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sorry i’m just thinking again about kaz brekker, perpetual cynic, and his surprisingly optimistic view of fathers and sons. just. kaz knowing that the one thing that would ruin pekka rollins, the man he hates more than anything, who he couldn’t think less of, would be to threaten the safety of his son. kaz telling jesper that his father cares more about him than any farm. kaz saying “call me sentimental, but i didn’t believe a father could be so callous.” kaz’s fatal misunderstanding of van eck being that he couldn’t conceive of a world in which fathers don’t love their sons. thinking about what all this says about kaz’s own father, and everything he lost before he and jordie ever stepped foot in ketterdam.

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whatever you do, don’t think about how much it must have meant for kaz to hear inej say “it isn’t easy for me either.”

leigh herself has said that she wrote kaz’s backstory and trauma as a way to isolate him in every way possible. he has spent the last 8 years without true emotional connections AND incredibly touch-starved. he has to give up the hope of ever being normal and becomes extra ruthless as a way of further isolating himself so no one will go near him. sure, there’s probably others in ketterdam who have lived on the streets. there’s definitely other people who have been conned out of their money and who have lost family members. but this particular trauma is so isolating and so unique to kaz that he had probably convinced himself no one would ever understand that particular pain.

and then comes inej, a girl who’s suffered so much, and she sees kaz and tells him “it isn’t easy for me either.” she’s the first person who shows kaz that he’s not alone in that pain and that healing is possible! no wonder he falls for her.

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coming at you today with a slightly obscure song to relate to kanej and that is the classic song “with or without you” by U2.

*and i’ll wait without you* is kaz waiting for inej to come back to ketterdam. but then it could also be inej waiting for kaz to let down his armor.

*through the storm we reach the shore* reminds me of that one scene where nina describes their gazes as the way you look when you’ve reached land after a storm.

*you give it all but i want more* is inej realizing kaz is doing the best he can but “it was not enough”

*with or without you, i can’t live* screams kaz to me. it is so difficult for him to open up to her, to let down his armor for her, to *be* with her, but just as difficult (if not, more) to live without her.

*and you give yourself away* could maybe be inej and how she gives herself to the cause of hunting slavers. idk, this one is a stretch.

and i’m also beginning to suspect that any time there is a reference to “sleight of hand” in a song, i’m going to find a way to connect it to kaz and inej and thus, i present you with this post. anyway, this might be a stretch and feel free to lmk your thoughts.

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KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ KANEJ

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pining is 100000% the most important aspect of pre-relationship fic for me. good-natured whole-hearted pining filled with lovelorn gazing and chest aching and fluttering touches, that’s my top priority. i was put on this earth to watch characters suffer over the profundity of their love for another person. unrequited love is why god made me. characters finding out that their feelings are reciprocated after long months/years of suffering is why the universe was assembled from nothingness. amen.

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more kanej headcanons

Today I’m imagining Kaz recruiting Inej to pose as a student at Ketterdam University for a week–

The mark is a shady mercher with more than a few paper trails connecting him to Tante Heleen’s line of work. Kaz has devised a plan to take him down through the careful manipulations of his insufferably pompous nineteen-year-old son, who is attending university (courtesy of his father’s kruge, of course) as a prerequisite to taking over the family business.

He can’t send Jesper, who might be recognized at the university, or Wylan, who’s busy working a half-dozen shared schemes with Kaz against the Merchant Council, so he asks Inej to step in instead–

(And if the promise of toppling what’s left of Heleen’s crumbling system of indentures isn’t really the thing that motivates her so much as the chance to stay docked in Ketterdam for an extra week, spying and scheming for Kaz once more, all the while chipping away at the barriers between them, moving ever-closer to this once untouchable boy–well, she doesn’t have to say any of that to him when she agrees to take the job.)

(And if Kaz is loathe to admit that he could have asked any one of a dozen other Dregs to perform this role…well, these days he’s at least self-aware enough to recognize his own incurable weakness when it comes to the spider-turned-sailor next to him: He has never trusted anybody the way he has come to trust Inej.)

Inej has been tracing the mercher’s son through all of his classes, gathering information and planting a series of documents and nasty rumors that, at a flick of Kaz’s magician’s wrist, will bring the house of cards they’ve carefully built out of the mercher’s resources and reputation toppling in a matter of days.

The great inconvenience to this work, though, is that Inej has to actually appear to be a university student for these few days: attending classes, befriending bright-eyed students lingering near Speaker’s Bridge, hauling piles of textbooks through the Boeksplein,

and, yes, completing her homework.

But if she has to suffer through this misery, she’s determined to make Kaz suffer too–

Which is how they end up sitting side-by-side at the dining room table of the Van Eck mansion, open books, scattered papers, and half-dried inks splayed out before them.

Maybe it’s the fact that they’ve been at this for hours, moon high in the window above them, and Kaz’s brain has turned half to rot–or maybe, as he might blame it later, some lingering fumes from one or another of Wylan’s chemistry experiment have addled his senses temporarily; either way, he can’t help waxing nostalgic for just a moment with Inej sitting so peaceably at his side:

“You know, if we were two normal eighteen and nineteen-year-olds, this is probably how we would have met.”

She has to blink for a few seconds, her eyes dry from minutes glaring at the same page of Kerch Politiek, before she catches his sideways glance over the puffed-up philosophy treatise he’s referencing for an essay–she’d given trying to decipher that one hours ago. “Oh?” she prompts. Go on. 

“In some study group or another in university. Solving problem sets instead of cracking safes, pilfering snacks from the café instead of stealing from literal slavers.” His tone is nonchalant, but there’s something almost like yearning behind his eyes as they stare determinedly toward the center of the table.

(She wants to ease that yearning, wants to reach across the inches between them that feel like fathoms. She knows too well that it’s not just their shared history of impossible odds and daring escapes that keeps them from the simpler life he imagines; it’s all the broken pieces of his past that he has only half-revealed to her in fleeting moments of courage, pieces she can’t put back together for him, even if she’s promised to keep reaching through them. All she can do, in this moment, is indulge in the fantasy.)

“Please, Kaz. That would never happen.”

The indignation in her voice draws his gaze back to her face, where her eyebrows are raised in amusement. “You might have gone to university to read these Saints-forsaken textbooks and freeload off Wylan Van Eck’s good will, but I would never have stopped performing with my family. We’d only meet after my troupe came to perform to the university students.” 

There’s something gentle and knowing in her grin as she envisions it. “You’d be so obsessed with trying to figure out how I made all my tricks work, you wouldn’t be able to help following after me as we packed up the venue. That’s when we would meet–not at any of those awful coffee shops off the Boeksplein like two love-drunk pigeons ready for the plucking.”

His gaze is far-off now; she watches him imagining the scene she’s set before him. She thinks he’s nearly lost in the false memory, but one particular word does seem to pique his attention through the fog:

“Love-drunk, hmm?”

(His smirk is far too self-satisfied, but she can’t help the flaming blush that erupts on her cheeks.)

“We would never look so foolish, of course.”

“Of course,” he teases, the weightiness of the moment lifted, yet something almost melancholic lingers behind his easy grin. It’s a look she rarely sees him wear, insistent as he is on burying his true feelings beneath thick layers of armor. But Inej has always been good at sneaking into even the most impenetrable fortresses–and if Kaz has taught her anything, it’s the art of the impossible heist.

Maybe she’ll dive into that feeling with him later on, but for now, she has four classes’ worth of schoolwork to finish before the morning, and she needs his focus back on the books. She grabs one of the leftover textbooks within her reach and holds it up toward him, clearing her throat. “You might have some skill accounting for a gambling club, but let’s see how well you handle… Basic Accounting for the Prudent Wife.”

He snorts at that, picking the book up disdainfully by its spine. “They’ve devised an entirely different system of accounting for women?”

Inej’s grin is sharp. “I suppose you’re about to find that out for me.”

If they spend the rest of the night hand-in-hand below the table, a fraction of each of their minds cast toward an imaginary first date (where Inej demonstrates how she flips weightlessly across a high wire, Kaz shows off the card tricks he practices between business classes, and the two of them are certain that in any version of history, they would be drawn to each other the way the crows are drawn to the Slat’s attic window)–

Well, they don’t have to say it to know it’s true.

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Never not thinking about Kaz standing at the edge of the room watching the Crows hug each other as they reunite and Nina telling him that even if he isn’t happy they’re alive they’re happy he is, about the conformation of life in those words and yet the simultaneous unintentional amplification of his wondering of whether they think he doesn’t care about them because he can’t get close

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i love you like all-fire

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“There was a mosaic on the floor of the vast rotunda below. It appeared in brief flashes between partygoers: two wolves chasing each other, destined to move in circles for as long as the Ice Court stood” is not a particularly subtle metaphor for Kaz and Inej’s relationship, especially not as it comes barely a minute after the end of their confrontation on the roof, but it is a particularly beautiful one that has stayed with me very consistently. And perhaps a little more subtle is the other side of the metaphor, that the Ice Court does metaphorically fall; the cycle can be and is broken. There’s arguably a deeper layer in the sense of the mural appearing “in flashes between partygoers” that echoes the way Kaz and Inej are not necessarily understood by those around them, not only as individuals but in the nature of their relationship as well, and that through the façades they maintain the truth can be occasionally glimpsed; they are “twin soldiers, pretending they [are] fine” but in flashes, flashes the reader is gently guided through by the other characters’ eyes as they bear witness to them, the truth can be seen.

Based on the timing of its appearance this metaphor is most likely intended in the more romantic lens, but there could also be another beautiful way to interpret it as the cycle of pain and cruelty - or vengeance. These are, after all, what most of the characters find synonymous with the Ice Court at this time and what Matthias will come to associate with it as well during his journey to free himself from Drüskelle cult and come to terms with the abuse he was dealt. Off the back of the previous conversation and because we’re seeing it through Inej’s eyes, we could relate this to the warnings she gives Kaz during the Bathroom Scene in Crooked Kingdom; the questions about what makes him different from Pekka Rollins, what makes the people he’s conned and hurt and killed different from the child he used to be. And whilst we can perhaps say that although Kaz still enacts his revenge that the cycle may be broken because he is a better person than Rollins, it is still a fact that his actions have contributed to the cycle and there are people for whom the pain he inflicted will cause them to inflict pain onto others. For where else we could look, then, for the breaking of this cycle with the metaphorical fall of the Ice Court? Back to the wolf symbolism; back to Matthias.

Matthias was raised in the hatred and violence and cruelty of this place and this regime, but it is on this journey and in the connection to these people - to Nina, his adversary and love who forced him to question himself and his world; to Jesper, who he was forced to form an opinion on before discovering he was Grisha; to Inej, who has a beautiful and individual connection to her religion without the organisation that Matthias has seen twisted and warped and weaponised; to Wylan, who suffered at the hands of his father as Matthias suffered at the hands of a father figure; to Kaz, with whom he shares so many parallels and echoes in personality and history - that brings about the metaphorical fall of the Ice Court and allows Matthias to break the cycle he was trapped in, that all of the children indoctrinated into the Drüskelle cult are trapped in.

But Matthias dies before he gets to change the world. Because no matter what metaphor their disruption bore the Ice Court is still standing, and the wolves are still howling. Chasing each other, like he and Nina once did, like the cycle of pain and torment will, for as long as the Ice Court stands.

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Hellgate and Ketterdam, Matthias and Kaz, and Disillusionment on Boats

(or, come get y'all Kaz and Matthias parallels)

***Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom spoilers ahead***

Kaz (like basically all of the main characters) is trapped in Ketterdam. In his case, it is because he was tricked by someone he had come to trust (Rollins). This results in death of his brother and leads to Kaz being trapped in the bay on the reaper barge, unable to escape. This experience causes a disillusionment: he thought the world was just and hopeful, but now he knows it to be cruel and unfair. He sees Ketterdam for what it is: a corrupt cesspool of dishonesty and manipulation. Rather than attempt to escape, he learns this system, takes advantage of it, and survives by doing unto others as was done unto him.

Hellgate can be viewed as a microcosm for Ketterdam in that it is a theoretically good idea (i.e., a prison to house criminals or a center of trade and commerce) that has been bastardized by corrupt leadership dedicated only to profit, leading to unethical conditions for its inhabitants (i.e., the Barrel or the Hellshow). Matthias, similar to Kaz, is trapped because of a betrayal from someone he chose to trust (Nina). He has suffered and continues to suffer at the hand of this system, but has also managed to take advantage of it and use it for his own gain, winning fights to gain “privileges” that slightly improve his miserable lot in life. Still in captivity, but surviving, and beating down anyone it takes to do so.

In both places, a just and governed exterior hides a festering underbelly, where the only way to survive is the exploitation of others through the system that exploited you.

Stepping back from the Hellgate/Ketterdam comparison, the characters also have parallel (yet inverse) journeys of disillusionment.

Kaz starts as an innocent child, but being trapped at sea and threatened with imminent death teaches him that to be cruel is the only way to survive. Matthias starts his journey as a witch hunter brainwashed to view genocide as justice, but experiencing a shipwreck with Nina forces him to re-evaluate his worldview, and he later becomes a much better person for it. Perhaps telling is the fact that Kaz’s change of perspective results from being stuck with the decaying body of his dead brother (showing him the true nature of Ketterdam as something thoroughly rotten), while Mattias’s disillusionment is the result of spending time with Nina, whom he repeatedly emphasizes as being incredibly, joyfully alive (thus showing both grisha and the world to be something of unexpected beauty and good). Both worldviews are a reflection of their experience.

If you want to get morbid, Matthias began as a strong, unyielding warrior, and emerges from his transformation kind, making him vulnerable. It is his newfound belief that others need and can have redemption (illustrated by his refusal to harm the young druskelle) that results in his death. Kaz starts out vulnerable and naive, but because of his disillusionment becomes stronger by becoming more monstrous, and this is why he survives.

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Six of Crows: A Comic Adaptation

Part 1, Chapter 4

Pages 15–16

Previous Pages

Download the Comics

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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