Character from The Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb
The mad liveship — a vessel driven insane by abuse and tragedy, whose figurehead turns to face the wall and who kills his crews, until Brashen Trell is desperate enough to sail him.
Paragon is the most terrifying and heartbreaking entity in the Liveship Traders. He is a ship made from the cocoon of a dragon, quickened by the blood of the Ludluck family — a family that included the boy who would become Captain Kennit. The abuse Kennit suffered aboard Paragon's deck is locked in the ship's memories, driving him mad. He kills crews. He capsizes deliberately. He screams in the night. And yet beneath the madness is a desperate loneliness — a sentient being abandoned by everyone who should have cared for him, lashing out because rage is less painful than grief. Brashen's willingness to sail him, to treat the madness as something to work with rather than avoid, is the beginning of Paragon's redemption. Paragon eventually reclaims his dragon nature, which is both a triumph and a loss — the ship becomes a dragon, and the tortured identity that was 'Paragon the liveship' dissolves into something older and stranger.
A large liveship whose figurehead is a young man — but the face has been deliberately blinded, the eyes hacked away. The figurehead often turns to face the hull rather than the sea, presenting his mutilated face to the world as a statement of refusal. The ship itself is sound but neglected, beached and abandoned on the shores of Bingtown for years.
Also known as: Paragon, The Mad Ship, The Paragon