The Curse of being a Herondale

A look at the Herondale men of the Shadowhunter series

In the world of the Shadowhunters that Cassandra Clare has created, there are a great many characters that stand out, because, of the way the books are written we have gotten the opportunity to see many family lines prosper and die out depending on what war has ravaged. In the Infernal Devices, we meet Will Herondale, who is strong and proud of his name, and of being a Shadowhunter. He is an exemplary Shadowhunter, and no one is surprised to eventually find out, that Jace is a descendant however briefly of that Herondale line. It was Will Herondale’s friendship with the Carstairs that started the line; The Carstairs owe the Herondales, which becomes of the utmost importance in later novels.

The Curse of the Herondale Line

From reading both the Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices we can see that there is some sort of curse, in the family line of the Herondales. Whether it is an actual curse or unforeseen circumstances, we have seen many a son of the Herondale bloodline met with tragic ends.

The first Herondale, that we come across is Jace, and of course, we don’t realize he’s a Herondale until the last moment in City of Glass, but as was foretold by Madame Dorothea in the first novel, he was doomed to fall in love with the wrong person. While Clary and Jace seem good as a couple there are many things in place that show them being together being a tragic circumstance, even years later when they seem to finally have their happy ending. See one of the last chapters of The Ghosts of the Shadowmarket for proof of this statement.

The second Herondale is technically the first official Herondale that we really meet as a Herondale is, of course, the accursed Will Herondale of the Infernal Devices. This Will is sarcastic, aloof, and breathtakingly beautiful, capturing the heart of men and women alike. He is also cursed that everyone he should love will die. This curse was given by a demon he accidentally set free when he was very young, and not known to the ShadowWorld. This doesn’t stop him from befriending his Parabatai, who had already been cursed to die a horrible death thanks to a demon that poisoned and tortured him as an act of revenge on his warrior parents.

“Jem is my greatest sin.” — Clockwork Prince

Will has always felt that he wasn’t meant to find love or be loved in return. He thought he was cursed and spent most of his teen years convincing people that he was a horrible person not worthy of love and friendship, but it was falling in love with the remarkable Warlock Tessa Gray that he found the courage to love again.

Likewise in The Ghosts of the Shadow Market, we see Jem, Will’s former parabatai spending his life as a Silent Brother searching for the Lost Herondale. It isn’t until he is returned into the land of the living as a human that he is able to really make any headway into finding that Herondale and saving him and eventually adopting him into his and Tessa’s family. Like Jace, Christopher (Kit), is thrown into a family and forced to make do of a horrible situation after watching his father die in front of him.

Kit’s story isn’t quite done, and he already has all the trademarks of joining his family legacy of burning in the throes of love.

The Great loves of the Herondales

Loving anyone is a dangerous task. The Herondale line is full of breathtaking love stories. All of them more dangerous than the last.

“Jem knew that look. Herondales were always flames, he thought. They loved and suffered as if they would burn away from the sheer force of their own fire.” — Forever Fallen, Ghosts of the Shadow Market

Being a Herondale was being in a world of suffering. Love has always been Herondale’s curse. They love hard, and breathlessly. Falling in love only once in their life. The girls they fall in love with are almost dangerous with how they move through life.

Tessa Gray the epic love of Will Herondale, was thrown into his life when hers were in mortal peril. Tessa was born a New Yorker but was only shown who she truly was when she traveled to London to find her brother.

Like Will, she loved books more than anything and was always inquisitive in her life. Through her, Will was shown that love while being dangerous, was also worth it. Their children James and Lucie were also given tragic love affairs both fulfilling the Herondale legacy.

Jace’s epic love Clary Fray was almost as dangerous as Tessa in the way she was thrown into the shadowhunter world. The common denominator in both stories was Magnus Bane, the warlock that was more family in both of their lives. Clary was feisty and headstrong, and she leaps before thinking which is an unfortunate side effect to loving her, in Jace’s case. Like the Herondale’s that have come before him, Clary was the only one he ever and will ever love, as shown in alternate realities in the Land of Thule, in the Dark Artifices.

Loving Clary is both the hardest and easiest thing Jace ever did in his whole life. She changed him in ways that he can never quantify. She showed him that love isn’t something you can control. That love isn’t always the thing that destroys you but the thing that saves you if you let it. Without Clary, he might have not lived the life he currently is now.

Kit ‘Christopher’ Rook, is one of the more loved characters. He showed up in the dark artifices as the son of a crooked vendor in the Shadow Market, but by the end of the novel, it was discovered that he was a Herondale. He eventually meets Jace Herondale, who tries to help him, while knowing that there is something going on that he is not telling anyone. Like all the rest of the Herondale’s he falls hopelessly in love and becomes heartbroken all at once. Of course, that love story is just beginning, and who knows where it will lead, as their series has yet to be written, but has already been named The Wicked Powers, the final series of the mastery of Shadowhunter novels that Cassandra Clare has created.