I've seen a bunch of people do reviews of the book and say they didn't see the characters as teenagers because they behaved like adults. I believe that couldn't be further from the truth. As someone who is around the same age as the characters, I have to say that they act *painfully* seventeen.
I truly love the dialogue in this book because it shows so much of the characters' true personalities. Kaz is the one I've seen most people say they age up in their minds, but even though they he's got his whole persona as Dirtyhands and is the shadow leader of the Dregs and all, he's absolutely still a teenager. He had to attract the attention of a guard during the Hellgate breakout and decided to make a joke about the guy's mom. He's constantly being sarcastic and making witty comments and playing into the jokes.
Yes, of course, there is a certain level of maturity that all of these characters have that you wouldn't normally see in a teenager, all of them are *Traumatised*, severely. The fact that they are extremely self-reliant and lucid is precisely a result of the cruel environments they had to withstand and sometimes even managed to thrive in.
The bantering that can be seen in just about every group dialogue between the crows feels refreshing, it's a moment of reprieve from all the fast-paced and sharp movements of the narrative, it's a laugh that can be had while both the readers and the characters are worrying about the odds of success.
I really love this book and have so many thoughts.
The double life brainworms still being there despite the fact that it ended a year ago is a little too much even for me. They're all so silly and angsty and I just want to put them in a box and shake them.
"How do you read so many books??" I am simply trying to avoid reality, what are you doing
huh my sensory issues haven't been too bad lately
(lays down to sleep)
I need to crawl out of my skin Right Now
scar and grian!
hotguy and cuteguy!
hotguy and poultry man!
I love this, the brothers crumbs are so real
Idk who assigned the superpowers this week's session (I'm assuming it's Grian) but Jimmy getting the invisibility one was absolutely on purpose to keep him safe
"Let's go." "Me?" "No the idiot behind you."
"How is-" "Nina is fine. Jesper is fine. Everyone is fine except for me because I am stuck with a gang of hand-wringing nursemaids."
"Now why can't people be this easily trained?" Kaz murmured as he crouched to oblige the dog with a belly rub.
"Did you know I am next in line for the Fjerdan throne? They call me Princess Ilse of Engelsberg." "There is no princess of Engelsberg. It's a fishing town."
"Has anyone noticed this whole city is looking for us, mad at us, or wants to kill us?" "So?" "Well, usually it's just half the city."
"Big, blond and blind. The Fjerdan way."
"If I live I'll buy you waffles." "You don't have enough money to buy her waffles."
"Do you know what Van Eck's problem is?" "No honor?" "Rotten parenting skills?" "Receding hairline?"
"Isn't that how things are done around here? We all tell Kaz we are fine and the do something stupid?" "Are we that predictable?" "Yes."
"It seems everyone is forming alliances." "They're called friendships Kaz."
"You are very welcome Nina Zenik. You may repay me in the costumary way." "Waffles?" "Lots of them."
"I need to do this. I've never been to my mother's grave. I am not leaving Kerch without saying goodbye." "Trust me, you care more than she does."
"You are stupid about a lot of things Wylan, but you are not stupid. And if I ever hear you call yourself a moron again, I am going to tell Matthias you tried to kiss Nina. With tongue." "He' ll never believe it." "Then I 'll tell Nina you tried to kiss Matthias. With tongue."
"Come on, let's do steal all my dad's money. "Isn't it your money?" "Okay, let's go steal it back."
"I think you 'd flirt with a date palm if it would pay you any attention." "If I flirted with a plant, you can bet it would stand up and take notice."
"Yes, yes, Nina Zenik is hungry. Now, will someone feed me before I am forced to cook one of you?" "Don't be ridiculous. You don't know how to cook."
"On a dare I ate a literal through full of waffles and nearly went back for seconds."
"Pick up the pace." "If I spill a single drop of this it will burn straight through the floor onto my father's dinner guests." "Take your time."
"I am Dunyasha, the White Blade, trained by the Sages of Ahmrat Jen, the greatest assassin of this age." "Doesn't ring a bell."
"Fate brought me here." "And does fate pay your wages?"
"My parents thought I would drown because I crawled into the sea as a baby, laughing." "Perhaps they were worried you would talk yourself to death."
"Kaz. You may not be glad we are alive, but we are glad you are alive."
"You are better than waffles, Matthias Helvar." "Let's not say things we don't mean, my love."
"Are you mad?" "I'd probably be happier if I was."
"You have to be the craziest bastard I ever met." "I'll take that as a compliment."
"My leg! My leg!" "I recommend a cane."
"What is wrong with him?" "Same thing that's always wrong with him. He's Kaz Brekker."
Jesper followed Wylan down the hall. "Hey." Wylan kept going.
"Jes, I 've thought about this-" "Thought of me? Late at night? What was I wearing?"
Wylan ran his tongue over his lips and spat in his father's face.
He was pale, with tufty orange brows and a hunched posture that gave him the look of a giant shrimp.
He felt bad for the guy. Not bad enough to wake him up and untie him, but still.
"I 've been shot!" He had not been shot.
"How about I push you in the canal and we see if you know how to swim?"
"Tell you what. When the day comes, mark it on your calendars. I can think of a lot of people who 'll want to throw a party.
"Wait. Is my tie straight?"
rereading six of crows at seventeen is such a strange experience. like on one hand i relate to these characters, but on the other they’re out here committing intense crimes and pulling off impossible heists while i’m writing fan fiction in my room and struggling to get through the school year with my sanity intact. like.
It blows my mind the parallels that aren’t fully utilized in Tim angst fanfic
When Jason died Bruce became careless. He didn’t care about his own life. He was passively suicidal and it was because Tim forced his way in that Bruce improved at all.
But Tim wasn’t chosen by Bruce. Tim was a partner not a son, but goddamn was Tim going to pretend for as long as he could. And people hated on Tim. Tim was the perfect Robin after all. Apparently he could do not wrong, and they’re right.
Tim couldn’t do wrong because he was Batman’s partner not his son. All the other Robin’s got more leniency because they were Bruce’s son. Tim didn’t get that luxury. Tim was perfect out of necessity.
Tim was as close to being a Batman replica as could be and that’s not a good thing.
Because after Bruce “dies” Tim becomes reckless. He doesn’t care much for his life outside of finding Bruce. He’s been fired from Robin and kicked out of the family and after he brings Bruce back he doesn’t have much else to live for. Dick may have saved him from hitting the ground after he was thrown off a building, but Tim wouldn’t have cared either way.
The roles have been reversed, but who’s going to play the Robin to Tim’s Batman? Who’s going to save Tim from himself if anyone who should have noticed hasn’t?
Imagine being Orion in A Deadly Education.
People are mostly not that interesting to you. They don't like you so much as they like what you can do. Maybe at some point you tried to really connect with someone, and it didn't go that well, so you didn't keep trying. Fighting mals though? You're good at that. It makes sense to you, unlike most of the things people do. It's rewarding -- intrinsically rewarding -- and people seem to be happy that you're doing it? Because they don't like doing it but it benefits them. So, basically no downside.
And you go off to school and it's full of mals, and people think you're great because you fight the mals, and you ignore them as best you can when you're not fighting mals for them. (You're polite, your mother always wanted you to be polite and you don't want people to be mad at you. But you don't do anything beyond being polite.) And people seem to think you're doing a good thing. So. It's ok. It's good enough. The world makes sense, more or less. This is what you're for.
And one day you see a soul eater go under another student's door, and you destroy it like you always do. Except this person is mad at you. Which makes no sense. No one's ever been mad at you before, not for fighting mals. So apparently you did something wrong even though you only did what you always do which has always been right before. But you guess you should probably make it up to her? So when she says she needs to go to the shop at dinner you offer to go with her, why not?
Except somehow she's mad at you again. So you have to make it up to her even more now, you guess?
(You don't like it when people are mad at you, but you know what to do when people are mad at you. You Make It Up To Them, usually by doing whatever they tell you to or fighting a mal or both, and then they stop being mad at you. You prefer to understand why they are mad at you, but most of the time it makes no sense, and you know what to do when it makes no sense to you why someone is mad at you.)
So you guard her door while she fixes it. Which takes her a weirdly long time. You've just taken down several mimics, you're bursting with mana, you'd give her some if she asked. Mana has never been a scarce resource for you; on some level it hasn't really occurred to you that it could be a scarce resource for anyone else. People aren't that interesting to you, you don't think about them much, except when someone tells you to, like your mother making you do flash cards of other kids' names. But she doesn't ask, and she doesn't cheat either, she does things the long and hard way, which makes a third thing all coming from the same person that doesn't mesh with your pre-existing worldview. She's fascinating.
And then she pulls on your mana like it's nothing and she's even more fascinating. How did she do that? Is she a malificer? (Is that why she keeps being so mean to you, when nobody is ever mean to you?) What's going on?
And you've never voluntarily fought alongside anyone else before, but she's good to fight with. She's annoying, but she does also point out things you missed or didn't know.
And she stands up for you, in a way that nobody has ever stood up for you before. She's not nice. She's the opposite of nice. But it's starting to dawn on you that being nice is not the same as something else that seems like it should go with being nice. And if El is not nice to you but is that other thing, maybe some other people who are nice to you are...not that other thing to you?
It's a lot to think about.
Anyways. You like her. You're not very interested in people. But you are interested in El.
And then you have the best day of your life, when you've gotten to take on more mals and scarier mals than you've ever taken on before, and you did it and you were good at it, and you kind of didn't want to leave but you were supposed to leave because that was how the Mission worked, and then you were about to die because you missed the bell and the cleansing fires had started and there was nowhere to go, but at least you were going to die next to El.
But she didn't think she was going to die, and she cast a wall of mortal flame (who does that?) and it worked as a firebreak and you didn't die and no one had ever saved you before. That wasn't how the world worked. Who was this person who kept breaking the rules of how the world worked like they didn't even apply to her?
(And then you look around and she isn't there and you kissed her earlier when you thought you were both going to die, and she, uh, didn't react well and oh no, what if you've ruined everything what if you like her but she doesn't like you like that what if she won't want to be around you any more? What if the one interesting person in the entire world doesn't think you are interesting?) (it'd be ok, right? It was ok before.) (it wouldn't be ok. So maybe it wasn't ok before either.)