Matthias Helvar Character Analysis

“Do you want to know the best way to find Grisha who don’t want to be found?”

Jesper scrubbed the back of his neck, touched his hands to his guns, returned to his neck. He always seemed to be in motion. “Never gave it much thought,” he said.

“Look for miracles and listen to bedtime stories.” Follow the tales of witches and goblins, and unexplained happenings. Sometimes they were just superstition. But often there was truth at the heart of local legends—people who had been born with gifts that their countries didn’t understand.

Matthias said nothing, but she saw a glimmer of shame move over his face. Matthias had always fought his own decency. To become a drüskelle, he’d had to kill the good things inside him. But the boy he should have been was always there, and she’d begun to see the truth of him in the days they’d spent together after the shipwreck. She wanted to believe that boy was still there, locked away, despite her betrayal and whatever he’d endured at Hellgate.

“Why did you save me?” he asked finally.

“Stop wasting energy. Don’t talk.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Because you’re a human being,” she said angrily.

Lies. If they did make land, she’d need a Fjerdan to help her survive, someone who knew the land, though clearly she knew the language. Of course she did. They were all deceivers and spies, trained to prey on people like him, people without their unnatural gifts. They were predators.

What would Jordie say if his little brother lost their chance at justice because he couldn’t conquer some stupid sickness inside him? But it only brought back the memory of Jordie’s cold flesh, the way it had grown loose in the salt water, the bodies crowding around him in the flatboat. His vision started to blur.

Get it together, Brekker, he scolded himself harshly. It didn’t help. He was going to faint again, and this would be all over. Inej had once offered to teach him how to fall. “The trick is not getting knocked down,” he’d told her with a laugh. “No, Kaz,” she’d said, “the trick is in getting back up.” More Suli platitudes, but somehow even the memory of her voice helped. He was better than this. He had to be. Not just for Jordie, but for his crew.

What bound them together? Greed? Desperation? Was it just the knowledge that if one or all of them disappeared tonight, no one would come looking? Inej’s mother and father might still shed tears for the daughter they’d lost, but if Inej died tonight, there would be no one to grieve for the girl she was now. She had no family, no parents or siblings, only people to fight beside. Maybe that was something to be grateful for, too.

Matthias had a gun in his hands, and Kaz Brekker was unarmed. They were standing over the bodies of two unconscious drüskelle, men who were supposed to be Matthias’ brothers. I can shoot him, Matthias thought. Doom Nina and the rest of them with a single act. Again, Matthias had the strange sense of his life viewed the wrong way up. He was dressed in prison clothes, an intruder in the place he’d once called home. Who am I now?

Looking at Brum, she knew she didn’t just blame him for the things he’d done to her people; it was what he’d done to Matthias as well. He’d taken a brave, miserable boy and fed him on hate. He’d silenced Matthias’ conscience with prejudice and the promise of a divine calling that was probably nothing more than the wind moving through the branches of an ancient tree.

Nina had wronged him, but she’d done it to protect her people. She’d hurt him, but she’d attempted everything in her power to make things right. She’d shown him in a thousand ways that she was honorable and strong and generous and very human, maybe more vividly human than anyone he’d ever known. And if she was, then Grisha weren’t inherently evil. They were like anyone else—full of the potential to do great good, and also great harm. To ignore that would make Matthias the monster.

If you wanted to kill a vine, you didn’t just keep cutting it back. You tore it from the ground by the roots. And yet her hands were shaking. Wasn’t this the way drüskelle thought? Destroy the threat, wipe it out, no matter that the person in front of you was innocent.

“Nina,” Matthias said softly, “he’s just a kid. He’s one of us.”

One of us. A boy not much younger than she was, caught up in a war he hadn’t chosen for himself. A survivor.

The voice of God. There was always truth in legend. Kaz had spent enough time building his own myth to know. He’d wondered where the water that fed the Ice Court’s moat and fountains came from, why the river gorge was so very deep and wide. As soon as Nina had described the drüskelle initiation ritual, he’d known: the Fjerdan stronghold hadn’t been built around a great tree but around a spring. Djel, the wellspring, who fed the seas and rains, and the roots of the sacred ash.

“Chaos will come, and I will be its master. Its very wealthy master.”

“You will be ensuring slavery and death for Grisha everywhere,” Inej said.

Van Eck raised a brow. “How old are you, girl? Sixteen? Seventeen? Nations rise and fall. Markets are made and unmade. When power shifts, someone always suffers.”

“When profit shifts,” Jesper shot back.

Van Eck’s expression was bemused. “Aren’t they one and the same?”

“Do you want to know the best way to find Grisha who don’t want to be found?”

Jesper scrubbed the back of his neck, touched his hands to his guns, returned to his neck. He always seemed to be in motion. “Never gave it much thought,” he said.

“Look for miracles and listen to bedtime stories.” Follow the tales of witches and goblins, and unexplained happenings. Sometimes they were just superstition. But often there was truth at the heart of local legends—people who had been born with gifts that their countries didn’t understand.

Matthias said nothing, but she saw a glimmer of shame move over his face. Matthias had always fought his own decency. To become a drüskelle, he’d had to kill the good things inside him. But the boy he should have been was always there, and she’d begun to see the truth of him in the days they’d spent together after the shipwreck. She wanted to believe that boy was still there, locked away, despite her betrayal and whatever he’d endured at Hellgate.

“Why did you save me?” he asked finally.

“Stop wasting energy. Don’t talk.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Because you’re a human being,” she said angrily.

Lies. If they did make land, she’d need a Fjerdan to help her survive, someone who knew the land, though clearly she knew the language. Of course she did. They were all deceivers and spies, trained to prey on people like him, people without their unnatural gifts. They were predators.

What would Jordie say if his little brother lost their chance at justice because he couldn’t conquer some stupid sickness inside him? But it only brought back the memory of Jordie’s cold flesh, the way it had grown loose in the salt water, the bodies crowding around him in the flatboat. His vision started to blur.

Get it together, Brekker, he scolded himself harshly. It didn’t help. He was going to faint again, and this would be all over. Inej had once offered to teach him how to fall. “The trick is not getting knocked down,” he’d told her with a laugh. “No, Kaz,” she’d said, “the trick is in getting back up.” More Suli platitudes, but somehow even the memory of her voice helped. He was better than this. He had to be. Not just for Jordie, but for his crew.

What bound them together? Greed? Desperation? Was it just the knowledge that if one or all of them disappeared tonight, no one would come looking? Inej’s mother and father might still shed tears for the daughter they’d lost, but if Inej died tonight, there would be no one to grieve for the girl she was now. She had no family, no parents or siblings, only people to fight beside. Maybe that was something to be grateful for, too.

Matthias had a gun in his hands, and Kaz Brekker was unarmed. They were standing over the bodies of two unconscious drüskelle, men who were supposed to be Matthias’ brothers. I can shoot him, Matthias thought. Doom Nina and the rest of them with a single act. Again, Matthias had the strange sense of his life viewed the wrong way up. He was dressed in prison clothes, an intruder in the place he’d once called home. Who am I now?

Looking at Brum, she knew she didn’t just blame him for the things he’d done to her people; it was what he’d done to Matthias as well. He’d taken a brave, miserable boy and fed him on hate. He’d silenced Matthias’ conscience with prejudice and the promise of a divine calling that was probably nothing more than the wind moving through the branches of an ancient tree.

Nina had wronged him, but she’d done it to protect her people. She’d hurt him, but she’d attempted everything in her power to make things right. She’d shown him in a thousand ways that she was honorable and strong and generous and very human, maybe more vividly human than anyone he’d ever known. And if she was, then Grisha weren’t inherently evil. They were like anyone else—full of the potential to do great good, and also great harm. To ignore that would make Matthias the monster.

If you wanted to kill a vine, you didn’t just keep cutting it back. You tore it from the ground by the roots. And yet her hands were shaking. Wasn’t this the way drüskelle thought? Destroy the threat, wipe it out, no matter that the person in front of you was innocent.

“Nina,” Matthias said softly, “he’s just a kid. He’s one of us.”

One of us. A boy not much younger than she was, caught up in a war he hadn’t chosen for himself. A survivor.

The voice of God. There was always truth in legend. Kaz had spent enough time building his own myth to know. He’d wondered where the water that fed the Ice Court’s moat and fountains came from, why the river gorge was so very deep and wide. As soon as Nina had described the drüskelle initiation ritual, he’d known: the Fjerdan stronghold hadn’t been built around a great tree but around a spring. Djel, the wellspring, who fed the seas and rains, and the roots of the sacred ash.

“Chaos will come, and I will be its master. Its very wealthy master.”

“You will be ensuring slavery and death for Grisha everywhere,” Inej said.

Van Eck raised a brow. “How old are you, girl? Sixteen? Seventeen? Nations rise and fall. Markets are made and unmade. When power shifts, someone always suffers.”

“When profit shifts,” Jesper shot back.

Van Eck’s expression was bemused. “Aren’t they one and the same?”