a kingdom and this

90% books 10% aesthetic

[youwouldtreatittenderly]

I really like the idea that even after everything he's been through, deep down Simon still feels out of place. As if there's something about him that, no matter how much he changes and accomplishes, marks him as an outcast.

Although I think this story in particular wasn't the best place to explore that feeling; it's too short and focuses on too many other things.

[youwouldtreatittenderly]

The more I think about Will's logic in dealing with his curse the more it seems to fall apart. If he truly believes Tessa could die if she falls in love with him, his lack of restraint is more than a bit concerning

I understand they must have scenes together to build tension and to develop the relationship, but I can't help thinking that he's being extremely irresponsible in Clockwork Prince: starting unnecessary conversations, being cute, gifting her a book with a funny inscription, like what are you doing William? The plot should force them together to justify those moments of weakness, but Will definitely shouldn't be seeking her out

And then there's Jem. Ella dies overnight, so how is Jem surviving for years not a huge clue that something is up? I'm not saying his first conclussion should be that the curse is fake, I think it makes perfect sense that he naively believes it as a child, but at least it should have made him realize he doesn't understand the way it works. And if he cares to spare others Ella's fate, he should have taken steps to find out more

I get the intention behind it, it's romantic that his love for Tessa pulls him out of his defeatist mindset and motivates him to do something about it, but as consequence that portrays him as not caring enough about what happens to anyone else and sparing them his awful behavior

[darcycarstairs]

“real jem fans don’t hate on will” sophie collins was that kid’s biggest hater and jem still liked her. jem knew will was a dick to people and some people had a right to dislike him.

I think the only one jem had a problem with was gabriel and that’s because gabriel didn’t stfu.

[youwouldtreatittenderly]

In Clockwork Angel it's easy to see why Will feels drawn to Tessa and why Tessa feels something for him, but in the end I don't think she sees enough of his secret decent side to outshine his much more frequent terrible behavior, no matter how pretty he is

They have good chemistry and some cute moments bonding over books, but the progression of the plot creates the illusion that they've spent way more time together than they actually have

Considering their last conversation in the book, the fact that Clockwork Prince comes around and she's so hung up on him is a bit unrealistic to me

[ladyhindsight]

The bigoted, supremacist behaviour he exhibits towards Simon and the Downworlders and how that never seems to be worthy of notice.

Yes! This. This is the number one problem with the entire concept of all these books. The fact that these are the Shadowhunter Chronicles really limits the scope of these stories. You can't properly talk about oppression if you're only willing to approach it from the POV of the oppressor. Especially if you're not willing to make the opressor look bad.

It's not even necessarily a bad thing that most of these characters are assholes. It's not the Disney channel, they don't have to all be friendly, well-intentioned heroes. These are child soldiers raised to believe they're better than everybody. But Clare wants to have her cake and eat it too. So they're snarky and superior, but their actual values are never questioned. Jace is so touchy about being compared to Valentine in any way, but he's clearly been influenced by him. He's violent, prideful, and mistreated every downworlder he comes across. But the only person who suggests that similarity is painted as the villain. The fact that he is a bigot is never acknowledged by the narrative, despite his actions. Theoretically he learns and grows, and he does become slightly more tolerable as time goes on. But the way his actions effect others is never proper explored. Like, how does Maia feel about being subject to this police state run by these bratty thugs? It's barely touched on.

Even in Dark artifices, when the whole Downworlder discrimination thing is supposed to be coming to a head, you don't see how the Cohort's actions actually affect Downworlder communities. Because they barely exist. They have to kill a barely recurring waitress character because there's so few actual downworld characters and we can't touch anyone actually important. It's like if the Hunger Games were told entirely from the perspective of a capitol citizen. It just doesn't work.

You don't see how being on a registry would affect a community, you just get lip service of the heroes condemning it, and a Scooby Doo ass scheme where Aline and Helen are putting down fake names like Taylor Swift on their registry. And that's not a bad idea, it's just not taken seriously enough. And there's no consequences for it either.

The Shadowhunter Academy handled this particular theme the best. Because there were no darling Shadowhunter characters to protect, there were much more scathing criticisms about the whole system. Is anything actually done about it? Of course not.

(Continued) Also, while I'm on this discrimination rant, I wanna talk about City of Ashes. Because while City of Bones is no literary masterpiece, and quite bad in its own right, City of Ashes is an atrocious follow up that squandered any potential momentum the first book built up. There was so little development on that crazy reveal from the last book. Like, not even the incest, because that's been discussed plenty. But the political stuff. The harry potter influence is strong, with the presumed dead fascist reappearing and an ineffective government and all that. But god, handles it's own story so badly. Okay, so Jace just found out he's related to Voldemort, and potentially had demon blood. He's worried about what this means about the kind of person he is, and the government is breathing down his family's neck because they used to be part of the group that tried to overthrow the Clave. That's an interesting story. But Clare fumbles it, because she focuses entirely on angst and personal slights. Making Imogen have a personal grudge against Valentine and Jace by proxy is the worst thing they could have done. Because it's so unnecessary. It's so reasonable for the Clave to be suspicious of the Lightwoods after everything that happened without the personal element. Locking Jace up for a night because he refuses to cooperate with an important investigation is so reasonable, but they had to make it seem like she's a vindictive bitch. Even Jace's conflict with his family is weird. Maryse acts incredibly strange and out of character in her very first appearance. She seemed to be an incredibly cold character. But no, other than her character flaws, she's apparently a great mom. All the other books seem to think so. But she acts so weird with Jace. And yeah, it makes sense her world is shaken, and even being a little suspicious of him would make sense. But then throws him out? But apparently not, because she was trying to protect him from the inquisitor. Which is stupid, because she'd still be responsible for him, and they'd definitely hunt him down, and hiding makes them all look so bad. Why does Maryse need Luke to explain this to her? Why is she so bad at communicating? And at the end, why is she so cool with Jace potentially running off to live with Luke, a man she hasn't known for years? Why would Jace even want to? He's sixteen, can he just decide he's moving in with a man he just met because he had a fight with his mom? And Jace doesn't reflect on the fact that he's bringing suspicion on not just himself, but his whole family. Even when he's hurting others, he's only ever thinking about how it effects him. He's so self centered, and no one ever calls him out on it properly. Having him crash out in front Maia, a character who openly and immediately hates him is such a good move. But then it focuses on how she hates pretty boys because of her brother. Like, the only similarity between them is that Jace is hot, not that he's a violent bully. Fuck off. Sorry, this feels a bit all over the place. All in all, I just think City of Ashes could have been a much stronger second book. It just needed to reframe the different conflicts. Jace can still have his crisis, just show people how it affects his victims. Show Luke having to bandage up pack members Jace hurt, have him send a bill to Maryse for damages from the bar fight. Just little things that make the characters' actions and the world seem real, not just a metaphor for the protagonists inner pain.

Well said. Though Clare does present criticism towards the Nephilim society throughout the series, it’s always left at surface level at best because she is unwilling to hold characters like Jace and Clary accountable as well. The scope of the series itself is so wide, the focus is off from where it would count, so it naturally takes away room from issues it likes to include but fails to handle adequately and, above all, honestly.

And that’s precicely the issue around these characters as well—it is really desirable for them to be imperfect, to even be assholes, and most of all their very own (even unpleasant) personalities. Their behavior would come from each unique starting point (for example, society and social position within it) where character development would begin and take different shapes over the course of the story. Clare does not want to hold Jace or Clary accountable for their supremacy or bigoted behavior and so she waves it off, like in City of Bones when it comes to Luke reprimanding Clary about the way she speaks about the Downworlders. Clary just changes topic, and in the end the responsibility is put on the Lightwoods instead of Clary being in any way predisposed to behaving or thinking like that.

Magnus, for example, is written critical and sometimes even spiteful of the Shadowhunters, but in the end he always helps them, befriends them, and stands beside them despite their unchanging, oppressive government. He likes the Good Eggs. Maia in City of Ashes is written almost fawning over Jace even though he is the one intruding their space and acting like an asshole.

Everything you said about City of Ashes, I agree 100%. The potential is squandered because Clare does not entertain relationships other than Jace and Clary’s. The ways in which different plotlines would affect different characters are completely ignored. They're not even really recognized. They have no impact on the relationships that would be realistic. Even Maryse’s behavior is so overlooked because of the utilitarian standpoint Clare seems to have in justifying everyone's actions.

It’s also strange that Luke in the first three books is pushed as the alternative paternal-ish figure to Jace when the relationship between Luke and Valentine and even between Luke and Jocelyn is so underdeveloped that it seems ridiculous that he’d step up for that. I suppose it makes Luke look better and Robert more absent as father figures, but what a good opportunity it would’ve been to build a bond between Jace and Robert. But again, who cares about Jace’s relationships with the Lightwoods.

Everything you said here is excellent but at the same time really depressing, to think of all the squandered potential in favor of the protagonists' inner pain and blatant favoritism by the author. It's even more ridiculous in the sense that TDA really set out to handle the discrimination and oppression towards the Downworlders by the Nephilim and it couldn't even handle or focus on that.

[okayharuno]

Clary Fairchild <3 She’s a little crazy but I love her

[fairondaisy]

i do have to laugh about kieran’s little inbetween moments going “cristina looks magnificent…………………mark looks magnificent…………” he simply can’t help himself. buddy get up off the floor we KNOW you love them alright now is not the TIME. head in the GAME. we’re in the middle of unraveling a POLITICAL SCHEME

[youwouldtreatittenderly]

General Winter is the true mvp of the Unseelie Court

[youwouldtreatittenderly]

Jocelyn falling for Valentine continues to be a mystery to me. I get connecting through a loss in the family , but not that she used to be wary and only softened to him after he became a harsher man.

The timeline of the Circle is all over the place in this series because the initial idea that Valentine was extremely charismatic and good at hiding his true evil motivations made perfect sense. We ask Jocelyn to take responsibility for participating in the Circle but still understand what a difficult situation it is to marry someone who only starts showing their true colors later.

What I'm struggling with is knowing Jocelyn acknowledged Valentine's ideals were dangerous and intense, that she didn't like him nor trust him, that the Circle gave her bad vibes and after all that she still got involved with him.

[youwouldtreatittenderly]

I'm not sure what to make of Nene claiming Jonathan does love Clary, even if it's a twisted and broken love. What does he even know about Clary to love? Is this happening before or after CoLS?

He's obsessed with having a companion worthy of ruling by his side who will love him unconditionally and his twisted view of family and bloodlines has him convinced Clary is the one because she was made for him, that's it

[youwouldtreatittenderly]

Something that felt like a glaring hole to me in Who the Wolf Loves is that Valentine and Luke explicitly talk about Luke being in love with Jocelyn, and yet we go from that to Valentine pursuing her romantically with no other conversation about her in between. No acknowledgement from Luke in the narration of how that's a shitty thing to do to a friend, let alone a parabatai. Even a remark about them never talking about it would have been enough, but it's weird that it's never mentioned.

At least give me one moment of Valentine subtly rubbing it in and being condescending about this being for the best since Luke was never going to have the guts to confess to Jocelyn, or Luke convincing himself that Valentine did nothing wrong but deep inside wondering if Valentine truly respects him and cares for him. Anything at all.

[youwouldtreatittenderly]

some of the dialogue in A Surfeit of Annas reads like a power fantasy written by a 14 year old about how they're so irresistable they have everyone fighting over them

like what kind of over the top wattpad dialogue is this? and it's supposed to be coming from a warlock, so presumably a woman who's been alive for a long time, not an immature and naive teenager

[youwouldtreatittenderly]

damn, I did not expect Jocelyn and Luke's story out of all people to hit me so hard emotionally

[youwouldtreatittenderly]

I just read The Beautiful Ajatara and I have to ask......is Cassandra Clare taking the piss?

[youwouldtreatittenderly]

The idea that Will could have chosen to let go of all his memories of Tessa while on their honeymoon is diabolical

[youwouldtreatittenderly]

how about because it's the right thing to do and also your job??

I know, I know this is just meant to be Jace being funny, but I can't get over how one thing that hasn't changed at all in this series is how little shadowhunters are shown to care about mundanes

[okayharuno]

Izzy <3 this was way harder to draw than I expected :p