Why Logen Ninefingers is the greatest character in literature

This post contains spoilers for the Book The Blade Itself, by Joe Abercrombie

Twenty years ago, Joe Abercrombie released The Blade Itself and introduced the world to the greatest character in literature: Logen Ninefingers.

If you had asked me when I first read this book why I was so taken by Logen, I'd have said that it is because he is a psychotic noir barbarian. Logen is the archetypal used-up man of violence, which is just the most satisfying archetype to read about. He is the aging killer who is tired of killing but can't escape his life of violence.

The best musicians have a song you fall in love with. But then you discover more of their work and you find new songs to obsess over.

So it is with Logen Ninefingers.

The reason that Logen is so compelling to me today all these years later is not because he's a terrifying fighter, or that he's the most dangerous man in the North – though he is all of those things.

There is a gap between his internal understanding of himself that we get exposed to through narration and how the rest of the world sees him.

From the first pages of the book, we hear how Logen thinks about himself – he's always courting disaster, he's lucky to be alive, he survives by complete chance. His catchphrase is still alive. And he says that with complete surprise every time to express: damn, I can't believe I made it out of that mess.

The rest of the world, particularly those who know Logen, are completely terrified of him. As one character puts it:

Your life hangs on a thread every moment you stand within two strides of that nothing-looking bastard there.

They don't think of Logen as Logen, but as the Bloody Nine. The Bloody Nine is impossible to defeat, he's a complete psychopath, he's the toughest warrior in the North.

To touch the bloody nine was to touch death and death plays no favorites and knows no exceptions.

The mere mention of the Bloody Nine can send entire armies running.

One of my favorite motifs of the extended First Law universe is that various characters in the secondary books will be in terrifying, can't win situations. And they often will think, well this is really bad, but it's not even close to as bad as when I saw the Bloody Nine do –

For many characters who get into precarious situations, the way they gird their courage is to recall some dread deed they witnessed the Bloody Nine exact in the past. If they survived that ordeal, they can survive anything.

Logen thinks he is a lucky idiot.

Everyone else thinks he is death itself.

I think this discrepancy is what really draws me to Logen now. I relate to it deeply. Obviously I'm not a warrior, but I think there is a dichotomy between how I see myself and how others perceive me.

I often think I'm incompetent, that I don't know what I'm doing, that I'm not bringing any value. And then I get evidence, over and over, that the people around me don't see me that way at all.

I'm working on noticing the times where I think of myself as a lucky idiot or worse and then get evidence that others might not perceive it the same way. Maybe it's a meeting I feel underprepared for, but actually goes really well. Maybe it's a question I don't immediately know the answer to, but then figure out.

Logen's whole story is about the two pictures of himself colliding. If it was just the Bloody Nine it would not be the greatest character of all time.

And while I'm not a used up man of violence, I'm still alive.