Shadowhunters and Downworlders

Speaking of Clary and Jace’s love for each other: It is forbidden. Nay, it is taboo. No, I mean, they think they’re brother and sister for several books, and yet they can’t quite stamp out the feelings they had for each other before this dreadful discovery. Their Facebook relationship statuses say “IT’S COMPLICATED!!!!!!”


Fortunately, Jace and Clary turn out not to be related. (I mean, if you buy Valentine’s story and don’t think to yourself: Hey, so this hot devoted-to-Valentine young lassie Celine Herondale [Jace’s mom] was in an unhappy marriage and lived next door, and Valentine was also having marital difficulties [“You never take out the trash and you always put demons in our son!”] and then Celine got pregnant and Valentine adopted her kid as his own—sure, okay, normal behavior, that Valentine, he’s a giver—and he could have popped the Herondale scar on the baby real quick so nobody asked any awkward follow-up questions in the future. That’s a personal theory. Nobody tell Jace and Clary: They might get upset. I may have already told Cassandra Clare, who said, and I quote, “You’re sick, dude,” and, “There’s something very wrong with you.” So I cannot call this theory author-approved. ) This does not change the fact that Jace and Clary believed they were in the wrong and could not help feeling what they felt anyway.

Cassandra Clare is on record as saying she was inspired by the real-life story of a couple who were going to get married and found out they were brother and sister. (Most awkward “actually don’t save the date” notes ever, am I right?) I can completely see why she was inspired. It is a horrible thing to happen to two innocent people in love, and books are all about horrible things happening to people. So you become involved with someone, you find out something terrible, you can’t entirely crush your feelings: That is a tragedy. That is nobody’s fault. Human beings are complicated.

And if you give in to your mutual (mutual is important, kids) desires and act on them, that’s okay, even if in the last analysis you decide pursuing the relationship is a bad idea. Clary and Jace never decide to date even though they’re related because holy complications, Batman. They do, however, make out wildly twice. Admittedly, once when Jace is in a fit of self-loathing, and one time the Queen of the Faeries makes them do it.

FAERIE QUEEN: Faerie Queen says kiss. Basically, being Queen of the Faeries is 70 percent voyeurism, 30 percent crafting giant flowers to wear on my head.

JACE AND CLARY: We’re related.

FAERIE QUEEN: I know! I love me some Flowers in the Attic shizz.

Just because they enjoyed it doesn’t mean you didn’t violate them, Faerie Queen! And they’re not bad people for enjoying it, or for feeling the way they do. The reader sympathizes with them.

Speaking of reader sympathy, I once read a review of one of Cassandra Clare’s books online that said that her talent would trick you into believing Magnus and Alec’s relationship was beautiful instead of wrong. I found that sad, of course, because it is sad that in this day and age there are people, genuinely good and well-meaning people, who think that (a) love is wrong and (b) what consenting adults get up to is any of their business. I found it inspiring too, though—if even people who think like that found the relationship beautiful, perhaps it dropped a seed of tolerance and love there. And for those who didn’t start from the place of “This is wrong, terrible and wrong!” but who started from a place of being undecided or ignorant or oblivious…well, maybe Magnus and Alec’s relationship made them aware and accepting. In the words of noted philosopher Lily Allen, “Look inside your tiny mind/and look a bit harder.” These books encourage everyone to do that, simply by presenting a world that has all kinds of people in it. Presenting such a world is a risk, of course: Many readers, like the reviewer mentioned above, find a diverse world perverse in some way. But that diversity is also something that makes the world of the books richer, the books themselves better, and the minds of those reading them broader.

Which might just be a long way of me saying, “Rock on with your bad selves, you deviants.” And speaking of deviants…

Not many gorgeous young heroes of YA novels share a kiss with warlock dudes, unless their wanting to share a kiss with dudes is the entire premise of the novel. Will Herondale of the Infernal Devices got snogged by Magnus Bane and then wandered off in a slightly drugged-up haze. It was not the most scandalous thing that had ever happened to Will. It was not even the most scandalous thing that happened to Will that day.

Jace Wayland-Morgenstern-Herondale-Lightwood (Jace has three daddies, okay, and they’re all varying degrees of evil) is like Will in that this is a dude who’s probably straight but open to new experiences. It’s not all running around naked with antlers on his head and adopting the alias Hotschaft von Hugenstein: Jace also offers to kiss Alec to address the question of Alec’s attraction to him, and does make out with Aline Penhallow on request to ascertain her orientation. I wonder how that conversation went.

ALINE: Yo, Wayland-Herondale-Morgenstern-Lightwood! That’s a mouthful.