Shadowhunters and Downworlders (17 page)

Last, let's consider the Japanese. Their Yakuza tattoos are some of the most finely done, elaborate, and sinister tattoos in the world, although the Russian criminal community, which has developed a whole new iconography for body art, is certainly trying for runner-up position in this skin sweepstakes. But the history of Japanese tattooing is much more interesting for purposes of this anthology, because popular theory is that it really evolved out of . . .
fandom.
(There's a different word for it in Japan, of course.)

Basically, in the eighteenth century, many people in the city of Edo became a little bit obsessed with the folk story “Suikohden” (the main character is kind of like a Japanese Robin Hood). In imitation of the heroes featured in the story, they began to experiment with tattooing folklore designs and story characters onto their own bodies. Mind you, many of these new tattoo enthusiasts were woodblock artists.
Instead of continuing with their ancient and revered craft, they seemed to all of a sudden go completely mental and think,
Hmm, carving wood is fun, but what about piercing our skin with needles and making designs? EVEN BETTER!
Yes, they were the ones responsible for developing the Japanese art of tattooing—on themselves.
Just because the story was cool.

This is not meant to set
you
a goal, of course, even though I know you crave those sweet rune tattoos to show
your devotion to the Mortal Instruments series. Because one thing about the Japanese: When they get into fandom of any kind, they go all the way. And in the case of “Suikohden,” they developed it into a whole new art form: of pain.

There's still one other kind of tattooing that relates directly to the Shadowhunters' universes: Ms. Clare has said that she thought of the idea for Shadowhunters after being shown a tattoo that was supposed to grant protective powers to a warrior, and such tattoos are surprisingly widespread in many cultures.

In tribal Hawaii, for example, warriors were tattooed with the images of gods so that they carried around a “personal deity”: If something evil attacked, their personal tattoo god would protect them.
Nice.
I'm totally getting a Thor tattoo now, to protect me against lightning strikes. Also, because…
Thor.

Even today in many areas in India and Burma, inking on a kind of “venom tattoo” theoretically will protect the wearer from the bite of poisonous snakes, an everyday hazard there. I personally wouldn't test that theory unless I was absolutely forced to do so, though. And I assume people don't go out of their way to do quality control either. “Venom tattoo tester” would probably be the worst job in the world.

Over the ages, soldiers in various countries, from Australia, to Burma, to Cambodia, to Thailand, have had special types of tattoos that were said to give protection in battle or even (in the case of full-body Cambodian tattooing) to make wearers invincible to bullets. I take it back about the venom tattoo testers. They do
not
have the worst job. Who did the R&D for this tattoo?
BANG
…“Whoops, that's not it, look, he's bleeding freely. Better add another loop on that design.” That job would
really
suck.

Soldiers and Shadowhunters…not much of a difference, except in the kind of foes they're fighting. The only
real
difference is that the soldiers can't draw these magical protective symbols on themselves with a stele, while the Shadowhunters can—and can choose the ones likely to be of the most use at the time rather than spending hours getting a permanent choice that may not be any actual help.

The downside for Shadowhunters is that if they
don't
have the right rune already inscribed, they may not have time or energy to get it in the heat of battle. So what seems like an advantage can also prove, just as easily, to be a weakness—especially if you lose your stele.

After discovering all of this, I'm thinking maybe about going back to my old-school habit of Magic Marker designs on my arms. All I
really
need is some kind of really
magic
marker, and I am finally living the dream. I definitely need that healing rune, for sure, just in case I trip and break my arm again. Also, I could really use the runes for learning things really fast, being super fast and strong, and…being awesome. There's a rune for being awesome, right?

There must be, because one thing I've taken away from the Mortal Instruments series is that not only does Cassandra Clare have the Awesome rune, but it must be embedded in the spines of all the books, which are impossibly great and captivating stories.

I can really only hope that somehow, impossibly, it transfers to my sweaty hands after hours of reading.

Now there's only one thing left in my Quest for Cool…

Floor-length fringed leather vest.

On it
.

Rachel Caine
is the author of more than thirty-five novels, including the
New York Times
and internationally bestselling Morganville Vampires series in young adult, as well as the Weather Warden, Outcast Season, and Revivalist series in urban fantasy. She lives in Fort Worth, Texas, and continues to work on development of the Awesome rune, but in Magic Markers, because she is scared of needles. Find her online at
www.rachelcaine.com
.

SARA RYAN

So, Malec. This relationship means many things to many people, but Sara Ryan's essay unpacks more than just Magnus and Alec; it also examines other characters in and outside of the Mortal Instruments, ways we can see ourselves reflected.

This is a subject near and dear to my heart—I strive to let my gay characters be human, be themselves, rather than a token minority that must behave perfectly. (I strive for this for all of my characters, for that matter.) No character should have to hop to and be an “example.” Each has a right to his or her own missteps and personal journeys.

Additionally: Sara's analysis of Magnus' outfits in relation to geography and history is not to be missed!

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING MALEC

WINDOWS, MIRRORS, AND CASSANDRA CLARE'S QUEER CHARACTERS

With the right slant of light, every window becomes a mirror.

—Mitali Perkins

I
f you hang around with people whose idea of fun includes analyzing literature (and if you don't, I commend you for reading this book anyway), you'll eventually run into the concept of mirrors versus windows.

A mirror book, as you might guess, is a book where the characters have significant things in common with the reader. For instance, a white, straight, midwestern girl reading a book about white, straight, midwestern girls would be having a mirror-type reading experience. A window book provides insight into characters and places that are less familiar to the reader. For that same white, straight, midwestern girl, a book about a gay Latino boy in New York City whose dream is to become a makeup artist would be a window read. Both kinds of books are important. If you do nothing but look in a mirror when you read, your sense of the world won't be very expansive. But if you're constantly looking through windows at characters whose lives in no way resemble yours, it can make you feel alone.

If you're a queer or questioning reader, it's
way
easier to find windows than mirrors. If you're looking for young adult books with LGBT characters, good luck: According to an analysis by YA author Malinda Lo, only .2 percent of YA books published between 2000 and 2011 featured LGBT characters. Not 2 percent;
point
2 percent.

So what do you do when you can't find mirrors?

One option is to try to create that slant of light Mitali Perkins mentions, the one that changes a window into a mirror. But how? Mary Borsellino, author of
Girl and Boy Wonders,
explains in an interview with aca-fan Professor Henry Jenkins:

As a queer person, or a woman, or someone of a marginalized socioeconomic background, or a
non-Caucasian person, it's often necessary to perform a negotiated reading on a text before there's any way to identify with any character within it. Rather than being able to identify an obvious and overt avatar within the text, a viewer in such a position has to use cues and clues to find an equivalent through metaphor a lot of the time.

That negotiation can take various forms, depending on what the author gives you to work with. If you're lucky, you have what you get in Cassandra Clare's books: both cues and clues in metaphor
and
obvious avatars with whom to identify. Or to put it into the terms I've been using, you get both windows and mirrors.

The first time characters discuss coming out in the Mortal Instruments, it has nothing to do with revealing same-gender attraction. In
City of Ashes
, Luke Garroway, aka Lucian Greymark, benevolent werewolf and father figure to Clary Fray, has gotten hold of a pamphlet,
How to Come Out to Your Parents.
He thinks it may help Simon Lewis explain his new situation to his mom. “The pamphlet's all about telling your parents difficult truths about yourself they may not want to face.”

When Clary presents the pamphlet to Simon, he “practices”:

Mom. I have something to tell you. I'm undead. Now, I know you may have some preconceived notions about the undead. I know you may not be comfortable with the idea of me being undead.
But I'm here to tell you that the undead are just like you and me…Well, okay. Possibly more like me than you.

Whether you're reading to find connections to queerness or not, the scene helps to get across that Simon really has fundamentally changed. And even though the changes include greater strength, keener senses, and heightened charisma (along with less appealing new challenges like the gnawing need for blood, preferably human), the fact remains: It
would
be really hard to tell your mom that you were a vampire. Talking points might help.

And if you
are
looking for that link—if you're reading that section and you've come out, or you're thinking about coming out—it's not hard to connect your experience to Simon's, to identify with him in a way that maybe you didn't before. Or maybe you
did
identify with him before, but it was because he was in a band, or because he liked anime, or D&D, or because he, like you, loved Clary. By using the analogy of coming out for Simon's situation, Clare makes it possible for you to start seeing a version of yourself in the book.

But if you're queer and reading about Simon, you're still performing the kind of negotiated reading that Borsellino describes. You're thinking about the ways Simon being a vampire is like being queer—and arguably there are some, but it's not like there's an exact equivalency. For the queer reader, Simon is still more of a window than a mirror.

You can find another cue and clue in Aline Penhallow, who, it turns out, kissed Jace only because she wanted “to figure out if any guy is my type.” It's not that much of a stretch to deduce that if guys aren't, perhaps ladies are.
(And indeed, we find out in
City of Lost Souls
that they are. Or at least one lady, Helen Blackthorn, is.)

But by the time Simon becomes a vampire and has to “come out” and by the time we meet Aline, you don't actually need to negotiate to find queer avatars, because Clare has given you Alec Lightwood, serious-minded, teenage Shadow-hunter, and Magnus Bane, style-conscious, centuries-old High Warlock of Brooklyn.

You meet Alec Lightwood in the very first chapter of
City of Bones.
But all you find out about him then is that he, along with Jace and Isabelle, is hunting a demon and that Clary can see them all but Simon can't. As the narrative progresses, you see Alec through Clary's eyes, and what she notices, most notably in his interaction with Jace, leads her to ask Isabelle if Alec is gay. The way Isabelle reacts is telling. She's rattled enough to mar the eyeliner she's putting on Clary, and while she confirms Clary's guess, she also makes her promise not to tell anyone. And it's a nice bit of foreshadowing by Clare, since Clary asks it as she and Isabelle are getting ready to go to the party given by the man who eventually will become Alec's boyfriend.

Magnus Bane appears first in
City of Bones
simply as a mysterious phrase that Clary learns while she's in the Silent City, a phrase that's linked to the block on her memories. Then, shortly thereafter, his name—or half of it, anyway—appears on an invitation from “Magnus the Magnificent Warlock” that Isabelle mysteriously obtains. Then, finally, he shows up in person, but his warlock qualities are not
immediately on display; he's simply the glamorous host of a loft party in Brooklyn. Clare's first description of Magnus merits quoting in full:

The man blocking the doorway was as tall and thin as a rail, his hair a crown of dense black spikes. Clary guessed from the curve of his sleepy eyes and the gold tone of his evenly tanned skin that he was part Asian. He wore jeans and a black shirt covered with dozens of metal buckles. His eyes were crusted with a raccoon mask of charcoal glitter, his lips painted a dark shade of blue. He raked a ring-laden hand through his spiked hair and regarded them thoughtfully.

It's clear from this description that Magnus enjoys flamboyant self-presentation—spiky hair, exuberant use of makeup, jewelry, and a shirt that references both straitjackets and SM-style bondage. And this is a prolonged description, a whole paragraph, which tells you that the way Magnus dresses is likely to be particularly significant to who he is as a character. Specifically, Magnus' fashion choices strongly suggest that he's not straight and also that he's comfortable and secure in that aspect of his identity. As Shaun Cole writes in
Don We Now Our Gay Apparel: Gay Men's Dress in the Twentieth Century,
“Many gay novels or novels dealing with a gay subject have utilised descriptions of dress to form a picture of the physical appearance and also the personality of gay characters…clothing, along with adornment and demeanour, has been a primary method of identification for and of gay men.”