City of Bones Spork: Chapter 2 - Secrets and Lies

[ignoresandra]

City of Bones Spork

Alternate title: Summer of Hell

So, City of Bones and Cassandra Clare. I've heard about her in passing and now I've read two chapters of one of her books and one of her tumblr posts. So for me this isn't personal, and in fact it feels weird for me to criticize another Cassandra. Stupid class solidarity.

Except that she's not really worthy of the name. Cassandra of Troy is the archetypical woman was always right but always disbelieved. Cassandra Clare doesn't really fit in that category in any respect. She just thought it sounded good, and to be fair it does. In any event I will be making an effort to keep an even hand. The writing here is quite bad, however. If I wrote like this I'd be a pirate, but I guess because she's successful when she does it she's an empress.

We open with Clary in her bedroom trying to draw someone or something called "The Dark Prince". Clary keeps getting it wrong by her own standards, ripping the paper off, balling it up, and throwing it across the room. This is very... 2004 tumblr? I want to say? The tortured art girl keeps trying or whatever.

Already the floor was littered with discarded balls of paper, a sure sign that her creative juices weren’t flowing the way she’d hoped. She wished for the thousandth time that she could be a bit more like her mother. Everything Jocelyn Fray drew, painted, or sketched was beautiful, and seemingly effortless.

Where to begin? Creativity doesn't work this way. Getting something wrong doesn't mean you're not creative today, it means you got something wrong. But CC seems to believe that art is just something one magically, effortlessly gets right and if it's not right on the first try you throw it away. I'm fairly sure this paragraph has two purposes: Establish Clary as someone who tries hard to learn skills, and prime the reader to meet Clary's mother.

Instead, the scene creates the impression that Clary is the type who cannot identify specific deficiencies in her skill so it doesn't matter if she tries hard, she's never going to improve because she doesn't approach skills as something she can improve at. Meanwhile Jocelyn is painted as someone to aspire to be like in a way that makes me think CC is going to kill her soon while actually conveying the impression that Jocelyn isn't the best mother because she clearly hasn't given Clary the tools for success.

Clary pulled her headphones out—cutting off Stepping Razor in midsong—and rubbed her aching temples.

Stepping Razor is a real song, by the way. It's from 1977 recorded by Peter Tosh. It's a pretty nice song. It's all about how bullies should stay in their own lane because the singer is not harmless, which has obvious implications in light of the American Civil Rights movement. Notable line: "If you want to live, you better treat me good".

Why is this relevant? A lot of bad authors invoke real songs because they know the mood they want to convey but don't know how. So what is the theme CC wants to convey? It's that Clary is going to push back when people (allegedly) try to push her around. Really, that's it. This song does not need to be referenced. We could just be shown. If she wanted to get specific about Clary's music tastes, CC could literally have just said that Clary listens to reggae when she's drawing.

Only once Clary gets her headphones off does she hear the telephone ringing. So she goes and answers it, and someone who's voice she doesn't recognize asks for "Clarissa Fray". Can we talk about her name for a moment? "Clary" is not a natural diminutive of Clarissa. She would have had to ask for that. "'Rissa" would have made sense, but Clarissa just isn't a name with a lot of natural ways to shorten it. Why does this matter? I think CC picked Clary's nickname first and then had to scramble backwards to figure out her name, and at no point considered changing her nickname to make sense with a real name (Off the top of my head: Christina -> Crisy / Alexandra -> Sandra / Anastasija -> Tasi). This kind of slavish adherence to a specific name is a trait of sue-writers. I recall well my brother writing a book where the Brom rip-off has the same first name he did.

Also, Fray is a pretty unusual last name. It could certainly happen, but I'd expect it to be the kind of thing one changes their name to at the courthouse, not the kind of name one is given. Fray is also a word that means "fight", and what Clary & Jocelyn do this chapter is fight.

Clary wraps the phone cord around her finger and admits she is Clary. The voice on the other end says it's one of the knife people Clary hallucinated last night and wants to get to know her better. It's not, it's Simon. Clary says it isn't funny, but Simon finds it funny. This is a rare moment where I agree with Clary more or less. If literally last night I'd believed someone was in danger and tried to help them, but only wound up being banned from a place I like to go and everyone thinks I made up what I saw, I'd be pretty mad if one of my friends was making jokes about it. If anything, Clary's reaction is unusually understated. She just says it's not funny and moves the conversation along. Realistically she should be pretty emotional right now - between the trauma of being threatened, of witnessing a murder, of not being believed, she should be yelling, crying, or both.

Clary tells Simon that Jocelyn yelled at her when she got home because she was late, and of course because Clary must be PERFECT being late was not Clary's fault due to traffic. I'm pretty sure CC wants us to see Jocelyn as being unreasonable, as if it's unreasonable to require your 15-year old daughter to be home by a certain hour. Clary really has an unusual amount of freedom for a 15-year old - she can take taxis to nightclubs and Jocelyn is 100% ok with that. So for CC to try and paint Jocelyn as an unreasonable parent is pretty bold.

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t see it that way. I disappointed her, I let her down, I made her worry, blah blah blah. I am the bane of her existence,” Clary said, mimicking her mother’s precise phrasing with only a slight twinge of guilt.

So is Jocelyn abusive? Is she a good parent who Clary aspires to be like? Is she permissive? Make up your mind, CC. "You are the bane of my existence" is the kind of thing an abuser says. But letting your 15-year old kid go out to nightclubs is the kind of thing a permissive parent does, while guilt tripping your kid about not respecting curfew is the sort of thing an overbearing parent does, while setting a curfew at all is the kind of thing a good parent does.

I am getting mixed messages and no they will not stop.

So Simon asks if she's grounded. Clary says she doesn't know because Jocelyn hasn't talked to her today. Again with the mixed messages! If Jocelyn was as overbearing as we're meant to think she is, Jocelyn would have woken Clary up to tell her that she's grounded or left a note saying something like "I'm off grocery shopping with Luke. I should be back around 2PM. Until I tell you otherwise, consider yourself grounded."

Clary notes that Simon is talking louder than he has to, and she believes it's because he's hanging out with his band. I don't like this sequence. It exists solely so that CC can be openly contemptuous of Simon and his friends, Simon being Harry is this cipher.

So Clary asks, and Simon confirms that he's hanging out with Eric and "the band". Despite the fact Simon is on the phone, one of them claps cymbals and Simon has to tell them to shut up for a second. He invites Clary to a poetry reading Eric is doing at a coffee shop really close to Clary's home. Apparently all these boys go to each other's projects to support each other, which is just squad goals.

Clary agrees to go, then immediately changes her mind. She says she doesn't know if she's grounded, but Jocelyn's mad and she doesn't want to make it worse by asking for a favor right now. She says if she's going to make Jocelyn really angry, she's not going to do it "over Eric's lousy poetry". Wow. That's a pretty lame way to talk about your friend's friend, Clary. Simon says Eric's poetry isn't that bad, which if Eric's doing a poetry reading on something other than open mic night Eric's poetry has to be pretty decent. The narration just kind of tells us that Eric and Simon have been friend for quite a while, but they aren't "close the way Simon and Clary" are. But they started a rock band at the beginning of their sophomore year. We're told the band practices every week, which is some serious dedication.

Simon says that Clary wouldn't be asking for a favor, because he's not inviting her to "an orgy in Hoboken", he's inviting her to "A poetry slam around the corner from your house. Your mom can come if she wants." Clary doesn't react to this at all. I don't know if any of y'all have been in a conversation where your friend just says something buck wild, but normally what happens to me is I react immediately even though it interrupts them.

Anyway Eric yells "ORGY IN HOBOKEN!" in the background and someone claps the cymbals together again. Which is honestly a fair reaction to what Simon just said.

She imagined her mother listening to Eric read his poetry, and she shuddered inwardly.

Are we supposed to get from this that Eric writes a lot of horny poetry? How dare he, a teenager, write horny poetry. Just. How dare. What a bad person. More to the point, I doubt Eric would be allowed to perform horny poetry in public. I think the coffee shop would have a vested interest in remaining a "family-friendly" environment, so if Eric ever wants to perform there again he'll need to not read his horniest selection.

Clary says not all of them should show up together, and Simon says he'll come alone and it'll be fine because Jocelyn loves him. Clary says Jocelyn has questionable taste and Simon says no one asked her. Which is honestly fair, Simon. Get her ass. This entire preceding conversation was, how do I put this, COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT. It did not need to happen. We didn't learn anything on which the rest of this chapter turns. You could literally have Clary say "Simon and the boys invited me out to a poetry reading this morning, and I'm fucking going" and it'd have exactly the same influence on the chapter, which is supposedly about Clary fighting with Jocelyn as near as I can tell.

So Clary wanders around her house now, and we learn stuff about her family from the stuff she sees. Which is fairly standard, but it's all just so passive. Jocelyn apparently made a huge percentage of the stuff around the house, from the "handmade velvet throw pillows" to a LOT of paintings. I think this could be a good way to establish Jocelyn as an imposing presence as compared to Clary (Evidence of Jocelyn's impact on the home is everywhere, but there's so little of Clary's) but it doesn't really work because not enough time is spent on the way Jocelyn's art fills every room of the house, whereas if Clary's lucky she has one piece in a room. So instead it's just "Does Jocelyn actually have a day job?"

CC also seems to think that sewing, painting, and drawing all use the same nebulous Art skill and they just don't. My mother paints and sews but can't draw or write poetry, I write poetry but I can't sew and struggle to draw, so on and so forth.

We're told a little bit about Clary's dad. He was a "decorated soldier", which is pretty, uh. Not very descriptive. I expect and require something better. A soldier's actions on a battlefield is a natural place to launch into a story of the kind of man Clary's father was. I do think it's cute that Jocelyn keeps a picture of him on the mantelpiece and his medals in a box next to her bed. It reminds me of King Talomir in The Eldritch Heart setting a place for his deceased wife every time he eats a meal. We're told that his name was Jonathan Clark, that he died in a car accident in Albany, and that Jocelyn went back to her maiden name when he died.

But we're not told what his rank was. What medals he won. This would have been a good opportunity to establish the legacy that Clary carries forward. There would be a different impression about her father if he was a PFC who got four commendations for bravery and a purple heart vs a Lt. Colonel who won the Medal of Honor. I feel like I'm struggling to make my point, but I think I'm centering around the damaging lack of specificity in the narrative. We have a nebulous impression of Jonathan Clark, but we don't know anything about who he was - but if we didn't need to know who he was, why bring him up at all? Just have Jocelyn tell Clary that she just doesn't have a father and there's nothing there for her.

Anyway, we're told Jocelyn has NEVER told Clary anything about her father, which is one hell of a way for a writer to cop out of actually having to characterize this man. I've officially spent more time characterizing Clary's parents than CC bothered to, by the way. We get all of three paragraphs of this - one about Jocelyn, two about Jonathan - vs about eight on that irrelevant phone call from earlier.

CC is saved from having to do anything interesting by Clary hearing a "key turning in the front door". Weird. The phone was described as being right by the front door. I'd imagine Clary would have heard the car first, or maybe seen them pull up through a window. Clary grabs one of Jocelyn's books and tries to pretend she was reading. She describes Jocelyn as believing reading is sacred so Clary thinks she might be able to hide like this even if Jocelyn wants to yell at her. Coward.

A guy named Luke enters with a lot of cardboard boxes and smiles at her. She's used to calling him "Uncle Luke", but he's a close friend of her mother's and not "really" her uncle. Meanwhile the phrase "Uncle Luke" makes me think of the old Star Wars Expanded Universe, the one where Han & Leia had three kids. Clary asks him where Jocelyn is, and Luke says she's parking the truck. Then he asks Clary why the building doesn't have service elevators, and Clary says it's because the building has "character". Clary asks about the boxes, and Luke says Jocelyn wants to pack up some things.

Clary is concerned, and Luke waves her off. He picks up the book she's reading and reads an excerpt, and the book is The Golden Bough, published 1830, written by James George Frazier. I am not reading a book written by an 1800s white guy as research for this sporking. The song was enough!

Luke sets up to start putting boxes together, and Clary doesn't even try to help as she asks him what he would do if he saw something no one else could see. He drops a thing, and he and Clary back and forth as she clarifies that she means she sees stuff that's invisible to other people. Honestly were I in Luke's place, I would focus on questioning on whether Clary feels alright and whether Clary should discuss this with a mental health professional. Luke, however, has a different takeaway.

Clary, you’re an artist, like your mother. That means you see the world in ways that other people don’t. It’s your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn’t make you crazy—just different. There’s nothing wrong with being different.

Oh artists are so special! Art is the unique realm of the tortured artistic soul! Why do you think it's called PAINting? Write with two hands, CC. Art is just a thing humans do - singing, dancing, drawing, painting, woodcarving, sewing, etc etc etc. One does not need a special sue soul to art.

Clary pulled her legs up, and rested her chin on her knees. In her mind’s eye she saw the storage room, Isabelle’s gold whip, the blue-haired boy convulsing in his death spasms, and Jace’s tawny eyes. Beauty and horror.

Oh so Clary didn't even get up when her family returned home, clearly with shit they needed to carry in? That's pretty cold, Clary. What I love about this sequence is that it's so vague you can plausibly suggest any of these elements are things Clary sees as beautiful, horrible, or both.

Isabelle's gold whip? Beauty and horror, Clary is a lesbian sub confirmed.
Blue-haired boy dying? Beauty, Clary is a serial killer in waiting.
Jace's eyes? Horror, Clary is scared of men.

I could go on. At a certain point, you have got to corral your reader just a little bit.

Clary asks Luke if he thinks her dad would have been an artist, but before he can answer Jocelyn enters. Well, she's described as "stalking" into the room. Oh noes the final boss is here, Clary's mother who cares about her.

Jocelyn Fray was a slim, compact woman, her hair a few shades darker than Clary’s and twice as long. At the moment it was twisted up in a dark red knot, stuck through with a graphite pen to hold it in place. She wore paint-spattered overalls over a lavender T-shirt, and brown hiking boots whose soles were caked with oil paint.

Of course they're natural redheads. I wonder how many more elements of description we could add to drive home that Jocelyn is an artsy woman? I think CC is concerned we haven't gotten it yet. Also did she really wear this outfit out? Or is she so wealthy she has a different building she goes to in order to paint?

The next two paragraphs are about how much prettier Jocelyn is than Clary, and how much more coordinated and sexy and generally better at being a person she is. I have got to say it's a really weird decision to cast your protagonist's MOTHER as the popular girl she's comparing herself too. Jocelyn thanks Luke for bringing the boxes up, which is awful nice of her. Luke's mad at her though, which makes Clary uneasy. Jocelyn starts talking about how long it took her to find a parking space, but Clary interrupts to ask what the boxes are for.

For some unknown reason, Jocelyn seems really really nervous about answering the question. Clary notes how tired and frazzled Jocelyn looks. Clary asks if she's in trouble for last night, Jocelyn says she's not, well she is a little. But she's not grounded. Instead, for a lot of reasons of which only one is Clary's risk-taking behavior, the three of them are going to spend the summer in a farmhouse upstate. But CC takes a long ass time to say that.

Jocelyn says the boxes are in case Clary wants to take stuff with her. How thoughtful. Obviously this woman is evil and being unjust. Clary interrupts Jocelyn to say that she has plans, parties she's supposed to go to and an art group and that she has art classes at Tisch she saved up for, and Jocelyn interrupts her to apologize about Tisch but to say that the other things can be canceled and they'll understand. Clary understands from Jocelyn's tone that she can't get out of this, and she lashes out and demands Luke tell Jocelyn what she's doing isn't right. Luke just says the decision really is Jocelyn's though his body language suggests he thinks it might not be the right call in the most obvious ways, such as a muscle in his cheek "jumping".

Good parenting. Gotta present a united front. Jocelyn also admits that she needs to get away from people for a bit and paint, and money is hard to find right now. Clary says just sell more of her dead dad's stock bc that's what Jocelyn has always done and, like, kid. Shut up. Clary says she doesn't give a shit if Jocelyn goes, but she's staying. She'll get a job and she's old enough to take care of herself.

Jocelyn disagrees sharply, promises to repay Clary for the art classes (Which is an awfully nice concession of hers) and says quite rightly that Clary is too young to be left on her own. Which, considering Clary is deliberately going to nightclubs and following ppl she thinks have knives, Jocelyn is 100% right about. Jocelyn says something could happen, Clary asks what, and girl you just got whipped by a beautiful girl last night a lot could happen. Anyway Luke leaves.

Jocelyn and Luke have a short conversation at the door where Luke says Jocelyn can't keep going to some guy, that Clary isn't Jonathan, something about Tanzania, that Clary isn't a pet and Jocelyn can't just keep her at home, and I really don't care amazingly much. Luke specifically says Clary is almost an adult and ummm. Technically yes, but clearly Clary needs help with her priorities.

Right as Luke is about to step outside, Simon arrives. Simon asks Clary if she's ready, Jocelyn asks Simon if he was eavesdropping, Simon asks if something's wrong and if he should go, and Luke says Simon's fine because he's leaving. And Luke slams the front door on the way out which is awful rude of him to do that to his close friend who he knows is having a hard time, even if she's making a decision he disagrees with.

Simon says he can come back later and it won't be a problem, which is honestly good room reading. I like Simon. Jocelyn starts to say that'd be for the best, but Clary interrupts to say she's ready to go, and so she goes. Jocelyn asks if Clary thinks they should talk, and Clary...

“We’ll have plenty of time to talk while we’re on ‘vacation,’” Clary said venomously, and had the satisfaction of seeing her mother flinch. “Don’t wait up,” she added, and, grabbing Simon’s arm, she half-dragged him out the front door.

He dug his heels in, looking apologetically over his shoulder at Clary’s mother, who stood small and forlorn in the entryway, her hands knitted tightly together. “Bye, Mrs. Fray!” he called. “Have a nice evening!”

“Oh, shut up, Simon,” Clary snapped, and slammed the door behind them, cutting off her mother’s reply.

I want to highlight how deliberately cruel Clary is being. I also can't help but think how much, at 15, I would have loved to have friends who'd come over to see me or I could have gone over to see them. How much I would have loved to have a parent who encouraged my passions instead of teaching me to deny them. How much I would have loved to have a coffee shop that does poetry nights a five minute walk from my home. How much I would have loved so much of the things in Clary's life that she just takes for granted.

Clary's throwing a fit about spending a summer in a farmhouse in the countryside. I was raised in a similar house far away from anything else since I was 2. When I was 15, I would have killed for even one of these things Clary so takes for granted she's willing to act like this over the idea of maybe losing them for ONE summer. I have no sympathy for Clary because she has everything I desperately prayed for as a kid growing up in rural Virginia and it's so obvious that she doesn't really appreciate or deserve any of it.

Even though this was the natural endpoint of the chapter, it continues! Because of course it does!

Clary and Simon walk past a psychic's shop, and a catboy walks out and Clary has a really hard time remembering him and ultimately tells Simon it was a cat. This is clearly part of the weirdness censor Clary had no problems seeing through last chapter. Frankly this should have been our introduction to the supernatural in this setting - Clary struggling to understand - rather than Clary perfectly seeing through the veil or whatever. There's a lot of really pithy dialogue where Clary is super mean to Simon and I just don't feel like going into it. I'm emotionally spent.

So Simon buys her food because I guess he likes it when she's mean to him or something, and Clary is constantly insulting her mom, and Simon basically says Jocelyn's gonna forget and it'll be fine. Clary starts talking about the fact Jocelyn has no wedding photos and Clary's never met her grandparents, and Jocelyn saying that her life began when Clary was born, then Simon and Clary disagree on whether Jocelyn has scars. Simon says yes, Clary says no.

Clary's mother calls her, and Clary declines to answer. She does listen to the voice mail though, and Jocelyn says she's sorry she surprised Clary and she wants to talk things out. Clary decides to go to the poetry reading first however, without even sending a text saying something like "Got your voice mail, going to a poetry reading first to calm down. I'll be back tonight" so Jocelyn isn't worrying and knows not to push Clary rn.

There's also a really clumsy moment where Simon touches Clary's shoulder? Just. urgh. Clary asks Simon if anything's going on with the band, bc you know that's the point of this chapter. Simon says they might have a gig coming up and are thinking of names, and Clary thinks that she doesn't know if any of them can actually play an instrument. Well, you know one of them can play the cymbals.

There's some Clever Dialogue(tm) which I hate. Basically they're exchanging honestly pretty great band names like Sea Vegetable Conspiracy and Clara has this really mean thing to say about Eric.

“Oh, is that what Eric does? I thought he just mooched money off you and went around telling girls at school that he was in a band in order to impress them.”

And instead of defending his friend, Simon says Eric's changed and he's been going steady with one girl for three months now. Which is a significant amount of time for people who are 15, so let's not knock that. They pass a little girl who's holding a pixie doll and Clary thinks she sees the doll's wings move. She doesn't think about it. Then Simon says that means he's the only one who doesn't have a girlfriend (Because he's carrying an obvious torch) and that sucks because being in a band was supposed to help them get girlfriends. Clary asks who cares if Simon doesn't have a girlfriend and Simon says he'd care, and that's honestly a fair shout.

“There’s always Sheila ‘The Thong’ Barbarino,” Clary suggested. Clary had sat behind her in math class in ninth grade. Every time Sheila had dropped her pencil—which had been often—Clary had been treated to the sight of Sheila’s underwear riding up above the waistband of her super-low-rise jeans.

Hi CC! Quick note, stop making your characters misogynists. That's a really bad thing to have your protagonist who is supposed to be sympathetic nickname a 9th-grader. Also 9th graders in the US are 14-15 years old, so Clary is talking about last year or LITERALLY THIS YEAR which makes her phrasing awkward.

Simon says Eric's been dating Sheila, and that Eric's advice was to just ask out the girl with the most "Rockin' bod" as soon as the school year began. New headcanon: The band can tell Clary feels contempt for Simon and they're respecting his feelings but they'd really rather he date someone else because they know Clary is going to hurt him. Clary says Eric is a sexist pig and maybe they should name their band "The Sexist Pigs". Clary's mom calls her again, but this time Clary doesn't bother to even answer and say "Yes, I'm getting your messages, yes I'm alright, but I'm going to a poetry reading and I should be back around six. We can talk then."

And the chapter ends!

How on earth do we fix this? It's easy to just say "You can't", but I disagree. First, we kick Simon and the band out of the chapter more or less. We spend more time with Clary doing her morning routine through the house, learning about her family and what her daily life looks like after the weirdness that was last night. Second, we grant specificity to Clary's art: She's the horny poet. She has a reading at a coffee shop this evening, and there's a conflict between her art and Jocelyn's more traditional painting. Jocelyn is concerned about what Clary is writing, about the fact her 15 year old daughter is hanging out with groups of boys and performing horny poetry in public, and about what inspiration(s) Clary may or may not be drawing from which Jocelyn is unaware of. Thus when they fight in this chapter, we have a real axis of conflict between the two, with Jocelyn having reason to worry and Clary pushing the bounds of acceptability like all good art does. Third, the fight is not interrupted. It continues until one of them says something they don't really mean and Clary storms out, buys herself food, and meets with Simon in advance of her poetry reading.

"Therefore, I was under the necessity of killing them", a girl in a red striped dress red aloud at random from her book, The Ship of Seven Murders by Alannah Hopkin. She took a long drink from her glass of caffeine free soda before shoving another pretzel stick in her mouth "Mmmph mm mmph" she said enthusiastically as her cell phone vibrated. It was her friend from dance class, who probably had something to say about the movie they'd watched last night, 1998's The Mask of Zorro. She decided to put on some music, and settled on Pirates and Emperors from Schoolhouse Rock. Finally, she hit enter on this last pointless paragraph, which she considered an effective way to mock CC's tendency to namedrop various pieces of literature as a substitute for proper characterization.

Comments

[ignoresandra]

It's very frustrating, but it's a hell of a lot easier than starting from scratch.

Apparently she hasn't! But you're right, of course. It's like when I'm struggling with the next right word in whatever writing project I'm working on. You don't erase the whole thing, you erase that one word and try a different one.

I don't think Jocelyn actually said that, I just think Clary was being sarcastic.

I'd love to think that, my issue is that the narration says Clary is mocking Jocelyn's "precise phrasing".

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t see it that way. I disappointed her, I let her down, I made her worry, blah blah blah. I am the bane of her existence,” Clary said, mimicking her mother’s precise phrasing with only a slight twinge of guilt.

So we're left with either Jocelyn talks like an abuser sometimes or CC doesn't know what words means.

People like Clary tend to attract fellow mean people because other people feel uncomfortable or are like "What does she say about me when I'm not there?"

Yeah. Given who Clary is at this point, I'd expect her friends to be bullies.

Since she hardly has thoughts about this, aside from a small moment of bitterness (never read the book, but have read other sporks), she seems flat and unrealistic.

This is a very insightful point. My grandparents on my mother's side died after I was born, but while I was too young to remember them. I've never felt like I was denied anything or really cared, but there is this hole in family history that I can't fill. When other folks are talking about their families, I don't really have anything I can say, any stories I can share, even about my living grandparents. Maybe putting Clary into a situation like this where her friends are swapping stories of their dads would have been a way to get some more texture into the fact Clary just doesn't have one.

Ummmm... WHAT?? Like, I know, logically, that my mother is considered conventionally attractive, but I don't think of her as PRETTY or SEXY. Eeeewwwww.

Not making it up, here's the passage directly.

People always told Clary that she looked like her mother, but she couldn’t see it herself. The only thing that was similar about them was their figures: They were both slender, with small chests and narrow hips. She knew she wasn’t beautiful like her mother was. To be beautiful you had to be willowy and tall. When you were as short as Clary was, just over five feet, you were cute. Not pretty or beautiful, but cute. Throw in carroty hair and a face full of freckles, and she was a Raggedy Ann to her mother’s Barbie doll.

Jocelyn even had a graceful way of walking that made people turn their heads to watch her go by. Clary, by contrast, was always tripping over her feet. The only time people turned to watch her go by was when she hurtled past them as she fell downstairs.

Jocelyn's getting away because the law is getting suspicious of her money laundering.

I'm 100% here for this headcanon!

[epistler]

The only time people turned to watch her go by was when she hurtled past them as she fell downstairs.

Ah yes, the old faux flaw of clumsiness. A favourite of hack writers who want to give their heroine a "flaw" that ensures she stays cute and attractive. Can't give her a short temper or something like that because it's not hot! Clumsiness, though, is totes adorbs and allows for the male hero to be all protective every time she trips over her own feet.

EDIT: Seriously, though, this sort of thing is utterly unrealistic and stupid. Nobody is THAT comically inept unless they have some sort of medical condition or are a cartoon character. And, of course, the cutesy clumsiness will never actually cause any problems. Or indeed ever come up again.

[ignoresandra]

Yeah. I'd respect clumsiness as a flaw more if it was described more like...

Clary woke, stretched, and flinched as the bruises on her forearms and shins protested. She lay in bed for quite a while, examining the purple welts on her arms. I fell up the stairs three times yesterday. It really wasn't fair. She'd wanted to go out dancing, so she'd convinced her friend Simon to go with her, then she'd fallen on her hands and knees three times in front of everyone trying to ascend the half-step to get off the dance floor. Her cheeks felt hot. Finally, she sat up - and immediately bumped her head on the wall above her headboard. "Fucking shit!" She yelled, her cheeks wet.

She reached for her cane to get out of bed. She didn't need it, according to every doctor who'd ever examined her. But she'd found that she had an easier time staying upright when she could lean on the cane which had once been her father's.

[epistler]

Ha!
Heck, why not just make her disabled with cerebral palsy or something else that affects mobility? Not that CC wouldn't bungle it horribly, mind you.

[ignoresandra]

Honestly that could be very interesting. I haven't read a lot of protagonists which have major medical problems like that. I think the last one was the princess in Where Shadows Lie by Allegra Pescatore. She can walk for short periods, but needs to use her wheelchair to get around mostly, which doesn't sit well with her father who thinks she doesn't/shouldn't need it.

[epistler]

Definitely. On the rare occasions that I've encountered disabled protagonists in fantasy, it's always been about somehow "fixing" them rather than finding ways to live with and overcome their difficulties.

I actually started writing a fantasy novel starring a nonverbal autistic character, and I should have another go at it despite how incredibly hard it is to write about a protagonist who can't communicate with others or even take care of herself but is also insanely intelligent.

[ignoresandra]

If I could gently call you in, I've been nonverbal on occasion and that doesn't stop me from communicating. There's writing, sign language or physical signals helps (It's easier to point at someone and make a twirling motion with my fingers than to say "Hey, look behind you" sometimes), and if your setting has magic you have all kinds of options for disability accommodation. Sometimes autistic folks emulate animals - hissing like a cat is funny to neurotypicals, but it's a really great shorthand for "I don't like that".

If you want to stay your course, I'd consider talking with autistic/ADHD adults. They might be able to give you some insight into the world of such a protagonist.

[epistler]

I'm autistic. XD

I should also have clarified - the character cannot communicate verbally but I did indeed have plans for her to find other means of talking to people. I just didn't get that far.

[ignoresandra]

OH! Sorry. I just hear a lot from neurotypicals that we can't communicate and, like. We obviously can, NTs just refuse to actually try to understand xD

[epistler]

To be fair, I didn't word it very well. I actually got the idea from that nonverbal lady who interviews people using a tablet and it's amazing!

[snarkbotanya]

Ah yes, the old faux flaw of clumsiness. A favourite of hack writers who want to give their heroine a "flaw" that ensures she stays cute and attractive. Can't give her a short temper or something like that because it's not hot! Clumsiness, though, is totes adorbs and allows for the male hero to be all protective every time she trips over her own feet.

I have read a book that did a clumsy heroine well. That book was Ella Enchanted, and the reasons it did clumsiness well are as follows...
1) Ella's clumsiness actually gets her into trouble with other characters. It's part of the reason why her father sends her off to finishing school.
2) When she becomes less clumsy, it's not because the author forgot about her flaw, it's because of natural story and character developments. Finishing school is awful, but the lessons there do make her much more coordinated.
3) The clumsiness isn't all her; sometimes it's her curse. Ella is cursed with total obedience and must obey any direct order to the letter, even if it was given unintentionally or in jest. Thus, when her father tells her to "run off and bang into somebody else," she is magically compelled to bump into someone. That little scene was a great illustration of just how awful living with her curse is day to day.

[ultimate_cheetah]

Apparently she hasn't! But you're right, of course. It's like when I'm struggling with the next right word in whatever writing project I'm working on. You don't erase the whole thing, you erase that one word and try a different one.

I only recycle the paper if it's ripped and I can't draw anymore. Part of being creative is persisting through frustrations, which Clary doesn't seem to get.

So we're left with either Jocelyn talks like an abuser sometimes or CC doesn't know what words means.

What I get from this is that Clary's mimicking the way Jocelyn says things, not what she actually said. Believe me, as a teenager myself, I know this sort of thing quite well, and have done it myself. (Not about my parents).

Maybe putting Clary into a situation like this where her friends are swapping stories of their dads would have been a way to get some more texture into the fact Clary just doesn't have one.

That would be a good way to move the plot, and would be much more interesting than what we got. It would also make Jocelyn's delimma more potent, as we would feel that Clary could lose two parents now.

The only thing that was similar about them was their figures: They were both slender, with small chests and narrow hips. She knew she wasn’t beautiful like her mother was.

NOPE

I'm 100% here for this headcanon!

It fits really well, doesn't it? Even with the shadowhunter thing. And that could be how Valentine found her!