Inej's knives (Symbol)
In Six of Crows, Inej Ghafa’s six knives are symbols of her journey to autonomy. After Kaz buys her indenture from the Menagerie, Inej is allowed to be armed and independent. She thinks of these knives as her claws, symbolizing her liberation while also evoking the “lynx” persona forced on her by the Menagerie. Kaz gives Inej her first knife, and she names them after her Suli Saints, a reminder of her deep-seated religious beliefs and her estrangement from her culture—she used to be a joyful performer, and now she uses her Saints to kill. When she is separated from her knives, Inej is anxious, but she manages to best Heleen van Houden even without them.
Running water (Motif)
Running water is a motif that reoccurs throughout the novel. Ketterdam is a city built on canals, and characters cross bridges and water passageways often; the crew makes a long trip by boat, and in flashbacks both Inej and Nina were kept captive on ships. Matthias and Nina are shipwrecked, and Kaz similarly has to swim to safety using his dead brother’s body as a raft. The sea and the canals represent the opportunity for both freedom and captivity—liberation and violence as different sides of the same coin. At the end of the novel, Jan Van Eck destroys the crew’s boat, indicating his willingness to do anything for profit, even kill his own son. Matthias and the Fjerdans in general worship Djel, the wellspring of life, and their sacred tree is planted on a waterway that allows Kaz, Nina, and Matthias to escape the Ice Court and complete the heist.
Heleen's diamond (Symbol)
Heleen Van Houden’s diamond necklace symbolizes the wealth she gains from the Menagerie, at the expense of kidnapped children like Inej. Heleen is depicted as a beautiful but extremely self-interested woman, collecting slaves and indentured people on the basis of their skin color to be used as sex workers in her pleasure house, referring to them as animals. Heleen’s large diamond necklace indicates her vanity, and after Inej steals it from her, the diamond is used to facilitate her escape from the Ice Court—the diamond is given actual value instead of merely symbolic value, as well as becoming a tool that allows Inej to free herself.
The sacred ash (Symbol)
The ash tree is first and foremost a symbol of Djel, the Fjerdan god. The ash is supremely sacred to Matthias, and he is upset when Nina even mentions it. Drüskelle believe that during the initiation ritual on Hringkälla, if an initiate listens closely enough, he will hear the voice of Djel coming from the ash tree in the middle of the Ice Court. Kaz correctly understands that this means there’s running water beneath the sacred ash. When he uses explosives to uproot the ash, he literally uproots Matthias’s faith and cultural foundation, allowing them to escape with Kuwei Yul-Bo.
Disguise (Motif)
The motif of disguise is common in Six of Crows. In flashbacks we learn that Nina used her talent for languages while in the Ravkan army to disguise herself as a local and seek out fellow Grisha; when she and Matthias met, she was in disguise as a Kaelish girl, a ruse she didn’t drop until after they were shipwrecked. In Djerholm, Inej and Nina disguise themselves as sex workers to gain access to the Hringkälla celebration at the Ice Court, putting on the costumes of the Menagerie and altering their skin to have pleasure house tattoos. Matthias acts as a double agent in the Ice Court, pretending to be loyal to Jarl Brum so he can save Nina. At the end of the novel, Wylan has Nina alter his appearance to match that of Kuwei Yul-Bo so the crew can complete their mission, as well as allowing Wylan to hear firsthand that his father considers him dispensable.
On a less literal level, characters often disguise their feelings: Kaz and Inej disguise their true feelings for each other, letting their true desires go unexpressed behind a tough facade. Matthias disguises his desire for and admiration of Nina. Jesper is one of the few characters without an obvious disguise, though he does hide his enormous gambling debt from his father by pretending to be a student.
