shanastoryteller:

i think the narrative should explore the fact that clary is valentine’s daughter.

by which i mean – clary is dangerously charismatic. even alec, who hated her and has been forced to pick up after her, becomes close to her in the end. clary has stomped on every tradition and rule he was raised with, endangered countless lives – but still in the end he forgives, thanks her for saving isabelle’s life when she’s the one who endangered it.

maybe it is jocelyn’s daughter that saves the little mage child. but it is valentines daughter that went marching to magnus’s in the first place. jocelyn went to magnus when she was ready to hide – clary went to him when she was ready to fight. and when she brings the vampires and werewolves together – that type of leadership and manipulation is valentine. jocelyn helped save the downworlders by running from valentine and stealing the cup – clary doesn’t run. from the beginning she doesn’t run.

she fights, but not alone. she draws people to her, like moths to a flame. even meliorn is impressed by her, grants her a favor he’s granted no other. she negotiates with vampires, with simon’s help yes, but on her own.

and speaking of simon – valentine turned his best friend into a werewolf, and clary turned hers into a vampire. granted he was trying to kill luke and clary was trying to save simon, but still. jocelyn left luke wounded in a barn to make his choice, but clary made simon’s choice for him.

valentine and clary act – jocelyn only ever reacts. jocelyn may be a fighter, but she’s not a leader. she’s a soldier. luke is a soldier. but valentine and clary are smart enough and charming enough and ruthless enough to be generals. clary is always convinced she’s doing the right thing – even when lives are in danger and people are getting hurt she thinks she’s making the best choice for everyone. and she can usually convince most of everyone that she’s right. this is dangerous.

she’s not the same kind of leader that valentine is now. valentine is hard and violent and makes you walk over coals for his approval. but once upon a time he did what clary did – was kind and charismatic and told people that he knew what was right, that by listening to him they would be saving the world. clary has been in this world a couple of months and already she draws her inner circle around her, already she has allies that no one else has ever had before.

people are right to be wary of clary for being valentine’s daughter, but not for the reasons they think. clary will die before she joins her father, but she has the potential to succeed where her father failed. clary doesn’t like the clave, doesn’t agree with the clave, and she is valentine’s daughter more than she is jocelyns. those who knew valentine must see all his best and most terrifying qualities shining out in her. she may succeed where her father failed, and if she decides the clave is doing more harm than good – what’s to stop her in leading her allies in tearing it to the ground?

she is joan of arc, she is julias caesar. people believe in her, are willing to fight and die with their worst enemies for her, break oaths to their queen for her.

the only way to get rid of people like her is to stab her 52 times in the senate or burn her in a holy fire. but then she becomes a martyr and then shes more dangerous dead than alive.

there is someone in the clave who’s seeing clary and is seething, panicking, because this little girl is her father’s daughter, and she has the potential to amass an army that will destroy them all.

clary is valentine’s daughter.

her enemies should fear her – including valentine himself.