Character from The First Law by Joe Abercrombie
A vain, shallow fencing champion who was installed as king of the Union by Bayaz — spending the rest of his life discovering that wearing a crown means being owned by the man who gave it to you.
Jezal starts as the most punchable man in fantasy — a preening, self-absorbed aristocrat whose greatest concern is his fencing form and his reflection. He's the golden boy who's never worked for anything and assumes the world owes him success. The journey to the Old Empire breaks him, literally and figuratively. His jaw gets smashed. He sees real violence. He falls in love with a woman he'd have sneered at before. He starts to become, against all odds, a decent human being. Then Bayaz makes him king, and the decent human being discovers that decency is a luxury the throne can't afford. Bayaz controls the money, the military, and the Inquisition. Jezal is a puppet with a crown, and every attempt to assert independence is crushed with a smile and a reminder of who really holds the power. By the Age of Madness, he's dead — the puppet king who fathered Orso, another puppet, continuing the cycle. The lesson: even genuine growth doesn't matter when someone else writes the script.
Annoyingly handsome — golden hair, fine features, the kind of face that wins fencing tournaments and female attention without much effort. After his jaw is broken during the journey to the Old Empire, a scar mars his perfect looks, and the metaphor writes itself. Dresses in the finest Union fashion, befitting the king he never earned the right to be.
Also known as: Jezal, Jezal dan Luthar, King Jezal