Cassandra Clare recently took to Tumblr to talk bout The Infernal Devices in The Mortal Instruments and answered a few fan questions. Here's what she shared on her Tumblr page:
Reblogging cause I’ve got a bunch of these questions and I posted this almost a month ago, so — this time not under a cut. Beware COHF SPOILERS!
Hi Cassie :D I just wanted to say that I LOVED City of Heavenly Fire. It was awesomeness. But I just had some questions. Why didn’t Jem/Zachariah tell Emma that he is related to her (even if distantly)? And will he make an appearance in upcoming books? Will Emma eventually know that she’s related to him? These question just crossed my mind while reading. Thanks :) — thatescapist
The Infernal Devices in The Mortal Instrumentslanaarwenlazar said:CoHF was very cleverly written without spoiling anything from TID, but won’t it be hard writing TDA without spoiling anything from the other two series?And questions about the TID characters in CoHF, what to expect from TDA, and more below the spoiler cut.gaugua said: that was one of the most - if not, the most - satisfying endings i have ever read in my life, so thank you so much for that experience. i wanted to ask why you didn’t have any interaction between jace/jem or jace/tessa? it would’ve been nice to see what tessa especially would’ve liked to say to one of her descendents. thank you so much, again! have a lovely day.I loved COHF with all my heart Cassie, I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much for a book geez!! But here’s my first question: How does Tessa feels about Jace? I mean, shouldn’t she love him because he is her blood? The last of her family alive? And why she never named herself Tessa Herondale-Gray or something like that? Well that’s all, Thank you so much Cassie for creating the best books ever. You changed my whole life. Now I know I’m a shadowhunterchels30 said:Great book. Couple questions. One is the person who gave warning at the London institute Jessie? Two will we eventually see Tessa and Jace talk? Really enjoyed seeing Tessa and Jem together at the end and mingling with the others. <3 em="">3>bookishnonsense said:Hi Cassie! I loved COHF. When will we learn more about the warlocks of the Spiral Labyrinth? Last, I just wondered if you regret promising that TMI wouldn’t spoil TID and if that promise made it harder for you to write COHF.thesedauntless said: I’ve heard that city of heavenly fire spoils the infernal devices is that true? I would hate to be spoiled for the infernal devices, as of right now I’m reading city of lost souls and I was looking forward to cohf but I want to know before I spoil myself. I would rather put cohf off for a while then get spoiled on books I haven’ t read yet.Well, the last comment there kind of answers all the other questions, but …First, I would say: No, I don’t think City of Heavenly Fire spoils the Infernal Devices. It spoils that Tessa is still alive, but she was in City of Glass, so that’s not much of a spoiler.If you have read The Infernal Devices, it may seem very clear what is going on, but if you haven’t, then you don’t know who Brother Zachariah is. He could be Will or Jem — if you’ve never read ID, he could literally be anyone. In fact, as he has dark hair and Jem is introduced as blond, it seems to point to Will.Will’s name is never used, nor is Jem’s. Clearly both the Herondale and Carstairs families are important to Tessa and Brother Zachariah but we don’t know why, and I don’t really think that’s a spoiler. Tessa never indicates she is related to the Herondales and doesn’t present James’ ring as her son’s.If you have read books one and two of the Infernal Devices and then gone to read City of Heavenly Fire, it probably is spoilery. But why are you doing that?! Quit it. I cannot control for everything, you know. :DI did think it was important TMI not spoil TID. Many people have read TMI but not TID. In general, also, if you wander into a bookshop and say you want to start the Shadowhunter series, they’ll hand you City of Bones. It is generally regarded as Book One. I don’t think it’s fair on all the people who have not read TID to spoil it for them in Book Six of TMI when I was careful to hint around at TID in the previous books, but not spoil it. It seems like going back on an implicit promise coded into the books themselves, not just a promise made on the Internet.
Speaking of which: I don’t regret promising that TMI wouldn’t spoil Infernal Devices. I understand asking the question, just as I understand the questions from readers who want to see Jace and Tessa and Jem and Emma have touching reunions in which commonalities of blood are discussed and shared. It makes sense to want to see the generations together. And of course Jace, having no other Herondale relatives that he knows of, well, wouldn’t he want to meet a Herondale (even if she is not one by blood and doesn’t use the name anymore, she does know a lot about his ancestors? Which, as he’s chosen to be a Herondale, he might be interested in?)I mean, yes, I think it would be interesting for him. But I don’t think it would be heartrending and significant, not at first, and I think heart-rending and significant is what people want to see. Herondales reunited! But I do think Tessa is right, and that Jace is just settling into his identity after having had questions of identity rip him apart for so long. He only just decided he wanted to use the Herondale name. I think she’s correct about giving him time to settle before plonking down to say, “I am your great-great-great-great gramma and I am going to tell you about your ancestors, kid! You know that feeling you have about ducks? I’m going to fill that in for you!”I mean, I think it would be cute and fun and genuinely touching, to have them really talk. But it would also be something of an arc of its own and much more than you could stuff into an epilogue (this stuff is planned way in advance; the epilogue of Clockwork Princess, as written, literally forbids Tessa from having any real concrete knowledge of Jace and Clary’s involvement in the war up until the epilogue of CoHF, because she doesn’t know about it when Jem comes to find her. TMI (and TID) were just never built so that Tessa would have a huge part in TMI.) I also think into-ing Tessa and Jem as who they are and making a big deal about Tessa’s relationship to Jace puts Jace in a place where he is facing the past, not the future, at the end of the series that is about him, and he should not be doing that. In fact, it weights the entire story toward the past and not the future — when everything is very much weighted toward the future and this tipping point the Shadowhunters have found themselves at.How does Tessa feels about Jace? I mean, shouldn’t she love him because he is her blood? The last of her family alive? And why she never named herself Tessa Herondale-Gray or something like that?He isn’t the last of her family alive — she’s got about fifty or sixty other descendants that are as related to her as Jace. He shares the Herondale name, is the only difference. I mean, meta-textually, the conversation that is desired here is “Hello, I am the protagonist of the prequels. I see you are the protagonist of these books! Let’s talk!” Which is why Tessa talks to Clary, not Jace.But the Shadowhunters are people for whom family and blood and names are important, so of course it makes sense, that readers would want these stories to dovetail. And they will. But you don’t love people because they are blood-related to you. But that is another post. (And Tessa doesn’t go by Herondale-Gray, as she is going by her warlock name (she doesn’t go by Starkweather, either) and doesn’t want to be identified as a Shadowhunter.)it would’ve been nice to see what tessa especially would’ve liked to say to one of her descendantsAnd we do! She says it to Clary, to pass on to Jace."Do not let other people decide who you are. Decide for yourself.” Tessa looked over at Jace, whose hands were dancing over the piano keys. Light from the tapers caught like stars in his hair and made his skin shine. “That freedom is not a gift; it is a birthright. I hope that you and Jace will use it."And then of course there is Emma and Jem. Emma, sweet Emma, of course there’s an instinct to want to have her bond with another Carstairs because she’s lost her parents. But Jem recognizes that she does have an adoptive family in the Blackthorns and that she is much better off with them — it is not as if he and Tessa could adopt her and she could still be a Shadowhunter and be with her parabatai, which, Jem being Jem, he would naturally regard as a paramount consideration. And I don’t actually think that being told she has a sixth cousin once removed (which is what Jem is to Emma) would be helpful to her particularly at this moment — she has closer blood relations living, which is mentioned in CoHF. Might it be helpful later? Might it not make sense to put this particular Carstairs revelation into the books that are actually about Emma and the Carstairs, i.e. The Dark Artifices?I do think so. So there are both the considerations of spoiling the Infernal Devices and also the considerations of narrative in keeping the end of TMI from being a big reunion, making it all about the characters from another series instead of the series we’re saying goodbye to now, and from dumping too much significant Emma plot into a book not about her (or too much Tessa, Will and Jem into a book not about them). Obviously if spoiling TID would have been the absolute best thing for the story, then I would have done it. But I think it would have not just weighted the story wrong, but been an small moment or two whereas later on, in TDA, it can be a really big and interesting thing — both for Tessa and Jace, and for Jem and Emma. IN TDA it has direct plot implications.CoHF was very cleverly written without spoiling anything from TID, but won’t it be hard writing TDA without spoiling anything from the other two series?Boy howdy would it and I’ve no intention of doing that. Like I said, most people start with City of Bones and always will. If they start with Dark Artifices, they’ll be able to follow the tale without confusion, but they will be spoiled for what happens in TMI, just as those reading The Last Hours will be spoiled for TID. There’s no way around it. It’s not the worst thing — lots of people come to Tamora Pierce’s Tortall series through Daughter of the Lioness, which necessarily spoils the previous series Song of the Lioness, but doesn’t make either series less enjoyable in the end.TMI kind of remains the central point around which all the other series revolve, so as long as it doesn’t contain spoilers, I’m OK.And there is always that question of that missing Herondale….
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