Shadowhunters and Downworlders: A Mortal Instruments Reader

Note to self: stop impulse buying random shit just because it ties into something that fascinates you. Read some reviews, try a sample, anything else.

But since I didn't have such foresight in 2019, here we are. I read this thing cover to cover because I took my reading challenge very seriously, but I can't remember much about this. I mean, it's been two years, and I'm often lucky if I retain essay-type material for more than ten minutes. I do, however, remember a few impressions!

The most prominent thing I recall is a weird fixation on defending incest as if we can't just leave it at “whatever, it's fiction, just own up to the fact you semi-included an incest fake-out plotline and be done with it” - no, the essay writers had to pretend it's some profound something-or-another. It's really not. It's a common trope in fanfic, Clare got her start in fanfic, and people in the mainstream literary world aren't as accepting of the trope. That's really as deep as it should go.

But no, in an attempt to stand on a pedestal proclaiming that this fictional incestuous theme is somehow better than all the other ones, we get bits like this: (tw: extended discussion of fictional incest)Jace Wayland and Clary Fray overcome the taboo of sibling incest, and they do it without ever crossing the grossout line.

And this: (tw: extended discussion of fictional incest)When Jace is shown to be Clary???s brother, the two have been falling in love for the better part of a book. The reader has invested in them. But the introduction of incest still should throw up a significant barrier for romantic enjoyment. It should stop us in our tracks, turn us 180 degrees, give us that slimy feeling we get when we remember that time we accidentally watched Flowers in the Attic on TV.This is not the reader response it evoked. Readers wanted Jace and Clary together anyway. The question is: Why? And the answer lies in the very fact that they aren???t supposed to be.

Which, firstly, I dug out the book just to look up those passages. And secondly... no? It's most certainly not that cut-and-dry.

There are four main reactions I can think of - and many others, I'm sure - to the ‘oops it may be incest' storyline, and pretending that none of the readers were upset is disingenuous and gross.

(tw: extended discussion of fictional incest)First Reaction: People who are genuinely upset and feel violated because a relationship they felt a connection to is suddenly sullied by something they either consider a hard no or perhaps even find triggering. Aka: people who have exactly the reaction this particular essay's author claims didn't happen.Second Reaction: People are are so repulsed even by the idea that, regardless of whether they cared about the relationship, it absolutely does disgust them every bit as much as the Flowers in the Attic scene despite the difference being apples ("we never knew each other growing up, and fell in love before finding out we may be siblings") and oranges ("they always knew they were siblings and also one of them literally raped the other and gaslighted her into thinking she was to blame").Third Reaction: People who just plain do not care, perhaps because it's fiction; people who don't care because there isn't a significant age gap and the characters weren't raised as siblings; and people who perhaps even don't have a strong opinion about consensual incest in the real world much less in fiction. These folk don't necessarily feel a lack of disgust because it's taboo, and they don't necessarily even feel strongly one way or the other about the plotline. They just accept that it's part of the material and move along with reading.Fourth Reaction: People who view fiction as their safe space to explore fetishes/kinks in a way which will never impact a real human (see: fandom members who already write fics about incest etc. anyway); people who thrive on relationship drama; and people who just really like the thrill of chasing something taboo. These are the only people the essay writer seems to view as valid or even existent.(Fun fact: I'm camp 'idgaf so long as it's fiction, but don't you dare spring that on a ship of mine out of the blue' but I also don't even remotely like Clary and Jace together so it never bothered me. Yet still I'm irked by this particular essay and its holier-than-thou arrogance in assuming that everyone was okay with and even supported the ship beyond the whole 'they might be siblings' thing.)Not only that, but I tortured myself by (skim-)re-reading the article in question for this portion of my belated review, and the essay also claims that it all boils down to "human nature" and sex. Because apparently, not only are the 'fourth reaction' group the only valid ones... but also only some people who fall into that group. If someone wants the taboo solely for the drama factor and not for any sexual fantasies? Well, they just plain don't exist to the author Kendare Blake.Oh, and also? Have a bonus round of arrogant standing on a fucking pedestal, pretending that one type of fictional incest is gross and the other is not:Perhaps we???re all watching too much Game of Thrones, where sibling incest between Jaime and Cersei Lannister, twins who have been lovers since reaching sexual maturity, is treated largely as a love affair.Wait, nope. That???s still gross.So why is watching Jaime Lannister make googly eyes at Cersei so much creepier than seeing Luke and Leia kiss in The Empire Strikes Back? The key is in the phrase ???grew up together.??? Jace and Clary didn???t. Time to introduce some science.Because, hey, there's no way the people who continued to ship Jace and Clary actually also liked Cersei and Jaime, right? It's not as if literary fandoms have member overlap at all, right?

I suffered through this tripe not once but twice now for this review. Please rescue me.

I also recall some questionable ‘hot takes' on certain characters, but don't ask me which ones because I can't recall and I'm extremely done with looking things up now.

Take that fractured memory with a grain of salt, though, because I'm technically most familiar with the Netflix adaptation versions of the characters. I own the novels, but haven't gotten around to reading them because I didn't realize when I bought them that the show's characters are dramatically aged up from the books. My brain isn't ready for teeny-bopper versions of characters who are permanently seared into my mind's eye as the adult actors who portrayed them. Or to process some of the plotlines and their content from a ‘woah, they're how young again?!' perspective.

That said, before I read this collection of essays, I'd already deep-dove into the wikis, researched everything time and again, and familiarized myself with those differences and the way lore varies between books and show because it became one of my fixations. In fact, I originally thought “A Mortal Instruments Reader” meant this was some kind of lore collective regarding the Shadowhunters and Downworlds in a canonical context. Boy, was I ever surprised! Had I known at the time that I was buying a collection of mediocre, slightly pompous essays, I'd have never completed the purchase in the first place.

But I digress, because we aren't here for me to whine about what this wasn't. It's my own fault for not looking beyond the title. I read the essays, I attempted to absorb them, and two years later I had to go back and fact-check a couple impressions and grab some quotes for a rant. It is what it is, and I'm lying in the bed I made for myself.

The gist of it is this: I wasn't so much confused as just annoyed by the collection. And I didn't hate it because of the material it covered or even how much pseudo-passion was put into doing so, but rather because the essays just... aren't good. This collection gives off the impression that Cassandra Clare thinks she's far better of a writer and lore-weaver than she truly is and that the essay writers aren't quite sure where to draw the line between “just a normal thing people think/do” and “an extremely profound indication of how amazingly epic and important and unfathomably wonderful Cassandra Clare's creations are.”

I'm pretty sure I can find higher-quality, more thought-provoking, and less obnoxious fandom meta and/or essays online for free.

I didn't read this book cover to cover, but I made it about 3/4 through. I don't intend to finish it. The essays are okay; a lot of them seem to just highlight pretty obvious (to me) themes in Mortal Instruments. There were a couple essays I enjoyed, particularly the one about New York City as its own character, and another one that breaks down the “appeal” of incest or taboo.