Why I dislike Cassandra Clare’s writing- A Discussion

WARNING: This post contains spoilers, but only for The Mortal Instruments series, I will not be spoiling anything for the million other rip-off series, whatever she called them. Also, please remember these are simply my own opinions and aren’t meant to offend, feel free to disagree with me and let me know what you think

To start off, I’m going to give you some background: I read The Mortal Instruments in 2017 and then read Lady Midnight, I have also read Clockwork Angel. Now, I initially loved this series and everything about it, by book 5, however, I was sick of it and it’s not often that this happens, it usually takes a while and a reread for me to dislike a series I initially loved so much. I would also like to point out that I still somewhat enjoy these books, but in the way I like trashy TV: as something mind numbing that I can laugh at. Also this is all just opinions, okay Cassie Clare? Don’t sue me just because someone has realised you’re not all that 🙂

Let’s start with the biggie: PLAGIARISM. This book is a rip-off Harry Potter minus everything that makes the Harry Potter series good, here are just a few examples:

• Mundanes=Muggles
• Steeles=Wands
• Institute=Hogwarts
• Instruments=Horcruxes
• There are also so many characters, but I’ll discuss this further in the ‘Characters’ section of the post

Honestly I’m shocked at how Clare got away with such blatant plagiarism and I’m genuinely annoyed that someone so unwilling to come up with their own ideas that they cheapened one of the biggest literary series of… like ever just to get a book published when there are talented authors with stories so amazing and incredibly unique that have so much time and dedication poured into them who are struggling to get a publisher to give them the time of day.

If you’re not convinced with the whole ‘plagiarism’ idea, you should consider the fact that Clare wrote fan-fiction for Harry Potter, with her most successful being The Draco Triology (in which Draco (who becomes Jace in TMI) and Ginny (who becomes Clary in TMI)) fall in love. Along with this, she wrote another fan-fiction, but this time with incest, that was ACTUALLY CALLED TMI. And, if you look into it, there are entire scenes and conversations in her fan-fictions that are recycled in her published works, its like Clare wanted all the success with none of the effort and it’s kinda infuriating.

Also, the plot for every book in The Mortal Instruments is the same, we start with a suspenseful prologue ft a villain, then we have a bunch of pointless fighting and Jace brooding over how perfect he is and Clary brooding over Jace brooding over how perfect he is and basically everybody in the entire universe worshipping Clary while she broods over Jace brooding over- okay you get it. And then the whole story is wrapped up with a cliffhanger, which, as The Authentic Observer mentions in her review, makes up for the lack of a plot and cheats readers into buying the next book despite the lack of substance in the book they just read.

Not only is the plot recycled in the series, but it is also recycled across series: a powerful young girl is thrown into the shadowhunter world and falls in love with an exceptionally talented male who she loves and then there is another male who she also loved and in between all the angst she somehow manages to kill a demon, oh, and also, Magnus Bane is there just for laughs because why not? Like, that is literally the plot for all of Clare’s books, and she has the nerve to release about 37838742354 of them along with a series of novellas which all involve the protagonists… walking around? Doing nothing? There is not plot? We’re just expected to love it because Gods-voice-on-earth wrote it?

And now we have reached it, the iNCEST. Now, before all you Cassie stans came at me with your pitch forks and torches we have to remember that even if Jace and Clary are not in fact brother and sister, that they were both under the impression that they were, okay? Okay. Cassandra Clare seems to have a thing for incest, like, she’s into it. While Clary is under the impression that Jace is her literal brother, the Faerie lady tells her that Jace is the person she most wants to kiss (over her actual bOYFRIEND) and so, as all logical humans would, Clary kisses the boy she thinks is her brother, just because she feels like it. After this, they decide to kiss again (not a peck, okay? A full on tonsil tennis match) and at risk of sounding very immature, it was yUCKY. For anyone who isn’t buying the whole Cassandra-Clare-romanticises-and-is-really-into-incest thing, I will now bring your attention to the incest fanfiction that I briefly mentioned earlier, which was about none other than Ginny and Ron. Yeah. Let that sink in and now tell me that Cassandra Clare isn’t weirdly obsessed with incest. She actually tried to address this issue in a long ass waffly post, but I will spare you the pain of reading it and summarise it for you:

oH My gOd why are people shouting at me?! My books are amazing and have really special deep meanings it’s not my faulty you’re too stupid to understand, I’m going to show you a list of all other works with incest: see, it’s not just me, all talented authors just really like incest

A bit of a flawed logic from Cassie there because justifying a wrong act with other people also committing that wrong act doesn’t make the wrong act right? Like if someone commits mass genocide they can’t say ‘Hitler did it too I’m not the only one’, so that’s that.

Clary- She was your typical pretty-but-doesn’t-know-it main protagonist who spent the entirety of the series pining over Jace and how pretty he is. Everything she did was for Jace and she was perfectly happy to have Sebastian lead to the destruction of the entire universe just so that she wouldn’t have to lose Jace. Along with this, Clary is just really irritating, she thinks she knows everything even though she’s been a shadowhunter for like thirty seconds and will never accept help, advice, or the fact that she is always wrong. Also, how did Clary learn to be a shadowhunter so fast when everyone else went through years of training at hogwarts the Institute to be a shadowhunter? And finally, how many times does it need to be mentioned that Clary has bright red hair, and how many crappy similes did Cassie use to describe it, it’s so irritating (and just to add to this, upon the movie of CoB being released, and Lily Collins being cast, many fans were upset about how Collins didn’t look like Clary and Clare decided to have a go at all her fans claiming that she never specified what Clary’s hair looked like? Whatta bitch)

Jace- Okay I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a time when I had a massive crush on Jace, especially after he was played by baby Grindelwald and I acually really loved the actor’s band and so overall Jace was overall rather appealing to me and I thought he was funny and blah. BUT, he started liking Clary when she was 15 years old and I think that’s a tad odd and ALSO, to test that Clary was a shadowhunter he drew a rune on her which literally would have killed Clary if she wasn’t a shadowhunter……. a tad problematic. I also found it quite funny that Jace decided that the right time to, for lack of a better term (that I want to use), do it with Clary was when they were literally in hell. I’m not kidding. Like they were in the realms of hell on a mission, and he was like ‘hey clary you got a minute?’

Isabelle and Alec- both just really bland, would not care if they died tbh

Magnus- My king, the only character I care about

Simon- Can’t really remember much, didn’t really add much to the plot but I think he was a vampire which is kinda lit

Valentine- more like Voldemort, handsome young student who one the support of a group of people called death eaters The Circle who were all obsessed with blood purity, and it was literally the same with Sebastian

aLSO, I find it incredibly unrealistic that nobody of any importance dies, it is unrealistic considering the war and it stops us from caring about any of the characters or feeling any real emotions towards them and Clare is far to attached to Jace and Clary for any harm to come their way and so for literally no reason she just wipes out Simon’s memory and I SWEAR TO GOD NOTHING ANNYOYS ME MORE.

oKAAAAAY safe to say I went off on one but everyone seems to be so far up Cassie’s bum that they never mention everything wrong with her. Let me know if you agree or disagree, if I managed to change your mind or if you will hate me for the rest of eternity. Thanks so much for reading through my ramble and I hope you gained some entertainment out of it, let me know any unpopular opinions on other series or books if you want me to make a post as I’ll probably be doing a Harry Potter one soon and idk maybe it can be like a ‘series’ but let me know if you care lol. Thank you so much for reading and if you choose to return I will talk to you in my next post ❤