Fintan Pyren is the former main antagonist of Keeper of the Lost Cities. He was a former leader of the Neverseen and is currently in prison. He is a Pyrokinetic, an Ancient, and a former Councillor. He stepped down after Pyrokinesis was banned after he called down Everblaze. He is known to be older than Councillor Bronte.
Ability[]
Fintan's mastery over flames is so powerful that he was even able to call Everblaze in absolute zero conditions. Even while his mind was broken, he could still consciously draw body heat from people and use their flames as a weapon.
Appearance[]
Fintan has a slender build and features which Sophie describes as looking "almost fragile-looking". He has electric blue eyes and messy blond hair. Like all Ancients, he has pointed ears. His ears are pointier then Councillor Bronte's, suggesting that he is older than him. He is notably unscarred from the Oblivimyre fire. While with the Neverseen, he wore their uniform and cloak. At other points in the series, he has worn fireproof robes and capes while training other pyrokinetics.
Involvement[]
Book 1: Keeper of the Lost Cities[]
Sophie suspects that the fires ravaging San Diego are Everblaze, which leads her to illegally bottle the flames when the Council refuses to investigate the fires. This served as evidence against Fintan, resulting in his arrest.
While Sophie and Dex are interrogated by the Neverseen, Sophie believes that the Pyrokinetic interrogating her is Fintan. After her escape, she learns that this is not true, as Fintan was arrested before she was kidnapped. The unknown Pyrokinetic is later revealed to be Brant.
Book 2: Exile[]
Alden and Sophie go to Exile, where Fintan is being held, in order to perform a memory break. Fintan refuses to disclose information about the Neverseen despite being offered freedom by Alden. Alden forcefully breaks down his mental barriers to search his mind, and recovers a memory of Fintan summoning Everblaze for the first time. Fintan responds by attempting to destroy his own memories, and they are only able to recover a memory of him training a mysterious Pyrokinetic (later revealed to be Brant) to summon Everblaze before Fintan uses Alden's body heat to burn him and break his concentration. Fintan's mind shatters and he loses his sanity, which makes his mind unsafe to search.
Book 3: Everblaze[]
The Council orders Sophie to heal Fintan's mind in order to learn the identity of the unknown Pyrokinetic Fintan is protecting. Sophie is able to partially heal his mind, but is frightened and exits Fintan's mind when she hears his voice speaking to her. Tiergan theorizes that this may be a defense mechanism that Fintan intentionally left before the mind break to frighten away anyone who tried to search his memories. She enters his mind again along with Fitz, and they encounter memories of his life. Sophie initially attempts to find the memory of the Pyrokinetic by searching for memories Fintan associates with pride, but finds only memories of him helping people. When she searches for his memories of guilt and shame, however, she finds the memory of the Pyrokinetic that she's searching for. Fintan's mind fights her, however, and the only new details she recovers are the dark hair and pale skin of the mysterious Pyrokinetic, and a patch on his sleeve that reads "Neverseen". Before Sophie can try again, Fintan gains enough consciousness to summon Everblaze. He tells Sophie that the identity of the Pyrokinetic will die with him, and sets fire to Oblivimyre, the tower that they are in. The fire spreads to the rest of Eternalia, and Fintan is presumed dead, along with Councillor Kenric, who tackles Fintan as he summons the Everblaze.
Book 4: Neverseen[]
It was revealed that Fintan survived the fire in Oblivimyre. He and King Dimitar gave threats to the Lost Cities and the gnomes, giving them a choice of handing the antidote and serving under the ogres or living without the antidote. It could be seen that the Neverseen and the ogres were joining forces. He and Brant also trapped Sophie and her friends in a cage of Everblaze after their escape from Ravagog.
Book 5: Lodestar[]
During Keefe’s time in the Neverseen, he tells Sophie that Fintan is working on his vision, involving the Criterion and the Lodestar Initiative. He would frequently take Keefe to the Forbidden Cities and ask him questions about the humans they were observing.
Fintan is then captured and talks his way into the Peace Summit in Lumenaria. However, it is revealed that his and other members of the Neverseen's capture was part of their grand plan, and, using their mental energy they bring Lumenaria crashing down on itself, killing Brant in the process. When this happens, Vespera escapes with them.
Book 6: Nightfall[]
It’s discovered that Vespera is working with Fintan. During the showdown at Nightfall, Grady mesmerizes Fintan into opening the door and knocking himself out. At the end of the book, Fintan is captured, but he has a bargaining chip: he knows where to find a reserve of the antidote to the Neverseen's weapon, soporidine. As levy for the information regarding the antidote, he makes a few demands: No Telepath can come near him, especially Sophie; He will be kept in a private prison, not a cell in Exile; and the Council must guarantee that no harm will come to him, including memory breaks. In return, the Council ordered that in the following days, Fintan must work with Councillor Bronte to access the secrets in his cache, which Keefe had stolen during his infiltration of the Neverseen.
Book 7: Flashback[]
It is revealed that the cache Keefe stole is a fake. Fintan demands a meeting with Sophie and Fitz, in which he tells them Vespera's plans for the Celestial Festival, in exchange for their promise to let him train Marella Redek.
Book 8: Legacy[]
Fintan starts training Marella in pyrokinesis. Linh comes to one of these lessons to extinguish any accidental fires just in case, and Marella says Fintan seems impressed with Linh.
Book 9: Stellarlune[]
Marella offers Fintan one of his noxflares during a pyrokinetic lesson. After a few moments he agrees to show her one of the secrets inside his cache, In that secret, Fintan is burning some noxflares with flames in different colors and saying that something is missing. After Marella puts a cube of ice with his noxflare in it into his sight, Fintan offers Marella to show her the other secrets and tell her the truth about what happened to her mother if she tells him what was missing, should she ever find out. Then he proceeds with the lesson and shows Marella how she can make fire having the same colours as in the secret.
Quotes[]
“That’s the funny thing about rebellions. You can’t stop them until they’ve consumed everything that fuels them. And from where I sit I see plenty of kindling.”
“Our world is broken, Alden—and all the Council does about it is condemn anyone brave enough to acknowledge that we have a problem. Break our minds, lock us deep in the earth, convince themselves that we are the criminals. But who are the ones ruining lives? Destroying families? Forbidding people from using their abilities, relegating them to working class?”
Trivia[]
- The name Fintan, in Irish, means "white fire", and was the name of a Druid, who was said to be a shapeshifter and the oldest living person in Ireland.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fintan_mac_B%C3%B3chra
- The last name Pyren is derived from the word Pyre, which means the "fire that is burned to bring the dead into the afterlife."
- Fintan can erase his memories, as Keefe says, 'locking anything dark but essential away.'