smashed bones in his legs and feet and cut off his toes. He jokes to himself that if he could torture any man, it would be the inventor of stairs (and that if he could shake the hands of any man, it would be the inventor of chairs).
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The First Law / int_30c40e9a	type	Deconstructor Fleet
The First Law / int_30c40e9a	comment	Deconstructor Fleet: One of fantasy's best. By the time of Red Country, Abercrombie is Deconstructing himself.
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The First Law / int_312b02ac	type	Lipstick Lesbian
The First Law / int_312b02ac	comment	Lipstick Lesbian: Terez and her lifelong friend turned lover, Lady Shalere. Shevedieh's longtime crush Karkov is implied to be one, though her sexuality may be negotiable based on her current needs.
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The First Law / int_3149c4b0	type	It Will Never Catch On
The First Law / int_3149c4b0	comment	It Will Never Catch On: Whirrun invents the sandwich by slicing bread using The Father of Swords and sticking cheese between the slices. He presents his creation to the group, but it falls apart in his hands, and no one is impressed.
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The First Law / int_315dfcb0	type	Bow and Sword in Accord
The First Law / int_315dfcb0	comment	Bow and Sword, in Accord: Ferro.
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The First Law / int_32da548d	type	Arch-Enemy
The First Law / int_32da548d	comment	Arch-Enemy: Bayaz and Khalul.
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The First Law / int_347e35d6	type	Grim Up North
The First Law / int_347e35d6	comment	The above meaning there are three levels of Grim Up North, each one more northern and grimmer than the last.
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The First Law / int_34dcfc96	type	KickTheDog
The First Law / int_34dcfc96	comment	The final short story of Sharp Ends hinges around Logen's ultimate Kick the Dog moment, and sets the stage for why he and Bethod are opposite sides of a war during the opening of the trilogy.
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The First Law / int_362461f6	type	Sex Slave
The First Law / int_362461f6	comment	In the original trilogy, there's a scene where Jezal and co. bond over their respective stories and Logen and Longfoot tell stories about how they got theirs. All goes well until Longfellow presses Ferro on how she got hers, and she reveals she scarred herself as a way of spiting her owner, who was using her as a Sex Slave and would have sold her for that purpose.
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The First Law / int_3a1c2171	type	The Man Behind the Man
The First Law / int_3a1c2171	comment	The Man Behind the Man: Pretty much all of the conflicts throughout the books have their root in rival magi battling each other through numerous intermediaries.
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The First Law / int_3b113b7	type	Character Development
The First Law / int_3b113b7	comment	Character Development: Often lampshades. Some characters develop throughout the books and comment on their changes. Others will strive hard to change their ways only to lament that they're the same person they always were. Lots for Jezal dan Luthar, constantly steering him from one direction to another. Monza during her revenge. Calder after he loses his father and position. Shivers 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. But even after that, he's still not pure evil, evidenced by the finale of the Red Country. Temple in Red Country manages to overcome his cowardice and avoid the fate Cosca has in mind for him, finally settling down with Shy in a small town and running a shop, having left the mercenaries behind.
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The First Law / int_3b5fcbb7	type	Artifact of Doom
The First Law / int_3b5fcbb7	comment	Artifact of Doom: The Seed, also a MacGuffin.
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The First Law / int_3bb487aa	type	King Bob the Nth
The First Law / int_3bb487aa	comment	King Bob the Nth: King Guslav V, High King of the Union.
The First Law / int_3bb487aa	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_3cb17a19	type	SuperpoweredEvilSide
The First Law / int_3cb17a19	comment	Superpowered Evil Side: Logen Ninefingers is a pretty decent guy and a powerful warrior, but his split personality the Bloody-Nine is a nigh-indestructible personification of violence. When a battle gets too tough, Logen is prone to suffering a Split-Personality Takeover, where the Bloody-Nine takes over and kills everything in his field of vision. It's unclear whether this personality is supernatural in origin. In Best Served Cold, Caul Shivers undergoes a very similar transformation as the Bloody-Nine. It's unclear whether this was a one-time occurrence or if he's haunted by the same affliction as Logen.
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The First Law / int_3d038b36	type	Rhetorical Question Blunder
The First Law / int_3d038b36	comment	Rhetorical Question Blunder: When Glokta mutters to himself about bad things happening to him after he is independently betrayed by both Frost and Severard with Ardee nearby, she answers with Brutal Honesty: Taken further and Played for Laughs:
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The First Law / int_3d455888	type	Then Let Me Be Evil
The First Law / int_3d455888	comment	Then Let Me Be Evil: A big part of Shivers' decision to join Monza, and his later Face Heel Turn; upstanding morals don't go down well in Styria, especially not when the guy with the morals is a Northman.
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The First Law / int_3ea7916d	type	Immortality Immorality
The First Law / int_3ea7916d	comment	Immortality Immorality: The Magi (one in particular), combined with We Are as Mayflies.
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The First Law / int_3ea7916d	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_3edeeff4	type	Son of a Whore
The First Law / int_3edeeff4	comment	Son of a Whore: Jezal. Bayaz claims that his father was some unknown patron, not the King of the Union.
The First Law / int_3edeeff4	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_3edeeff4	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_3eee0728	type	Captain Obvious
The First Law / int_3eee0728	comment	In spite of barely ever talking (and being a Captain Obvious when he does speak up), Grim reveals that he speaks the Common Tongue without accent and gives an eloquent eulogy for Rudd Threetrees.
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The First Law / int_40c57041	type	Manipulative Bastard
The First Law / int_40c57041	comment	Manipulative Bastard: The series is overflowing with them, but Bayaz takes first prize.
The First Law / int_40c57041	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_40c57041	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_40cc0c7e	type	Bittersweet Ending
The First Law / int_40cc0c7e	comment	Bittersweet Ending: The books have not yet featured a completely happy ending. Best Served Cold ends with Monza having received her vengeance and become the Duchess of Talins. However, her vengeance was hollow and a lot of people have needlessly died or become evil along the way. ''Red Country;; ends with Pit and Ro safe with Shy and Temple. On the other hand, Ro has been aliented from her mother and may never forgive her. Lamb/Logen also leaves after realizing he can't escape his past.
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The First Law / int_416a2a0d	type	Torture Always Works
The First Law / int_416a2a0d	comment	Torture Always Works: Even though he doesn't always necessarily want the confessions his victims give him to be truthful, Glokta always knows when he's being lied to.
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The First Law / int_416a2a0d	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_424c9a9b	type	Cold-Blooded Torture
The First Law / int_424c9a9b	comment	Cold-Blooded Torture: Several instances in each book, generally performed by Glokta. Also in Best Served Cold, with Shivers' torturers.
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The First Law / int_424c9a9b	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_43555d33	type	Heroes Prefer Swords
The First Law / int_43555d33	comment	Heroes Prefer Swords: Bayaz lampshades this when he gives Logen a sword to use for their quest. Most of the sympathetic characters in the series usually use swords. On the flip side, the Face–Heel Turn of Shivers coincides with a switch to an axe.
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The First Law / int_4781adbb	type	Jerk with a Heart of Gold
The First Law / int_4781adbb	comment	Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Hinted at with Black Dow. While he has a reputation as one of the most sadistic and murderous bastards in the North, he gets the occasional Pet the Dog moment to hint at a more principled interior. He always comes through for his companions when he's needed, and always gets the most emotional about losing a friend. He was also the only one brave enough to demand that the Bloody Nine answer for the slaying of Tul Duru and Crummock's child, as well as getting the North into a war it hadn't wanted. Calder. He appears to be a Manipulative Bastard, but thats not all he is. Just ask his brother.
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The First Law / int_4a3e547f	type	Leaning on the Fourth Wall
The First Law / int_4a3e547f	comment	Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In the third book, Ardee discusses trying to make her way through the third book of The Fall of the Master Maker. She complains that it has too many battles and journeys as well as so many wizards that she can't keep them straight. All of these could be criticisms of The First Law itself. Glokta admits that he couldn't finish the first book.
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The First Law / int_4e2ccd24	type	North Is Cold, South Is Hot
The First Law / int_4e2ccd24	comment	North Is Cold, South Is Hot: The North is cold, and the farther south you go down the Circle of the World, the hotter it gets.
The First Law / int_4e2ccd24	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_4e2ccd24	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_4e3d253b	type	Downer Ending
The First Law / int_4e3d253b	comment	Downer Ending: Logen is left friendless, alone, and driven to jumping out a window, trading certain death for likely death. Glokta has given up on any hope that he might redeem himself and set to torturing for a malevolent master once again. Jezal lives beaten, disillusioned, and resigned to being a puppet at best, knowing that the man he hates most has married the only woman he ever loved. Ferro has abandoned all reason and gone off on her own to murder Khalul. Longfoot is maimed, and Bayaz has achieved his goal at the cost of immeasurable pain to those around him. Oh, and peace between The Union and Gurkhul is prevented because it would hamper Bayaz's desire to wage war against Khalul, dooming any chance of peace in the future as well. How's that for cheerful? Also, Shivers' fate in Best Served Cold, although most other characters fare better. Or at least those left alive.
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The First Law / int_4f84cdef	type	SmugSnake
The First Law / int_4f84cdef	comment	Smug Snake: Castor Morveer is inordinately impressed by his own deviousness.
The First Law / int_4f84cdef	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_4f84cdef	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_50d71a78	type	Dual Wielding
The First Law / int_50d71a78	comment	Dual Wielding: Noblemen of the Union learn a form of fencing using a "long steel" in one hand and a "short steel" in the other. It's apparently based on the western style of fencing using a rapier and parrying dagger. They even use the style in pitched battles.
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The First Law / int_511728ae	type	Magic Versus Science
The First Law / int_511728ae	comment	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. 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.
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The First Law / int_52488c54	type	Drowning My Sorrows
The First Law / int_52488c54	comment	Drowning My Sorrows: Temple's gets drunk when he gets down on himself. Ardee West drinks heavily when she starts to contemplate the wreckage of her life.
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The First Law / int_5313c266	type	Bookends
The First Law / int_5313c266	comment	Book-Ends: The Blade Itself begins with 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. In Glokta's first and last chapter, he references how he'd most like to torture the man who invented stairs. Best Served Cold begins and ends with a sentence describing "a sunrise the color of bad blood".
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The First Law / int_53f5119f	type	The Dragon
The First Law / int_53f5119f	comment	The Dragon: Fenris the Feared is Bethod's latest chief enforcer. Shenkt in Best Served Cold ( although he turned out to have an agenda). 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.
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The First Law / int_553d8a44	type	King on His Deathbed
The First Law / int_553d8a44	comment	King on His Deathbed: King Guslav is nearly catatonic and not in control of his bodily functions by the time the series begins. He's not expected to last much longer.
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The First Law / int_556a4e20	type	The Empire
The First Law / int_556a4e20	comment	The Empire: The Gurkish Empire from the south.
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The First Law / int_559db5c1	type	TheUriahGambit
The First Law / int_559db5c1	comment	The Uriah Gambit: A Northern proverb cited in several books states that during battle is the best time to settle a score with an enemy on your side, as after battle, people don't look closely at the positioning of wounds on corpses. In a bit of parallelism, the proverb is always raised in regard to Shivers- the first time it comes up, Logen worries that Shivers will backstab him; in the second time, Shivers thinks of the proverb when considering backstabbing Monza; and the third time, it is raised as something that could be done to Shivers, who is an unpopular messenger for Black Dow.
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The First Law / int_55d33017	type	Sheltered Aristocrat
The First Law / int_55d33017	comment	Sheltered Aristocrat: As a youth, Jezal is a vain and spoiled nobleman's son who knows nothing of war or difficulty. Prince Ladisla is so sheltered that he has no idea how the world works, which is quite disastrous when he's put in charge of things.
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The First Law / int_57d43e40	type	Fantasy Counterpart Culture
The First Law / int_57d43e40	comment	Fantasy Counterpart Culture: As explained by Abercrombie here: Styria is very similar to Early Modern Italy with a dash of Eastern Europe thrown in. Though they're never really expounded on, the throwaway references to Suljuk and Thond seem to evoke the Far East, although further throwaway comments seem to imply that the Thondese are white. Red Country gives us The Ghosts/The Folk, who, appropriate to the Medieval Fantasy meets Wild West setting, are sort of Native Americans that look like Celts (pale skin, reddish hair, blue warpaint). They cut off ears instead of scalps.
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The First Law / int_5bc1ce14	type	Author Vocabulary Calendar
The First Law / int_5bc1ce14	comment	Author Vocabulary Calendar: "Squelch," "grimace" and "dour" are all words you'll find at least once a chapter.
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The First Law / int_5c300c3b	type	The Berserker
The First Law / int_5c300c3b	comment	Lamb is a meek townsman who adopted that persona to suppress his true identity as Logen "The Bloody Nine" Ninefingers.
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The First Law / int_5ca80293	type	Pragmatic Villainy
The First Law / int_5ca80293	comment	Deconstructed with Glokta; he was the military's golden boy until he was captured and viciously tortured. His choice to turn to torturing as his own profession isn't motivated by evil, but by pragmatism; he's badly crippled and unable to make use of any of his Master Swordsman skills, but his experiences give him an excellent first-hand knowledge of how to break people. Torturing for the Inquisition is the only way he has to make a living. As the series goes on, Glokta develops a pretty strong conscience in spite of his brutal methods, which is in stark contrast to the shallow asshole he was in his youth.
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The First Law / int_5d1eca88	type	Awesome McCoolname
The First Law / int_5d1eca88	comment	Awesome Mc Coolname: Logen Ninefingers, also known as the Bloody-Nine.
The First Law / int_5d1eca88	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_5fb6411f	type	We Are as Mayflies
The First Law / int_5fb6411f	comment	We Are as Mayflies: Bayaz gripes that people's lives are over so quickly, he has to constantly teach their replacements the same lessons all over again.
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The First Law / int_6070670f	type	Complete-the-Quote Title
The First Law / int_6070670f	comment	Complete-the-Quote Title: Some of the titles are this coupled with Literary Allusion Title, and are taken from a quote which is (one of the) work's epigraph(s): The first novel, The Blade Itself comes from a quotation from Homer that "The blade itself incites to deeds of violence'' (as discussed here, it is a loose translation). The second novel is titled Before They Are Hanged, and derives from a Henrich Heine quote, "We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged." The third novel's title, The Last Argument of Kings, refers to the words Louis XIV had inscribed on his cannons: "Ultima Ratio Regum," which is Latin for "the last argument of kings." A standalone novel Best Served Cold derives from the proverb that "Revenge is a dish best served cold", which fits the novel being about the heroine's Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Another standalone novel, The Heroes alludes to a quote by Bertolt Brecht that "Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes"
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The First Law / int_60fa92ac	type	NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast
The First Law / int_60fa92ac	comment	Names to Run Away from Really Fast: In the North, Named Men are people badass enough to earn one of these, like Shama Heartless, the Bloody-Nine, or Tul Duru the Thunderhead. Sometimes, however, even the strongest among them gets pegged with an Embarrassing Nickname, such as Cracknut Whirrun or Caul Shivers, who fell in a freezing river during a raid.
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The First Law / int_614a4e11	type	Do You Want to Copulate?
The First Law / int_614a4e11	comment	Do You Want to Copulate?: "You want to fuck?"
The First Law / int_614a4e11	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_619985d7	type	Sacrificial Lion
The First Law / int_619985d7	comment	Sacrificial Lion: Bethod's advance in Before They Are Hanged is halted when Shivers' crew manages to defeat Fenris the Feared's flanking maneuver. Threetrees doesn't survive the fight against the giant.
The First Law / int_619985d7	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_61a12ee2	type	Eccentric Mentor
The First Law / int_61a12ee2	comment	Eccentric Mentor: Subverted, with a vengeance — Bayaz at first seems like your average grumpy wizard mentor. Quickly you suspect he's a much darker figure than that, but the full extent of his chessmastery is only revealed at the end, when you realize the number of people he betrayed while pinning the blame on someone else. In fact, he is as much a Big Bad as Khalul is, more so in fact since for all the lines he has crossed; Khalul's primary motivation is simply to bring Bayaz to justice for his murderous treachery.
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The First Law / int_629fa757	type	Perfectly Arranged Marriage
The First Law / int_629fa757	comment	Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Calder and his wife Seff were promised to each other since they were babies, yet they truly love each other, even though she's not very attractive and he's a selfish pretty boy.
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The First Law / int_638b65bc	type	Armor Is Useless
The First Law / int_638b65bc	comment	Armor Is Useless: Whirrun fights without armor, believing that he is not fated to die until a specific day. He says, "Armour... is part of a state of mind... in which you admit the possibility... of being hit." He's a famous named man in spite of his lack of protection but ultimately gets killed when a stray spear impales him from behind, something that might have been prevented if he's been wearing armor.
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The First Law / int_63d861f8	type	Even Evil Has Loved Ones
The First Law / int_63d861f8	comment	Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Facing death, the extremely selfish opportunist and cutthroat Severard blurts out, "But who will feed my birds?" which causes his attacker to spare him.
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The First Law / int_64246a6f	type	Barbarian Longhair
The First Law / int_64246a6f	comment	Barbarian Longhair: The Named Men, Northern barbarians in The First Law series typically wear their hair long and don't cut it.
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The First Law / int_6439de78	type	Heroic Sacrifice
The First Law / int_6439de78	comment	Heroic Sacrifice: Deliciously subverted with Cosca's apparent death in Visserine. He is found by the invading soldiers, mistaken for a friendly casualty because of the uniform he stole and wore to infiltrate, and nursed back to health. He then proceeds to reclaim leadership of the Thousand Swords, right from under Monza's nose. General Jallenhorm quite intentionally, to make up for his past failures in The Heroes.
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The First Law / int_64986b44	type	High Collar of Doom
The First Law / int_64986b44	comment	High Collar of Doom: Archlecter Sult wears an immaculate white uniform, of which the high collar is occasionally mentioned.
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The First Law / int_653c5c73	type	Cannot Spit It Out
The First Law / int_653c5c73	comment	Cannot Spit It Out: Gorst has been in love with Finree for years, yet could never muster the courage to confess. 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.
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The First Law / int_659ef759	type	Implacable Man
The First Law / int_659ef759	comment	Implacable Man: Fenris The Feared can shrug off wounds that would be fatal to normal men and keep fighting.
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The First Law / int_66181568	type	Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions
The First Law / int_66181568	comment	Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Most of the Union and parts of Styria take this stance towards deities. Euz and his sons used to be worshiped in Midderland, but are currently seen as mere ancient heroes.
The First Law / int_66181568	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_6654b17b	type	Facial Horror
The First Law / int_6654b17b	comment	Facial Horror: Lots. Glotka's ravaged appearance, particularly his destroyed teeth, unnerve strangers as well as those who knew him prior to his torture. The convict Pike who West befriends and who was formerly known as Salem Rews has a face that is frequently described as "melted", a result of a forge accident. Even Glokta finds it disturbing. Following his Eye Scream incident in Best Served Cold, Shivers invokes this in everyone who sees him, even hardened warriors.
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The First Law / int_67fedd35	type	Bizarrchitecture
The First Law / int_67fedd35	comment	Bizarrchitecture: The Maker's Tower. For starters, they reach the top without actually climbing stairs. Glokta is the first to realize this, and is not grateful that the stairs weren't there, because it was a Mind Screw.
The First Law / int_67fedd35	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_69391768	type	Expecting Someone Taller
The First Law / int_69391768	comment	Expecting Someone Taller: Crummock says he expected the Dogman to be larger, given his reputation.
The First Law / int_69391768	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_6b1caa93	type	Adipose Rex
The First Law / int_6b1caa93	comment	Adipose Rex: King Guslav V is so fat he has to be carried everywhere, and seems nothing more than a figurehead.
The First Law / int_6b1caa93	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_6bcfbc7e	type	Fantasy Gun Control
The First Law / int_6bcfbc7e	comment	Fantasy Gun Control: On the cusp of aversion. The Gurkish enthusiasm for gunpowder is apparently contagious, and Bayaz oversees the testing of primitive cannons in The Heroes. A more advanced one is successfully field-tested in Red Country.
The First Law / int_6bcfbc7e	featureApplicability	-1.0
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The First Law / int_6bda9a30	type	Meaningful Name
The First Law / int_6bda9a30	comment	Meaningful Name: Practical Frost is as white as snow and as cold as a blizzard.
The First Law / int_6bda9a30	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_6d7cd3e	type	Dead Person Impersonation
The First Law / int_6d7cd3e	comment	Dead Person Impersonation: Tolomei, who, much to Bayaz' dismay was Not Quite Dead. She had been impersonating Malacus Quai since the middle of the first book. At one point, Jezal notices that High Justice Morovia has eyes that are two different colors. The real man is actually lying dead and frozen.
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The First Law / int_6d7cd3e	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_720e0c25	type	Grave Robbing
The First Law / int_720e0c25	comment	Grave Robbing: Shanka like it as well as the Gurkish sorcerers, but really no one is above the practice.
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The First Law / int_720e0c25	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_72cdfc33	type	Big Bad Ensemble
The First Law / int_72cdfc33	comment	Big Bad Ensemble: Khalul and Bethod are set up early on, but as the story progresses we learn that Tolomei is alive and now works for The Legions of Hell, and more shockingly that revelation means that Bayaz is actually a Big Bad as well, and maybe even the Big Bad since not only does he get exactly what he was after, Khalul and Tolomei were both only evil because they 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 treachery and ruthless manipulation are responsible, directly or indirectly, for nearly every war the Union as ever took part in, all because he's a self-centred bastard with delusions of grandeur who pretty much thinks humanity can't survive without him.
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The First Law / int_72cdfc33	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_7315fd38	type	Covers Always Lie
The First Law / int_7315fd38	comment	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. Why?
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The First Law / int_7315fd38	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_7464705c	type	Arc Words
The First Law / int_7464705c	comment	Arc Words: "Once you've got a task to do, it's better to do it than live with the fear of it." "You have to be realistic about things." "Say one thing for Logen Nine-Fingers, say he's..." "Why do I do this?" "A man lost in the desert must take such water as he is offered, no matter who it comes from." In Best Served Cold "Mercy and cowardice are the same." "What would I do without you?" and all variations. The Heroes: "Those are the times."
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The First Law / int_7464705c	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_74ef476c	type	Kneel Before Zod
The First Law / int_74ef476c	comment	Kneel Before Zod: Bayaz forces anyone who tries to stand up to him to kneel (often literally, with the aid of death threats and an Agony Beam like magic power), most notably Jezal at the end of the first trilogy and Calder in The Heroes. Correspondingly, Bayaz's pupil turned enemy, Shenkt, has the mantra/catchphrase "I will not kneel".
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The First Law / int_74ef476c	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_75f626a5	type	Nostalgia Filter
The First Law / int_75f626a5	comment	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.
The First Law / int_75f626a5	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_75f626a5	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_762b9223	type	Played for Laughs
The First Law / int_762b9223	comment	Taken further and Played for Laughs:
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The First Law / int_76b4b7dd	type	The Comically Serious
The First Law / int_76b4b7dd	comment	Friendly is a deadpan psychopath (albeit one who realizes he has a problem, tries not to hurt people and is generally very polite).
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The First Law / int_771f6307	type	BrotherSisterIncest
The First Law / int_771f6307	comment	Brother–Sister Incest: Monza and Benna in Best Served Cold. When introduced, they seem more like lovers, with Benna making tributes to Monza's beauty. Then it gets revealed that they're siblings. The fact that they were actually incestuous is confirmed toward the end of the story.
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The First Law / int_7831c048	type	So Much for Stealth
The First Law / int_7831c048	comment	So Much for Stealth: The Dogman, despite his fame for stealthiness, has a habit of tripping over stumbling over things when silence is vital.
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The First Law / int_7913833c	type	Balkanize Me
The First Law / int_7913833c	comment	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.
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The First Law / int_7913833c	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_7919a45b	type	Duel to the Death
The First Law / int_7919a45b	comment	Duel to the Death: A popular custom in the North. All the Named Men who follow Logen do so because they lost one to him, and he chose to spare them. Quite a few throughout Best Served Cold, and not all with Monza. The Heroes has a hilariously one sided bout between Black Dow and Calder. Red Country has one between Glama Golden and Lamb/Logen.
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The First Law / int_79a0e313	type	Bolivian Army Ending
The First Law / int_79a0e313	comment	Bolivian Army Ending: The Last Argument of Kings has one for Logen Ninefingers. It's unclear whether he survives until Red Country, which settles the matter.
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The First Law / int_7aa989ea	type	Token Evil Teammate
The First Law / int_7aa989ea	comment	Token Evil Teammate: Black Dow. Sure, he looks after his companions and respects the "good" ones of the lot. At the same time, he's a horrible, murderous bastard and everyone knows it. His loyalties are about the only thing holding him in check... and even that doesn't always work. And then he goes and uses his time as regent to form and consolidate a power base, (probably) more or less murders Logen, plunges the North into another civil war, and seems dead-set on being an even worse ruler than Bethod ever was. Not many of Monza Murcatto's teammates are precisely good, per se, but Castor Morveer definitely qualifies as the most evil among them.
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The First Law / int_7aa989ea	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_7b6e47a5	type	Armor-Piercing Question
The First Law / int_7b6e47a5	comment	Armor-Piercing Question: "Why do you do this?" -Carlot dan Eider, to Sand dan Glokta
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The First Law / int_7eebe99c	type	The Alcoholic
The First Law / int_7eebe99c	comment	The Alcoholic: Ardee West is an alcoholic who is prone to drowning her sorrows. In spite of being in love with her, Jezal is put off by the fact that she's a mean drunk. Cosca is almost always in some state of inebriation and seems to spend a good portion of his earnings on drink. In the stand alone books, he goes on and off the wagon.
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The First Law / int_7ef728b1	type	Tsundere
The First Law / int_7ef728b1	comment	Shy South is an abrasive tsundere.
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The First Law / int_7ef728b1	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_7fbb2a3	type	NiceJobBreakingItHero
The First Law / int_7fbb2a3	comment	Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: When confronted with the plan of the conspiracy to sell Dagoska to the Ghurkish, even Glokta agrees that it would have been a better outcome for almost everyone involved, at the very least saving thousands of lives.
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The First Law / int_8042e814	type	Actually Pretty Funny
The First Law / int_8042e814	comment	Actually Pretty Funny: When Dow first meets Shivers, he complains that Shivers is too tall to talk to comfortably and pushes him to the ground in a dominance gesture. Shivers protests that it's not his fault he's tall any more than it's Dow's fault he's an arsehole. Onlookers brace themselves for a fight but Dow laughs.
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The First Law / int_81c72ad5	type	Vestigial Empire
The First Law / int_81c72ad5	comment	Vestigial Empire: The Union and Gurkhul. The Old Empire has sunk beyond "vestigial."
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The First Law / int_81c72ad5	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_823c6e3e	type	LargeHam
The First Law / int_823c6e3e	comment	Large Ham: Nicomo Cosca, to the point that an entire story in Sharp Ends is dedicated to him chiding his biographer on not being hammy enough.
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The First Law / int_851dda8f	type	Humanoid Abomination
The First Law / int_851dda8f	comment	Humanoid Abomination: Fenris the Feared, who was left over from the Old Time, created by Glustrad using magic from the World Below, immortal and nearly invulnerable. As his name suggests, merely looking at him fills one with fear and dread. It is said again and again that he is no man.
The First Law / int_851dda8f	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_863fa679	type	What Happened to the Mouse?
The First Law / int_863fa679	comment	What Happened to the Mouse?: The last we see of Finree's friend Aliz, she's still in the clutches of Stranger-Come-Knocking. Who wants children. Also, Bedesh, third son of Euz. The fates of Juvens, Kanedias, and Glustrod are all well-detailed in the trilogy. All that is mentioned of Bedesh is that he could speak to the spirits and hid the Seed after Glustrod's defeat.
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The First Law / int_8696b94c	type	EvilAlbino
The First Law / int_8696b94c	comment	Evil Albino: Played with in the case of Practical Frost, a large and passive man who just follows Glokta's orders. Played straight with him again when he sells out Glokta.
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The First Law / int_8696b94c	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_8767b1f3	type	Black-and-Gray Morality
The First Law / int_8767b1f3	comment	Black and Gray Morality: There are hardly any truly good people in any of the books. And many of the heroes become much worse or turn out to have been horrible people all along. Of particular note is Bayaz, who claims to be the brutally pragmatic solution to his nemesis, the evil Khalul, but it becomes increasingly questionable whether he's not just as bad.
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The First Law / int_88472ef3	type	Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life
The First Law / int_88472ef3	comment	Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Ardee West. It's strongly implied that finally being of some use to someone has taken most of the sting out of her marriage to Glokta.
The First Law / int_88472ef3	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_88472ef3	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_8864f9a9	type	Those Two Bad Guys
The First Law / int_8864f9a9	comment	Those Two Bad Guys: Frost and Severard, Glokta's two practicals. Deep and Shallow in The Heroes.
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The First Law / int_889cff96	type	Quirky Miniboss Squad
The First Law / int_889cff96	comment	Quirky Miniboss Squad: Goyle's circus of practicals. Monza's victims in Best Served Cold. Khalul's small army of Eaters.
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The First Law / int_889cff96	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_8af25294	type	Bullet Time
The First Law / int_8af25294	comment	Bullet Time: Shenkt in Best Served Cold can do this.
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The First Law / int_8af25294	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_8e04fdd7	type	Dragon with an Agenda
The First Law / int_8e04fdd7	comment	Shenkt in Best Served Cold ( although he turned out to have an agenda).
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The First Law / int_8e04fdd7	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_8f37b	type	Medieval Stasis
The First Law / int_8f37b	comment	Medieval Stasis: The Maker's Magitek not withstanding, technology doesn't seem to have improved much over the past thousand years or so. However, the Ghurkish are just now beginning to use black powder in their military, which Bayaz becomes very interested in exploiting for himself.
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The First Law / int_90a1fbd4	type	Split-Personality Takeover
The First Law / int_90a1fbd4	comment	Logen Ninefingers is a pretty decent guy and a powerful warrior, but his split personality the Bloody-Nine is a nigh-indestructible personification of violence. When a battle gets too tough, Logen is prone to suffering a Split-Personality Takeover, where the Bloody-Nine takes over and kills everything in his field of vision. It's unclear whether this personality is supernatural in origin.
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The First Law / int_96144372	type	Aristocrats Are Evil
The First Law / int_96144372	comment	Aristocrats Are Evil: But don't worry, so is everyone else.
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The First Law / int_97522514	type	Heel–Face Revolving Door
The First Law / int_97522514	comment	Heel–Face Revolving Door: Shivers undergoes one across the entire series. He starts out as a good guy in the original trilogy, undergoes a Start of Darkness in Best Served Cold, is fairly villainous in The Heroes, and finally ends up a bit more like his original self in Red Country.
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The First Law / int_98def616	type	Replicant Snatching
The First Law / int_98def616	comment	Replicant Snatching: Yoru Sulfur most notably impersonating High Justice Marovia and The Tanner.
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The First Law / int_993cf18f	type	Not So Different
The First Law / int_993cf18f	comment	Not So Different: A recurring theme. Odds are fairly good that opposing characters or factions will be more similar than they care to admit.
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The First Law / int_999d9288	type	Perky Female Minion
The First Law / int_999d9288	comment	Perky Female Minion: In spite of being an apprentice poisoner, Day has a very sunny disposition and never lets anything get in the way of her appetite.
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The First Law / int_9ac6b0c1	type	Sociopathic Hero
The First Law / int_9ac6b0c1	comment	Sociopathic Hero: Ferro, Black Dow, The Bloody-Nine, eventually, Shivers, although the "hero" part is practically non-existent.
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The First Law / int_9bee1a7f	type	Eldritch Location
The First Law / int_9bee1a7f	comment	Eldritch Location: The House of the Maker, then the Dead Lands surrounding the ruins of Alcus.
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The First Law / int_9d12bbc1	type	Foreshadowing
The First Law / int_9d12bbc1	comment	Foreshadowing: In The Blade Itself, Jezal spends a long time admiring himself in the mirror, particularly his chin, which he is especially proud of. One book later, he gets his jaw broken in his first real battle, and spends the rest of the series with a crooked chin and an obvious, though not disfiguring, scar. Dow and West offer a bit of this, especially when Dow approves of killing a leader who turned on their own people, and is later interested that someone who did so might end up in charge.
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The First Law / int_9dab0a6e	type	Continuity Nod
The First Law / int_9dab0a6e	comment	Continuity Nod: Characters and events from the original trilogy and later books crop up constantly in books and short stories that follow them.
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The First Law / int_9f63d4f1	type	Our Vampires Are Different
The First Law / int_9f63d4f1	comment	Our Vampires Are Different: Eaters don't just drink blood, they must consume human flesh. In return, they gain a varying assortment of supernatural powers, including superhuman strength, immunity to pain, a potent Healing Factor, command of powerful magicks, shapeshifting, eternal youth, or any of a myriad other powers. As Shickle says, the boons granted by Eating vary by the individual. The one thing that all Eaters share, however, is their curse—they can never stop Eating.
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The First Law / int_a0edf122	type	Good with Numbers
The First Law / int_a0edf122	comment	Good with Numbers: Friendly, who is obsessed with counting.
The First Law / int_a0edf122	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_a139f52b	type	Fantasy World Map
The First Law / int_a139f52b	comment	Fantasy World Map: Downplayed 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. And in The Heroes we actually get annotated maps of the ebb and flow of battle throughout the book.
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The First Law / int_a2b38d3b	type	Eye Scream
The First Law / int_a2b38d3b	comment	Following his Eye Scream incident in Best Served Cold, Shivers invokes this in everyone who sees him, even hardened warriors.
The First Law / int_a2b38d3b	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_a32a1881	type	Supporting Leader
The First Law / int_a32a1881	comment	Supporting Leader: Rudd Threetrees' actions shape the Angland War's outcome more than anyone else's, but Threetrees isn't a viewpoint character. Instead, he is a supporting character for chapters told through the perspective of the Dogman, who eventually replaces Threetrees after his death.
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The First Law / int_a3673c4c	type	It Gets Easier
The First Law / int_a3673c4c	comment	It Gets Easier: Logen and the rest of the Named Men basically run on this trope. Red Beck however is a subversion, as he turns his back on the whole business after he gets his name. Inverted by Glokta, who feels the weight of his previous atrocities building up over the course of the series, prompting him to be more merciful.
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The First Law / int_a65288e2	type	Ascended Extra
The First Law / int_a65288e2	comment	Ascended Extra: Some minor characters from the original trilogy become major POV characters in the standalone novels: 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. Sharp Ends largely revolves around such characters' points of view. Prince Calder and Bremer dan Gorst in The Heroes. Many of the short stories in Sharp Ends feature minor character from previous novels as POV characters.
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The First Law / int_a70223	type	Karma Houdini
The First Law / int_a70223	comment	Karma Houdini: Of the six novels so published, Bayaz is still on top.
The First Law / int_a70223	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_a70223	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_a8008cb9	type	TheStraightWillAndGrace
The First Law / int_a8008cb9	comment	The Straight Will And Grace: Curnden Craw and Wonderful in The Heroes.
The First Law / int_a8008cb9	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_a8008cb9	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_aa55cd25	type	Brawn Hilda
The First Law / int_aa55cd25	comment	Brawn Hilda: Javre, Lioness of Hoskopp. She is from a reclusive monastery in a faraway land, and her great size (well over six feet) makes many people initially mistake her for a man.
The First Law / int_aa55cd25	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_aa55cd25	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_ac69035c	type	Master Poisoner
The First Law / int_ac69035c	comment	Master Poisoner: Morveer is literally a Master Poisoner. He even has an apprentice.
The First Law / int_ac69035c	featureApplicability	1.0
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The First Law / int_acecb17d	type	Chekhov's Skill
The First Law / int_acecb17d	comment	Chekhov's Skill: Jezal wins the Competition, so you'd expect him to show off his fancy fencing in a real fight when he goes on the quest for the Seed. In his first fight he just freezes, but in the second he takes down two bandits with ease, though he doesn't notice the third... Glokta is mentioned many times to have won the Competition in his youth and might have been the greatest swordsman of his generation before he was crippled. He ultimately reveals that the skills haven't completely left him when he kills an attacker with his sword cane.
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The First Law / int_ad94c7a0	type	Scars are Forever
The First Law / int_ad94c7a0	comment	Scars Are Forever: Abercrombie seems to like scars on his characters. It appears to be one of the running features of his main cast to have some physical peculiarity or visible injury about them. If they don't, they soon gain it in one way or another, for example Jezal, who was hit in the face with a mace and from Best Served Cold, Monza, who got thrown down a mountain after being stabbed several times.
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The First Law / int_ae3d6438	type	Deadpan Snarker
The First Law / int_ae3d6438	comment	Deadpan Snarker: Mainly Glokta, although many other characters give as well.
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The First Law / int_af3ff126	type	Idealized Sex
The First Law / int_af3ff126	comment	Idealized Sex: Constantly averted. Sex is almost always awkward, messy and a bit gross, especially the first time two lovers are together. That doesn't stop it from being portrayed as fun, mind.
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The First Law / int_b01abe4f	type	Catchphrase
The First Law / int_b01abe4f	comment	Catch-Phrase:
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The First Law / int_b14ca7ba	type	Two Aliases, One Character
The First Law / int_b14ca7ba	comment	Two Aliases, One Character: Comes up a lot: Somewhat overlapping with My Grandson Myself, Bayaz claims, apparently truthfully, that following his disappearance centuries before, he's been returning to the Union under different identities to serve as advisers to various kings. Of particular note, he was also Arch Lector Zoller, the notoriously harsh founder of the Inquisition. He's also both Valint and Balk. The horribly burned convict Pike befriended by West turns out to be Salem Rews, last seen sent to a penal colony in the North by Glotka; Rews had an accident in the forge on his first day. This is revealed in a case of No Doubt the Years Have Changed Me a the very end of the trilogy. Toward the end of the trilogy, a peasant revolt starts lead by a man calling himself The Tanner. He is transparently Yoru Sulfur, and this is an early hint at his shapeshifter abilities. It is later revealed that the revolt was set up with a fake leader by Bayaz so that it could be easily suppressed and Jezal could be made to look like a populist hero. Lamb and The Mayor in Red Country are clearly Logen Ninefingers and Carlot dan Eider.
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The First Law / int_b156a790	type	Evil Sounds Raspy
The First Law / int_b156a790	comment	Evil Sounds Raspy: Justified with Shivers. In Best Served Cold, he's captured and tortured, causing him to damage his vocal chords screaming and to make a Face–Heel Turn. So his voice and his evil both have the same cause.
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The First Law / int_b3bdf232	type	Alien Geometries
The First Law / int_b3bdf232	comment	Alien Geometries: The inside of the House of the Maker. Logen and company are horrified when they find themselves standing on a high precipice without climbing a single stair.
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The First Law / int_b51128fa	type	Gilded Cage
The First Law / int_b51128fa	comment	Gilded Cage: Jezal after he becomes King of the Union reflects on how he's lost all of his freedom and happiness.
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The First Law / int_b542cf17	type	Opposing Combat Philosophies
The First Law / int_b542cf17	comment	Opposing Combat Philosophies: The Union army is divided among those officers who value discipline and structure and self-sacrifice, and those officers who value flair and initiative and derring-do. In the original trilogy, both approaches are presented as working about equally awfully, and West has to deftly play one side against the other to ensure that anything actually gets done. They get a more sympathetic portrayal in The Heroes, with each side being shown to have reasonable arguments for why their way is best, and the army's sole Reasonable Authority Figure claims that a commander who subscribes to one philosophy should have a second-in-command who subscribes to the other to avoid falling victim to dogmatic blindness.
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The First Law / int_b58b4e3c	type	Too Dumb to Live
The First Law / int_b58b4e3c	comment	Too Dumb to Live: Crown Prince Ladisla really should have picked up that of the survivors of his army's massacre, Colonel West was the only person who wouldn't happily leave him to freeze to death. Naturally, he tries to rape the woman West is attracted to and who had previously saved West's life.
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The First Law / int_b5b4b077	type	The Ace
The First Law / int_b5b4b077	comment	The Ace: Sand dan Glokta in his youth excelled at everything, which made him into a quite spectacular jerkass. In "Beautiful Bastard," Salem Rews notes that you can't help but love him and hate him at the same time.
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The First Law / int_b77a6d82	type	Evil Is Deathly Cold
The First Law / int_b77a6d82	comment	Evil Is Deathly Cold: The female Eater Glokta encounters (later revealed to be Tolomei) leaves him with this impression. Given that she has literally made a Deal with the Devil and implies she has actually been to Hell, this might not be just metaphorical, either.
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The First Law / int_b7c53a22	type	Blood Knight
The First Law / int_b7c53a22	comment	Blood Knight: Logen in his Bloody-Nine persona is an Ax-Crazy Bremen dan Gorst has nothing in his life except combat in The Heroes.
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The First Law / int_baa2a78d	type	Knife Nut
The First Law / int_baa2a78d	comment	Knife Nut: Logen. You can never have too many of 'em... Friendly fights with knives and doesn't like swords.
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The First Law / int_bb0c0a4d	type	Fiery Redhead
The First Law / int_bb0c0a4d	comment	Fiery Redhead: Vitari in the original trilogy. Shy South from Red Country.
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The First Law / int_bd0af87b	type	Honorable Marriage Proposal
The First Law / int_bd0af87b	comment	Honorable Marriage Proposal: Glokta to Ardee in the last book. Once Jezal is king, it wouldn't be safe for her to have his child unless she was married to someone else. Given the nature of the world concerned, the "honorable" is only partly there, but it is the only way he can save her life.
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The First Law / int_beb91a53	type	Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter
The First Law / int_beb91a53	comment	Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Tolomei.
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The First Law / int_beb9a361	type	Anti-Hero
The First Law / int_beb9a361	comment	Anti-Hero: All of the main characters have a generous helping of unheroic characteristics.
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The First Law / int_bec0417c	type	Happily Married
The First Law / int_bec0417c	comment	Happily Married: Subverted like crazy with Cas and Vitari in Best Served Cold. Played straight with Calder and Seff in "The Heroes", though. Double subverted then deconstructed with King Jezal and Princess Theresa's marriage in "The Last Argument of Kings". They look like a fair and happy family for everyone in public; however Theresa not just simply hates and despises her husband, but is actually a lesbian, and has been forced and threatened by Glokta to act like a good and loving wife, with the only goal to give birth to a royal heirs. She pulls her acting quite professionally.
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The First Law / int_c20f49de	type	Tautological Templar
The First Law / int_c20f49de	comment	Tautological Templar: Bayaz, who believes civilization cannot function without his guidance, even if he has to massacre a few thousand people every now and then.
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The First Law / int_c3648b87	type	Teeth-Clenched Teamwork
The First Law / int_c3648b87	comment	Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Happens in both Bayaz's expedition and among the leadership of the Angland campaign. In the former case, it leads to a comfortable working relationship between Jezal, Logen Ninefingers, and Ferro. In the latter, it just leads to greater and greater tensions, until the army is ultimately paralyzed when Lord Marshal Burr is no longer present to keep his Generals from fighting each other.
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The First Law / int_c48a0fe6	type	Actually, That's My Assistant
The First Law / int_c48a0fe6	comment	Actually, That's My Assistant: When Logen goes to meet Bayaz for the first time, he thinks that a scholarly-looking elderly librarian (one of Bayaz's servants) is Bayaz, and takes Bayaz (dressed as/working as a butcher) for one of Bayaz's servants.
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The First Law / int_c555059a	type	There Is Another
The First Law / int_c555059a	comment	There Is Another: Bayaz invokes this trope by surprise upon the Open Council as they prepare to elect a new king after both princes and their father are dead, revealing that King Guslav V had a bastard who has been raised in secret among the nobility. None other than Jezal dan Luthar. Then subverted when Bayaz reveals Jezal was not royal, just a useful pawn.
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The First Law / int_c75df49a	type	Shout-Out
The First Law / int_c75df49a	comment	Shout-Out: For a change of pace, Black Dow is a shout-out to James Douglas, Robert the Bruce's Dragon. Contemporary spelling of his nickname would have been "the Blak Dowglas," and like Dow, he was the most feared northerner of his day, known for guerrilla warfare and for an incident where he massacred and burned his enemies.
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The First Law / int_c7b6f3b5	type	Satisfied Street Rat
The First Law / int_c7b6f3b5	comment	Satisfied Street Rat: Ferro Maljinn is content to fend for herself.
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The First Law / int_c7e5d37	type	Little Girls Kick Shins
The First Law / int_c7e5d37	comment	Little Girls Kick Shins: Crummock-i-Phail's daughter kicks him in the shins when he insults her. He's pained but amused.
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The First Law / int_ce104b8e	type	Serial Escalation
The First Law / int_ce104b8e	comment	Serial Escalation: Present in the original trilogy. At the beginning of the first book, the primary viewpoint characters are a storied but broke and alone Northman, a promising army Captain with no particular distinction to his name, and a mid-level operative in the Inquisition. By the middle of the third book, they are two kings and a member of the Closed Council, respectively, and the Council Member is running the whole Union behind the scenes.
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The First Law / int_ceec4df5	type	Roaring Rampage of Revenge
The First Law / int_ceec4df5	comment	Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Best Served Cold has Monza on a quest for one.
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The First Law / int_d2096ad9	type	Aborted Declaration of Love
The First Law / int_d2096ad9	comment	Aborted Declaration of Love: Logen is too annoyed by Ferro's brusque behavior to express his feelings for her, and she can't bring herself to do the same, so they leave each other in a huff. Ardee West never expresses her feelings for Jezal, which ultimately makes it easier for them to split.
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The First Law / int_d2d520f4	type	Our Ghouls Are Creepier
The First Law / int_d2d520f4	comment	Our Ghouls Are Creepier: The Eaters are a combination of Ghoul and Vampire tropes.
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The First Law / int_d4f9a68f	type	DeadlyDecadentCourt
The First Law / int_d4f9a68f	comment	Deadly Decadent Court: The Midderland court is portrayed like this, with some criminal levels of indifference and sometimes stupidity among its nobles.
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The First Law / int_d62dd556	type	The Chessmaster
The First Law / int_d62dd556	comment	The Chessmaster: Bayaz treats everyone like pawns in his game against Khalul.
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The First Law / int_d777b649	type	No Doubt the Years Have Changed Me
The First Law / int_d777b649	comment	The horribly burned convict Pike befriended by West turns out to be Salem Rews, last seen sent to a penal colony in the North by Glotka; Rews had an accident in the forge on his first day. This is revealed in a case of No Doubt the Years Have Changed Me a the very end of the trilogy.
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The First Law / int_d91d0365	type	The Magic Goes Away
The First Law / int_d91d0365	comment	The Magic Goes Away: The more generations magic gets from Euz, the less powerful it becomes. Bayaz and Khalul have less power than the two generations of wizards before them, and their apprentices are less powerful then they are. The spirits are also gradually going to sleep. Each time Logen calls them, fewer show up, and they admit as much. Eventually there will be none left to answer his call.
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The First Law / int_d9cf40fa	type	Screw This, I'm Outta Here
The First Law / int_d9cf40fa	comment	Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: Shivers does this regarding Black Dow's attempt to murder Logen at the end. Vitari and Friendly appear to do this partway through Best Served Cold. Beck in the end of The Heroes. Craw tries as well, but fails and returns to fighting.
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The First Law / int_dae5c997	type	Action Girl
The First Law / int_dae5c997	comment	Action Girl: Ferro has demon blood, making her somewhat superhuman. Vitari holds her own against Logen for a while. Monza in Best Served Cold is a badass general as well as an excellent swordfighter. Wonderful in The Heroes. Shy in Red Country. Javre, Lioness of Hoskopp, a recurring character from Sharp Ends.
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The First Law / int_db33bc7e	type	Ludicrous Gibs
The First Law / int_db33bc7e	comment	Ludicrous Gibs: Bayaz can make people messily fall apart using his magic, which he does in moments of extreme need or displeasure.
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The First Law / int_db39ccfd	type	Battle Couple
The First Law / int_db39ccfd	comment	Battle Couple: Logen and Ferro in Before They are Hanged. Whirrun and Javre briefly form one in Sharp Ends, after their fight is interrupted by sex, which is in turn interrupted by more fighting.
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The First Law / int_db6230b7	type	Lightning Bruiser
The First Law / int_db6230b7	comment	With his brawny physique and Lightning Bruiser fighting style, Bremer dan Gorst is built up to be this, but turns out to be a very humble and respectful man in his interactions with Jezal. He fits the trope better in The Heroes, after he's become bitter and bloodthirsty.
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The First Law / int_dcbe8a6e	type	Chekhov's Gunman
The First Law / int_dcbe8a6e	comment	Chekhov's Gunman: The East Wind (Ishri) is first mentioned in The Blade Itself as one of Khalul's more dangerous disciples, but she doesn't make an appearance until Best Served Cold and is much more integral in The Heroes as some sort of pyrotechnics and weather sorceress.
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The First Law / int_de5f028b	type	Barbarian Hero
The First Law / int_de5f028b	comment	Barbarian Hero: Logen Ninefingers is a subversion. He seems like a typical roaming barbarian warrior who tries to do the right thing, but eventually it becomes clear that he's a psychopath with a split personality that makes him go completely berserk, killing anyone he sees. It takes him quite a few books before he's ready to acknowledge that the best thing he can do for everybody is keep to himself.
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The First Law / int_df5e0490	type	Bald of Awesome
The First Law / int_df5e0490	comment	Bald of Awesome: Lamb shaves his head for his brawl with Glama Golden and keeps it for the rest of Red Country
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The First Law / int_dfb71617	type	Male Gaze
The First Law / int_dfb71617	comment	Male Gaze: Almost always invoked around Ardee West. In The Blade Itself, this is done to spur drama between her and her brother. Its presence also serves to put a lurid sheen on the male viewpoint characters' perceptions, in keeping with the series grim tone.
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The First Law / int_dfe120e5	type	Functional Magic
The First Law / int_dfe120e5	comment	Functional Magic: We get this gem from The Heroes
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The First Law / int_e16d7741	type	No Immortal Inertia
The First Law / int_e16d7741	comment	No Immortal Inertia: Eaters usually turn to dust when they are killed.
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The First Law / int_e16fb8ca	type	Hero Killer
The First Law / int_e16fb8ca	comment	Hero Killer: Fenris the Feared, specifically when he fights Rudd Threetrees.
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The First Law / int_e431c24c	type	Not Quite Dead
The First Law / int_e431c24c	comment	Tolomei, who, much to Bayaz' dismay was Not Quite Dead. She had been impersonating Malacus Quai since the middle of the first book.
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The First Law / int_e5120d	type	The Igor
The First Law / int_e5120d	comment	The Igor: Glokta's practicals (assistant torturers) Severard and Frost, are portrayed this way.
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The First Law / int_e68b72	type	TheLoad
The First Law / int_e68b72	comment	The Load: Crown Prince Ladisla, once the campaign in Angland goes awry. He does nothing but whine, complain, and sap resources from Colonel West. What he does when unsupervised leads directly to his death.
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The First Law / int_e70127	type	The Mole
The First Law / int_e70127	comment	The Mole: Both Frost and Severard. Bayaz has a few in the Northmen's camp in The Heroes.
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The First Law	hasFeature	The First Law / int_e70127
The First Law / int_ea6abe17	type	Every Scar Has a Story
The First Law / int_ea6abe17	comment	Every Scar Has a Story: In the original trilogy, there's a scene where Jezal and co. bond over their respective stories and Logen and Longfoot tell stories about how they got theirs. All goes well until Longfellow presses Ferro on how she got hers, and she reveals she scarred herself as a way of spiting her owner, who was using her as a Sex Slave and would have sold her for that purpose. Parodied in The Heroes in a scene where Stranger shows off various scars to other Northern warriors and tells how he got them in predictably badass, Barbarian Hero ways. In each instance, Black Dow drily notes how Stranger could have easily avoided those injuries.
The First Law / int_ea6abe17	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_ea6abe17	featureConfidence	1.0
The First Law	hasFeature	The First Law / int_ea6abe17
The First Law / int_eb8e4fa8	type	Jerkass
The First Law / int_eb8e4fa8	comment	Jerk Ass: While many characters are real assholes, the fact that Malacus Quai starts acting like a total prick about halfway through the first book is an important clue.
The First Law / int_eb8e4fa8	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_eb8e4fa8	featureConfidence	1.0
The First Law	hasFeature	The First Law / int_eb8e4fa8
The First Law / int_eb8f64a6	type	No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
The First Law / int_eb8f64a6	comment	No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Plenty. After Glokta spares the life of Carlot dan Eidar, she shows up again to blackmail him with her survival. Logen ordering Black Drow to negotiate with Scale and Calder instead of fighting them. Black Drow does... and the three of them decide to kill Logen.
The First Law / int_eb8f64a6	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_eb8f64a6	featureConfidence	1.0
The First Law	hasFeature	The First Law / int_eb8f64a6
The First Law / int_edd714c9	type	Subverted Catch-Phrase
The First Law / int_edd714c9	comment	Subverted Catch Phrase: In his last chapter of the trilogy, Logen's "Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say he's a..." is cut off before it gets to the one thing.
The First Law / int_edd714c9	featureApplicability	-0.3
The First Law / int_edd714c9	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_ee302ebd	type	Barbarian Tribe
The First Law / int_ee302ebd	comment	Barbarian Tribe: The Northmen are typical northern barbarians from the cold north who have a more martial and less sophisticated society. Stranger-Come-Knocking and his boys from beyond the Crinna, way up in the far north, are even more savage.
The First Law / int_ee302ebd	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_ee302ebd	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_f10d3363	type	Distracted by the Sexy
The First Law / int_f10d3363	comment	Distracted by the Sexy: Poor Logen in Before They Are Hanged.
The First Law / int_f10d3363	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_f10d3363	featureConfidence	1.0
The First Law	hasFeature	The First Law / int_f10d3363
The First Law / int_f2b5df3a	type	The Rain Man
The First Law / int_f2b5df3a	comment	The Rain Man: Friendly in Best Served Cold and Red Country. There were 37 letters in that sentence.
The First Law / int_f2b5df3a	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_f2b5df3a	featureConfidence	1.0
The First Law	hasFeature	The First Law / int_f2b5df3a
The First Law / int_f42f96fa	type	Would Hit a Girl
The First Law / int_f42f96fa	comment	Would Hit a Girl: Collem West punches Ardee in a fit of rage, which he deeply regrets immediately afterwards. Jezal smacks one of Terez's ladies in waiting after receiving an earful of abuse. Dogman expresses reluctance to kill Caurib, but Black Dow gets the job done.
The First Law / int_f42f96fa	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_f42f96fa	featureConfidence	1.0
The First Law	hasFeature	The First Law / int_f42f96fa
The First Law / int_f93d8d52	type	Girlfriend in Canada
The First Law / int_f93d8d52	comment	Girlfriend in Canada: Wonderful's family comes up several times in conversation with her crew. Some of them ask he when she'll go back to them, and she laughs them off. Towards the end of the book, she admits she had returned to her farm for a visit several years ago. The entire valley they lived in was abandoned; she has no idea what happened to them.
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The First Law / int_f93d8d52	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_fa9cd4db	type	Democracy Is Bad
The First Law / int_fa9cd4db	comment	Democracy Is Bad: Arch Lector Sult and Bayaz believe that the people are too stupid and gullible to make their own decisions in any capacity.
The First Law / int_fa9cd4db	featureApplicability	1.0
The First Law / int_fa9cd4db	featureConfidence	1.0
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The First Law / int_ff7f34c5	type	Pet the Dog
The First Law / int_ff7f34c5	comment	Pet the Dog: Glokta gives mercy to several people over the course of his torturing career. Logen saves Quai in the opening chapter of the book. In spite of his evil reputation, Black Dow is repeatedly shown to get the most emotional at funerals and generally take the death of companions the hardest.
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The First Law / int_ff7f34c5	featureConfidence	1.0
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

TheFirstLaw	sameAs	The First Law
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The First Law	hasFeature	Being Tortured Makes You Evil / int_6d9a0c36
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The First Law	hasFeature	Earth All Along / int_6d9a0c36
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The First Law	hasFeature	Feel No Pain / int_6d9a0c36
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The First Law	hasFeature	Humans Are Insects / int_6d9a0c36
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The First Law	hasFeature	It Will Never Catch On / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	It's All Upstairs From Here / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Jerk with a Heart of Jerk / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	King on His Deathbed / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Leaning on the Fourth Wall / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Let's Fight Like Gentlemen / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Literary Allusion Title / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Little Girls Kick Shins / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Lovable Rogue / int_6d9a0c36
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The First Law	hasFeature	Mad Libs Catchphrase / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Mage Tower / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Medieval European Fantasy / int_6d9a0c36
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The First Law	hasFeature	Modern Major General / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Morally Bankrupt Banker / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	More Despicable Minion / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Mutilation Conga / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Neck Snap / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	No Doubt the Years Have Changed Me / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Noble Top Enforcer / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	North Is Cold, South Is Hot / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Opposing Combat Philosophies / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Orphaned Etymology / int_6d9a0c36
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The First Law	hasFeature	Precocious Crush / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Prophecies Are Always Right / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Real Men Cook / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Red Right Hand / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Religious Vampire / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Retired Monster / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Russian Reversal / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Satisfied Street Rat / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Scars are Forever / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids! / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Slippery MacGuffin / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Smug Smiler / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Strike Me Down / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Suddenly Bilingual / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Supporting Leader / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Surprise Incest / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Sword Cane / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Tautological Templar / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Terse Talker / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	The Empire / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	The End of the Beginning / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	The Magic Goes Away / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	The Soft-Hearted Warrior / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	The Tooth Hurts / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	The Women Are Safe with Us / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	To the Pain / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Torture Always Works / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Torture Technician / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Twitchy Eye / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Two Aliases, One Character / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Using You All Along / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Vocal Dissonance / int_6d9a0c36
The First Law	hasFeature	Volleying Insults / int_6d9a0c36

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