“I messed up,” he found himself dumbly repeating, and as if weighed down by this realization, he plopped unceremoniously in the chair on the opposite side of Kaz’s desk. His shoulders hunched in defection. “And what do you want me to do about that?” Kaz rasped, throwing him a quick glance before returning his attention on the damn ledger he was consulting. Yeah, Wylan should have thought about this through.“
I’m rewatching Shadow and Bone, and in episode 5 when Kaz is walking down the hall at the Little Palace and he stops for a sec to rub his leg cause it hurts, we hear Inej saying “You should have one of us with you.” And Kaz is like “I’ll manage,” but he says it in a very hard tone, doesn’t he? And then the catches himself (cause, hey, that’s INEJ you’re talking to, sir, better watch your tone) and says in a softer tone, “You can’t blow your cover this early, and Jesper needs to plot our escape route.” PLEASE I love this show and I love these characters and LOVE AMITA AND FREDDY FOR BEING THE PERFECT INEJ AND KAZ!!
the crows are so much funnier than the fandom give them credit for
here are just SOME of the funniest moments throughout the books
“….you can find your way to Ravka or Matthias’ grandmother’s house for all i care” “leave my grandmother out of this”
obviously the ghost scene
pay someone to pay someone to pay someone to
“you speak Fjerdan about as well as i speak moose” “moose is probably your native tongue”
‘Had they blown up the lab? Kaz had definitely NOT told them to blow up the lab’
The deadpan ‘He had not been shot’
Kaz trying to justify his decision if bringing Wylan along to the rest of the crows: “ i told you, ✨hidden depths✨” “see Jesper, ✨marketable skillz✨”
‘“You all look so young, where are your parents?” Wylan and Jesper burst out laughing’
“This many people having fun in one place might have shocked the Fjerdan right out of you”
“I.Should.Let.You.Die”
Nina trying to bring Kaz back: “The Ice Court, remember? 3 million kruge?” Kaz’s eyes cleared. “4million”
“You couldn’t look guiltier if you were performing the role of Thief #3 in a penny play on East Stave”
“Who wants to buy i coat in the dead on night?” “Tourists”
“Tiny and Ferocious, just like you”
“Unless you have a unicorn for him to ride away on, there is no scenario that guarantees Kuwei’s safety”
‘They could fake a pregnancy. They couldn’t fake an actual birth. Or maybe they could, he wouldn’t put anything past Kaz at this point”
“He has a very soothing baritone”
‘“I’d prefer a pair of sable-lined swimming trunks, but we can’t always get what we want” A furrow appeared between Kuwei’s brows. His understanding of Kerch had apparently been reached and surpassed’
The Wyvil
Matthias thinking they should just let Nina and Jesper flirt the entirety of Ketterdam into submission
That MASTERPIECE of a scene where Jesper and Kaz have a random petty fistfight, and all the other crows literally move out of the way, and then when Wylan tries to get someone to stop them they just shrug and go ‘I mean they aren’t using their weapons let them fight it out’ and THEN Colm coming him and scolding them and both of them IMMEDIATELY stopping
“Whatever you say, Llewelyn”
Nina’s singing
Wylan and Kaz falling through the ceiling onto Van Eck’s dinner party will ALWAYS be iconic
Kaz’s chapters in general are absolutely HILARIOUS, but my personal favorite is when he’s depending on Matthias Not Betraying them, and he thinks something like this:
‘Either he was right and Matthias’ feeling for Nina would prove enough, or Kaz was about to pay for all those talking tree jokes’
The talking tree jokes in question
The initiation ceremony where the tree teaches you the secret handshake
‘His first thought was that this boy had the most beautiful lips he’d ever seen, and his second was that he was probably about to die’ Wylan honey we’ve got to talk about your priorities
“Is it that bad?” “No, you just have really ugly feet”
That scene at the start of Six of Crows where Van Eck has Kaz tied to a chair and is explaining what he needs, and then is explaining why he needs Kaz specifically, talking about how his De Kappel painting was stolen which is a really impressive feat, while Kaz is vehemently denying that he had anything to do with it although it was obviously him
Wylan being passive aggressive while Jesper is trailing after him trying to apologize for the Kuwei thing
“Can’t we just enter as performers? I hear Wylan really kills it on the flute”
Inej getting Nina’s cookie jar after she gets back and Jesper being offended that he didn’t get to take some
Nina making fun of Kaz’s haircut
“Is my tie straight?”
That’s all I can think of for now, i’m sure there’s more so if you think of something feel free to add on
-he grumbles about celebrating his birthday, but every year, Jesper and Inej go halvsies to book a whole day of the most challenging escape rooms they can find, they’ll even make road trips with Kaz to surprise him. Then, by the end of the day, Kaz is grinning like a kid because he got to spend the entire day solving complex puzzles for fun.
I don’t know how to express this well but I really like how flowers and ribbons are motifs that Bardugo emphasizes especially in Kaz Brekker’s backstory and Nikolai’s life which I feel are sort of foils of each other. Both of them mask their feelings for their crush - Nikolai with humor and Kaz by not addressing them at all. While Nikolai came from wealth and Kaz from destitution, I feel they both desire the same simple things. To have their loved one safe and to maintain some sort of power but not abusing their power (Kaz taking Haskell down) (Nikolai trying to choose a rightful leader). They both have a sense of moral and justness that they cling to.
Kaz remembers the detail of Saskia’s red ribbon. It’s a symbol of his lost innocence, childhood, his love for life and others. I thought it stood out because this was a detail disclosed to us in a flashback but Kaz didn’t verbally share it with us , the readers. It is only when he repeats this detail to Pekka when we realize this red ribbon is personal to him and deeply affected him. Kaz is a deeply sentimental person at heart and he is still a child hurt by the loss of losing everything that made him happy. He lost the red ribbon. And you see why he is so deeply vengeful. He remembers everything he lost.
For Nikolai. he seems to have this sort of fetish . Well I don’t like fetish word. But obsession with Zoya’s ribbon. It’s Something that signals his crush on her throughout the book.
Geraniums, Inej’s mother’s favorite flower, comes up a lot. And right after Inej talks about Kaz and how he won’t give her flowers. But obviously Kaz is this man who is providing for her. He gives her a ship. He thinks of what she wants. We do get a flower moment in CK when Kaz dumps the geraniums into the canal and swoops a cloak around Inej like a phantom in the night. It’s sweeping. It’s romantic and over-the-top.
Not sure about other flower moments but it is mentioned quite a lot in the books like the blue irises for Alina as a symbol of the Darkling’s manipulation and Mal’s care for her.
I love how flowers symbolize the thought and care that the partner shows for the other. I guess that’s usually what most people use flowers for in books but I like how its mentioned consistently through different relationships in the books.
“What about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. That was how you survived when you weren’t chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.” - Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
This print is available through the Kerch Merch Kickstarter! No link bc tumblr will remove my post from searches, sadly.
