SHADOWHUNTERS AND DOWNWORLDERS

She Came, She Drew, She Conquered


It’s fitting that during the final confrontation with Valentine in City of Glass, Clary is unable to speak. Valentine has silenced her with a rune, so her last words to him—when he’s finally seen her for who she is, instead of the weak little girl he perceives her to be—are not spoken but drawn.

Clary stretched out her hand, and with her finger she wrote in the sand at his feet. She didn’t draw runes. She drew words: the words he had said to her the first time he’d seen what she could do, when she’d drawn the rune that had destroyed his ship.

MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN.

Valentine has known about Clary’s rune-creating ability, but until defeat is staring him in the face, he still thinks of her as weak. He underestimates her time and time again—because she was raised as a mundane, not a Shadowhunter. Because she’s an artist, not a warrior. He refuses to give her the respect she deserves, despite the fact that she has thwarted him multiple times, because he can’t acknowledge that the way she fights back is fighting.

But a fighter is not just someone who dispatches enemies with a blade or a bow. A fighter is someone who fights—with everything and anything she has at her disposal.

Clary is an artist, and before she draws her first rune, she has never used her art as a weapon. But once she is faced with a war that must be won—a war that endangers the people she loves—she becomes an artist who fights. She won’t leave this war to be won by others. She can’t do it alone—but the war can’t be won without her either.

The seemingly mundane, pre-Shadowhunters Clary who took art classes at Tisch, and drew fantasy warriors in her sketchbook, and sighed over cartoon princes probably didn’t think of herself as a hero. But I’d bet that in her daydreams, when she was busy drawing heroes or disappearing into a fantasy world, she felt like she could be one. Like there was heroic potential in her, just waiting to be tapped.

How many of us read fantasy because we have that same feeling? We live vicariously through stories, because our own lives provide so few opportunities for high-stakes adventure and noble sacrifice. And most of the time, even as we wish we could be like our favorite heroes, we know that we’re just too different. Jace has killed more demons than any other Shadowhunter his age. Isabelle handles her electrum whip with such finesse, it’s as if the weapon is a part of her. Alec’s skill with a bow and arrow allows him to make shot after shot, even in a high-stress battle situation. Maia’s werewolf nature means that she’s faster and more ferocious than any human could hope to be.

Clary, though…Clary is like you, or me, or that kid in class who’s always drawing instead of taking notes. We know this girl. And that’s part of what makes Clary such an amazing heroine. Because she manages to do extraordinary things using talents she honed during a mostly ordinary life.

Clary is what I think a lot of us hope we could be, if we found ourselves in her situation: someone who becomes a hero out of necessity, who is not on an even playing field with the rest of the players—but who, out of sheer determination, finds a way to turn her natural talents into the tools of her survival.

Clary saves lives—her own, and those of her friends. She draws a better world into existence, and she never lets the word impossible stop her.

In Clary’s hands, the stele is truly mightier than the sword.



Sarah Cross is the author of the modern fairytale novel Kill Me Softly, the superhero novel Dull Boy, and the Wolverine comic “The Adamantium Diaries.” She’s inspired by all kinds of art and illustration and curates a fairy tale–art blog called Fairy Tale Mood (fairytalemood.tumblr.com). You can visit her online at www.sarahcross.com.