Dust and Shadows — A Closer Look at the Blackthorns

By: MayaHelen (edited by: Alice Bibliofaith)

Cover art by: Aelin Shadowhunter

Although we find ourselves in a new year at last, as a fan, all I can think of is this last new year. I had the long - awaited Queen of Air and Darkness on my bookshelf, completed multiple times, with Annabel Blackthorn’s determined face staring at me as I sat down to read. And yet, still, I was in denial. You see, I had spent the better half of two years doing what we fans call theorizing - coming up with every possible solution I could, and how they’d relate to every possible outcome. I had spent many a day frantically reading wikipedia articles on faerie lore and ancient Rome. I posted on fandom almost everyday with a new idea. I analyzed themes and how they’d be connected to events in the story. I was obsessed.

And I won’t lie, I drove myself crazy. Actually, crazy doesn’t even begin to describe my obsession. At a certain point, it stopped being about Queen and started just being an escape from the cruelties of eighth grade, much like many of my pastimes. But I was like a sponge, absorbing Cassandra Clare’s work, and, again, I won’t lie: I loved it. But then I had to actually read the book. By the end of December, I had accepted it. It was over. Theories were done. They had been “cancelled,” as us confused eighth graders would say. Yet, by mid January, I tried to fall back into my old habits. QoAaD had disappointed me, so I didn’t dive in there. But I reread Lord of Shadows for the fifth time, and started to examine Julian Blackthorn from every possible point of view in every foreseeable way.

And that is truly where this story begins. Because, as Arthur Blackthorn teaches us, there is more power in stories than there will ever be in the storyteller.

I read what I could of every Blackthorn and extended member of the family, even those not blood related. The philosophy that was carried out through the Blackthorns was simple, but had a complicated dynamic. We have Helen, our never present warrior. Emma, the always present warrior. Mark, the forgotten, who always lingers in memory. Dru, also forgotten, who’s always there. Julian, the caretaker. Livvy, the free. Ty, the trapped. Tavvy, the innocent. Arthur, the insane. Kit, the distant. And Ariadne, the unwritten. They’re all so different, but when put together they are so tight knit that it’s nearly impossible to see them separately. They pair up in surprising ways - the warriors with the artists, the free with the trapped - but always make sense. As Kit so eloquently puts it to Ty, they’re like a ticking machine. When a gear stops turning, they stop working. When a gear has a malfunction, they try to run despite it and end up in serious dilemmas. When the machine gets a clog, they run it backwards.

In Lady Midnight, we see the machine ticking. We witness the spokes, and we watch the fey folk add oil and throw in a couple extra gears. We learn who the Blackthorns are, though we also know that they are constantly changing. In Lord of Shadows, we see the machine’s clogs and malfunctions come into light, despite constant power against them. And, in Queen of Air and Darkness, we watch the machine break after a gear is removed. We watch our beloved characters change. And there is no one who does this more than Julian Antony Blackthorn.

Julian, as I already said, plays the role of the protector - the one who’s always there. Who can never escape, but who almost never wants to. He commits to one thing and sticks with it for eternity. His family, Emma, art, being a warrior… he stays with it without doubt. Shadowhunters are taught loyalty from a young age. They sing poems about darkness and hunting, use color associations to remember their values, and so forth. Julian may object to Shadowhunter society, but he still has the values engraved into his mind from a young age. His loyalty still exists, just to other people. His fierceness and instability in society will always be there, just not to the same society. Julian changes, but fundamentally, his values don’t stutter.

This not only proves some very negative aspects of Shadowhunter society that could be a much longer, more painful to read article, but also shows how Julian’s intentions evolve. From a young age, he has a strong loyalty to his family. He becomes parabatai with Emma just so he’ll always be with her, even though their love is constantly evolving throughout their lives (from platonic to romantic, to mania. I think they go through all seven of the typical ancient Roman forms of love except for agape, and even that’s debatable.), and he knows that it will, just doesn’t want to believe any of it.

Julian’s loyalty leads him to take drastic measures. His faith and belief in his family causes him to do all sorts of things, from being determined to end Annabel’s life to something as simple as making pancakes on the weekends. He makes it clear that he’ll always put his family first, even if that means sacrificing himself or even the greater good. He desperately wants few things in life, but will do anything to make those few happen.

This is why the parabatai bond’s curse is so relevant to Julian as well. Obviously, he wouldn’t have had so much of an issue had the curse been related to himself, Shadowhunter society, or anyone else. He would care if it meant the death of one mundane, but not as much as he cared about the death of his sister. The parabatai curse, while I hate that term due to it’s portrayal of the bond being more shallow and sinister instead of being a beautiful friendship, gave Julian enough incentive to activate the kill switch on the Blackthorn machine.

I remember an activity from years ago, back when I was around eight years old. My teacher had been giving us a lecture on how bullying was bad, and made us cut out red hearts from construction paper. We then were told to crumple them up and try to fix them. The lesson was that actions can never be undone, and that you could “never fix a broken heart.” There was a poem and everything. Eight year olds know about betrayal, even if it’s minor. We got the message loud and clear, even if most of us were bored and wanted to go home. The example is stupid and lame - exactly like most things I learned in third grade, but I’ll try to use it here.

When one faces betrayal, it will always be unraveling. When one faces death, it can be even more so. Julian faced Malcolm’s betrayal in Lady Midnight, which would’ve been shocking enough to crumple his heart already, but backed with insecurity about a loved one (I’m speaking of Arthur here, though many could apply), the death of his parents, and becoming a father figure to children only a few years younger than himself, that construction paper heart is pretty much dead. There are probably a few rips on the side, too. When the death of that loved one comes up, along with the death of one of the children, I think it’s fair to say the heart has been shoved into that machine from earlier and shredded. As Cristina tells Emma, “there is a difference between having your heart break and having your soul shatter.” We see Julian’s soul shatter into a million pieces. We see the machine that is the Blackthorn family set to self - destruct and then come together. We see the different gears of the machine pop out, and form a new one. And we see Julian in the center of it all, the main gear, that’s been rusting and breaking keep the whole machine running, even with detours and broken spokes.

We see the machine grow and change, and we see parts of it die. But we know who’s in the center, and we know what every part will do to keep it running.