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 schooner is too quiet for Jesper, who just wants to shoot at something. Everyone is keeping a silent vigil for Nina, Wylan is busy helping Matthias take care of her, and Inej is the only chatty one—but she just wants to talk about sailing. Further, Jesper expected the trip home to be a party if they survived the Ice Court, and he’s wracked with guilt that he didn’t offer to take parem to save Nina—or everyone else in the harbor. Jesper is so agitated that he asks to join Kaz and Rotty when they row to the docks and send a message to the Merchant Council. To Jesper’s surprise, Ketterdam looks exactly the same—but Jesper feels different, and he wonders if he wants to continue hiding his power or train as a Grisha. When Nina recovers, he’ll ask about visiting Ravka.
Jesper struggles to feel okay when nothing is as he thinks it should be. It’s significant that while Ketterdam hasn’t changed, Jesper has—a lot. At the Ice Court, Jesper became more comfortable drawing on his power and identifying as a Grisha, suggesting that he’s beginning to more fully embrace that part of his identity. This is particularly evident in his guilt about not taking the parem: he recognizes that as a Grisha, he could—and should—have helped, and he fears he is a bad person because he didn’t intervene.
Themes
Kaz gets word that Merchant Council representatives will meet them on Vellgeluk in the morning, and the note says, “Congratulations. Your country thanks you.” It makes Jesper feel strange, and they discuss whether Van Eck will haggle—Kaz told him Bo Yul-Bayur is dead and that they have Kuwei instead. He says that Wylan is going to stay on the ship tomorrow, just in case they need to “twist his father’s arm.” In the morning, Jesper can’t help but feel selfish and petty—is Wylan avoiding him? Wylan is probably going to go back to his father’s house when he’s finished “slumming with criminals.”
Jesper is also bent out of shape because Wylan seems to be ignoring and avoiding him. The two grew close during the heist, and now, Jesper seems poised to lose the relationship with one of the few people who knows what he is and who has seen him at his weakest. Jesper, in other words, needs friends like everyone else—and it's devastating to feel like he’s losing the one genuine friend he currently has.
Themes
As Jesper, Kaz, Matthias, Inej, and Kuwei get in the longboat to go to Vellgeluk, Kaz notes that the other boat is being repaired. They get to the island just as Van Eck’s longboat reaches the other shore, and they walk toward the middle of the island to meet. Van Eck is with a Shu man, stadwatch soldiers, and two men with a heavy trunk. The Shu man confirms that Kuwei is indeed Bo Yul-Bayur’s son, and then Kaz and Van Eck discuss that Van Eck sent Pekka Rollins to the Ice Court as well. Kaz inspects the money and waves Kuwei over to Van Eck. But when Kaz prepares to leave, Van Eck blows a whistle. Van Eck’s servants draw weapons and two Squallers using parem fly toward the island from Van Eck’s boat. As the Squallers raise a howling wind, Jesper pulls out his revolvers.
Now, it becomes clear that Van Eck isn’t the “upstanding merch” he seemed to be: he seems poised to trick Kaz and not uphold his end of the bargain. This is yet another reminder for Kaz that merchers can be just as corrupt as anyone in the Barrel—just as Pekka Rollins as Jakob Hertzoon swindled Kaz and Jordie years ago, Van Eck is apparently going to do the same thing.
Themes
