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The Reaper’s Barge is one of the most detailed pieces of worldbuilding we’re given about the entire city. Slightly tangentially, I think one of the clever things about the way the worldbuilding is written in the duology is that the aspects of it we know the most about are all tied to the characters and have to be understood to understand the characters and therefore everything we know in great detail can be learned gradually and always feels relevant; we know a lot about the indenture system, but only in terms of what Inej knows of it (so we don’t have a lot of information about the slave auctions, for example, because she didn't go thorugh one), because we could never understand her without knowing that; we know a lot about the Hellshow and the living conditions of Hellgate without knowing a lot about the prison system beyond it (are there female prisoners in Hellgate or is there a separate women’s prison? Where did Kaz serve time, since it’s implied it wasn’t Hellgate? etc), because we could never understand Matthias without knowing that; we know a lot about the Reaper’s Barge because you can never understand Kaz without it. But even though the Reaper’s Barge is of course central to a lot of what we know about death in Ketterdam, we also learn an awful lot about death because it is inextricably bound to class, and classism is one of the biggest themes in the novels. (Note - when I talk about the culture in Ketterdam throughout this post I probably most likely mean Kerch as well, but as I always say with these Ketterdam-centric posts we don't really have enough information about the rest of the country to assume similarities, especially considering how much of it we know is very polarising between the capital and the countryside; this is in a way linked to my point about the worldbuilding, since we don’t *need* to know much about the countryside or other cities Kerch and so we don’t)

As our perception of the Reaper’s Barge grows and accompanies what we learn about Ketterdam, it initially makes sense to consider it a plague precaution. Honestly, an awful lot of things in the Grishaverse are plague precautions and whilst this makes sense they are also very often forms of control one group over another either in the name of plague precautions or under the guise of being thus — for example, all prisoners at the Ice Court have their clothes and belongings burned as a “plague precaution”. And Ketterdam is more frightened of infection than anywhere else; it’s explicitly stated that the two things the city is most vulnerable to are fire and plague. But with the descriptions of Black Veil we are forced to face that the only cemetery, now closed, that used to operate in Ketterdam is populated by the wealthy and was closed after the plague outbreaks - so before the plague outbreaks, where did all the other bodies go? It seems very unlikely to me, when I look at it from this direction, that the Reaper’s Barge was invented after the outbreaks. The Barge, arguably, was never about anything other than control.

We're explictly introduced to the concept of the Reaper's Barge in chapter 2, when Kaz says “We’ll go out to the Reaper’s Barge for burning, like all paupers go” to Geels during the parley (ironically for a post where I’m waxing lyrical about worldbuilding, this is one of the few quotes in these novels where I feel the worldbuilding is a little heavy-handed; Geels lives here, he knows how the Barge works, why is Kaz telling him? When we learn more about it later we mostly do so when the concept is being explained to Matthias, an outsider to the idea, which feels far more natural). This immediately introduces the very clear idea that there is a difference in how the different classes are treated in death, and is therefore something that stays with the reader moving forwards. Later, Nina asks why they don't build "a real cemetery" and someone replies (I thought it was Wylan but now that I'm thinking through the scene it might have been Inej (??) because I think it was at Sweet Reef (??) I don't have a copy of ck with me sorry) that there was "some talk" about reopening Black Veil years ago, but it stopped when the Queens Lady Plague broke out. This statement reinforces the implication that Black Veil is the only cemetery in the city and that there is either no willingness to add new infrastructure to deal with death or no space to build a new cemetery (remember: the Grishaverse is implied to have no sense of cremation as a rite/ritual/cultural practice/tradition/anything in any of the countries, which I will touch on in more detail later in this post), and it also suggests that ultimately the reopening of Black Veil was never about solving the inarguable problem that is the Reaper's Barge. Because no-one who is burned on the Reaper's Barge would ever be buried in Black Veil, only the upper class would be. Black Veil was never open to the entire city, it was open to the class of people who can currently afford to have their loved ones buried outside the city. We learn a lot about this from Matthias in chapter 3, telling us what the others have explained to him about the graveyard. He describes it as “a miniature city of white marble mausoleums, many carved into the shape of ships”, which I just adore and is actually the quote that first inspired this post, and wonders why the Kerch "build such monuments to death" because it's vastly different to his own cultural practices. He also notes that Nina told him the family who paid for the large tomb they're staying in were spice traders and that a family member worked for the government, which she has discerned from the patterns of the carvings, and Matthias reflects that they "must have fallen on hard times or simply taken their dead elsewhere, because only one of the rooms had a resident" the odd word of that might be wrong I'm quoting from memory. This tells us that it was costly to bury your dead in Black Veil - not only was it one thing to have paid for the plot and the building of an expansive tomb, but it was another to afford burial there every time someone died. Black Veil was only ever for the upper class. And not only is Black Veil currently populated by rich ancestors of rich families, as described in Crooked Kingdom, making it incredibly unlikely that the current upper class would ever stand for it to be filled with the so-despised lower classes, it is also not big enough to ever hold the number of people it would need to. Ketterdam doesn't have enough space for its living residents, how could it possibly cater to the dead as well? The reopening of Black Veil would not have been a proposed solution to the Reaper's Barge problem, it would have been a proposed solution to the "problem" of burials for the upper classes, which take place outside of the city - in Jesper's words, being rich enough means being able to pay for burial in a cemetery outside the city "where your corpse can enjoy the fresh air".

This is fundamentally not a problem. Not when compared to the Reaper's Barge. First of all, the very top of Kerch society are frequently described as owning property both within the city and outside it, usually large country houses that function as a second home or rest/holiday destinations for the family. The Hendriks Lakehouse, moved into the Van Eck property list by the transfer of authority that Jan arranged for when he had Marya committed, is explicitly described as having a family graveyard on the property; it's relevant to the plot in the discovery of Nina's power, but also tells us about the Hendriks family - because either this is more common in the countryside, or it's the height of luxury. And I think this is ultimately what a lot of it boils down to: respect in death is treated as a luxury. Everything in Kerch is a commodity. Everything can be traded or bartered for, a tightrope performance on their Church roof would be blasphemy unless you charged commission, respect and care and love and sex and health and life and death are commodities to be bought and sold, fought for, earned, and won. It's a war fought on a battlefield of spreadsheets and ledgers, but also on the streets with bloodied knuckles and in warehouses of toxic chemicals, on plush sofas in sprawling mansions and on walks in manicured gardens, in pleasure houses and in auction houses, and, yes, in graveyards and morgues and on the Reaper's Barge.

The Hendriks family is not, as far as we're aware and it would be a strange detail to hide unless for a specific reason, one of the thirteen oldest families in Kerch that form the Merchant Council. As such, we can assume that the family, though clearly very well off, are not as wealthy as the Council and therefore the Van Ecks. If they can afford a family graveyard on their property, the Merchant Councillors surely can. Now I'm working on the assumption that burial outside of the city isn't so expensive that it's only the Merchant Council and families who are affording it, so for the purpose of illustration let's assume it's everyone in the Geldin and Zelvar Districts - a fair amount of people considering the size of the city, but not actually a majority percentage of its population (we only have one morgue on the map, but we also only have plot points in one morgue so it's fair to assume it isn't the only one (I assume Black Veil is the only graveyard based on a variety of details I've already touched on, not purely because it's the only one relevant to the plot)). A fair-sized fraction of these individuals will likely have family graveyards to take their dead to, and the rest will travel to one of many different options outside the city. Is there a potential inconvenience for some families, especially those in the Zelvar District who have less disposable income and would have to pay for the burial, headstone, funeral, and travel to the graveyard any time they wished to pay their respects? Absolutely. But is that anywhere near as pressing an issue to be solved at the Resper's Barge? Absolutely not. If Black Veil had reopened, these would be the people who were buried there - not the Geldin District residents who have family graveyards at other homes or more than enough disposable income not to worry about travel and funeral-related costs, and certainly not anyone who is currently collected by the bodymen and taken to the Reaper's Barge. (As a side note - I think it's a really interesting detail that Wylan, and we, believed that Marya was buried at the hospital at the Church of Saint Hilde when he, and we, already knew that there was a family graveyard on the Hendriks property. It isn't explicitly explored, but I can't help wondering if it was a specific insult to her by Van Eck to tell Wylan she'd been buried at the hospital, like even though he hadn't actually had her killed it was a sick private joke to him that he wouldn't let her be buried with her family - and that she now very likely never would be, because if she had indeed died at the institution she probably would have been buried there. Van Eck enjoys private jokes that mock Wylan, like buying a printing press and Eil Komedie in his name (also I feel like we all moved past him owning a literal island way too quickly), or sending him letters that say "if you're reading this you know how much I want you home", so I don't think it's entirely a stretch to assume he also considered this to be a sick joke towards Marya, a final insult at the end of all the torture he put her through. Clearly, the way the Kerch treat death is a complex cultural practice that involves many layers, but Marya's position in life should mean that she was buried respectfully at home with her family, and thus denying her that becomes an act of treating her as less than Van Eck and something to be sneered at, even when it's hypothetical)

Now I mentioned attitudes towards cremation earlier, and I want to come back to that - after all, if there isn't space for a graveyard but there are morgues and other related infrastructure, why not build a crematorium? Cremation isn't really a concept in any of the Grishaverse countries, so far as we are aware - at least not in the sense that we consider ourselves familiar with it. In the other culture where we know the most about death and traditional associated rites (Fjerda), the burning of bodies is a grave insult. And in no descriptions of any of the other countries is it suggested that private cremation and the subsequent keeping or scattering of ashes is a traditional or active practice: in Novyi Zem we see Jesper and his father bury Aditi, which could also imply that burial is traditional in the Wandering Isle since Colm is Kaelish and buries his wife; Nina says that there are "plenty" of graveyards and battlefields in Ravka and whilst this is more a statement about the country's war-torn history it also implies that there's no traditional process of gathering fallen soldiers from an abandoned battleground and suggests that at minimum the vast majority of people are buried, and there's never reference to cremation; to my recollection we don't know a lot about death in Shu Han but if someone remembers something I'm forgetting please feel free to add it. Overall, it would appear that on the rare occasion bodies are cremated, it is an insult to the deceased; Grisha's bodies are burned in Fjerda (and sometimes they are burned alive), and the lower classes of Ketterdam are burned in mass cargo loads as refuse. They may not have a concept of cremation, but they certainly have a concept of incinerating waste - we see it throughout, but especially when they climb the incinerator at the Ice Court. Now obviously there's some cultural crossover to address here since the Ice Court isn't Kerch, but none of the group are being newly introduced to the concept when they reach it so it seems like it's a pretty standard method of disposal. What do they dispose of, in the Ice Court incinerator? The clothes of prisoners, their possessions, "buckets of human waste", and any other refuse.

The mechanics of the Reaper's Barge are fundamentally disgusting, but have been accepted as normal. The system actively treats everyone in the city who does not fall into the highest categories of wealth as surplus, as waste to be taken into the harbour in cargo ships and burned, and run with such a lack of care that a living child could be accidentally thrown into the pile. Do you think Kaz is the only person who's ever woken up out there? I don't. But he's probably the only one who's ever made it back.

And on top of this, the Reaper's Barge creates the necessity of the bodymen's boats. Described as carrying "their grim cargo", the bodymen move through the canals of Ketterdam collecting the dead throughout the day, and overnight they have to be left until they can be taken out to the Reaper's Barge for burning. And where do they go, to leave this "grim cargo" overnight? The Warehouse District. This choice is almost definitely made based on the fact that, as we can see from the Ketterdam map, the Warehouse District is on the exact opposite side of the city to the Geldstraat; the farthest away that they can possibly be from the upper class without leaving city limits. The bodymen offend the upper class - but why? Is it not a far stronger insult to parade the deceased lower classes in front of some of the poorest members of this society, a district populated mostly by immigrants desperately looking for work or anyone who has nowhere else to go, people who will likely die younger than the average (especially if Wylan's experience is anything to go by; health and safety appears to be non-existent in these working conditions) and will end up on the Reaper's Barge, than it is to have them in sight of the people who created, perpetuate, and will never be touched by the institution?

There is considerable disgust associated with the Reaper's Barge by people who will never have to touch it, and arguably a certain sense of shame as well. The map shows no set location for the Reaper's Barge, but based on the bodies being kept near Sweet Reef, which is next to 6th harbour, I think it's fair to assume that it's out on the water somewhere between 6th and either Hellgate or Eil Komedie - most likely Hellgate, since it will need to be accessible to the prison ships as well. That being said, when Kaz comes back into the city it's unclear where he has washed up, and so it could easily be nearer to 5th harbour, which is at the time almost completely abandoned; this would make a lot of sense from the worldbuilding perspective if it was mostly untouched except by the bodymen, especially considering the merchants' attitude towards the Reaper's Barge - why would they want to do business in full view of it? - and in Kaz's nature of making poetically just choices in clawing his future back from Rollins and the city, since he later owns majority shares in 5th and rebuilds it from nothing, and I believe it's also where they leave for the Ice Court Heist from and where he later buys berth 22 for the Wraith. Any which way, the point is that the Reaper's Barge is on the opposite side of the city to the Geldin District - whether fifth or sixth, whichever harbour it's closest to is NOT first. Does anyone in the Geldin District feel shame, when they think about the Reaper's Barge? Guilt, even? Or do they only feel disgust towards it, towards everyone they consider less than themselves, towards everyone downtrodden by the system they run?

There's also something interesting to consider in those who become wealthy from the Barrel, like Pekka Rollins and Heleen Van Houden. Focusing on Rollins, since we know more about his private life and have 2 chapter from his POV, we know that it's possible to become vastly rich enough from succeeding in the Barrel to not only be able to afford property outside the city, but to build a mansion from the ground up out there and keep it fully staffed even though you don't live there most of the time. Kaz isn't surprised by the existence of this house, he knew about it before he knew about Alby and assumed that Rollins "had a mistress stashed there", so it doesn't seem an entirely unusual venture, but in that case what would happen to Rollins body when he dies - assuming he died in the city? Because we know he isn't seen as an equal by the upper class, if Black Veil had been reopened then I don't think they'd have wanted him buried there. It's an interesting prospect to consider, but I'm afraid I don't have much to say about it because we don't have much detail - though if you have any ideas do let me know, I'd love to read them!

I think that has brought us to the end of this very long post, though I reserve the right to reblog and add more thoughts if they come to me. As always this is the way I've interpreted the texts but that doesn't mean it's the only way to do so and I by no means, nor am I ever, trying to say that you have to agree with me or that I know exactly what the intent was behind everything Bardugo wrote. If you have any additions or thoughts always feel free to add them, I love reading them and I love talking with y'all about these topics. Thanks for reading!! <3

I said a while ago in this post that I'd be interested in writing this so tags requested from that are here <3 - @cassandra41924 @devoted-people-hater @raineaxolotl @longlaegs @nixie073 @intertwinedinmymind @polycrowtruther @fwhooooshh