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AND ANOTHER DETAIL

I’ll admit, the first time I read SOC and I realized Pekka Rollins failed at infiltrating the Ice Court, I was like, “but the teenagers with decades less experience managed it?” And THEN I read the final chapter of Crooked Kingdom, where Inej threatens Pekka like the queen she is.

(Me when Inej does anything: WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO STAN).

Anyways, I got to these:

“He realized how long it had been since he’d felt real pain. No one had dared lift a hand against him in years” (534), and

“He’d gotten comfortable and found that he enjoyed it” (535).

Kaz defeated Pekka--and Jan Van Eck--because they were too rich, too comfortable, and too used to getting their way. Kaz is always working to stay on top and alive. Our introduction to him is someone holding a gun to his head and him fighting his way out of it. Kaz always expects things to change or go wrong, and his enemies keep failing, all the way back to Geels in chapter 2 of SOC, because they assume they’re dealing with an egoistic, angsty teenager instead of a criminal mastermind who’ll work for a decade to take down one supposedly invincible man without ever letting him know he’s doing it.

For that matter, none of the Crows have it easy, physically or emotionally. They’re used to adjusting, living in hard circumstances, and being defeated and having to try again. Pekka Rollins barely remembers what pain is like. So he was smart enough and strong enough and rich enough to beat anybody else, but he was beat because he was too confident in his position and never imagined it could change.

The illustrations from the Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom Owlcrate special editions.

Oh my I need these

The illustrations from the Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom Owlcrate special editions.