SHADOWHUNTERS AND DOWNWORLDERS

SARA RYAN

So, Malec. This relationship means many things to many people, but Sara Ryan’s essay unpacks more than just Magnus and Alec; it also examines other characters in and outside of the Mortal Instruments, ways we can see ourselves reflected.

This is a subject near and dear to my heart—I strive to let my gay characters be human, be themselves, rather than a token minority that must behave perfectly. (I strive for this for all of my characters, for that matter.) No character should have to hop to and be an “example.” Each has a right to his or her own missteps and personal journeys.

Additionally: Sara’s analysis of Magnus’ outfits in relation to geography and history is not to be missed!


THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING MALEC

WINDOWS, MIRRORS, AND CASSANDRA CLARE’S QUEER CHARACTERS

With the right slant of light, every window becomes a mirror.

—Mitali Perkins

If you hang around with people whose idea of fun includes analyzing literature (and if you don’t, I commend you for reading this book anyway), you’ll eventually run into the concept of mirrors versus windows.

A mirror book, as you might guess, is a book where the characters have significant things in common with the reader. For instance, a white, straight, midwestern girl reading a book about white, straight, midwestern girls would be having a mirror-type reading experience. A window book provides insight into characters and places that are less familiar to the reader. For that same white, straight, midwestern girl, a book about a gay Latino boy in New York City whose dream is to become a makeup artist would be a window read. Both kinds of books are important. If you do nothing but look in a mirror when you read, your sense of the world won’t be very expansive. But if you’re constantly looking through windows at characters whose lives in no way resemble yours, it can make you feel alone.

If you’re a queer or questioning reader, it’s way easier to find windows than mirrors. If you’re looking for young adult books with LGBT characters, good luck: According to an analysis by YA author Malinda Lo, only .2 percent of YA books published between 2000 and 2011 featured LGBT characters. Not 2 percent; point 2 percent.

So what do you do when you can’t find mirrors?

One option is to try to create that slant of light Mitali Perkins mentions, the one that changes a window into a mirror. But how? Mary Borsellino, author of Girl and Boy Wonders, explains in an interview with aca-fan Professor Henry Jenkins:

As a queer person, or a woman, or someone of a marginalized socioeconomic background, or a non-Caucasian person, it’s often necessary to perform a negotiated reading on a text before there’s any way to identify with any character within it. Rather than being able to identify an obvious and overt avatar within the text, a viewer in such a position has to use cues and clues to find an equivalent through metaphor a lot of the time.

That negotiation can take various forms, depending on what the author gives you to work with. If you’re lucky, you have what you get in Cassandra Clare’s books: both cues and clues in metaphor and obvious avatars with whom to identify. Or to put it into the terms I’ve been using, you get both windows and mirrors.





Cues and Clues: The Right Slant of Light


The first time characters discuss coming out in the Mortal Instruments, it has nothing to do with revealing same-gender attraction. In City of Ashes, Luke Garroway, aka Lucian Greymark, benevolent werewolf and father figure to Clary Fray, has gotten hold of a pamphlet, How to Come Out to Your Parents.He thinks it may help Simon Lewis explain his new situation to his mom. “The pamphlet’s all about telling your parents difficult truths about yourself they may not want to face.”

When Clary presents the pamphlet to Simon, he “practices”:

Mom. I have something to tell you. I’m undead. Now, I know you may have some preconceived notions about the undead. I know you may not be comfortable with the idea of me being undead. But I’m here to tell you that the undead are just like you and me…Well, okay. Possibly more like me than you.

Whether you’re reading to find connections to queerness or not, the scene helps to get across that Simon really has fundamentally changed. And even though the changes include greater strength, keener senses, and heightened charisma (along with less appealing new challenges like the gnawing need for blood, preferably human), the fact remains: It would be really hard to tell your mom that you were a vampire. Talking points might help.

And if you are looking for that link—if you’re reading that section and you’ve come out, or you’re thinking about coming out—it’s not hard to connect your experience to Simon’s, to identify with him in a way that maybe you didn’t before. Or maybe you did identify with him before, but it was because he was in a band, or because he liked anime, or D&D, or because he, like you, loved Clary. By using the analogy of coming out for Simon’s situation, Clare makes it possible for you to start seeing a version of yourself in the book.

But if you’re queer and reading about Simon, you’re still performing the kind of negotiated reading that Borsellino describes. You’re thinking about the ways Simon being a vampire is like being queer—and arguably there are some, but it’s not like there’s an exact equivalency. For the queer reader, Simon is still more of a window than a mirror.

You can find another cue and clue in Aline Penhallow, who, it turns out, kissed Jace only because she wanted “to figure out if any guy is my type.” It’s not that much of a stretch to deduce that if guys aren’t, perhaps ladies are. (And indeed, we find out in City of Lost Souls that they are. Or at least one lady, Helen Blackthorn, is.)