#dk's grishaverse asks answered

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"[...] she doesn’t have an attitude of ‘leaving her until last’ because she’s seen what that’s done to Kaz. She knows that Kaz will never have the satisfaction he’s searching for - I could write essays, he’s in many ways an addict - and so instead of finding the individuals who hurt her and taking them down one by one until only Heleen remains, as Kaz has done by murdering the boy who acted as the roper and by the implied murder of Saskia and Margit as well as many others, [...]"

Could you talk about this? Not just how Kaz is an addict, but him and revenge in general

Hi, thanks so much for your question!

I'm a little embarrassed to have to say that I (more recently than you asked, and if I'd put thought into it at the time/was more sober at the time I would've posted it as a response to your ask instead of it's own thing) I did make a post about this... whilst I was drunk and thinking about Six of Crows... erm...

So you can read that here

But also, possibly more coherently:

So I personally think that addiction is an important theme in the duology and there are 3 major presentations of it: Jesper’s gambling addiction, Nina’s jurda parem addiction, and Kaz’s addiction to revenge. I’m not going to focus too much on Nina and Jesper right now but I do just want to say that I think it’s really important to note how Inej responds to seeing addiction in the others. In the post you referenced here I was talking about how I think Inej would have a different attitude towards killing Heleen than Kaz did to Rollins because she’s seen what his obsession with Rollins did to him and how it's had a negative impact on him in many ways.

However, focusing on Kaz and addiction as a whole I think it's really important to acknowledge that Kaz openly admits to the reader that nothing he can do to Rollins is ever going to be enough for him. When he talks about Jesper's addiction he says (and I've not got my book on me so sorry if I've misremembered the exact quote, I'm paraphrasing from memory) "Someone like Jesper wins two hands and starts calling it a streak. Eventually he loses, and it only leaves him hungry for more" and it's always struck me how precisely this description can be applied to Kaz's own life: he chips away small pieces of Rollins' empire, such as having his steerers acting outside of Pekka's clubs to lead them away from the Dime Lions' businesses and to the Dregs' ones instead, and describes it as enough to keep him going, and then he steps up and 'wins' in Six of Crows when he succeeds at the Ice Court Heist job whilst Rollins fails, this triumph arguably is in part what leads to his downfall in failing to predict Rollins' alliance with Van Eck; he is subsequently tricked and victimised by him all over again, a situation that he describes as being "worse this time" because he is now "old enough to know better", and this experience leaves him desperate and furious to act against him again. He experiences a kind of high when he is able to gain any kind of victory against Rollins, but when that includes such small victories as chipping away at his business the low that comes upon losing is only made all the worse.

I think what's particularly interesting about this presentation, however, is that a) no-one except Inej seems to identify it this way and b) we as the reader aren't encouraged to want Kaz to stop seeking vengeance in the way we're encouraged to want Nina to overcome parem and Jesper to stop gambling. One of my favourite underrated quotes from really early on in Crooked Kingdom (I think it's ch2 but I might be wrong) is when Kaz explains the plan for the Smeet job, which revolves entirely around making Jesper gamble at the card tables for an entire night, and Nina sarcastically suggests that for 'phase two' of this plan maybe she should "masquerade as a jurda parem dealer" because "what could possibly go wrong?", and of course we have the GORGEOUS, beautifully written, famous lines from Inej to Jesper at the Geldrenner hotel later in the book when she tells him that "there's a wound in you" and that the games feel like medicine "but it's poison, Jes" (again paraphrasing from memory for the quotes, sorry). Addiction is very much in the foreground for Jepser throughout the duology and for Nina during Crooked Kingdom, but we never really get a discussion of it for Kaz except in the Bathroom Scene when Inej challenges him about what he would do next if he managed his revenge, and he ultimately had no answer for her (so he resorted to being as dramatic as possible and we love him for it).

But revenge is ultimately what kept Kaz alive. That he admits himself as well, saying that he would have laid down on the Reaper's Barge and died because nothing was waiting for him back on land until he came to the realisation that there was one thing he could strive for if he survived: vengeance. So not only is this arguably why he could give Inej no answer, because it is the only thing he has existed for since he was nine years old, but it also kind of creates this never ending cycle between him and revenge of the concept being both so destructive and so constructive (??that doesn't feel like the right word but I can't think of a better one??) simultaneously - it actually makes me think of a quote from one of Inej's chapters when they're on the roof at the Ice Court. She describes a mural she can see below with two animals, I think wolves but I can't remember off the top of my head I'm sorry, chasing each other and she describes them as being cursed to keep moving in the same circle "for as long as the Ice Court stood". I could talk for days, and probably will do in the future, about how much I freaking love that line as a metaphor for Kaz and Inej's relationship and how the breaking of that cycle comes with the symbolic fall of the Ice Court, but I also think that we can apply it to Kaz indivdually in his relationship with vengeance.

Anyway I hope that this was interesting and that it made some semblance of sense, and I am so sorry that I took an eternity to respond to your ask but thank you so much for sending it this was such an interesting topic to write about!! I love getting asks, please don't let my lateness in replying to them put you off sending one I will get through them all I promise, these things just tend to take a while for me to think about how to answer them first and then I like to write them in one sitting so that all my ideas are fresh so I have to find a good time to sit down and focus on them. But that aside thank you very much for the ask and I hope that this answer was an interesting read 😊

This has been another episode of DK Finally Gets It Together And Answers Her Asks Because It's About Damn Time (Working Title), thanks for joining me & you can check the tag for more <3

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Hello! I have not read the shadow and home series, only seen the show and read six of crows (very obvious if you see my account) and I really don't get the whole "is the Darkling is evil or not", because I haven't seen arguments from the pro Darkling side and very few from the anti Darkling side... Can you explain it for me?

Hi! Thanks so much for the ask, I can definitely do my best to explain this for you but I am firmly of the anti-darkling belief so I think the best way for me to go about this is to outline common pro-Darkling points and explain why I disagree with them, and suggest that if you'd like more detail into the pro-Darkling arguments that you look through the tag, or through the pro-darklina tag <3

I just wrote a summary of S&S and R&R to the best detail that I could from memory only to remember that the entire plot summaries are available on the Grishaverse wiki (*screams*). But anyway the summaries were very long so I've cut them and if you want to check the plotlines for more detail you can do that on the wiki the summaries look really good (better than mine lol) but if there are any specific points I mention that you want me to expand on I can just let me know in the replies :)

Nb: this entire post will be spoilers for the Grisha trilogy and probably the entire Grishaverse.

Please be aware that I am going to address the backstories & traumatic experiences of several characters but most specifically Alina, Mal, Genya, and Zoya.

So I believe that the main points in the pro-Darkling argument are that he had noble causes, that he did genuinely love Alina, and that his actions are a product of the suffering he'd been through. However what I also see a lot of, though generally I avoid pro-darkling posts because I don't have any interest in starting an argument with anyone (and btw I'm going to tag this as anti-darkling and anti-darklina, which I always do when I'm talking about him so that anyone who doesn't want to see it can filter it out just as I can do with the pro-darkling and pro-darklina tags if I don't want to see them), is criticisms of Mal as the 'incorrect choice' for the final love interest and a 'bad person'.

So going point by point down these as to why I disagree with them:

"The Darkling has noble causes." -> The Darkling claims that his cause is a safer world for Grisha, and this on its surface is absolutely a noble cause. I would never deny that. The Grisha have been marginalised, abused, and oppressed throughout world history, and at 400+ years old in a pre-industrial revolution/early industrial revolution world the Darkling has seen and been subjected to a great deal of this. It is an undeniably noble goal to want to protect his people and to help them rise up. However, the Darkling can only see it come at the cost of mass death not only caused by the Shadow Fold's construction but the centuries of its presence on the continent, mass death caused by the destruction of Novo Kribirsk, direct and indirect murder of thousands of innocent lives, and the abuse of Alina, Genya, Zoya, David, Nikolai, Mal, and not only more characters we know but countless characters who encountered him during his rise, a compulsory draft for his people in the country where they were supposedly safest, brutally attacking his own mother and leaving her blind in the aftermath, and more. Now I'm not going to talk about the compulsory draft too much because I don't actually know if that was the Darkling's invention or not and I absolutely believe that the infrastructure of Ravka was designed to abuse and manipulate Grisha through nationalism (see Nina Zenik), but I think it's so important to note that after the Civil War massive strides forward are made in the treatment of Grisha in Ravka without any kind of destruction on the levels that the Darkling claimed were necessary. Nikolai disestablishes the compulsory draft but this doesn't stop the Second Army from reforming, or from Ravka sending missions to rescue at risk Grisha. The goal of these missions was still to recruit for the Army, but all individuals were given a choice and those that refused were still offered protection or safe passage. It's by no means a perfected system, but it's a great improvement from a draft that brought Zoya in at nine, Genya in at seven, Nina in so young she has no memory of her life before, and so on, and manipulated them their entire lives.

Before I let the manipulation lead me into my next point, I want to add that I also don't entirely trust a statement of the Darkling's causes being noble in the first place. On it's surface, as I said, a safer world for Grisha is an undeniably noble cause noble cause - but turning the abuse their people suffered against otkazats'ya people is not. I believe liberation that requires oppression is not true liberation. We also see that he willingly kills the Grisha teachers from the Little Palace, despite saying to Alina that he doesn't want to waste more Grisha lives, threatens the children from the Little Palace, attacks Genya for betraying him, and causes mass slaughter of anyone, Grisha or otkazats'ya, who sides with Alina. That doesn't sound like making the world safer for his people. It sounds like a power-hungry dictator using a commonly held ideology to manipulate the populous into supporting him.

That doesn't sound like protecting Grisha. It sounds like killing them.

Back to the manipulation.

This manipulation was not from the institution alone; no, it was very much directly from the Darkling. This brings me into point two - "The Darkling genuinely loved Alina." ->

The Darkling manipulated Zoya, who remember effectively grew up with him because she was brought to the Little Palace at nine after escaping her abusive mother's attempt at forcing her into marriage. Zoya was brought to the Little Palace by her aunt, Liliyana Garin. The Darkling made Zoya feel like she had to rely on him, whilst simultaneously telling her that she was special. The famous quote "You and I are going to change the world" was actually said to Zoya long before it was said to Alina, whom the Darkling used the exact same manipulation tactics against, and it was also used later in Rule of Wolves against Yuri, a monk from the Cult of the Starless Saint, who worship he Darkling as a fallen Saint. The way I read it, this is a very clear writing choice to emphasise that the Darkling does not care about any of the people he speaks these words to; this is the manipulation tactic that he knows, that he is used an unknowable number of times, and that he has had lifetimes to perfect and learn how to use it to his gain. He essentially tied Zoya's self-worth to his opinion of her, and she spent her entire life trying to be good enough for him, trying to impress him, trying to prove herself as worthy of his acclaim, of his attention, and arguably of his protection since he was her protector as a child. After escaping her mother and being brought to safety, Zoya grew up believing that she was lucky to be treated the way the Darkling treated her. In the books it's implied they may have had a sexual relationship, and this was confirmed as part of show canon during season one. Lilyana was later indirectly killed by the Darkling when he destroyed Novo Kribirsk by moving the Fold. Sometimes I'm almost glad she can never know what happened to Zoya, because she loved her and she thought she was protecting her and I think that knowing what the Darkling did to the niece she left in his care, believing that she was saving her, may very well have broken her.

When Alina arrived at the Little Palace, the Darkling discarded Zoya like a toy he'd grown bored of. He manipulated Alina using the exact same tactics that he did Zoya, which of course we see a great deal of first hand throughout the trilogy. During the process of this, Zoya suffers greatly from the process of being tossed aside. The Darkling intentionally sets Alina and Zoya against each other from day one, denying them any chance of camaraderie or realising what was being done to them. The way I read this, this was the pitting of women against each other by a misogynist, not only for the misogynist's gain but also because he actively feared the strength that they would have together. I've spoken about this before but yeah that's how I feel about it, we miss out on what could have been a lot more Zoya & Alina power and just general content because the Darkling purposefully turns them against each other. Alina starts experiencing everything that Zoya did - the Darkling makes her feel important or special on his terms, he makes her want his attention, he makes her feel like her importance is reliant on him, he makes her believe that she is incapable alone and needs him at her side, etc - and since this is all Zoya has known since childhood she doesn't know how to identify the similarities in his treatment of them as abuse but instead believes that he has lost interest in her in favour of Alina because she is more special, she is more important, she is more precious. Zoya has spent her entire life trying to be exactly what the Darkling wanted, and the way he casts her aside is so deeply damaging to Zoya because all those things he did, making her think that she was only special or important or worthy for as long as he said so? She believed them. Her self worth was so utterly destroyed by Alina's mere existence that without understanding it was the Darkling who had done that to her, not Alina, of course she hated her. The two of them overcoming this distance and developing their relationship is probably one of my favourite subplots

David and Genya both suffer at the hands of the Darkling's manipulation as well, though in different ways - and directly I want to talk about Genya but it is still more than worth acknowledging David as well. Genya was found by testers at 7 and presented to the Queen by the Darkling as a gift when she was 11. So super crazy take, I know, but I think there are ways of training someone to be a spy without giving them away into slavery. The Darkling placed Genya in the path of abuse from both the Queen and the King, and it is strongly implied that she told him she was being raped and physically abused and that he manipulated her into believing that her pain was worth something because she was his soldier. Even if she didn't directly tell him, the sexual abuse that the King committed against Genya is not a secret in either of the palaces, and is in fact part of the reason that the Queen physically abuses Genya because she takes out the anger she can't voice against the King on her instead, and the Darkling never did anything to protect her. Even when she tells Alina everything that happened to her, she says that she is his soldier and that this was her role. And after everything that she did for him, for giving her entire life up and enduring years of abuse, the Darkling turns on Genya the moment that she expresses care towards Alina. Genya was simultaneously pulled in two directions: her beauty was what, she believed, caused the King to attack her and subsequently the cause of her pain, but it was also a product of her Tailoring and without it she never would have been worth the Darkling's time. Being so thoroughly manipulated by him, she therefore believed that he beauty was what gave her worth. The Darkling knew exactly what he was doing in taking that away from her, not only the physical pain he caused her, not only the loss of her eye, but the subsequent inability to Tailor her scars and be who she saw herself as before. Genya's scars in the books are described to extend across her entire face and down her neck, down her arms, and along her hands, prompting Jesper in Crooked Kingdom to wonder "what manner of weapon" would be capable of causing them.

"The Darkling is a product of pain and abuse that he suffered throughout his life" -> yeah, absolutely. He wasn't born to be evil and I really enjoyed learning more about his childhood in the prequel graphic novel. But I don't think that excuses mass murder, or abuse, or any of his other actions

"Mal was not Alina's ideal love interest and came across as a bad person" ->

Personally I don't think Mal is a bad person, I think that he made mistakes during the trilogy but that ultimately he begins this story as a seventeen year old child solider; he is afraid for his own life and the lives of his friends, children and young adults make mistakes that older people are more aware of/in tune to or less likely to make, and the world he understood fell from his grip very, very rapidly.

I also know that a lot of people don't like Alina and Mal's ending, particularly with Alina losing her powers. (Brief explanation: Alina fakes her death and they tailor one of the fallen soldiers, Ruby, to look like her so that she and the Darkling can be burned together. Alina no longer has sun powers and Mal is no longer an expert tracker. Together they vanish to live alone in happy obscurity and run an orphanage. One day, the staff of the orphanage see a group of Grisha, including a beautiful Suli Squaller and a Corporalnik missing an eye, bring the woman who runs the place a blue kefta embroidered in gold and see that it makes her cry. They wonder if perhaps she knew a Grisha who died and has been given their kefta in commoration, but that's because they haven't seen the note inside that says "You will always be one of us" (This would be around where I start sobbing) ) Personally I think that this is a brilliant ending, with tragedy and bittersweet beauty sewn right through it. There are many implications through the trilogy that as Alina becomes more powerful she feels the pull and high that power can bring her as dangerously alluring. As she correctly identifies when she fakes her death, the people would have eventually turned on her as a heretic just as they did the Darkling. What I don't think she verbally acknowledged but that I saw as implicit in the text, was that she, like anyone may have done with access to such immense power and such a long lifespan, had the potential to become deserving of that label if she continued down the path. Alina giving up her power shows a distinct and beautiful difference between herself and the Darkling: she knew when to stop.

And she loved Mal. She loved him, and he loved her. So freaking much. Everything Mal does, every single decision he makes - even when they aren't all that smart - is born out of love for Alina. And they are both so very young.

Okay so I think that is pretty much everything I have to say off the top of my head, I hope that this was helpful! I feel like maybe a more nuanced/evenly-weighted explanation was what you were looking for and I'm sorry if this was too heavily weighted against, but people posting in the pro darkling tag will absolutely be able to explain their own arguments better than I can and I don't think I would be able to present them accurately to their opinions because they'd be affected by my own in my writing.

And, again, I am really not looking to start any kind of argument with anyone over this, I'm just explaining my reasons for where I fall and if anyone reading this disagrees then please remember that my opinions don't discredit your own, they are yours and mine are mine :) <33

Thanks for the ask! <3

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Do you ever think about the like ... intimacy implications(?) of Inej wearing Kaz's gloves to climb the incinerator? Like she gets inside of a part of him, a part no one else has seen. She understands him better because of it, sees just how the gloves are made. She can't touch him but touches the thing that's closest and most intimate to him. She finds what keeps him sane and returns it to him. It's nearly erotic without being sexual, don't you think?

Hello and welcome to episode 4 of DK Finally Gets It Together And Answers Her Asks Because It's About Damn Time (the title's growing on me)

Ep One - Ep Two - Ep Three

As always sorry for how long it had taken me to get to this ask but thank you very much for sending it, let's talk!

YES

Y E S

Y E S

I in fact think about this an awful lot. For me, there are two specific details about Inej putting Kaz's gloves on that feel very intimate and the first is her own hesitance to do so. She talks about how she knows that Kaz would tell her to just get on with it but that she feels as though she's violating his privacy by taking them - I don't have my book on me but I'm pretty sure she says it feels like going into his rooms and rifling through his belongings without permission. The second thing that feels incredibly intimate to me when I read this scene is that when Inej notices that the gloves are unlined and have thin slashes in the fingertips she realises that this is so he can maintain contact with cards or coins or so on when pickpocketing and performing slight of hand and she describes it as "touch without touch". TOUCH WITHOUT TOUCH.

INEJ WEARING KAZ'S GLOVES IS TOUCH WITHOUT TOUCH. THEY ARE SO CLOSE AND YET THEY ARE SO FAR AWAY FROM EACH OTHER and I'm pretty sure that it's after this scene once they're on the roof together that Inej says it's the first time they've touched skin on skin (though please correct me if I'm wrong) so this is the closest they've ever got to touching before!!!!!!!!!!

I may simply melt into a puddle thinking about them

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something something something about how both inej and wylan manage to escape their abusers at 15 but get stuck in the barrel while doing so something something I love your blog

Thanks so much! And ohhhhh Inej/Wylan parallels my beloveddd

You've made such a good and interesting point about them here and it also makes me think about how they both wear the grey imp costume when they dress as the Komedie Brute (I've talked before about how I think that all of the Komedie Brute characters have different symbolic relevance, such as Nina being the Lost Bride and Kaz being the Madman) because they both battle with a changing perspective on themselves after escaping their abusers. At different points early on in the POV chapters we receive from each of them (ie early Six of Crows for Inej and early Crooked Kingdom for Wylan), both express a want to disappear, a want to be unnoticeable in a crowd, a want to blend in and never feel seen or perceived again; this is where I like them to the Grey Imp, which alongside the orange madman, the blue bride, the red mr crimson, the black and gold scarab queen, and so would easily be lost in the wild, frenzied, brightly coloured crowds of West Stave where the costumes are worn. Inej wears the Grey Imp cloak at the start of Six of Crows, when they travel to Hellgate to break Matthias out of prison, and Wylan wears it near the start of Crooked Kingdom on the way to the boat that will take him and Jesper to St Hilde, where they will find Marya Hendriks. But later on in the books Inej and Wylan both undergo a change in this feeling, finding that the need to disappear was a product of their abuse and finding ways to overcome it. Inej describes the intent to "carve her name into [slaver's] bones" and Wylan acknowledges that Van Eck wanted the world to forget that he had ever existed and so chooses instead to make his mark and never be forgotten.

I love them both so damn much

But also, and sorry this is really more linked to your point and less rambly than the above I promise, but it's definitely such an interesting point that both of their initial escapes only lead to them being trapped in the Barrel. I can't find the right words to articulate it and I'm sorry but there's something about the Barrel's existence exactly the way it is that is both the saving grace and the oppression of almost all of the main characters (??) and I think that's absolutely fascinating. When Kaz buys out Inej's indenture with the Menagerie he tells her that he can't offer her safety and that he isn't sure that even exists in the Barrel and Inej accepts that, but I think that Wylan arguably saw it in a slightly different way because the Barrel wasn't the original source of his abuse, the upper echelon was. Ketterdam, and arguably Kerch society as a whole, is a world where everyone is taught severe polarities and each side is raised to judge the other. So in a world where Wylan had been abused and betrayed by the upper classes and by his own family, the belief that this side is wrong and the other side, being alone in the Barrel, was 'right'. And this is hard to explain without it sounding like I'm saying I think Wylan agreed with everything that happened in the Barrel because obviously we know that he didn't, but I'm trying to say that someone who believes everything in the world exists as either one thing or its polar opposite would subsequently believe that if one place wasn't safe the opposite place had to be, or had to have some semblance of safety somewhere, and that's why it's so much more jarring for him than it is for Inej when Kaz shouts at him "There is no safe!" particularly because Wylan finds it incredibly difficult to trust people and his line right before Kaz shouts this at him is "You said we'd be safe on Black Veil" and I think that this is such an underrated, painful moment but sorry I'm on a tangent again

I've lost track of my point now I won't lie, but hopefully this made some semblance of sense and thank you very much for the ask! <3

This has been another episode of DK Finally Gets It Together And Answers Her Asks Because It's About Damn Time (Working Title) thank you for joining me <33

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Shamelessly spamming your inbox as well! Why do you think Kaz takes off his shirt in front of Inej? We know he likes to get a rise out of her (“something about the furrow between her brows was so satisfying”). Do you think he realizes he’s making her blush? Would you consider doing an analysis of your favorite parts of Kaz’s first POV in SOC and the CK bathroom scene? thank you so much!!

Hello and welcome to episode three of DK Finally Gets It Together And Answers Her Asks Because It's About Damn Time (working title)

Episode One - Episode Two

Hi, thanks so much for the ask and sorry that I've taken an eternity to get back to you, but yes absolutely let's talk!

Why does Kaz take his shirt off in front of Inej? The fact that Kaz takes his shirt off in front of Inej is kind of a strange one because it implies feeling a level of comfort around each other that neither of them are emotionally prepared to admit that they have - it's not that long ago (in fact I think it may have just been the previous chapter?) that Kaz told us "to say he trusted Inej would be stretching the point" and yet here he willingly removes his gloves and his shirt in front of her, a massive concession to his ability to be more vulnerable in front of Inej than he is anyone else. I think it's possible that, as you said, he enjoys getting a rise out of Inej however I aslo think this could be interpreted as yet another self-deprecating habit Kaz has collected around Inej to convince himself away from caring about her. I've talked a lot about the way his language separates them and famously the sarcastic delivery of "my darling Inej, treasure of my heart" to offend her even though the words represent, at least to some extent, his genuine feelings because he knows it will elicit a negative response (in this case pointedly referring to his cane and wishing him a long trip down the stairs before Inej herself slides down the bannister) and therefore he can somehow justify ignoring his feelings for Inej's because he had some kind of 'evidence' that she doesn't reciprocate. This is a damaging mentality to both of them, in Kaz with the evident self-deprecating qualities of the action and in Inej the belief that Kaz sees nothing in her except her monetary value to him (I believe the quote is something along the lines of "she was an investment no more no less" and is borne in Inej from the multiple times Kaz refers to her as such in his efforts to distance himself from her, unintentionally presently a massive and damaging misunderstanding of her trauma and the dehumanisation she went through - "bought her, and then sold her again and again"). the scene when Kaz removes his shirt in front of Inej is told from her perspective and we know she sees absolutely nothing beyond the practicalities of the moment as being any kind of vulnerability or romantically charged because she wonders what Kaz would think if she undresses and started washing herself in front of him, and comes to the conclusion "he'd probably tell me not to drip on the desk", and arguably this has a similar impact on her to the idea of being an "investment" rather than humanising terms because from her perspective he is acting exactly as he would if he were alone and with the way she's been treated and the kind of responses trauma and ptsd can cause in people this could to her feel like an extension of the dehumanisation tools that were used against her, effectively she may believe that he's willing to remove his gloves and shirt in front of her because he doesn't acknowledge himself as actually being watched by anyone - or at least not anyone of importance. Whilst this is obviously not Kaz's intention with the action I do wonder whether it's possible that it is to some extent another way of distancing himself from Inej. When Kaz removes his shirt Inej looks away from him, embarrassed, and pretends to study some of the papers on his desk. She comments that she had "lost most of her modesty at the Menagerie" but that there were still "limits". I think there's every chance that Kaz knows she will look away because she's uncomfortable with immodesty and the general vulnerability of the scene, as well as any relation she could reasonably find to her ptsd in this action, and that he is once again forcing himself to come up with this 'evidence' of her disinterest in him so he can bully himself into ignoring his feelings for her. I hope this made sense maybe it's just a rambling mess...

Also:

I have written an analysis of the CK bathroom scene so I will link that here

And when I was doing that series where I analysed my favourite quotes from each chapter I didn't get very far in because the posts took a long time to put together but I did cover chapter three (Kaz's first POV) split into a few different posts :)

Also, I'm back on my analysis nonsense right now so if y'all would like to see that series come back let me know, because I did have fun putting them together they were just also time consuming and I had a lot of other stuff to do at the time

Thanks so much for the ask! Sorry I took so long to respond, and the same to everyone else with questions in my inbox right now, but thanks for sending them in and thanks for reading this post - and don't let it put you off sending more asks if you'd like to! I am working my way through them, I promise :)

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Do you ever think of Wylan as one of the most mature crows at the end of the books?

This is a really interesting question, and I think I would agree at least for the most part. Although all the crows undergo great personal development during the duology, I think that Wylan and Inej are the two left in the healthiest position they could be in at that time. The interesting thing about Wylan, for me at least, I’d the scene when Genya is tailoring him to lose Kuwei’s features and return to his own. In an attempt to encourage Jesper to tell her that he’s a Fabrikator, Wylan admits to Genya that he cannot read. Wylan, who at the end of soc was “red-faced” and “barely able to speak the words of his supposed affliction” (or something to that effect, sorry I don’t usually write these with the book on me to double check), is now able to openly admit it. He clearly struggles and Jesper describes him blushing and seeming visibly embarrassed, but he is still capable of so much more than he was previously. Genya’s reply is simply “that’s because no-one took the time to teach you”, and here’s the thing: I STRONGLY believe that the version of Wylan that existed at the end of soc would have stayed silent and let her believe that, but now he is able to correct her and say “lots of people took the time to teach me, it’s just something I can’t do”.

The nonchalence in Genya after this revelation is also massively important, because it shows Wylan that people will not always react like his father did. Because even though it didn’t change the Crows’ feelings for him, ultimately there people he already knew loved him and who were so different to his father in so many ways, including in their position in the world. But this is someone with no preconceived notions about him, high up in her government as his father is in theirs, and she simply does not care either way, it has no effect on her attitude or behaviour around him, and really that’s all that matters because they have no relationship. One of the saddest things about Wylan’s ending is that, even though he and Jesper are able to trick them, the Merchant Council react the exact same way to the suggestion that he can’t read that he feared they would - “How could you say such a thing about your own blood?”, as though it’s a horrendous insult. But having already admitted it to Genya shows Wylan that there’s a massive gulf between those who care wholly too much and judge him for it (his father, the council) and those who care in a support capacity but are entirely unaffected by it in their feelings towards him (crows, presumably his mother) and the people in that gulf simply don’t care. I think for a child who’s been scrutinised and judged and abused their entire life for not being enough, knowing that the vast amount of people don’t care what he’s going to amount to can be very empowering as long as he also knows that there are people who care in a supportive capacity as well.

I think this opens Wylan up to being able to mature more than the others since he’s found the power that will put him on the road to healing, as Inej has. For Jesper, the importance is that he has begun to look for that power - and will quite possibly find it in Wylan. However, I would always point out the immensity of Jesper requesting to have his money from the job put in his father’s name; is absolutely massive for him, it shows such a maturity to admit the problem even if he hasn’t found the way to healing yet, it’s incredibly important and should not be missed. For Kaz and Nina it feels a bit more complex to find their maturity, I think for Kaz there’s an want to find the oath to healing fighting against an active hatred of healing that’s been forced upon him by the city (I’ve talked about this a little bit before) and for Nina it gets more complex with the loss of Matthias, but I think she knows that she’ll find what she needs to in Fjerda and that’s the first step she needs to take. I also think that Matthias has undergone massive maturity before his death, and I’ve spoken about this a lot in my recent discussion of religion in the Grishaverse but he has undergone so much change and so much genuine improvement and attempts at improvement not only in acceptance but in his own well-being and starting to heal himself from us trauma as well. I think that if he hadn’t passed away he would’ve been a contender for most mature, but it’s also coping with his loss that has a massive impact on the maturity of the others.

I hope this made sense and thanks so much for your question! ❤️

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hi!!! I’m losing my mind and can’t find this in the books anywhere and need to check with someone else… in any of the grishaverse books does it mention the merchers wives going to the house of barter to scrub the floors?!? I might be making this up out of my little mind but it’s so specific idk how I could be!!!

Hi my darling, so sorry for the late reply, and yes I think I know which bit you're talking about - I think you might just be struggling to find it because you've got two (strongly linked) references crisscrossed over each other, but I'm pretty sure that the part you're thinking of is about Hellgate

In chapter 6 of Six of Crows, Nina's first POV chapter, she describes the smells in Hellgate upon their arrival and the quote is as follows:

They entered a dark, surprisingly clean kitchen, its walls lined with huge vats that looked more suited to laundry than cooking. The room smelled strange, like vinegar and sage. Like a mercher's kitchen, Nina thought. The Kerch believed that work was akin to prayer. Maybe the merchant wives came here to scrub the floors and walls and windows, to honour Ghezen, the god of industry and commerce, with soap and water and the chafing of their hands. Nina resisted the urge to gag. They could scrub all they liked. Beneath that wholesome scent was the inedible stench of mildew, urine, and unwashed bodies. It might take an actual miracle to dislodge it

(In the Collector's Edition this is on page 90)

This is such an important quote for me in terms of worldbuilding and I won't go on about it now but I super quickly want to add that it is very well set up to parallel Inej's flashback in Crooked Kingdom when she says "he smelled of vanilla, but beneath it she could smell garlic"

The other section that I'm wondering if you might be thinking of is in Crooked Kingdom when they're talking about Radmakker's sister, this one was harder to find but I think this is the quote on your mind:

It was Jellen Radmakker, one of the investors tget had invited to Jesper's absurb presentation on oil futures. From the investiagtion she'd done for Kaz, Inej knew that he was scrupulously honest, a devout man with no family except an equally pious sister who spent her days scrubbing the floors of public buildings in service to Ghezen.

This is from Chapter 32 of Crooked Kingdom (page 435 in the Collector's Edition) and the scene takes place in the Church of Barter so I wonder if that's what you were thinking of?

I hope that this was helpful!! I honestly love this world building detail, I think it's so fascinating, and I think that not only can we take the second quote as a point of evidence to support the first but there are also others, such as when Alys is hemming curtains before Wylan leaves the house, that add to the validity of Nina's theory as well. Thanks so much for the ask! <33

(This has been episode 5 of 'DK Finally Gets It Together And Answers Her Asks Because It's About Damn Time (working title)' thank you very much for joining me, on the off chance anyone might be interested then the rest of the series can be found here)

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Can you tell us what the answers to the six of crows color experiment is?

Yep! ☺️

I realised too late that I really should’ve organised it as a poll somehow, because I’ve had loads of responses (thank you all very much) and whilst a lot of them agreed with me there were a few I wasn’t expecting. My associations in the order than I wrote them in the original post:

Red - Nina

Green - Jesper

Black - Kaz

Blue - Matthias

Purple - Inej

Orange - Wylan

So generally speaking a lot of people either agreed with exactly what I’d said or swapped Wylan and Jesper, which makes a lot of sense. A few people also moved Jesper and Inej around, which I understand and I wanted to add on that point I always connect Inej to purple with the idea of her reclaiming the colour and its power in the same way that she referred to her knives as her “proper claws” to reclaim the image of the lynx. Purple is the colour that was used against her and the colour that represents Ketterdam (Stadwatch uniforms, colour of Kruge notes, and the Geldrenner Ketterdam suite being the main examples); with a part of what separates Inej’s journey and her ship from Kaz’s style of vengeance is the acknowledgement that the city itself is the monster she’s facing, she’s been forced to come to terms with the idea that what happened to her wasn't the result of one terrible person or group of terrible people, but a dangerous environment and society that was never going to see her as an equal go matter what she did in life (this realisation is particularly linked to the “Rare Spices” billboard, which I wrote a post on a while back so if anyone wants to read that let me know and I’ll tag you) so by reclaiming the colour she is not only reclaiming the power Heleen took from her but the city as a whole. I hope I worded that all okay I worry that my point doesn’t come across properly it feels unclear please let me know and I’ll try to explain it differently. However I also understand the perspective a few people raised in their responses of wanting to separate her from that colour because she should always be seen as more than who she was forced to be, it’s just my personal interpretation that part of her pathway to healing is reclaiming the symbols used against her as a symbol of power to use against the system and people that put her in her position.

With Jesper and Wylan, I can definitely see it going both ways and I guess it also depends on what shades of the colours you’re imagining for each of them. For me, Wylan is orange because it can be a quiet, beautiful sunrise but it can also be fire and rage, it can be dark and deeply lonely but it can also be bright and blazing, it can be the first light of home in the dark but it can also be the flames of righteousness. “You were angry. I needed you righteous” “well, you’ve got me”. I realise all/most colours have a natural dual nature but I think orange does particularly and I think that it compliments him wonderfully. I connect Jesper to green for brightness, fun, the “lime green” clothes and vibrant plaid, but also for the farm and the card tables and the painful difference between them - the way his life split in two like a log cut down the middle (I don’t have my book with me so not quoting, but he says something along those lines in Crooked Kingdom when talking about how he ended up moving from the university to the Barrel).

I think the one’s who were always connected the same way were Nina to red and Kaz to black, and I wanted to add a couple of reasons I didn’t see anyone mention yet and that would be Nina being the “little red bird” and Kaz wearing black, mercher suits to mock them and to look, by Ketterdam’s colour-represented social hierarchy that I could talk about forever, like he fits in with them in the upper echelon of society.

And most people also maintained Matthias with blue, connections to water, ice, storms, but I think also it’s worth emphasising his blue eyes that Nina finds so beautiful

I will go through later and tag everyone who has responded so far in this post so everyone can see the results if they want to, thanks to everyone who responded ❤️

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Hey!! What do you think about the recurring joke in the SOC duology, of Kaz asking a question, everyone giving answers, and usually a quip at the end? Do you think there's significance in it, or is it just a fun way to show the crows' dynamic?

Sorry if this is a stupid question.

Rule one: there are no stupid questions.

Although these conversations might seem like a relatively surface level aspect of the novels, I think that their significance is in the very way they teach us about the Crows dynamic and tell us so much about the characters. The duology’s biggest success comes from the intense vibrancy of its characters, and it’s these types of conversations that not only help us understand who they are and how they interact with each other, but also that make us laugh and therefore care about the characters all the more. Take the parallel from soc to ck about Matthias’ character development - in six of crows Kaz asks the group what the easiest way to steal a man’s wallet is, and the replies consist of “gun to the back” from Jesper, “knife to the throat” from Inej, and “poison in his cup” from Nina, before Matthias cuts them off and says “you’re all horrible” then in crooked kingdom Kaz asks where the group think he spent the money Pekka gave them for the sale of the Crow Club and 5th harbour, getting “guns” and “ships” amongst his answers and after a pause Nina says to Matthias “this is the part where you tell us how awful we are” but he simply replies “they all seem like practical choices”. This tells us so much about the characters and how they think!!! In the first instance, we don’t yet know the characters very well, so it’s important that we begin to associate the guns with Jesper and the knives with Inej, as well as understand that Nina works with subtle but violent tactics. We learn from this brief interaction that they’ve reached a point in their lives where murder or threatening murder is the easiest way out in every option, and we’ve also arguably learned that they are eager to please Kaz because they are all instantly searching for the answer that will impress him even though he’s sure to just continue on and explain his own thought anyway. We also have no response from Wylan, if I remember correctly at least, which shows the time it takes for him to mesh with the group and his heightened anxiety at the start of the first book. In the Crooked Kingdom interaction, we have a clear transition in Inej’s character from the association of her and knives to the association of her and her dream, a ship and crew of her own, and I’m pretty sure Wylan does reply in that one so it shows his personal progression and how he’s been able to mesh with the group and because more comfortable in his own skin. Matthias’ character development between the two is more obvious and openly commented on in the conversation, but what’s also interesting is that Kaz is there both times with a genuine answer and explanation. Even though he never seems the last to enjoy a joke or quip, when he’s discussing his plans Kaz almost entirely loses the ability to think beyond the job; everything is entirely black and white and categorised by whether it’s relevant, which means it’s what he’s saying, or inessential, meaning what the others are saying.

And what’s possible even more interesting is that you can see this in almost every one of these interactions Leigh Bardugo loves to include (and we love her for, of course). For example, in one of my favourites of these little formulas Kaz asks the group if they know what Van Eck’s biggest problem is. The responses are “no honour” (Matthias), “rotten parenting skills” (Nina), and “receding hairline” (Jesper). This never fails to make me smile; Matthias’ is so quintessentially himself, everything he values and such good summary of why he would be so willing to support anyone, even these thugs and thieves, against Van Eck, Nina’s showcases her dark humour and protective nature, her hatred for Van Eck is sourced far more in his treatment of Wylan and Inej than anything else, and Jesper’s is funny, witty, a genuine ongoing joke (such as Nina thinking that Wylan may need to invest in a hood tonic when she meets Van Eck) and just emphasises his sharp-wit as well as showing growth beyond the desperate need to impress Kaz that he harboured for so long before he properly got to know Wylan. But Kaz’s reply is simply returning to the job, stating that Van Eck’s problem is that he has “too much to lose” and that he revealed exactly how to destroy him by bragging about Alys and their unborn child.

I hope this made sense, it can be hard to tell whether I’ve actually translated my thoughts into the right words haha. Thanks so much for your question!!

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Hi, i read your fan fiction daughter of rain and snow recently and absolutely loved it. The way you characterised and wrote the crows was perfect, and i fell in love with your original characters. You did such a good job at crafting each of their arcs and personalities, i was so invested in each of their stories. Thank you for writing this fic, it was incredible

Hi, oh my goodness, thank you so much!!! I don't even know what to say, just thank you so much omg. It means so much to know that you enjoyed it - honestly so many thank yous to anyone who has read anything of my writing.

I really don't know what to say this is just wonderful, thank you very much <333

Quick plug of the fic for anyone who might be interested -

Daughter of the Rain and Snow (244799 words) by She_posts_nerdy_stuff Chapters: 146/146 Fandom: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa, Kaz Brekker & Jesper Fahey, Kaz Brekker & Wylan Van Eck, Kaz Brekker & Nina Zenik, Jesper Fahey & Inej Ghafa, Inej Ghafa & Nina Zenik, Inej Ghafa & Wylan Van Eck, Jesper Fahey & Nina Zenik, Wylan Van Eck & Nina Zenik, Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck Characters: Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa, Jesper Fahey, Wylan Van Eck, Nina Zenik, Anika (Six of Crows) Additional Tags: Fluff and Angst, No Smut, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Death in Childbirth, Canon-Typical Violence, Post-Canon, I'm new at this so please tell me if I should be tagging something that I've missed, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Abuse, Child Death Summary: Around ten years after the events of Crooked Kingdom, 25-year-old Captain Inej Ghafa frees Maya Olsen from a pleasure house in Ketterdam. Maya is looking for revenge against the man who put her in her position, a man who she knows nothing about except his name: Kaz Brekker.

Thank you so much!!!!!! <333

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Jesper's Rifle is Chekov's Gun but it's actually a gun. In the first scene we see him in Six of Crows, the rifle is mentioned:

It also is part of his most important scene in Crooked Kingdom:

Oh my goodness I’d never thought of this, this is so cool!! Thanks so much for bringing this to my attention, I love it.

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hi! i just saw your analysis of the “treasure of my heart” quote and omg you have a GIFT for analysis! In that post you mentioned the “Rare Spices” billboard Inej talks about in CK; I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on that!

Hi, thank you so much!!! I personally think that the “Rare Spices” advert is one of the most important pieces of information we get to further both worldbuilding and charactisation, so let’s talk about it.

The advert is massive sign painted on the side of a warehouse in Ketterdam, near Sweet Reef, and alongside the words “Rare Spices” it depicts two young Suli women in “scant silks”, mimicking those that Inej was forced to wear at the Menagerie. When she’s first liberated from Tante Heleen, Inej begins to explore Ketterdam and one of the first things she sees beyond the city centre is this advert. It terrifies her. It terrifies her so much that she stands there just staring at it for an unspecified amount of time, before turning and running back to the Slat faster than she has ever run before. In fact, it terrified her so very much that she has a nightmare about the girls on the billboard that night. In Inej’s nightmare the girls come to life but are trapped in the paint, banging on the billboard to get her attention to ask her to free them, whilst she is powerless to help them. Inej at the time comments on the horror of seeing this scene mere miles from where “the rights to her body” were bought and sold and haggled over (I think most of that is quotation but I don’t have my books to hand so I’m not 100% sure), and it tells us so much about how the Suli culture is exploited and fetishised within this community; whether it’s Ketterdam, the rest of Kerch, or the world at large (we could argue this is highly implied through Zoya’s POV, but it’s a whilst since I read KoS and RoW so if anyone wants to weigh in on Zoya in this then please do I’d love to read it 😁).

In my post where I mentioned the Rare Spices poster I was specifically focusing on the way Inej’s culture was sexualised for the purpose of being at the Menagerie, and how we know that other cultures are appropriated and fetishised by the Pleasure Houses as well (the Fjerdan girl at the Menagerie wears the wolf mask, an animal sacred to her people, and Nina wore a fake Kefta that was made in Kerch and is described to be a pale imitation of real Ravkan-made Kefta). But for Inej, up to the point of seeing this sign, that was a small part of the world; the actions of the few, a localised evil that she understood to be the opposite of the rest of the world because she still viewed everything with a childlike innocence. Seeing this sign breaks that façade for her and is arguably the first step towards what she views as the ultimate corruption of her innocence: murder. Because once she knew that the world on mass would see her and her people the way she was forced to present them, to appropriate her own culture, and to be fetishised for her “caramel” skin and “farcical mockery of a Suli caravan” she was forced to admit to herself that there was no way of returning to the person she used to be; not only someone who had been violated, exploited, and abused but also someone who believed that on the whole the world was a good place and that as long as you avoided the small parts of it that were dangerous you’d be okay.

And consider the wording of the sign. “Rare spices” next to two young Suli women wearing “scraps of mint-coloured silk”. There is a long history in our world of sexualising the so-called “exotic”; even the English/British idea, that I assume is what led to this same idea in the USA and much of the English-speaking world, that blonde women are more attractive, often leading them to be over-sexualised, can be drawn back to the Roman Colonisation of England because the vast majority of Romans were brunette or dark-haired and they saw the blonde Anglo-Saxons as “exotic” and attractive. (To be clear, in our own society this long history sexualisation has been mostly aimed towards people of colour and I’m absolutely not ignoring that, I’m just using this example because it’s the furthest back in history that I know of being as the colonisation was around 43 CE). The presentation of not only the spices but these women as “rare” to increase their sex appeal enhances this idea of ‘the exotic’ and by comparing them to the spices it, very similarly to all of the language surrounding Inej at the Menagerie, labels the women as stock, as produce, as something consumable like spices.

But something that I personally find really beautiful that Leigh Bardugo does surrounding this sign as well, is that Inej never condemns the girls on the billboard for the ‘suggestive’ outfits they wear, as long as they are worn by their own choice. She imagines that when she has her ship and begins to hunt slavers that the paint will peel from the sign and that she will have finally succeeded in freeing the girls, that they will “dance for no-one but themselves” and this is so beautiful but also so important as a declaration of female empowerment and autonomy because they have every right to dance and wear whatever they want to, but no-one has the right to force them to do that.

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i adore reading your analytical posts abt soc so much jts not even funny; stumbling upon your account was like a coming across a goldmine 🙏 ALSO I RLLY WANT TO ONOW ABT THE SHE TREATS US LJKE MARKS ESSAY IVE NEVER THOIGHT ABT THAT RLLY also i loved the mr crimson post anw im sorry i’ll shut up now

Thank you so much, I’m so glad you like them!!

This is the first time someone’s submitted a question so bare with me because if there’s any way to do this wrong I’ll probably manage it, but here are my thoughts on the red herrings :)

She’s treating us like marks - an analysis of Leigh Bardugo’s use of red herrings in Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom

*warning: CONSTANT SPOILERS AHEAD!*

I happen to be an absolute sucker for a good bit of foreshadowing, I think if it’s done well it’s one of the best literary techniques out there, so it’s something I always like to try and be on the look out for when I read. With books that I go back and reread, in this case many many times (seriously I’ve never specifically counted but I’m pretty sure I’m at over ten times each for the duology, it’s ridiculous), I like to find the things I didn’t realise were foreshadowing the first time round. When rereading six of crows and crooked kingdom, I realised that a lot of the things I expected to be foreshadowing didn’t actually come to fruition whilst other, seemingly less important, details were the actual foreshadowing. I LOVE IT! It’s genius, because it leaves the reader worrying about one thing so they’re too distracted to realise the groundwork is being laid for something else. But you know what that makes me think of? Kaz’s ideology of “What’s the easiest way to steal a man’s wallet? […] Tell him you’re going to steal his watch,” and “you have to let the mark feel like he’s won”. Leigh Bardugo literally cons us, and she tells us that she’s doing it in Crooked Kingdom when the group are certain that they know where Inej is being kept, but Kaz says “Too obvious. He’s treating us like marks”. GENIUS

So I compiled a few of my favourite examples (in no particular order), if you know of any I’ve missed please add more I would love to see them!!

The cannon at the Ice Court. When the Crows first arrive in Djerholm they see a cannon built into the the cliff face, a defence mechanism for the Court, and Kaz says what might be one of my favourite underrated lines of his: “I’ve broken into banks, warehouses, mansions, museums, vaults, a rare book library, and once the bedchamber of a visiting Kaelish diplomat whose wife had a passion for emeralds. But I’ve never had a cannon shot at me”. Jesper jokes that “there’s something to be said for novelty” but then continues to say that a cannon would be useless against a ship as small as theirs and that it’s designed for “invading armadas”. They don’t mention the cannon again, but it stuck in my mind when I first read it as a looming threat, a reminder that the danger wouldn’t end when they left the court. So when they arrived in the harbour was I expecting soldiers, or a heartrender, or for Nina to take parem? Nope, I was too busy worrying about the schooner being blown to pieces - especially when the Crows all have such specific painful and/or traumatic experiences linking to water, with 4 out of 6 of them being drowning related. But that isn’t to say that the waiting soldiers at the dock weren’t foreshadowed. All the way through Leigh Bardugo constantly reminds us that Matthias had never seen black protocol in action, and that his time in the prison sector had been brief, but she lulls us into a false sense of security by letting us believe that the secret bridge onto the White Island was all Matthias was hiding. We trust him by this point, so we don’t expect anything to be different to what he’s told us, even though this is an aspect he couldn’t possibly have predicted. Bonus points for the fact that Nina’s poor well-being in the aftermath of the drug is foreshadowed by a joke at the awful Inn they go to before the job; the food is disgusting and she says “when I don’t want to eat, you know there’s a problem”, and in Crooked Kingdom it’s many times emphasised that she’s unhealthily losing weight and her appetite has vastly decreased, with Matthias buying her chocolate biscuits “in the hopes she’d eat something”.

The poison pill. Leigh Bardugo worked very hard in Crooked Kingdom to make us think that Nina might die. We went into that book knowing there was a strong possibility that she wouldn’t come out the other side; we knew very little about how she was coping with parem withdrawal at the end of soc, but we had seen around a minimum of five grisha being destroyed by the drug so far. (That’s a guess I haven’t actually counted). So we went in with the idea that she was already in a precarious situation, and even though we begin to see her regain herself she struggles throughout the novel both physically and mentally in the aftermath of the drug. Matthias begins to dream of being lost on the ice in the worst storms known to Fjerda, knowing that she was out there somewhere and that he could not reach her. This sounds like it’s foreshadowing her death. Then when the pair go to the Ravkan embassy, Tamar gives Nina a small yellow pill that Genya made; she explains that it kills instantly and painlessly, saying “we all have them” to make sure they cannot be drugged and enslaved by the Shu government, who are hunting for grisha with the Khergud at the time. Matthias is terrified by this, but Nina just slips it into her pocket without a second thought. At that moment I thought that Nina would almost take the pill only to be stopped by someone else, because it felt too obvious that it would kill her, but I did wonder if the Khergud would be the ones to stop her and so she would still be lost. But the pill never gets mentioned again, except when the Dime Lions come for Nina at Sweet Reef and she briefly remembers that it’s still in her pocket. Then never again. And Matthias’ dreams were, of course, actually foreshadowing the FESTIVAL OF PAIN AND TORTURE that is chapter 40.

Mr Crimson. I’m so glad you like my Mr Crimson idea! Basically I posted saying I think that he represents death in the novels and I’ve also talked before about how I think the Komedie Brute costumes that the characters usually adopt are representative of their character; Kaz the Madman, Nina the Lost Bride, Inej and Wylan the Grey Imp, and Jesper and Matthias Mr Crimson. I won’t go into detail about all of them but if you’re interested the post is on my page, but with the idea that Mr Crimson represents death it’s very important to me that, although all of them wear his cloak at least once, he is the only Komedie Brute character taken on by Jesper and Matthias (at least to my recollection, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). So of course I would argue that Matthias taking on the image in Crooked Kingdom foreshadows his death, but in that case what does Jesper’s represent? I came up with two options but I actually think you could combine them into one: it’s a red herring to make us align him with the literal death of Matthias, whilst actually foreshadowing the metaphorical death that his addiction and mental well-being are driving him towards as he tries desperately to stop them - in his own words to Colm “I’m dying anyway, Da, I’m just doing it slow”

Oh god sorry that this is yet another long post I hope y’all enjoyed this enough for it to be worth the time it takes for you to read all my ramblings 😭

Tagging people who asked for this one in the replies to my essay titles post - @the-magnificunt @flerkenkiddingme @luridorangeandviolentviolet @snowblack-charcoalwhite

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More stuff your amazing friends say as soc characters

^^time for a new part + credit to my lovely friend who probably said more quotes in this series than anyone else

Grishaverse text posts I made based on things my friends and I have actually said. In real life.

(Part 13)

Jesper: I am not arrogant in any way, shape, or form. I am just… aware of my own greatness

(Credit to @gausgoose for this one)

Nina, to Inej: You are the most bisexual straight person I have ever met

Inej: Highest compliment I’ve received all day

Wylan: Guess what? You’re gonna be so proud of me: I’ve only cried twice so far this week!

Jesper: … [Wylan], it’s 9am on a Tuesday

Wylan: And I’ve only cried twice!!

Jesper: [Wylan] is actually just my favourite person on earth

Inej: You keep saying that, I thought I was meant to be your favourite person on earth

Jesper: No, I’m your favourite person on earth but that doesn’t mean I have to reciprocate

(In this case, as well as many other Jesper quotes that have been in this series, this can be credited to @gausgoose)

Kaz: I actually believe that children should be a more marginalised group in society. Like year 7 to year 9

Kaz: Y9s are feral

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Absolutely banger content!! Love it! When Kaz calls Inej "treasure of my heart" he's cheapening an otherwise meaningful phrase. Do you think he is being totally sarcastic or is he deadpanning his feelings to a degree? Because a little later he describes another time he said something cold-blooded to Inej and says to himself "in moments like that he thought she might hate him." Can the second quote be used as context to explain the "treasure of my heart" quote?

Hi, thank you so much!

I definitely think that this is a prime example of using sarcasm as a defence mechanism, so although he comes across completely sarcastic - as confirmed by Inej’s reaction, which is to look pointedly at his cane and wish him a long trip down the stairs before she herself slides down the bannister - I would agree that to some degree he is voicing his genuine feelings. It could be viewed in a somewhat self-destructive nature, because by voicing these feelings in a manner that he knows will elicit a negative response from Inej he can use it as evidence for her not returning his affection and therefore use it as a reason not express his feelings in any real way - claiming that she won’t be interested, when actually he simply has a massively debilitating fear of being vulnerable bred in him by Rollins and the general attitudes/environment of the gangs in the Barrel (and arguably to some degree Jordie as well; by trying to protect his younger brother he doesn’t necessarily convey the full severity of their situation when they first arrive in Ketterdam, inadvertently leading to the belief that such vulnerabilities should never be spoken of or discussed becoming a highly complex and difficult aspect of Kaz’s character)

When Kaz comments “in moments like that, he thought she might hate him” it’s coming off the back of him effectively defending the appropriation of Inej’s culture. She is horrified to see the Suli Jackal masks on sale and being worn by pleasure seekers in Ketterdam, because they should only be worn by Suli seers and are “sacred symbols”. In return, Kaz says that he’s seen the seers “ply their trade on party boats and in pleasure houses” and that “they didn’t seem very holy”, and when she says that “they are pretenders” and “they’re laughing at you behind those masks” he responds coolly that he would never pay to have his fortune told, whether it was from a conman or a holy man. When Inej is visibly upset by this conversation, he comments that he wonders if she hates him, and I think that a large aspect of this is because he is the only person who knows what she went through to its fullest extent. And the specifically relevant aspect of what he knows here, is that Inej was forced to appropriate her culture herself when she was at the Menagerie (slight tangent, but so was Nina, it’s very interesting, I’ve mentioned it in a post before). Inej describes her room at the Menagerie to be a farcical mockery of a Suli caravan, she was forced to “donn false Suli silks”, and it’s even mentioned that the only reason she was ‘the lynx’ is that the Jackal masks were seen as unattractive - “but what man would want to bed a Jackal? So instead, the Suli girl - and the Menagerie always stocked a Suli girl - wore the lynx”. What a quote. What. A. Quote. Starting with the Jackal, it makes it clear that there are no lines that won’t be crossed, and that’s emphasised by other girls at the Menagerie wearing animals sacred to their countries such as the Fjerdan woman being the wolf, and that the only reason Inej didn’t have to wear an outfit similar to the one she’s so horrified by here is that it couldn’t be sexualised and exploited the same way the lynx could. And then we have “and the Menagerie always stocked a Suli girl”. Wow. That gets me every time I read it. There are two main things I want to comment on in this quote, so I’ll start with “stocked”. This singular world is so dehumanising; the idea that the women and girls at the Menagerie are seen as stock, produce, literal consumables that can be bought and traded and sold. There’s also the point that Inej herself is the one using this word, and I think it’s left purposefully ambiguous as to whether this is a satirical usage of the word on her behalf as a criticism of the culture surrounding pleasure houses and cultural appropriation in Kerch (although more specifically Ketterdam), or if it’s the product of indoctrination to this toxic culture - similar to Nina’s horror at releasing that the appropriation and disdain for foreigners she’s been surrounded by has actually led her to judge traditional Ravkan dress as old-fashioned in Crooked Kingdom (I think it’s chapter 13). The second thing about this quote I want to mention is “always”. “Always”. It so subtly introduces so early on in the books the deeply ingrained over-sexualisation of Suli culture, which is evidenced time and time again but most specifically in the ‘Rare Spices’ billboard that Inej describes un Crooked Kingdom. I could talk about that billboard for DAYS so I won’t go into it here because this is already a long post.

But I think it’s incredibly important that Kaz knows all of this when he makes these comments, every time he mocks her gods or her “depressing Suli wisdom”, he knows that he is part of a culture that dehumanises and sexualises and appropriates and reduces everything about who she is, and he knows that it’s hurting her, of course it would hurt her anyway, but especially hurting her because she was forced to do it herself as a cherry on top of the worst year in Inej’s life, a year made of unending pain and terror. But arguably this is once again all that self-destructive nature; the pushing her away, similarly to the sarcasm as a defence mechanism, because it is easier to hate than to love, and because if she hates him then he never has to be vulnerable with her.

Oh wow I just looked at that and realised it’s way longer than I thought, sorry about that… Thank you for reading it, and thank you so much for the question this was really interesting to think about! :)

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Hey! I love your soc analysis and i would love to see an analysis on the "kind steel" scene!

Hi, thanks so much! I had a few people ask me this same question, so I’m just going to reply to this one and tag the other people who asked, but thank you all! :) - @acheloisstuff @honestlyimportanttheorist

So incase anyone doesn’t know, when I say the “kind steel” scene I mean the moment after the Black Tips and Razor Gulls attack the crew in the Ketterdam harbour before they set off for the Ice Court job and Inej is badly injured by Oomen. She knows they intend to take her alive and torture her to give up the secrets she has gathered, both about the city and about Kaz and the Dregs, so she intends to stab herself in the chest before they reach her with a blade she refers to as “kind steel”. She actually seems to hint that it’s a common thing amongst the gangs in the Barrel, since the blade wasn’t named by her but is a colloquial term referring to “a blade this sharp”, which could link in with the idea that there are “plenty of people in the Barrel without much to live for”.

Inej raises that blade because she doesn’t want to be tortured by the Black Tips, doesn’t want to spill Kaz’s secrets, doesn’t want them to use her against him. But HE HAS TO WRESTLE THE KNIFE FROM HER HANDS to stop her. It’s a truly heartbreaking moment, it’s so early on in the book that I don’t think we initially notice it for everything that it is: a concession to Inej’s pain, to the severity of her PTSD at a time when we know little about what she went through, it’s a concession to how strong her feelings for Kaz are, not only romantic but in fierce protection borne either of that romance or of the “life debt” they both seem to feel they owe each other, but more than that it is simply this painful, terrible acknowledgment that she feels she has to give in, that she feels she has failed by letting the world do this to her. She intended her last words to be apologising to her father for giving up, for failing him, for not trying as hard as she thinks he would want her to. It breaks my heart a little bit more every time I read it.