SHADOWHUNTERS AND DOWNWORLDERS

The Master Plan versus the Masterpiece


An artist is used to failure. Not every work she envisions is going to come out right the first time. There will be disappointment and torn-up sketches—but a dedicated artist knows to keep going until she gets it right. Sometimes it’s a matter of rethinking the original concept. Sometimes the flaw is in the execution. But no matter why it’s not working, an artist knows that the struggle isn’t over until she chooses to abandon the piece. She has to be flexible and keep her mind open to inspiration—but she will succeed. Because she’s learning, and getting better, every day.

Valentine, Clary’s father and the villain whose search for the Mortal Instruments sets the Mortal War in motion, is not an artist. He’s a Shadowhunter warrior who believes in physical strength above all else, a narrow-minded megalomaniac and a first-class manipulator who lets his “son” Jace take a bath in spaghetti on his birthday but also breaks the neck of Jace’s pet falcon, just to teach Jace the lesson that “to love is to destroy”…which I guess means that Valentine really, really loves the Clave, his family, and Downworlders, because he wants to destroy all of that and rebuild it to suit his “pure” sensibilities. This is the guy who, when his best friend, Lucian, got turned into a werewolf, offered him a knife and told him to do the right thing and kill himself. We can see how far the Clary apple falls from the Valentine tree just by how they treat their BFFs, both of whom became Downworlders, interestingly enough.

Like most villains, Valentine has a master plan. And because his enemies believed he was dead for over sixteen years, he’s had more than enough time to perfect it. He has spies on his side; he’s bolstered himself with demon and angel blood; he even has a part-demonic secret son to unleash. He can predict the Clave’s every move and counter it. By the time he makes his play for the Mortal Cup, he’s confident no one can stand in his way.

Valentine knows he has to gather the Mortal Instruments in order to gain the power to bring the Clave to its knees and make his dream of a “pure” world a reality: first the Mortal Cup, then the Mortal Sword, then the Mortal Mirror. When he has all three Mortal Instruments, he can summon the angel Raziel and compel him to cleanse the world of “corrupt” Shadowhunters and Downworlders (“corrupt” meaning anyone who’s not on Valentine’s side).

Valentine has planned for every contingency he can imagine, but he has a weakness: His imagination only stretches so far. He’s two steps ahead of everyone…except Clary.

Clary’s a dreamer. For years, she’s faced the blank page and filled it with figures from her fantasies or careful depictions of things she’s seen. As an artist, her imagination isn’t fettered by the constraints of reality.

Valentine is playing by a specific set of rules—he expects to win because he has what he believes is a road map to victory. Clary, a creative thinker, is unpredictable—she doesn’t play by Valentine’s rules, she makes her own. And she uses her imagination—her ability to think outside the Gray Book—to stop Valentine at every turn.

When Jace asks Clary if she can create a Fearless rune, she focuses, goes into that artistic zone that even Simon can’t pull her out of, and draws a rune no one has seen before. It’s Clary’s Fearless rune that enables Jace to withstand the Greater Demon Agramon’s fear attack when Valentine unleashes him in City of Ashes. Valentine used Agramon to murder a Silent City’s worth of Silent Brothers, but Jace can’t be undone by his worst fear, thanks to the strength Clary has drawn onto his skin.

When Valentine’s demon army is busy making short work of the Shadowhunters on board Valentine’s Ship of Evil (note: not its actual name), Clary is the one who demolishes her father’s plans by dismantling the entire ship with her superpowered Rune of Opening. Nuts, bolts, walls, floors, everything falls apart—as does Valentine’s victory. Clary can’t beat him in combat, so she ends the battle by destroying his battleground instead.

And when the Clave is about to surrender to Valentine’s demands, because they’re certain they can’t win against “every demon the Mortal Sword can summon” (City of Glass), Clary is the one who insists that the fight isn’t over yet. She brings the Shadowhunters and Downworlders together by creating a rune that even Downworlders can wear: an Alliance rune that allows pairs of Shadowhunters and Downworlders to fight together and to draw on each other’s strengths. And, by insisting they team up—“if you don’t fight beside them, the runes won’t work” (City of Glass)—Clary is creating not just a temporary magical alliance but, potentially, a lasting one. She’s helping to break down the walls of misunderstanding and fear that have kept the Shadowhunters and Downworlders from being true allies.

The bonding of Shadowhunters and Downworlders is a development that Valentine never could have foreseen—because, aside from it being unlikely, prior to Clary’s Alliance rune, it simply wasn’t possible. And the Alliance rune is an especially apt way to challenge Valentine, because he has been bitterly jealous of the Downworlders’ powers for years. He went so far as to imprison Downworlder “specimens” in an underground lab, where he experimented on and tortured them in an attempt to learn their secrets. When Valentine similarly imprisoned the angel Ithuriel, initially it was to get answers to these questions: “Why should their powers be greater than ours? Why can’t we share in what they have?” (City of Glass)

Valentine hated that Downworlders possessed powers Shadowhunters lacked, but it never occurred to him to try to share the Downworlders’ powers peacefully, in a way that would benefit both groups. His selfishness and cruelty blinded him to that possibility, whereas Clary’s open mind allowed her to accomplish what her father never could.

In the end, when all seems lost—when Valentine stands at the edge of Lake Lyn with the Mortal Cup and Mortal Sword in hand; Jace lies dead on the ground; and Clary is devastated and hindered by runes that prevent her from speaking, separating her bound wrists, or walking—she grips a stele in her bound hands and, with a few swipes, draws over one of the runes Valentine has written to contain and control the angel Raziel. It is the rune symbolizing Valentine’s name, and Clary uses the last of her strength to write her own name over it.

That single small rune is all she can manage, but it is enough. It makes her the master of the circle Valentine has drawn, which allows her to compel Raziel—while also stripping that power from Valentine, who picked the wrong day to incite an angel’s holy wrath.

Clary has fought by using her art and imagination every step of the way. It’s as if this battle against Valentine is her masterpiece, and she’s signing her name to all of it. Her signature: the final mark you put on a piece of art—because she’s given it all she has, and it’s done. This fight with Valentine—it’s over.

With one final Mark, Clary signs her name to her father’s defeat and puts an end to his reign of terror.