#janvaneck

You know something I noticed about six of crows that I don’t see anyone talking about so maybe I’m just overthinking it?

Jan Van Eck is always on about how Wylan is stupid and useless because he can’t read, right? 

But Wylan goes on the Ice Court Heist, considered suicidal and impossible, and he may not be a POV character in SOC or as flashy as Jesper, but he does play an important role. He gives them information on the layout of the Ice Court. He draws maps. He gives us the iconic “just girls?” moment. He saves Jesper’s life by pretending to be drunk. He helps them at the harbor when they’re ambushed before leaving, setting off a flash bomb. He helps get the tank. He voluntarily disguised himself as Kuwei to trick his father--also to, you know, see if his dad would actually kill him, but it was hard to do, knowing he might never get his real face back again.

Nobody notices that Wylan can’t read or write for the ENTIRE novel. There’s a moment where he doesn’t have his map labeled, but I only caught it on a reread, and his explanation that he doesn’t know Fjerdan is honestly convincing. Nobody thinks about how he has trouble reading signs or thinks too hard on why he doesn’t have his map labeled. Wylan gets through a whole ass novel without anyone noticing his inability to read. The book doesn’t have to go into long arguments about how not being able to read or write, or being otherwise unable to do things that others can or exactly the way they can, doesn’t make you stupid or helpless. Because Kaz shows us long before we get deep into his own thoughts regarding his disability. And Wylan showed us way before we even knew he had one.

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.