Hi, I'm reading your thougts on Shadowhunters (all media types) and having a field day! I can't seem to find anything on the whole mortal/immortal drama with malec and I know I'm like, 5 years late but I would love to have your opinion if you feel like sharing? (thks if you do, don't feel pressured though) My main issue is 'why does it even matter'? For all they know they could break up anyday so throwing immortality away/becoming immortal sounds like a big mistake and not worth it "yet"...
Ooooh boy has it been a while since I thought about this franchise xD
In my opinion (and keeping in mind I haven’t touched the books or show since I made the healthy decision to stop hate-watching the thing) from a Watsonian* POV, the immortality bit matters, but not for the way the book make it out to be. It matters because Magnus is literally hundreds of years older than Alec who, at the point when they meet, is * checks wiki * only 18.
This opens up a whole host of power dynamics that wouldn’t all be present, or would be very different, if Magnus were also 18, even if he were immortal. I don’t recall book!Magnus acting predatory towards Alec (although he was selfish and entitled about their relationship at more than one point, but these are not the same thing) but even then the fact that the power imbalances between them were never acknowledged led to some things that I really, really disliked a lot.
So yeah, from a Watsonian pov, I agree with you that the whole ‘but Magnus is gonna live so much longer than Alec’ bit is really not where the real problem is at, especially not in the first few books.
Unfortunately, from a Doylist** POV, Cassandra Clare seems to be a big proponent of the ‘love at first sight lives forever’ trope thing (as well as a bit of pair the spares, imo) which means that as soon as two characters get together it’s got to be True Love For Life*** and thus, immortality immediately opens up a problem in that it means Magnus might (gasp!) have a life after Alec dies.
And because this is the position of the author, and it feels very much like said author doesn’t feel like giving her characters opinions that differ from hers, then it immediately becomes the main concern of the characters, even though this is totally not what the vast majority of people would worry about first. Or at least not the only thing they’d be worrying about, especially not when considering Alec & the others are child soldiers who are supposed to be aware they could die any minute, and thus realize people will keep going without them—and in fact, would probably have been in this position themselves before.****
So yeah, that’s how I understand the big deal about immortality and why it gets blown up so much in the narrative, and subsequently immensely downplayed when Alec basically considers slow murder and Magnus essentially (iirc) goes “lucky for you you’re pretty” and then they never talk about it or change their relationship: because it’s more about CC’s shipping and/or idea of Romance than about what the characters ‘would’ feel if they were real people.
--
*Meaning from the pointof view of the characters as “people”, in case you don’t know that word.
**As in, from the POV of this is a book and therefore every aspect of it is entirely subject to the author’s wishes/opinions/real life influences.
***To the point where the only way couples are broken up in these books is if one of them die. I partially blame the general tendency of american media of pulling a WASP and going “Deee-vor—sse? Wha’s that?” every time it tries to write a ~family show~ (Which I deeply dislike, by the way, in case you couldn’t guess)
****But that presumes CC wanted to write character who sounded like real people who were influenced by their surroundings and history but uh...that’s not really what she’s doing, so. Yeah.
Hi ! You seem quite up to date with Beast's activities and I've been lacking informations recently (french fansites are unactive and even shuting down...) so can I ask you what's going on ? I've seen on your blog that their contract is under revision with Cube Ent till October, but I don't even know what kind of activities they have been up to since the beginning of September :( Thanks a lot and I have to tell you that your blog is really cute !
Ahhh, thank you so much. 😊 Well Beast debuted in mid October of 2009, so unfortunately their contract with Cube is ending this year in October 2016. Fans been nervous a quite a bit since no one knows if they going to renew it, Cube didn’t say anything yet, nor Beast. And well time is ticking. Beast tho said that they want to continue as a group. But we don’t know yet how everything will be, they might join other company or stay with Cube. I try to stay positive and believe in my boys. This issue is started to be discussed in September. For now Beast boys are in Hong Kong, having a concert there and a fan meeting. Ill soon be updating on pictures. 😉
Anyway I hope it helped a bit on clarifying on things.
Im sorry for my English. If you have more questions feel free to ask, ill answer them if I can.
Hi ! I just wanted to thank you for all that you've done til today. I respect your decision but I'll really miss your updates, they were perfect and really useful. Thank you again ♥
Thank you for your support, I’m glad that the blog could be useful to others ^-^♥
• Name: anaïs ( if you don't know how to pronounce it, just search "anaïs anaïs french commercial" on youtube )
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i tag pxdxlf, lordbiscuitnantais, and whoever wants to do this
Rules: In a text post, list ten books that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you. Tag ten friends, including the person who tagged you, so they’ll see your list. Make sure you let your friends know you’ve tagged them.
Confessions of a Mask ; Yukio Mishima
Perfume : The Story of a Murderer ; Patrick Süskind
