Kirth Gersen
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Kirth Gersen is the protagonist of the five Demon Princes novels by Jack Vance, set approximately 1500 years in the future. When he was a boy, he and his grandfather were the only members of a peaceful and harmless space colony to escape a massacre and slave raid (the "Mount Pleasant Massacre") perpetrated by pirates led by five master criminals known as the "Demon Princes." The grandfather devotes the rest of his life to training the young Gersen--on Earth, Alphanor and other central planets of the Oikumene--to be the avenger who will track down and summarily execute the Demon Princes.
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[edit] Appearance and demeanour
Gersen is a young man (aged about 34 at the beginning of Star King), but sufficiently mature, thanks to his unconventional upbringing, to draw a respectful "sir" from a university student he encounters. He has been trained in numerous fighting techniques, including bare-handed combat, knife-fighting, and the exotic poisoning techniques practiced by the Sarkoy. He is also intelligent and patient, capable of a good deal of deductive work, and possessed of ample courage given that his life's quest must necessarily bring him into opposition with five of the inhabited galaxy's most dangerous and unscrupulous criminals, all of whom possess vast resources (in the case of Viole Falushe, a planet of his own).
[edit] Wealth and resources
At the beginning of his quest, Gersen owns a small spaceship, and otherwise possesses little wealth, though enough to go extremely well-armed when circumstances both demand and permit it, and enough to further his detective work with occasional minor purchases and bribes. During the events described in The Killing Machine, however, Gersen gains fabulous wealth by running a Simon Templar style scam on Kokor Hekkus, a Demon Prince who is holding him for ransom, and on Interchange, the institution that facilities the ransoming of kidnappees. However, he is not given to conspicuous consumption and, barring expenditure on a succession of new and more luxurious spacecraft, he uses his money mostly to further his work. He acquires at least one bank and a magazine with galaxy-wide circulation, the latter allowing him to assume the identity of a reporter from time to time.
[edit] Personality
Given his unusual circumstances, it would not be unreasonable to expect Gersen to be a borderline sociopath on his own account. Instead, he is as much concerned with the welfare of his fellow man as an average man might be, and not one who had spent fifteen years or more in training to become an assassin. He displays chivalry upon occasion, inconveniencing himself, sustaining injury or putting himself in harm's way to rescue women who are in need (or, in The Book of Dreams, to save the entire high school reunion class of villain Howard Alan Treesong from an evil fate).
A common view is that he is a normal man who has had a path in life forced upon him. The true villains of the series are the Five Demon Princes and, also more acutely, his grandfather who moulded him into a killing machine to exact his revenge. However the redemptive piece is that Kirth's humanity prevails - at the end you know he has at least a chance of living a 'normal life'.
[edit] Romantic entanglements
During the course of the novels he experiences a series of romantic interludes of gradually increasing intensity. In Star King he dates a young clerk, Pallis Atwrode, whom he must later rescue. In The Killing Machine he encounters Alusz Iphegenia Eperje-Tokay, and seems to be growing involved with her; but early in the following book, The Palace of Love, the pair split up, chiefly because Alusz Iphegenia cannot understand why the now-wealthy Gersen does not subcontract his dangerous and horrifying life's work. It is unclear whether this relationship was ever consummated.
His quest for Viole Falushe brings him into association with a clone of Drusilla Wayles, Viole Falushe's permanent obsession, from whom he later parts rather than repeat the unhappy ending of his relationship with Alusz Iphegenia. At the end of the book he meets another, slightly older, clone, and the acquaintance appears mutually delightful. However, there is no sign of her by the time of the events chronicled in The Face.
During this fourth quest he meets yet another young woman, Jerdian Chanseth, only to lose her, too, owing to the peculiar snobbish exclusivity of her homeworld. Finally, he has the aid and companionship of Alice Wroke in The Book of Dreams, and as the story closes and Gersen finds himself at a loose end with all his enemies defeated, it seems as though he has perhaps found a lasting relationship that will cushion him through the transition from monomaniacal assassin to ordinary citizen.
[edit] Jehan Addels
Gersen has besides one long-term associate who might be considered also a friend. Having come into possession of an enormous fortune via a swindle perpetrated beyond reach of the law, Gersen needs to put the money in a safe place and, ideally, to work. To this end he engages an investor named Jehan Addels, whom he promises a large salary with regular increments and the interesting work of investing a sum of money that would bankrupt many a government. He hires Addels on the basis of his reputation for competence and honesty, wanting neither to destabilise any economies, nor to see his vast wealth embezzled; and especially not to compromise his own anonymity by sending ripples through the financial world.
Addels takes on the work and delivers sterling service, and also furthers Gersen's detective work from time to time, occasionally at some risk to his own person. For the most part, he suspends judgment as to Gersen's life's work, which he chooses not to enquire in too closely; but given that at one point he becomes directly involved in the plot to hunt down Lens Larque, it may be supposed that he has some idea what Gersen is about, and approves. Trivia point: it becomes apparent at one point that Addels is a connoisseur of fine tea.
