Shadowhunters and Downworlders: A Mortal Instruments Reader(51)

We see all of that in Cassandra Clare’s books. By showing us a myriad of different desires and by showing the people who have them as, in most cases, good and heroic people, these books let people who have desires condemned by others know they can and should be part of stories. They let those who have conventional desires put themselves mentally into the position of characters who do not. We have Magnus “Freewheeling Bisexual” Bane, and we also have Isabelle “Nothing Less Than Seven Inches, That’s My Motto” Lightwood, an expert fighter who has been around the block and underneath the kitchen table, baby, who loves boys and loves pink and loves weaponry. She is no less heroic than any of the male Shadowhunters: She is never shamed for her desires. She is not elevated above all other women as the sole badass babe, though: Clary is not a trained fighter, but she brings other skills to the table. Clary, Isabelle, and Maia are all shown as having different strengths and growing slowly closer because of them. And Clary, Isabelle, and Maia all have sexy desires that they sometimes act on and sometimes do not, and either way, it’s okay.

The message of all these different portrayals of all these different desires is that we cannot control our desires and that no desire is inherently bad. Some desires should not be acted on (my desire to murder everyone I see before noon, I definitely have to get a lid on. I’m going through postmen like nobody’s business), but nobody should be condemned for what they feel. And if the people involved are both enjoying themselves and want to act on those feelings…that’s fine too. Take Isabelle and Simon’s first time at the all-youcan-bite buffet:

ISABELLE: You should bite me.

SIMON: Well, I never.

ISABELLE: It’s cool, bro, I’m consenting, and consent is sexy!

SIMON: But surely I should not treat my lady friend as a handy snack! You are not string cheese! You are not a fruit cup! You are not a macrobiotic yogurt drink!…Sorry, I miss human food sometimes.

ISABELLE: No, you should totally bite me. The conflation between the vampire bite and sex is totally a literary archetype.

SIMON: But I never fanged a girl before. I mean, I fanged Jace that one time, but I was all dizzy and we were on a boat—you know how wild those cruises can get—and it meant nothing and he was honestly more into it than I was.

ISABELLE: I believe it. Noted pervert, our Jace. Now fang my brains out.

I swear, my hand to God and Girl Scouts, that the events I have just related actually occur in the book, just as written (Isabelle-fanging in City of Lost Souls and Jace-fanging in City of Ashes, to be specific and precise about my fanging). I admit that the dialogue is pretty much 100 percent Sarah-produced made-up. I couldn’t resist: I love a make-out scene.

I will segue from talking about making out (only briefly, I swear) to talk about family. (Family who aren’t making out, guys; come on, work with me here.) The Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices series abound with examples of nontraditional family units. Jace was adopted at the age of twelve, and there are strains from both sides—fear that Jace’s allegiance belongs to his birth parent, parental fear from Maryse Lightwood that her sins or the birth parent’s sin will taint Jace. But Maryse loves him, and sings him the song she sang the children she gave birth to, because he’s hers. Charlotte, much too young to be a mother, is nevertheless placed in loco parentis to Will and Jem: While it’s not motherhood, it’s guardianship, and there’s love and respect there on all sides. Mortmain, the villain of the Infernal Devices, clearly adored his adoptive warlock parents. Even Valentine, the chief villain of the first Mortal Instruments trilogy, whom we find out in City of Glass adopted Jace (OR DID HE? Sorry, no, he did, go on), genuinely loves his son:

VALENTINE: My boy. My sweet boy. I could not love thee, dear, so much did I not love megalomania-cally taking over the world more.

JACE: I’m going to be in therapy forever.

VALENTINE: I stab you to death now. With a heart full of love! Know this: I would still totally stab you if you were biologically mine. It makes no difference to me: I am devoted to you, and immensely crazypants.

JACE: Call a doctor and a psychiatrist…

VALENTINE: Stab, stab, XOXOXO, Daddy.

This is borne out again by the fact Valentine does not love Clary, who actually is biologically his daughter. He blames her for her mother leaving, which, putting aside the surface crazed-demon-hunter-on-mission-to-take-over-world issue, is relatable again: the parent who resents a child for taking up the other parent’s attention and affection. In return, Clary doesn’t love him: In fact, she murders him for being a big boyfriend-killing world-take-overing speciesist jerk. He’s not her father in any real sense: Luke Garroway the werewolf is her father, if anyone is. And it is Luke who says perhaps the truest and most important thing in the books, making explicit their message, in City of Fallen Angels: “Be what you are. No one who really loves you will stop.”

Love is acceptance, and treating people right. Sebastian, Clary’s bio brother (whom she totally also makes out with, and who is also a bit demonish, and whose real name is Jonathan but I’m sticking with Sebastian because my motto is once you murdered someone and assumed their identity, murderous finders’ keepers!), is actually related to Clary and Valentine, and in the Infernal Devices, Tessa and Nathaniel are somewhat related, and Benedict Lightwood is definitely Gabriel and Gideon’s father. Doesn’t really work out well! Sebastian, Valentine, and Benedict are bad people. (Except that Sebastian is my baby demon honey lamb, but that’s not what this essay is about, however: Don’t blame the demon-blood-infested player, hate the demon-blood-infesting game.) Simon is blood related to both his mother and his sister, but his mother rejects him in City of Fallen Angels and his sister accepts his vampirosity in City of Lost Souls. Embracing people for who they are is the key.