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
Nina feels sick to her stomach in the rowboat with Kaz and Muzzen. They’re on their way to Hellgate to rescue Matthias, whom Nina has been trying to get Kaz to help for almost a year. They’re all dressed in costumes, and now, Kaz tells Nina to lower her veil. She notices other costumed people in boats on the water. When they reach Hellgate, Dime Lions gangsters take Kaz’s money, and then a guide leads them through the prison to a second tower. Inej joins the group out of nowhere, startling Nina. Finally, the guide leaves Kaz’s group with a guard, instructing them to request an escort when they’re ready to leave. Down below is an arena. Masked spectators watch as a scrawny man spins a huge wheel. When it stops, the crowd roars and a massive reptile enters the arena. It kills the prisoner almost immediately.
The horrific spectacle that Nina witnesses down in the arena shares similarities with the forced sex work that goes on in the Barrel. People are coerced into things that, if Inej is any judge, they don’t want to actually do, all to please other people who have money to pay for such entertainment. Being on the paying end requires a person to decide to not see the humanity of those with less power, such as the scrawny man who dies here: he isn’t named, and he almost certainly won’t get a respectful funeral.
Themes
Kaz explains that this is the Hellshow, Pekka Rollins’s idea. All Nina knows about Pekka Rollins is that he’s the “king of the Barrel.” She almost ended up working for him when she first arrived, after she spent weeks trying to get Matthias freed from Hellgate. He’d offered to let her work in one of his brothels, but Inej climbed through her window that night and offered Nina Kaz’s terms, which were much better—and a week later, a customer killed a girl at Rollins’s brothel. Inej also insisted that Kaz was trustworthy. Now, though, Nina is just angry at him, even though he explains that the prisoners aren’t forced to fight: they do so to earn better cells, food, and even girls. Nina allows Inej to squeeze her hand as prisoners fight animals until, finally, Matthias enters the ring.
Nina doesn’t seem aware of it, but it seems likely that Kaz didn’t offer her better terms because he’s a good person or cares about her—it’s more likely he wanted to keep Rollins from having access to a valuable Grisha like Nina. This doesn’t change that Nina truly believes (seemingly rightfully so) that Kaz offered her the better, safer deal, but it reminds readers again that Kaz doesn’t do anything if it won’t help him in some way.
Themes
Matthias used to be beautiful. He was a drüskelle, a Fjerdan witch hunter whose job it is to hunt Grisha to be executed in Fjerda. He looked like a saint then—but now, though he’s still handsome, he looks like a scarred killer. He spins the wheel and Nina begs Kaz to do something when she sees where it landed: wolves. Three enter the ring, and Matthias grudgingly kills them. Wolves are sacred to the drüskelle, but only Nina knows this. She notices that Matthias is crying when the guard raises his hand in victory. Guards lead him away, and Nina spends the next hour stewing.
Even if prisoners ostensibly fight of their own free will, Matthias’s behavior and Nina’s explanation of why Matthias is so disturbed to have to fight wolves suggests that he doesn’t really have much of a choice. The ethical thing, Nina implies, would be to let Matthias fight something else—but nobody cares about his deeply held spiritual beliefs as a drüskelle. Instead, they prioritize their own entertainment and profits.
Themes
Finally, Kaz tells Nina to target the guard, and Nina drops the man’s pulse. Kaz sweeps his own disguise onto the guard—underneath his cape, he’s wearing a guard’s uniform. Then, Kaz leads Nina and Muzzen down to the prisoners’ cells, and Kaz expertly picks the lock. Inej holds up a lit glass sphere up to illuminate the cold, but clean, cell. Seeing Muzzen remove his cloak and mask to reveal a shaved head and prison pants, Nina realizes that Kaz intends for Muzzen to take Matthias’s place—Nina must reproduce Matthias’s injuries on Muzzen. Nina argues that it won’t work, but Kaz explains that “Matthias” is going to look like he has firepox, which will lead to a quarantine and help hide the switch. Nina has 10 minutes to complete the transformation.
This is the first time readers get to see Kaz’s thievery in action, and it introduces several tactics that help develop Kaz’s character—and, specifically, his ruthlessness. While Muzzen seems willing to participate, it’s also worth recognizing that Kaz is willing to condemn Muzzen to a horrific time in Hellgate until Matthias’s disappearance comes to light. And once again, Kaz hasn’t told Nina exactly what’s going to happen tonight, so she’s forced to trust Kaz and that he’ll get her out safely—but without getting any honesty from him.
Themes
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Nina breaks Muzzen’s ribs and covers his skin in painful pustules. She asks why he agreed to this, and she isn’t surprised when he notes the money. When Nina is finished, Kaz tells Nina to heal Matthias just enough so he can walk. Nina tells herself Matthias is just another Dregs member that Kaz brings her to heal—and in any case, Matthias barely looks like the boy she fell in love with. She kisses Matthias’s temple and says his name, which causes him to wake up a little. He groggily says her name and cups her cheek—and then he begins to strangle her.
Nina and Matthias clearly have history, and it seems to not be entirely positive if Matthias’s first response to Nina is to try to strangle her. The earlier detail that Matthias was a drüskelle—a Fjerdan soldier tasked with hunting Grisha—may provide a clue as to why he behaves how he does here (recall that Nina is a Grisha).
Themes
