There was A LOT of exciting news this week. From Magnus's reveal (which will be featured with tomorrow's Mortal Instruments Movie Monday), the Clockwork Princess 1st Chapter Reveal, Clockwork Princess Snippet w/ Will & Cecily & a Teaser, the Clockwork Princess audiobook narration sneak peak, and Cassie's TMI Movie Set Diary Day 1. Here's a quick recap of the Q&A's and a few other things that Cassie has posted this week on tumblr (click on the Q's to be taken directly to Cassie's Q/A post):
I am endlessly impressed by Cat’s ability to put all this stuff together. :)
Will and Jem would be about 5’10, 5’11. Victorians were shorter than we are today, despite the wide variety of six-foot heroes in Victorian lit, and both Will and Jem would be unusually tall. 5’6 was average. Tessa is also very tall for a girl of that era.
Yes, Alec is taller than Jace. I don’t know why. He just is. :) People ask me about heights, birthdays, and middle names of characters all the time. I tend to know this stuff only if it’s plot-relevant: Clary’s birthday is in August, we see it in City of Bones, but Simon’s? I possibly have ancient notes somewhere that mention it, but probably not. Middle names, too, I tend to know only if they matter (Will’s middle name is Welsh, so, it’s a character note, Jonathan’s middle name being Christopher is important) but Gideon Lightwood’s, I’ve never thought about. Isabelle’s I got asked so many times I finally gave her one for the Clockwork Princess family tree, but I’d never thought about it before because it never seemed important to who Isabelle is.
Sometimes I think we remember more about characters we read about than characters we write about. I’ll never forget that Percy Jackson has green eyes but I forgot Gideon’s eye color twice in Cp2 and my editor had to fix it. Bad Cassie.
Clary: about 5’2Tessa: about 5’9Isabelle: 5’9Simon: 5’10Jace: 5’11Alec: 6’Magnus: 6’2No idea how tall Will and Jem are.
-Thanks for the love! Here are the Shadowhunter families/names who live in London: The Branwells, the Lightwoods, the Herondales, the Lovelaces, the Carstairs, the Blackthorns, the Fairchilds, the Waylands, and then the Starkweathers live up in York. The families who live in New York officially in The Mortal Instruments: the Lightwoods. Families who have one family members in New York for odd reasons: the Morgensterns, the Starkweathers (Hodge is in New York for the same reason the Lightwoods are, but any and all other Starkweathers are back in Idris or England) the Herondales (Jace is in New York for the same reason the Lightwoods are) the Graymarks (Luke is there because Jocelyn is, though there are no Graymarks in TiD). There are no Waylands, Branwells, Blackthorns, Lovelaces, Carstairs or really even Fairchilds in New York. There are also families running around that we never hear of in TiD, like the Pangborns and the Blackwells.
So the overlap is far from complete — the exile of the Lightwoods to New York acted as something of a magnet to draw others, but beyond that there’s pretty much the overlap you might expect from a not that huge society with large families and recurring names. It’s a bit of poetic justice that the Lightwoods and Herondales fueded in TiD and are parabatai in TMI but otherwise, mostly chance and probability (English Shadowhunters wind up assigned to English speaking countries) are at play.
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Q: Can shadowhunter's get a divorce? Is it like parabatai where you only get one partner and that is it? I think the runes are permanent, so that means that Jocelyn still has the runes from her marriage to Valentine, right? - Laura
You can get divorced. We know you can because Valentine forced Stephen Herondale to divorce Amatis. Marriages are dissolvable; the marriage rune will fade to blend with your skin like a “used” rune. Somewhere on her body Jocelyn has a faded marriage rune, as does Amatis.
It’s actually much harder to cut the parabatai bond.
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Q: City of Lost Souls Spoilers:
I have a question that has been bugging me for awhile. I'm not sure if you can answer, but if you can I'd appreciate it. During the battle at the end of Lost Souls, Simon notes that the anti-Shadowhunters seraph blades won't word. It stands to reason that this is because of the demons blood they've ingested. My confusion is why Lilith's blood affects them this way. Jocelyn also ingested her blood, presumably in larger quantities, but it doesn't seem to have affected her the way it did the anti-Shadowhunters. And Sebastian is Lilith's son for all intents and purposes, yet he is still able to use seraph blades. Is there some kind of logic behind this? Thank you for creating such a wonderful world for us! - kttykt-00
Thanks! No, I can answer, because it isn’t anything not covered in CoLS. ”It stands to reason that this is because of the demon blood they’ve ingested” — well, sort of. It’s because of the demon blood they’ve ingested from the Mortal Cup. That’s why Sebastian spent so much time and effort creating a double of the Mortal Cup. Simply having them drink demon blood doesn’t create dark Shadowhunters. Only drinking from the Mortal Cup creates Shadowhunters. Only drinking from the dark Cup creates dark Shadowhunters. Humans who ingest angel blood don’t become Shadowhunters unless they drink it out of the Mortal Cup — that’s why the Mortal Cup is important. Sebastian wanted an army of dark Shadowhunters, which is why he spent a large portion of the book creating a dark Cup. Otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered, and would just have fed them all Lilith’s blood out of a Coke can, because Sebastian never expends effort to no purpose. He is basically lazy.
Dark Shadowhunters aren’t people who have drunk demon blood. They are Shadowhunters who have gone through a ritual involving the Mortal Cup that has transformed them into what the Shadowhunters would have been had Jonathan Shadowhunter initially summoned a demon, not an angel: i.e. a completely different race of magical warriors.
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Q: You answered this other fans' question about divorce and you said "It's actually much harder to cut the parabatai bond." Well what does that mean? Because if you can cut the bond then in TDA can't Emma just cut the bond with Julian? (TO BE TOGETHER) How do you cut the bond? -feelslikehades
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Well, we know you can cut the bond.
1) One of you dies.
2) One of you becomes a Downworlder. (Luke and Valentine.)
3) One of you is exiled from the Clave. (Robert Lightwood and Michael Wayland.)
4) You give up being Shadowhunters and become mundanes.
You can’t fall in love with your parabatai just like you can’t marry a mundane. Just like Will’s father left the Shadowhunters, sure, Julian and Emma could leave the Shadowhunters and give up not just their identity, but never see any of their friends and family again. Any pair of parabatai could do that. But it’s hardly an easy decision (especially considering that Julian takes care of all his younger brothers and sisters and they basically have no one else, while Emma is still searching for the answer to what happened to her parents and revenge on those responsible, which she couldn’t do as a non-Shadowhunter) for anyone to make.
Not to mention Julian and Emma’s relationship isn’t as simple as all that anyway. :)
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Q: Hi! In COFA do any main characters die? Because someone posted a screenshot of them asking you on twitter how many main characters die and you supposedly said, "3, 4....... 5,6, 6 main characters die? Is that true? - tomatoandpotato
| — | The problem with answering this question is that then people end up writing to me and asking me what counts as main characters, and whether I can narrow it down. Which I will not do. :) People die in CoHF, but I think we should focus on more exciting questions, like “Will the Alec/Simon shippers unexpectedly enjoy the book?” Because I think they will. |
Q: Hi :) I know you can't say anything about who Tessa will end up with, if she ends up with anyuone at all, at the end of Clockwork Princess. But there is this one thing I wanted to ask about... Do you love Will? And do you see him as a real love interest for Tessa, or is he just there as sort of an obstacle? It's just started to worry me these past days. Well, okay, probably for many months. I just don't see how Clockwork Princess can end good. But I am super excited to read it. :) But yeah. Do you see Will as a real love interest? Or is it supposed to be just Jem that Tessa love? Anyway, thank you. I adore you. - Carinaolsen
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Hey Carina!
I love Will. I don’t think I love him the same way readers love him because I think you always feel differently about characters you create and characters you read about. But that applies to all my characters.
Certainly he’s a real love interest for Tessa and not just an obstacle. I always think it’s really bad when a character is only in a book (or film or show or play) just as an obstacle, because that means the character’s only function is to keep other characters apart. We all know that character — they’re usually defined by having no real needs or wants or desires or arc of their own. They exist only as a stumbling block to prevent two main characters from getting together; also, usually, they are temporary.
Will, I hope, is a character with needs and wants and desires and an arc of his own. If Will were just an obstacle, there would be no need for any real backstory for him; no need for the story of the curse, no need for him to have complicated relationships with characters (Magnus, Jem, Charlotte, Cecily) who are not Tessa. An obstacle character would exist only in relation to Tessa and nothing else.
Also, if Will is an obstacle, he isn’t doing a very good job, since Tessa and Jem are engaged.
One could say the same about Jem: he is also a real love interest for Tessa, and he has needs and wants and desires and conflicts of his own. He has complicated relationships with people who are not Tessa. In fact, his most complicated relationship is with Will. Tessa’s relationship with Jem is important. Tessa’s relationship with Will is important. Will and Jem’s relationship with each other is just as important as their relationships with Tessa; which is, in fact, the whole structure of the triangle at the heart of the books: that each side of the triangle is as important as the others. Or, at least, that’s the idea: I hope it works. :)
Thanks for the kind words, too. <3 i="">
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Q: Cassie was asked about those outside the US being able to see sneak peaks of her work/things related to it. She was also asked if there was any way Canadians could listen to the Clockwork Princess audiobook teaser. Her response:
First, I should say: I understand why you are frustrated. It’s annoying when there’s content on the internet or out in the world and it’s restricted for what seems like arbitrary reasons. Like, I really wanted to watch My Mad Fat Teenage Diary but I’m not in the UK so I couldn’t until Sarah Rees Brennan, who is Irish, brought me a copy. (Finn/Rae 4ever!!)
However, since my inbox is full of requests for audio clips, for the MTV videos, for the trailer … I can’t actually make sure anyone has access to those things, or provide them, because I don’t own them. I don’t own the rights to them and I literally don’t own them in the sense that I don’t have them — I didn’t know what MTV was putting up until they put up the Magnus clip, and I couldn’t watch it, because I wasn’t in the US. So I had to wait till I got back to see it. I don’t have a copy because I don’t know anyone at MTV, and the video they took of the film set has, basically, nothing to do with me at all. I mean, obviously I’m an interested party, but they aren’t going to give me a copy. The video belongs to them. Its entire value to them is that it does belong to them, as a copyrighted item, and therefore they get to decide what to do with it and who sees it.
It’s the same reason that I couldn’t put up the whole first chapter of Clockwork Princess. I don’t own the digital rights to the text. Now, Simon and Schuster, who does, aren’t an evil empire, and they don’t care if I put up snippets on my blog, but they would be v. unhappy if I put up a whole chapter of the book after they’ve legally purchased the right to do that from me.
Same thing with the audio: I sold them the rights to make an audio recording of my book, and they own it. I wasn’t there when they recorded it (I did talk to Daniel on the phone) and I don’t have any copies of the tape..or digital file..or whatever thing it is that holds the sound of the book being read. Even if I went MAD WITH POWER and decided that I should put the whole thing up, I couldn’t, because I don’t have anything to put up. Super looking forward to hearing it someday!
I don’t own a copy of Clockwork Princess either, since it’s embargoed.
I think because I am around a lot, and because I am the person who creates the books, it seems logical I should have access to information and to files and things but selling rights to publishers, and movie producers, and audio producers, which is how writers make a living, means those rights don’t belong to you. Especially with movies, the author of the source material a movie is based on is very distanced from the process. (Frinstance, I see that the news that the theatrical trailer of City of Bones will be released in March is going around. To which I say: Where did that news come from? No idea. I shall away and google. Because there is no reason I would know it, particularly.)
It’s just good to keep in mind as the movie draws closer: I don’t have any more rights over the movie over City of Bones (I don’t make money off it, or any of the merchandise associated with it, just like I didn’t put money into making it, and I don’t have rights to the images from it) than I do over, say, Sherlock. I wish the third season ofSherlock would come out in the US when it comes out in the UK. I wish I didn’t have to wait until I could buy it off Amazon.co.uk. I wish they’d let me on set to watch them film. :D But I don’t have the rights to Sherlock, and I don’t have the rights to the TMI movie/audio stuff either.
Whew, hope that helped.
Q: Hi Cassie! First i wanna say that I absolutely love your books and you and I reaaaally can’t wait for CP2 and CoHF to come out!! I just wanted to ask you, what is the EXACT period of time for both Infernal Devices and Mortal Instruments series? Cause there’s a lot of huge character developments and important events throughout the series’, especially in TMI, so I was just curious what the specific time span was for all the major events and how long it took for the characters to change, in demeanor, looks, character, etc. Thanks Cassie! <3 nbsp="" span="">— comeonandsmile
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Well, TMI isn’t finished, so I don’t really want to commit. I have unfinished series commitmentphobia. I might decide to set the epilogue of Heavenly Fire in 2025 or something. But it starts in August and as of Lost Souls has gone through to November of one year. (2007.)
The Infernal Devices, not counting flashbacks, begins in April and ends in December of 1878.*
*Actually as Sarah reminds me, since the epilogue of Infernal Devices takes place in present day, I guess it spans 135 years.)
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Cassie said, "Found this on a wall. Love!"
Here is some fan art Cassie reposted this week:
Runes blogged here
This to me is SO JACE!! I love this artwork. Cassie reblogged it here, along with another piece from the same artist.
Per Cassie, "I love this!" I do too!
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I LOVE the fan art!
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