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Chapter 1
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
People in the Barrel—Ketterdam’s pleasure district—say that Kaz Brekker “[doesn’t] need a reason” to break a person’s bones or make or break their fortune, but Inej knows this isn’t correct. Everything Kaz does is carefully thought out, and every favor comes with a price. Inej just wants to make sure his reasons are good ones, and she questions his reasons tonight as she skirts around the entrance to the Exchange. She notes which members of the Dregs gang he brought and joins the group as Jesper and Big Bolliger discuss the ship from Shu Han that arrived earlier, bearing enough treasure to pay off most of the country’s debt to Kerch. Perhaps, Jesper suggests, they assassinated the Zemeni trade ambassador. The ambassador was stabbed in a washroom, and even Inej and Kaz can’t figure out what happened.
While the first chapter took place in a wealthy Kerch mercher’s house, now, the narrative shifts to the Barrel, where the gangsters live and work. However, it’s still clear that odd things are afoot in Ketterdam as the Dregs discuss suspicious murders and payments to their country. Inej introduces Kaz to readers as someone who’s fundamentally difficult to understand—though she can always be sure he’s looking out for himself.
Themes
Tonight, though, the Dregs are going to parley with the Black Tips, a rival gang. Kaz’s seconds, Jesper and Big Bolliger, hand over their weapons to Rotty and Dirix, while Kaz refuses to give up his cane (a parley is supposed to be unarmed). The Exchange, a big open courtyard where merchers trade by day, is the only place in Ketterdam that’s still neutral territory for its many rival gangs. At night, there are only two guards on the roof—and tonight, they’ve been bribed to look away. Inej, who’s known as the Wraith, is worried and insists that Geels is up to something, but Kaz insists they have to parley as Per Haskell, the Dregs’ elderly leader, wants them to. Before disappearing into the Exchange, Kaz tells Inej to watch the rooftop guards, as Geels might be paying them.
By noting Kaz’s refusal to give up his cane, the novel implies that he should give it up because it is, in fact, a weapon. This is readers’ second indication that Kaz doesn’t play by the rules, and he follows it up by sending Inej to watch the guards, essentially giving him an extra person during the parley. Inej, for her part, reads as far more honest and upstanding, as well as openly distrustful—of her enemies as well as her allies, like Kaz.
Themes
Carefully, Inej discovers the traps the Black Tips set for her—oil on a drainpipe and ground glass on a carving—before scaling the wall of the building, thankful for her grippy rubber slippers. She picks a window lock and goes through offices to reach a balcony overlooking the courtyard. Geels, she sees, brought Elzinger and Oomen as his seconds. It makes sense now why Kaz brought Big Bolliger: Elzinger is huge. The seconds all check the other side for weapons as Inej worries that this won’t be a friendly parley. Further increasing Inej’s anxiety, Kaz looks his age, 17, next to the middle-aged Geels.
This passage establishes Inej’s almost supernatural ability to climb anything, a skill that Ketterdam’s other gangs also seem well aware of if they’re setting traps for her. That Inej and Kaz seem to fear that Geels won’t play fair (Kaz took his cane in, after all) points to how dangerous their lives in the Barrel are, as few people seem to play by the established rules anymore. In this context, Kaz’s ruthlessness and willingness to cheat make sense.
Themes
Down below, Geels insists that the Black Tips have the right to conduct business in Fifth Harbor, a formerly abandoned and useless part of town that Kaz himself built up and renovated. It’s now a bustling hub for merchers and tourists alike, and the Dregs get first dibs on directing “pigeons” (tourists) to Dregs-owned establishments. He and Kaz argue and insult each other, and Geels suggests that the rooftop guards are currently aiming at Jesper and Big Bolliger. Enraged, Inej leaps onto the roof and begins crawling along it, looking for the guards. Kaz tells Geels to get on with it and shoot—and with a bang, Big Bolliger falls to the ground. But Geels looks nervous. Jesper is concerned for Bolliger, but Kaz implies that he paid off one of the guards after Geels did—and that the guard shot Bolliger on Kaz’s order.
Kaz clearly knew more about the attendees tonight and how things would play out than he shared with Inej, which contributes to her anxiety and her rage. Being kept in the dark doesn’t strengthen their relationship, even though Kaz relies on Inej to keep him safe (and Inej seems to know this).
Themes
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Kaz loudly tells Geels to tell the other guard to shoot him. Inej reaches the second guard just in time and presses daggers into his back. Geels, however, pulls out a pistol. Big Bolliger patted Geels down, so it’s clear now that Bolliger is working for him. Ignoring the pistol, Kaz explains how he uncovered Bolliger’s disloyalty. Then, as a siren wails, Kaz asks Geels about his lover, whose address Kaz knows. Kaz warns his men will burn the entire building if Geels doesn’t stand down—it’s Geels’s choice. Geels drops his gun, Kaz lists the money the Black Tips now owe the Dregs for their various offenses, and then Kaz shatters Geels’s wrist with his cane. Finally, Kaz says that he’ll kill anyone who helps Bolliger and that Bolliger must leave Ketterdam if he survives. Inej watches everyone leave and considers helping or killing Bolliger, but she instead climbs down the Exchange building.
Kaz reads as cruel, calculating, and cold—just as he threatens Geels’s lover, he leaves Bolliger to die. And listing all the charges the Black Tips have racked up tonight suggests that Kaz cares about getting his money, and he's willing to do truly horrific things in order to get it. Inej, on the other hand, seems motivated by kindness and compassion. She doesn’t want Kaz to die, of course, but she also feels bad for Bolliger and doesn’t think it’s okay to let him suffer. However, for now, her loyalty to Kaz wins out and she leaves him to his fate.
Themes
