So this video is sort of unintentionally split in 2 parts. If you want to skip ahead I’ll leave time stamps. My Origin Story with Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters TV Drama, What I thought her drama was: 1:40 The real drama, My current relationship with CC, and Dragging people who hated on me: 14:24
Caleb Joseph You’re very good at organizing your ideas for discussion in a linear and comprehensible way. It’s a really admirable skill and I wish I had it.
This was a fun video! I've got some tea with receipts you may be interested in... For those who do not know just how EXTENSIVE her fanfic plagiarism was, I'm going to post a comment I've made in a few other videos. For reference, it isn't normal to copy and paste long passages into your fanfics, I say this as a former fic writer myself and as someone who is now a professional writer. She did this frequently. To further how not ok this is, she made a career from how famous her fics were, fics that were largely plagiarized - it's a big deal. She made money off her plagiarism, even though that plagiarism was only in her fics - it was her popularity from her plagiarized fics that attracted the attention of agents. She became a famous writer off the backs of struggling writers who received little to no credit. Here's the comment I've posted elsewhere: Hello! There's a lot more to this series and its background than most people know. Cassandra Clare (formerly Cassandra Claire) used to be a well-known plagiarist in the Harry Potter fandom - for her fanfiction. I'm not sure if there's any proof of plagiarism with her original fiction, but I don't believe so. Anyway. So, most of the sites depicting Cassie Clare's plagiarism are down, unfortunately. The most extensive compilation of her plagiarism can be found on an old website called Bad Penny, which no longer exists. You CAN, however, find it on the WayBack Machine. I actually found here: web.archive.org/web/20130413060527/www.journalfen.net/community/bad_penny/8985.html#cutid1 It's extremely informative and very interesting. Please note that it only talks about the plagiarism in her fanfiction, not her original fiction (as it came out before her book premier, and I don't believe there's any proof she plagiarized with her original fiction) - and it's a lot more extensive than she lets on. You can see even more horribleness that Cassie and her closest friends were up to through the MsScribe Saga (although that was mostly MsScribe, one of Cassie's friends, and the one mostly at fault for not calling out MsScribe sooner was Cassie's closest Internet buddy, Heidi - a lawyer who'd threaten to sue anyone who **breathed** plagiarism and Cassandra Clare in the same sentence). The MsScribe Saga is still up on Live Journal through the journal of someone named Charlotte Lennox, however most of the comments and background were on Bad Penny (which no longer exists). The WayBack Machine link for the MsScribe Saga on Bad Penny - also a fascinating read, if only as a character study - is here: web.archive.org/web/20120529212816/www.journalfen.net/users/charlottelennox/ Have fun
Wheel of time is a series i read every year. I was never impressed with mortal instruments. They were funny but not great. I am someone who believes strongly in death of the author. If you want a great series to check out see the wheel of time its amazing and i cannot wait for the show.
You're telling me that out of all the ships she could've chosen-- Harry and Draco, Harry and Hermione, Hermione and Draco, Harry and Ron, Ron and Draco, Harry and Neville, Harry and Ron and Hermione, Voldemort and Umbridge-- she chose Ron and Ginny????
Fairly certain at least part of the reason was to annoy the guys from sugar quill or however that forum was called. Maybe it was the gryffindor tower people? One of those old places anyway.
Lmao Cassandra Clare made fun of me in front of like 500 people in a q&a for city of heavenly fire in 2014 x i dropped something on the floor during the q&a and she felt the need to call out my little 14-year-old self and basically told me to shut up or leave :) She could clearly see that I was uncomfortable but she still felt the need to belittle a young fan x I cried outside for like 20 mins and didn’t even get my book signed because I was so embarrassed (she was also 3 hours late lmao)
Maybe being late is a thing of hers because I went to a signing with her and holly black this past March just before they shut everything down and she was 2 hours late. They had us wait in the rain and gave no explanation. She didn’t make fun of anyone. There was a booktuber there that was kind of mean/standoffish too
I remember there being a scene in City of Ashes or something where Jace and Clary were pining and angsting over other while they believed they were siblings and stuff and they ended up making out and basically having that moment of “I don’t care that we’re related”. The incest fetish REALLY jumped out during that scene and I remember young me being very disturbed by it and having to set the book down for a long time. Your feelings are totally valid tho.
The incest fetishism was the ONE thing I knew about the series, next to the controversial handling of a sexual assault scene, so that effectively kept me away for years.
I don't remember that scene in City of Ashes tbh. But in City of Glass Jace thinks he loves Clary because he has demon blood and he is a monster, so he kinda goes like "FUCK IT" and wants to be with Clary. But Clary was trying very hard to not be romantically involved with Jace after City of Bones. I never found it THAT perturbing because I read the series a year ago and I already knew they weren't sibilings. At some parts it was uncomfortable but I knew the truth, and I wasn't there for Clary and Jace (I love Simon so much and I only cared about what happened to him even if I had to read the Clace scenes which are one of my least favorite relationships)
Yes because most cases involving consenting adults partaking in incest is from a manipulative power play in which individual has more power over the other and uses this power as a coping mechanism that results from trauma. Both are horrible. I’ve had many friends who were not consenting as children and who were assaulted so I’m very bothered by your previous comments about how we have to teach that incest is logical. Sorry I can’t support that claim because no one who has consented to do that is married happily and dealing with trauma from their own actions to participate in sexual behavior with a family member.
wouldn’t call this bullying, mostly it’s just hilarious, but way back when the show was first being announced i tweeted her some shit like “don’t worry, we’ll always love the books more than the show!” and she responded “:)” and when i went to her account the next day to show my friend i couldn’t because cassandra clare fucking blocked me LMAO
My thought is that since she would profit from the show, comments giving it a negative light in any way at such a critical time would be a no-no (if not from her, then from her agency or whatever).
The incest made me uncomfortable but I was like “A new writer just made a terrible mistake” but then I heard about the Ron and Ginny fanfic and was like 😐
The incest was uncomfortable (especially in CoA) but I just thought that, like Caleb said, was to show how evil Valentine is. Like he's messing with his young children and making them feel guilty.
I never read the books (sorry I’m late to the conversation 😭) but based off the like movie I thought like oh no it just said that they are but it’s probably just valentine messing with their heads and they aren’t actually siblings because he’s evil. Finding out through the video that it was inspired by Ron and Ginny fan fiction is so gross and I’m glad I never read them 😭
Wait... this guy is only three years older than me. I think that this is the closest TH-camr in terms of age that I watch. This is weird. I remember when every TH-camr I watched was on old status to my young thought process. I remember when 18 was so far away but now it’s only three years. Holy crap someday I will be the same age as adult famous people. Shit someday I will be an adult.
conspiracy theory: her plan was for claire and jace being actual siblings but the publisher or maybe the public reaction made her change it. she must be so envious of george r.r martin for getting away with writing incest on mainstream 💀
I was literally thinking the same thing while watching the video. What if she wanted to have them be actual siblings and the publisher said yikes, we can't do that so they made her put in the twist of HA they're not actually related phew .... pretty fucked up to think about
I've read A Song of Ice and Fire I don't read the incest in anyway that supposed to be celebrated, the Lannisters read entirely of toxicity and control (Jamie's entire arc is about spliting apart from Cersei) even in the case of the Targaryens the bloodline was incestuous and even that had terrible consequences across all the history he is written, it's portrayed in a historical way and even in the fictional world of Westeros people go "big yikes" with the Lannisters incest. They are accepting of cousins relationships to a degree wish isn't entirely out place. There's a lot of critiques I have about George RR Martin's work but incest being a thing isn't one of them
I'm actually currently writing my dissertation on how race politics influences the plot of The Shadowhunter Chronicles (and YA fiction more broadly), and during my first meeting with my dissertation supervisor she told me to be careful. She used to professionally review YA books and all of her coworkers were scared of even touching Clare's books because she's so quick to contact her lawyers lmao
Difference is, Rowling wrote the incest as the “obligatory” thing based on real world history (royalty, racial supremacy). From what I understand about Clare (haven’t read her stuff yet), she seem to fetishize it?
At this point I only read Cassandra‘s books as a guilty pleasure because they are so god damn addictive and the characters mean a lot to me and I won‘t let anyone shame me for it but I get why people don‘t want to read her books anymore
I started reading the shadowhunter books them when i was around 13 i think and i loved them like i loved most of the books i read when i was around that age. I just finished LoS and QoAaD and they were just okay, i think i just grew out of reading these books and i didn’t plan on reading anymore of her books but at the same time i wanna know what happens to the characters in the upcoming 2 series so idk i might download them from somewhere on my kindle, i definitely won’t buy them. I also had the sudden urge to watch the shadowhunter tv series after stopping in the middle of the second season (i couldn’t endure it anymore).... and yeah it was just bad and i’m not even gonna try. The movie was kinda better but still bad, might watch it for guilty pleasure tho.
I read the original trilogy when I was in high school and really liked it, the infernal devices in college and really liked that too. Now I’m thirty and trying to get through the second 3 of the mortal instruments, and it has been an absolute slog to get through because I hate the way Cassandra Clare writes, but damn the story is interesting enough that I want to read them all. It’s an absolute dilemma and it hurts my soul.
Interesting~ I read city of bones in the midst of my young teen fantasy phase and I didn't enjoy it at all and felt no desire to continue the series. I love me some guilty pleasure reading but this series never captured my fantasy loving soul.
I feel like hating on a 15-17 year-old for liking books that aren't good is just really low. Like, yeah I don't like Cassandra Clare either, but saying something like "YoU sEeM sMArT, bUt YoU LIkE CaSsAnDrA ClARe" is just rude as hell.
When I was in middle school I loved Hush Hush which many people hate honestly if someone hated on me for liking it I would've taken it personally and felt really bad.
@@jackystar5099 Lmao I've just read the sequel to hush hush and have been considering making a youtube podcast reviewing it and other books but I don't know If I should!? Idk i've wanted to review books forever but worry I'm not charismatic enough
It's even worse when you learn that she wrote the og Mortal Instruments because she wanted to spite Harry/Ginny shippers during a ship war at the age of 28
The thing that turned me off from her was a tweet asking her who her favorite ship on The Vampire Diaries was and she said Stefan and Damon... who are brothers. Someone pointed that out and she replied saying that makes it even better! (it doesn't and it's gross.) In the TDA books, most of the drama would have been cleared up in like 30 pages if she didn't treat parabatais like siblings (because in a lot of cases, they are not siblings), but you just KNOW she did that on purpose because it clearly gets her going. It's hard to separate the cool world and characters she has created from her, because I love them, but I despise her.
that's kinda gross. I just read the Scrolls of Red Magic and bei g parabatais was mentioned a lot by Alec... now I kinda view that different then before and even though I love Magnus and Alec, every time Alec mentions Jace I get uncomfortable
Agree with basically everything you said. All of the incest or sort of incest is really gross in the books. Clary&Jace (even if this was a red hering) Clary and Jonathan, sort of, atleast one sided. But I can kinda give this a pass because Jonathan is f-ed up. And Jace and Alec, while they are not related it´s still sort of weird to have a crush on your adoptive brother, even if it would be technically fine. But I really just want to overlook this and appreciate the world and characters despite their author being... like that. Often authors turn out to be a bit.... ehhhhh. Like I used to love Harry Potter, but Rowling constantly adding tidbits and retconning stuff kinda ruined the series for me, even though I used to love that world just like I love the Shadowhunters world
Beny i agree that the incest parts are honestly disgusting but its not like alec and jace were brought up as brother from a very young age (i believe they 10 or 12) and in one of the stories in the ghosts of the shadowmarket, its hinted that alec had a crush on jace from the moment they met - which seems to me an understandable reaction from a young boy just discovering things about himself when he meets a boy his age (possibly for the first time since there were no other families in new york and the lightwoods were in lowkey exile). I haven't read red scrolls of magazine however so i guess the way alec talks about jace in that book maybe particularly disturbing.
I know I'm basically shooting a dead horse here, but something I have never seen referenced in this controversy that definitely merits attention is the fact that in one of the books Clary or Simon is reading an manga called Angel Sanctuary. Now, 15 year old me was pretty big on angels (duh) and christian mythology, and so I gave the anime adaptation a watch. To this day I think about the fact that it's about a war between angels and demons centred on the incestuous relationship between the two protagonists... was she ever even really trying to hide it?
Ohhhh no. I remember being given volume 1 of that manga to borrow from a friend in high school. After I read it, I felt dirty just having it on my person. They didn't want it back, and I just threw it out.
What little memory I have of that manga is basically me getting pissed off at Rosiel for every appearance of his. Heck, I hated him even more than Griffith and THAT is saying something.
Imagine you're thinking about that incest fanfic you read a few years ago and a series with the same name is sitting in the bookstore right when you walk in
@@Risbarbyou do realize its stigmitized for a reason right? family bonds usually come with power dynamics and it can deeply psychologically affect u. comparing it to homosexuality is just meh
My problem with this is that it's a common thing to explore in fantasy and fiction. She's recommending other stories? What is the problem? There is none. It's cool to have a personal boundary with certain topics in fiction but I'm against superimposing your boundary on other people and then thinking they are somehow bad.
lmao my mom recommended it to me when it just came out and i was like 13/14. i had only watched pretty little liars before this so my standards for tv were pretty low. (in my opinion) season 1 is laughable but season 2 and 3 are actually good
Anyway its rly cool of you to have this introspective on your relationship with a series / author and taking growth from it regardless of where you started and ended. Youre a cool bean Caleb stay tru to yourself
The incest thing is SO yikes. It would've been one thing to have the reveal that Clary and Jace were siblings. But the fact that after they KNEW they were siblings and they were still kissing or sleeping in the same bed was just gross. And the fact that it was all a lie in the end doesn't make those moments "okay." I feel like the whole "Parabatai can't fall in love" thing was her way of getting her incest fetish on without it being incest. The whole time reading Lady Midnight, I couldn't help but wonder about that.
Agreeeee... ya the movie changed a lot from the books and some of the acting and effects were cringy but the actors had SUCH good chemistry irl and the atmosphere of the movie was so much better than the show... the show is just.... yikes...
@@WhaleManMan I second that. I've even bought books by authors I don't want to support used so that I can still read them but instead I'm supporting the charity, small shop, or family selling them instead of the author.
"Am I just supposed to pretend that Emma Carstairs isn't just a gender-bent Jace Herondale" literallyyyyyyyyyyyy this is why TDA is my least favorite series.
I've only read TMI and TID, but is she really? While reading CoHF I noticed she had a lot of similarities to Jace (the bravest, lost her family, blond, amber eyes, even down to being left handed) and I only started liking Jace in book 6. I also didn't like CoHF epilogue, so if that's the case I'm going to jump back in time and read GotSM and Chain of Gold.
I had to comment when I saw this. I loved Twilight when I was in middle school and I also loved the House of Night series at the same time. Upon ... You know, growing up, I looked back on them and they were awful but I still love them as part of my childhood 😭
@@thxwanderer Fam it's so true. My friends and I love clowning on them now, but they still have a special place in my heart. Now we all just go Bella was a lesbian and Edward is a twink and all that kind of stuff.
I used to be that one kid that was like "I'm right and you're wrong! Cassandra Clare sucks! I heard this one thing from this one person so that automatically means I'm right!" and now...sometimes I get notifications from my old comments and I'm just like "wHy WaS i LiKe ThIs"
I worked at a movie theater in 2016 that advertised the Shadow Hunters show and the actress for the main character was talking about how much of a fan she was of Cassandra Clare and in the same breath called her Cassidy Clare. And they never corrected her. And left it. In the cut. For the ads. It told me everything I needed to know about how the quality of the series lol
I think that is her nickname for Cassandra since she still use it to this day. She uses it interchangeably. She is a big fan of the books though. She read all of the books and tends to answer a lot of interview questions about the books compared to the rest of the cast besides Alberto (who plays Simon and also read all of the books).
I read all of her books when I was 13-15 and going through an extremely hard time just with life in general and those characters were EvERYTHING to me... those stories were what I used to cry into whenever I was having a hard time. All my copies are so worn down because I took them everywhere. Getting older it’s no longer my type of story anymore. I’m not a huge supporter of her anymore but honestly those books will always have a place in my heart for being a safe space. So watching this video I FELT EVERYTHING YOU SAID SO HARD.
Yes!! It‘s honestly insane to me that I‘m only now realizing how deeply I care about all the books I read in that time of my life. Like I would literally read at ANY given moment and it was mostly these YA series. Now I love commentary videos about them and their dumb plotlines, but I would reread them at any given moment just for that little reminder of a safe space.
I remember once my friend tweeted her asking why she used gay characters as a plot point and then forget about them later and Cassandra Clare blocked her.
The Mortal Instruments series was a big fat "meh" to me (but a certain hard pass for the incest). Infernal Devices was great (a big improvement; still my favorite series out of the Shadowhunter works). Dark Artifices was good (I feel like some characters were underdeveloped, but then again, there's another series coming up). The Last Hours is far from completion, but Chain of Gold was great, too. I feel like she vastly improved and solidified her style over the years. Am I a Cassandra Clare fan? Absolutely not. But am I a Shadowhunter series fan? Kinda. The Mortal Instruments series is easily the worst one (and imo, not an accurate representation of the series; I have yet to find a reviewer that judges CC from later books and not the old ones).
@@phisograph i used to like the books, but i gave up after queen of air and darkness because i just realized that i didnt like these books after all and i mostly read them becaus ei liked them in middle school,,, i agree that she improved but tbh, its still way below my standards😅 and cc is just a terrible person, so theres that
@@lenap319 I respect your opinion. Honestly, I'm just reading The Last Hours series, then I'm done with it forever. I love the Victorian setting, and frankly, I'm losing interest as I become older & more involved with school and stuff. It's the same with Rick Riordan's books, come to think of it.
@@phisograph yeah, its opinion based obviously,,, i wont shame anyone who likes them, i just wish people were more aware of the problematic aspects,,,, Also, i still really enjoy rick riordans books, even now that i am older. The original series is still the best
My friends kept pestering me to read Clare's books since they know I love Fantasy. So when I read the first chapter about Clary, my immediately thought 'She might be a Mary Sue and this best friend is totally gonna be in love with her or some shit'. Turns out I was right.
The reason I loved mortal instruments was entirely due to Magnus and Alec. Being a gay teenager when we didn't have heart stopper or anything LGBT that was good and not bury your gays. There was no books that focused on an LGBT character in the early 2000's much as the mortal instruments did. The side characters in mortal instruments was their only saving grace.
goodness me, i had to practically fast read through everything just to get to malec scenes. In the lengthy series that i almost gave up on, they're the only ones that made me push through. Their first public kiss in city of glass and their break up in lost souls was 💔
Look, I'll admit, I read some fucked up stuff sometimes. But most of the time I read something with a taboo relationship, it's either "this is a very dark and angsty story cause the characters are aware of how fucked up it is and the audience is supposed to feel disgusted" or "the characters talking about the dark relationship like it's nothing gives it just the right amount of self-awareness that you can tell the author is extremely skilled at letting the audience understand on their own how the story is almost like satire". To sum it up, most stories I read are self-aware and not fetishizing, while Cassandra Clare *definitely* has a fetish. Edit: a good example of a taboo relationship that isn't sugarcoated is the TV show Hannibal. The main relationship is a detective with Darkness Inside Him and a psychiatrist who is also a cannibal - they're aware of how fucked up their relationship is, everyone around them is aware, the creator and writers are aware... you get the idea. The show never ever paints the relationship in a good light, and the fans ship it because of how fucked up and twisted it is. And I'm pretty sure the fans and the creator isn't trying to eat anyone's heart anytime soon.
I'm shook right now [SPOILERS FOR The Dark Artifices Series] The two main characters of this story grew up like brother and sister. Cassandra Clare constantly reminds us in this story that they are like family because the main female character lost her parents and joined as like a sister figure with the other children. But, now that she and the other male main character are teens, they have this extremely steamy forbidden love because they are parabatai. I always thought it was weird that they were supposed to be like brother and sister, but then all of a sudden they are having sex...now that I know about her incest plot lines, it kinda makes sense. My god...
natwixterthan18 and if you look back and think about it, Alex’s crush on Jace, his parabatai, and with Jace frequently saying “you’re my brother,” gives off the same feeling. To me, anyway.
Yikes, I never saw it that way. I haven't finished TDA and I don't think I will now because my thoughts have changed and I don't even care that much. It's been months since I read LoS anyway.
Don't come for my ship Emma and Julian!😀I wouldn't say that their relationship is like an incest,beacause I've actually had asked myself multiple times ,,What whould happen if two parabatai fall in love?" In the books is said that Emma had her bedroom on the other side of the institute as a clarification that she is not part of the Blackthorn family. Also they needed to have that close platonic like relationship between each other to become parabatai
@@rainbowpopcorns1325 even if it's your ship, it's described in a way that makes it feel like it's a placeholder for an incestual relationship. Throughout the series, parabatai are described as siblings to the other. Siblings. Even if you did wonder, it does raise questions given the emphasized nature of what a parabatai relationship is and supposed to be.
@@Rubbish1313 Honestly to me it's never seemed like as you say a placeholder for incestual relationship.I guess it's because I adore the ,,friends to lovers" relationships,because I think that you need to know someone completely before loving them.Anyway let's get to the point. You say that throughout the series the parabatai are described as siblings.Well,it is describe multiple times as love deeper and stronger than that of siblings,even of self-love.I can quote if you want. Plus as it said in Lady Midnight parabatai can have sex,if they do not have romantic feelings for each other.
I really like the maturity you show in this video. And I totally feel you that online culture is like "I'm right, you're wrong". And so I think it's really cool that you fought that and went back and reevaluated your previous thoughts. I also loved these books in 2013 haha. I was 15. I had no idea her previous history. And I'm also the same as you in that I stopped reading after a while because I too had just moved on in my reading tastes. Great video king. Hope college is well as always.
It’s so funny to watch this because when I first read the city of bones back in 2013, I was so disgusted with the incest part that I emailed Cassandra and got a reply from her! I emailed suggesting that her “incest” plot twist was cheap and gross. Surprisingly I got a reply back and she basically said I didn’t understand and that it was for the suspense of the characters ??? But so happy to know she’s actually disgusting and twisted!
The infernal devices is still my favorite series and I think it’s really well written. but that doesn’t mean I think Cassandra Clare as a person isn’t problematic.
I was planning on reading the mortal instruments. But after watching this video i dont i can. But i really wanna read the infernal devices. Can i read it without reading the first series or will i not understand?
The only books I enjoyed were the Bane Chronicles, Tales at the Shadowhunter Academy, and An Illustrated History of Notable Shadowhunters tbh. But that's all. Otherwise, the trilogies are all but reduced, reused, and recycled plotlines.
@@WarKeineAbsicht so much more likely this. These days parents are on Facebook posting literal pictures of their kids poop & their B+ homework assignments - "well, they tried!"
Never liked TMI but I do really like TID and I think it's genuinely good. My problem with her comes from her latest series; the books are too long, the writing is repetitive, she uses the same metaphors and imagery over and over and over again.
Super happy you mentioned "i'm right, you're wrong" culture. I wish people would stop to explain things clearly more often instead of just blindly attacking and assuming everyone knows all the backstory.
I think with the plagiarism it's pretty common among series now like 50 shades of Grey and After are fanfictions that got published. The Ron and Ginny fanfic is a big fat ew in my opinion and it sucks because I had a similar experience to you with having read them at 13 and stanned them for so long the nostalgia is real for me to this day. I wonder how old she was when she wrote that fanfiction not excusing the grossness but If she at the very least was transparent about her past and was like "that was super fucked up of me to write about that when I was younger" I think I would feel less guilty reading her books but she never addresses it today. I'm definitely going to have to think about whether I want to continue which will be hard because I actually really enjoyed and got lots of entertainment out of her series.
@@Risbarb I honest to god can't believe that we've reached the point as a liberal culture where we need to explain to (presumably) grown-ass adults why fucking your siblings is wrong. We need to bring kink-shaming back.
@@elainamcclendon5593 There are similarities though - both infernal devices series and book have part-human, part mechanism/tech creatures (automatons vs stalkers). TMI and Mortal Engines both have villains called Valentine where a question of parentage is part of the mystery; badass red-headed teenage girl protagonists; there are other little similarities but personally I just always just feel sad for Philip Reeve when now apparently when people go in to bookshops to ask for his books like Mortal Engines or Infernal Devices, they get directed to the shadowhunter stuff instead :(
king of learning and growing as a person!!! as for me, i hate cassandra clare, but i'm not going to go around and attack people for liking her. i think her incest fetish is gross, her writing is very bad, she has plagiarized (taking lines from books, putting them into her fic, and then putting those lines in tmi), is rude, etc etc. that's my view! i'm not expanding because i have class in 15 minutes lol but if anyone is curious about my viewpoint lmk and i'll get back to you!
I agree but I think it's a bit more complicated than that because an author's work is heavily influenced by their beliefs. Take for example Dracula, a foreigner from a distant land who invades Britain and turns good women into evil sexualized monsters, or house elves in Harry Potter who enjoy slavery. These ideas don't come from nowhere, even if it's unconscious
I've heard that apparently in her HP fanifc days, Cassandra Clare openly disliked both Ron and Ginny as characters, and she was an avid HarryxHermione shipper, so the whole RonxGinny Mortal Instruments thing seems more written out of spite rather than because she thought it was hot
I discovered Cassandra Clare's books when I was sixteen, and although I see the issues with the books and with her, I'm able to detach the author from her works because sue me, I find these books enjoyable. Great video!
amber proctor haha that's what i did i started discovering about her books so i managed to collect the series spine art version. Now its only the matter of reading it...
This is such a well done video, Caleb. I love how you not only break down your own thought process where it comes to your research in the past, but also show how harmful the "holier than thou" attitude really doesn't do much in terms of getting the point of problematic content/authors/behavior across because everyone's entitled to be defensive when attacked. We also can still like things even if they are problematic, so long as we acknowledge the issues instead of pretending they don't exist. I don't begrudge someone for not knowing everything, nor when they don't personally choose to withhold financial support from people I've personally decided not to buy from. We all should be free to make those choices ourselves, and honestly, a lot more education would happen if people took the time to explain without making people feel like garbage for liking a thing.
I feel like people also jump to say 'hey you're wrong' without trying to make proper conversation or respecting who they're talking to... And also not all books are read critically unless it'sa specific situation (like straight up reading a bookfor a review), it's very normal to read something and pour your heart into it instead of the brain xd Lastly people are just dicks to teenagers for enjoying things honestly 🤷♂️ one thing is trying to educate a teen and another is to bash them for having dun
I think that it's really admirable how you can analyse critically things that you liked when you were young. I don't think there is a single person out there who didn't like something problematic when they were 15. I've read the Draco trilogy back in the day and used to like it too, heh. Sometimes it's worth it to be cautious about your faves.
i read the first book at 13 too and the incest trope made me so uncomfortable i couldn't keep reading. it made me feel weird bc i shipped clary and jace soo bad (also i thought clary was stupid). so here we are, 7 years later, and i still won't read them bc i simply don't want to sit through that shit.
My personal favorite was getting to book 3, and them having a make out session while still believing they were siblings. Even knowing they weren't actually siblings it made me gag. Even better she connected with Sebastian, kissed him too, only to find out he was her real brother. That's when I knew I wouldn't be reading any more of her books.
@@charityyoder9028 oh my god i didn't know about that. thank god i haven't let myself read these series. it's kinda twisted if you think about it. an adult writing about teenagers having incestuous relationships? nope nope nope.
lucia. p i agree, i read the first 2 books when i was 12 and the incest thing made me so uncomfortable, like why is this grown adult exposing young teens to her weird fantasies ://
This is a great video deserving of a lot of praise. My own thoughts about CC aside what this video shows is a very young man, almost a kid still, who is willing to step back and reexamine his views and then admit when he had information wrong. You didn't make excuses for not researching, but rather owned up to fandom-induced blindness. A lot of adults won't even do this, and the world is worse off for it. Please, don't lose that willingness to look back and question what you thought you knew or believed. Being able to say "I was wrong" takes a lot of strength, so I'm especially happy to see an 18-year-old get on camera and admit it to the world. Continue doing this. :)
I always feel like I’ve outgrown CC until she releases a new book and I read it and just ... lose myself in it. This really is a toxic relationship huh!
My sister LOVES the Cassandra Clare books but I read City of Bones like 4 years ago and got traumatised by being lured into thinking I was shipping siblings. Like bro I don’t CARE if they’re not siblings I THOUGHT THEY WERE AND I WAS SCARRED.
“I definitely said something about being dauntless” SHUT UP this hit. If you read the onslaught of YA during that time you definitely did this while doing anything remotely athletic
Honestly, I agree with you on a lot of your points! I LOVED TID (and hated TMI, but that's another thing lol) and I still do, but it's hard to always support her with her controversies. I've come to terms with liking and reading some of her work while recognizing and being aware of the controversies surrounding her and her books.
when i read the first book and read they were SIBLINGS, i was freaked out so i immediately allowed myself to read spoilers and googled if they were actual siblings & once i saw they really weren’t, i felt okay reading more of the series
Danny if i remember correctly, they first meet around 15 years old and like each other, after falling in love they find out they’re biological siblings (they really aren’t bit i think they believe this lie for 2-3 books)
So this video is sort of unintentionally split in 2 parts. If you want to skip ahead I’ll leave time stamps.
My Origin Story with Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters TV Drama, What I thought her drama was:
1:40
The real drama, My current relationship with CC, and Dragging people who hated on me:
14:24
Caleb Joseph You’re very good at organizing your ideas for discussion in a linear and comprehensible way. It’s a really admirable skill and I wish I had it.
Daisey Gabriella Ho I can help u if u want
dRaAaAaaaAgG thEM
This was a fun video!
I've got some tea with receipts you may be interested in...
For those who do not know just how EXTENSIVE her fanfic plagiarism was, I'm going to post a comment I've made in a few other videos.
For reference, it isn't normal to copy and paste long passages into your fanfics, I say this as a former fic writer myself and as someone who is now a professional writer. She did this frequently. To further how not ok this is, she made a career from how famous her fics were, fics that were largely plagiarized - it's a big deal. She made money off her plagiarism, even though that plagiarism was only in her fics - it was her popularity from her plagiarized fics that attracted the attention of agents. She became a famous writer off the backs of struggling writers who received little to no credit.
Here's the comment I've posted elsewhere:
Hello! There's a lot more to this series and its background than most people know. Cassandra Clare (formerly Cassandra Claire) used to be a well-known plagiarist in the Harry Potter fandom - for her fanfiction. I'm not sure if there's any proof of plagiarism with her original fiction, but I don't believe so. Anyway. So, most of the sites depicting Cassie Clare's plagiarism are down, unfortunately. The most extensive compilation of her plagiarism can be found on an old website called Bad Penny, which no longer exists. You CAN, however, find it on the WayBack Machine. I actually found here:
web.archive.org/web/20130413060527/www.journalfen.net/community/bad_penny/8985.html#cutid1
It's extremely informative and very interesting. Please note that it only talks about the plagiarism in her fanfiction, not her original fiction (as it came out before her book premier, and I don't believe there's any proof she plagiarized with her original fiction) - and it's a lot more extensive than she lets on. You can see even more horribleness that Cassie and her closest friends were up to through the MsScribe Saga (although that was mostly MsScribe, one of Cassie's friends, and the one mostly at fault for not calling out MsScribe sooner was Cassie's closest Internet buddy, Heidi - a lawyer who'd threaten to sue anyone who **breathed** plagiarism and Cassandra Clare in the same sentence). The MsScribe Saga is still up on Live Journal through the journal of someone named Charlotte Lennox, however most of the comments and background were on Bad Penny (which no longer exists).
The WayBack Machine link for the MsScribe Saga on Bad Penny - also a fascinating read, if only as a character study - is here:
web.archive.org/web/20120529212816/www.journalfen.net/users/charlottelennox/
Have fun
Wheel of time is a series i read every year. I was never impressed with mortal instruments. They were funny but not great.
I am someone who believes strongly in death of the author.
If you want a great series to check out see the wheel of time its amazing and i cannot wait for the show.
“I most definitely said something about being dauntless” LMFAO I CRIED LAUGHING
“Which is upsetting to think about” 😂
Will Byers is trying to communicate in the background.. I have no idea what he’s saying
I NOTICED THAT TOO
Omg I was about to comment this 😂
😂😂😂
Looool
huh, what where
The transitions in this video killed me.
It made it better. I like this better than the meme transitions.
You're telling me that out of all the ships she could've chosen-- Harry and Draco, Harry and Hermione, Hermione and Draco, Harry and Ron, Ron and Draco, Harry and Neville, Harry and Ron and Hermione, Voldemort and Umbridge-- she chose Ron and Ginny????
Voldemort and Umbridge got me. That would be terrifying
@@Hana-ty7kt more or less terrifying than Bellatrix and Voldemort? because THAT is canon
@@Niyati99 After all of this time, I have still refused to read The Cursed Child. In my head canon, there are only 7 books.
@@Hana-ty7kt we all know that cursed child was just a fever dream
Fairly certain at least part of the reason was to annoy the guys from sugar quill or however that forum was called. Maybe it was the gryffindor tower people? One of those old places anyway.
Lmao Cassandra Clare made fun of me in front of like 500 people in a q&a for city of heavenly fire in 2014 x i dropped something on the floor during the q&a and she felt the need to call out my little 14-year-old self and basically told me to shut up or leave :) She could clearly see that I was uncomfortable but she still felt the need to belittle a young fan x I cried outside for like 20 mins and didn’t even get my book signed because I was so embarrassed (she was also 3 hours late lmao)
Wow... that’s awful
That's pathetic of her
Is that really true? That's shit of her to do
Maybe being late is a thing of hers because I went to a signing with her and holly black this past March just before they shut everything down and she was 2 hours late. They had us wait in the rain and gave no explanation. She didn’t make fun of anyone. There was a booktuber there that was kind of mean/standoffish too
So we're just gossiping fake bullshit like a couple of 13 yr olds huh
I remember there being a scene in City of Ashes or something where Jace and Clary were pining and angsting over other while they believed they were siblings and stuff and they ended up making out and basically having that moment of “I don’t care that we’re related”. The incest fetish REALLY jumped out during that scene and I remember young me being very disturbed by it and having to set the book down for a long time.
Your feelings are totally valid tho.
The incest fetishism was the ONE thing I knew about the series, next to the controversial handling of a sexual assault scene, so that effectively kept me away for years.
I don't remember that scene in City of Ashes tbh. But in City of Glass Jace thinks he loves Clary because he has demon blood and he is a monster, so he kinda goes like "FUCK IT" and wants to be with Clary. But Clary was trying very hard to not be romantically involved with Jace after City of Bones. I never found it THAT perturbing because I read the series a year ago and I already knew they weren't sibilings. At some parts it was uncomfortable but I knew the truth, and I wasn't there for Clary and Jace (I love Simon so much and I only cared about what happened to him even if I had to read the Clace scenes which are one of my least favorite relationships)
@@Risbarb isn't incest problematic too??
@@Risbarb it is equally serious because most sexual assault cases are incestuous
Yes because most cases involving consenting adults partaking in incest is from a manipulative power play in which individual has more power over the other and uses this power as a coping mechanism that results from trauma. Both are horrible. I’ve had many friends who were not consenting as children and who were assaulted so I’m very bothered by your previous comments about how we have to teach that incest is logical. Sorry I can’t support that claim because no one who has consented to do that is married happily and dealing with trauma from their own actions to participate in sexual behavior with a family member.
wouldn’t call this bullying, mostly it’s just hilarious, but way back when the show was first being announced i tweeted her some shit like “don’t worry, we’ll always love the books more than the show!” and she responded “:)” and when i went to her account the next day to show my friend i couldn’t because cassandra clare fucking blocked me LMAO
Yo, wtf. But it was a compliment in a strange way.
Akfjakkaka why would she block you for that, thats so petty and strange imo
My thought is that since she would profit from the show, comments giving it a negative light in any way at such a critical time would be a no-no (if not from her, then from her agency or whatever).
I love getting blocked by celebrities lol
What the fuuuuck
"I most definitely said something abt being dauntless and that upsets me" That's so goddamn funny
Dauntless. He said dauntless. And i agree :)
kousetsuhana haha thx!!
Ugh I really feel that. Fuck snapchat for not letting me change my sad sad username with “dauntless” in it
I feel so attacked. I was that kid who did shit like that.
i have a very distinct memory of being at my year 7 camp and saying something about being dauntless when we were doing a high ropes course 😔✊
The incest made me uncomfortable but I was like “A new writer just made a terrible mistake” but then I heard about the Ron and Ginny fanfic and was like 😐
Yea
The incest was uncomfortable (especially in CoA) but I just thought that, like Caleb said, was to show how evil Valentine is. Like he's messing with his young children and making them feel guilty.
I never read the books (sorry I’m late to the conversation 😭) but based off the like movie I thought like oh no it just said that they are but it’s probably just valentine messing with their heads and they aren’t actually siblings because he’s evil. Finding out through the video that it was inspired by Ron and Ginny fan fiction is so gross and I’m glad I never read them 😭
"In the year 2004, when I was three..."
my god, I'm old
I always forget he's my brother's age until he mentions it and it weirds me out only a little bit
Wait... this guy is only three years older than me. I think that this is the closest TH-camr in terms of age that I watch. This is weird. I remember when every TH-camr I watched was on old status to my young thought process. I remember when 18 was so far away but now it’s only three years. Holy crap someday I will be the same age as adult famous people. Shit someday I will be an adult.
@@iridescent_skies and you'll be thinking ''Shit I'm an adult'' everyday
I was -1.
In the year 2004 when I was -3
“It’s all about clarity. And tea.”
clari-tea if you will
@@imow1383 ok then, Clary-tea
Clare & Tea
the best breakup video youtube has ever seen
And one that's actually sincere
conspiracy theory: her plan was for claire and jace being actual siblings but the publisher or maybe the public reaction made her change it. she must be so envious of george r.r martin for getting away with writing incest on mainstream 💀
I was literally thinking the same thing while watching the video. What if she wanted to have them be actual siblings and the publisher said yikes, we can't do that so they made her put in the twist of HA they're not actually related phew .... pretty fucked up to think about
I've read A Song of Ice and Fire I don't read the incest in anyway that supposed to be celebrated, the Lannisters read entirely of toxicity and control (Jamie's entire arc is about spliting apart from Cersei) even in the case of the Targaryens the bloodline was incestuous and even that had terrible consequences across all the history he is written, it's portrayed in a historical way and even in the fictional world of Westeros people go "big yikes" with the Lannisters incest.
They are accepting of cousins relationships to a degree wish isn't entirely out place.
There's a lot of critiques I have about George RR Martin's work but incest being a thing isn't one of them
@@dia.96 i know that babe i was just joking. i'm saying she must have thought "ugh now people like incest"
@@sabrina.lnd95 i really think that was the case
i won't speak much on the cousin thing because in my country is quite normal
This video has such a *"why we broke up"* vibe and I love it. Also, those transitions have me cracking up every time 😂😂
I'm actually currently writing my dissertation on how race politics influences the plot of The Shadowhunter Chronicles (and YA fiction more broadly), and during my first meeting with my dissertation supervisor she told me to be careful. She used to professionally review YA books and all of her coworkers were scared of even touching Clare's books because she's so quick to contact her lawyers lmao
Holy shit
She is the Anne Rice of YA
YOU are one interesting individual, can't you start a youtube channel and show us your dissertation?😕
@@erikaalejandra1710 agreed
Just to be clear we want a link to the dissertation as soon as you're done
in the draco fanfiction she paired up Narcissa and Sirius. THEY ARE ALSO RELATED. I don't get it.
She was inspired by Colleen hoover!
BrendaFOBRocks The issue there is that family already had a lot of incest to keep the blood pure so it’s not like she started that
@@phoenixtracy9875 i hadn't considered that, but tbh considering all of the incest Clare has written I still think its weird AF.
Difference is, Rowling wrote the incest as the “obligatory” thing based on real world history (royalty, racial supremacy). From what I understand about Clare (haven’t read her stuff yet), she seem to fetishize it?
Junjun Jamore
I’m pretty sure she does
At this point I only read Cassandra‘s books as a guilty pleasure because they are so god damn addictive and the characters mean a lot to me and I won‘t let anyone shame me for it but I get why people don‘t want to read her books anymore
Same i've been reading those books for 8 years or somthing and my reading taste has changed so much, so I am just reading them as a guilty pleasure xD
That's definitely a mood 😅 tbh that's why i prefere the older books. They're definitely (very) flawed but god /damn/ that nostalgia!
I started reading the shadowhunter books them when i was around 13 i think and i loved them like i loved most of the books i read when i was around that age. I just finished LoS and QoAaD and they were just okay, i think i just grew out of reading these books and i didn’t plan on reading anymore of her books but at the same time i wanna know what happens to the characters in the upcoming 2 series so idk i might download them from somewhere on my kindle, i definitely won’t buy them. I also had the sudden urge to watch the shadowhunter tv series after stopping in the middle of the second season (i couldn’t endure it anymore).... and yeah it was just bad and i’m not even gonna try. The movie was kinda better but still bad, might watch it for guilty pleasure tho.
I read the original trilogy when I was in high school and really liked it, the infernal devices in college and really liked that too. Now I’m thirty and trying to get through the second 3 of the mortal instruments, and it has been an absolute slog to get through because I hate the way Cassandra Clare writes, but damn the story is interesting enough that I want to read them all. It’s an absolute dilemma and it hurts my soul.
Interesting~ I read city of bones in the midst of my young teen fantasy phase and I didn't enjoy it at all and felt no desire to continue the series. I love me some guilty pleasure reading but this series never captured my fantasy loving soul.
I feel like hating on a 15-17 year-old for liking books that aren't good is just really low. Like, yeah I don't like Cassandra Clare either, but saying something like "YoU sEeM sMArT, bUt YoU LIkE CaSsAnDrA ClARe" is just rude as hell.
When I was in middle school I loved Hush Hush which many people hate honestly if someone hated on me for liking it I would've taken it personally and felt really bad.
@@jackystar5099 me exactly XD looking back tho, that book was a big fat yikes
Another one is “WhAt’S a NicE GirL lIKe YoU ReaDinG tHosE ShiTty BoOks”
@@jackystar5099 Lmao I've just read the sequel to hush hush and have been considering making a youtube podcast reviewing it and other books but I don't know If I should!? Idk i've wanted to review books forever but worry I'm not charismatic enough
@@justperpetuallybothered3474 Just do it if you feel like it, doesn't hurt to try it out
It's even worse when you learn that she wrote the og Mortal Instruments because she wanted to spite Harry/Ginny shippers during a ship war at the age of 28
she wrote that shit when she was twenty fucking EIGHT?!?!! GROWN ASS WOMAN LMFAO WTH
embarrassing
Hinny: A normal, healthy relationship.
Her: We don't want that. Here's some incest.
Sebastian actually knew they were siblings it wasn't a plot twist for him. He was just a yucky, creepy person.
Every time he said "and I looked like this *insert picture*" killed me. He committed to that joke and I'm here for it!
Maya Givens I wanted the pic to go with early 2000s “I was a baby” - I was waiting for it, man.
“Are we not allowed to have a ginger?” GINGERS DESERVE RIGHTS I said what I said
The 14th doctor better be ginger
Well my protagonist has purple hair... not sorry
As someone who plans on marrying my redheaded boyfriend, I agree
Being a gay woman, tall Ginger woman are... Oof they're amazing
If I look at the new Little Mermaid Movie: No, apparently we ARE not allowed to have Gingers....
What if, and hear me out here....Cassandra Clare wrote My Immortal??
The Immortal Enobies
Wouldn't surprise me
👀 I'm listening
Wait... You may be up to something 👀👀👀
Oh.my.god
The thing that turned me off from her was a tweet asking her who her favorite ship on The Vampire Diaries was and she said Stefan and Damon... who are brothers. Someone pointed that out and she replied saying that makes it even better! (it doesn't and it's gross.) In the TDA books, most of the drama would have been cleared up in like 30 pages if she didn't treat parabatais like siblings (because in a lot of cases, they are not siblings), but you just KNOW she did that on purpose because it clearly gets her going. It's hard to separate the cool world and characters she has created from her, because I love them, but I despise her.
Katertot8895 holy shit i never thought about it that way but youre right oof
that's kinda gross. I just read the Scrolls of Red Magic and bei g parabatais was mentioned a lot by Alec... now I kinda view that different then before and even though I love Magnus and Alec, every time Alec mentions Jace I get uncomfortable
Agree with basically everything you said. All of the incest or sort of incest is really gross in the books.
Clary&Jace (even if this was a red hering) Clary and Jonathan, sort of, atleast one sided. But I can kinda give this a pass because Jonathan is f-ed up. And Jace and Alec, while they are not related it´s still sort of weird to have a crush on your adoptive brother, even if it would be technically fine. But I really just want to overlook this and appreciate the world and characters despite their author being... like that.
Often authors turn out to be a bit.... ehhhhh. Like I used to love Harry Potter, but Rowling constantly adding tidbits and retconning stuff kinda ruined the series for me, even though I used to love that world just like I love the Shadowhunters world
Beny i agree that the incest parts are honestly disgusting but its not like alec and jace were brought up as brother from a very young age (i believe they 10 or 12) and in one of the stories in the ghosts of the shadowmarket, its hinted that alec had a crush on jace from the moment they met - which seems to me an understandable reaction from a young boy just discovering things about himself when he meets a boy his age (possibly for the first time since there were no other families in new york and the lightwoods were in lowkey exile). I haven't read red scrolls of magazine however so i guess the way alec talks about jace in that book maybe particularly disturbing.
like yeahhh wooo gay rights BUT NOT WHEN IT'S INCESTT
I know I'm basically shooting a dead horse here, but something I have never seen referenced in this controversy that definitely merits attention is the fact that in one of the books Clary or Simon is reading an manga called Angel Sanctuary. Now, 15 year old me was pretty big on angels (duh) and christian mythology, and so I gave the anime adaptation a watch. To this day I think about the fact that it's about a war between angels and demons centred on the incestuous relationship between the two protagonists... was she ever even really trying to hide it?
i don't know whether to laugh or cry at this
Ohhhh no. I remember being given volume 1 of that manga to borrow from a friend in high school. After I read it, I felt dirty just having it on my person. They didn't want it back, and I just threw it out.
What little memory I have of that manga is basically me getting pissed off at Rosiel for every appearance of his. Heck, I hated him even more than Griffith and THAT is saying something.
@@ortezac.5339 I've never read that manga but I've read Berserk and goddamn he has to be literal scum if you hate him more than Griffith lol
ugh girl definitely watched vampire knght
I had no idea about her fanfiction with Ron and Ginny, that's soooo fu**ed up!
yeah..
EXACTLY
she's also told someone on twitter that her favorite couple from The Vampire Diaries is Stefan/Damon (they're brothers)
Omggg seriously what the fuckkkk??!!!
The biggest yikes of all
We stan a king who learns from his mistakes
boiii judging by the background there's a demogorgon in your closet
Now the broken blinking light is ominous.
Imagine you're thinking about that incest fanfic you read a few years ago and a series with the same name is sitting in the bookstore right when you walk in
**can't figure out if roasting Cassandra Clare or himself**
I think it's both 😕
A little bit of option A, a little bit of option B
i remember when i was a cassandra clare stan i saw her masterpost on tumblr recommending incest books and movies and thats when i knew
wait.. what? she made a post for specifically for incest recs?
@@Risbarb This... I don't get it. It's a kink, it's not that crazy. Like how is this any different from GoT or anything?
@@Risbarb uhhhhh,,,,,,
@@Risbarbyou do realize its stigmitized for a reason right? family bonds usually come with power dynamics and it can deeply psychologically affect u. comparing it to homosexuality is just meh
My problem with this is that it's a common thing to explore in fantasy and fiction. She's recommending other stories? What is the problem? There is none. It's cool to have a personal boundary with certain topics in fiction but I'm against superimposing your boundary on other people and then thinking they are somehow bad.
the only reason everyone watched shadowhunters was malec TELL ME IM WRONG
we can't because you're right
and because izzy was gorgeous 😂
100% right. The ENTIRE reason I watched the show at all. Because I could not get over how much they changed. Would just watch Malec clips on YT. XD
you aren't wrong. but eventually i just stopped altogether. it was too CRINGEY ok the special effects were really bad too.
lmao my mom recommended it to me when it just came out and i was like 13/14. i had only watched pretty little liars before this so my standards for tv were pretty low. (in my opinion) season 1 is laughable but season 2 and 3 are actually good
Anyway its rly cool of you to have this introspective on your relationship with a series / author and taking growth from it regardless of where you started and ended. Youre a cool bean Caleb stay tru to yourself
The incest thing is SO yikes. It would've been one thing to have the reveal that Clary and Jace were siblings. But the fact that after they KNEW they were siblings and they were still kissing or sleeping in the same bed was just gross. And the fact that it was all a lie in the end doesn't make those moments "okay."
I feel like the whole "Parabatai can't fall in love" thing was her way of getting her incest fetish on without it being incest. The whole time reading Lady Midnight, I couldn't help but wonder about that.
OMG I HAD THIS SAME THOUGHT OMG!!!!
they were KISSING AND SLEEPING IN THE SAME BED???? WH A T
Oh no Lady Midnight is like my favourite YA book, dont ruin it for me 😅💀
unpopular opinion: the movie wasn’t that bad, all the characters are exactly as described on the book
That's not a good thing lol. Maybe that's why it flopped.
I agree! It was not bad. Sure stuff irritated me, but the show was a joke for me.
yeah same, it was a little boring and badly written but i didn't hate it as much as the tv show lmao
my problem was more about the actors. somebody please tell me i'm not the only one who was acutely aware of how strange lily collin's was breathing
Agreeeee... ya the movie changed a lot from the books and some of the acting and effects were cringy but the actors had SUCH good chemistry irl and the atmosphere of the movie was so much better than the show... the show is just.... yikes...
"In conclusion, I am bitter" lol me
i own like ten-twelve of her books and i don’t have the heart to get rid of them, even though they’re not good books and i don’t want to support her.
eziraphale
You already paid for them, you’re not supporting her by just owning them.
@@WhaleManMan I second that. I've even bought books by authors I don't want to support used so that I can still read them but instead I'm supporting the charity, small shop, or family selling them instead of the author.
literally me
Give them to goodwill.
We love a self reflective kweeng
It's sad people were so mean to you when you were just a kid enjoying a book!
"Am I just supposed to pretend that Emma Carstairs isn't just a gender-bent Jace Herondale" literallyyyyyyyyyyyy this is why TDA is my least favorite series.
I've only read TMI and TID, but is she really? While reading CoHF I noticed she had a lot of similarities to Jace (the bravest, lost her family, blond, amber eyes, even down to being left handed) and I only started liking Jace in book 6. I also didn't like CoHF epilogue, so if that's the case I'm going to jump back in time and read GotSM and Chain of Gold.
@@sodapopp4367 chain of gold is amazing!! you won’t regret reading it
"I couldn't imagine shaming a 15yro for reading a bad book"
Me: looks down at my "shelf of shame" with my Twilight and House of Night series.
This comments really old now but as someone who really likes both book series I fully feel you with how you feel but I cant help but love them
@@lovers807 It's so true though. Like I have a love hate relationship with both book series.
I had to comment when I saw this. I loved Twilight when I was in middle school and I also loved the House of Night series at the same time. Upon ... You know, growing up, I looked back on them and they were awful but I still love them as part of my childhood 😭
@@thxwanderer Fam it's so true. My friends and I love clowning on them now, but they still have a special place in my heart. Now we all just go Bella was a lesbian and Edward is a twink and all that kind of stuff.
Yooo I forgot about the house of night series I loooooooved it
7th grade was not fun for me either I still don't have friends 6 years later
I felt this comment omg
Mary Treaty Same, haven’t had real friends since the third grade.
It's been over twenty years for me and I still hate everyone from 7th grade. I hate myself from seventh grade as well.
7th grade was when i realized all my friends were fake, got bullied and then developed depression. i still am depressed to this day lmao
Ouch I felt that
‘Are we not allowed to have a ginger!?’ So funny 😂
I used to be that one kid that was like "I'm right and you're wrong! Cassandra Clare sucks! I heard this one thing from this one person so that automatically means I'm right!" and now...sometimes I get notifications from my old comments and I'm just like "wHy WaS i LiKe ThIs"
You might want to do an internet clean up, pretty sure there's a way to delete a bunch of old comments at once but I don't remember how
That you feel this way is a great sign. It means you're growing!
Sometimes facebook pulls up posts I did like 7-8yrs ago and I just cringe myself to death.
Caleb after finding out about the Ron/Ginny fics: "YEARS of academy training, WASTED"
I worked at a movie theater in 2016 that advertised the Shadow Hunters show and the actress for the main character was talking about how much of a fan she was of Cassandra Clare and in the same breath called her Cassidy Clare. And they never corrected her. And left it. In the cut. For the ads. It told me everything I needed to know about how the quality of the series lol
what the
I think that is her nickname for Cassandra since she still use it to this day. She uses it interchangeably. She is a big fan of the books though. She read all of the books and tends to answer a lot of interview questions about the books compared to the rest of the cast besides Alberto (who plays Simon and also read all of the books).
What is that morse code blinking in the back saying lol
It's Cassandra Clare cyberbullying him
@@Carrottastic 😂
Cassandra Clare: TrAIToR
Caleb’s new videos give me a Jenny Nicholson vibe and I couldn’t be happier
Sarcasm, dry humor, and brutal honesty. All he needs now is a numbered list.
@@swimmyswim417 and a post credit scene!
This is the first time I've found someone who knows Jenny in a comment section.
I send you all the Porg love in the world.
kousetsuhana and the _____ bad
@@meghan______669
_incest bad_
I read all of her books when I was 13-15 and going through an extremely hard time just with life in general and those characters were EvERYTHING to me... those stories were what I used to cry into whenever I was having a hard time. All my copies are so worn down because I took them everywhere. Getting older it’s no longer my type of story anymore. I’m not a huge supporter of her anymore but honestly those books will always have a place in my heart for being a safe space. So watching this video I FELT EVERYTHING YOU SAID SO HARD.
Yes!! It‘s honestly insane to me that I‘m only now realizing how deeply I care about all the books I read in that time of my life. Like I would literally read at ANY given moment and it was mostly these YA series. Now I love commentary videos about them and their dumb plotlines, but I would reread them at any given moment just for that little reminder of a safe space.
I remember once my friend tweeted her asking why she used gay characters as a plot point and then forget about them later and Cassandra Clare blocked her.
Book fans: the show sucks!
Show fans: cassandra clare and the books suck!
Me: i agree with both of yall
The Mortal Instruments series was a big fat "meh" to me (but a certain hard pass for the incest). Infernal Devices was great (a big improvement; still my favorite series out of the Shadowhunter works). Dark Artifices was good (I feel like some characters were underdeveloped, but then again, there's another series coming up). The Last Hours is far from completion, but Chain of Gold was great, too. I feel like she vastly improved and solidified her style over the years.
Am I a Cassandra Clare fan? Absolutely not. But am I a Shadowhunter series fan? Kinda. The Mortal Instruments series is easily the worst one (and imo, not an accurate representation of the series; I have yet to find a reviewer that judges CC from later books and not the old ones).
@@phisograph i used to like the books, but i gave up after queen of air and darkness because i just realized that i didnt like these books after all and i mostly read them becaus ei liked them in middle school,,, i agree that she improved but tbh, its still way below my standards😅 and cc is just a terrible person, so theres that
@@lenap319 I respect your opinion. Honestly, I'm just reading The Last Hours series, then I'm done with it forever. I love the Victorian setting, and frankly, I'm losing interest as I become older & more involved with school and stuff. It's the same with Rick Riordan's books, come to think of it.
@@phisograph yeah, its opinion based obviously,,, i wont shame anyone who likes them, i just wish people were more aware of the problematic aspects,,,,
Also, i still really enjoy rick riordans books, even now that i am older. The original series is still the best
My friends kept pestering me to read Clare's books since they know I love Fantasy. So when I read the first chapter about Clary, my immediately thought 'She might be a Mary Sue and this best friend is totally gonna be in love with her or some shit'. Turns out I was right.
The Mortal instruments.... more like The Mortal Incestments!
get out
Got em
Me: *sees an upload about a series I know nothing about, with a hint of underlying drama*
Me, clicking immediately: Let’s hear it Caleb
that one flickering light in the back is bothering me more than it should
*Inhales*
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
redplanet _ you made me notice it and now i can’t unsee it
It's asking for help for some reason
Idk why but I’m sort of having the opposite reaction to it
Like it’s cozy or something
Reminds me of sleepy classrooms and getting lost in books
The reason I loved mortal instruments was entirely due to Magnus and Alec. Being a gay teenager when we didn't have heart stopper or anything LGBT that was good and not bury your gays. There was no books that focused on an LGBT character in the early 2000's much as the mortal instruments did. The side characters in mortal instruments was their only saving grace.
Me too
goodness me, i had to practically fast read through everything just to get to malec scenes. In the lengthy series that i almost gave up on, they're the only ones that made me push through. Their first public kiss in city of glass and their break up in lost souls was 💔
Look, I'll admit, I read some fucked up stuff sometimes. But most of the time I read something with a taboo relationship, it's either "this is a very dark and angsty story cause the characters are aware of how fucked up it is and the audience is supposed to feel disgusted" or "the characters talking about the dark relationship like it's nothing gives it just the right amount of self-awareness that you can tell the author is extremely skilled at letting the audience understand on their own how the story is almost like satire".
To sum it up, most stories I read are self-aware and not fetishizing, while Cassandra Clare *definitely* has a fetish.
Edit: a good example of a taboo relationship that isn't sugarcoated is the TV show Hannibal. The main relationship is a detective with Darkness Inside Him and a psychiatrist who is also a cannibal - they're aware of how fucked up their relationship is, everyone around them is aware, the creator and writers are aware... you get the idea. The show never ever paints the relationship in a good light, and the fans ship it because of how fucked up and twisted it is. And I'm pretty sure the fans and the creator isn't trying to eat anyone's heart anytime soon.
I'm shook right now [SPOILERS FOR The Dark Artifices Series] The two main characters of this story grew up like brother and sister. Cassandra Clare constantly reminds us in this story that they are like family because the main female character lost her parents and joined as like a sister figure with the other children. But, now that she and the other male main character are teens, they have this extremely steamy forbidden love because they are parabatai. I always thought it was weird that they were supposed to be like brother and sister, but then all of a sudden they are having sex...now that I know about her incest plot lines, it kinda makes sense. My god...
natwixterthan18 and if you look back and think about it, Alex’s crush on Jace, his parabatai, and with Jace frequently saying “you’re my brother,” gives off the same feeling. To me, anyway.
Yikes, I never saw it that way. I haven't finished TDA and I don't think I will now because my thoughts have changed and I don't even care that much. It's been months since I read LoS anyway.
Don't come for my ship Emma and Julian!😀I wouldn't say that their relationship is like an incest,beacause I've actually had asked myself multiple times ,,What whould happen if two parabatai fall in love?"
In the books is said that Emma had her bedroom on the other side of the institute as a clarification that she is not part of the Blackthorn family.
Also they needed to have that close platonic like relationship between each other to become parabatai
@@rainbowpopcorns1325 even if it's your ship, it's described in a way that makes it feel like it's a placeholder for an incestual relationship. Throughout the series, parabatai are described as siblings to the other. Siblings. Even if you did wonder, it does raise questions given the emphasized nature of what a parabatai relationship is and supposed to be.
@@Rubbish1313 Honestly to me it's never seemed like as you say a placeholder for incestual relationship.I guess it's because I adore the ,,friends to lovers" relationships,because I think that you need to know someone completely before loving them.Anyway let's get to the point.
You say that throughout the series the parabatai are described as siblings.Well,it is describe multiple times as love deeper and stronger than that of siblings,even of self-love.I can quote if you want.
Plus as it said in Lady Midnight parabatai can have sex,if they do not have romantic feelings for each other.
I really like the maturity you show in this video. And I totally feel you that online culture is like "I'm right, you're wrong". And so I think it's really cool that you fought that and went back and reevaluated your previous thoughts.
I also loved these books in 2013 haha. I was 15. I had no idea her previous history. And I'm also the same as you in that I stopped reading after a while because I too had just moved on in my reading tastes.
Great video king. Hope college is well as always.
It’s so funny to watch this because when I first read the city of bones back in 2013, I was so disgusted with the incest part that I emailed Cassandra and got a reply from her! I emailed suggesting that her “incest” plot twist was cheap and gross. Surprisingly I got a reply back and she basically said I didn’t understand and that it was for the suspense of the characters ???
But so happy to know she’s actually disgusting and twisted!
You're not wrong. That's cheep and gross tension she wrote to glorify her kink to her impressionable audience
The infernal devices is still my favorite series and I think it’s really well written. but that doesn’t mean I think Cassandra Clare as a person isn’t problematic.
I was planning on reading the mortal instruments. But after watching this video i dont i can. But i really wanna read the infernal devices. Can i read it without reading the first series or will i not understand?
fatima A you can totally read TID without TMI!
19Isa09 okay thank you so much. I really wanted to read the TID
I agree but honestly hearing everything about her kinda makes me dislike her whole book series as well
The only books I enjoyed were the Bane Chronicles, Tales at the Shadowhunter Academy, and An Illustrated History of Notable Shadowhunters tbh. But that's all.
Otherwise, the trilogies are all but reduced, reused, and recycled plotlines.
ok that title is ingenious though props to u my guy
How do you have so many young pictures of yourself? I’m jealous
His parents love him.
Also he was born after 2000
@@WarKeineAbsicht so much more likely this. These days parents are on Facebook posting literal pictures of their kids poop & their B+ homework assignments - "well, they tried!"
simon is best boi and y’all can fight me on that
Agree!!
Yes.
and Jem!
Never liked TMI but I do really like TID and I think it's genuinely good. My problem with her comes from her latest series; the books are too long, the writing is repetitive, she uses the same metaphors and imagery over and over and over again.
yeah same. i read tid first and i really liked it, but i couldn't get through tmi.
Seventh grade was not fun for anyone let's be honest
truly the dark ages fr 😬
in concluion, cassandra clare plagarized flowers in the attic
😂😂😂😂
Super happy you mentioned "i'm right, you're wrong" culture.
I wish people would stop to explain things clearly more often instead of just blindly attacking and assuming everyone knows all the backstory.
I think with the plagiarism it's pretty common among series now like 50 shades of Grey and After are fanfictions that got published. The Ron and Ginny fanfic is a big fat ew in my opinion and it sucks because I had a similar experience to you with having read them at 13 and stanned them for so long the nostalgia is real for me to this day. I wonder how old she was when she wrote that fanfiction not excusing the grossness but If she at the very least was transparent about her past and was like "that was super fucked up of me to write about that when I was younger" I think I would feel less guilty reading her books but she never addresses it today. I'm definitely going to have to think about whether I want to continue which will be hard because I actually really enjoyed and got lots of entertainment out of her series.
@@Risbarb How is incest not problematic?? It's also not something private she literally wrote it in a fanfiction lmao
Lol, she wrote that fanfic from 27-33 (2000-06)
@@Risbarb I honest to god can't believe that we've reached the point as a liberal culture where we need to explain to (presumably) grown-ass adults why fucking your siblings is wrong.
We need to bring kink-shaming back.
Does the fact that incest is wrong, make reading and writing about incest wrong? Even if you write about it being good? Does she?
Lis no offense but equating writing about gay ppl, polyamory, and poc with things like incest isn’t a great look.
Friendly reminder that the third book in the Mortal Engines series literally called "Infernal Devices" by Philip Reeve came out in 2005
I am pretty sure that’s just a coincidence. Those two aren’t even plot related.
@@elainamcclendon5593 There are similarities though - both infernal devices series and book have part-human, part mechanism/tech creatures (automatons vs stalkers). TMI and Mortal Engines both have villains called Valentine where a question of parentage is part of the mystery; badass red-headed teenage girl protagonists; there are other little similarities but personally I just always just feel sad for Philip Reeve when now apparently when people go in to bookshops to ask for his books like Mortal Engines or Infernal Devices, they get directed to the shadowhunter stuff instead :(
@@MonnyArcade I am so sorry. I see your point now. You are right.
king of learning and growing as a person!!!
as for me, i hate cassandra clare, but i'm not going to go around and attack people for liking her. i think her incest fetish is gross, her writing is very bad, she has plagiarized (taking lines from books, putting them into her fic, and then putting those lines in tmi), is rude, etc etc. that's my view! i'm not expanding because i have class in 15 minutes lol but if anyone is curious about my viewpoint lmk and i'll get back to you!
What quotes has she plagiarized?
I think thats true for TMI but the rest of them are good not gonna lie
The "who looks like this" just makes it funnier idk why
I feel like if you think the books are written well you can still appreciate them without liking the author as a person
I agree but I think it's a bit more complicated than that because an author's work is heavily influenced by their beliefs. Take for example Dracula, a foreigner from a distant land who invades Britain and turns good women into evil sexualized monsters, or house elves in Harry Potter who enjoy slavery. These ideas don't come from nowhere, even if it's unconscious
I feel like the books were there for me when I needed them, and now I’m okay saying good bye. Except for infernal devices, I still like those ones
Nikita lovesbooks tid is one of my fav series i just ignore that cc wrote it
Infernal Devices are a class unto itself. I will never get tired of relistening to them!
I had to read this for 9th grade and I legit think the main character is an self insert character because of how similar their names are!
RIGHT! And how both of them are red heads
I've heard that apparently in her HP fanifc days, Cassandra Clare openly disliked both Ron and Ginny as characters, and she was an avid HarryxHermione shipper, so the whole RonxGinny Mortal Instruments thing seems more written out of spite rather than because she thought it was hot
thats why _The Cellar_ sounded so familiar!
disgusted jhope the funny thing is that criminal minds episode is based off of an irl case I believe
I LOVE criminal minds and when I rewatched this episode like a while after I had also read the cellar I just... couldn't deal
disgusted jhope idk if any of y’all have ever read Room but it’s similar
I discovered Cassandra Clare's books when I was sixteen, and although I see the issues with the books and with her, I'm able to detach the author from her works because sue me, I find these books enjoyable. Great video!
Same
But then you’re supporting her still with your coint
Get the books for a secondhand book store soooo your not supporting her directly.
amber proctor haha that's what i did i started discovering about her books so i managed to collect the series spine art version. Now its only the matter of reading it...
@@amberproctor3996 or download it illegally...
Are we going to ignore how adorable Caleb looked/sounded at 1:08 or are ya'll not ready yet?
I came here with a „Oh cassandra claire is problematic? Do tell!” And left with „this guy hates How he looked as a teen”
"In 2004 i was three"..... i was 6 tf stop it lmao
"it feels she writes it as a fanfiction" *cough* ACOTAR sarah j maas *cough*
after months of seeing the word ACOTAR I just realized it's an acronym for A Court Of Thorns And Roses
“I could go to a Cassandra Clare book signing and she could uppercut me and I’d thank her” okay but why is that me with my favorite authors/actors??
This is such a well done video, Caleb. I love how you not only break down your own thought process where it comes to your research in the past, but also show how harmful the "holier than thou" attitude really doesn't do much in terms of getting the point of problematic content/authors/behavior across because everyone's entitled to be defensive when attacked. We also can still like things even if they are problematic, so long as we acknowledge the issues instead of pretending they don't exist.
I don't begrudge someone for not knowing everything, nor when they don't personally choose to withhold financial support from people I've personally decided not to buy from. We all should be free to make those choices ourselves, and honestly, a lot more education would happen if people took the time to explain without making people feel like garbage for liking a thing.
I feel like people also jump to say 'hey you're wrong' without trying to make proper conversation or respecting who they're talking to...
And also not all books are read critically unless it'sa specific situation (like straight up reading a bookfor a review), it's very normal to read something and pour your heart into it instead of the brain xd
Lastly people are just dicks to teenagers for enjoying things honestly 🤷♂️ one thing is trying to educate a teen and another is to bash them for having dun
「catstrologian」 I agree with your whole comment, especially the middle paragraph 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
i went to a cassandra clare signing and during the Q&A she talked about how she was obsessed with forbidden love which explains a lot
ewwww 💀
I think that it's really admirable how you can analyse critically things that you liked when you were young. I don't think there is a single person out there who didn't like something problematic when they were 15. I've read the Draco trilogy back in the day and used to like it too, heh. Sometimes it's worth it to be cautious about your faves.
i read the first book at 13 too and the incest trope made me so uncomfortable i couldn't keep reading. it made me feel weird bc i shipped clary and jace soo bad (also i thought clary was stupid).
so here we are, 7 years later, and i still won't read them bc i simply don't want to sit through that shit.
My personal favorite was getting to book 3, and them having a make out session while still believing they were siblings. Even knowing they weren't actually siblings it made me gag.
Even better she connected with Sebastian, kissed him too, only to find out he was her real brother.
That's when I knew I wouldn't be reading any more of her books.
@@charityyoder9028 oh my god i didn't know about that. thank god i haven't let myself read these series. it's kinda twisted if you think about it. an adult writing about teenagers having incestuous relationships? nope nope nope.
lucia. p i agree, i read the first 2 books when i was 12 and the incest thing made me so uncomfortable, like why is this grown adult exposing young teens to her weird fantasies ://
I used to love this series! Magnus is honestly one of my favorite characters of all time, dunno why
Sameee
This is a great video deserving of a lot of praise. My own thoughts about CC aside what this video shows is a very young man, almost a kid still, who is willing to step back and reexamine his views and then admit when he had information wrong. You didn't make excuses for not researching, but rather owned up to fandom-induced blindness. A lot of adults won't even do this, and the world is worse off for it. Please, don't lose that willingness to look back and question what you thought you knew or believed. Being able to say "I was wrong" takes a lot of strength, so I'm especially happy to see an 18-year-old get on camera and admit it to the world. Continue doing this. :)
I always feel like I’ve outgrown CC until she releases a new book and I read it and just ... lose myself in it. This really is a toxic relationship huh!
I watched the show for Malec, Harry Shum jr, and Mathew Daddario that's it
Didnt we all
ofc yes.
Yup
lol same, but I got into the entire show
Yeah he’s back! I honestly don’t care what types of videos you make, book videos or not, you are still very entertaining:)
One could say this video’s all about,,,,,,,,
clare-ity,,,,
Do y'all remember when everyone used to make Clace edits with that song 'Clarity?' Those were innocent times...
I can imagine Caleb going down a zip line screaming
IM DAUNTLESS
My sister LOVES the Cassandra Clare books but I read City of Bones like 4 years ago and got traumatised by being lured into thinking I was shipping siblings. Like bro I don’t CARE if they’re not siblings I THOUGHT THEY WERE AND I WAS SCARRED.
“I definitely said something about being dauntless” SHUT UP this hit. If you read the onslaught of YA during that time you definitely did this while doing anything remotely athletic
"the incest is what changed my mind about things" lmao same here
Honestly, I agree with you on a lot of your points! I LOVED TID (and hated TMI, but that's another thing lol) and I still do, but it's hard to always support her with her controversies. I've come to terms with liking and reading some of her work while recognizing and being aware of the controversies surrounding her and her books.
The amount of subtle and obvious salt in this video flavored my food for the next couple of months 😂😂😂😂😂
“instead of ghosts and witches we can talk about...snakes and rats”
i lost my mind laughing holy crap
when i read the first book and read they were SIBLINGS, i was freaked out so i immediately allowed myself to read spoilers and googled if they were actual siblings & once i saw they really weren’t, i felt okay reading more of the series
Where they raised together? I'm not saying you're wrong I just wanna know
Danny if i remember correctly, they first meet around 15 years old and like each other, after falling in love they find out they’re biological siblings (they really aren’t bit i think they believe this lie for 2-3 books)