Hello everyone! This week I want to delve into one of my all-time favorite books, as well as a band that truly captures the essence of its story. But first, a quick detour into a discussion of the literary canon. While the literature which makes up the canon do genuinely have some depth and messaging to them that have stood the test of time, thus thrusting them into the canon, few people can get invested in their stories, and more importantly connect to these stories due to a lack of application to our own lives and even more often a lack of proper representation/inclusion in the stories. Certainly, there are a few that break this mold, but the vast majority lean towards one end of the spectrum. Aside from the obvious problems with this curation of texts, the problem my attention grasps onto is the lack of genre inclusion. Not a lot of attention is placed on how we view different genres, and how we can often perceive those who indulge in genres typically viewed as juvenile. Some desire books that do not take themselves too seriously or push some sort of worldly moral code. I appreciate the effort, but something that still succeeds in that mission, but also occasionally reads like a slice of life of the characters in some wacky situation (such as perhaps, some misguided teens within the criminal underworld taking on the most impossible heist their world has ever known), really makes it fascinating in its simultaneous simplicity and underlying complexity.
Truly, what I am seeking is something that focuses almost entirely on the characters and their development throughout a story, and not just characters placed in a world to be tortured to get some message across. But novels as such are not welcome as sophisticated literature, are not considered actually reading, or are not actively progressing oneself. I think the notion of the literary canon pushes too hard the expectation that one must drain themselves to experience literature and be considered a reader. The act of reading in itself should be praised and encouraged more no matter the form it takes, even if the majority of my collection can be found in the young adult category of Barnes and Noble. Because of this, I will not be exclusively analyzing books from the literary canon and plan to stagger between books from the canon that I love, and books from my collection of primarily young adult fantasy books to open our horizons and get some fresh taste to our palettes.
As I step off my literary canon soapbox, I would like to introduce the topic of this week’s post: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. This book and the series it is a part of has gained a lot of traction in the past year due to the release of the show Shadow and Bone, which primarily concerns the plot of the first trilogy of the same name, but also includes five of the six Crows from the next text in the universe, Six of Crows. For this analysis, I will be applying each of the six main characters to the song “Burning Pile” by Mother Mother. I struggled with which song of theirs I wanted to apply to this book because the vibe of the band as a whole fits the vibe of the book and these characters, but the more I considered “Burning Pile”, I slowly realized that each character has their own burning pile that ignites their development into something new, as well as an opposing water symbol which enhances these experiences as just that much more significant in their lives. With that said, here are the lyrics to this grim song. I highly suggest giving it a listen, it will submerge you into the headspace of these individuals…
All my style
All my grace
All I tried to save my face
All my guts, try to spill
All my holes, try to fill
All my money been a long time spent
On my drugs, on my rent
On my saving philosophy
It goes, one in the bank, and the rest for me
It goes, all my troubles on a burning pile
All lit up and I start to smile
If I, catch fire then I change my aim
Throw my troubles at the pearly gates
My mama, lonely maid
Got her buns in the oven and she never got laid
My papa, renaissance man
Sailed away and he never came back again
All my troubles on a burning pile
All lit up and I start to smile
If I, catch fire then I change my aim
Throw my troubles at the pearly gates
All your woe bygones be gone
I said all your troubles, you don’t need a thing
All my troubles on a burning pile
All lit up and I start to smile
If I, catch fire then I’ll change my aim
Throw my troubles at the world again
It goes, all my troubles on a burning pile
All lit up and I start to smile
If I, catch fire then I’ll take my turn
To burn and burn and burn
The most logical place to start is with the leader of the group, Kaz Brekker. Kaz, a very traumatized seventeen-year-old boy, is the one most acquainted with the concept of “troubles on a burning pile.” As the lieutenant of the Dregs – a gang located in the Barrel, the entertainment/pleasure district in the city Ketterdam – Kaz has done every dirty deed there is to put himself on top, but it is not until you get to experience his backstory for yourself why you realize a child has reached this level of malice. Kaz and his older brother Jordie came to the city of Ketterdam after both of their parents had died. Jordie had sold their family farm and come to the city in hopes of making it big and becoming a successful mercher, but they were both incredibly naïve boys. He was swindled out of all of his money and they were forced to live on the streets just as the Queen’s Lady Plague swept the city. Both boys were believed to have perished on the streets and their bodies were taken to the Reaper’s Barge, a section of the city off of the docks where they burned bodies. As we know, Kaz was not actually dead, and when he returned to consciousness, he found himself drowning amongst the dead, with his only way back to the living being to use his brother’s body to float his weak self back to land. As he emerges from the harbor and watches his brother float off, he is resolute in his mission to seek revenge against the man who wronged them by any means necessary. His experience on the Reaper’s Barge certainly is the spark that makes Kaz “throw his troubles at the world,” his vengeance fueling his inner fire to make the world pay for the life he has been made to live to survive. His cruel nature makes all who hear his name fear for their lives, and he just barrels on into his next mission to take the world down with him. He emerges from the harbor a different boy, and the whole city will pay for it when he sets it ablaze with his fury.
The second of the six I will discuss is Inej Ghafa, the Wraith. She is a girl taken from her home by slavers to be sold to a pleasure house within the Barrel. It is here she is to remain for a year before she meets Kaz. In the book, she is what they call Suli, a nomadic group of people, and she grew up learning the skills of acrobatics with her family. This gave her an unlikely advantage in a place like the Barrel because she is incredibly light on her feet and cannot be detected. Kaz discovers this skill and rescues her from her prison to join his gang, where she becomes known as the Wraith who can come and go into the darkness as she pleases. While at first glance this may seem like he is just trapping her again, and in a way, he is. However, they both know it is better to be able to control oneself while being indentured, rather than be completely trapped in a place where there is no out. With the Dregs she has a possibility of freedom one day when she can pay it off, and the heist proposed to them would certainly cover such an expense. During their mission on the heist, she is tasked with climbing up a furnace shaft in order to help everyone escape from where they are being kept. The furnace has unfortunately been left on, but the only way for them to survive is to climb up through this shaft and onto the roof, so she must climb up the walls and secure the rope for the others to follow. During her ascension of the shaft, Inej is thinking through her life and analyzing how she got here, where she will likely meet her end. Despite her dire circumstances, she finally comes upon a reason to keep going for the first time in her life outside of survival – she wants to get a ship and sail the True Sea to take down slavers, avenging both herself and the thousands of others that have suffered at their hands. With her cut of the profits from this heist, she could buy her freedom and a boat to finally escape this place she was dragged to, and prevent others from stumbling upon a similar fate. Then, in the most beautiful, dramatic, and cliché displays of the book, it starts raining down upon her as she discovers her calling and new mode of survival. The flaming pit below certainly should have signaled her demise at last after having suffered for so long, but the rain signals her rebirth into a new state of mind, where she finally has the power to control her own destiny.
The third is Jesper Fahey, a sharpshooter with a gambling addiction. His addiction often gets him into hot waters, and most of all with Kaz. Early on in the book as they are setting off for their adventure, the boat they are going to take explodes and they are swarmed by enemy gangs who try to prevent them from leaving alive. It is found out later that one, Kaz planned for this and it was a decoy, and two, that it was Jesper who revealed they were leaving for a heist in a round of gambling. This whole scenario severely affects the relationship between Kaz and Jesper, especially because Kaz sees his brother in Jesper, who is a brotherly figure who is unreliable with money and gets him and the people around them in trouble. Jesper is a man plagued with an urge to gamble away his and his friends’ lives if he is not careful, and very nearly burns all of their prospects from the start because of his negligence and illness. He tries his best to mend relations, especially because the event almost killed Inej, but this leave a brutal mark on the group throughout the rest of the series.
Next is Wylan Van Eck, their demolition expert and abandoned son of the mercher who gives them the mission to complete during their heist. In the second book of this series, it is revealed why Wylan ran away from home. The big twist is that Wylan did not exactly run away, but his father simply hated him so much he tried to have him killed. On a ferry ride to university, his father’s men tried to jump him, so Wylan plunged into the waters to escape, and emerged knowing his father truly did not want him anymore and was trying to effectively wipe him out of the ledger. He joined the Dregs as a means to go on and use his chemistry abilities to create explosives but was forced to join the heist as a hostage to ensure Van Eck would pay them their due once the mission was complete. He reveals to Kaz as they are heading home the situation pertaining to his father, how Wylan will not ensure their reward, and Kaz makes a bet that Van Eck would not threaten his life as Wylan believes. As part of the group is at the meeting spot to trade goods, Van Eck demonstrates just how horrid he is by blowing up the ship his son and the rest of the group are presumed to be on as a power trip. Wylan shockingly wins a bet against Kaz Brekker of all people, because even Kaz did not think a father capable of killing his son. The burning pile of the ship in the distance is once again proof of the horrible things Wylan’s father is capable of, as well as the fact that Wylan is completely on his own in this world.
The last two I will cover together because of how entangled their stories are. Nina Zenik and Matthias Helvar are the textbook definition of enemies to lovers. Nina is a Grisha, which in this universe is essentially a witch – she is in the subclass called Heartrender, which gives her the ability to alter people’s biology such as speeding up or slowing down heart rate. Matthias is a drüskelle, a soldier from the country Fjerda tasked with hunting Grisha because they see them as unnatural and dangerous. Matthias captures Nina and is taking her back to receive trial when their ship hits a storm and they are shipwrecked, having to rely on each other to survive. Their relationship is incredibly complicated and wonderful, but also concerning and harmful at times when they are dancing along the lines of misunderstanding. Their experience with the shipwreck helps them to learn a bit about each other and begin to trust each other, but their trust is shaken when circumstances keep them apart. They are made to work together again during the heist, where at first they are incredibly distrustful, but they bond slowly throughout the journey. A key point of their development is when the group stumbles upon a pyre in Fjerda, where natives had burned a group of Grisha alive as punishment for their “crimes.” Nina insists that they need to bury them, and Matthias volunteers to help her. During the process, they have a proper talk about their roles in this world, and you can see Matthias beginning to truly question his morals and how he was indoctrinated into believing Grisha are all bad and that the drüskelle actually give these individuals a “fair trial.” Nina also comes to accept that Matthias is not like all of the other drüskelle and is not completely heartless as he helps her lay these people to rest. Showing these two opposing forces working together develops a sense of hope for their war-torn world, which strategically keeps many groups of people separated by opposing values.
This story is incredibly complex and has so many elements that make it just as great as any classic. The relations between the Crows, who each hail from different places in their world allow for many cross-examinations of how these people and cultures mix and interact. The problems these characters face are deep and meaningful, and their developments throughout the series as a whole demonstrate incredible craft and wonderful insight into how people deal with their hardships. Thinking of the story in the framework of this song brings to light the traumas these individuals have gone through and how they continue to persevere both despite and in spite of them. The constant threats to their lives seem to be an assurance that they will soon meet an end at the pearly gates, so what is the harm in throwing everything at the world and seeing what sticks? Fortunately, these characters develop to a point where they are not living solely despite the world and circumstances they have been thrust into, and these moments of fire and water in their stories plot out where they can progress to from where they have been.
-Lauren Lotarski, Blogger.
Lauren Lotarski – Poetry Editor & Copy Editor: Lauren is a sophomore at Lewis University majoring in Psychology and English with a concentration in Literature and Language. She is also employed at the university library. In her free time, she likes to read, draw, knit, and consume general popular media like movies, TV shows, and video games. Some of her favorite authors are Leigh Bardugo, Charles Dickens, and Neil Gaiman. She hopes to improve upon her writing and knowledge of literature during her time at Lewis and apply it to her future endeavors.