Shadowhunters and Downworlders

KENDARE BLAKE

I’ve caused a lot of consternation among fans with the Jace/ Clary sibling plotline. I know this because of the amount of AUGH and ICK that have come my way over time. But isn’t that what we want from a story? For it to make our hair stand on end? For it to make us question our assumptions about what sort of love is acceptable to us, and why?

You can probably tell that I’ve written about this too much already, as evidenced in my language having devolved to “AUGH” and “ICK,” which is why I’m so glad Kendare has swooped in with this articulate essay, rescuing me from any further embarrassment.


BROTHERLY LOVE

JACE, CLARY, AND THE FUNCTION OF TABOO



There’s a reason that stories end at Happily Ever After. Happy couples are boring. Bo-ring. It’s all kissy faces and “honey-bear this” and “snuggle-pie that.” It’s sweet, and deep, and meaningful. And it makes us want to close the book. As readers, we’re drawn in by the struggle, by the drama, by the desires of the characters. There are few things in literature more enthralling to read than the tale of two people who yearn to be together. The great love stories tell us that to be truly engaging, couples should yearn against seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The more a couple has to overcome, the more forbidden the romance, the more we root for them. The young lovers of Romeo and Juliet defied a family feud and married in secret. Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar fought against societal constraints and shame in Brokeback Mountain. Lancelot and Guinevere overcame the constraints of common sense and decency. In Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series, Jace Wayland and Clary Fray overcome the taboo of sibling incest, and they do it without ever crossing the gross-out line.





Taboo as Titillation


Taboo (noun): a custom prohibiting or restricting a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing

When Jace is shown to be Clary’s brother, the two have been falling in love for the better part of a book. The reader has invested in them. But the introduction of incest still should throw up a significant barrier for romantic enjoyment. It should stop us in our tracks, turn us 180 degrees, give us that slimy feeling we get when we remember that time we accidentally watched Flowers in the Attic on TV.

This is not the reader response it evoked. Readers wanted Jace and Clary together anyway. The question is: Why? And the answer lies in the very fact that they aren’t supposed to be.

Everyone loves a good taboo. Tell a person they can’t or shouldn’t do something, and well, you know what happens. As many people as the taboo discourages, it seems to encourage that many more. Even when it’s incest. If you need evidence, just Google “incest stories” and watch the hits roll in.

But what is it about taboo that makes it so appealing? Why are we so much more desperate for Jace and Clary to be together simply because they can’t be? The simple (probably oversimple) answer is human nature. People have a tendency to want what they can’t have and to want to do what people tell them they shouldn’t. It’s the old Pandora’s Box problem. “Don’t open that,” someone says, and instantly, a box you might never have looked twice at becomes much more interesting. Why can’t we open it? What would happen if we did? What’s in there? It’s curiosity, and the need to learn for ourselves, and before we know it, the box is wide open. Or maybe humans just have a deep-seated need for suffering and strife. The impact of taboo is complicated, and mired in layers of psychology.