Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Six of Crows, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Greed
Friendship and Difference
Trauma, the Past, and Moving Forward
Identity, Values, and Growing Up
Summary
Analysis
The first thing Inej’s father taught her was how to safely fall. As Wylan’s bomb explodes, Inej spins, stands, and disappears onto the cargo crates. Judging by how many enemies are shooting at the Dregs, someone talked. Inej can tell Jesper is shooting from the Ferolind, so her job is to buy everyone enough time to get to the schooner. Nobody expects the enemy to come from above, so Inej easily kills an assortment of Black Tips and Razorgulls gang members, six people in total. She says a prayer for each one. But as she tries to climb another container, Oomen, from the Black Tips, stabs her under the arm. She knows everything about him—he can crush skulls in his hands. He twists his knife and says he doesn’t want her dead: he wants her secrets.
Immensely loyal to the team and to Kaz, Inej throws herself into providing cover for the others with her unique skillset: being able to kill sneakily and quickly. However, Inej isn’t invincible, as Oomen’s attack on her makes clear. It’s also important here that Inej prays for her enemies as she kills them, setting up a comparison between her and Kaz. Earlier, Inej said that greed was Kaz’s god—and as he’s known for killing mercilessly, he certainly wouldn’t pray for his victims as Inej does.
Themes
Inej uses the blades in her kneepads to hit Oomen in the groin and knows she has to climb. She’s losing blood fast, but it’s the only way she’ll survive. Struggling not to black out, she climbs up one crate and lies there, figuring it’s not a terrible place to die. But someone grabs her ankle—and before Inej can slit her own throat, she realizes it’s Kaz. He picks her up, tells her to keep her eyes open, and carries him to the schooner. Inej remembers hearing the other girls at Tante Heleen’s talking excitedly about Kaz. One night, she whispered to him that she could help him, and the next night he came to take her away. Now, when she observes that he came back for her, he replies that he “protect[s] his investments.” She tells him to apologize but blacks out before he can respond.
Inej would rather take her own life than either betray her friends or end up subjugated again, highlighting in particular how traumatizing her experience at Tante Heleen’s was—she’ll do anything to not repeat it. Kaz, though he rescues Inej and generally has a good rapport with her, is extremely callous when he says that he “protect[s] his investments.” He speaks about Inej the way that Hoede, for instance, spoke of his Grisha indentures—as though Inej only matters to him for the monetary value she has to him. This is fundamentally dehumanizing and speaks to his selfish mindset.
Themes
