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
Kaz realizes that Van Eck isn’t working for the Merchant Council—he tricked Kaz, just like Jakob Hertzoon had years ago. Van Eck explains that jurda parem can’t be kept a secret. Markets will collapse, but when they do, he’ll be ready to profit off the many jurda fields he now owns. It doesn’t matter, he insists, if Grisha will be enslaved worldwide; someone has to suffer. Then, he says that he hired “scum from the Barrel” to work for him because nobody will miss them. His Tidemakers smash Rotty’s longboat and send a wave toward the Ferolind. Kaz shouts that Wylan is on the schooner, and he saw Van Eck’s letters to Wylan and knows he wants his son home.
Here, Van Eck reveals how truly evil he is. Like Kaz, he’s greedy and only wants money. But unlike Kaz, he has no qualms about letting Grisha suffer so he can profit off jurda parem. This places the various greedy and villainous characters in the novel on a spectrum, where the truly evil ones don’t care at all about others and everyone else has elements of good and evil.
Themes
Laughing bitterly, Van Eck says that Wylan was supposed to inherit one of the biggest shipping businesses in the world, but Wylan can’t read. He can do math and play the flute, but he’s a “disgrace” and a “moron.” Jesper angrily says the letters, which said things like, “If you’re reading this, you know how much I wish to have you home,” were intended to mock Wylan. Van Eck says it’ll all be fine: his new wife is pregnant, and her baby will inherit the business. With another whistle, the Tidemakers destroy the Ferolind. Jesper is beside himself, but Kaz insists he doesn’t care: Van Eck doesn’t have Kuwei. The Shu boy holds out his hand to Kaz and tells him to pay up in perfect Kerch.
As Van Eck explains why he disowned Wylan, he shows his inhumanity: it doesn’t matter that Wylan is his own flesh and blood. It only matters to him that Wylan can’t read, and therefore, Wylan is worthless to him. Jesper is upset because he cares about Wylan, but perhaps also because his own father rejected and perhaps feared him because of his own ability (or disability, depending on one’s views on Grisha). This perhaps suggests that that rejection was more devastating to Jesper than he lets on.
Themes
The boy who looks like Kuwei is actually Wylan; Nina tailored Wylan to look like Kuwei before her jurda parem high waned, after Wylan told Kaz about his “affliction.” Kaz didn’t care that Wylan can’t read—Wylan has other highly useful skills. Wylan walks to Kaz’s side as Kaz notes that the real Kuwei might’ve been on the Ferolind. He agrees to tell Van Eck where Kuwei is if he lets the crew off the island with their money. Van Eck tells his guards to kill everyone but Kaz, and Kaz makes a huge mistake: he looks at Inej, and Van Eck notices. Van Eck sends his Grisha after Inej and the money. Inej kills three of Van Eck’s Grisha, but the final Squaller whisks her up and away, knocking her out. Kaz can’t shoot the Squaller, or Inej will fall.
In explaining Kaz’s response to Wylan’s confession, the novel encapsulates its insistence that all people have different skills and talents to offer. It doesn’t matter that Wylan can’t read to the Dregs, because others can—but others can’t draw impressive plans or figure out complex gate winches. This suggests that Wylan has also found his real home with his friends, who love and celebrate him for who he is. When Kaz looks at Inej, it confirms that his focus and goals have changed. He now cares about her more than Jordie or revenge—here, that shift has devastating consequences.
Themes
Van Eck’s Grisha sweep him and the money off the island and onto the boat, and Van Eck shouts back that he wants Kuwei by the end of the week or Inej will die—and every government and gang will be after the Dregs to get Kuwei themselves. Jesper offers to shoot Van Eck, but Kaz says to let them go. Kaz feels helpless, though at least Nina and Kuwei are safe: they’re in the underground cages at Hellgate, not on the destroyed Ferolind. Jesper turns on Wylan and asks why he’d do this, and then he realizes that everyone but him knew what the plan was. Angrily, Kaz says that’s because Jesper sold them out to Pekka Rollins by telling a Dime Lion that he was leaving the country for “big money.” Jesper, he says, is still a “dumb farm boy.”
By holding Inej hostage, Van Eck seems to assure Kaz’s cooperation. He also sets up the next book in the duology. When it comes out that Jesper unwittingly sold the Dregs out to Pekka Rollins, Kaz’s reaction is telling. He’s enraged with Jesper—he blames everything on Jesper and punishes Jesper for it, yet he fails to talk to him about what happened. Kaz continues to rely on conceit and greed, forgoing connection and honesty, to conduct his business.
Themes
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Kaz and Jesper are about to fight each other when Matthias steps between them, and Wylan says they have to focus on what to do now. Moreover, Jesper didn’t purposefully betray anyone. Kaz walks off, knowing he can never trust Jesper again. Specht will come for them in a few hours. He remembers letting Nina disguise his crow-and-cup tattoo before the heist, but he didn’t let her cover the R on his arm—and unwittingly, he’d grown back into Kaz Rietveld during the heist. Now, he’s paying for it. But he has an idea. He can’t become the better, gentler person Inej wants him to be, but Dirtyhands can get Inej her freedom.
As Kaz sees it, turning into the kinder, gentler, more innocent Kaz Rietveld by letting himself care about Inej was a mistake. With this, he turns back toward his Dirtyhands persona, greed, and cruelty. In short, he gives up on ever changing or healing in a way that would enable a relationship between him and Inej. Still, he loves her and wants to help her—and so he’s going to get her back, but only so that he can let her go on and chase her dreams alone.
Themes
