#there's a really long meta buried in here with quotes and valuable insights and waxing poetic. but for now: this is what you get

[fantastic-nonsense]

Matthias being killed by a younger version of himself after working to de-program himself and find a new purpose in life is a very poetic tragedy and perfectly parallels Nina's own individual arc, actually, y'all are just too upset with a character you liked getting killed to see it

there are so many ways Matthias and Nina are moving in opposite directions even as they converge into each other, and the whole point is that they were always destined for tragedy. The drüskelle and the drüsje, the witchhunter and the witch, the "twin souls, soldiers destined to fight for different sides, to find each other and lose each other too quickly." They're the Romeo and Juliet of the duology, the tragic lovers who found and changed and loved each other against all odds but couldn't beat them forever.

like "perhaps Djel extinguished one light and lit another" Matthias says to Nina as they're sitting around talking about her changed powers, and then he dies as Nina promises him that she'll take up his cause as her own. One light is extinguished. A new light is lit.

Nina succeeds at accomplishing her major goal in Crooked Kingdom (saving Ketterdam's Grisha) and Matthias fails to accomplish his (saving young drüskelle), but in his failure Nina succeeds. Matthias dies trying to accomplish his newfound purpose, but in his death it's Nina that finds new purpose. Poetic fucking relationship. God-tier Shakespearan tragedy. I am kissing Leigh Bardugo on the mouth.