it's the magical mystery kind

Hey Cassie! So I just saw your post about Tessa and Magnus becoming mortal would not be a huge romantic gesture, but I’m really curious how what they have right now is a happy ending. The romances are heartbreaking (and beautiful! Malec and Jessa and Wessa are my three favorite ships, actually)but I really can’t see them or Alec and Jem having happy lives whatsoever. In the case of Malec, Alec will grow old and probably miserable as he becomes more and more distant from Magnus, die, and then Magnus will probably petrify. In Jessa’s case, poor Tessa will have to go through the same exact loss that she went through with Will, and wouldn’t she be happy if all three of them could be together again? You always say that you think that they got a happy ending, but I’m just genuinely curious how any of this is happy. I’m really sorry if this came off as critical- it wasn’t intended to be! I love you and cannot wait for Lady Midnight, but this is something I have been wondering for a while and the earlier post inspired me to ask. <3 — tessa-grayngel

This question makes me wonder: What is a happy ending? Does a character need an ending in order to have a happy ending? Will is a character who I believe had a truly happy ending. He died of old age, surrounded by friends and family, the love of his life and his parabatai. He had a full and happy life that was better than he dreamed it would be. And yet, I’ve gotten many emails from people who feel that Will did not have a happy ending, simply because he died — as everyone dies, someday. In the cases of Tessa and Magnus, I get a steady stream of variations on this question — will they become mortal? Will they become mortal for their beloveds? Would it be “fair” for Jem to be immortal when Will didn’t get to be immortal? 

Certainly, T&M’s immortality makes the situation different. Readers seem to want them to have what some people didn’t like Will having: a definitive end to their story. I don’t know why, exactly, but I have theories. 

Letter-writer, I appreciate your concern, but I respectfully disagree with your read of what would happen to Magnus and Alec and Tessa and Jem. I don’t think Alec is destined to age miserably. That doesn’t give him much credit, considering that in CoHF he and Magnus resolve that they will make every day count, and it certainly doesn’t give Magnus much credit! And I don’t think Magnus would petrify, at least not anytime soon, because he’d have a whole new pile of happy memories and experiences under his belt. (Not to mention a child for the first time! Well, probably a grown up child by then. But that still counts as undiscovered territory!)

I also don’t think Tessa would go through “the same exact loss she went through with Will.” Tessa is a different person. She’s had over a century to change and gain perspective. Both losses would be extremely difficult, but not identical, and she would experience them differently. (And then there’s the fact that we don’t know the circumstances that will surround Jem’s death. Tessa could be killed before him, for all we know.) She will, like every human on the face of the planet, be with the one she loves until they die or she dies. That’s every person in the world. So to say that’s not a happy ending is to say that happy endings are not possible in the world we live in, because death exists.  It is very romantic to think about Tessa, Jem and Will, and Magnus and Alec, being reunited in the afterlife. But that requires that there is some sort of afterlife, which Nephilim and Downworlders alike have no knowledge or guarantee of. Killing oneself hoping to be actually reunited with someone who has died would be a huge gamble. Like mundane humans, some Shadowhunters do believe in heaven and/or an afterlife. But no one knows what happens after death. Tessa and Magnus get to carry their joys and sorrows farther than most characters. Will lives on in Tessa’s heart and her memories (and in Jem’s and Magnus’s as well). Loving Will made her who she is, and one reason she aims to live her life well is to honor the memory of him and their love. (I imagine that by the time Jem dies, she’ll have a similar feeling about him and their life together, but since it’s all speculation at this point I’m not going to get into detail.) If she were to kill herself, she would be taking those memories and stories of the people she loves from the world forever. Similarly, if Magnus were to kill himself, it would not honor Alec’s memory. It would take it from the world. If Alec’s memory is to live on, it will be in large part through how Magnus lives his life going into the future. (I say in large part because many people love Alec, not just Magnus!) Romantic love can be amazing and life-changing and vital, but it isn’t the only source of happiness. Losing it doesn’t mean that you have nothing else to live for. It better not, because relationships end all the time. Being able to carry on and find joy and meaning in other aspects of life is an important survival skill to have. Warlocks have to develop that skill even more than mortals do. In order for Magnus and Tessa to want to end their lives, they’d have to believe whatever lay ahead for them was not worth sticking around for. They’d have to believe that entering the complete unknown, possibly nothingness, would be better than continuing to learn and grow and change. 

The thing about being an immortal character is that perhaps you cannot have a happy ending in the traditional sense, because you cannot have an ending. So people want the characters dead, in order to draw that line: to say, this is the end and that was happy. They got the love they wanted and that means they crossed a finish line. They’re done.

Except they aren’t done. Even after loss, you keep living. That’s part of what I think is important about characters like Tessa and Magnus: that they love and lose and keep living. Because that happens in real life. It’s something a lot of people have to deal with, all the time. It’s part of real life and real feelings in a way a story about two immortal people never can be.

All of us love — romantically or otherwise — and will lose people we love. If you then lose that love, does the loss unmake all the joy and happiness that came before it? It can if you let it. But that isn’t what anyone who loved you would want for you. And I hope that isn’t what you would want for yourself.

Magnus + family roles

there is still time. there is still time. until your bones are in the fucking ground there is still time.

MARYSE & MAGNUS + relationship growth

“The main thing [Nicola] learned from her relationship with Luke is the importance of being with someone who knows you for who you are and who accepts you completely. Maryse and Luke can look at each other and say ‘I know you’re not perfect, but I value all sides of you.’” requested by anoynmous

anonymous requested: eddie + trying to kill taylor with his mind

1.12 / 3.22

Deadpool & Wolverine + text posts

💍 + 💍