City of Glass

“‘Not just Valentine,’ said Jace. ‘All of us. The Clave and the Law—what Clary can do overturns everything they know to be true. No human being can create new runes, or draw the sort of runes Clary can. Only angels have that power. And since Clary can do that—well, it seems like a portent. Things are changing. The Laws are changing. The old ways may never be the right ways again.’”

Toward the end of City of Ashes, the second book in Clare’s Mortal Instruments series, Clary draws a new rune that breaks apart Valentine’s ship, something that no other Shadowhunter has previously done. In general, Shadowhunters are a people of traditions, relying on the old ways to inform the future. Clary’s gift with runes is new and, therefore, a threat to old wisdom still being true. Here, in City of Glass, as Jace and Simon discuss the implications of Clary’s gift, it becomes clear that one change can disrupt everything the Clave believes to be truth, which is threatening to Shadowhunter culture since it is so steeped in tradition and fearful of change.

“The gates were guarded by stone angel statues on either side, their faces fierce and beautiful. Each held a carved sword in its hand, and a writhing creature—a mixture of rat, bat, and lizard, with nasty pointed teeth—lay dying at its feet. Simon stood looking at them for a long moment. Demons, he figured—but they could just as easily be vampires.”

As Simon approaches the main building of the Clave, set apart from the rest of Alicante by a wall, he notices the gates described in this passage, which represent Shadowhunters’ view of themselves as superior to other races. In the gates’ carvings, the angels are clearly victorious against a demon writhing in the throes of death. Simon’s observation indicates that Shadowhunters have traditionally seen little difference between downworlders and demons, which is the foundation of their modern-day prejudice, lumping all downworlders together and defining them solely by their demon blood to dehumanize them and make them easier to hate.

“‘Hoping?’ echoed Aldertree. ‘I don’t hope, Downworlder. I know in my heart. I know it is my sacred duty to save the Clave.’

‘With a lie?’ said Simon.

‘With a story,’ said Aldertree. ‘Great politicians weave tales to inspire their people.’”

In this passage, Simon responds to the summons of the Inquisitor (Aldertree), believing the Shadowhunters will send him back to New York. In fact, Aldertree wants Simon to confirm a false story that blames the Lightwoods for Valentine’s return and the threat he poses to the Clave. Simon is unwilling to lie and calls the Inquisitor out on his duplicity. The Inquisitor argues that deception is justified by noble motives that will benefit the Clave and uphold his authority, demonstrating the hypocrisy of the Clave’s rigid posture toward Shadowhunter Law, which Aldertree is willing to protect by compromising his personal ethics.

“In the days after Simon had first become a vampire, when he had thought he would never see daylight again, he’d found himself thinking incessantly about the sun and the sky. About the ways the color of the sky changed during the day: about the pale sky of morning, the hot blue of midday, and the cobalt darkness of twilight. He’d lain awake in the darkness with a parade of blues marching through his brain. Now, flat on his back in the cell under the Gard, he wondered if he’d had daylight and all its blues restored to him just so that he could spend the short, unpleasant rest of his life in this tiny space with only a patch of sky visible through the single barred window in the wall.”

In addition to demonstrating Clare’s sensory prose, this passage highlights Simon’s perspective as a new vampire-turned-daylighter reflecting on his life as a human. First, Simon remembers being a vampire before he became a daylighter and how he used to obsessively picture all the sky’s colors. Prior to becoming a vampire, Simon took daylight for granted, but when his ability to see the sun or go outside during the day was taken away, he suddenly wanted it back more than he wanted anything else—people tend not to appreciate what they have until it’s gone. There’s also a kind of irony in Simon’s current situation—having just had daylight restored to him at the end of the previous book, he now finds himself denied it again by the dark Clave prison with its one tiny window.

“There’s always something you can do. It’s just people like me who always tell themselves otherwise. I told myself there was nothing I could do about Luke. I told myself there was nothing I could do about Stephen leaving me. And I refuse even to attend the Clave’s meetings because I tell myself there’s nothing I can do to influence their decisions, even when I hate what they do.” 

Wrestling with her own sense of powerlessness, Amatis chastises herself for losing track of Clary when Luke left Clary in her care. Amatis claims her words will have no impact on Clary who will do what she wants regardless, which speaks to her sense of insignificance and insecurity. Amatis has been raised under the strict laws of the Clave, and she has internalized the idea that nothing she does makes a difference in her own life or anyone else’s. As a result, she doesn’t take action or stand up for what she believes in, having convinced herself that doing so is pointless. The Clave does not encourage Shadowhunters to speak their minds or advocate for change, and this quote finds Amatis beginning her journey toward reclaiming her own voice and sense of significance to the people in her life and community.

“I did warn them. When they interrogated me. I told them over and over again that Valentine meant to destroy the wards, but they dismissed me. The Clave thinks the wards will stand forever because they’ve stood for a thousand years. But so did Rome, till the barbarians came.”

Clare uses this scene between Simon and Hodge—both imprisoned by the Clave—to demonstrate the danger of hubris when a powerful regime believes themselves untouchable. Hodge details Valentine’s plan to disable the wards surrounding Alicante, and Simon asks why Hodge hasn’t told the Clave. Hodge responds that he was dismissed, both because of his status as a traitor and because of the Clave’s stubborn refusal to believe anything that compromises their power. The Clave makes assumptions about the future based on what has happened in the past, but Hodge points out that nothing stays the same forever. Just because something has been true for a long time doesn’t mean it will always be true. The wards haven’t fallen before, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t fall.

“‘I’m not an angel, Jace,’ she repeated. ‘I don’t return library books. I steal illegal music off the Internet. I lie to my mom. I am completely ordinary.’”

Shortly after they escape the crumbling Wayland Manor, Jace compares himself to Clary—him with his demon blood and her with an abundance of angel blood—emphasizing his sense of shame and self-loathing. Clary argues that the additional amount of angel blood given to her by Valentine doesn’t make her perfect or somehow better than other Shadowhunters. She cites her own imperfections that reflect her humanity—a humanity that Jace shares. This passage is a reminder to the reader about the clash in perspective between Clary and the Clave. Clary didn’t grow up under Clave law; she didn’t internalize a sense of self-importance or arrogance from her Shadowhunter identity. By contrast, Shadowhunters raised within the Clave’s strict teachings are taught from their earliest moments that their angel blood makes them special and that their mistakes have dire consequences, even though Shadowhunters are humans with their own imperfections alongside their heightened abilities.

“Because the wards are their religion. Not to believe in the power of the wards is not to believe that they are special, chosen, and protected by the Angel. They might as well believe they’re just ordinary mundanes.”

After Valentine has disabled the wards surrounding Alicante proving Hodge’s earlier prediction correct, the Clave faces the dire consequences of dismissing truth when it was inconvenient for them. The Clave has listened to none but their own for centuries, and as a result, they believe they know all. The Clave also puts its faith in its own powers, such as the wards, refusing to believe a force exists that’s strong enough to take them down. Hodge’s observation here shows the underlying fear that the Clave hides with hubris. Shadowhunters derive their power from believing they are special and different from regular humans, anything that contradicts that belief is threatening to them, and they combat the threat with pride, even if the results are disastrous.

“There were huddled shapes scattered here and there on the cobblestones; Clary tried not to look at them too hard. She wondered how it was that you could tell someone was dead even from a distance, without looking too closely. Dead bodies didn’t resemble unconscious ones; it was as if you could sense that something had fled from them, that some essential spark was now missing.”

As Clary and Jace hurry through Alicante to the meeting hall, dead bodies are strewn here and there, and Clary’s observation speaks to the intrinsic power of life. Dead bodies appear different from unconscious ones, and though Clary isn’t quite sure why, it may have to do with life giving bones and tissues an essence that cannot be replicated by even fully defined. It may also be that her Shadowhunter blood allows her to make this kind of determination, even if she doesn’t realize she has such an ability.

“I loved you children. But you were children. And no place that you are never allowed to leave can be a home. I went weeks sometimes without speaking to another adult. No other Shadowhunter would trust me. Not even your parents truly liked me; they tolerated me because they had no choice. I could never marry. Never have children of my own. Never have a life. And eventually you children would have been grown and gone, and then I wouldn’t even have had that. I lived in fear, as much as I lived at all.”

Hodge explains his betrayal to Alec and Jace when they question how Hodge could have agreed to help Valentine. Hodge’s draconian punishment for his role in Valentine’s uprising, as compared to others who committed the same crime but had higher connections in the Clave, was an injustice that ate away at his personal morality and loyalty, leaving Hodge feeling cut off from other Shadowhunters and from any ability to live a normal life. He didn’t want to betray Jace and Alec, but he also didn’t want to spend the rest of his existence trapped with only himself for company. The contrast between Hodge’s perspective on his situation and that of Jace and Alec speaks to the complexity and nuance of right and wrong in a given situation. Alec and Jace are unwilling to understand Hodge’s side of the story because his action hurt them, despite the fact that Hodge was arguably treated unfairly and forced to make an impossible choice between his loyalty to them and his own sanity and survival.

“‘Same stuff. Death, destruction, bad angels.’

‘So a lot like real life, then.’

‘Yeah, but at least when I wake up, it’s over.’”

Shortly after Max Lightwood is killed, Clary wakes up from nightmares about demons and destruction. When Simon says her nightmares sound like real life, Clary notes that at least her nightmares end, which speaks to an important distinction between dreams and reality. Dreams may be terrifying, but they are finite, only existing in the subconscious of one’s sleeping mind. Once one wakes, they’re over, and while they may reoccur, one isn’t constantly stuck in them. These lines also speak to how dreams can reflect real life struggles, suggesting dreams are a way for our minds to process things too difficult to face while awake.

“Earlier, when Clary had been sitting close to him, she had seen that there was still a thin white line circling his neck, where Valentine had cut his throat, and scars on his wrists where those had been cut too. His encounters with the Shadowhunters’ world had changed him, and not just the surface of him, or even his blood; the change went deeper than that. He stood straight, with his head up, and took whatever Jace and Alec threw at him and didn’t seem to care. The Simon who would have been frightened of them, or made uneasy by them, was gone.”

Clary observes a change in Simon when they visit the Lightwoods to tell them about Valentine’s projection and threats. Isabelle has been locked in her room, unwilling to talk to anyone, and Simon casually argues with Jace and Alec about how he might be able to get through to her since he isn’t her family. As Clary watches him, she notices how much Simon has changed and how things that used to trouble him don’t seem to do so anymore, speaking to how a person’s experiences fundamentally change them. Even without becoming a vampire, Simon is different now than he was when he first encountered the Shadowhunter world, and such changes are natural. Clary realizes she’s missing the old Simon, partly because he’s gone and partly because she wishes she could have his old comfort back.

“Luke is trying to get the Clave to change, to think in a new way. That’s exactly what Valentine did, even if his goals were—well, not the same. Luke’s an iconoclast. He wants change. To Valentine, the Inquisitor represents the old, hidebound Clave he hates so much.”

During their conversation about Valentine’s projection—that killed the Inquisitor, something projections shouldn’t be able to do—Clary wonders why, if Valentine has such power, he didn’t focus it on Luke, a downworlder, rather than a fellow Shadowhunter. Jace’s theory suggests that opposing groups are not so different from one another as they would like to think. An iconoclast is someone who challenges long-standing institutes or beliefs, and this definition fits both Luke and Valentine. Both want change; they just have very different ways of going about it. Valentine wants the Clave to be less stringent about hiding its true motivations, and Luke wants the Clave to be less ignorant and antiquated in their laws, particularly as they relate to downworlders. Both men want the Clave to evolve, just in different ways—an idea that can be applied to the conflicting political perspectives in today’s modern world. Extremist groups on disparate sides both want radical change, but each thinks they know what kind of change is best.

“The rest of the letter seemed to wash together into a meaningless blur of letters; she had to read it over and over to make any sense of it. When she did finally understand, she stood staring down, watching the paper flutter as her hand shook. She understood now why Jace had told her everything he had, and why he had said one night didn’t matter. You could say anything you wanted to someone you thought you were never going to see again.”

After sleeping beside Jace, Clary wakes to find him gone and a note waiting. In the letter, Jace explains his plan to track Sebastian and kill Valentine, and Clary is hurt and afraid for him. She also understands why he confessed his feelings, even if he was afraid of them. If he isn’t alive to face the consequences of loving Clary, it doesn’t matter if he tells her or if anyone else finds out. This speaks to how people tend to be braver when they feel absolved from consequences. Jace likely wouldn’t have been able to confess these things unless he thought he was going to die because the threat of facing repercussions would have kept him from doing so.

“‘It’s not like you had a choice,’ Simon said. ‘And it’s not like I didn’t know. You can only push the truth down for so long, and then it bubbles back up. The mistake I made was not telling you what was going on with me, not telling you about the dreams. But I don’t regret dating you. I’m glad we tried. And I love you for trying, even if it was never going to work.’”

As they wait for a decision from the Clave about accepting or rejecting Valentine’s terms, Simon references events from City of Ashes and City of Bones following his first encounter with vampires—he would wake from nightmares and find himself heading toward the hotel. He didn’t know what was going on and perhaps didn’t want to believe there was a problem, so he never told Clary, which shows how keeping secrets can get us in trouble. If Simon had confessed what was going on, Clary or the Shadowhunters may have been able to help him, but his pride kept him from admitting something was amiss. The latter portion of this quotation speaks to what ends or changes relationships between people. Simon and Clary didn’t work out romantically, but both have come to terms with this. Simon wishes things could be different, but he also knows he can’t compete with Clary’s true feelings for Jace, and he appreciates what they had while they had it.

“Clary turned away and stared fixedly down into the square, watching the guards do their rounds, as Jocelyn came and sat down next to her. Part of Clary wanted to lean sideways and put her head on her mother’s shoulder. She could even close her eyes, pretend everything was all right. The other part of her knew that it wouldn’t make a difference; she couldn’t keep her eyes closed forever.”

Here, Clary has just shown the Clave her ability to draw new runes and implored them to reconsider giving in to Valentine’s demands, leaving her feeling spent and vulnerable. Her desire to seek comfort in Jocelyn as she always did as a little girl battles with her conflicted feelings about all the secrets Jocelyn kept from her, exemplifying the complicated transition of learning to see one’s parent as human and flawed. Clary realizes how much she misses when things felt simpler with her mother. Part of her wants to curl up beside her mom and forget all the troubles facing her, but even if she does this, she knows it can’t last. She’ll eventually have to face what’s happening and deal with the consequences of whatever the Clave decides.

“Luke glanced up—and so did quite a few of the other Shadowhunters. Most of them looked away just as quickly, but Clary sensed the fascination in their stares. It was weird thinking that her mother was something of a legendary figure here. Just about everyone in the room had heard her name and had some kind of opinion about her, good or bad. Clary wondered how her mother kept it from bothering her. She didn’t look bothered—she looked cool and collected and dangerous.”

This passage is the first time Clary sees her mother as a Shadowhunter among other Shadowhunters. Rather than the mother Clary remembers, she looks almost like a stranger here in her black Shadowhunter gear and with her unconcerned, dangerous air. Clary can’t understand how her mother doesn’t look bothered by all the opinions of her, which shows Clary’s own insecurity about how people view her. She can’t imagine being in her mother’s place because she can’t picture herself looking so unaffected. In truth, her mother is likely affected, but she has had enough practice hiding away her emotions so that she doesn’t show how she feels.

“‘I am a vampire, and you keep forgetting it. Or maybe you just want to forget. But I’m a Downworlder and you’re a Shadowhunter, and this fight is both of ours.’

‘But you’re not like them—’

‘I am one of them.’ He spoke slowly, deliberately, as if to make absolutely sure that she understood every word he was saying. ‘And I always will be. If the Downworlders fight this war with the Shadowhunters, without the participation of Raphael’s people, then there will be no Council seat for the Night Children. They won’t be a part of the world Luke’s trying to create, a world where Shadowhunters and Downworlders work together. Are together. The vampires will be shut out of that. They’ll be the enemies of the Shadowhunters. I’ll be your enemy.’”

This conversation between Simon and Clary comes after Raphael (Simon’s vampire sire) demands Simon in exchange for the vampires fighting alongside Shadowhunters against Valentine. Up until this point, Simon’s participation in Shadowhunter/downworlder dealings has been more passive—by association or blood—but he has still acted like a human, not really getting involved or using his vampire nature in any meaningful way. Here, he claims his identity as a part of the downworlder community. He realizes that he has a unique kind of power—a connection to both worlds—that he can use to help shape the Shadowhunter world moving forward. Simon accepts his role as a vampire without sacrificing who he is because he can see how doing so will help him contribute to a better future for them all. By giving himself up to the vampires, he can ensure Shadowhunters and vampires work together, something that’s important for Luke’s vision and, Simon discovers, important to him as well.

“Simon was a veteran of countless battles. That is, if you counted battles engaged in while playing Dungeons and Dragons. His friend Eric was the military history buff and he was the one who usually organized the war part of the games, which involved dozens of tiny figurines moving in straight lines across a flat landscape drawn on butcher paper. That was the way he’d always thought of battles—or the way they were in movies, with two groups of people advancing at each other across a flat expanse of land. Straight lines and orderly progression.”

When Simon first sees the battle between Valentine’s forces and the downworlder-Shadowhunter alliance, he is struck by how different it is from his fanciful childhood ideas of war drawn from movies or Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. This battle is chaotic, full of death and destruction, marking an important distinction between fiction and reality. Fictional battles are staged and can be played out however the director or Dungeon Master wishes. Battles in real life are not scripted, and they are messy.

“And in some way, Clary thought, he meant it, meant his gratitude. He had long ago lost the ability to distinguish between force and cooperation, between fear and willingness, between love and torture. And with that realization came a rush of numbness—what was the point of hating Valentine for being a monster when he didn’t even know he was one?”

Through Valentine’s villainy, Clare explores one of the novel’s central themes—What Makes a Monster. Valentine imprisons and silences Clary at Lake Lyn, taking some of her blood to summon Raziel. When Valentine thanks her for the blood, Clary realizes that he isn’t being ironic or sarcastic. Rather, Valentine sees forcing others to help him as willing cooperation because he believes everyone will come to understand that his vision is the only right one, the only path forward. He believes if they truly understood, there would be no resistance. Valentine doesn’t view his plans as monstrous because, to him, they are the only correct way to proceed. He believes so unequivocally in his own rightness that he is resolved to do what he knows is best and right for the Shadowhunters, regardless of who disagrees or tries to stand in his way.

“She could ask for anything, she thought dizzily, anything—an end to pain or world hunger or disease, or for peace on earth. But then again, perhaps these things weren’t in the power of angels to grant, or they would already have been granted. And perhaps people were supposed to find these things for themselves.”

Here, Raziel has just freed Clary and told her he will grant her one wish. In the moments before her decision, Clary reckons the selfishness of her choice to bring Jace back to life—the thing she most desires over seemingly grander, world-changing things, such as an end to pain or hunger. She dismisses these ideas as too grand for an angel to fix. There’s no proof that angels don’t have the power to grant these wishes or that they would have gotten rid of these things without being asked, but Clary presents these arguments to justify the fact that she just wants Jace back. Clary is human, despite her angel blood, and her choice reflects equally human characteristics—love and desire.

“‘This was the first time they let me leave the Basilias, and I had to come here.’

‘You didn’t have to,’ Luke said. ‘You could have stayed away.’

‘I wanted to,’ Jace admitted. ‘Whatever that says about me.’” 

This conversation between Jace and Luke explores the complexity of Jace’s feelings about his father, who has been both loving and monstrous in Jace’s life. Jace tells Luke he had to attend the funeral in spite of all the evil Valentine has done. Luke pushes back against the idea of Jace “having” to do anything—highlighting the theme of Self-Perception Versus the Perceptions of Others. Jace feels ashamed of the love he still feels for the Valentine who raised him or the need to bear witness to his funeral because he’s internalized the judgment of his community regarding his association with Valentine. Luke’s gentle reminder that Jace should do what’s right for him regardless of the opinions of others validates Jace’s feelings and allows him to make peace with his conflicted feelings. Jace doesn’t actually “need” to attend the funeral, but he wants to. Jace chooses to attend the funeral because, whether he likes it or not, Valentine meant something to him, and attending the funeral holds importance to Jace. Jace can want to pay his respects while still disliking Valentine.

“I told you the truth as I saw it. We all tell the truth as we see it, do we not? Did you ever stop to wonder what untruths might have been in the tale your mother told you, that served her purpose in telling it? Do you truly think you know each and every secret of your past?”

Clare uses Clary’s encounter with the queen of the fairies (for the first time since City of Ashes, where the queen told Clary and Jace they were siblings) to explore the idea that, in Clare’s world, fairies can’t tell a lie. Prior to this passage, the queen says all Shadowhunters share angel blood, which makes them siblings, and while Clary thinks this is a lie, the queen says it is a truth as she sees it, calling into question what truth really means and way it can be affected by individual perspective. Every person’s truth is individual to them. There are facts that are well-known, but a person could choose to ignore them in favor of believing different facts are true. A person could also choose to view a truth in a different way than that which is widely accepted, but this doesn’t necessarily mean they are lying—it simply means they have a different point of view.