#blue would eventually become henry's parabatai

[derangedthoughtssideblog]

if they were shadowhunters ronan and gansey would be parabatai, i can't prove it but i don't have doubts

[clockworkopera]

LORD OF SHADOWS THEORIES: (Part 1)

Disclaimer: My theories are built not just on the Dark Artifices, but from all the previous books as a whole, and will contain spoilers if you haven’t read them. I haven’t watched the Shadowhunter TV series, so these ideas are based solely on book canon.

(This was written before LoS was released, and while so some of theories are out of date they are still interesting!)

ON THE PARABATAI BOND: THE SILENT BROTHERS AND THE IRON SISTERS:

Silent Brothers are twisted and mutilated, and I think Angel magic done right isn’t going to make them look that way (See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, and all that).

What makes them so different: Runes. The problem with parabatai who love each other: Runes.

Coincidence?

              When rescuing Tavvy they spoke to each other with their minds (something only the Silent Brothers can do). Their Runes were powerful enough to rival the healing of Silent Brothers. I think Julian had to have used the White Runes (that’s what I’m coining them) to help Emma heal after the whipping, because she was whipped that morning and facing Malcolm that night—no Shadowhunter could have healed that kind of damage that fast. I think because of that incident, coupled with Julian surviving the poisoned crossbolt, Diego is going to become suspicious and nosy (poking into Julian’s locked room), —and may even report his suspicions to his superiors and turn them in.

              Jem says, (LM pg659), “Not everyone has a parabatai, but the fact that they exist is part of what makes Nephilim what they are. Without them, we would be infinitely weaker, in ways it is forbidden for me even to explain.”

Theory: What if the Silent Brothers and Iron Sisters were created as a means of separating Parabatai that become too powerful? Jem was told they go mad, but is that the truth? We take his words as canon, but what if his information isn’t accurate.

Could they just become something too powerful for the Clave to control and that is something the Clave cannot abide by?

So, the Clave separates them: the men become Silent Brothers and the women become Iron Sisters, and their excess magic becomes the fuel for the Clave’s power from everything from wards to witchlight to Seraph blades. But in separating them they become oath breakers before the Angel, sworn always to be together, but forever separated by the Clave and that separation, despair—lack of connection to their humanity turns them into something else. And that something is not good. We assume they are heroes because they saved Jem’s life—but what if they aren’t?

              In ‘After the Bridge’, on Cassandra Clare’s Tumblr, it’s the most we hear about Jem’s life as a Silent Brother. On Tessa: “He’d wondered during his time in Idris, after the heavenly fire had cured him, if it would still be like that with them: if his human feelings would return to him. He had been able to touch her and be near her as a Silent Brother without wanting her as he had when he was a mortal. He had still loved her, but it had been a love of the spirit, not the body. He had wondered—feared, even, that the physical feelings and responses would not come back the way they had. He told himself that even if Silent Brotherhood had killed the ability of his feelings to manifest themselves physically, he would not be disappointed. He had told himself to expect it.”

              And if that isn’t bad enough in COHF (pg233) Jem tells Jace: “We—they don’t die, you know; they fade after many years. Stop speaking, stop moving. Eventually they are entombed alive.” (What do you think Will would have thought of that?) He also says, (COHF pg232), “But, I was never an ordinary Silent Brother.”—we assume it was because of his yinfen poisoning, but could it be he never reached that level of power because he wasn’t in love with Will?  

              If this theory holds true, then how depleted of power would the Shadowhunters have been after Valentine’s attack on the Silent City when so many brothers were killed? And I would then be curious to know what the parabatai rate between orphans and mundane children who ascend (both without families to look for them, or care what happens to them), are compared to the general Shadowhunter population. That’s a good question for Ty’s statistical and analytical mind. And what of Simon who spends a great deal of time extolling the virtues of being Parabatai, (especially to mundane hopefuls), how would he feel presenting the option without telling the full disclosure of it?

              There are tests prospective Parabatai go through and Julian could have faked it with the help of his splash of Eidolon blood and his penchant for lying, but what if the Silent Brothers have been watching them in hopes of gaining new recruits. Carstairs have served them well before and there are a lot of Blackthorns.

              My theory is that if Emma and Julian are caught, they’ll be forced into servitude with these organizations. Traditionally, families were probably told Parabatai pairs heroically died in battle together, while in reality, they were imprisoned with runes behind the Citadel and the Silent City: given new names and identities, separated forever from the families who love them.

Did Silas Pangborn really kill himself? And there is no mention to the fate of Eloisa Ravenscar, his parabatai. The marks used to keep their mouths and eyes permanently closed are the Marks of Fettering (Codex, pg195). The very definition of fettering is to restrain with chains or manacles—that doesn’t seem like a voluntary act, while the Sisters (Codex, pg197), “They wear simple clothes, long white gowns bound tightly at the wrists and waists by demon-wire.” (bound by demon wire?) The book says it is to protect them from the fire of the forge, but maybe that is misleading—why wouldn’t one use Angel wire instead of demon wire in that case?

OR, (I think this would be the case of Julian and Emma) their families would step up to the Clave to keep them from being taken away, and the Clave would kill anyone who got in their way. The Clave cannot allow something as powerful as loved parabatai to exist because they simply cannot control them.

A twisted version of “They would destroy their families, the others they loved. Death would surround them until eventually they died themselves” (LM pg659), becomes true simply because their loved ones fought on their behalf to keep the Clave from taking them and the Clave killed them for interfering—not because they are inherently mad. It becomes a sort of sad self-fulfilling prophecy.

**Note: Silas Pangborn’ s sister, Barbara Lightwood (Gideon, Gabriel and Tatiana’s mother), supposedly killed herself over grief of her brother’s death. Then upon further investigation it was thought she killed herself because her husband gave her the demon pox. And I’m disappointed Charlotte Branwell never asked the question: “Well, my husband is banging demons, perhaps it’s a good idea if I just kill myself now and allow him to raise my three small children.” But, maybe she never killed herself, maybe she was too close to her brother’s secret, trying to help him and Eloisa and was killed for her trouble. The Clave would need an explanation for her death, and Charlotte, I know you had a lot on your mind during the Infernal Devices, but why didn’t you ask that question?

              But, maybe that is something she learned when she became Consul and that leads to…

              I wonder if this is what Henry was working on, a fix of some sort in his secret project with the Iron Sisters and why Clary would want to help. Luke’s mother left two young children to become an Iron Sister, out of the blue, leaving them virtually orphaned. Why? Was this something she had a choice in, or did this scenario happen to her? Sister Cleophas was the one to meet Jocelyn Fairchild and Isabelle Lightwood to talk of the similarities of Sebastian and Jace’s bond and you guessed it—the Parabatai bond.

              In Shadowhunter history how much is true and accurate vs. how much does the Clave wants Shadowhunters to believe is true and accurate? And who writes the Codex and the history books, teaches what is canon law—it’s the Silent Brothers.

              I read a lot of ideas about Cortana being able to cut through anything—meaning the Parabatai bond. I think this is a red herring. I think Cortana is going to have an entirely different purpose.

ON CLARY AND JACE:

Theory: (Codex pg33) Reveals that Henry Branwell was in a long collaboration with the Iron Sisters back in 1914, “the results still remain secret”, and with Clary’s special gift with runes, I think the Iron Sisters want her to work with them for the equivalent of her year abroad—an internship of sorts. I have more on what they might be working on below. But, I don’t think she’ll feel like she can commit to a marriage until she has finished that work—even while she knows that it will evoke all of Jace’s self-doubts and insecurities. Plus, she’d have to tell him she was going away.

***I’m brand new to Tumblr, joined just so I could pass along theories, get feedback and don’t have any followers and I’m not quite sure how to get my ideas out there—so if these ideas intrigue you, please pass them along. Over the next few days I’ll post lots of my theories from the Fae to Church and everything in between. So, please let me know what you think.