Why do I say this? Jace brings Clary and Simon back to the Institute. NOT!Hogwarts apparently hides as a broken-down church.
It's amazing how all this religious symbolism is starting to irritate me. I'm not sure why. I think part of it is, this is my religion. I know this stuff. I know where demons and angels fit into Christian cannon, and it does not work this way. I think another part of it is, this is chunks of Christian theology--the recognisable, shiny pieces--grafted onto the magic tree without any consideration for what they actually mean. It's like the author went, "OOOH ANGELS SHINY". It's also why I can't watch Supernatural. Third...uh, it's a dumb question, but where is God in all this? No, actually, it's not dumb. Dumb would be asking where God fits into Harry Potter. Clare mentions angels by name. Even if you don't want to drag sin and Christ into this miasma, why aren't we talking about God? How about Heaven? There are fallen angels in this book. Where did they fall from? What determined that these are "fallen" angels? What standard made them "Fallen" as opposed to simply "rebellious"?
This shit doesn't offend me. It irritates me. It reads like Clare didn't give a shit about her sources, she just borrowed what she thought was cool.
Oh, wait. That's exactly how she writes.
I guess we ought to be glad she isn't borrowing from Islam. That would get...messy.
So...church. Simon asks why they live there and Jace says, "We find it useful to inhabit hallowed ground."
.......
HALLOWED BY WHAT, CLARE? WHAT MAKES A CHURCH HALLOWED GROUND?
Anyway, Jace takes Simon and Clary to the kitchen, where Simon sees the beautiful Isabelle failing to cook and decides to stick around and be her guinna pig because pretty trumps nausiating food, I guess. So much for consistant characterization on his part.
Oh, and Isabelle doesn't know how to cook because learning how to cook will lead to feminine repression.
Also, Alec, Isabelle's brother, is an inferior demon hunter because he's never killed a demon. Skill=body count. Oh, Murder Trio, you need therapy so very badly.
So they find Hodge in the greenhouse and relate they day's events to him, including Uncle Luke's real name and the presence of Jace's family's murderers. Hodge pales and says, "The
He was carrying a large book bound in brown leather. He paged through it with an anxious finger, blinking owl-like behind his glasses and muttering: “Where . . . where . . . ah, here it is!” He cleared his throat before he read aloud: “I hereby render unconditional obedience to the Circle and its principles. . . . I will be ready to risk my life at any time for the Circle, in order to preserve the purity of the bloodlines of Idris, and for the mortal world with whose safety we are charged.”Clary's response?
“It sounds creepy,” said Clary. “Like a fascist organization or something."Oh, I bet you thought I was exaggerating the simularities between this book and Harry Potter, didn't you? Nope. Both books are Godwin's Law in action.
Also? No way in fuck would these guys care about the mortal realm. Magic-Nazis will kill the whole world because it leaves more room for them. You know, I can be really forgiving of derivitive work, but this book has the same plot as what it's drawing on. Only this is not History: Repeat. This is History: Xerox. This is a copy of a copy of the worst people in human history ever. And the bad guys so far exist only as a backdrop for the relationship between terrible people who are not significantly different from the people they are fighting.
Yes. I said it. Clary and Co. are not significantly different from xeroxed Nazis.
So Hodge then admits that he was a part of the Circle, and so was Clary's Mom.
BUT HOW COULD SHE?! Clary screams. Hodge replies that she didn't have a choice, she was Valentine's wife.
And the chapter ends.
Congradualtions, I just summed up several pages of boring quite easily. NOTHING HAPPENS. IN. THIS. BOOK.
No comments:
Post a Comment