Hey, folks. I said I’d be back at this, and here I am.
I know the last one dropped right before Christmas, and I decided to take the holiday’s off. And I fully intended to get right back to this, but then, I always intend to do that after posting one of these.
But in my defense, about two days after New Year’s, the whole world went a little nuts, and it’s only just settled back down as I’m writing this. It’s been a crazy week, fam.
But enough of my excuses. We have the possibility of a plot to get to!
Then again, given that the title for this chapter is “The Shadowhunter’s Tale,” I’m expecting that this chapter will be just one big info dump. It’s about that point in the book, after all.
The chapter starts with Clary sitting outside current Shadowhunter HQ… looking out over the skyline.
Again.
Look, CC, I don’t need you to re-establish where we are every time you start a new chapter. I know it’s been weeks since I last picked this book up, but I still have a general idea of where we are.
Simon is also there, and he’s pacing. But his footsteps are silent, because he’s a vampire. Because that’s how sound works, or something. I’ll give Simon this, though – at least I can grasp his mental state right now. I have no idea how Clary feels, and we’re in her POV.
Quick catch-up – Clary and Simon have been kicked out so the adults can discuss Clary’s proposal. Not sure why we had to skip that, or why we had to wait until several paragraphs in to learn this.
And once again, instead of getting to see the interesting, important stuff, we’re stuck at the kids’ table. Which would be fine, except that instead of deciding to do something, the kids are content to sit back and wait around.
Simon considers climbing up one of the stone pillars to get a better view of inside, to which Clary responds, “you’re a vampire, not Spider-Man.”
Because apparently Clary’s never read Dracula.
But it seems that CC has, because Simon does exactly what he said. To which Clary responds that he is Spider-Man. And Simon replies that, if he’s Spider-Man, then Clary is Mary Jane. Because Clary’s got red hair.
I’d add that she’s also pretty much useless in practical terms, but that might just be in the Sam Rami films. Don’t @ me, you know I’m right.
Simon climbs back down, because he can’t really see much from that high. Kinda leaves me wondering why we had this moment, other than to maybe tease any Clary/Simon shippers.
Entirely Pointless: 1
But since we’re done with… whatever just happened, the doors open, and Jocelyn comes out. I’d like to know when Jocelyn showed up, because I feel like that would have also gotten a reaction from the folks inside. But I guess since that doesn’t involve Clary, it’s not important.
Jocelyn greets Simon, and he’s much more civil to her than Clary was. Then she asks to speak to Clary in private.
For starters, she apologizes to Clary for… all the shit she unintentionally put her through, I guess. Which, okay, fine. Doesn’t justify Clary’s reaction, though.
Also, she apparently considered making paintings of Shadowhunter City, but decided not to, because she was afraid that Clary would start asking questions about it. Because I guess it never occurred to her to simply lie about it and say she just imagined it. Because no artist ever just painted something they’d imagined, with no real reference to reality.
Nope.
And now we address Jocelyn being there. Seems she snuck into the meeting, not caring how her simply being there might cause a ruckus. I’m starting to see where Clary got her “why should I care about other people?” attitude from.
And this leads into praising Clary for being awesome, because of course.
Both Hands, Ma’am: 1
Jocelyn asks to see the new rune Clary’s come up with, so Clary shows her. It’s described as “simple and complex at the same time,” and I have to wonder how the hell that works. I could understand seemingly complex, but a symbol being both simple and complex?
Words mean things, CC.
Jocelyn is amazed, because she wanted so hard to metaphorically bind the Shadowhunters and Downworlders together, and now her daughter is doing that in a very literal sense. I find this claim a bit hard to swallow, given who she married. Like, did she somehow not know that her husband was a genocidal maniac?
Also, she knew that the club Clary went to at the beginning of the first book was a place Downworlders hung out, and thus Shadowhunters might be there as well. And that’s why she didn’t want Clary going there.
When did this happen? As near as I can tell, her issue was more that Clary was out super late, and didn’t even bother to call her. CC, you can’t just go and retroactively add details like this. And yes, I complain about this from other, better authors too – if you wanted to include certain details, you should have put them there to begin with, whether it’s something like this, or the sexual orientation of a major character (and yes, that is aimed at J. K. Rowling).
But now that Jocelyn has seen and heard just how strong Clary is (gag), she’s willing to tell her the truth, regardless of how unpleasant it might be.
So basically, we’re now going to get a big info dump from Jocelyn. Well, at least we aren’t suddenly shifting from third-person to first-person.
For some reason, Clary thinks about this line: “the Law is hard, but it is the Law.” And she somehow owes it to Jace to get the whole story.
I don’t see how that first bit connects to the second, but it did give CC the chance to drop some faux-philosophical nonsense and Random Capitalization into the text.
You Keep Using That Word: 1
So Clary opens up with a big one – how did Jocelyn end up marrying a guy as psychotic as Valentine.
I’ll spare you guys the version CC provides, and give it to you in simplified form: back in their school days, Valentine was basically James Potter – smart, charming, generally amazing. Men wanted to be him, women wanted to be with him. And I’ll give CC this much – she didn’t have Jocelyn be Lily, aka the one girl who wasn’t impressed by this guy. No, she was another adoring fangirl as well. And was totally overwhelmed when he decided to hook up with Jocelyn, the unpopular, plain girl.
Yeah, turns out Jocelyn was also a “oh, I’m so plain and not pretty at all, please ignore the fact that all the guys around me are in love with me” Sues as well.
I’d also point out that Jocelyn also best friends with Luke, who I’ll remind you was Valentine’s super-best friend. So I have some doubts as to how unpopular she actually was.
Clary’s response to all this is to think “_Gross_.” Hey, you wanted the whole story. But at least she has enough self-control to not blurt that out.
Also, Clary compares how her mom speaks about Valentine to how she thinks about Jace.
With absolutely no hint of irony at all.
More backstory. Jocelyn and Valentine got married before either of them were twenty. Clary is shocked by this, but Jocelyn explains that, given how Shadowhunters don’t usually die of old age, getting married young is pretty standard.
And credit where due, this makes sense. At least there’s an explanation for this, unlike in the Harry Potter books, where wizards – who regularly seem to live to be well over a century old – for some reason seem to get married and start having kids shortly after finishing school.
At about eighteen years of age.
Anyway, back to backstory. The only person not totally enamoured with Valentine was Madeleine, the walking plot device. Apparently she was one of Jocelyn’s other friends, but rather than listen to her, Jocelyn just assumed she was jealous.
After getting married, Valentine and Jocelyn moved out to her parents’ place in the country*, along with the rest of his quasi-fascist friends, which gave them the benefit of getting them out of the watchful eye of Shadowhuter leadership. It’s also vaguely cult-like, what with being surrounded only by members of the in-group, and what sounds a bit like love bombing.
*(mention of this has the side-effect of reminding me of just how obscenely wealthy all these people are, and it’s getting my Marx up)
Clary continues to be amazed at how her mom didn’t immediately see that Valentine was a bad guy. It’s almost like he was very, very good at hiding his actual feelings.
You know, like a sociopath.
More backstory. Valentine became something of a revolutionary figure. He talked about reforming old, outdated laws. He wanted Shadowhunters to focus more on fighting demons than maintaining secrecy – even making their existence publically known.
And they’re not… terrible ideas, at least not on the surface. There’s an undertone of maybe wanting to establish Shadowhunters as a privileged class or something, but nothing too overt.
But then, even the bad revolutionary movements usually start with some good ideas.
Jocelyn talks about getting pregnant, and Valentine’s not-so-subtle emerging misogyny. Then we get her take on Luke becoming a werewolf, which I’m just going to skip, because we already have the general points.
More germain to the topic was that, after Luke’s apparent suicide, Jocelyn developed depression. But apparently Shadowhunters don’t really “get” depression, at least not on the clinical level. Which is odd, because they’re such a warrior society – you’d expect a good number of them to have PTSD or something. I’m not sure what that says about their society that don’t, but I can bet it’s not good.
Somewhere in this period, Valentine may have started experimenting on Jocelyn. I say “may” because it’s not entirely clear – he was s giving her weird concoctions, and they were giving her nightmares, and she was sleeping all the time. There’s mention of Valentine’s cult-like control of his followers, specifically when he had Stephen divorce his wife and get remarried, which I feel is only here for context, because it’s really not important to the narrative.
And then we get to Jocelyn giving birth.
Seems Jocelyn was all happy and joyful… right up until baby Jace first opened his eyes. Then she felt this instinctive sense of revulsion, that “every nerve in [her] body was crying out that this was not [her] baby.” Because moms can just know that, apparently. And the first time baby Jace heard his name – Jonathan – Jocelyn saw its eyes went completely black.
Because that’s what passes for foreshadowing in these parts.
And the whole time, Clary’s reaction to this is to be horrified. Not at what she’s hearing, but at her mother’s reaction. Because she’s describing baby Jace, after all.
Both Hands, Ma’am: 2
Clary – unsurprisingly – tries to kinda gaslight her mom. Because she couldn’t possibly be describing Jace. She must have just imagined it all. Please disregard the fact that this is a world where magic and demons are known to exist, and we know the child’s father was performing experiments on an angel he happened to have chained up in his basement.
Anyway, Jocelyn was also gaslit by Valentine, to the point where she was considering committing suicide. Which is pretty fucked up.
Luckily, she got a magic fire telegram from Ragnor Fell – apparently he was their go-to guy for magical healing, because Shadowhunter hypocrisy knows no bounds – informing her that Luke was alive. We get a nice big paragraph going over this, because I guess CC needed to fill out her word count a bit.
Interesting tidbit, though – Valentine seems to have set up Luke to get bitten, because Jocelyn had told Luke about hearing screams in the house. And then Valentine pulled the same mind-fuckery Jocelyn did with Clary to make her forget about all that.
Yes, CC, we get it – Valentine is a really bad guy. You can stop laying it on with a trowel.
Moving on, Jocelyn wanted to tell Luke about baby Jace, but didn’t. Instead, she decided to make another go at feeling affection for her child. And then, one night, she woke up to the sound of a baby crying. Which was odd, because baby Jace never cried.
And as someone who’s been around infants, I can tell you, that’s genuinely weird.
But the noise wasn’t coming from baby Jace. So Jocelyn followed it, eventually reaching the wine cellar, which just happened to be locked.
For some reason, Jocelyn takes this opportunity to give a quick rundown of the Bluebeard fairy tale. Because that’s what’s really needed right now.
Anyway, Jocelyn got the key and unlocked the door. But instead of a baby, she found a bunch of demons chained up in the basement. Because if I’m an evil psychopath performing secret experiments, I’m going to keep my specimens in the basement, where my wife – who has no knowledge of my activities – might uncover it with minimal effort.
Just saying, it seems kinda dumb, especially with all the land they apparently have.
So, yeah. Jocelyn stumbled into Valentine’s Dr. Mengele playroom. Lots of creatures, lots of torture. Also, Valentine tried injecting himself with demon blood, believing that it would heighten Shadowhunter abilities. Only he just ended up getting sick. And since Shadowhunters apparently don’t grasp the scientific method, he concluded that it was because he was too old, rather than the weird story he read somewhere not being true.
So of course he decided to try these same experiments on his wife and unborn child.
And Jocelyn didn’t take Valentine’s notes, run to the authorities, and have the psycho locked up because… reasons.
Oh, she says she had two reasons to stay. But that’s shit. Stuff about meeting with Luke to fight back against the Circle, not wanting Luke to fly into a rage and get killed with trying to take Valentine down, that sort of thing.
Still doesn’t explain why she didn’t just go to the authorities, though.
So Jocelyn faked having had a change of heart. She’d take baby Jace over to the Lightwoods’ to play with baby Alec, and occasionally seeing Celine Herondale – second wife of Stephen Herondale – who was very pregnant, and getting all kinds of medical stuff from Valentine.
Because CC is really, really bad when it comes to foreshadowing.
Also, when Stephen died, Mrs. Herondale II committed suicide. While being well into her third trimester. Jocelyn notes that Valentine was hit pretty hard by their deaths.
Again, CC is really bad at foreshadowing.
Then we learn how Jocelyn got her coma potion. Because it’s very, very important to address every little thing that any fan might ask questions about.
Clary finally asks what the other reason Jocelyn stuck around was, and has to be reminded that Jocelyn was pregnant at the time. Because she’s kind of an idiot.
And I’ll admit that this is somewhat of a better explanation. Not great, but I can kind of accept it.
But that about wraps up the backstory, so Clary takes this opportunity to argue that, no, Jace is totally not like how she described him. Not at all. Clary definitely isn’t blinded by teenage hormones, nope.
Both Hands, Ma’am: 3
Oh, but wait! There’s more!
See, it seems that Jocelyn was at least semi-conscious while in her magical coma. And that Valentine talked to her while he had her locked up. Which isn’t weird or creepy at all.
Also, he’d gotten angel blood and did some experiments with that. Seems when he injected himself with some, he felt really good. So, when Jocelyn got super depressed, he tried slipping some to her.
Dude, you could have just slipped into Amsterdam and gotten her some weed or something. Much less hassle.
And this maybe-kinda-sorta explains how Jocelyn was able to hide the MacGuffin cup in a card, and some of the stuff Valentine can do. This certainly isn’t an ass-pull. Nope.
Also, Valentine’s been experimenting on himself for years, but despite this, he’ll never be as super-special awesome as Clary or Jace.
Both Hands, Ma’am: 5
One for each of them.
Jocelyn recounts what Valentine said about their son. He described him as an amazing fighter, but also “cruel and amoral and strangely empty.” Which sounds about right to me.
Of course, Clary denies this whole-heartedly.
Both Hands, Ma’am: 6
But then we get the big reveal – Jocelyn hasn’t been talking about Jace!
No, Jace is actually the son of Stephen and Celine Herondale. So all that super-unsubtle foreshadowing didn’t even survive the chapter.
See, Valentine was intentionally doing the same experiment of Celine that he’d done on himself, but with angel blood. And when Celine killed herself, Hodge managed to save the baby, until Valentine faked his death.
But more importantly, Jace and Clary aren’t siblings, so it’s totally okay for them to bang.
Also, the remains they found that lead everyone to believe that Valentine and his son were dead? Those were the real Michael Wayland and his son. So add that to the list of crazy, evil shit Valentine’s done.
Moving on, Valentine raised both Jace and Jonathan in separate houses, somehow managing to keep the existence of the other a secret, along with the fact that he was, you know, not dead.
Because fuck it, why not?
Clary is still focused on the important part, though – Jace. And not only does he not have demon blood, he also has super-special angel blood. Because of course he does.
Both Hands, Ma’am: 7
I mean, we already established this, what with the “feeding her potions and shit with angel blood”, but I guess Clary wasn’t paying attention to that.
Clary spends the better part of a paragraph thinking about how the two kids Valentine was raising were polar opposite twins or whatever (and there definately weren’t any dirty thoughts in there, nope), but eventually asks if Jonathan might have somehow turned out to not be evil.
Jocelyn doesn’t think so. Apparently Valentine had to spend years teaching him to act less like a sociopath so that he could act as Valentine’s spy, even teaching him some magic to make people like him.
And I have to ask – are you sure you’re not talking about Jace? Because all of that could easily apply to Jace.
Also, another non-reveal at this point – Sebastian is actually Jonathan.
Clary is, also unsurprisingly, baffled by this. Because she’s an idiot.
Jocelyn gives a big explanation of how she figured all this out, and how Seb/Jon managed to shut down the wards guarding the city: the only way to shut them down was with demon blood, and he’s got demon blood in his veins.
Clary has a quick flashback to her date with Seb/Jon, and figures that the reason he got so worked up over Valentine is because he was jealous that Valentine liked Jace more than him. Because everyone must like Jace the most.
Both Hands, Ma’am: 8
And on top of that, we get a call-back to Clary’s drawing from the first book, and Clary’s now certain that she was really drawing Seb/Jon, because they must share some special connection because they’re siblings or something.
CC, please stop trying to pretend that you really had this whole thing planned out, and that that was foreshadowing. Because I’m not buying it.
Moving on. Clary wants to tell all this to Jace. And she definatley means the “not really being Valentine’s son, special angel blood, Sebastian is evil” stuff, and not the “we’re not siblings, so we can totally bang” stuff. Definitely.
Both Hands, Ma’am: 9
The important, off-screen stuff finishes, just so Luke can come out. We get a not-at-all subtle hint that Luke and Jocelyn are/want to bang (and is actually very subtle for this series), but more relevant to the plot, the Shadowhunters have agreed to Clary’s plan.
Because that’s all it really took – the Mary Sue protagonist getting involved.
At least, that’s what I assume. Because instead of seeing the debate, we spent the whole chapter on a giant backstory/info dump, with a side helping of non-reveals that the characters spent exactly zero effort working for.
But at least it’s over. And there’s only three chapters and the epilogue left.
[checks notes]
How the hell do I have ten pages of notes left?
Well, I’ll see you all next time. At least there shouldn’t be any more big plot blocks.
Counts
Both Hands Ma’am: 9 (Total: 77)
Entirely Pointless: 1 (Total: 14)
Our “Heroes”: 0 (Total: 78)
Plot Hole: 0 (Total: 14)
Rapier Twit: 0 (Total: 8)
You Keep Using That Word: 1 (Total: 109)
Shoddy World Building: 0 (Total: 29)
No Shit Sherlock: 0 ( Total: 2)
A Word From Our Sponsors: 0 (Total: 10)
Aikaterini on 16 January 2020, 11:03 said:
He’s always treated Jocelyn better. When Jocelyn and Clary had their fight in CoB and Clary stormed out, Simon was the one who said goodbye to Jocelyn, while her ungrateful brat of a daughter told him to shut up.
But not in a figurative sense. Her daughter won’t care about figuratively binding the Shadowhunters and Downworlders at all. Because her boyfriend doesn’t, so why shouldn’t she?
Strong, how? Strong in a fight? Clary repeatedly has to get saved by other people who have more training than she does. Emotionally strong? Yeah, sure, Jocelyn, just watch when Clary’s in a room with Jace and see how long her ‘strength’ lasts.
So, no hugging, no tears, no expressions of relief, no emotion, just exposition. Jocelyn really is just a plot device in this series, isn’t she?
Yeah, because it’s not like Valentine is her dad or anything. It’s not like Clary herself would want to get the whole story, for her own sake. Nope, everything has to revolve around Jace.
Valentine: I hate Downworlders and think that they’re worthless scum that we should exterminate!
Narrative: Boo!
Jace: I hate Downworlders and think that they’re worthless scum that I should feel free to attack when I’m in a bad mood!
Narrative: Aww, isn’t he so awesome?
Same old, same old.
Meanwhile, I’m amazed that Clary didn’t immediately see from the beginning that Jace was a bad guy instead of someone to swoon over.
Gee, I wonder if there was a character from Harry Potter who never cried? I wonder if this character ended up being the villain or something and that his not-crying was meant to indicate that he was a ‘funny baby?’
Yeah, this isn’t subtle at all.
So, the man who hates demons so much that the premise of his campaign is that Downworlders have demon blood and that’s why they should all die not only enlists demons as help, but actually makes his own child demonic. Not a child of one of his followers, but his own child. Because that would really go over well. “Yeah, demons are terrible and we should kill them all! That’s why I injected my own kid with demon blood to make him more powerful! You’re totally going to accept him as my heir and accept me as a righteous leader of the cause who’s not a hypocrite in any way, right?”
Why didn’t he just inject angel blood into Jocelyn in the first place? Again, Shadowhunters are supposed to be descended from nephilim, angels. Downworlders are part-demon. If he wanted to become more powerful, why did he even bother with demon blood? Say, “Yes, I’m going to inject myself and my child with angel blood so that we can become more powerful and more like our ancestors.” But no, he goes for the blood of his enemies first. How does that make sense?
Let’s face it, the only reason this whole angel blood vs. demon blood contrivance exists is because of Protagonist-Centered Morality. Clary and Jace have angel blood, so they’re righteous and good no matter what they do. Sebastian has demon blood, so he’s evil and wicked no matter what he does. That’s it. That’s all that it amounts to.
Because she’s a hypocritical, oblivious moron.
Yep, he’s bad because he was born bad, through no choice or action of his own. What a compelling villain motivation.
But, yeah, a villain who’s only bad because of someone else’s action and whose own mother doesn’t think that he could ever be redeemed…no, don’t you dare feel sorry for him, fangirls! Jace is the only bad boy that you should excuse and sympathize with, there can be only one. They’re totally not similar at all in their behavior and don’t you dare start thinking that Jace might be evil or morally despicable too. What’s that? You still like Jonathan? Well, CC will show you! She’ll teach you a lesson for not hating his guts in a later book! And then, when people will call her out on it, try to cover up her error by bleating about showing ‘serious topics in YA’.
But the narrative refuses to admit that, because Jace is the Designated Love Interest. You see what I meant when I said that the levels of hypocrisy surrounding Jace were going to shoot through the roof once Sebastian/Jonathan showed up?
Juracan on 18 January 2020, 22:42 said:
I knew this was part of the story, but having it laid out here makes me wonder: why was this whole thing in the story anyway? Why was there this whole subplot of Jace and Clary thinking that they’re siblings? I know the answer is ‘drama,’ but WHYYY
WHYYY include artificially-manufactured drama for the sake of it? I know that there’s a reason soap operas are still airing on television, and this is a book aimed at teens, but really? Writing a story about fighting against demons for the fate of humanity, and Clare decided what that really needed was incest angst.
[sigh]
At least you’re almost done. Are you planning on going on further than the original trilogy, or will this book be the big sendoff?
Apep on 23 January 2020, 21:24 said:
I find this particularly frustrating because I love works where angels aren’t just inherently good. Stories where they might not be the villains per se, but beings whose motivations and goals might not align with humanity. And if the Devil used to be an angel, doesn’t that imply that angels aren’t inherently good and pure?
Reminder: CC once wrote a Ron/Ginny fanfic. And apparently gave it the title “Mortal Instruments.”
For right now, I’m planning on ending it with this book. There’s other projects I’d like to focus on – namely writing and publishing my own stuff – and this feels like a good place to stop.
That said, I’ll try to post book reviews here from time to time (possibly cross-posting them on my author website – look for that soon).
But if I’ve learned anything over the past 7+ years of sporking this series (holy crap, it’s been over 7 years since I started this), it’s not to make any promises about future content.
Juracan on 24 January 2020, 10:15 said:
I think I knew this before, but still:
I look forward to your future work then! And good luck!
Aikaterini on 24 January 2020, 15:28 said:
I still find it strange that the Devil is never mentioned in this series, but honestly, was there any reason for Shadowhunters to be descended from angels in the first place? All they really are at the end of the day are warriors with magical tattoos. Would anything really change if they were wizards instead (other than making the Draco Trilogy parallels more obvious)?
Which confuses me, because the sense that I get from her subsequent fanfic and published work is that she dislikes Ron. He was treated like dirt in the “Draco Trilogy” and I strongly suspect that Simon (who’s also treated like garbage in this series) is a mixture of him and Harry. Ron is also nothing like the characters that she gravitates towards and writes: he doesn’t fit the “smirking, sociopathic hot boy” template at all. Did she once like Ron and then soured on him? Or did she only ship him with Ginny because he’s her brother?