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vengeance is waiting

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I find it really interesting that we never really see what Kaz’s reaction to the “I will have you without armor” scene is. This scene happens in Inej’s POV, but with a lot of other significant scenes, even if it happens in one character’s pov, we will see another character later reflect on that scene. For instance, when Inej touches Kaz’s cheek on the roof, we later see Kaz think about that moment and find out that he was experiencing “terror and desire-the hope that she would touch him again.” Now in CK, we do get a couple callbacks to that scene when Kaz asks her to stay, but it’s always Inej reflecting on it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Kaz never reflects on it, at least in a way that we get to see. We just see it in action as he works to remove that armor, but I always wonder what went through his head in this moment.

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Kanej and Parallelism: An Analysis

Upon my third full reread of the series, I've been noticing the sheer amount of parallels that Leigh Bardugo masterfully wove into these books. I could make this into a series with the amount I've noticed. But I wanted to compile a list of the scenes I feel most directly parallel each other in regards to Kanej.

The Incinerator Scene (SoC ch. 25) and Kaz's Drowning Scene (SoC ch. 38) These scenes I believe are supposed to mirror each other, albeit in a bittersweet way. Both Kaz and Inej are facing life or death situations in which their will to live is seriously tied to whether or not they will and therefore both are internally searching themselves for that purpose that's driving them. Kaz comes to terms with the scope of his feelings for Inej and how, at this point, his desire to live to see her again outweighs his need for vengeance. On the other hand, Inej realizes that she can't just wait around for Kaz and she discovers this dream to go hunt slavers and prevent more girls from suffering from what she suffered from.

Kaz carries Inej to the boat (SoC ch. 12) and "I would come for you" (CK ch. 12) In the first scene, Kaz is carrying an injured Inej to the boat but when she states that he came back for her, his reply is that he "protects his investments," clearly not caring how she may receive that (or maybe not even realizing) but most certainly trying to push away and deny the real reason he came back for her. This scene is sad and causes Inej to seriously doubt what Kaz feels for her. In the parallel scene in Crooked Kingdom, Inej is still experiencing this doubt and tells him she didn't know if he would come save her. After an initial deflective response, this time Kaz verbalizes that he would always come for her, regardless of how broken either of them might be.

You, Inej. You (SoC ch. 18) and Stay in Ketterdam (SoC ch. 42) Both conversations happen on the boat ride, one happening on their way to Fjerda and the other on the way back. In the first scene, Kaz (barely) opens up and tells Inej about his brother. When asked what he wants, he thinks "you, Inej. you" but completely deflects and says something else. Inej also says that she wants to turn her back on Ketterdam and never hear that name again, and Kaz thinks to himself "good". In the second scene, Inej asks Kaz more about his family, although he fails to reply. This time, she is certain she is leaving Ketterdam and tells Kaz her dream to take down slavers. But this time Kaz asks her to stay with him and when she asks what he wants to do after all this, he finally tells her he wants her.

There's definitely more and maybe I'll make a part 2 in the future. But anyway, I'm obsessed with these books.

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An interesting thing about Kaz is the way he views a hierarchy within everyone he meets, an attitude probably defined in him by the Kerch culture of trade and the environment of Ketterdam. Kerch is a country that in many ways is designed to reflect the American Dream as it is portrayed in classic literature such as The Great Gatsby: as an ultimately unattainable and useless lie, designed to control and quell the masses in the danger of extreme capitalism. The social hierarchy in Ketterdam is well-established and discussed throughout the novels, though mostly in Crooked Kingdom since the plot stays almost entirely within city limits, and the attitude of viewing a miniature hierarchy amongst those around you as part of the overall societal structure is evidenced in Kaz, and possibly reflected in Wylan; a link both to their different upbringings within the Ketterdam social structure, and their position as literary foils. (I wrote a whole long thing about how Kaz and Wylan had/have the potential to become each other, so feel free to check that out for more detail if you want it). The city’s hierarchy and the unattainability of joining the rich upper echelon of society is cleverly hinted at from the very beginning of Six of Crows, when Kaz is jumped and then wakes up in what he expects to be the deb of a rival gang. He instead finds himself in Councilman Hoede’s Manor House, which I believe is on the Geldstradt, and the way he makes the distinction is by realising that the decor in the room he’s in “takes real money”. We know that people like Pekka Rollins or Tante Heleen have become truly rich from what they do in the Barrel, and so it’s strange to suggest that you’d need “real money” for this since we would generally use that phrase to refer to a large amount of money. What Kaz actually means here is “old money” or “family money”; you need the kind of money that the Merchant Council have been hoarding for generations, making supposedly risky trades when they have millions of savings to cushion the blow if things go wrong, not the kind of money that comes from the popular gambling dens and brothels of the Barrel. He means the kind of money that Daisy and Tom have in Great Gatsby, people who’ve never worked a day in their lives and yet like to think of themselves as very successful at life when all they’re truly succeeding in is spending their parents money, not the kind of money that Gatsby scraped and saved and began to chase through undisclosed illicit means. Even when men like Gatsby and Rollins make their money, and their name, they are never equal in the social hierarchy to people with old money. (To be clear, not that this is a defence of either character, I have criticisms of both, especially Rollins).

But the hierarchy Kaz places upon himself and upon the others is slightly more subtle, and arguably subversive. He looks down on Matthias because he “stinks of decency” and because he supposedly hasn’t struggled, arguably gaining slightly more respect for him when he learns of him losing his parents and baby sister but still maintaining the idea of ‘everyone has a sob story and you were clearly more lucky in your options to deal with it than I was, it’s not my fault if you made the wrong choice’. We as readers obviously know that Matthias had no options but to go with Jarl Brum and spent the next 6 years of his life (I think that’s the right amount of time, please correct me if I’m wrong) being emotionally manipulated and abused by him, but Kaz simply refuses to accept has suffered because it would be psychologically damaging to him to admit that Matthias was able to go through that and still come out a good person, when Kaz sees himself as having become truly demonic. Matthias looks down on Kaz for the exact same reason, unable to understand - especially since he knows far less detail about Kaz’s trauma - how someone who ever had a core of decency couldn’t maintain it through their pain, he assumes Kaz was never a good person, or never had the potential to be one. Kaz also looks down on Wylan, arguably far less for his attempt to maintain a core decency but because he views Wylan as having had the option to do so. Kaz seems to have more respect for Wylan in Crooked Kingdom than in Six of Crows, when he knows more about (but never, it should be noted, the full extent of) Jan Van Eck’s abuse to his son, once again showcasing that he struggles to accept the idea of someone feeling bad when they have supposedly suffered less than him. His trauma has clearly warped him in many ways, and one of them is losing the ability to see relative pain and how different things can affect different people in different ways; he effectively views everything in the manner of ‘I had it worse, and I’m fine so you need to get over yourself’. He labels Nina “a snob” for staying away from the Crow Club and the Slat despite being a Dregs member, and her response is “she didn’t much care what Kaz Brekker thought”. I think that Nina is possible the person Kaz holds the most respect for in his platonic relationships, and that is mostly because she simply couldn’t care less whether he respects her or not.

His relationship with Jesper is more complex; he judges Jesper for his addiction and yet continually eggs him on, giving him a line of credit to play cards at the start of Six of Crows and having the first step of his planning in Crooked Kingdom to make Jesper play all night, although it’s unclear whether Jesper has ever shared anything about his mother if anyone knows then the most likely parties are Kaz or Inej and yet Kaz forces Jesper to give up his revolvers in Crooked Kingdom, his most treasured possession and his constant connection to his late mother, he consistently infantilises Jesper, but mostly in his head and this is possibly an interesting link to the final nail in the coffin of their relationship; Kaz sees Jesper as a substitute to Jordie. I think it’s possible that he likes to see him as younger because that’s how he remembers Jordie - it’s also important to remember that Kaz is now several years older than his elder brother ever was so seeing him in someone his own age is possibly even more painful because that’s a point Jordie never reached (he was only 13 when he died). Jesper is someone that Kaz feels the need to keep at arms length, not because he doesn’t respect him but because he fears having a close relationship with someone who could so easily slip away from him like Jordie did. I think we can also arguably see aspects of Jordie within Jesper, the naïveté of thinking you can make it Ketterdam followed by the city swallowing you whole, killing Jordie and driving Jesper to his slow self-destruction - “I’m dying anyway, Da. I’m just doing it slow”. (If y’all have read many of my analytical posts you may have begun to notice that’s one of my favourite quotes)

Then we have Inej. Kaz places Inej on a pedestal whatever she does. I’ve spoken before about how she claims to be bad at picking locks whilst he claims to have done “a shoddy job at teaching her to pick locks” because he’s incapable of accepting that she is incapable of something; if there are flaws, they must be his because she cannot have any. In a lot of situations this can be harmful, going back to the romance of Daisy and Gatsby where Daisy is placed on a pedestal and idealised so much that she become more of an image than a person, so when she does not live up to his every high expectation Gatsby is destroyed by it. But with kanej this seems only to elevate their position, possibly because Kaz isn’t claiming that Inej is flawless, but rather that she is capable of working on her flaws in a way that he isn’t; it is almost a form of envy. For example, Inej also has a fear of touch and human contact, but she purposely forced herself to cope with small amounts of it, such as allowing Nina and Jesper to hug her even though it makes her flinch, because she fears it becoming a debilitating condition, as it has done for Kaz (not that she knows that initially when it’s first implied that she too fears contact). In the bathroom scene when she admits to him that she also struggles with touch, it has such a massive effect on Kaz not because he refuses to accept that she has flaws but because he sees her as so much stronger than himself and wishes that he could be more like her. Although both of them are ultimately unable to go any further than a few light brushes of contact, it’s suggested that what trigger Inej more than the touch itself is the sexual implications of those touches based on everything she went through at the Menagerie. Kaz doesn’t see Inej aligned with with himself or the other gang members, but as above them - and not in the way he labels Nina as a snob, but in a genuine manner he refuses to acknowledge her as low in society because he sees her as deserving of so much more. He notably never refers to her as “a canal rat” and he never even comes close to defining her by her time at the Menagerie, a start contrast between him, the supposed low of the hierarchy, and Van Eck, the supposed upper, he yells at her “you little skiv! You little whore!”. However, there is one way in which Kaz arguably looks down on Inej and it’s in a similar way that he looks down in Matthias: how dare she still try so hard to remain truly good, and decent, and to find her Saints and to politely ask them for forgiveness, when it would be so much easier to let the world beat that out of her? Arguably, it’s not that he judges either of them for their faith, but it’s that he fears them judging him for losing his, be that in religion or in the world at all. (I don’t think we know if Kaz was raised in a religious household or not, but based on societal structure in Ketterdam and the way most of the population in most of the countries are religious I think it’s safe to assume he at least grew up with an understanding of Ghezen). Kaz fears that they’ll judge him for failing to maintain his core of decency, which is exactly what Matthias does, and so he aims to offend or challenge them before they can him.

Ok I’m not gonna lie to you guys it’s like quarter past one in the morning as I’m writing this, and oh my god it just got so long out of nowhere… I might have lost my point somewhere in there, I don’t even know, this came from one quote I was thinking about and I’m not sure I even wrote that quote in there so, yeah, I guess. If you bothered to read this far the tysm I hope it made sense

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Somone asked me to follow-up to this post I made, so I want to talk about what Inej gives to Kaz, because their relationship is really about how they help each other. So, here goes.

Everyone in Kaz’s life betrayed him or died. With his parents deceased and only Jordie to depend on, he craved security. He explains “they’d been two farm boys, missing thier father, lost in this city. That was how Pekka got them…He’d given them a new home.” Kaz’s grudge against Pekka Rollins is really bound to a feeling of betrayal. His vengeance for Jordie is wrapped up in feeling betrayed, too. He finally admits to himself “You failed me, Jordie. You were older. You were supposed to be the smart one…we were supposed to look out for each other.” The events surrounding Jordie’s death absolutely obliterate Kaz’s ability to trust, and he’s clearly not recovered from that in Six of Crows. It’s reflected in the way he dismisses Big Bolliger. It’s in the anger he holds toward Jesper, in the reason he accidentally calls him Jordie. Kaz’s trauma taught him that no one is reliable, everyone is persuadable through greed. Everyone will betray him for the right price.

But Inej responded to her trauma differently. She talks about how she disappears. She tells Kaz one of her worst experiences was with a client who had seen her perform as an acrobat– someone who had seen the real her. Inej’s coping mechanism was to hold her past close, to be unwilling to let go of her optimism, to the understanding of right and wrong she had been taught as a girl. Compared to everyone else in the Barrel, she’s unjaded, unwilling to dismiss virtues like honesty and loyalty as naive. She understands that trying to be good isn’t naivety, it’s a choice you make. That choice is part of the strength she gives to herself,  but it’s what she gives to Kaz, too. Because what he needs most is someone so reliable, someone so strong and steadfast in their integrity, that even he can trust them. 

Inej doesn’t want money, she wants freedom. Kaz even teased her for it in the first chapters, saying “My little Suli idealist. All you need is a full belly and an open road?” But he mocks it because he knows that for her, it’s true. Here, after all his cynicism, is a person for whom greed is no lever, who cares more about doing the right thing.

Kaz was first drawn to Inej due to her skills, and they’re heavily symbolic. She is steady on her feet like no one else. She sneaks up on him with bells on. One of the only questions he asks is whether she worked with a net– but the question he’s really asking is how reliable are you? Can I trust you to do this job without fail, time and time again?  Someone who scales buildings and walks the high wire like Inej can’t be erratic like Jesper. They can’t take unnecessary risks like Jordie. And so, Kaz trusts her, even though he doesn’t realize it then. He relies on her to be honest with him when she brings him people’s secrets. He relies on her to disable gunmen before they can shoot him, to watch his back on the streets, to scale an incinerator shaft six stories. She doesn’t need a net, because Inej Ghafa does not trip. She’s steady, reliable, and full of integrity like no one else.

In the prison wagon, Kaz realizes at last, “Inej would never betray him. He knew it.” Time and time again, Inej has shown him that she won’t falter, that she will treat him fairly, that he can trust her with his life, trust her with his shame and his secrets. She creates a place of security for him, one he hasn’t had since his parents died, if ever. After all they’ve both been through, Inej gives Kaz a way to trust again. 

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today I'm just thinking about the fact that Kaz deciding to give Nina Matthias' share of the money at the end of CK, implies that if Kaz had died, he would've wanted Inej to get his share

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Gnawing on the bars of my enclosure because WHAT DO YOU MEAN moreso than the cane Kaz Brekker needs to walk he views Inej as his security blanket? He, fearless predator, The Bastard of the Barrel, is distinctly terrified to have her out of his sight? Not just for her safety, but it's like he just realizes in that moment he hasn't been apart from her since they met and he doesn't want to is terrified to be. The exact second he realizes just how much he's come to rely on her.

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There will never be a scene like the Bathroom Scene from Crooked Kingdom. Never ever. No other author could even try to create something as intimate as that. No other book could ever replicate the way I felt while I read it for the first time, which I swear was a racing heartbeat, hot flushed skin, physical shaking, and sweating. I still scream and sweat and cry about it to this day, to be honest. And even though we've seen it over and over again, every single piece of fan art ever composed for that scene deserves to go into the museum to be commemorated for centuries upon centuries.

Absolutely nothing can change my mind.

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sometimes i think abt the fact that s7 spuffy has to live in only implication bc of Seeing Red and it makes me hate The Hell Scene even more. Like. Intervention is the only soft, earnest kiss they EVER got to have. THE ONLY ONE EVER!!! It’s heartbreaking, like genuinely, that he fuckin DIED just as they were on the cusp of figuring out how to be together the right way.

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Trying to put together a cohesive timeline for SoC/ck and I’ve only just now realized that a full five days pass between the bathroom scene/slat fight/meeting with the triumvirate and the auction? So you’ve got Jesper and wylan who have just sort of gotten together and Nina teaching Matthias all about fun meanwhile I know Kaz and Inej are avoiding each other in the halls of the geldrenner like

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THIS IS NOT OVER YET‼️

'Lucifer', 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine', 'Arrested Development', 'Family Guy', 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', 'Community', 'Star Trek' and 'Veronica Mars' are among the shows theat got cancelled but fans fought SO HARD that they saved them.

'Shadow and Bone' can be on that list too! Here’s a bunch of things you can do to help:

Sign the petition: http://chng.it/fqqThcFq

Share the petition and make EVERYONE you know sign it!!! (It takes two seconds and you can sign more than once using different email addresses)

FLOOD Netflix’s social media (Instagram, TikTok and Twitter) with comments, DM’s, story replies, threads, retweets and video stitches about 'Shadow and Bone' and 'Six of Crows'

FLOOD Netflix’s decision making staff’s social media with SaB and SoC renewal requests: @wade_davis28 (instagram and twitter), @reedhastings (twitter), @tedsarandos (instagram), @larrytanz (twitter)

FLOOD other Streaming Services Social Media with 'Shadow and Bone', asking them to pick it up!! (Prime Video I believe is by far the best choice)

WATCH THE SHOW!!! Many shows after cancellation loose viewership completely. Let’s not allow that to happen!!

Share this information in EVERY WAY you can. I have quite a following in other social media, so I’ll do that, and you should too!!

REBLOG!!!

No mourners.

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#are you kidding me #this is incredible #inej being ruthless and protective #kaz being kaz #six of crows #crooked kingdom #kanej

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo | Chapter 27, pgs 374-376

So here is Kaz fighting like a whole gang by himself like an idiot. Or at least part of it- I did not have the stamina to draw him fighting the first six dudes and I really needed to draw the iconic bloody smile at the end (and bloodthirsty Inej). It probably shouldn’t have taken like three months but picked a bad time to start it, with family and holidays and getting laid off and job hunting so it was hard to find the time and motivation. Also I picked like the most painful scene in the book to try and draw honestly. I’m never going to try and draw a fight scene ever again. Or stairs. Or anything. Also for the millionth time i goddamn hate how tumblr shrinks images.

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I was just thinking about how Kaz built this heartless persona for himself and how everyone falls for it to varying degrees: He's widely regarded as a monster and as "not made right"; Inej thought he wouldn't come for her and that once she was useless to him that he would discard her; Jesper never knows where exactly he stands with him; Nina "doesn't want to know what dark hole he crawled out of"; Wylan calls him "the most vengeful creature he had ever met"; Matthias believes he's a demon. But in reality his true motives for most things are love and grief and loss of family.

Kaz only wanted money for revenge, he didn't want to try and build a meaningful connection with Imogen because she would distract him from pursuing his vengeance, he only mentions how Pekka conned them out of money to explain how they ended up on the streets, how it was never about the money but about Jordie.

Kaz says that he and Jordie were such easy marks because they missed their dad. Kaz's biggest gripe was not just the loss of Jordie but the illusion of a home and family that Pekka had snatched away before the plague snatched Jordie away too.

It all always leads back to Jordie and his loss and avenging him and about never wanting to be that vulnerable again. Kaz created Kaz Brekker to protect himself, to hide his vulnerabilities. His grief is hidden behind a fake name, his naivety is hidden behind violence, his touch aversion is hidden behind the gloves.

Kaz pushes people away because he fears what will happen if he lets them in. He gets mean when he's vulnerable to hide said vulnerability. He did it in the clocktower, he did it in the bathroom. After he accidently calls Jesper Jordie he lashes out verbally and physically, when Inej asks about Jordie and Pekka's involvement in what happened he recounts how he tortured someone. In both incidents it's again Jordie that he's hiding, that is causing him to be vulnerable. It always leads back to Jordie. Even with Van Eck! He's again angry that he fell for what he fell for before, the thing that made him lose Jordie making him temporarily lose Inej.

In both the Jesper and Inej examples he hides behind violence - by brawling with Jesper and recounting a time when he tortured a young boy. He does this because he loves Inej and Jesper, and it scares him, and he doesn't know what to do with it. Because everyone he's ever loved has died in horrible ways (his father was torn apart by a plough, his brother died from a horrible sickness) and he doesn't want to go through it again - especially since he still hasn't let go of Jordie, although it has been eight years.

Kaz is a person who loves so deeply. Who is mainly motivated by love. Who, when Pekka asks him what he wants, replies "Bring my brother back from the dead." because he never cared about money, nor power, nor anything else. He just wants his brother. All he wanted this whole time is his brother, and since he no longer has him he lashes out, all hurt and grieving. He's hurting so badly that he destroys everyone even mildly involved in what took Jordie away from him. But he only did that because he loved Jordie. It wasn't revenge for the sake of money it was for the sake of love. It was for the sake of Jordie.

Kaz loved Jordie so much that he became the most feared person in Ketterdam, that he took down the King of the Barrel and a merchant from one of the oldest families in Ketterdam (because even if his gripe with Van Eck was unrelated, it's because of Jordie's loss that life snowballed into their interactions and the consequent betrayal and destruction of everything Van Eck held dear). Kaz loved Jordie so much that it changed the entire course of the narrative.

If not for Jordie's loss the heist wouldn't of happened, all of the Crows lives would've been different, some of the Crows would even most likely be dead, and this extends even further to much more major things. The King of Ravka managed to steal the titanium because of his help which will aid Ravka in wars, the path to jurda parem is no longer in the hands of the Fjerdans and a cure is being safely developed in Ravka because Kaz rescued Kuwei, Wylan took over the Van Eck empire because Kaz tampered with Van Eck's will and papers, Inej is working on taking down the slave trade which is only possible because Kaz freed her from her indenture, Nina became the queen of Fjerda because of things that Kaz started (her joining the Dregs instead of being indebted to the Dime Lions, him freeing Matthias, him organising the heist, Matthias dying in the aftermath, her going to Fjerda to bury Matthias and the results which ended up being her and her new lover on the Fjerdan throne trying to fix prejudice against grisha, and women, in the most conservative country).

All of it leads back to Kaz. And he did all of it for Jordie. It all always leads back to Jordie. Jordie and Kaz's love for his big brother and his grief over having him snatched away from him.

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FREDDY CARTER as KAZ BREKKER Shadow and Bone (2023) 2.06

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just thinking about the line "he doesn't say goodbye, he just lets go" in reference to kaz at the end of crooked kingdom, because this line is actually quite ironic.

yes, kaz tends to not have a tendency to say goodbye to people or to anything, as seen in the both the books and the show (I know he came to say goodbye to inej, but like when did he actually utter the words??? that's right, he didn't). so, the first half of this quote still somewhat stands.

it's the second part of the quote that gets me. "he just lets go." because this could not be more untrue when it comes to kaz. when inej tells him she isn't going to stay in Ketterdam and is going to leave and hunt slavers, does kaz resign himself to her leaving and let go? no, for once in his life he voices his real feelings and asks her to stay with him. after the events of the 2 books are over, does kaz let go of his time with the crows and move on? well, he kinda has to a bit but actually no, because he names his club "The Silver Six" and continues to ask after them (i.e. telling Jesper he is missed at the slat). in fact, Kaz's entire motivation throughout the past 8 years of his life has been rooted in vengeance of something he still hasn't moved on from that happened when he was 9! poor kaz has only ever had good things ripped from him, and I think this caused him to develop a tendency to not just "let go" of anything. I could maybe even get metaphorical and argue that kaz holding onto Jordie's body is representative of his inability to let things go....but I won't cause I haven't thought that through yet haha. anyway, just food for thought.

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#Kanej hands close-up shots my beloved

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why the net, kaz?