Tattoos, Luck and Addictions (spoilers all RotE books)

[Farseer]

After he returned to Divvytown from the Others' Island, Kennit asked for a tattoo of an Other to be marked into the nape of his neck. As with the previous two tattoos (which appeared as scars on Kennit's back), he planned to have the one of the Other later burned off. To Kennit, this was the only way to "expunge the bad luck". The application and subsequent removal of the tattoos, like his luck, came to be somewhat like an addiction to Kennit.

I am trying to think if we ever learn what the previous two tattoos were, and can't recall being told. Can anyone remember? If we weren't told, what do you think they were images of?

I had thoughts that they may have been of Igrot and possibly then Paragon (or just a 'liveship') but, given that Kennit killed the man who made his wizardwood charm so that his secret was kept secret, I can't imagine Kennit asking for such personal connections as Paragon and Igrot to be inked into his skin and the tattooist then still be allowed to live? What else could the images have been of though? What else do we know of from his history that he would have wanted wiped away?

Also, was the application of the tattoo of the Other, which the tattooist had dubbed as a 'bad luck' tattoo, Kennit's downfall? Was this where his luck turned?

Is there a link to the ability to ink a tattoo and the Skill, as an art form? Do we have evidence of Elderlings ever using tattoos? Where else are tattoos used outside of the Pirate Isles (where they are applied to free, willing men) and as part of the slave trade in Jamaillia, Chalced etc (where they are applied to slaves)? Patience certainly dabbled in the art of tattooing, once with Fitz assisting, and Hearth also showed an interest in it. Did we hear of it elsewhere within the Six Duchies?

One of the bodies Verity identified after the slaying of the Forged ones was of a woman "tattooed with the puppeteers' guild sign" so obviously they were also sometimes used to identify a line of work or group someone was in?

The mother-clans of the Outislanders were indicated by the tattoos they wore and Outislander tattoos also showed victories or the status of a woman eg mariage or children. Of course, there were also Fool and Elliania's tattoos (the latter which Fitz removed via the Skill...on that, could we later see all slave tattoos removed via use of the Skill, allowing the Tattooed etc to shrug of their outward sign of prior slavery?!).

Also, what of the various addictions within the various plots? Of course there is the major one attributed to the Skill magic (which, as far as I am aware, was the starting point that prompted Robin to write the entire series..."What would happen if magic was addictive?"). We also have Burrich's love of alcohol, Brashen's use of cindin and Fitz overusing such herbs as elfbark and carryme. There is also the use of elfbark in Chalced. Are there more instances of substance abuse and/or addictions?

What purpose does the inclusion of addictions serve to the plot (other than just being a facet of human life) and what purpose do these addictions serve for the characters themselves? What lessons do they teach? What do they say of the characters, particularly given that it is the more 'heroic' types who are in the addictions' clutches?

['thul]

There is no connection between the skill and tattooist art that 'thul can recall. Tattooing skin (hairless fur) is fairly simple. Tattooing scales is not really practical, if at all possible.

Addictions serve as flaws in otherwise too-perfect characters...

[Nuytsia]

I suspect we weren't told what those 2 previous tatoos of Kennits were, but I really can't be sure. I am just about to re-read the Liveships books, so I'll keep an eye out for any more clues!

In relation to the Fool and Elliana's tattoos...... I never really understood why the PW uses dragon tattoos? Am I clueless, as this seems a fairly key point. She wanted to prevent the return of dragons didn't she? Sooooooo, why did she use dragon tattoos?
Also what exactly was the purpose of those tattoos? She had power over Elliana through some sort of mind link - the Skill or something directly caused by the tattoo? What does this say about why she had the tattoo done on the Fool???

Re addictions, I don't know what exactly we are to make of the addictions of Fitz, Chade, Burrich, etc as far as a unifying theme ..... except that it just occurred to me that all those with addictions are male???

I always thought the Forged ones were based on real life addicts .....

['thul]

The sole power linked to those tattoos was in Elliana, since they were made from White prophet blood ink. So essentially it was not tattoo so much as blood magic. Perhaps the form was to mock dragonkind and make lesser of them?

[Nightchade]

Addictions: Well I dont know about 'addiction' (which is such a charged word and means different things to different people) but the Fool certainly chugged down a lot of apricot brandy throughout the TM series! Not just for fun either but in times of stress. Always a bit of a warning sign re emotional dependancy . His breath smells of the stuff when he first comes back to meet Fitz in FE, initially.. ' His breath smelled of honey and apricot brandy. Had he fortified himself against this meeting?' then a little later '..so he had fortified himself against this meeting. I wondered what part of it he had dreaded. ' He is later seen turning to drink when upset (after showing Fitz the tattoos he is slugging straight from the bottle..) . Other characters also seek solace in alcohol. I recall Fitz going through a phase of over-indulgence in the first series, drink caused him to fight with Molly and be a bit of a slacker around the stables etc at one point. Chade also drains Fitz's glass of brandy when he's a bit overwrought in another scene during TM. Brandy is also used 'medicinally' throughout the series as well as smoothing social occasions. Much as it is in RL. I also wonder about the 'smoking herbs' which seem to move from something slightly naughty to being more mainstream following Regals reign. Its not just men, Kettricken I recall was also becoming fond of the odd smoke also. '...her eyes were bright through the haze..' GF

Tattoos. The Fool envisioned a world where dragons would exist again and possibly spoke of this as a child. The PW had a different vision and I have always seen the Fools tattoos as representing her mockery of him. Painful, bewildering for him and humiliating. She was exerting her control by branding him cruelly with an image of something he longed for. The slave tattoos also had an element of humiliation as well as being a symbol of ownership and I would guess this was in the PW mind also. She may always have intended to remove them when she 'triumphed' and the Fools nightmares had shown him this, adding to the abuse. By the time she had tattooed Eliana she had refined her torture and found a new way to apply the control. She may also have known how freaked out the Fool would have been to discover this. '...arrrgh... I need more brandy Fitz...now...now....'

[Nuytsia]

Nightchade yes, I too was a bit worried about the Fool hitting the old apricot brandy so much! Your post highlights to me that it was very much more a feature of the Tawny Man series. I don't recall him getting drunk in the Farseer series? And I don't recall Amber getting drunk?
Yet, as you point out he had been drinking before he makes his very first appearance in Tawny Man. Just part of his Lord Golden persona? Or just a bad habit he picked up? Hmmmmm.

Edit: Another possible drug - what about the serpents and their toxins?

Interesting thoughts on the dragon tattoos! Yeah that makes sense.. it's certainly one explanation!
I also wonder if she tattooed anyone else like that?

[Farseer]

I don't recall him getting drunk in the Farseer series? And I don't recall Amber getting drunk?
Yet, as you point out he had been drinking before he makes his very first appearance in Tawny Man. Just part of his Lord Golden persona? Or just a bad habit he picked up? Hmmmmm.

Fool hit the brandy, when Fitz 'came to' in Fool's Mountain Kingdom room in Chapter Twenty 'Jhaampe' , back in AQ.

"For a year, I have believed you dead, Fitz. For a whole year."
He had not released my hand. I felt the trembling that went through him. He stood suddenly saying, "We both need something to drink."

Fool consumed quite a bit when cupfuls are counted...actually, reading on, he emptied the bottle with little of its contents taken in by Fitz (who was still laying on his stomach with an arrow embedded in his back)!

No doubt the year spent believing that his Catalyst was dead was a difficult one for our favourite White Prophet - a year which he got through via the use of brandy and this possibly put him on the road to "dependence"? He was definitely rattled throughout the above passage.

There is a possibility that Fool needed to fortify himself whenever he was in Fitz' presence, the longer they were together and the greater their bond, to counteract the humanness/emotion he felt? After all, as soon as Fool turned up in FE, Fitz noted that he had fortified himself for their meeting?

More likely though, Fool was on a bit of a downer throughout the TM series, feeling low due to believing he may have failed at his White Prophet duties throughout LST (with regards to being with the wrong person - Wintrow or Althea). He said as much on one of the nights he drank too much in the hut with Fitz, also in FE, and even accidentally blurted everything out to Fitz about the stunted dragons up in the Rain Wilds etc.

This is similar to how he was feeling throughout the year of Fitz' 'death'...that he'd failed as a WP, not to mention had not kept his Catalyst alive.

Maybe this then is why he also fortified himself prior to their first meeting in FE? He was feeling completely unsure of himself and his abilities as WP, after believing he failed during LST, and thus needed brandy courage to approach Fitz and throw himself back into the task of saving the world, despite his lack of belief in himself and knowing the world depended on his not making mistakes.

Too, it was only Fool's say-so that 'made' him the White Prophet of that time...the majority of others who cared about such matters believed the real White Prophet of that generation had been out in the world for years. If Fool failed in saving the world, he also failed at all he had given his life over to do, he had run away from his 'school' for nothing and others would conclude that he'd lied about being the WP.

I'm thinking I'd be needing a drink of something too......!

[Farseer]

Nightchade yes, I too was a bit worried about the Fool hitting the old apricot brandy so much! Your post highlights to me that it was very much more a feature of the Tawny Man series. I don't recall him getting drunk in the Farseer series?

Fitz, Fool and Burrich had hit the bottle in RA, up in Burrich's room at Buckkeep, and were all caught out by Lacey when she was trying to get rid of the chicken whose blood was used to enact Kettricken's miscarriage. There is a LOT of drinking that goes on...! I can't wait to get back to a LST re-read to check out Amber's habits!!

[londonlassie]

After he returned to Divvytown from the Others' Island, Kennit asked for a tattoo of an Other to be marked into the nape of his neck. As with the previous two tattoos (which appeared as scars on Kennit's back), he planned to have the one of the Other later burned off. To Kennit, this was the only way to "expunge the bad luck". The application and subsequent removal of the tattoos, like his luck, came to be somewhat like an addiction to Kennit.

I burned myself on my hair curlers this morning. It's now late evening and the darned burn is still hurting. I can safely say that Kennit is a masochistic loony, and should definitely have been sent to therapy

I had thoughts that they may have been of Igrot and possibly then Paragon (or just a 'liveship')

Very interesting idea! I looked, and it wasn't mentioned what his other tattoos were, but I can see the logic behind the whole Igrot/Paragon thing. After all, Kennit burns off his mistakes, things that make him hate himself, and the one person who really made him hate himself was Igrot.

I can't imagine Kennit asking for such personal connections as Paragon and Igrot to be inked into his skin and the tattooist then still be allowed to live?

It's mentioned that the same tattooist did the other two tattoos, and Ivro really seems to dislike Kennit, so this point really makes sense. My original guess was that either Kennit was bribing him to keep quiet, or Kennit had threatened him with some kind of horrible death if he so much as said a word. Fear could have been making Ivro keep Kennit's secrets. I can't think of anything else which might've made him avoid telling the world what a...unsettled...person Kennit is.

On a side note, was I the only one who thought it was a little strange that Kennit's tattooist of choice - bearing in mind getting a tattoo hurts - had a name so similar to "Igrot"? Methinks Kennit's masochism also has a bit to do with who else is involved - maybe by letting Ivro hurt him, he was trying to make himself feel like somebody else was in control (like when Igrot was hurting him) and thereby absolving himself of all responsibility for the mistake, because he wasn't in charge and that means it wasn't his fault. But maybe I'm talking rubbish again, and I'm definitely not explaining this as well as I intended to in my head

And while I'm thinking about it, Kennit let Ivro call him a "son of a bitch". I doubt he'd take that kind of verbal abuse from people normally, so I'm not sure why he puts up with it from Ivro.

What else could the images have been of though? What else do we know of from his history that he would have wanted wiped away?

Off the top of my head, his father's death, or his mother losing her tongue? Or the destruction of his hometown. But I still think that your original ideas of Igrot and Paragon are the most likely ones, Farseer.

One of the bodies Verity identified after the slaying of the Forged ones was of a woman "tattooed with the puppeteers' guild sign" so obviously they were also sometimes used to identify a line of work or group someone was in?

People in Bingtown also do this, tattooing a ship's symbol onto themselves if they're certain of continued employment. There were a couple of men aboard the Vivacia who had tattoos showing whose crew they belonged to, and this was what inspired Wintrow's face tattoo, IIRC.

Nightchade yes, I too was a bit worried about the Fool hitting the old apricot brandy so much! Your post highlights to me that it was very much more a feature of the Tawny Man series. I don't recall him getting drunk in the Farseer series? And I don't recall Amber getting drunk?
Yet, as you point out he had been drinking before he makes his very first appearance in Tawny Man. Just part of his Lord Golden persona? Or just a bad habit he picked up? Hmmmmm.

Once I found out that he more or less knew how horribly he would die, I put his drinking down to fear. Poor Beloved


Oh lord, yet another post of mine which is 99.9% Kennit, which makes probably 99.9% of my posts so far. I think Kennit's not the only one who needs some kind of therapy.

[Farseer]

On a side note, was I the only one who thought it was a little strange that Kennit's tattooist of choice - bearing in mind getting a tattoo hurts - had a name so similar to "Igrot"? Methinks Kennit's masochism also has a bit to do with who else is involved - maybe by letting Ivro hurt him, he was trying to make himself feel like somebody else was in control (like when Igrot was hurting him) and thereby absolving himself of all responsibility for the mistake, because he wasn't in charge and that means it wasn't his fault. But maybe I'm talking rubbish again, and I'm definitely not explaining this as well as I intended to in my head

Quickly checking in whilst unpacking (I needed a break from boxes!! ) but I had to at least say that I like this...I like this, a lot!