Reflections: The Story of Tessa
This isn't an objective or even fair assessment of TSC, but because of how much Clockwork Angel and herongraystairs mean to me given that I read TID back when I was twelve, I sort of visualize the whole of TSC as the story of Tessa, with the different trilogies being punctuations, in the overarching scheme of things, in the Tessa Herongraystairs story.
I once said that Tessa marks the chronological inception of the story of the five families: the Herondales, Carstairs, Fairchilds, Blackthorns and Lightwoods. No family would have a lineage in the present day in its current state if not for Tessa and the Clockwork War and the way herongraystairs' played out chronologically. So, sometimes I just map out the whole TSC as the story of Tessa and the different books in TSC as linear checkpoints in the narrative of The Bestest Girl Ever aka Tessa Gray. It sort of looks like this when I break it down in my head:
Phase 1: Inception - This is TID (and the literal equivalent of the Big Bang for me from a linear perspective) yunno like the passion the love the power the sacrifices the desperation the growth of the characters in this series. I think the choices made in this trilogy set the course for everything.
Phase 2: Wessa - this is TLH. It's Wessa's Happily Ever After that we get to glimpse, ie, their follow-up to TID and the lifetime that Wessa got to have together: the ever-important Love Story No. 1 come to life. The end of this lifetime is marked by Learn About Loss and A Deeper Love from GOTSM for me, another punctuation. Lifetime No. 1 includes the Tessa Herondale story and that of a lineage she will produce that will reappear in her life in a century's time: it’s her family and experiences with Will, the story of her children, James and Lucie, and a Shadowhunter life in Edwardian London.
Phase 3: Impetus - This is City of Heavenly Fire aka, the book that changed the trajectory of Tessa and Jem's lives completely and the figure that shifted everything for them: Jace Herondale. Jem gets freed from the yin fen and his strife, and a whole new door gets opened because of this "other story of Fairchilds and Lightwoods and Herondales" and whatnot. In this way, you can picture the whole of TMI as the story of Jem's inevitable freedom from Brother Zachariah. From this angle, the epilogue of Clockwork Princess (*cries*) and the epilogue of City of Heavenly Fire are not just an ending or a beginning. It is sinply the midpoint in the narrative of Tessa Gray.
Phase 4: The Search for the Lost Herondale - This is both TDA and GOTSM. The Carstairs owe the Herondales. Tessa and Jem don't get to have their Happily Ever After just yet, because they need to find Kit. We know they love Kit with the pureness that parents just possess, but we also know that they see Kit as a little piece of Will that Jessa can still have in their lives (which mirrors the way Brother Zachariah in TLH was a means of having a little piece of the old Jem in Wessa's life). Cassie made Jessa work for their happily ever after here. The punctuation mark for me here is Through Blood, Through Fire and Forever Fallen from GOTSM.
Phase 5: Jessa - this is TWP. We haven't gotten much of it yet, but it's basically the Happily Ever After of Jessa that we've been waiting for since our Phase 1. This is the second follow-up to TID and the life that Jessa now get to have. This is Love Story No. 2 come to life, and it likely will be punctuated by the end of TWP. This is the story of Tessa Carstairs, one of a warlock's life in Devon with a family in Jem, Kit and Mina.
So to conclude, I'm a huge-ass Tessa stan okay, so sometimes I just see the whole of TSC as the story of Tessa with her two relationships and lifetimes - it's her love and family-building with Will and Jem just stretched across different epochs, each as milestones in a singular but linear character arc. I see Tessa Gray stepping onto the docks of London in TID as the inception of TSC from a narrative perspective and her relationships with Will and Jem as complements to each other.
James and Lucie are to Wessa what Kit and Mina are to Jessa. Shadowhunter Tessa is to Wessa what Warlock Tessa is to Jessa. Rescuing Kit (to have a bit on Herondale in their relationship) is to Jessa what having Brother Zachariah visit the London Institute every two minutes was to Wessa (what I mean here is that it was never possible to fully have both Jem and Will with her at once - Brother Zachariah was a fragment of the Jem Carstairs that Wessa loved, while Kit Herondale is a pretty souvenir of Will and the Herondale bloodline that Jessa so love).
Hence, Tessa's character arc is the spine of TSC when it comes to *major emotional stuff* for me. Amidst each individual book, the sheer size of herongraystairs is a penumbra always living in my peripherals. Tessa is an ever-lurking constant in the narrative of TSC itself, and I guess I sometimes just imagine TSC as a giant hallway: the paintings that hang at the sides are the individual TSC books, and Tessa Gray is the granite upon which they sit.
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