Mundie Moms

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Cassie Re-visits the TID Love Triangle

Clockwork Angel by kara-lija.

Yesterday on her tumblr, Cassie posted an answer to one of our favorite questions regarding The Infernal Devices' love triangle -- if Will and Jem are so close, parabatai even, how could they not know about each other's affection towards Tessa?  She answered it originally (spoilers for Clockwork Prince for those doing the read-a-long for the first time click at your own risk) here, but here's what she posted yesterday:

To break it down to basics: neither Jem or Will knew how the other one felt about Tessa because the other one had never told them.

More complicatedly, they don’t know because the scenes in which their feelings are obvious — Will breaking down in front of Magnus, Jem when he’s alone with Tessa — are never enacted when they other guy is around. We see Will alone with Tessa, telling her he’s wanted to kiss her since the first time he saw her; Jem’s not around for that. He never sees that. Will’s not around for Jem telling Tessa she makes him want to write poetry. He never sees that. He never knows about it. The reader knows all those things, and factors them into their knowledge of the characters. But it’s important to not forget that the characters have not read the book.

(And, also, they are all being chased by giant robots, Jem is dying, Will’s family is being held hostage and he’s under a curse, so while they are close, I never thought that Dude 1’s romantic situation would be the first thing on Dude 2’s mind, no matter how brothery their love.)

So will it be answered in Clockwork Princess? It’s addressed, but not really answered, in the sense that I’ve never thought of it as a mystery. I think there is a belief that with love comes perfect understanding and perfect telepathy, but that’s not how people are. Thats why real relationships involve “working on communication.” Because communication is work, not magic, and while you may love someone enough to be able to tell when they’re upset, that doesn’t mean you can tell why. The other person has to tell you.

However, I did answer the question several times after Clockwork Prince came out, so in honor of Princess coming soon, I thought it might help to revisit those essays, out from under a cut tag now:

1) Why Will doesn’t notice how Jem feels.

This is a bit more difficult to explain (in my mind) than why Jem didn’t notice Will loved Tessa (though I get asked that more!) — not because there’s a not a valid reasons but because it isn’t as concrete as “Will was hiding it, no?” Jem wasn’t hiding it. And yet, Will genuinely didn’t realize. So, why?

I don’t want to say “Will doesn’t think of Jem as a threat” because that implies all sorts of things — that people don’t see Jem as masculine (not true) or that Jem is some sort of beta or sidekick for Will, which isn’t true either. However, what is true is that for five years Jem has been a source for Will of only good things — in some ways, his only source of good things. Jem has protected him. Jem has loved him. Jem has had faith in him when nobody else did.

In a lot of ways Will isn’t capable of imagining that Jem might be the cause of pain for him (in any other way than Jem himself dying.) In his mind, Jem’s a part of him. It would be like him imagining that his own left hand might suddenly start punching him in the face. That’s why when he finds out that Jem has proposed to Tessa, his first reaction is disbelief: “Jem? *My* Jem?” Jem is his, his parabatai, his other half, his blood brother. Jem is not separate enough from him, in Will’s mind, to take independent action that would be shocking or surprising to Will. Will is also completely caught up with and distracted by his own circumstances — desperately trying to get the curse off himself, protect his family, protect Tessa (from himself) protect Jem (from running out of drugs.) He is stretched about as thin as you could be. Under normal circumstances, he would probably also have noticed Jessamine was sneaking around, but there’s too much going on: he just doesn’t have the room for it.

This doesn’t make him a bad or selfish person. His circumstances are desperate and extreme. They require his full attention. But he himself thinks it, at the end of the book: “Will had never considered [Jem’s romantic happiness]. He had dwelled on whether Jem was safe, whether he was surviving, but not if he was happy.”

Being too caught up in whether your best friend is going to die to consider whether they’re into the same girl as you doesn’t make you a bad person; in this case, Will’s human frailties are far out of proportion to the level to which he is punished for them. But then, this isn’t a morality tale: it’s the messy story of three good people trying to do right, caught up in an impossible situation. The desire to lay blame on one of them is reasonable, but I think the thing about it that makes it upsetting is precisely that nobody really is to blame.

My .02, anyway!

2) Why Jem doesn’t notice how Will feels.


I think that, when presented with a really painful situation like the one at the end of Clockwork Prince, there is a sort of natural desire to assign blame. It makes it less painful to imagine that what’s going on is someone’s fault — Tessa’s selfish! Will is entitled! Jem is blind! — than to think that these are basically decent people trying hard to be good, and they get screwed anyway. Because one is a moral lesson (always a bit comforting, as it offers the illusion of control) and the other says life is a agonizing lottery of tragedy and chance (not comforting at all.)

Now, to the specifics of the question. First, Jem noticing Will noticing a pretty girl is hardly equivalent to Jem noticing Will being in deathless love. Will notices pretty girls all the time. It’s in fact, part of his persona. Jem noting that Will thinks Tessa is pretty in CA is not about him commenting on Will’s feelings so much as it is him getting confirmation for his own. [Sometimes, my husband offers, when you think a girl is a babe, you want confirmation from your buddy that she is, in fact, as babelicious as you believe.]

Jem is an observant guy. But he is under no illusions that he knows everything about Will, and he is frank about that. From Clockwork Angel, when he tells Tessa he has no idea why Will won’t speak to his family:

““And you’ve never asked him why?”
“If he wanted me to know, he’d tell me,” Jem said. “You asked why I think he tolerates me better than other people. I’d imagine it’s precisely because I’ve never asked him why.”
Nor does Will think Jem knows everything about him.
“I don’t know,” Tessa said. “I’m not sure anyone does understand you, except possibly Jem.”
“Jem doesn’t understand me,” Will said. “He cares for me— like a brother might. It’s not the same thing.”

What Jem offers Will, what makes their relationship unique and workable, is precisely this: unconditional love without demand, perfect trust without perfect understanding. Will’s statement that Jem doesn’t understand him is not a criticism of Jem. He does not want Jem to understand him, because he doesn’t want his curse understood. He deliberately lies and hides things from Jem, and Jem knows it and accepts it because he loves him, but it’s a far stretch from that to “Jem ought to be able to read Will’s mind.”

Certainly Jem is able to tell that Will is in no good mood, but Will is often in no good mood, and much of Will’s upset during Clockwork Prince can be put down to his awful near-encounter with his family and his panic over their well-being. Because a lot of it is about that, and Jem would not be incorrect in assuming so. There seems to be an assumption here that Jem and Tessa ought to be able to see through Will like glass, even though Will says over and over that he isn’t interested in Tessa. If Jem and Will are really all that close, the assumption seems to be, surely Jem would be able to read Will’s mind and see he loves Tessa? But the flip side of that assumption is: since Jem and Will truly know each other, Will also knows exactly how to lie to Jem and make it stick. As for poor Tessa, we’ve been over this: there is no reason to assume a guy who repeatedly says he isn’t interested in you or commitment is not serious. Really, that way lies misery and ending up on Tool Academy with your loser boyfriend.

[Also, if the suggestion is that parabatai ought to be able to read each other’s mind: why is Will so dense as to go off and drug himself up at an opium den and have no idea what that would do to Jem? Why does Will not notice that Jem loves Tessa, given that Will is bending every last atom of his will to concealing his love for Tessa, but Jem isn’t bothering? He’s taking her out on carriage rides and probably oogling at her at the breakfast table. I mean, really, Will.]

And lastly, it’s not like Jem doesn’t have his own stuff going on. He’s dying, and dependent on a drug whose continued availability is limited. He’s in love with a girl, but knows that being a dying man, he doesn’t have a lot to offer. When she unexpectedly accepts his proposal, he’s joyous. Meanwhile, the last time he saw Will, Will was in a terrific mood (as he’d just had the curse lifted.) So Jem’s sitting there, basically overwhelmingly happy for probably the first time in his life since his parents died, and when Will comes in, he’s supposed to flip like a switch and suddenly care about nothing but the possibility that Will might be unhappy despite the fact he hasn’t mentioned it and was just fine an hour ago?

C’mon, let the guy have his moment of happiness. After all, as we know, life is a meaningless lottery of tragedy and chance.
I just love Cassie's answer, and I'm looking forward to reading how this resolves itself (or doesn't entirely) in Clockwork Princess. I think Cassie's captured what goes on between close friends; that level of knowing and yet not knowing, at times, that the closest of friendships share. Sometimes, we're too close or too distracted to see what's right there in front of our eyes. What do you think about this, MMs??

2 comments:

  1. I love this answer. To be honest, I never questioned why the other one didn't know they were both in love with Tessa. There is so much going on and they never really openly show their affection to her when the other is around so it made sense to me that they both were clueless to how the other felt. I can't wait to see how this is resolved (or not resolved) I think no matter what, Will, Jem, or neither, my heart is going to be broken.

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    1. Amy - I agree with you. The plot is a very short timeline, too. I mean, yes, we've known the characters for hundreds of pages, but the story happens over a few months. It's so possible in that time, that Will and Jem simply miss any signals even when they were around each other. And I couldn't agree more about heart-breakage. I can feel those clouds moving in. But, it'll be sooooo good.

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