Shadowhunters and Downworlders (14 page)

From the moment Jace meets Clary, he is unable to stay away from her. It is he, not the other Shadowhunters, who identifies the Shadowhunter blood within her, almost as if he senses it. Throughout the books we (and the characters themselves) are made aware of certain similarities. Both are strong-willed and unlikely to do as they're told. Though Clary has red hair, their appearances
are both described as “golden” in various degrees. And not long after their first meeting, Clary makes note of Jace's hands and that they are “slim and careful, like the hands of an artist.” Much like her own hands. She also notes a subconscious similarity to her mother in one of his facial expressions, which she calls “scary-calm.” This might not seem relevant, since Jace and Clary's mother aren't related, but it is often said that Clary strongly resembles her mother, making Jace's resemblance actually a resemblance of herself.

Blood's tendency to call to blood may have a lot to do with Jace and Clary's fast connection. Within the theory of genetic sexual attraction is the idea that the bond is further strengthened by a subconscious need to form a connection to the genetically similar person in a way that might have been formed during a shared childhood. On a subconscious level, the longing for the intimacy missed with this person who is so linked to you asserts itself. This is more evident in Jace than in Clary, possibly because he had an abusive childhood with no real bonds. When Jace meets Clary, although initially aloof, he quickly breaks down and tells her things about his childhood and his father that would seem out of character for such an untouchable guy, were the connection with Clary not already there, in his subconscious and in his blood.

So what?
you say. So Jace and Clary are siblings in the eyes of the Angel. Aren't all Shadowhunters essentially one big inbred clan? It probably helps their case as a couple, rather than hurts it, because Shadowhunters don't breed with mundanes. They're purists, preserving the blood, and while that might seem a bit exclusive, it certainly seems to be in their best interest. Undiluted angel blood is strong. Jace and
Clary are the only two Shadowhunters to have it straight from the source, and they're the strongest Shadowhunters of their generation. There is no such thing as pseudo-angel blood incest. The idea doesn't bring up strong feelings of aversion, and there are no immediate psychological roadblocks to Jace and Clary's relationship. It should all be roses and ponies from here.

But it won't be.

The entirety of the Jace/Clary dynamic has been rooted in the incest theme. Their blood is what called them and bonded them together; the taboo is what forced them apart. Now that the taboo is gone, count on the other blood issues between them to contribute to significant problems.

At the conclusion of
City of Fallen Angels
, the blood of Jace and Jonathan Morgenstern mixed, and Jonathan speaks inside Jace's mind. They are one, become more truly brothers. And Jonathan was the only one to truly violate the incest taboo, when he kissed Clary in
City of Glass
, posing as Sebastian Verlac but knowing full well that she was his sister. Even after his identity is revealed, many interactions between them are peppered with instances of him standing creepily close or finding excuses to touch her. Within the pages of
City of Lost Souls
he goes even further, to the point of sexual assault. For the purposes of this essay, the assault isn't the issue. Rape is about power, about victimizing someone, not about forming a connection. And before he committed the assault, Jonathan Morgenstern
wanted
a connection. He wanted to see similarities between him and Clary, for her to be his true sister. He says: “When I first met you, in Idris, I had hopes—I had thought you would be like me. And when you were nothing like me, I hated you. And then, when I was brought back, and Jace told me [that
you killed our father and didn't care], I realized that I had been wrong. You
are
like me.”

It's this sibling similarity that leads him to believe that Clary can be brought into the fold. It makes him believe that she's worthy to be part of his cause.

The incest taboo between Jonathan and Clary doesn't function in the same way as the taboo between Jace and Clary does. The reader is meant to be repulsed. But that is due more to the fact that Jonathan is a vile villain than it is to his desire to connect physically with Clary despite their shared parentage.

Blood, whether the blood of the angel that makes a Shadowhunter a Shadowhunter or the blood that ties you to your family, is important in the Mortal Instruments series. Jace and Clary's blood has brought them together, united them, and then threatened to separate them forever. It has twisted them, turned them, and defined who they are. But now we know the truth of it, and we know where they stand. Or do we?

If you've been reading the Mortal Instruments for any length of time, you know that only two things are certain: Dead doesn't necessarily mean dead, and you never know whose blood is going to wind up running through your veins.

Kendare Blake
grew up in the small city of Cambridge, Minnesota. She studied finance at Ithaca College and Creative Writing at Middlesex University in London. Now she inhabits Washington State, along with her husband, Dylan, and two catsons: Tybalt and Mojo Jojo. There's also a horsedaughter,
but she's all grown up now and lives on her own, obviously too busy to ever call or write. Kendare is the author of
Sleepwalk Society
,
Anna Dressed in Blood
,
Girl of Nightmares
, and the upcoming Antigoddess trilogy.

GWENDA BOND

Friends: Where would we be without them? We'd be chasing people who are terrible for us, making unfortunate fashion choices, and watching terrible movies alone. We'd be standing at the edge of a decision, wondering what the hell we should do. We'd forget to laugh. Gwenda Bond expresses a sentiment we don't hear often enough—that friendship is its own kind of love story.

ASKING FOR A FRIEND

So much of life as a teenager is spent trying to find that special person. Maybe you know the one I mean.

The person who always seems to get you, the one you can call at any time day or night for reassurance or bail money, the one you talk to for hours sharing your darkest secrets without ever worrying they'll tell, the one who always,
always
has your back no matter what idiot thing you just did. The one you have inside jokes with, and ice cream binges, and bad movie marathons. The one whose betrayal would break your heart and smash your soul into teeny-tiny pieces with the pure shock of it.

Who doesn't remember this yearning? And if you think I'm talking about love, well, you'd be wrong—at least in part. Sure, we all want to meet a gorgeous being who longs to make out with us and whom we long to make out with in return. But when I think back to my teen years, to the people I dated, it's usually with half-affectionate, half-mortified laughter. We were so young, so inept and ill-suited for each other. We were actively bad at making out. The dissection of everything that happened on a date afterward with friends was usually way more fun than the date itself.

So, no, the relationship nostalgia I'm talking about is a different kind entirely, and I'd bet I'm not alone. And this need sticks with you into adulthood, perhaps evolving, but still there (and if you're lucky, met). It's something that can be just as important as romantic love but is rarely treated that way in stories: friendship.

But the Mortal Instruments
series is an exception. The phenomenon of undervaluing friendships—or at the very least taking them for granted—can sometimes be a side effect of the understandable focus many readers have on the series' great epic loves—Clary and Jace, Alec and Magnus, Isabelle and Simon (a girl can hope). But Cassandra Clare never forgets how important friendships are in her characters' lives. The novels never give short shrift to the
other
epic love stories being told too, the ones that involve old friends, new friends, and, most important of all, best friends.

The lack of attention given to just-friendship when love is also in the air has been noted before. No less than C. S.
Lewis—himself one half of a famous literary bromance with J.R.R. Tolkien—wrote in
Four Loves
, “To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it.” Of course, a few paragraphs later, he also nails one of the reasons why that's so, pointing out that there's “nothing throaty about it, nothing that quickens the pulse or turns you red and pale.” Romantic love is more dramatic, more edge of the seat. Hearts pound, palms sweat, cheeks burn, breath quickens. Friendship has different, subtler effects. It brings other rewards, and other costs.

I'm not disputing the importance of connections centered on romantic love, because that would be insane. Clary + Jace = forever. What I'm suggesting is that the connections of friendship in the series are just as real, strong, and important as the smooch-inclined ones. But it's also not as if those types of relationships and friendship are mutually exclusive, so some further definition is in order to make clear where friendship fits into the mix.

Acknowledging areas of overlap is important partially because the overarching story of the series, in which Team Good battles Team Evil (or, at times, Team Less Good) to protect the world, is played out primarily through relationships. The Mortal Instruments is all about the ever-evolving connections between people, whether they're human or supernatural beings. Clare explores a wide variety of relationships over the course of the series, all with their own specific depth and complexity: fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, Shadowhunters in a
parabatai
bond, siblings (including those who turn out not to be siblings after all, whew), to tick off just a few examples. Throw the bad history between
Downworlders and Shadowhunters or the natural dislike between vampires and werewolves into the mix and things get even more interesting. But since we're talking here about one specific variety of relationship—friendship—what is it that makes a friend a friend?

The answer isn't entirely straightforward. Without a doubt, friendship
can
be a facet of another type of relationship, such as a romance or a sibling bond. But it's just as telling that it
isn't
always present. We all know people whose familial relationships definitely don't come with the kind of easy closeness and unstated trust that characterizes the best friendships. The phrase “close as sisters” may be used to describe friends, but we all know sisters who aren't close at all. Can friendship be separated from a romance in the same way? Of course it can. Anyone who's ever broken up with someone only to never see or speak to them again can vouch for that. For the purposes of this essay, I'm defining friendship as a specific form of closeness that may be the sole basis of a relationship—as with Clary and Simon—or may be an additional element of a relationship—as with Alec and Jace. Friendships aren't forced into existence by bonds of blood or sexual history and chemistry. On some level, a friendship always requires a choice. And, as the Mortal Instruments clearly demonstrates, that choice can be one of the most important ones we ever make.

Notably, in
City of Bones
, the first relationship we're introduced to is one that will be among the most significant of the series. When we meet Clary and Simon heading into Pandemonium, everything about the way they are with each other signals that they have a long-established friendship. The ease with which they banter and the way they so clearly know each other's preferences (Clary informing Simon that
he hates trance music) shows off their common friend shorthand. Simon immediately trusts what Clary says and goes for help when she reveals she's seen two strange boys with knives, even if he didn't see them. All of this lets us know that this isn't going to be one of those books where the protagonist's so-called best friend disappears the moment the sexier members of the “other” world make an appearance. Simon is important. And Clary and Simon's friendship will be tested, as much as any other relationship in the series.

Just as Simon and Clary always describe each other as “best friend,” so Jace describes Alec. In addition to having grown up together and being close friends, Jace and Alec are also
parabatai
. They fight together, and they have each other's backs, but the
parabatai
bond means more than that.
Parabatai
are described as being “closer than brothers,” and, of course, they are also forbidden from falling in love with each other. In a very real sense, the
parabatai
bond is a pledge that formalizes friendship between warriors in the same way marriage does love.
Parabatai
know each other in a way no one else is able to. Alec is able to fake out everyone—even Isabelle—when Jace is imprisoned by the Inquisitor in
City of Ashes
by pretending to sell out his friend. But if they had the same bond with him that Jace does, they'd have instantly seen through his fakery, and known that his only intention is to help Jace get free. Alec doesn't flinch when Jace says Valentine asked him to join Team Evil; he knows, without a doubt, that Jace would never have agreed
and
he understands that Jace needs reassurance that Alec would never believe he would. Jace is someone who needs other people's good opinion of him, because he's so quick to turn on himself. Alec knows this, because he knows his best friend.

But what about when it isn't so clear whether a pair is meant to be or meant to be just friends? The Mortal Instruments proves more than once that the boundary between platonic friend and lover often appears more porous than it is…at least to the one who wants to make it across.