Kaz Brekker from Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows duology is blatantly autistic, and let me tell you why.
Kaz is a character who doesn’t understand a lot of people, specifically social cues and in both of the books in the duology, Kaz’s natural facial expression is described as ‘unreadable’ as autistic people either copy the expressions of those around them or use a very deadpan expression (which could be described as ‘unreadable’). Also, Kaz has trouble sleeping and this is a very common thing for autistic people to experience as we take in so much stimulation on a daily basis, but autistic people can’t process all of this right away. This leads to them only being able to process stimulation when there’s not much (or anything) going on, and when is this period most likely to occur? Right before we go to sleep, hence autistic people’s difficulty to go to sleep. Also, this very much ties into the setting of Six of Crows as the place where people would likely get the most stimulation is in Ketterdam, especially in the Barrel.
Next I want to talk about his trauma and how that affects his daily life. Due to his trauma related to skin-to-skin contact, Kaz has to wear gloves so he doesn’t get flashbacks, and this makes sense, but if we dig a little deeper, when Kaz is touched skin-to-skin, not only does he get flashbacks, but he also gets overstimulated. We can see this multiple times in terms of Kaz moments, but I want to talk about two: One from the books, and one from the show. In a story told in Kaz’s chapters in Crooked Kingdom, Kaz once tried to get over his touch aversion in order to be with a girl named Imogen. This failed horribly and Kaz ended up shaking on a bathroom floor in the Slat. This is relatable to me as an autistic person, as I cannot touch my mother or sister due to trauma reasons. Also, Leigh Bardugo’s description of what it’s like for Kaz when he touches people skin-to-skin is a perfect description of how I feel when I get touched by my mother or sister (or anyone when I just don’t want to be touched). In the show, we see a very similar situation in which Kaz is touched skin-to-skin and he gets overstimulated very quickly. He loses focus, stumbles to a quiet place, and can’t seem to deal with what is happening around him. This is very much what happens when an autistic person overstimulates: We lose focus of what we were doing, we try to reach a quiet place where we can process stimulation, and we break down.
Now I’ll talk about Kaz’s protection of Wylan as Wylan is commonly accepted as an autistic character within the Grishaverse (as well as David Kostyk and I believe Alina Starkov and Tolya Yul-Bataar to be autistic as well, but that’s for another time). Kaz is very protective over Wylan and some even say that Wylan becomes a mini-Kaz. Even though I do not agree with that statement, they can be very similar, notably in autistic traits. I believe that Kaz sees himself in Wylan in terms of relatability because of their shared autism. Yes, autism affects every autistic person differently, but we know that there are some more common autism traits that I think Kaz sees in Wylan and feels the need to protect him because of this. He relates to Wylan, and that’s not something Kaz has very often, so he cherishes it and that leads to protective tendencies.
Moving on, I would like to talk about Kaz’s use of comfort objects. This is shown multiple times throughout both the Six of Crows duology and the Shadow and Bone show, and anyone who knows anything about Kaz’s character could see that he has an attachment to his cane and his gloves. In a Kaz pov chapter in Six of Crows, it is said outright that Kaz would give up half his share of the earnings of the job for the ‘familiar heft of his cane.’ This indicates a need for the familiarity of a comfort object. Also, while on this job, Kaz leaves a lot behind to be less conspicuous, but he doesn’t give up his gloves. This very much relates to my earlier point about Kaz’s trauma and his inability to touch people skin-to-skin, but he also appreciates the familiarity of them and it’s stated blatantly that when he has to take off his gloves for just a few minutes, his hands feel naked as he always has his gloves on, no matter what. Familiarity is very important to autistic people, as shown by our love for routine and things being done in specific ways, but we also love having comfort objects to calm us when the world becomes too much. For some, this could be a teddy bear, for me it’s books and my headphones, and for Kaz, it’s his cane and gloves.
Lastly, I shall analyse Kaz’s hyperfixation tendencies and his special interest. Lots of people get hyperfixated on things, but Kaz (and other autistic people alike) feels the need to know the ins-and-outs of everything he does and knows, and this is shown a multitude of times throughout Six of Crows. First, he stayed up all night trying to figure out a magic trick he’d seen and even compares this to what other people tend to do in similar situations. Secondly, his lock-picking ability definitely falls into the category of this as he states that to understand something, he takes them apart to analyse them, just as autistic people feel they need to know the details of something before it finally clicks. A broad description just won’t do. Next, Kaz definitely gets hyperfixated on jobs as he always knows everything that could happen, what the plan is and how everything fits together. This makes him a great planner and his problem-solving skills are astounding. He naturally and skilfully overcomes any obstacles when planning jobs and he always knows the ins-and-outs of what is happening and what the group should do if the plan goes sideways.
Kaz’s special interest is crows. This seems oh-so obvious but nobody ever actually talks about it. I mean, he named his crew after crows, knows the social tendencies of crows and relates that to his crew, his life, and even talks to Inej about them in Season 1 of Shadow and Bone. His cane has a crows’ head, he named his club ‘The Crow Club’ and yet no one talks about this special interest of his? It’s literally in the name of the book.
In conclusion, Kaz is a very autism-coded character and I’m truly surprised by the fact that I’ve seen no one talk about this before. From his lack of awareness with social cues, his comfort objects, his hyperfixations to even his sleeping habits, Kaz is a blatantly autistic character and this needs to be brought to light. He is great autism representation and we need to talk about it!
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