#i'm just begging y'all to stop judge events of the show based on events of the books

[lady-a-stuff]

I've seen people saying that the Kanej scenes are deprived of weight in the sab season 2 and I can't agree with that.

Why I think the "I'll have you without your armor, Kaz Brekker" scene worked in the show even though is different from the books.

First, Kaz paying off Inej's indenture. I think it's different from the books but because it's different it helps to explain Inej's line at the end.

In the books she is not expecting to receive her contract at that point of the story, it's a gift and a way to guarantee that she will have her freedom even if the job goes wrong, it shows that he cares.

“What is this?” she asked, her eyes scanning the page. “It’s not…” She ran her fingertips over the words as if expecting them to vanish. “My contract,” she whispered. “I don’t want you beholden to Per Haskell. Or me.” (...) “How?” she said. “The money—” “It’s done.” He’d liquidated every asset he had, used the last of the savings he’d accrued, every ill-gotten cent

But in the show it is something that she is expecting since S1 with the money they would get from kidnapping Alina, and then from the jewels Alina gives them, it's a promise he made her so she would go back with them to Ketterdam and it's a promise he keeps repeating everytime she says there's a chance that she has to go back to the Menagerie. In the scene where he gives her the indenture contract, he is open to her in a moment, telling without telling how he was concerned about her ("I didn't know where you were. I didn't know if Pekka hired another assassin to kill you. I didn't know if you would... " line) and in the next moment he shuts down and gives her the contract not to guarantee her freedom if everything goes wrong, cause things had already went perfect, but because she is a weak link "I make one thing without consulting you and I'm a weak link?", and then he basically states that he can't trust her because of it (quite cruel if you ask me).

So the scene of Kaz giving Inej her contract ends up being a way of him sending her away, keeping her away.

In season 2 Kaz is constantly trying to send Inej away, literally, like when he says she should go after Alina, then after giving her contract, then again when she wants to join the crew to go to Shu Han, it's almost like he doesn't want her there, but in fact it's just a way of showing how he is not ready to be open with her, to let her in (cause you know... is a weakness).

So he tried to keep her way physically, but she still goes with them to Shu Han and there it's all about work again: finish the job and get the money. When he has a panic attack, Inej is the one to help him pulling him out of the crowd and the 1st thing he says after this is "You were supposed to follow her(Ohval)", this is a way of showing that he doesn't want people near him in vulnerable moments and that the job is more important than other things (and isn't this what is the problem with Kaz? Everyone thinks he is always thinking about the job and the money in detriment of his and others' well-being? And all that to what?) in this moment he is keeping her away emotionally.

Then we have the hallucination scene and here Inej's own trust issues and fear of commitment takes place. For me the hallucination is the moment where Inej decides that Kaz would never be open to her and that leads to The Line™ at the end of the season, because at the end of the episode Kaz recognize that she saves him ("those who pull us out") and she says "hope is dangerous", tossing his line back to him, she is saying 'you taught me to not have hope I've learnt the lesson' (she won't cling to hope that he will be open to her).

Throughout the seasons Kaz shows Inej repeatedly how he feels and how he cares about her: the "no saint ever watched over me", he taking care of her wounds, the "it will give me some comfort to know that you're with me in the shadows", and he is emotionally more open to his crows (admitting Jesper as a brother, telling her his tell), but he is also constantly shutting her out and often after she sees a vulnerability: the "I can't have a weak link" after the I didn't know speech, the "You were supposed to follow her" after she sees him panicking in the crowd, the "to die under the weight of my own gold" after saying he was looking for her family.

Also Inej knows by Nina that he rather push her away than admit he feels anything for her, this means that Kaz is not ready to be really open to her and to his own feelings, it's another reason for Inej to say The Line™, especially because she is not ready too (not that she notices it, but is something that she can use as excuse)

There's this great post about this scene and Amita's acting, and it explains the differences between the show and the books and how the same line lands with different meaning and I so agree with that. As if Inej is questioning Kaz "this is what it's gonna be to be with you? You'll never really open up or you will just to a certain point before you lock me out again?"

In short I don't think the "I'll have you without armour" is deprived of weight in the show, they didn't reduce he line to physical touch and they build up things to justify all the scene, it's just different from the books and Inej's own problems with relationships and emotions appears more.