#IM SORRY ABOUT THIS but not sorry enough to trim it down lmaooooo

[jcmorgenstern]

Hi friend! Do you have any shadowhunters s3 theory on what will Jonathan's and Lilith's relationship be like? The bit when Jonathan tell Izzy about his mother having a strange way of showing her love and that he forgave her was obviously about Lilith. It makes me wonder if her 'love' for Jonathan will turn out to be another child abuse rollercoaster (since Edom is her realm she apparently allowed demons to torture Jonathan and Jon had to scheme with Azazel to escape her). Watcha think?

Hey there friend!!! Okay I was super excited to get this ask because I have a lot of Lilith Feelings, so I hope this won’t devolve into an excited ramble (it will), but thank you so much for sending this ask!!! I love talking about Sebastian, maybe too much lmaooo. Anyway, without further ado:Okey so first off, I personally interpreted what Sebastian says about his “mother” to be about Jocelyn, but that definitely could be wrong. I just sort of assumed that when he said “she’s gone now” he was referring either to Jocelyn abandoning him/Val, or her death. Though he could also mean that Lilith is “gone” because he escaped hell, though I personally just didn’t think of it that way?? But either interpretation is valid honestly. Either way, I sort of found his statement that he’d forgiven her sort of disingenuous, since he does tend to lie through his teeth at the drop of a hat, and I’m pretty sure he hasn’t moved on from anything that’s happened to him, ever. I did find it a bit odd that Lilith is supposed to rule Edom with Asmodeus and she didn’t lift a finger to help him. Like, how many half-demon half-shadowhunter kids are there out there??

I did also find it a bit weird the demons chose to torture what could have been a pretty good ally (what better way to get out of hell than to make Jonathan like them and then summon them as soon as he’s out?), so either that’s a writing goof or they’ll come up with some sort of explanation. Especially since they apparently torture him (for his awful bowl cut?)…but also give him sweet shapeshifting lessons? “Now that you’re ugly as shit, you’ll have real motivation to learn how to shapeshift into someone prettier!!”

Jokes of dubious taste aside, I’ve given this a fair bit of thought and overall we can’t really know what justification she’ll give, but she certainly seems to owe him one hell of an explanation. I sort of guess it’ll be a political thing, like Lilith was somehow out of favor and couldn’t do anything, but it’s definitely possible they’ll take it in another direction so that she’s heartlessly manipulating him to her own ends.Personally speaking, I would like to see a dynamic where Lilith is overjoyed to finally have a child, and resents the Clave/Jace especially for what they did to her “baby,” and Sebastian is so happy to have a parent who loves him he’ll do literally anything for her. I’ve seen a theory (unfortunately probably not going to happen) that she might imitate Jocelyn at some point, and while that would be awesome, it seems Anna Hopkins is cast as her and Maxim Roy isn’t returning. I do find it strange they chose to present Lilith as the Big Bad for s3 (and perhaps beyond?) and give her the world-destroying motive she never quite had before. Maybe because they don’t feel show!Sebastian really has the villainous force to try to conquer the world yet? I do have a pet theory that the Seelie Queen and Lilith are teamed up and the Seelie Queen is going to make Simon help bring Sebastian back (and perhaps the “secret” Valentine told the Queen before dying has something to do with that).

Either way I really want Sebastian + Lilith to target the Clave, especially if they manage to add some moral grey to it. That is, make it less “murder everyone for funzies” and more “it’s time for the Clave to end, look at all the bad shit it did, even the Consul was in on it.” Especially if Lilith seeks the downworld’s help, and the Clave (read: long-suffering Alec) is forced to justify the Clave’s existence to the people it oppressed for…literally forever. Especially if Javier Munoz’s character is secretly on Lilith’s side?? She is the mother of all warlocks, after all. Play the warlocks against Magnus for siding with the Queen, all the while being in league with Lilith who’s in with the Seelie Queen….the Intrigue!!! I also think that would make the struggle of Clary trying to deal with the fact Jace is being controlled much harder and more interesting, because it’s harder to condemn a morally grey goal than a pure evil one, and the whole “you’re just like me, join me” from Sebastian will make more sense.

(on an unrelated side note, Sebastian reacting to Clary murdering Valentine will be interesting. He maintains in the books he would never kill his father, and I’m guessing that’s why show Sebastian chose to try to banish Valentine to Edom rather than kill him. I’m guessing he will have complicated feelings about it, which may feed into the whole “you’re more like me than you think” line).

If they don’t have the rights to COLS and COHF, I’m guessing they’ll modify the plot structure so that Lilith is the Big Bad and Sebastian is her morally-grey pawn (they seem to be enjoying making him more morally ambiguous than in the books, so I hope that doesn’t change any time soon). I’ll sort of be bummed if that happens, because COHF was hands-down my favorite book, but IP rights are IP rights :// There’s also theory that Sebastian will be more like book Sebastian when he returns, which I reaaaaaally hope isn’t true, book Sebastian has much less of the complexity that show Sebastian does. But after he’s back and mad as hell, he might be more aggressive, especially with Lilith leading the way.My guess is they’ll go for a mix of this, a “is she using him or does he have an ulterior motive?? or both??” sort of thing, though they promised that with Valentine in 2b and unless they drop some real tea on us that…didn’t happen lmao. Valentine pretty much played the abusive parent “I love you and didn’t mean to upset you by sending you to hell!! you’re so sensitive!!!” card and Sebastian came running, which is extremely depressing when I put it that way. So they’ve set the stage perfectly for him to be manipulated, but they could also make him into more of a “monster” by giving him what he’s always wanted, a mother who loves him and will tell him exactly what to do, just like Valentine did. Yike!

One last thing that I think may end up being extremely important: if they don’t have the rights to COHF, and even if they do, Clary and Jace’s vision from Ithuriel in 2a is probably gonna be REALLY important in how Sebastian is ultimately defeated. (For those of y’all who don’t recall what the hell I’m on about, Clary and Jace have a vision of a half-demon half-angel being destroying the Soul Sword and dying along with it). Sound like anyone we know? At first I was super stumped by this, because who cares about the Soul Sword it’s basically a MacGuffin, but if they can’t use the heavenly fire because Rights Issues, maybe they’ll convince him to hold the sword for some reason and zap him. It obviously doesn’t work if he just holds it, because he threatens Valentine with it in 2x16 and carries it off in 2x10, so maybe it needs electrical activation like it does with Jace’s angel blood? it’s a mystery. (They could also have it be used as a sort of redemption arc thing where he dies to save the world or something if Lilith tries to change the Sword’s allegiance to kill all Nephilim instead of all demon-blooded creatures, but based on Will’s commentary it seems they’re painting him as a slightly more villainous/tragic figure than that, so I’d be surprised).

tl;dr: My personal hopes are that they go for an angle of Lilith fulfilling Sebastian’s deep-seated need to be loved while also completing his descent into villainhood, but they have also definitely set him up to be kept as a manipulated pawn as well. I personally think it might stagnate him a bit in terms of character evolution to have him stay the abused child throughout the series, but it could definitely work, and we’ll just have to see how it plays out!!