#Nicholas Nalklov

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Lord Commander Nicholas Nalklov

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Alright let's talk about this asshole

Lord Commander Nicholas Nalklov is the primary antagonist of the This Tower of Iron novel(s)

He's the authoritarian military dictator of The Commonwealth, and entity he created from the ashes of the Cassimiran Empire, born from the chaos of the revolution.

Nicholas started out in a very similar situation to our protagonist Natasha. He grew up an impoverished street rat in the gutter of Cienma (capital city, used to be called Chunwall) until he was taken in by Peter Nalklov, the Lord Commander of the Czar's personal guards; the Order of the White Tower.

Nicholas growing up was dutiful, passionate, and patriotic. He truly did love his country and its people, and most especially the royal family who he came very close to. Especially the crown princess Maria.

Nicholas was never really accepted by the nobility and the aristocracy, and they hated how close he was to the royal family, fearing his influence as he suggested policies to the Czar that would uplift the serfs and peasantry and diminish the role of the nobility. So they conspired against him.

They managed to implicate Nicholas in a conspiracy against the crown, and have him arrested, but not before he is seriously injured in a false flag explosion that results in the loss of his leg.

Nicholas became disillusioned with the regime he'd served almost all his life and was easily radicalized by the growing populist revolutionary movement. He lent his military strategic talents to the cause and saw them overthrow the old czarist regime.

Yet it was during the revolution that he realized their follies as well, he watched the revolution begin to eat itself alive as factions split and the cause turned to chaos. All the while the leaders who should have been maintaining order focused all their energy on hunting down every last person who had served the Czar and seeing their heads roll.

This is why Nicholas Nalklov took full military control and declared the formation of the Commonwealth with himself at its head as Lord Commander.

The Lord Commander forms one half of the conflict in the novels. He believes that humanity are flawed beings who cannot be trusted, that any system or government that you create regardless of itself intent or moral cause will always fall into corruption and authoritarianism or chaos. The system will either collapse into violence or be forced to don and iron fist. And thus it must inevitably be brought down through violent revolution. Nicholas pessimistically believes humanity will be stuck in this cycle forever.