#soc meta

[fantastic-nonsense]

Things Kaz canonically does in the two years between Crooked Kingdom and Rule of Wolves:

(presumably) massively expands the Dregs' territory

buys Pekka's old club (the Emerald Palace) and completely renovates it, turning it into The Silver Six

massively expands the Crow Club to the point where it's "three times the size of every other establishment on the block"

builds an underground tunnel that goes from the Crow Club to the Geldstraat, where the Van Eck Mansion is

takes Jesper out on jobs with him often enough that Wylan has jokingly banned Jesper from answering the door when he knocks

learns about Ketterdam's Suli laborers and picks up additional knowledge of Suli culture

keeps up with Inej's whereabouts and helps her take out slavers

expands his information network to the Kerch colonies

is on friendly enough terms with the King of Ravka that he taught Nikolai how to pick locks and Nikolai feels comfortable personally writing him a letter when he needs to steal the titanium from Kerch

disguises himself just to follow people around on the streets

was planning to steal the titanium from the military base anyway just for fun

And that's just the stuff we see from Nikolai's and Zoya's incredibly limited perspectives during their Ketterdam sidequest

I 100% agree with Zoya when she thinks that "maybe Kaz was like Nikolai, a boy with an unquiet mind, a man in perpetual need of challenge" because ROW makes it so obvious that Kaz is bored and incredibly restless in his success. Someone get our boy a new life's purpose and a subscription to a long-running unsolved mystery podcast stat

#someone help my boy! he needs enrichment in his enclosure! #kaz brekker #six of crows #rule of wolves #row spoilers #soc meta #zoya nazyalensky #nikolai lantsov #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #wylan van eck

[19burstraat]

I think about Kaz's mother a lot... not the Ketterdam harbour lmao, his actual mother. Wylan asks if he remembers her, and gets slapped with the infamous 'my mother is Ketterdam' response, but bc the interaction isn't from Kaz's POV, we're also blocked from an honest response.

Kaz seems to hold Jordie in much higher importance than his parents; he thinks of his father literally once (he was a farmer; he died in a ploughing accident), and his mother not at all. We can surmise he either doesn't remember her, or doesn't care to... so either she died or left when he was very young, I suppose? My personal interpretation is that she probably died in childbirth, since they seemed to live pretty rurally, and if she died in childbirth with Kaz, it makes Nina's 'you probably bargained your way out of the womb' comment kind of true, albeit accidentally. A life for a life...

But her death/departure is the first domino falling, in that it means Kaz and Jordie are left uncared for after their father's death. If she had lived or stayed... Well, I don't think Kaz would have ever gone to Ketterdam. I'm sure Kaz would say it doesn't matter, but everyone else's mothers are important to to them and remembered fondly. There's everything Jesper remembers about Aditi, Inej thinks often and fondly of small things about her mother, there's Matthias's mother who wore her shoes on the wrong feet when she was pregnant with his sister, and there is of course Marya Van Eck... this sort of puts Kaz in a weird position where he's in parallel with Nina, who's also an orphan, but the difference is Nina was raised in an orphanage from, presumably, a really early age, and Kaz had at least his father until he was nine. But the boy who remembers it all... doesn't seem to remember his mother? I wonder if he even knows what her name was. It's not plot relevant, but I still wonder.

#it might partially be a kind of Kaz Brekker thing where he's blocked it but. he remembers EVERYTHING #six of crows #kaz brekker #soc meta #soc #my post

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Thinking about how the Dregs canonically have a pleasure house but Kaz vehemently had nothing to do with it even when he was involved in the finances of all their other businesses, and that shutting it down was probably one of the first things he did after the coup

See below cut for evidence/quotes and lil smidgen of analysis

In chapter 3 Van Eck calls Kaz “a bawd and a murderer”, to which Kaz replies “I don’t run whores, and I kill for a cause”. Whilst the more obvious implication of this would be that the Dregs isn’t affiliated with a pleasure house, we learn later that this assumption is incorrect. When Kaz pays off her contract Inej believes she’s moving to another house and Heleen replies “Haskell does own a pleasure house, somewhere in the lower Barrel, but you’d be a waste of his money there”, both confirming that the Dregs have a pleasure house and implying that they get very little income from it. Since we know that Kaz is the only one who actually does any work with the finances and that many times it’s been said that the Dregs would collapse without him not only because they would lose a lot of the fear his presence brings but also because they would lose most of their income, it’s fair to assume that the reason this business is unsuccessful is because Kaz refuses to be involved with it. I think that Van Eck’s accusation comes from him looking through the Dregs’ businesses (he has a collection of papers and information on Kaz and reads them during this conversation) and assuming Kaz is involved in all of them, and we can also follow the implication that Kaz is offended by this false accusation since he’s so quick and blunt in defending it during an otherwise lengthy and often philosophical conversation.

#kaz brekker #kaz my beloved #six of crows #grishaverse #crooked kingdom #leigh bardugo #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #nina zenik #matthias helvar #kanej #ketterdam #kaz x inej #inej x kaz #six of crows analysis #soc analysis #soc analyst #soc and ck #soc meta #six of crows meta

[pandaexpress303]

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

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

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

#kanej #kaz brekker #six of crows #soc #crooked kingdom #six of crows meta #meta #soc meta #soc analysis #leigh bardugo #shadow and bone

[darjeelinh]

Jesper “guard against pain” vs Wylan “guard against joy”

Jesper’s jokester and confident façade was to protect himself from feeling pain, but inside he’s insecure and vulnerable. He hid his grisha nature because the only person who ever treasured it was taken away from him, and grew up being told that it was a curse. So instead he acts like he doesn’t need it. He acts like he takes all the losses and all the hurtful things in good stride but deep inside he’s feeling lost and guilty all the time. That boy is always bouncing on his feet with guilt all the time in the duology. Guilt for disappointing everyone: his father, Kaz, Inej, his mother, and himself. When he thought about Wylan at the end of SOC he thought Wylan wouldn’t want to hang out with criminals like him anymore once he got the money and that had stung more than he thought: it’s the boy inside him feeling abandoned again, the boy that does no good to anyone other than in a fight. And he cope with all that pain, that guilt, with his addiction and his gunslinging - which no one really paid any mind until Wylan saw through his façade.

Wylan, whose joy and hope was taken away from him by his father, was always made to feel less than, shared the same constant feeling of guilt for just being who he is. His father made sure of it, that he knows he’s not allowed to feel anything but anxious and guilt, and his joy was to be choked out of him (metaphorically and literally). Wylan in the show couldn’t even believe when Jesper told him he was smart, thinking it was just a trick to coddle him into some false sense of joy before it would be taken away again. Wylan in the books still holding on to the last shred of decency for his father until that moment at Saint Hilde, instead blaming himself for it, maybe because it would give him a false sense of control over his own pain. Until Jesper saw his own guilt mirrored in Wylan, and helped him to his feet.

Both Jesper and Wylan were able to keep some part of goodness in the face of everything that happened in their lives: Jesper with his good spirits, Wylan with his morals - standing up against Kaz again and again despite being threatened every time. In Jesper, Wylan learned to accept joy again, and that this won’t be taken away from him. And in Wylan, Jesper knew that he has a safe space where he can accept his pain and heal from it in a healthy way.

“You can love something despite seeing all of its flaws.”

Anyway, Wesper is each other’s safe haven.

#i love this part in the show they really understood wylan and jesper by showing each line with their face #does this make any sense im just rambling #anw welcome to my reread of soc and ck every time i pick one of the crows to hyper analyze #this time it’s jesper and wylan #wesper #wylan van eck #jesper fahey #wylan hendriks #six of crows #shadow and bone #shadow and bone season 2 #netflix shadow and bone #sab spoilers #crooked kingdom #sab #soc meta #kit young #jack wolfe #jesper x wylan #the lighting on this part is ATROCIOUS #soc spoilers #ck spoilers

[six-of-cringe]

Something that is sad but also that I hugely appreciate about CK is that by the end, most of the systems that harmed the crows are still in place, but their relationships with themselves have grown and changed. I find this particularly interesting in the cases of Jesper and Wylan (shocking I know). Their identities still put them in danger of being exploited or harmed - Grisha indentures are still the norm in Kerch, and the auction scene made it very clear that if the Council knew Wylan's illiteracy was true, they would treat him much the same as his father did due to the culture surrounding productivity and ability. This might seem disheartening, but the hope lies in the shift in how these characters see themselves and their role in the world. By the end of the book, Jesper and Wylan are beginning to put away their internalized shame surrounding their identities. They may still have to hide who they are from the world to survive, but they're no longer hiding it from themselves - their true selves are no longer this crushing burden they have to turn away from to function. A general theme of the series is how, in accepting who they are and what has happened to them on a personal level, the crows place themselves in positions to make change on a systemic level - Inej and her ship, Nina and her mission, Kaz and his Barrel empire, Wylan and Jesper with their political, high-society empire. None of them are all the way there yet by the end - they're still healing, and both the loss of Matthias and the weight of those oppressive systems are going to weigh on them for a long time - but we get to see the very beginnings of that process. I'm going to bite someone.

#that being said. they need so much therapy. that sort of deeply internalized shame doesn't go away after a heist or two #it is kinda heartening u know bc i get real down about how immovable systems seem #and even after something good happens in that regard on an individual level it doesn't seem to get any better #it's ok. what is change but a bunch of people doing better together #this is why i dont want soc3. this is a great stopping point thematically and in that respect i dont need or want to see more #let them exist in this place in my mind. on the brink of things getting better #anyway jan van eck die one million billion times #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #inej ghafa #nina zenik #kaz brekker #matthias helvar #six of crows #soc #tgt #soc meta #OUGHAHGAHGOUAGH

[laoih]

Tracing Kaz's injuries in Shadow and Bone S2

One thing I really like about the Shadow and Bone series is the care they took with Kaz's injuries throughout this season. So often in films and TV you get a scratch in one scene, and in the next it's gone, as if it was magically healed.

For a series that actually has magical healing, and with Nina being around even accessible for Kaz, it stands out even more that he's the one not getting healed. I appreciate the show taking care with this, because we have seen Grisha heal people with more serious injuries multiple times in the series, and this just underlines that Kaz can't/won't let them near him to heal him.

As a result, he carries the injuries with him through the whole season.

→ Kaz's first injury is the one he gets in the fight with the Dregs:

Shadow and Bone | S02E03

It's not that serious, but it's still visible when Jesper and Wylan meet him in Black Veil Cemetery:

Shadow and Bone | S02E03

Later on, when they make plans, it's barely visible anymore, but the small cut is still there:

Shadow and Bone | S02E03

→ The confrontation with Pekka Rollins adds a few more injuries to Kaz's face (and presumably his body in general, but those you don't see):

Shadow and Bone | S02E04

The main one is the injury around his left eyebrow, a smaller bruise on his jaw, and the lip is bloody again. You can still see the cut from before.

After the fight, the bruises around his eye start swelling:

Shadow and Bone | S02E04

Fortunately, the swelling goes down again within the next days, and when Zoya and Tolya arrive, Kaz's face is still bruised but a lot better than directly after the fight:

Shadow and Bone | S02E05

That's more or less how the injuries stay throughout the retreive-the-sword mission:

Shadow and Bone | S02E05

By the time they get to Ravka, it has improved further:

Shadow and Bone | S02E07

Shadow and Bone | S02E08

Towards the end of season 2 when Kaz and Inej talk, the bruises are almost healed. The cut on his lip is still visible:

Shadow and Bone | S02E08

At the very end of the season it's basically all gone - the bruise at his jaw, the cut on his lip – but above his left eyebrow a scar remains:

Shadow and Bone | S02E08

#Shadow and Bone #Kaz Brekker #Six of Crows #Freddy Carter #the Crows #shadowandboneedit #SoC meta

[jeansyvesmoreau]

Wait so you know how part of Kaz's legend of Dirtyhands is that ketterdam and profit are his parents, and that "ketterdam birthed him in the harbour", and that he's "the only kind of bastard they manufacture in the Barrel"? He's actually right, but in a metaphorical way. Kaz Rietveld was killed off by Pekka Rollins' dirty ways of profiting off of him and Jordie- that's the profit side. Kaz and Jordie spent their sick days in the Barrel (they were attacked by razorgulls). Kaz swam back to the ketterdam shore on Jordie's body. His transformation from Kaz Rietveld to Kaz Brekker involve profit, the harbour, and the Barrel. The rumours might be terrible and cruel, but they are, in a way, true.

#melone rereads six of crows and has Thoughts #six of crows #kaz brekker #kaz rietveld #soc #leigh bardugo #soc duology #crooked kingdom #ck #meta #soc meta #grishaverse

[wylanslcve]

Something I don't see anyone speak about (if you have and I just haven't seen it... I'm sorry :( ) is how Wylan not only reclaims his identity by the duology's conclusion, but he also reclaims Marya's. I feel like we as a fandom overlook just how much J*n put Marya through in an attempt to erase Wylan from the public memory: he had her declared insane as a grounds for divorce and institutionalised her, leaving her "abandoned along with her defective child" in order to "forever rid himself of any evidence that Wylan had existed". This transcended to J*n not allowing Wylan to grieve his mother's 'death' because, as he put it, "it didn’t pay to dwell on the past" - and Wylan tells Jesper that J*n never brought Marya up after breaking the news of her finality to his son, confessing "we just stopped talking about her".

What we also need to remember is that the Van Eck mansion "had belonged to Wylan’s mother’s family for generations before Van Eck had ever set foot through the door". (Edit: I didn't mean to write that the mansion belonged to the Hendriks - it was part of the property under the Van Eck name. Sorry about that!) Just like how J*n separated Wylan from his mother, he simultaneously took so much from Marya - first her home, then her name, her fortune, her own child. This is why Marya was admitted as Marya Hendriks, not Marya Van Eck: this is J*n quite literally stripping her of her name to permanently erase her from the public memory. The nurse addresses Marya as "Miss Hendriks", to which Marya mutters "Van Eck" in response, because "she was not Marya Hendriks, she was Marya Van Eck, a wife and mother stripped of her name and her fortune." So why is it that Wylan says, "I am Marya Hendriks' son" if Marya Hendriks is the woman who's left after Marya Van Eck had her name and her life taken away from her? Because this is Wylan reclaiming his mother's identity.

If we examine the moment Wylan visits his mother at Saint Hilde, Marya's first words to him are "did you come for my money? I don’t have any money" to which Wylan replies that he doesn't have any money either. The money neither of them have comes to signify the lack of autonomy they have over their identities, which have spent so long confined by J*n's contempt as he gradually works towards making them vanish entirely. J*n tried desperately to erase Marya's memory as a means of gradually erasing Wylan's - however, Wylan is the only one who keeps his mother's memory alive, just like how Marya keeps her son's alive. Upon arriving in the Barrel, Wylan detaches himself from his father's name and, instead, uses his mother's maiden name. Yes, he's doing it to not draw attention to himself (because what would the child of one of the richest men in Ketterdam be doing in a place like the Barrel?), but he's also preserving Marya's memory, clinging to it like a lifeline without even realising it. In a way, it's saving him.

Before I go on any further, I'm taking a brief detour to discuss the transition in Wylan's motivations upon discovering what really happened to his mother (it's relevant, I promise). Wylan completely breaking down when he realises that his father is indeed evil is such a pivotal moment that marks a major transition in his motivations. Jesper comforts Wylan during his breakdown, assuring him that "Kaz is going to tear your father’s damn life apart" - a sentiment that "felt like cool water cascading over the hot, shameful feeling of helplessness he’d [Wylan] been carrying with him for so long". His continued contribution to the Dregs’ mission is no longer about making the money to “get out of town and never speak the name Van Eck again” - now, he's "here for her". Now, it's about punishing his father, saving Marya and returning all J*n took from her: “what am I doing here? But he knew the answer. Only he could see his father punished for what he’d done. Only he could see his mother free.” He realises that J*n's life falling apart means that, with his money, "he could take his mother from this place. They could go somewhere warm. He could put her in front of a piano, get her to play, take her somewhere full of bright colors and beautiful sounds. They could go to Novyi Zem. They could go anywhere." He could save her, liberate her from the confines of J*n's contempt - and only he can do it, because who else would?

Meanwhile, Marya clings to the memories of her child even though J*n took him away from her. While institutionalised, Marya would paint - and in her paintings, "repeated again and again, was the face of a little boy with ruddy curls and bright blue eyes". We know that J*n wanted Wylan to disappear "the way he’d made Wylan’s mother disappear" - what we don't know, however, is what J*n told Marya during the time she was institutionalised. Did he visit her after sending Wylan away, supposedly to study music in Belendt, to tell her that Wylan is dead? Did he ever visit her before then and tell her that her son is dead to expunge his memory from Marya? We can only speculate - but what we do know is that, regardless of whether or not she thinks he's dead, Marya is grieving the loss of her child.

Something that Wylan fears if the Dregs’ mission is unsuccessful is that he’s “going to die and there will be no one to help her. No one to even remember Marya Hendriks” - and the same could be said about Marya’s feelings of responsibility for preserving the spirit of her child. Amidst her grief is the strive to save him and his memory, because she’s really the only one who’s willing to remember him. At the asylum, her paintings are thrown out “every six months” because “there just isn’t enough space for them” - but that doesn’t stop her from continuing to paint the face of her child and, thus, remembering him, making sure he doesn't disappear. Wylan confesses to Jesper that his parents “fought all the time, sometimes about me”, revealing how Marya has always fought for Wylan - and her being institutionalised, having her paintings thrown out every so often, won’t put an end to her fighting for him. She's hellbent on ensuring he doesn't vanish, because there’s no one else who would. (Think of this in relation to the meaning behind “no mourners, no funerals” - if Wylan disappeared, “no one would come looking”, as is the case with the rest of the Crows.)

Now, let's examine how, by the end of the duology, Wylan not only liberates himself from the pain caused by his father's wrongdoings, but also saves his mother. He'd "chosen to use a portion of his newfound wealth to restore his home", exemplifying how inheriting his father's fortune represents him reclaiming his identity from the pain and abuse J*n's contempt inflicted upon him. However, I mentioned earlier that the Van Eck mansion didn't actually belong to the Van Ecks in the first place - it belonged to the Hendriks. (Edit: again, not the mansion, but part of the property under the Van Eck name.) Thus, Wylan's position by the end of Crooked Kingdom also comes to represent him reclaiming his mother's identity as he returns everything J*n took from her. By "restor[ing] his home", he's also restoring Marya's.

#who am i if i don't write essay-length analyses of these books #more specifically #who am i if i don't write essay-length analyses of wylan van eck #also hardly anyone talks about marya and it physically pains me #wylan my beloved #wylan my boy #wylan van eck #wylan hendriks #wylan van sunshine #jack wolfe #marya hendriks #marya van eck #meta #soc meta #sab meta #six of crows duology #six of crows #crooked kingdom #grishaverse #shadow and bone #seige and storm #ruin and rising #shadow and bone season 2 #shadow and bone season 3 #six of crows spin off #soc spinoff #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #jesper fahey

[capinejghafa]

This is also kind of inspired by the asked I got, but also I'm rewatching the final kanej scene (again) lol

It's sort of weird to expect Kaz to continue to try if Inej doesn't try as well. And it's not as if either one are completely blameless. Like for all the faults that Kaz has, Inej is also very bad at telling Kaz what she wants.

This is also something I noticed but it's starting to feel like Kaz is the one who messed up in the final kanej scene. Like Inej is like be honest! And he is. He's like I want you to be at the EP! And she's not. The one time where his armor is completely gone and she's not there.

Kaz has also done the following: actually tells the Crows his plans, helps Nina see Matthias, acknowledges Jesper as his brother, recruits Wylan and making sure he eats a proper meal (and gets a boyfriend), made sure Matthias (a stranger) wasn't put in the fighting pit... and on top of all that helped a whole other country to prevent the world from going to shit.

I probably missed some things, and this is just a silly little show... and we are dealing with a much more mature Kaz than in the books. But what else is he supposed to do? He's not even 100% bad a feelings, he's not great at it (he was raised in the barrel). Also, the touch aversion is not his fault. I really wish that wasn't used against him.

But Inej... Inej's trauma that runs so deep that she had a whole dream about touched and then lied about it, whose trauma is so fresh that when Jesper asked last season, she just gave him this look of pure horror. Inej, who expects so much of Kaz and for him to be open, will shut down just as easily.

Inej is a brave and lovely character, but she is so deeply flawed. She is so deeply traumatized, and one thing I give the show credit for is Inej's struggles are very much internal (bc that's very much book canon btw). That's why her hallucinations were about touch (and Kaz). She's not ready for what comes with a relationship, and Kaz was. Kaz could of told her he loved her and she would of still left.

tl;dr inej is bad at feelings too

#kanej #kaz x inej #otp: if i couldn't walk i'd crawl to you #kaz is bad at feelings but he's a lot better than most people give him credit for lol #soc #the crows #sab spoilers #also not me on my let inej be bad at feeling campaign lol #feel free to push me off a cliff lol #soc meta #shadow and bone

[sleepless-crows]

Why The "Kaz Beating Up The Dregs" Scene In The Show Is Wrong

There is so much I disagreed with in the show and adding this scene from CK is one of the ones that get me angriest. This post is clearly going to criticize decisions the showrunners made and if you don't want to read that, you can skip this post and scroll ahead. And this post is just my opinion, we can differ in opinions, that's alright.

First of all, in the books, this was a chapter in Inej's POV. In the show, Inej wasn't even present. Why is this relevant?

This scene took place right after the bathroom scene. It showed how even if Kaz told her specifically not to follow him, she still did. It's such an important moment in the books when we find out that Kaz knew the entire time that she was there. It shows how he senses her presence (although some may argue that he sensed Inej's absence in the show when he was facing of Pekka Rollins in Episode 4). And it shows their dynamic as partners, they don't leave each other, much less let the other walk to their death, and referencing the show, she watches over him. But this is also affected by the fact that this scene was given less meaning and was less dangerous in the show, which I will touch on later.

This was also a big moment for Kaz and Inej's relationship. At first, Inej says that she would respect Kaz's wishes that she not be seen because they would be looking for any signs of weakness. But when she sees Kaz getting beaten up so badly, her chapter goes:

"She couldn't just watch him die, she wouldn't. They had him down now, heavy boots kicking and stomping at his body. Her knives were in her hands. She'd kill them all. She'd pile the bodies to the rafters for the stadwatch to find... She wanted to scream. To hell with your pride, with the Dregs, with this whole wretched city."

We also got moments like Kaz stealing Inej's line and Kaz and Inej reclaiming their home. But since Inej wasn't there, those details are nonexistent in the show.

My next point has to do with Per Haskell's addition. It doesn't even make sense to add him in. He was supposed to represent the lazy and greedy people in the Barrel who take advantage of people like Kaz. In the books, Haskell betrayed Kaz and turned his gang against him. Haskell who Kaz has done nothing but make him richer. But in the show, Haskell was just an indifferent gang leader, any gang leader wouldn't want to cross Pekka Rollins. But Kaz forces Haskell to give up his gang because he just knew Haskell's gang wasn't successful or strong like how Kaz could make them be. Haskell didn't owe Kaz anything, Kaz just felt like a plain bully in the show. We don't even know if Haskell did anything wrong in the show to deserve that treatment from Kaz, but I guess Kaz in the show doesn't really care about that.

And here is my last point and what I think is the biggest and most awful change that the showrunners chose. And it has to do with Kaz's character.

In the books, this scene was much more dangerous. In the books, Kaz was willing to do whatever it took to save his friends from this mess he put them in (which highly contradicts whatever he was doing in the show). Kaz says:

"But they'd landed in a trap, and if he had to chew his paw off to get them out of it, then that was what he would do."

-> In the show, it seemes as if they took away a huge characterization scene just to show Kaz beating up some men. In the books, Kaz could literally have walked to his death if it was his last effort to rescuing his friends from the trap he led them in. A huge part of Kaz's character is that he is loyal to the people he cares about and he would do everything in his ability to protect them, no matter the cost to him. But that wasn't at all the context in the show.

Something that really first stood out to me was the absence of the younger Dregs like Anika, Roeder, Keeg, and Pim. And of course they wouldn't be in there, the whole Crow Club and The Dregs thing the show has going on messed up everything. But specifically when Kaz says his speech in the books that was adapted to the show:

"'I didn't come looking for friends. And I'm not here for the washed-up cadgers and cowards, or the losers who think the Barrel owes them something for managing to stay alive. I came for the killers. The hard ones. The hungry ones. The people like me. This is my gang... and I'm done taking orders.'"

-> he was talking about the younger Dregs. Not at all the random men he needed for a job in The Dregs Gang in the show. In the books, Inej says they're Kaz's best support, and that is because the younger Dregs like Anika and Pim are a testament to Kaz and how he built the Dregs and their reputation, how he spent his own money to fix up the Slat to make it livable, how he takes in these kids from the street and offers them protection, the one he didn't have and had to make himself. Inej says:

"Behind them, Inej glimpsed a few Dregs who didn't seem to share the excitement—Anika with her crop of yellow hair, wiry Roeder who Per Haskell had suggested Kaz use as his spider, the biggest bruisers Keeg and Pim. They hung back against the wall, exchanging unhappy looks as the others whooped and postured. They're Kaz's best hope for support, she thought. The youngest members of the Dregs, the kids Kaz had brought in and organized, the ones who worked the hardest and took the worst jobs because they were the newest."

->They are the real Dregs. They were even the first ones to defend Kaz. Pim tells Varian to quit it when he was going after Kaz again. And Anika blocks the exit when Haskell tells the Dregs to pull the alarm and alert Pekka that Kaz was there. When Bastian told Kaz he had no friends there, Pim shook his head and crossed his arms and the other younger Dregs bristled. And all because Kaz had done so much for them. They never liked Per Haskell, they knew Kaz was who to thank for, who protected them. And that was such a beautiful moment in the books that shows these kids that Kaz offered protection for were the first to protect and defend him as well. Those are the true Dregs. That is Kaz's gang. And it's really saddening that none of that was shown in the show.

#there's so many posts defending the show so don't come after me after one post that criticizes it and where i just state my opinion #grishaverse #six of crows #shadow and bone #soc #sab #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #per haskell #crooked kingdom #soc meta

[fantastic-nonsense]

I love your thoughtful SoC meta! I would love to know your thoughts on Kaz and Jesper’s relationship. Specifically, I adore Kaz but one thing in particular that always seemed so dark to me was that he enabled Jesper’s gambling addiction even though he obviously does care about him. Kaz is obviously willing to do a lot of fucked up things in service of his goals, but this one in particular, toward his own brother figure, I find sad. It’s kind of addressed during their fight at the end of CK but still feels a little unfinished.

I love Kaz and Jesper's relationship. There's sooooo much to dig into there (way too much for a single meta); it's super juicy and complicated, and one of the best complexities of it is that they often enable and feed off of each other's trauma. The pre-canon status quo is a situation where Kaz and Jesper are, in many ways, using and abusing each other as a way of avoiding dealing with their own trauma. It's a fascinating push-and-pull dynamic because neither of them are pushovers and yet neither one is particularly interested in facing their Issues™ head-on, and they both seemingly recognize that in each other and give each other an uncharacteristic amount of grace in helping the other avoid dealing with it.

In Kaz's case, that most often looks like enabling Jesper's gambling addiction and then repeatedly bailing him out of trouble under the justification of "he's loyal and competent, it would be wasteful to let the other gangs kill him." In Jesper's case, this looks like ignoring Kaz's countless and extremely obvious issues in favor of playing the loyal second. Basically, it's not just Kaz enabling Jesper's gambling addiction; it's also Jesper enabling Kaz's unhinged ruthlessness with little pushback other than a few snarky comments.

They also project a lot of their own issues onto each other! Kaz pushes Jesper away in part because he's projecting the grief and blame he feels over Jordie's death onto Jesper, but Jesper is using Kaz's ruthless pragmatism to escape the crippling disappointment of returning home to face his father's judgement for being a college drop-out, gambling addict, and gang member. And Kaz withholds praise and verbal declarations of trust from Jesper because he hates acknowledging that he cares about people, but Jesper uses Kaz's emotional detachment as a crutch to avoid dealing with his own commitment issues by pining after a boy he knows will never reciprocate his advances. This status quo is, of course, insanely unhealthy for both boys long-term, but where would we be if any of the Crows actually dealt with their issues in a healthy way?

That dynamic, imo, is also only possible because Kaz and Jesper have known each other for longer than anyone else in the main crew; Kaz may have let Inej in further, but he let Jesper in first. As far as we know, Jesper is the first person Kaz genuinely lets past his mile-high walls since Jordie died...but he very deliberately holds him at arms' length in a way that he does not with Inej (something that Jesper notices and is jealous about!). Being "the first" in this case unfortunately comes with a lot of baggage, and Kaz and Jesper would both lowkey rather die than talk about how much they care what the other thinks of them.

Kaz clearly didn't recruit Jesper looking for a friend or someone who reminded him of his dead older brother; he recruited him because he saw someone with a useful skillset who he preferred to be at his side rather than in a rival gang or dead in the canals. It's to Jesper's credit that he managed to break through those walls anyway, but there's only so much he can do in the face of Kaz's armor. And like Inej, Kaz's closed-off personality and actions hurt Jesper repeatedly. But he stays anyway, because he (like Inej) sees the boy underneath the mask that Kaz wears and cares a little too much to let him go:

“He wouldn’t—” Jesper stopped short, and then he laughed. “Of course he would.” Jesper flexed his knuckles, concentrated on the lines of his palms. “Kaz is…I don’t know, he’s like nobody else I’ve ever known. He surprises me.” “Yes. Like a hive of bees in your dresser drawer.” Jesper barked a laugh. “Just like that.” “So what are we doing here?” Jesper turned back to the sea, feeling his cheeks heat. “Hoping for honey, I guess. And praying not to get stung.” Inej bumped her shoulder against his. “Then at least we’re both the same kind of stupid.” “I don’t know what your excuse is, Wraith. I’m the one who can never walk away from a bad hand.” She looped her arm in his. “That makes you a rotten gambler, Jesper. But an excellent friend.” “You’re too good for him, you know.” “I know. So are you." -Ch. 17, Six of Crows

Kaz is unused to verbalizing the trust he places in others and actively in denial about how much he cares about them until Crooked Kingdom; he spends his time deliberately being cruel and pushing people away even as he proves over and over again that he doesn't actually want them to leave him. This casual assholery hits those closest to him (Inej and Jesper) the hardest because they are clearly trusted with his life but not with his heart, and that hurts them both.

For Inej, resolving that behavior looks like giving him an ultimatum ("I will have you without armor or I will not have you at all") and telling herself to walk away unless he meets her challenge. For Jesper? That looks like duking it out on top of the Geldrenner when they're both at rock bottom, because of course that's the only way either one of those boys is ever going to verbalize the tension that underlies their relationship. There's just a lot of baggage and mutual toxicity and unsaid words that neither of them are very interested in dealing with until everything comes to a head during the Clocktower fight.

I think we also forget that the Kaz-Jesper dynamic we see in the majority of the duology is not their normal dynamic: it's how they interact when Kaz is mad at Jesper. And a mad Kaz is, within the scope of canon, a pretty cruel Kaz, which is something that I think a good portion of the fandom likes to handwave away in favor of pointing towards Kaz's active attempts to be better in the back half of the duology.

Ultimately we only see the "normal" Kaz-Jesper dynamic for the first 12 or so chapters of Six of Crows (when the Dock Fight/Eyeball Incident happens) and the last few chapters of Crooked Kingdom. Those chapters are a really interesting look into what that relationship looks like when they're on good terms. It's clear that they're good friends, trust each other a hell of a lot, and joke around with each other quite a bit (the "saves ammo" joke in the parley chapter, their interactions during the Hellgate breakout, the "man with a knife!" "man with a gun!" exchange immediately after Kaz throws Oomen overboard, etc), but we also see the stress points: Jesper getting mad at Kaz for not telling him about Big Bolliger's betrayal, Kaz sending Wylan with Jesper during the prep chapters to keep an eye on him, and Jesper's bee and honey conversation with Inej on the Ferolind, for example.

These stress points are what fracture and crack in the aftermath of Jesper accidentally alerting the other gangs that they were headed out on the Ice Court Job and nearly causing Inej's death, and further buckle under the stress and pressure that Kaz and Jesper deal with during the following month and a half: the Ice Court job, Van Eck kidnapping Inej on Vellgeluk, Colm showing up in Ketterdam, and the Sugar Silo/Auction scheme.

In this way, I think Kaz enabling Jesper's gambling addiction is less about Kaz being actively cruel towards someone he sees the ghost of his brother in and punishing Jesper for the sins he percieves Jordie to have made (which is also true, and a meta for a different time!) and more about the weird balance of toxic mutual leniency Kaz and Jesper have allowed the other to provide for them for over two years...and how that leniency breaks down once it's not just Kaz's life or time on the line when Jesper fucks up.

Put more succinctly: for a long time, Kaz and Jesper existed in a toxic balance of enabling each others' worst impulses and behaviors, which was only able to be verbally addressed when they were both at rock bottom, desperate, and seemingly had very little left to lose. This conflict is somewhat addressed and resolved in the conversation where Kaz refuses to give Jesper the last of the parem and offers up a tiny bit of information about Jordie—showcasing his own growth and how he's finally trying to break the cycle by refusing to enable Jesper's self-destructive tendencies—but that level of tension is unable to be properly resolved in one single blowout argument. And I think it's deliberately left a bit unfinished because neither of them are really in a place where they're ready to address everything they've left unsaid for so long, even in the epilogue chapters.

However, we do see the beginnings of that reconcilitaion (Kaz asking Inej to tell Jesper that he's "missed around the Slat") and the story ends on a hopeful note regarding Kaz's commitment to removing his armor, which implies a lot about the resolution of that dangling thread. And of course, we know that by Rule of Wolves they're back to being thick as thieves and fucking around as usual, so clearly they hashed it out at some point in the in-between (and personally? I don't think it took either of them very long after the CK epilogue chapters to do that hashing out).

tl;dr: I love it when two traumatized and emotionally constipated teenage boys use each other to avoid facing their own personal problems and then get into a fistfight to avoid talking about how much they care about each other. Top-tier dynamic. Chef's kiss. I could talk about them for hours.

#also thank you so much for the ask and kind words #I hope this meta did your question justice and makes up for the fact that I didn't answer it for so long #kaz brekker #jesper fahey #six of crows #crooked kingdom #soc meta #asks #long post #(very long post; rip and sorry for not using a read more but it didn't quite fit anywhere) #queue

[19burstraat]

hmmm I know we can surmise that kaz & jordie were the iphigenia of the series, in that, whether it's fair or not, they had to be sacrificed for the benefit of everyone else. jordie had to die and kaz had to suffer it and live with it, because if kaz had lain down and died on the barge, it would have had a crazy knock-on effect. inej likely would never have escaped the menagerie, or matthias from hellgate, jesper would probably have fallen foul of debtors or gangs some way or another (he gets at least one beating from enforcers), nina would have been caught up w the dime lions trying to get matthias out of hellgate, and there's even some more tangential ones, like kuwei probably dying at the ice court and marya being stuck at saint hilde.... but I wonder what would have happened to wylan.

kaz had him under dregs protection, so he never suffered the way he did ("kaz is your luck, merchling."); no beatings, etc. without that... well, it's tempting to think that wylan would have just been killed some way or another. and yeah, maybe, but miggson and prior couldn't get him, could they? wylan has that scary glimmer of the biting-animal, kaz-style survivalist in him, and he had a goal; amass enough money to get the hell out of ketterdam and start anew. but how far would wylan have gone to get that money? van eck's letters pushed him into the arms of dregs munitions building. without the perpetual intervention of kaz-- protection, constant jobs even when there were better people for it, good pay-- how quickly would wylan have turned into someone more like kaz? he has a core of decency, but he gets the privilege of keeping that, because kaz helps him to. alone, would he have surrendered it, or been forced to surrender it, just for a chance to survive? I don't think he would have ever willingly given up. it's not an accident that kaz and wylan's first days in ketterdam are so closely paralleled, or that they have a set of similar skills/traits; it's explicitly said that wylan would also be able to count cards and control decks like kaz can, if he wanted to. and after he finds out about his mother, wylan's comforted by the idea of retribution for van eck, that kaz could destroy his father's life. they're a little bit too similar. but kaz is there to take the moral fall, for the most part; all wylan has to do is help him. but without kaz... well. that's another story, isn't it?

#an AU where nina and wylan both end up in the dime lions is mad. Nina And Wylan's Adventures In Fucking Pekka Right Up #maybe rollins is always fated to fall. may death never stop kaz brekker... #six of crows #wylan van eck #kaz brekker #soc meta #my post #crooked kingdom #long post

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

I never fail to find it funny when Matthias tells the Crows not to eat snow (Soc chapter 19) because it’s just so completely unprompted and I know it’s because he’s trying to just keep talking and not think about Nina but it just comes out of nowhere and every time I just imagine all of them glancing at each other to try and figure out who was eating the goddamn snow when they’re all freezing and if you’re thirsty then a) that’s not gonna help and b) you have a perfectly good water flask (they were probably all ready to suspect Jesper, except Jesper who was probably prepared to suspect either Nina or Wylan) but then it’s also such a stark horrifying juxtaposition that they find the pyre within the next two seconds and now that I’m writing this maybe that’s partially the point because that is exactly how it feels for them and the distinct horror of one moment thinking about eating snow and the next seeing that and Jesper having to shoot one of the victims and oh now I’m sad

#still kinda funny to just randomly go ‘do not eat the snow’ #considering he only recently learnt the Kerch word for snow too #maybe they all just thought he was eager to try it out #six of crows #grishaverse #crooked kingdom #leigh bardugo #matthias helvar #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #nina zenik #helnik #Soc analysis #soc meta #six of crows analysis #six of crows meta

[pandaexpress303]

kaz and his surprising...selflessness?

Okay, so I have been thinking about Kaz (like usual) and realized that as cold and ruthless and harsh of a person he is, so much of what drives him isn’t actually very selfish. 

1. For starters, his hatred and desire for revenge against Pekka Rollins, obviously partially has to do with the fact that because of what Pekka did, Kaz was left to fend for himself on the streets and endure a lot of hardship. BUT at the same time, when Inej asks him what Pekka did, his response is 

Pekka Rollins killed my brother. (SOC pg. 204) 

So much of what fuels his quest for revenge isn’t necessarily what Pekka did to him but rather what he did to Jordie. His actions against them killed Jordie and Jordie’s voice taunting him and “wanting his vengeance” is what drives Kaz. Or at least a good portion of it. 

2. Inej. Obviously some of Kaz’s most selfless actions have to do with Inej and his feelings for her. Yes, there is the line in Crooked Kingdom where Kaz says

His mind had concocted a hundred schemes to bind her to him... (CK pg. 358)

but he still chooses to give her the contract and do the right thing by her. He also liquidates ALL HIS ASSETS to free her and this is before he even knows they are going to get the money from the auction. He has no reason to believe that this plan is going to turn out and that they’ll get the money, and for all his talk about kruge and that being what motivates him, he literally uses the last of everything he owns to help Inej and free her. Something that isn’t benefitting his desires at all. 

Of course, him buying the ship for her is yet another instance of this. Along with finding her parents, carrying her onto the ship, saying he would come for her, etc. 

3. He offers to give himself up at the Geldrenner when he thinks all hope is lost. There are multiple times it is mentioned that he knows he is the one who got them into this mess so he is willing to take the fault and try and at least help them get out. 

But they’d landed in a trap and if he had to chew his paw off to get them out of it, then that was what he would do (CK pg. 357)

“If I’m not back, try to get everyone out of the city.” (CK pg. 358)

I just think this is so interesting because obviously Kaz is morally grey. But I don’t know I think it is really fascinating that there really isn’t much he does for his own benefit. Maybe he has some self-loathing that ties into this, but I just love this character so so much. anyway, back to finals haha. 

#six of crows #crooked kingdom #Kaz Brekker #kanej #soc meta #kaz brekker meta #kanej meta #meta #soc analysis #analysis #soc #shadow and bone #leigh bargudo

[ananaslices]

(Possible Crooked Kingdom spoilers below)

Everyone out there in the reviews complaining about how SoC, despite its quality as a novel, is so impossible, like, teenagers can't be this mature or stuff like that.

But let me tell you -- we are seventeen, not stupid.

This duology has characters that have gone through A LOT. Military training? War? Human trafficking? Slavery? Gang fights? Addiction? Murder attempts? Sadly, yes. Maybe their physical bodies seem to display a development unnatural to guys our age, but guys our age are naturally not meant to undergo these situations.

Their 'maturity' -- if we can say that, because, personally, I wouldn't think of that word to describe them -- roots in the fact that they have had to rethink their priorities, their goals, their values, their fears. Kaz has trauma. Inej has trauma. Jesper does, too. As well as Wylam, Matthias and Nina. The things they've seen forced them to mature, just like you can see the same in every kid that, for example, loses a parent. And that's the most natural scenario in our world.

I think Wylam could perfectly represent us -- middle-class readers of around seventeen years old -- because he was just a normal (rich) kid minding his business until his dad set up a plan to get rid of him. That was traumatic. But he had trauma even before that: he had a learning disability that others, his own father included, would not accept. Myself, having an autistic brother, I can see this as the most common scenario.

So don't go around saying that the crows are too mature for their age. They do not display emotional maturity at any moment. And if they outsmart older people or win fights, it's because they have been doing that for a while in order to survive. Though, yes, it doesn't always work (see Matthias case, or Inej when Tante Heleen finds her in SoC).

They are just messy and complex, like any other person. That's why we can relate to them.

#six of crows #crooked kingdom #spoilers #commentary #thoughts #meta #mine #soc #soc meta #wylam van eck #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #nina zenik #matthias helvar #jesper fahey