Shadowhunters and Downworlders

JACE: That’s what all the ladies tell me.

ALINE: Good straight-to-the-filthtastic point! I hear you’re foxier than the Fantastic Mr. Fox.

JACE: And the rumors are true!

ALINE: I don’t see it myself.

JACE: Maybe if I turned to the side? I’ve been told my profile is allu—

ALINE: No. I’ve also been told you’re quite the Casanova.

JACE: Well, not to brag, but I’ve nova’d a few casas in my time.

ALINE: Excellent. So you feel you could arouse a lady, if a lady was capable of being aroused by a dude.

JACE: Oh. Ohhhh. Oh I understand, I have an adopted brother who’s…

ALINE: Do something more useful with your mouth than talking, I feel like I’m getting gayer by the second.

JACE: Challenge accepted!…

ALINE: Thanks, man. You have confirmed for me beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am super, super gay. I cannot describe to you how intensely I am not attracted to you.

JACE: …Thanks. But objectively, I’m totally an eight, right?

ALINE: Later, dude.

JACE: Seven and a half ?

ALINE: Awkward when your sister walked in. Well, could’ve been worse, it could have been a girlfriend of yours.

JACE: Ahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

ALINE: …I’m going to leave you to laugh hollowly and psychotically on your own.

JACE: Good luck with your complicated love life.

ALINE: Same, dude. Same.

Oh, Jace Herondale-Wayland-Lightwood-Morgenstern, Shadowhunter by day, Shadowhunters’ sex therapist by night. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.

It’s not like we’re lacking perversion in other relationships. There’s also Simon and Maia, who date even though he’s a vampire and she’s a werewolf and they are destined enemies, and Simon and Isabelle, the vampire and the Shadowhunter (shark and shark hunter is coming, I know it!).

Demons, Shadowhunters, vampires, and werewolves are not real. (AUDIENCE: Glad you’ve cleared that up for us, Sarah. This is such an insightful essay!) No, really, but listen, this is important, because supernatural creatures have often been used as analogies for those seen as the Other—people of color, people with religious beliefs different from Christian, people who aren’t heterosexual—because it was seen as taboo to actually represent them. It is not taboo anymore—or at least it shouldn’t be—and this means that supernatural analogies for representation and actual representation exist in the same books, often in an overlapping way. Maia is half African American and a werewolf, Magnus is half Asian and a warlock, Jem is half Chinese and a Shadowhunter, Simon is Jewish and a vampire.

I like the supernatural as analogy fine—for instance, I love when Simon is trying to come out as a vampire using the language of coming out from a gay pamphlet—but analogies work only up to a point. Having a supernatural character “come out” isn’t actually the same as a character coming out as gay, and can’t be treated entirely as if it is. Simon shows this is an imperfect analogy by how he adapts the language. He cannot leave it as is because that won’t work. “The undead are just like you and me…Possibly more like me than you” (City of Ashes). The lust of a vampire for blood and a person for sex are ultimately different, and that has to be clear. Being a person of color and being gay are different things, though, again, they can overlap—in Aline’s case, for instance—and that has to be clear. Fancying people of both sexes and fancying your sibling, also two very different situations! Hella not the same.