This post contains MAJOR SPOILERS from late in the set. Do not read this post unless you've read ALL of the books that have been published. You've been warned.
This will make more sense if I include my previous thoughts before I get to what I recently realized.
From Keeper of the Lost Cities #9 The Forgotten Secrets:
Page 243 But once again, they'd finished a memory and learned nothing—except that Kenric either lied when he told Oralie he'd slipped past Fintan's mental defenses, or he'd been fooled by a pretty simple trick.
We learn here that Fintan served on the Council at the same time as Fallon. Could Fintan be one of the three Founding Councillors?
I wonder if Kenric did make a deal with Fintan. It appears that he didn't, but we don't really know. Kenric could have come back at a later time and made a deal with Fintan. I wonder about this because Fintan faked his death in the Everblaze, and I'm certain that Kenric did as well. That's quite a coincidence for both of them to fake their deaths at the same time and seemingly on the spur of the moment.
Fintan's statement that he's "not in charge—at the moment" sounds a bit ominous. We now know that Fintan does want to be in charge and that he is working with the Neverseen in order to gain power.
From Keeper of the Lost Cities #9 More on the Forgotten Secrets:
This secret provides some information regarding Elysian and Fintan's Noxflares. I spot several vague statements that are likely hints about Elysian.
Page 228: "But some of us are still willing to wait for the opportune moment." He smiled with the last words, as if he'd made a private joke...
This tells me that Fintan is waiting for a certain moment in order to unleash his scheme, whatever that is.
Fintan accuses Kenric of planning to give him one of his "infamous heart-to-hearts." Interestingly, Oralie tells Sophie that she doesn't know what Fintan means. Strange.
We learn that Noxflares are fire-resistant.
I continue to suspect that Fintan helped Kenric fake his death. I believe some possible clues are in this memory.
Page 234: Fintan shook his head. "These aren't hungry flames. They'll stay right where I want them. That's why I chose them."
What if the fire that Fintan sparked in Oblivimyre was one that Fintan could control and keep where he wanted it to burn? What if the fire was designed to burn the tower and buildings of Eternalia and nothing else? Is that why everyone was able to leap away?
Page 235: "As far as I'm concerned," Kenric continued, "you can burn your whole house down if you want to—as long as no one gets hurt."
Hmm... If Kenric didn't die in the Everblaze, then all that happened is that the tower burned down with nobody getting hurt.
Fintan offers Kenric a deal. He will answer Kenric's question if Kenric will do something for him. It seems that Kenric doesn't take the deal. But then... most of the rest of the memory is unintelligible. We know that Kenric did probe Fintan's mind, but only because of the other part of this memory that is detailed in Book 8.5.
From More Keeper of the Lost Cities Thoughts and Speculation:
My opinion about Kenric and Fintan colluding together to fake their deaths in the Everblaze has shifted for now.
This is what I wrote previously in my post More on the Forgotten Secrets:
What happened when
Kenric probed Fintan's mind? Could Kenric have made a deal with
Fintan? My thinking is that Fintan and Kenric had some kind of
agreement that ultimately resulted in Fintan and Kenric faking their
deaths at Oblivimyre.
The one thing I've struggled with is that
Fintan would know that Kenric is alive. I've since realized that since
Kenric is a Washer, he would have simply erased Fintan's memory right
after they escaped the flames.
A popular fan theory is that Kenric is with the Neverseen, and this
would explain how Kenric disappears with Fintan. The problem is all of
the clues, particularly the anagram in Kenric's full name, that point to
Kenric being Forkle, which is why I stick with my explanation. Forkle
is definitely not with the Neverseen. I mean, I suppose he could be with the Neverseen and the Black Swan, but I think that's too much of a stretch.
I've
been mulling this over, and I currently feel that both Kenric and
Fintan faked their deaths with no knowledge of what the other one did.
There's obviously a secret about what happened when Kenric probed
Fintan's mind in the Forgotten Secret. I thought that Kenric and Fintan
made a deal. Later, it becomes apparent that Kenric learned about
Elysian and/or stellarlune from probing Fintan's mind.
That's what I wrote in my three previous posts that touched on the Forgotten Secret with Kenric and Oralie questioning Fintan. During my fourth reading of the series, I mulled over this Forgotten Secret as I drove to work on the morning of November 12. I had just finished reading Book 7, and I realized that the chapter where Sophie and Fitz retrieve some of Keefe's washed memories with the assistance of Tiergan provides some clues.
Book 8.5, Page 526: "You breached his mind? Why?" Kenric backed away, resuming his pacing. "The same reason I always breach someone's mind—but I didn't find the information that I was looking for, in case you're wondering."
No, Kenric learned something about Elysian. We know this because Prentice's broken mind has information about Elysian in it and because Kenric and Oralie visit Elysian in Forgotten Secret #6.
In Book 7, Keefe's recovered memories are damaged. They are "crackly and distorted" with "strange flickering gaps" and the "soundtrack was warped, with voices fading in and out." Tiergan takes a look and explains that the memories were shattered, rather than washed.
The memory with Fintan has some of these same characteristics.
Book 9, Page 240 The projection of Oralie sighed and repeated her question—but halfway through, the words turned muffled and distant. "Is that the end of the memory?" Dex asked when the hologram warped and faded.
Kenric tampered with the memory, which means that he shattered part of the memory before storing it in his cache.
Book 8.5, Page 523 "Can you feel how serious I am when I tell you that it's absolutely essential to keep everything about Elysian fragmented?"
Kenric literally fragmented his own memory of entering Fintan's mind to find information about stellarlune. Instead, he learned about Elysian. We know this from the part of this secret that is in Oralie's cache. Here is the above quote again with what follows it.
Book 8.5, Page 523 "Can you feel how serious I am when I tell you that it's absolutely essential to keep everything about Elysian fragmented?" The projection of Oralie frowned. "That's not the word you had me ask Fintan about."
Kenric slipped and said a word he hadn't mentioned, a word that he almost certainly had just pulled from Fintan's mind.
Book 8.5, Page 525 "You don't get to show up at my door in the middle of the night, beg me to go with you to see a former Councillor... ask him over and over about whatever stellarlune is... and then stand there, gray as a ghoul because you slipped and said something about this mysterious Elysian."
Yes, Kenric slipped. He had just learned about Elysian from Fintan and accidentally said the word to Oralie. He shattered that part of the memory in order to keep it out of his cache.
Kenric washed (or shattered) Oralie's memory, but his own memory is the one in the cache, since some of the memory is from when Kenric is inside Fintan's mind.
I have long had a theory that Kenric is Ethan Benedict Wright II. In a future post, I'll explain how I think this is still possible with what we learn in Book 9.5. If I'm right about Kenric and Ethan, this is what I currently think:
Kenric was messing with Lady Gisela by letting her attempt to recruit him as Ethan Benedict Wright II. While this plan was in progress, Kenric probed Fintan's mind about stellarlune and learned about Elysian. What he learned scared him, so much so that he realized that he had made a mistake as Ethan Benedict Wright II. In Book 9.5, Eleanor Olivia Wright tells Keefe that her father told her that he had made a big mistake. It all fits.
All of my past Keeper posts are linked from this page:
Keeper of the Lost Cities Summaries, Reviews, and Theories
No comments:
Post a Comment