Shadowhunters and Downworlders: A Mortal Instruments Reader(12)

And the hits just keep on coming for Jace as the trilogy continues. Though he may have a way with wounding demons and minions through a few well-placed verbal barbs, when it comes to those with a little more brainpower and battle training—people like adoptive mothers, Clave Inquisitors, and his erstwhile papa—his attempts at using humor as an offensive technique don’t have the same panache. Throughout most of City of Ashes, Jace doesn’t triumph due to his sharp tongue; he actually suffers.

“Usually he could get his way with Maryse by making her laugh,” Jace thinks when his adoptive mother begins to interrogate him about Valentine. “He was one of the only people in the world who could make her laugh.” And yet relying on jokes and sarcasm backfires this time, and his relationship with the only mother he’s ever known teeters on the brink.

Later, he tries to match wits with the Queen of the Fair Folk, who is admittedly amused by his comparatively pathetic efforts (and, you know, by the fact that Jace is way hot, and faeries like that kind of thing), but she makes sure he knows precisely who is the spider and who is the fly in her world. Though Jace mocks her with his now-that-you’ve-had-your-fun glares of doom—as Clary sees them—the immortal Faerie Queen can give much, much better than she gets from some teenager, even if he is a Nephilim warrior. Jace escapes from that little encounter only after being forced to make out with his “sister” in front of her boyfriend, his family, and the entire faerie court.

And he fares worst of all when he gets snarky with the Inquisitor, who calls his attempts at humor “revolting” and socks him in a magical cage, believing he’s taunting her as one of Valentine’s men.

The more subdued humor in this second installment of the series can be attributed to Jace’s growing insecurity. He deploys his trademark wit mainly as a defensive move; he’s trying to hide just how much Maryse hurts him when she doesn’t trust him or just how scared he is of the Inquisitor’s threats. He’s no longer sure of his place in the world. In City of Bones, Jace is a Shadowhunter, the beloved (if orphaned) son of the late, great Michael Wayland (great in Jace’s mind, at least; Clary thinks the guy’s kind of a jerk), living happily among the close-knit Lightwood clan, dealing with his attraction to a cute redhead who, appearances aside, is so not really a mundie. By City of Ashes, the Clave is interrogating and imprisoning him, Maryse Lightwood has thrown him out of the house, people everywhere are calling him Jonathan Morgenstern, his dad’s a psychopath, and—oh yeah, the cute redhead is his sister.

There are a few things that even sarcasm can’t protect you from.

But when Clary carves the Fearless rune on him at the end of the novel, his sense of humor returns. Is fear of demons the most useful thing she excises from Jace at that moment? Maybe. But what if it’s fear of everything else that’s been messing with his head? With the Fearless rune on, he is able to kiss Clary, to joke with Luke, and to face a phalanx of demons with a swagger in his step. With the Fearless rune on, he mocks his father and acts like the Shadowhunter people have been telling him he isn’t worthy to call himself for the entire book. Jace and the Shadowhunters, along with Luke and his werewolves, face impossible odds thanks to Valentine’s mass demon summoning, but Jace is back in prime form, yukking it up even as the ichor flies. At last, the complications of Clave politics and family drama and incestuous relationships are out of the way and he’s back on familiar ground. Jace = badass Shadowhunter and demons = dead meat.

In the end, the fear demon Agramon manages to burn that rune off Jace’s back. However, it does so not through physical superiority but rather by hinting at all the mental baggage the rune has been helping keep at bay. Agramon appears as Valentine himself, reminding Jace of their family connection, and even more, of how many characteristics they share: courage, leadership, and the arrogance that in Jace, at least, forms the core of his sarcastic armor.

And though Jace kills Agramon on Valentine’s ship, the demon does a fair amount of damage to Jace first. Fear and insecurity have him in a humorless grip throughout most of City of Glass, as Jace begins to doubt not only his identity, but also his very humanity (or nephilimity, as it were). Clary notes his depression, thinking, “Despair, anger, hate. These are demon qualities. He’s acting the way he thinks he should act.” After all, like Valentine, demons don’t seem to have much of a sense of humor. If Jace is Valentine’s son, infused with the blood of demons (as Clary saw in the angel’s visions), then a sense of humor isn’t exactly his birthright.

Jace can pretend to be demon-tainted as much as he wants, can protect himself with anger and indifference instead of sarcasm and arrogance, but when the chips are down, he returns to form. When Jace is imprisoned by Sebastian later in City of Glass, bound, injured, and with no hope of rescue, he doesn’t despair. He mocks his captor: “Waiting for a special occasion to kill me? Christmas is coming.”

Sebastian replies: “You have a smart mouth. You didn’t learn that from Valentine.” You can say that again, demon boy. Sebastian, like his father (or perhaps his demon blood donors), didn’t get a humor gene. He’s also pretty smart, so he isn’t particularly susceptible to Jace’s attempts to anger him with his usual displays of mocking arrogance. “Nothing, not a flicker of emotion, passed across Sebastian’s pale face,” as Jace tries every trick in his arsenal, to no avail. Sebastian is weak, Sebastian is crazy, Sebastian is on the wrong side of history…nothing moves his “brother” until Jace stumbles on the deepest wound of all, the one that even he can’t joke about, because he feels its bite so strongly himself. If Sebastian kills Jace unarmed and tied up, Valentine will be disappointed.