The Devils

“She’d been called a scammer, a fleecer, a cheat, a thief, a bitch, a thieving bitch, a ferrety fuck, a lying weasel, and those were only the ones she’d taken as compliments. She’d never, far as she could remember, been called a princess.”

Abercrombie uses this moment to play with the tropes of classic fantasy. Alex could be a traditional “lost princess” archetype, but he subverts the expectations that come with it by making her appear aggressively against type. She is a foul-mouthed swindler deep in debt and knows exactly the position she holds in the world—character development highlighted by the breathless tone of the list she offers.

“To fight fire, one must be prepared to use fire.”

While the phrase “fight fire with fire” is a cliché, Abercrombie uses it effectively to support the novel’s cynical take on moral absolutism and institutional virtue into a tidy justification for compromise, violence, and moral rot. The Church, as represented by Cardinal Zizka, does not merely condone morally ambiguous action; it sanctifies it when the stakes are high enough. In her logic, the ends not only justify the means but demand them, illustrating The Fallibility of Religious Institutions.

“The truth is a luxury the likes of you can never afford.”

For Alex, the truth is the single biggest threat to her life. She survives by performance, manipulation, and the careful management of perception. It’s later revealed in the novel that her identity itself is a lie, as she took the persona from the real, and now deceased, Alexia. Telling the truth means being exposed, rejected, and punished, but lying offers opportunity. However, her reference to the truth as a “luxury” implies that she finds it to be of great value, even if it is out of her grasp.

“Sometimes […] least worst is the best you can hope for.”

Venice, though politically fraught, becomes part of the new plan to get to Troy, not because it’s safe but because every other option is worse. Jakob, always practical, wearily accepts the reality they face. At every turn, their survival depends not on idealism but on adaptation.

“Every step was painful, but every step had been painful for two lifetimes, now. Jakob kept taking them. The paces don’t have to be quick, or long, or pretty. They just have to keep going.”

This is the core sentiment of Jakob’s character and his history. He’s cursed to never die, but after centuries of fighting, the wounds have stacked up, leaving him in constant pain. His wounds aren’t just physical but also psychological and spiritual, but he still endures. Abercrombie’s portrayal of him in this passage is not traditionally heroic, instead promoting the idea that heroism is partly about perseverance.

“I’m clean.”

In Vigga’s chaotic inner monologue, cleanliness becomes synonymous with morality and freedom from guilt. Every time the past claws at her through broken memories and sudden floods of fury and thirst, she reaches for the word “clean” like a lifeline. It means she’s still in control, not just of the wolf but also of the entirety of her bloody past.

“You are small, and weak, and unskilled. Your chances of beating a strong man in a fair fight are close to none. […] So you make the fight as unfair as you can. Trickery and surprise are your weapons. Those and a lack of pity.”

Jakob doesn’t flatter Alex with false encouragement but gives her the sobering truth that if she wants to live, she must abandon any hope that the world will meet her halfway. He is giving Alex what the world never gave her: the tools to survive, even if they are ugly tools. He reminds her that survival won’t come from strength or honor but from embracing the parts of herself that the world has tried to shame.

“Because no one’s really happy where they are, Sunny. And everyone’s lonely.”

Loneliness and displacement haunt the devils before The Evolution of Found Family. Jakob carries the weight of centuries of guilt, Vigga wages war with the monster inside her, Alex fears she’s fit to neither rule nor belong, and Sunny herself moves through the world as an exile, never fully part of any community. Frigo’s statement highlights their collective ache, and his follow-up cuts through the illusion that the pain is unique to her.

“In the end, it seemed to Sunny that right or wrong is mostly a question of what you can get away with.”

Because Sunny is part of the Chapel of the Holy Expediency, she has seen firsthand the way the Church wields morality and how it becomes hypocritical. Sunny’s observation rings true not because she’s nihilistic but because she’s accurate. Her assessment is a coping mechanism and a survival strategy in a setting where legalism, religion, and even science have lost credibility. Every major institution in the book is revealed to be corrupt, performative, or self-serving to varying degrees.

“If you’ll wake up one day and see the light, who’s to say you won’t wake up the next day and see a different one?”

When talking to Brother Diaz, Vigga puts forward a relativist worldview that challenges the idea of absolute truth, religious or moral certainty, and the stability of belief. What one holds sacred today might be discarded tomorrow, not only because of evil or betrayal but also because of growth, context, or disillusionment. And if no truth is fixed, then no loyalty is guaranteed, no prophecy is certain, and no alliance is safe.

“You just get crammed into the slot the world finds for you on account of your luck and what you’re good at.”

In Sunny’s eyes, the world is not a just or fair place, and you don’t choose your fate. Abercrombie’s use of the word “crammed,” an ugly, graceless word, stresses how violent and indifferent the process is. Sunny is competent, resourceful, and intelligent, but isolated by the circumstances of who she is. She expects to be unappreciated and unseen and accepts this without bitterness.

“You need to stop clinging to the notion that there’s only one right path. You’ll waste half your time panicking you’re not on it, and the rest backtracking to find it. […] You should be like water. Take the shape of wherever you are and make the best of what floats past.”

Balthazar has been driven by an obsession with correctness and clings to structures of propriety even as the world tears them down. Baptiste’s comment challenges him and puts forward the idea that real strength lies not in sticking to your ideals or preconceptions, but in knowing when to let go of them. Her simile offers a comparison with water, which, when it meets an obstacle, simply finds a way around it.

“In my youth I dreamed one man could tip the balance of history […] Time has taught me that when one does, it can tip the wrong way as easily as the right.”

Jakob speaks to Count Radosav from a place of hard-won humility—throughout the novel, he illustrates moral complexity as he undertakes The Struggle for Redemption. As a young man, he was an idealist, but his long and complex life has taught him otherwise. He recognizes that history is not a simple narrative of right and wrong; the machinery of war, politics, and ideology is too vast, unpredictable, and prone to unintended consequences. However, though Jakob no longer believes one person can save the world, he hasn’t yet given up on trying to lessen its suffering, even if only by persuading one vain nobleman to reconsider war.

“Power is a cage, Balthazar Sham Ivam Draxi.”

Balthazar calls Shaxep as an act of defiance. He believes, with almost religious fervor, that he can break Pope Benedicta’s binding and reclaim his lost agency through intelligence, audacity, and sheer will. The revelation that even the mighty demon cannot undo the binding is a theological gut-punch. Even the powerful are bound by laws older and greater than themselves, and Balthazar, a man who always saw magic as mastery, now discovers it is a prison on every level.

“Surprise is worth a thousand men. A sorcery that reduces the best-drilled company to a green rabble, the hardest-bitten knight to a pissing pageboy.”

Abercrombie strips war down to its most primal elements: violence, fear, and chance. Jakob isn’t like Balthazar, but in this moment, the knight’s sudden attack has the same impact as his necromancy or the twin sorceress’s magic. While they give spectacular displays of power, Jakob uses the metaphor of “sorcery” to illustrate the power of the grim, unglamorous skill of being first to strike when no one expects it.

“Tell the right story, people will buy any old shit.”

By the time she reaches the end of her triumphant procession, Alex is Empress Alexia Pyrogennetos, welcomed by roaring crowds and embraced by powerful figures who seem convinced of her legitimacy. It’s a fiction built on spectacle and desire: The crowd wants to believe in a savior, the nobles want stability, and the priests want unification. She might be a fraud, but the appearance of truth, delivered through ceremony and performance, is enough. The fact that Alex’s fundamental personality hasn’t changed is illustrated by her casual vulgarity, an echo of her voice at the beginning of the novel.

“I sacrificed everything and everyone. I covered myself in glory and steeped myself in blood. And there, at the summit of a hill of corpses, I reached my destiny, and passed through it to the other side…Where there was nothing. And I saw I’d never followed God’s plan, only the lies I told myself to justify my greed and my ambition.”

Jakob’s metaphor of standing atop a hill of corpses only to find “nothing” on the other side subverts the idea of traditional heroism. Rather than discovering fulfillment at the end of his trials, he finds emptiness and a self-serving narrative that enabled moral compromises in the name of greatness. In the end, his own name, carved beside those of long-dead heroes, is practically illegible.

“The wolf’s not gone and never will be gone, I know that, but I choose when to be the wolf. Not gothis with irons or cardinals with whips, not you or Jakob of Thorn, not even the moon, and definitely not the wolf. I choose.”

Known for her violence, impulsivity, and animalistic tendencies, literalized by the wolf within her, Vigga’s words show clarity and strength of will. She challenges not only those who would control her but also the fatalistic narrative imposed on her, that she is too broken and monstrous to be anything else. It shows she still has hope in herself at this point, hope that will ultimately be snuffed out by the end of the novel as events reveal that she isn’t as in control as she thought she was.

“I bent a piece of wire to the shape of her birthmark and burned myself […] because I’m a piece of shit, and I stole her name, even, because…I just wanted to be…not nothing.”

Throughout the novel, Alex has been performing power: She rails against dukes, outmaneuvers cardinals, and bears the weight of prophecy. However, here she reveals the girl behind the mask: a child abandoned by her father and shaped by trauma, theft, and survival. She stole the identity and life of a dying girl; however, the impersonation was not driven by ambition or greed but by a desperate hunger for meaning.

“When we set out, I thought you all monsters. I have learned, I suppose, that you are only people. A set of devils, perhaps, but, on this occasion, you’ve done God’s work.”

This line from Brother Diaz’s blessing before Alex’s coronation distills the entire emotional journey of himself and the devils. From the standpoint of institutional religion and moral absolutism, they were the worst of the worst, but the novel’s examination of monstrosity reveals that reality is more complicated than that. Diaz comes to see them as something more than monsters, inviting a more complicated interpretation of the concept.

“Jakob had never been much with words. But in the language of violence, he was a poet.”

In a book where the most powerful people wield words, politics, and betrayal, Jakob is different—someone who understands violence on an intrinsic level. He may be ill-suited to court intrigue or religious rhetoric, but in the chaos of civil war and coup, his skills are valuable. Jacob uses the metaphor of language to describe his facility with violence—poets are highly skilled with language, and he sees himself as their equal in violence.

“Vigga turned enemies into corpses, and Balthazar turned corpses into friends.”

Balthazar and Vigga despise each other personally, but they are an effective team. The coordination of their strengths reads less like camaraderie and more like a grotesque factory line of death. Vigga creates a wake of bodies, and Balthazar reanimates these freshly killed enemies to fight again, turning death itself into a renewable resource for war. But Abercrombie’s choice of the word “friends” makes the moment ironic. The “friends” are mindless puppets used as shields and weapons.

“Your position remains precarious. You have few friends and many rivals, and your Empire is hedged in by enemies. And that is before we even consider the threat of the elves […] an enemy before whom even the bravest must tremble, against whom even the strongest must seek every ally. Only Her Holiness, leading a Europe united under the one true Church, can give you the support you need.”

What makes Zizka’s words effective is that she doesn’t need to raise her voice or resort to overt threats. She just catalogs the pressures closing in on Alex from all sides. Rather than offering safety as a kindness, she presents it as a transaction: the Church’s backing in exchange for obedience. The implication is clear: Without the Church’s backing, Alex will fall. If she does, the world may fall with her.