I absolutely love this topic, and it’s also something that I find really beautiful about the friendship between Matthias and Inej.
The dominant religion in Fjerda is a belief in many gods with the primary of these being Djel, the Welllspring from which all life begins. Interesting note, ‘djel’ can be translated from Scandinavian languages (the region by which Fjerda is mostly inspired) and it almost invariably translates to ‘demon’. (Please be aware I do not speak any Scandinavian languages myself, I used google translate so I may be incorrect). Through the presentation of Matthias Helvar we understand that, although there are multiple gods (to my memory it’s unclear if there’s a small group or a large pantheon) it’s Djel who is generally respected as the most important. It’s respect to Djel that influences aspects of Fjerdan culture, such as praying every time a tree is cut down because ash trees are sacred to Djel, or it being more culturally important to be buried instead of cremated so that one can “take root” as the trees do. They also say in the show, I don’t believe it’s specified in the books but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, that although Fjerdans leave a mark on their trees to signify the border between Fjerda and Ravka that they will not mark the ash trees because they’re sacred. Of course one of the most important aspects about our understanding of Fjerdan religion is also the warping of that religion through the Drüskelle, which brings into question the line between religion and cult. Theoretically, the Drüskelle are raised (forced) to believe the same basic principles of the religion that most of the religious people in the country are: Djel is the Wellspring and all life is connected through his waters, when they die they will be buried to take root with Djel, that they are loved and protected by their gods, and (I’m taking this from implication in the books) that their religion is the only correct one and it’s ok to label other cultures/peoples/countries/etc as “heathen” or “barbarous” because they follow different religions. Although the final point is of course unfortunate it’s also not entirely unusual within religious groups, which of course is why it’s so often played on in constructed worlds. However, what’s taken completely further is that the Drüskelle are told that the only way to be truly respected by their god is to take decisive action against Grisha people for their power, because it’s “demonic” and a warping of Djel’s gifts. Now first of all, none of the religious teachings we learn about as the reader even remotely suggest this, which suggest that it’s a baseless prejudice for which religion has been used as an excuse for so long that it’s become culturally ingrained and believed.
Although there is a cultural prejudice and evident hatred towards Grisha in the country, it’s almost exclusively the Drüskelle who take action (I’ll touch on some other situations later). The Drüskelle also have their own religious festivals, ceremonies, and limitations that do not align with the religion as a whole, and personally I think one of the most important things we can do to look at this is to study Hringkälla, the Listening Ceremony, in which aspirant Drüskelle are either accepted or refused into the order. The Drüskelle belief is that they are Djel’s chosen men, and this is perpetuated by the Listening Ceremony, wherein they hope to be spoken to by Djel at his sacred ash tree in the centre of the Ice Court. To even achieve the Listening Ceremony, the aspirants must first cross the ice moat completely unseen by the guard towers. They’re told that, if they are worthy, Djel will show them the way across the moat and to the sacred tree, but it is in fact older Drüskelle who tell aspirants they want to succeed what the secret is. The boys who’ve made friends and fit into the group well will then have the message passed on to them by the others, and it’s described as “a way of culling the weak”. Matthias even shows particular pride that he was personally told the secret of the second glass bridge by Jarl Brum himself, which I have a lot to say about in a moment. But first I want to address this “culling” of “the weak” because Matthias himself proclaims that he had no interest in befriending the other boys when he was applicant, and that he viewed the Drüskelle only as a means to an end (there’s a long discussion about the similarities between him and Kaz in this situation here for another time), so by the order’s own understanding of the word “weak” he should never have succeeded in crossing the moat. Djel never showed him “the path” and he probably never passed the message on to anyone else (although I can’t confirm that because he doesn’t tell us either way) but because Jarl Brum took a liking to him he was successful.
And this is the thing, ok, because by claiming that Djel will show the boys the path and then telling them himself (!!!!!!!!) Brum is claiming far more power than a servant of Djel and or Fjerda. No, now he turns himself into a messenger if Djel, a prophet if you will, just to reaaaalllly double down on that religious trauma he’s giving these kids. He is putting himself into the Messiah-like position; he’s saying that Djel sent him to them to tell them that they must kidnap and kill people to earn his love. Now beyond the thousand issues of this, especially considering that in his own practice Matthias would appear to see Djel as a benevolent god, Brum appears to either actually believe or willingly perpetuate this image!!!!!!!! When he’s talking to Nina at the Ice Court and encouraging her to trust that he is entirely hoodwinked by her disguise, he tells her about the Listening Ceremony and how the aspirants hope to hear the voice of Djel. And he tells her that this has always been the way Drüskelle are initiated, “since Djel anointed the first of us”. So there’s a few things to unpack there.
First of all Nina’s beautiful inner monologue throughout this scene just sums it up beautifully: “Sure, a giant gushing spring chose some guy to hunt innocent people down and murder them. That seems likely”. Although Nina in part is referring to her own atheism in this statement, which I’m going to brush past for now because I’m operating from the view of people believing in Djel, she’s also touching on the exact issue with any violence suggested by a benevolent god - or for that matter any demands from one at all. A benevolent god, as the name suggests, is usually believed to love all equally and not require anything to earn that love. Then there’s his use of the word “anointed”, which is very interesting to me because it implies the direct involvement of someone to complete the act of anointing, and yet they claim it was completed by their god. Now we know that the Drüskelle as an order have existed for thousands of years, so it’s more than likely that their exact origins are unknown, but if someone was in fact directly involved in the process of anointing someone as a Drüskelle and then years later it’s described as being anointed by Djel himself, then this would heavily imply that whoever actually committed the action was seen as, or presented themselves as, a vessel of Djel just as Jarl Brum seems to. It seems to me like an acknowledgment that this abuse of power in the position of leading the Drüskelle as a religious order has not only arisen with the actions of Jarl Brum, which I do however have more to say about in a minute, but are an institutional problem. (Catch the Good Omens 2 reference). Jarl Brum, however, is consistently described as having massively expanded the Drüskelle order, as having organised them like no-one else, and as having had then more actively and more successfully commit their violence than ever before. I genuinely believe this is because he has presented himself as a Messiah-like figure and effectively forced these young boys to believe that betraying him is akin to betraying Djel - just as Lars blames Matthias for doing so when him calls him a traitor to “you country and your god”.
But what’s so beautiful about Matthias and his relationship with his religion is that he never does. Betray Jarl Brum? Yes. Betray his country? Depends on your definition, but according to the law as it stands yes. But betray his God? Matthias Helvar could never.
Matthias really struggles for a period of time to separate the idea of Djel from the idea of Jarl Brum and the Drüskelle, because for him religion has forcibly become akin with his pain. When, through Nina, he is able to come to terms with the fact that he’s been manipulated and acknowledge that he was abused and lied to, he learns how to find a version of Djel to believe in that he is comfortable with. For him, and similarly to how some followers of the Saints religion believe their Saints were very powerful Grisha, this comes from believing that Grisha power, a power that he was told destroys but he has come to realise actually creates and enhances, is a gift from Djel and an example of his action in the world. I've talked recently about the differing presentations between Grisha power as "the small science" and the presentation of it as effectively magic in the King of Scars duology and how it's all about the way they needed to be perceived to give them the best chance of survival and this idea is touched on in Crooked Kingdom when Matthias begins to see Grisha power as a gift from god and therefore as a power beyond comprehension rather than science because that's how he needs to understand it to overcome his conditioning and accept it. One of my favourite moments of this is when Nina expresses hatred for her new power because it feels more like merzost than small science, and his response is "perhaps Djel extinguished one light and lit another" (or something like that, sorry I don't have the book on me to double check). This just so wonderfully shows that he's learnt to see power, no matter what form it takes, as something beautiful and as a force of life (therefore Djel, as the god of life - "Djel is the god of life, not death") rather than destruction. It's also super interesting that he considers the possibility of Drüskelle hatred being rooted in jealousy, saying how it must burn them up inside to serve Djel and yet see his gift in others. And that brings us back to the piece of human scum that is mister Jarl Brum: he wants to paint himself as a Saint-like figure (effectively a Grisha-like figure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) so that he can feel the kind of power he feels he missed out on whilst literally taking it from others.
Brief interjection to thank Leigh Bardugo for her genius 🙏
Inej follows the most popular religion in Ravka and seemingly all of the Grishaverse: that of the Saints. (By the way, I don't think the religions have been given specific names so I've not used them in this, but I've just forgotten please let me know!!) Inej's relationship with her Saints is a particularly interesting one because she specifically seems to believe that anything she choses to do to connect with them is a form of prayer, no matter the situation, and I find that particularly beautiful. Examples of Inej praying in unconventional ways include: naming her knives after her Saints because they are her protection, imagining her Saints present with her when she's taken captive by Van Eck (they inspect her bindings before she breaks through them and give her general words of encouragement, they effectively become her eyes in the room since she's blindfolded but imagines them present as she feels her way along the wall), reciting her knives names to comfort herself and before a fight, her mission to hunt slavers (she prays to them and it begins to rain, and she realises that she wants to bring a storm powerful enough to level all the pleasure houses in Ketterdam), and many more. Inej says herself that gods her prayers anywhere but it's men who seek grandeur when discussing the Church of Barter with Kaz, who complained "why do gods always have to be worshipped in high places?" whilst navigating the climb with his bad leg.
Something else I love about Inej's relationship with her Saints is that she never has any fear that they will reject her for anything that happened to her at the Menagerie, whilst many religious people in our world might because of the taboo or even shameful culture that can exist around sex in some religions, or in certain interpretations of religions. For Inej, she finds comfort in her Saints as an unwavering support to her victimhood and there is never any doubt that they would view her as anything other than a survivor, despite the subtle implication that the religion might have taboo around sex since she fears her parents judgement of everything she's done to survive "not just at the Menagerie, but every day since". The use of "not just" suggests a fear that there would be some level of judgement for this, and since we as the reader know Inej's parents to be some of the kindest, most loving people on the planet who would move heaven and earth for their daughter if they had to, I think it's fair to assume that this probably comes from a cultural taboo rather than a personal one. And even in this, the fright is far more prevalent about judgement for her time in the Dregs. Personally, I believe that Inej's parents will never question her and only let her tell them what she's able to say when she's able to say it, and I think they're going into seeing her again with at least some idea of what she's probably been through, as well as suspicions if what she probably had to do to get out.
The support Inej receives from her Saints is unwavering, as long as she does penance for the lives she takes. This is sooooooooooooooo important to me and it's so strikingly different from the warped perception of religion Jarl Brum forces onto Matthias. Matthias and Inej actually have a really interesting symmetry to them in some ways, because they both have to make adaptations to the religion they were raised on in order to find a place where they feel comfortable with it in the place their lives have taken them to. For Inej, this adaptation is to trust that her Saints understand her survival circumstances and therefore don't reject her for committing murder or other crimes. I actually think that coming to terms with this is one of the most important things to Inej's survival, because if she couldn't put herself in a position where her Saints still loved her then it would have genuinely destroyed her. As finding rekindled faith in Djel gives Matthias the strength of acceptance and the aim of deconstructing the Drüskelle to change Fjerda on a institutional level - "we'll find a way to change their minds" - believing and entirely trusting her Saints is in some ways (and I've touched on this before) what stops Inej from becoming Kaz. (I'm drawing from the fact that we know he prayed as a child before waking up on the Reaper's barge but his response to his experiences is losing any concept of religion and closing himself off from all connection. Inej is very aware that she was on the brink of losing the ability to maintain physical contact because of her time at the Menagerie, but whilst Kaz tried to protect himself and became debilitatingly reliant on his gloves Inej was able to force herself through pain and learn what she could and could not tolerate in her healing process through her faith and her belief in fate - this must have happened for a reason, so she cannot lock herself away, she has to trust in her Saints having a plan for her). And both Matthias and Inej to some degree are able to achieve their aim. Although Inej gives herself the painfully sad belief that her pain must be 'worth' something, it does lead her to saving others from the same experience, and although Matthias dies for his cause when he tries to change the mind of a young Drüskelle, his death leads Nina to Fjerda and sets in motion massive institutional change within the country since it will gain its first Grisha leaders.
Thank you so much @lunarmooo for asking me to do this, sorry it's taken so long! And sorry @inejs-knife for derailing your post a bit, it may not be 3 hours but this is pretty long
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