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
Once the crew is on board, Matthias and Kaz grill Kuwei about what Nina can expect from the jurda parem. Unless she takes more, she’ll have a few hours and then will experience withdrawal symptoms. Nina refuses to take more, insisting she might not get addicted, and wanders toward the railing. With Nina’s coat in hand, Inej joins Nina at the rail. Nina explains that she heard Inej coming because she can hear her heart. She can also hear Kaz’s breathing, which “catches” whenever he looks at Inej. They discuss Nina’s choice to let the Fjerdans live, and Inej tells Nina—one of her only friends in Ketterdam—that it’ll be alright. They dream about buying the Menagerie to burn it, and then Nina erases Inej’s Menagerie tattoo, leaving her skin flawless.
As Inej and Nina chat, Nina essentially shares that it’s not a secret that Inej and Kaz have crushes on each other, suggesting that Inej and Kaz themselves may soon be willing to admit their feelings. As Nina erases Inej’s peacock feather tattoo, she symbolically helps Inej truly move on from her past trauma. Now, Inej doesn’t have the scars—literal or metaphorical—that held her back and trapped her in bad memories.
Themes
As Nina turns to go find Matthias, Kaz, now leaning on his crow’s head cane, catches her and sends her belowdecks. He joins Inej and explains that they still have work to do. Then, he explains that they’ll send a runner to alert Van Eck, who will meet them on Vellgeluk, an island where slavers and smugglers conduct business—Van Eck “isn’t quite the upstanding merch he seems.” Inej tells Kaz that she’d like to go home for a while, and then she wants to buy a ship and hire a crew so she can hunt slavers. He says he almost feels bad for the slavers, but he won’t answer Inej’s question about where his family is. He just wants money.
It seems ominous when Kaz says Van Eck isn’t an “upstanding merch.” This may suggest that there are more ways Van Eck isn’t “upstanding” or trustworthy. Inej opens up to Kaz when she shares her dreams with him. However, Kaz refuses to reciprocate, suggesting that he’s still closed off and unwilling (or unable) to move forward. And noting he just wants money highlights again how he leans on his greed to avoid ever saying anything true or vulnerable about himself.
Themes
Inej turns to leave, but Kaz grabs her wrist and asks her to stay with him in Ketterdam. Inej wants to say yes, but she looks at his gloved hand. He insists he wants her, but she asks if he’ll keep his gloves on and stay physically and emotionally distant. Kaz turns away, and Inej says that she’ll only stay with Kaz “without armor.” He doesn’t respond.
Kaz essentially wants to have his cake and eat it too: he wants Inej to stay, but he doesn’t want to give her any of the things she wants, and he doesn’t want to confront his own difficult past. Inej, though, has learned to value herself and chase what she wants, so she turns him down.
Themes
