| “ | When I can see, I can't help but see every evil deed that each person has committed in his life. No visions of the good -- only the evil -- in minute detail. Can you imagine what it's like the know such things? Better not to see at all. | „ |
| ~ Kay to Bigby Wolf in Fables #21 — "Stop Me If You've Heard This One, But a Man Walks Into a Bar...: Chapter Three, March of the Wooden Soldiers" |
Kay is a Fable residing in Fabletown, who debuts in Fables #21 — "Stop Me If You've Heard This One, But a Man Walks Into a Bar...: Chapter Three, March of the Wooden Soldiers." His eyes give him the power to see truth and reveal other people's secrets due to the shard of the Ice Queen's magic mirror which is still lodged in his eye. This power causes Kay a lot of dismay and he therefore blinds himself often.
History
Early life
Once a captive of the Snow Queen, Kay managed to escape her clutches and survived the exodus, making his way to Fabletown. It's never been stated what happened to his friend Gerda or their home.
Life in Fabletown
Kay, now a grown man, lived in New York, away from Fabletown itself. He still had the troll-mirror shard in his eye, with the result that he saw all the bad that people have ever done; because of his ability, Kay was the only other person in Fabletown to know the full details of Bigby's past deeds and how Frau Totenkinder truly gets her powers. The pain that this caused him led him to routinely gouge out his own eyes, although they subsequently grew back over a period of around ten years. Kay proved very useful in the past at detecting traitors, and it is with this in mind that Beast asked Frau Totenkinder to magically restore Kay's sight to assist him in rooting out Fables who might be secretly working for the Adversary. The other Fables were unaware that Kay had his vision back, and he lived amongst them as if he were still blind.
Death
Kay is killed by Mr. Dark
After seeing the evil in the Adversary, he was so overwhelmed he quickly gouged his eyes out again. Soon afterward, he was killed by Mr. Dark, who devours his teeth to make him a witherling. When Totenkinder destroyed Mister Dark's teeth by feeding him candy, most likely this ended Dark's control over Kay's body.
Powers and abilities
- Immortality: Like most Fables, he was eternally young and difficult to kill; the extent of their immortality was allegedly based on the popularity of their tales.
- Cursed sight: Kay can't help but see every evil deed that a person has committed in their life - in minute detail. The "bad" he sees is defined so by Fabletown morals and not by Mundy justice, as he sees the "bad" in Bigby (though he was mostly doing what he did because of an understandable (from a wolves perspective) dislike of humans, and from hunger rather than for the sake of evil) and in Frau Totenkinder (though what she does is perfectly legal from a 21st-century Mundy American justice point of view).
Weaknesses
- Magic: Kay seemed susceptible to the effects of magic, seeing as how the Dark Man easily withered his body to the extent only his skeleton remained.
- Physical trauma: As with any Fable, intense bodily harm can potentially permanently kill them.
Original source
Kay is based on the character from the fairy tale "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen. In the original story, a shard of glass from a demon's mirror becomes lodged in his eye as a child, causing him to see only the evil in people, and none of the good. This causes him to go willingly with the evil Snow Queen, whom as a result of the shard, he finds beautiful.