Wintrow/Kennit SPOILERS ALL HOBB BOOKS INCL COD

[londonlassie]

Argh, so much to pull apart (I'll have to come back!!) but his distain, for starters, is his armour. No matter if they were male, female, a liveship, an Other, a Satrap...he distained them to cloak and protect himself after what took place with Igrot.

That's an interesting way of looking at it, I'd never thought about it that way before. I'd always put Kennit's disdain down to the fact that he didn't have the emotional faculties necessary to feel anything else for other people.

For his own purposes he was able to set this aside for brief moments (say, with Vivacia, who he needed to woo so that he could possess her and thus venture up the Rain River, or even to also fill his base need to be linked to a liveship as he believed Paragon gone etc) but, essentially, he placed himself on a pedestal and distained all to save himself.

I did find it sad how Kennit wanted any liveship but his liveship. Paragon was the one creature who could have really healed Kennit, and Kennit just pushed him away.

No sense at all, that one.

As an aside, it's interesting to note that, through his charm, some of his signs of vulnerability that he would not otherwise have shown (the example of the poem which made Etta cry and love him all the more) proved to actually advance his situation. In this, his charm couldn't stand him but still cared enough about those around him (Etta particularly) to want to make Kennit appear like a much better person than he really was.

I like to think the charm represents Kennit as he would've been without all the trauma Igrot put him through. Good Kennit. (As an aside, I'm pretty sure it was a thread on this forum which gave me that idea ) But I do like to think that Kennit as he should've been would have loved Etta as much as she loved him.

It's interesting that Kennit, a human, didn't realise that showing his vulnerable side would only appeal to Etta's nurturing instincts, but the charm, a dragon, did.

An afterthought that I may come to regret because a) it has nothing to do with anything and b) I haven't thought about it (!)...in a way, Kennit's charm acted somewhat like a reservoir of knowledge/memories in similar-ish fashion ('thul beings, I didn't say 'similar'! ) to the Rooster Crown and other memory stone/wizardwood objects...bringing back much of what he'd wanted to rid himself of.

The charm did seem maliciously intent on forcing Kennit to face his demons. Pretty much everything it said, it dragged Igrot up. I don't think the charm was a bad guy at all, though. I think he just thought there was something to be achieved by shoving Igrot in Kennit's face the whole time, to make Kennit realise the road he was going down and how it was going to end. He just didn't count on Kennit being as far gone as he was.

I can't *believe* that I am trying to get inside Kennit's head with this...

My advice? Stay out of Kennit's head. You'll get lost or locked in and never get out again. I'm pretty sure I've been wandering around in there for about three years, and I still haven't found the exit.

...if I do that, I might sympathise...and...I...can't...have...THAT!

My mother happened to mention just how far gone I was the other day when I made the engaging, intelligent and well-thought-out argument, "Poor Kennit, it's not his fault. He's just misunderstood!"

I used to think Kennit was mildly sympathetic and rather frightening in his insanity. He got more...likeable (wrong word, but I can't think of the right one)...the more I found out about his past and the more I sympathised with him.