SHADOWHUNTERS AND DOWNWORLDERS

Beyond the One True Pairing


The lack of attention given to just-friendship when love is also in the air has been noted before. No less than C. S. Lewis—himself one half of a famous literary bromance with J.R.R. Tolkien—wrote in Four Loves, “To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it.” Of course, a few paragraphs later, he also nails one of the reasons why that’s so, pointing out that there’s “nothing throaty about it, nothing that quickens the pulse or turns you red and pale.” Romantic love is more dramatic, more edge of the seat. Hearts pound, palms sweat, cheeks burn, breath quickens. Friendship has different, subtler effects. It brings other rewards, and other costs.

I’m not disputing the importance of connections centered on romantic love, because that would be insane. Clary + Jace = forever. What I’m suggesting is that the connections of friendship in the series are just as real, strong, and important as the smooch-inclined ones. But it’s also not as if those types of relationships and friendship are mutually exclusive, so some further definition is in order to make clear where friendship fits into the mix.

Acknowledging areas of overlap is important partially because the overarching story of the series, in which Team Good battles Team Evil (or, at times, Team Less Good) to protect the world, is played out primarily through relationships. The Mortal Instruments is all about the ever-evolving connections between people, whether they’re human or supernatural beings. Clare explores a wide variety of relationships over the course of the series, all with their own specific depth and complexity: fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, Shadowhunters in a parabatai bond, siblings (including those who turn out not to be siblings after all, whew), to tick off just a few examples. Throw the bad history between Downworlders and Shadowhunters or the natural dislike between vampires and werewolves into the mix and things get even more interesting. But since we’re talking here about one specific variety of relationship—friendship—what is it that makes a friend a friend?

The answer isn’t entirely straightforward. Without a doubt, friendship can be a facet of another type of relationship, such as a romance or a sibling bond. But it’s just as telling that it isn’t always present. We all know people whose familial relationships definitely don’t come with the kind of easy closeness and unstated trust that characterizes the best friendships. The phrase “close as sisters” may be used to describe friends, but we all know sisters who aren’t close at all. Can friendship be separated from a romance in the same way? Of course it can. Anyone who’s ever broken up with someone only to never see or speak to them again can vouch for that. For the purposes of this essay, I’m defining friendship as a specific form of closeness that may be the sole basis of a relationship—as with Clary and Simon—or may be an additional element of a relationship—as with Alec and Jace. Friendships aren’t forced into existence by bonds of blood or sexual history and chemistry. On some level, a friendship always requires a choice. And, as the Mortal Instruments clearly demonstrates, that choice can be one of the most important ones we ever make.

Notably, in City of Bones, the first relationship we’re introduced to is one that will be among the most significant of the series. When we meet Clary and Simon heading into Pandemonium, everything about the way they are with each other signals that they have a long-established friendship. The ease with which they banter and the way they so clearly know each other’s preferences (Clary informing Simon that he hates trance music) shows off their common friend shorthand. Simon immediately trusts what Clary says and goes for help when she reveals she’s seen two strange boys with knives, even if he didn’t see them. All of this lets us know that this isn’t going to be one of those books where the protagonist’s so-called best friend disappears the moment the sexier members of the “other” world make an appearance. Simon is important. And Clary and Simon’s friendship will be tested, as much as any other relationship in the series.

Just as Simon and Clary always describe each other as “best friend,” so Jace describes Alec. In addition to having grown up together and being close friends, Jace and Alec are also parabatai. They fight together, and they have each other’s backs, but the parabatai bond means more than that. Parabatai are described as being “closer than brothers,” and, of course, they are also forbidden from falling in love with each other. In a very real sense, the parabatai bond is a pledge that formalizes friendship between warriors in the same way marriage does love. Parabatai know each other in a way no one else is able to. Alec is able to fake out everyone—even Isabelle—when Jace is imprisoned by the Inquisitor in City of Ashes by pretending to sell out his friend. But if they had the same bond with him that Jace does, they’d have instantly seen through his fakery, and known that his only intention is to help Jace get free. Alec doesn’t flinch when Jace says Valentine asked him to join Team Evil; he knows, without a doubt, that Jace would never have agreed and he understands that Jace needs reassurance that Alec would never believe he would. Jace is someone who needs other people’s good opinion of him, because he’s so quick to turn on himself. Alec knows this, because he knows his best friend.

But what about when it isn’t so clear whether a pair is meant to be or meant to be just friends? The Mortal Instruments proves more than once that the boundary between platonic friend and lover often appears more porous than it is…at least to the one who wants to make it across.

Unrequited Never Felt So Good

Both Alec and Jace’s and Simon and Clary’s friendships start the series with a one-sided crush destined to be crushed. Believing you are in love with your best friend is an entirely understandable thing. In real life, the best romances are either built on friendship or quickly grow to include one; otherwise it’s all chemistry, no trust and camaraderie. But who hasn’t been confused thinking that this person they share so much with might be able to love them in that way too? And is there anything worse than someone forcing the issue?

Take Simon and Clary’s relationship at the beginning of City of Bones, before they meet the Shadowhunters. This earliest incarnation of their friendship almost seems thin and strained—but only because of how strong it later becomes. Yes, they are best friends with a history stretching back to childhood, with great knowledge of each other’s quirks and with great affection for one another. But there’s also a wall between them, with one side made up of Simon’s desire for their relationship to become romantic and the other by Clary’s obliviousness at first and then tolerance of that desire. Their friend shorthand is compromised by the fact that one side—Simon—often indicates or says something to the other—Clary—that she isn’t fully reading, understanding, or seeing. Until, that is, the issue of Simon’s one-sided romantic feelings for Clary is forced.

That finally comes in City of Ashes, when these two best friends step over the line and test the make-out waters following the revelation that Clary and Jace are brother and sister. It doesn’t quite go how either expects. From the confusion that Clary feels when Simon calls her his girlfriend and it rolls off his tongue so easily, to the underwhelming emotional impact of their kissing on Clary and even how fast Simon falls asleep when she goes to change into her pajamas, we know this can only end in tears. But, instead, because this is a Cassie Clare book, it ends in blood.

When the Queen of Faerie announces that Clary must stay behind because she tasted faerie food, she also offers an out. A kiss, she says, and there’s a round robin of combinations proposed—Simon steps up to kiss Clary, and she thinks about how she’s not entirely comfortable with the prospect in this situation or any other, a tacit admission that the budding effort at romance isn’t going to work. But when Jace and Clary engage in their thinking-of-anything-but-England kiss, Simon sees the truth, even if he’s not ready to admit it yet either. Hurt, he takes off and gets himself killed. Or, rather, undead. One of the series’ most heartbreaking moments is Simon’s death scene in Clary’s arms, with her last words of “Simon, I love you” and her protective lashing out against Jace when she thinks he might try to kill Simon for good. Her tender insistence that Simon be buried in a Jewish cemetery for his rising, on being there when he claws his way from the ground—those are the moments when it becomes certain that not only will their friendship survive the crash-and-lukewarm-burn attempt at romance but it will be stronger because of it.

For Simon, the realization that this romance is doomed doesn’t happen quite so early. The first time he and Clary are reunited after his transition to being a vampire, he thinks about the threshold toward romance they’ve crossed as “fragile as a flickering candle flame,” and he also believes that it will be his fault if it breaks and that “something inside him would shatter too, something that could never be fixed.” The good thing is that he’s wrong, and by the end of the novel, he’s ready to openly acknowledge he’d rather have something real with Clary than a false love affair. He finally understands that what matters is that his and Clary’s friendship survives—and it does, and he does. By City of Fallen Angels, he’s dating Izzy and Maia at the same time, and when he and Clary end a phone conversation with simple declarations of love for each other, Simon reflects that he’d had so much trouble saying those words for so long but “[n]ow that he no longer meant them the same way, it was easy.”

In fact, the scaling of that wall between them—or, more aptly, the smashing it out of the way—is what finally makes Simon and Clary’s friendship absolutely unshakable. They understand each other deeply enough that Simon goes along with Clary taking the incredible risk of going with Jace and Sebastian in City of Lost Souls, because he knows she’ll do it anyway, and this way at least he can be there for her via faerie radio receiver. Clary and Simon’s love for each other is epic—once they get the pesky prospect of romance out of the way.

The series’ other set of best friends—Alec and Jace—aren’t as openly demonstrative as Clary and Simon (read: no making out) but face a similar obstacle. Alec believes he’s in love with Jace, despite the prohibition against falling for your parabatai, and he has the added worry over coming out. But Jace knows Alec so well that he picks up on his friend’s budding relationship with Magnus when no one else does. And, in a pure Jace fashion, he outs this fact casually in City of Ashes, reminding Magnus he’s the only warlock they know who happens to be dating one of their friends. When Alec protests, Jace’s reaction is confusion. He wants Alec to be comfortable coming clean with him about this and goes so far as to assure him it doesn’t matter.

That their friendship survives Jace not getting what a big deal this admission is to Alec—in fact, questioning why it is a big deal, directly and cluelessly—is a testament to its strength. Unlike Clary, Jace either hasn’t realized Alec’s feelings for him yet or isn’t comfortable speaking to them. Jace only knows an essential fact about his friend Alec that, of course, doesn’t change how he feels about Alec. Painful or not, the revelation that Alec didn’t ask for is the first open reassurance Alec receives that maybe he won’t lose everything if he’s honest with himself and the people around him. Maybe he won’t lose Jace. Maybe he’ll gain Magnus. By the time Alec and Jace talk about Alec’s feelings openly in City of Glass, the fact that these two will remain friends is clear. Jace rudely attempts to push Alec away, in a pure Jace-like fashion. He dismisses Alec’s crush as existing only because Jace is safe, in that he’s not a viable romantic partner. But we know this won’t ultimately push Alec away—not in the sense that matters most. Sure, it takes Alec time to announce his feelings for Magnus, but the real relationship he has with Jace, not the aspirational one, is his first reassurance that the people who love him will accept him as he is. His friendship with Jace is transformational: It helps him admit who he loves.

Once these key relationships are settled—and stronger—for being confirmed as best friends (only) for life, all-new connections are formed as a result among the other people in their lives. What happens when you’re the best friend who doesn’t exactly get along with the other people in your favorite Shadowhunter’s life? Well, it seems you make friends with them, sometimes by accident.





Familiarity Breeds Odd Couples


The unique thing about the Mortal Instruments is not just that the story honors these friendships but that the characters do too. In a sea of books where characters are often friendless until they lock eyes with someone hot across a crowded room or have a token friend who disappears once the action gets going and is never thought of again, it’s a refreshing change. How else to explain Jace’s unflinching decision to feed Simon his blood to bring him back to life during the climactic battle of City of Ashes? He saves Simon even though there’s no love lost between the two of them because he doesn’t want Clary to experience the pain of losing her friend. And if there’s one thing Jace and Simon both seem to understand about each other from the word go, it’s how the other feels about Clary. Though Simon at least briefly considers them romantic rivals, in every instance that truly matters, there’s a grudging acknowledgment by both that the other guy doesn’t want to hurt Clary, will protect her at all costs, and has a fierce loyalty to her. Each is aware that Clary needs both of them. She needs Jace, but she needs Simon too. When Jace is missing in City of Lost Souls, Simon’s presence allows her to sleep at night (much to Izzy’s dismay—more on that in a moment).

Just as it made for the unlikely scenario of Jace saving Simon, again, Simon’s friendship with Clary leads to something even more unlikely in City of Fallen Angels. Not long after Simon thinks to himself that the two aren’t even friends, this odd couple is out shopping for tomato soup together. Over time the boys’ shared care for Clary turns into a strange friendship of its own. Simon can’t not take care of Jace when he sees the other boy hurting. Perhaps that is partly because he knows what Clary feels for Jace and what Jace feels for her in turn, but I have to believe it’s also about what he and Jace have been through by this point. They might never admit it, but Simon and Jace have chosen—perhaps grudgingly—to become friends.

And it’s not so odd when you think about it. They’ve been through battles—plural—together. And Simon’s vampirism serves as an equalizer of sorts. Jace may be the gorgeous untouchable Shadowhunter, but as Simon continues becoming the hero he’s meant to be, he becomes perfectly capable of retaliating against Jace’s insults. That’s right: Simon starts quipping back. Male friends teasing each other is a tradition as old as time (or at least middle school) itself. And if Simon and Jace can be friends, anyone can. I dream of a world where Downworlders and Shadowhunters snark side by side, and it looks a lot like this.

The other odd couple with memorable scenes in City of Fallen Angels (and elsewhere in the series) is Izzy and Clary. Knowing she can’t call Jace to come to her and check out the mysterious address of the Church of Talto, Clary texts Isabelle. Just as with Jace and Simon, neither of these two will quite admit that they trust the other. Neither wants to admit they really are friends at this point, beneath their bickering. Izzy informs Clary that their “girl talk” is normal and seems strange to her only because Simon’s been her only friend. Still, I have always thought that Izzy is the one among the group who most needs a friend. Family is so important to her, but unlike Simon and Clary or Jace and Alec, she doesn’t have a best friend to call her own.

Surely part of what draws her to Simon is that so much of their relationship ends up being built on the roles friends usually play for each other. He makes her laugh. They talk. She’s confused by her growing feelings for him but also by the way his presence comforts her. And though Isabelle’s jealousy of Clary’s close relationship with Simon persists, I’d be willing to wager its days are numbered. If Simon and Isabelle work out, maybe she will finally understand—in the same way Jace does—what Simon and Clary are to each other and that their bond is not a rival to her own relationship with Simon.

This spiderweb of connections is woven into new patterns in each volume of the series. The more horrors our heroes go through together, the more resilient the web becomes. Not being friends with someone whose life you’ve saved—more than once—is hard. Just as it’s hard not to be friends with someone who’s a good person at heart, once you know them in the way that’s possible only after you’ve seen them vulnerable. Just as it’s possible to engage in mutual trust only once your friendship is established enough to chance showing that vulnerability.