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FridaysMan t1_j1cd71u wrote

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

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

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

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Aplakka OP t1_j24w2op wrote

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

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

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

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

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