#I count Grace and Christopher as lovers in my head but I guess you can vote them if you think they're just besties

[threewaywithdelusion]

NO LOVERS, SIBLINGS, PARABATAI INCLUDED

[purplebass]

James and Cordelia and James and Grace: an analysis

Hi! The other day I wrote a post explaining why, in my opinion, James and Grace are not meant to be together and won’t probably be together (I do wonder if they have supporters? No idea). 

SPOILERS FOR COG2, OF COURSE.

Well, for one, the reason why they may not end up together is that we have a family three that shows that James and Cordelia got married. Of course, like CC said, this may be misleading, but I believe that most of what it says it’s correct.

Two, Cordelia and James are both main characters, while Grace is a secondary character more than a main one. (I think the main main characters are James, Cordelia and Lucie and I guess aside from Cordelia, they are going to be on the covers of the last two books, just like for example on the original TMI covers we had Jace, Clary and Simon on the first three book covers.) Some may argue that a main character can end up with a secondary character, but what would the point be? It’s true that there is conflict between James and Grace and that they give the vibe of the star-crossed lovers who can’t be together because she’s thinking about herself more than she’s thinking about him - if you think about, anything Grace ever did in CoG was for herself. Which isn’t a bad thing, but it just means that in her list of priorities, James is the one she’d most likely sacrifice for her own survival. Either because she doesn’t love him so much as she claims or because she’s sacrificing their love for her own sake. James and Grace are like Pip and Estella (hence the Chain of Gold inspiration and why it’s James’ favorite book). In the end of Great Expectations (SPOILER IF YOU HAVEN’T READ IT) Pip ends up loving Estella, but Estella ends up with someone else in the end (the first husband dies while the second is a doctor... Christopher?!). Miss Havisham is clearly Tatiana Blackthorn, lol. In the end, Estella and Pip remain friends, which is what will eventually happen to James and Grace once the bracelet magic is over. Great Expectations ends with a bitter note and there is no Cordelia-alike character for Pip/James, but in CoG2 she is there. And she is the one who will probably mend James’ broken heart. I think I read a post on CC’s tumblr where she said that we’ll see how and if Cordelia can break the silver bracelet spell, since she seems aware that there is something wrong with it. After all, I still believe Cordelia is James’ missing piece. Unlike Grace, not only Cordelia showed to be selfless and loyal even if she could risk to hurt herself (like when she follows James into Belial’s dimension). She also proved that in the end she could lose everything but she wouldn’t want to lose James (and the others, not only him) if she can do something to help them. Which is why she lied that they were together when Tatiana was accusing him.

Three. Grace is a Blackthorn. The Blackthorns have had a difficult relationship with the Herondales and the Lightwoods ever since they killed Benedict. It is an overused cliché to make the guy/girl fall for the guy/girl who is the son/daughter of your declared enemy. Remember when I talked about star-crossed lovers? This also resonates with the Romeo and Juliet idea I wrote above, even if in this case the Herondales and the Lightwoods don’t despise the Blackthorns even if Tatiana treats them like gum under her shoes. But... Jesse is also a Blackthorn. During CoG we saw how he and Lucie got closer despite him being a ghost, which would make him impossible to love, since he is nothing but a shadow (for now). Yet, Lucie probably already fell for him and is determined to find a way to make it come back to life as flesh and blood. If you think about it, James and Jesse are alike: James can turn into a shadow while Jesse is a shadow. And after James met Belial and was dying, he came back to life because of Jesse’s last breath, and this, my friends, is not casual at all. Plus, you can tell Jesse is not like his mother, and out of the two Blackthorns, he is the most likely to end up with a Herondale, which takes Grace out of the question. Why? Because it would be too predictable to make BOTH Lucie and James end up with a Blackthorn, and Lucie’s story with Jesse is much more complicated and attracting as a plot twist than James and Grace’s ever be. 

Four. Besides the Jesse/James parallel, Grace and James’ stories are alike in some ways: they both end up engaged to someone they wouldn’t have chosen in other circumstances. Grace chooses Charles because of his position, James chose Cordelia because of her lie. Charles accepted Grace’s proposal to protect himself, since he wants to keep it secret that he is gay. Cordelia accepted James’ proposal to protect him. They both have something to lose: Grace might lose her freedom, Charles his image, James could be questioned because he met with a Prince of Hell, Cordelia might lose her honor as a woman. While Grace and Charles’ decisions are selfish (they only think about themselves in the end), James and Cordelia’s are selfless (they care more about the other person’s safety and well-being more than theirs). They did it because they wanted to help each other. Cordelia lied to protect James and James lied to protect Cordelia. Unlike CG, James wouldn’t have cared to be questioned (he is someone who faces his actions) nor Cordelia would have cared to be ruined and without a husband (James’ secret was far more important than her reputation). Which could end in tragedy when and if these lies would come out. In Grace and Charles’ case, I can’t imagine Tatiana’s ire against her. And Charles may or may not lose his credibility because after all, it doesn’t seem that many shadowhunters besides his family and friends are willing to accept a gay man as the consul. In James and Cordelia’s case, on the other hand, they may face issues, but it seems that being safe is what counts the most. Which, ultimately, like I said on the post I linked above, could lead us to new twists, like James having to face what happened in Belial’s dimension and Cordelia being proposed to by Matthew so that she’d still be respectable. I can totally see Matthew doing this, since he also likes Cordelia. 

Five. Bodily reactions? Well, I don’t know how to define this point, lol. But let’s just say it’s about physical attraction. James kissed both Cordelia and Grace in this book, and we experienced how he behaved with them. Despite what bracelet!James says at the end of CoG2, that his kiss with Cordelia was all pretense, we know that nobracelet!James told Cordelia that he meant that kiss. Meant. Since we know the bracelet is binding James to feel something for Grace, it makes all of his “affection” (I called it infatuation on the other post) is not genuine. I mean, it’s obvious James likes’ Grace’s appearance because she’s described as a very beautiful girl. But every time they interact or kiss, I felt nothing but coldness, ice. James and Grace’s kisses lacked passion, so to speak. Even when they were alone, they never kissed with the passion of a thousand suns. Even Grace’s appearance recalls the cold. She looks like Elsa from Frozen. OK that every couple has its “temperature”, but man... with Grace, James seemed like a mannequin, which, in literature, isn’t a great sign. A couple that lacks heat is a dead couple. At least to me. I usually don’t like “cold” couples, even though they exist, and usually they are not endgame if one of them is a main character. Trust me. Which brings me to James and Cordelia... let’s start by saying that Cordelia is Grace’s opposite. Everything about her is warmer: her eyes, her skin, her eyes, her heart. Cordelia means “lionheart” from French but also “jewel of the sea” from Welsh. Both meanings apply to Cordelia, which likes to face danger head on and she’s fierce, doesn’t care if her dresses get ruined. James and Cordelia only had one kiss, THE KISS, which ended all other kisses. The way the whispering scene was written, the way that kiss went, basically made James forget about all of his previous kisses (I assume he only kissed Grace before, because of his loyalty to her). It was hot and heavy because James and Cordelia are hot and heavy. Because Cordelia lights James on fire, basically, so much that he isn’t able to control himself like a big fire. I am one of those people who likes fire couples. Basically, most of Cordelia and James intimate scenes happened around fire or a metaphorical heat: when he has scalding fever, Cordelia is the only one who can stay by his bedside and she takes care of him and James thinks about how she didn’t run away when he turned into a shadow. Then when Cordelia risked to drown and James takes Cortana back to her and she’s sitting in front of the fire in the library. And even in the end when James goes to destroy the clockwork thing in Blackthron manor and this starts the fire, when they are about to go out of the building James takes Cordelia in his arms because he thinks her leg still hurts. 

If these aren’t enough evidence, I don’t know what is. I really wish I am not wrong, but of course we’ll know when the books come out. LOL.

I don’t know if you read the whole post, but if you did... thank you!