Character from The Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb
The pirate king of the Cursed Shores — a charming, monstrous man who convinced everyone, possibly including himself, that his ruthless ambition was a liberation movement.
Kennit is the most dangerous person in the Liveship Traders because he looks like a hero. He frees slaves, fights slavers, builds a pirate kingdom, and rallies the dispossessed — and every single act serves his own aggrandizement first. He is a narcissist of extraordinary intelligence and willpower, capable of genuine tactical brilliance and absolute moral blindness simultaneously. The horror of Kennit is that he's not pretending to be good. He has constructed a narrative in which he IS the hero, and his ability to make others believe it is so complete that readers themselves are seduced before the mask slips. His childhood trauma — abuse suffered on the liveship Paragon — is real and devastating, but Hobb refuses to let it excuse what he becomes. He is Robin Hobb's most complex villain because he's also, in many ways, a protagonist. He gets everything he wants. The price is paid by everyone around him.
Handsome and immaculately groomed even aboard a pirate vessel — dark-haired, sharp-featured, with the kind of charisma that makes people overlook the coldness in his eyes. He loses a leg to a sea serpent and replaces it with a carved wooden peg that he treats as a minor inconvenience rather than a disability. A tiny carved wizardwood charm on his wrist speaks with a voice only he can hear.
Also known as: Captain Kennit, King Kennit, King of the Pirate Isles