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Chapter 12: Inej
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
As soon as Kaz boards the schooner with Inej in his arms, he tells Specht, his hired captain, to get them out of the harbor immediately. He pushes past Jesper and heads belowdecks, where Nina is healing Wylan. Noticing the extent of Inej’s wounds, Nina notes that she’s not a Healer, but Kaz tells her to heal Inej anyway. She sends Kaz away so she can work, and Kaz anxiously does. He doesn’t know what Inej wanted him to apologize for—there are so many options. Joining Jesper and Wylan on the deck, Kaz turns to Oomen, whom he and Rotty took prisoner on the dock. Kaz tries to interrogate Oomen about why the Black Tips were out tonight, but Oomen just taunts Kaz. As Oomen screams, Kaz cuts Oomen’s eye out. He says they’ll get Oomen back to Kerch if he cooperates.
Though he spoke coldly to Inej when he saved her, Kaz is very clearly shaken by her injuries. But rather than comfort her or say something nice—or apologize for his rude behavior, like she asked—he takes his fear and concern out on Oomen, suggesting that Kaz turns to violence instead of finding other ways to deal with his difficult emotions, ways that might help him connect better with his team.
Themes
Oomen finally admits that Pekka Rollins hired them to keep the Dregs from leaving, but he doesn’t know more than that. Kaz throws Oomen overboard, which disturbs Wylan, and then heads belowdecks to clean up. Of course Pekka Rollins is behind this, Kaz thinks. He wants Pekka Rollins to suffer the way that he and Jordie did, and stealing 30 million kruge from him is a good way to make him suffer.
As far as Kaz is concerned, Pekka Rollins is ever-present and is always going to show up at the worst moment to ruin his life. But Rollins’s role here also suggests that this heist is going to force Kaz to engage again with his past and the trauma that Rollins caused him and Jordie years ago.
Themes
