loved your post defending clary but what is your opinion on jace??? i feel like he's equally controversial

you know how sometimes rereading books a few years later changes your opinion on certain characters entirely bc instead of being some older hot brooding hero they're now just some kid in your eyes. that's me with jace right now

in fact you may have asked his at the perfect moment because i had a whole breakdown about this last night in the group chat last night i feel like this text sums it up quite well

he has 2 to 6 parents depending on how you look at it and for at least 17 years none of them ever loved him. he was fully prepared to go back to his cartoonishly evil kidapper dad who physically abused him bc at least there he felt wanted. he just wanted maryse to read him a bedtime story when he was 10 like she did for alec and isabelle. she never did. he just wants to be loved so so desperately. he can be genuinely hilarious and charming but now i'm looking back on it, it mostly reads like that too is just a way he taught himself to get the attention he wants so desperately. it's implied that he's been suicidal/has engaged in acts of self-harm since he arrived with the lightwoods when he was literally 10.

i think most people (me included!!) just remember him as a sarcastic rude asshole which to be fair is very much who he is HOWEVER every single time we get jace pov he reveals another 5 reasons why he's actually kind of valid in his assholery. this boy is playing DSM-5 bingo and babes his card is FULL and it's literally so upsetting to read. he's just a very sad kid and i'm literally on my way to nyc adoption papers in hand

Here I am again ....the one with the Simon in the wild bestie

Hehe it's so sweet of you to invite me over for tea 😄

So yeah for the Morgenstern essay I still haven't typed it out ...but it's basically like Clary (protagonist) and Sebastian (antagonist) both were Morgensterns. It's a tainted name in the shadowhunters community right? So my point is something isn't always inherently bad ...it's the circumstances or the fate (or the plot 😗) which makes them bad. Now for Jonathan/ Sebastian bro had been going through torture for all his life as the demon blood burns shadowhunters. He was Raised to be a weapon unlike Jace who was atleast taught other stuff. Upbringing matters a lot in shaping those characters, shaping their powers. Like for comparison if you look at Jace when he was a Wayland...when he was a Morgenstern....when he is a herondale... there's a slight difference in the way he's written or the way he fights ... he's still the same Jace but there's this minute difference you'd notice. So basically the background you're Given also matters a lot ...which happened with Sebastian. If he was given a non-Valentine life/ background....if his blood wasn't infused...if he was brought up in a normal way he'd have definitely led a better life As a Morgenstern and wouldn't have been the one manipulated into being the villian .... maybe he'd have still turned out to be a antagonist who knows. But atleast throughout his life he'd have felt light the way he felt while dying. Maybe clary's fate would've changed if they grew up as siblings who knows. The Morgensterns we've seen till now are all fucked in the head fr. Like even Clary could've gotten her villian arc easily...the clave anyways did not trust her as she was a Morgenstern.

To sum it up ....I feel Morgensterns have a dominant dark side n would be the bad guy ...but you always get a choice to choose your path even if you're blinded by the fate

(I hope my word vomit made sense....I mean these were basically facts which already existed I just typed out my thought process)

Oh for the guy thing ... nothing romantic is going on in plain sight but there gave been moments... really sweet ones. Oh btw last week I sent him the thing I wrote which said 'i want to be written about ' .....as my bday gift guy wrote for me ..which made my day

Anyways I hope you're doing okayyy ヾ⁠(⁠･⁠ω⁠･⁠*⁠)⁠ﾉヾ⁠(⁠･⁠ω⁠･⁠*⁠)⁠ﾉ

The nature of last names in the shadowhunters world is such a compelling one, and you're right, it's absolutely something of a metaphor for choosing who you become, who you are. Even during ascension, there's a certain amount of this. You pick a name that you want to be like. You don't pick a name like Morgenstern.

Except... There's also an amount of reclamation when it comes to last names. Gabriel and Gideon worked hard to make the Lightwood name mean something good again after their father tainted it, and I think a large part of their ability to do that comes from Tatiana denouncing the Lightwood name at the same time.

A name doesn't dictate personality, of course, but it does have a certain sway in how you are treated by other shadowhunters, which of course, informs the way you act. It's a whole thing in developmental psychology; natural/genetic temperaments garner certain reactions, which then controls how a child is parented etc., which then has a hand in which other personality traits etc. come to the surface. I think this is very similar to how shadowhunters are raised according to their last name, and how, so often we see a change of name being an indicator of a change of self--because it can be difficult to change when you are still being perceived a certain way.

As for where this leaves us with the Morgensterns... Green-eyed Jonathan is often associated with the last name Fairchild, and I think the reason why is clear. There's an amount of hope there, for a person who never got to be a person--that he would turn out to be better than the man who raised him. And if he had been raised a Morgenstern, even without the demon blood, I do think it would have been more likely for him to become an antagonist, than if he had been raised a Fairchild, simply because one name has a much more negative connotation than the other--especially in the time that Jonathan was being raised. People would have treated him differently as a Morgenstern than they would a Fairchild.

If we're following the logic that somehow Valentine was not a presence in his childhood, this would all have to circle back to Jocelyn, and her decision whether to keep her husband's name or not. I do think there could be scenarios where she did, but I would be more inclined to believe that she would at the very least return to being Jocelyn Fairchild and raise her son with the same name. No, this wouldn't make him immune to the reactions of other shadowhunters, but I do think the choice to step away from the tainted name would be recognized and acknowledged in a positive way. We see a little bit of the opposite happen with Clary, iirc, when she takes up Heosphoros, but she was already at a point, then, when she was ready to treat Morgenstern in a similar way to how Gideon and Gabriel would have treated Lightwood after the events of TID.

It would be so interesting to see how such reclamation would have played out if Clary and Jonathan had been raised as siblings. Would Clary see the way her brother was treated for a name he didn't even use and get angry for him? Would Jonathan work hard to be a good example for his sister, a good steward of the family he was born into? Or would it be something of the opposite? Or would they ever even try to reclaim that name? No Valentine means no "Sebastian" means no continued conversation surrounding the name Morgenstern...

I guess what I'm saying is that maybe there is an inheritable darkness in the Morgensterns, but I think it's possible that the name does as much, if not more, than the genes themselves. Morgensterns have been the bad guys, so they will be painted as such, and future Morgensterns will then have an inclination to fill the shoes and be the bad guys.

Sorry for such a long response!! That essay of sorts really sent some gears spinning I guess lol thank you for sharing!!! (Also happy belated birthday!!!!!! <33)

QoAaD theory: Julian’s death

I should preface this by saying I know there are already tons of theories surrounding Julian’s death, and I’m not writing this to add to the collective morbidity... I should also say that I in no way want Julian to die (I think he’s by far and away the most interesting character in TDA -- one of Cassie’s most compelling characters ever, to boot -- and I’m going to be devastated/very disappointed if he dies). 

But nonetheless, something occurred to me the other day -- Cassandra is very much a writer of patterns (I’ve been in this fandom a very long time, and I’ve predicted several character deaths and plot twists etc. in the past simply through analysing narrative patterns she tends to favour). Broadly speaking, Cassandra tends to punish her villains -- almost always through death; if not immediately, then eventually. Even, importantly, when that villain is portrayed as partially sympathetic -- either Cassie humanises them or otherwise morally justifies their reasons for being the antagonist (see: Valentine; Mortmain; Malcolm; Sebastian) -- then they usually end up dead. Fine. Most villains do, right? But with Cassandra, this can be extended further to characters who are morally grey, or more generally have done problematic things. These characters also tend to end up dead. Case in point: 

Robert Lightwood 

Hodge Starkweather 

Andrew Blackthorn 

Arthur Blackthorn 

Jordan Kyle 

Stephen Herondale 

Imogen Herondale

Jessamine Lovelace

I could go on. In fact, I really struggle, actually, to think of a character who has, broadly speaking, ~done some bad shit/later atoned for it~ who is STILL ALIVE [in the narrative world, once the series has ended]. To this end, I’m not sure Cassie really believes in ‘redemption arcs’ in a standard sense; I can’t think of a character who has atoned for their sins, and then been allowed to live out a rehabilitated/reformed life -- the end point is always death. (< This point is precisely how I ended up predicting Jordan’s death in TMI -- and also Robert Lightwood’s, eventually). 

Looked at from this perspective, Cassie can be surprisingly merciless with characters who cast their hat into the wrong ring, regardless of whether or not they later regret it. 

Seeing as, in LoS, Julian very definitively becomes one of these morally grey characters, this poses a serious question mark over whether or not Julian will emerge from this series alive (regardless of whether or not he’s pulled back from the ‘brink’ in QoAaD). HOWEVER. The one way in which Julian is a different case from the rest of the aforementioned characters? He’s a protagonist. 

The killing of Julian, therefore, would be a deviation of another kind: Cassie doesn’t, as a rule, kill off her protagonists. Important secondary/main characters? Yep, absolutely (see: Livvy Blackthorn); but protagonists? Cassie shies away from. (This is not unusual btw, just a general rule of fiction -- very rare to have writers killing off their protagonists).

[IF YOU’RE STILL WITH ME AT THIS POINT, THEN THANK YOU!]

But isn’t that what Cassie does with Will, and with Jem (sort of) in TID? TID is actually a case where Cassie does her darndest to achieve the effect of killing off her protagonists without really, properly, killing them off. (Cassie could potentially try to do something similar at the end of QoAaD?) Jem ends up occupying a weird in-between life/death space by becoming a silent brother; Will ends up dead but only in the epilogue / after the main events of the novel are long beyond finished, and only of natural causes. So. Neither of those really count. Both of those characters are also nothing near problematic in the same sense that Julian is. 

The fact that it would be breaking a pattern, then, is both a reason (and is not) for Cassie killing off Julian -- Cassie may go for it simply because no one would expect her to go there / there’s no precedent for it. The other breaking of a pattern would be is that Julian’s death would make TDA a tragic story, and generally, Cassie doesn’t go in for blackest-of-black Shakespearean tragedies: she’s writing for a YA audience, after all -- most of her endings are bittersweet if not fairly happy. Even if, lets say, they figured out a way to break the parabatai bond and everyone else was still alive -- the fact of Julian (a protagonist’s) death -- would very significantly shift the tone of the final book towards a tragedy, because she’s never killed off a protagonist before. So, Cassie might not do it because it’s not her style; but then, she might do it because she’s never done it before. 

The other point about Julian as a protagonist is that his status as a protagonist (and by extension, Emma’s as well) was somewhat eroded/complicated in LoS. When Cassie first pitched TDA, Emma and Julian were the protagonists, straight up. However, by LoS it’s clear that Cassie is so much writing TDA with TWP in mind that the characters that would have been taking over the mantle then (narratively, in 3 years’ time) have actually ended up prematurely (?) taking over TDA as well (Kit legit has enough pagetime in LoS to be considered a traditional protagonist -- and it’s not even supposed to be his trilogy yet!) Cassie is passing over the baton, then, to the likes of Kit, Ty and Dru very early on -- perhaps suspiciously early on. This is normally something that would be set up in the final instalment, not in the second (see: featuring of Blackthorns in CoHF). Given that Cassie has confirmed that Dru has a bigger role to play in QoAaD, it doesn’t look like their roles are being diminished any time soon. It’s clear to me that TDA and TWP are starting to be treated (despite the 3 years time gap between them) as one continuous narrative/series in a way that mirrors cycle 1 and cycle 2 of TMI. Thus, killing off Julian would be nicely symbolic not only in the sense that it would be officially ‘handing over’ but it would also give Kit, Ty and Dru additional baggage / tragic backstory going into TWP (would certainly fulfill the trope of killing off parental figures for character development/ would be fitting for the apocalyptic nature of that series). 

Ultimately, I’m not saying either way if I think Julian will die -- I’m still not personally convinced either way yet, but these were just some of my thoughts (I do have more -- there are other more micro-narrative level things I haven’t looked at -- but this is already far too long!).I don’t know if Cassie would kill him off, but I wonder if she would perhaps just make him suffer for his crimes instead i.e make him a mundane/exile him etc. I personally hope that Cassie won’t decide to kill him as I genuinely love Julian -- but i also know that Cassie has shocked me recently in the narrative decisions she’s taken; and that it’s also her job to make the state of things, going into the final (ever) series, look pretty bleak. 

What do you mean the age thing makes you question valentine's credibility?

I misspoke. It isn’t exactly the age of the characters that made me suspicious when I was reading the book, but what that age difference means. If anything, I think CC did a good job of having Jace believe he was older than he really was. I wish there had been a discussion about this in the books to make this clear. It really isn’t.

Plus, my suspicions are based on the actions of the characters, especially Robert and Maryse, than they are on the age gap between Sebastian and Jace. The age gap adds into that.

Disclaimer: In order to answer this with some semblance of order: 

Jonathan Morgenstern will be called “Sebastian”

Jonathan Herondale will be called “Jace”  

Jonathan Wayland will be called “Jonathan”

With that cleared out, let’s talk about babies.

Jocelyn says she brought Sebastian to play with Alec when they were kids. That means Sebastian was seen by other people, specifically by Maryse and Robert. 

That also means Alec and Sebastian must be of close age. We know Alec was born in September 1989 and that Sebastian was born in 1990. There isn’t a set date for the month, but we can make an educated guess. This is where the age difference makes a difference, because it shows how long Alec and Sebastian played together for and, therefore, why Maryse and Robert should’ve realized Jace couldn’t be Sebastian.

Babies grow at an amazing speed in their first couple of months. That means that Sebastian and Jonathan had to be born around the same week, otherwise Valentine wouldn’t have been able to pass Jonathan as Sebastian.

We know Jace was born in 1991 and that he was born in January. In the first book, Jace thinks he’s 17. Therefore, he thinks he was born in January of 1990.

Jace’s birthday has to be the same of Jonathan’s. Maryse and Robert knew about Jonathan’s birth and if Jace showed up at the Lightwood’s saying he was Jonathan and his birthday was on a different day, they would be suspicious.

Therefore, Sebastian (and Jonathan) must have been born in January of 1990. 

That means that between for a few months between January of 1990 and December of 1990, Robert and Maryse consistently saw a baby with demonic black eyes playing with their son. Not nice parenting right there.

Considering there is a baby missing in this entire story (nobody ever located Céline’s baby that was carved out of her body - that’s Jace, btw), I thought it was doubtful that their logical assumption was that those black eyes turn gold at some point and not that, hey, Valentine, the Known Manipulating Villain™, is lying.

So really, it isn’t just the age difference, but various other factors together that had me going bullshit! when Valentine told Jace and Clary that they were brother and sister.