Free Shadowhunters and Downworlders by Cassandra Clare Page A

Clary would gladly claim the title for themselves. All the more reason for them to appreciate the Clave and the Law: It’s significantly moresatisfying to kick a wall than it is to kick thin air. For the rebellious teen—or the teen who wants to feel like a rebel—a clearly defined law gives you something to define yourself against.
    If you’re looking to fight a war, it helps to have an enemy.
    The beauty of Clave Law is that it allows you to feel like a rebel without actually doing much of anything rebellious—because when
everything
is legislated, breaking even the smallest of rules can offer the satisfaction of defiance without the consequences. “Isabelle only likes dating thoroughly inappropriate boys our parents will hate,” Alec says in
City of Glass.
“Mundanes, Downworlders, petty crooks.” The operative word here is “petty,” because that’s exactly what Isabelle’s so-called rebellions are. In fact, it’s hard not to suspect that the commitment-phobic Isabelle is dating these inappropriate boys precisely because she knows exactly how far things can go with them: far enough to feel like she’s flirting with trouble, but never so far that she’d have to introduce her new werewolf fiancé to Mom and Dad. It’s the perfect excuse to keep relationships skin deep—because any cute Downworlder might be worth bending the rules for, but who could be worth breaking them for? And so she gets to harmlessly test her boundaries, feeling like a proud rebel, while still protecting her heart. The same goes for our other heroes. Like prep school kids defiling a school uniform, the teen Shadowhunters get to call themselves rebels for the smallest of infractions: sneaking out, dating the wrong people. But when it comes to the big stuff ? Even Jace, who has the most flagrant disregard for the Law, especially when it comes to Clary (after all, this is a guy who’s not only willing to Mark an ostensible mundane but is also pretty open to the idea of sleeping with his sister), turns into a total priss. Remember his horror at MadameDorothea’s failure to bend to the will of the Shadowhunters: “You knew there were Forsaken in this house and you didn’t notify [the Clave]? Just the existence of Forsaken is a crime against the Covenant” (
City of Bones
). Jace sounds like a class prefect taking someone to task for running in the halls, and, like the class delinquent, Madame Dorothea practically laughs in his face.
    Admittedly, as the trilogy continues, Clary and co.’s rule-breaking becomes more daring and more flagrant—their rebellions become quite a bit less petty. Jace presides over Simon’s burial and awakening and later saves the young vampire with an emergency infusion of his own blood; Alec breaks Jace out of the Inquisitor’s prison; Jace tries to pay it forward by breaking Simon out of the Gard. They’re lawbreakers, no question: serious rebels. But their rebellions are almost always against specific edicts laid down by members of the Clave—against the bad (and often, in terms of the Law, illegal) decisions of individuals. They rebel against the man…while maintaining their absolute respect for the institution.
    At no point do any of our characters, even Clary—the newcomer who could be expected to poke holes in the establishment—bother to question the fundamental tenets of Shadowhunter life. No one, for example, questions Luke’s expulsion from the Shadowhunter ranks or suggests that he be readmitted (in whatever capacity he could fight at their side), even if he is a werewolf. No one (until the end of the first three books) questions the sharp divisions and political imbalance between Shadowhunters and Downworlders; no one questions the wisdom of keeping all this secret from the mundanes; no one questions the rules of who’s in charge and what the penalties are for disobeying. These are the