Favourites Friday – Shadowhunters characters

Hello Everyone!

Today I am making the first addition to what is hopefully going to be a very long series on my blog. I love talking about all of my favourite books, characters, films, places and things to do and see, but there are so many of them that to put them all into a list would be ludicrous. Therefore I have decided to create ‘Favourites Fridays’. I am aiming to upload one of these posts every month (although this is subject to change) in the hopes that each one will either give you some recommendations for things to read, watch or do or just tell you a bit more about me as a person.

Cassandra Clare is my favourite author of all time and I hang off of her every word, so I thought what better place to start this series than with a list of all of my favourite characters from her books? I am a little behind on reading her books (I have not read the Dark Artifices yet because I like to marathon series), so there will be some characters that I won’t include on here and I am sure I will end up doing an updated version of this list in the years to come once she has released yet more books! For now though this list will contain characters from ‘the mortal instruments’, ‘the infernal devices’ and ‘tales from the shadowhunters academy’. The characters in this list are in no particular order because even though I did try to organise it I simply couldn’t pick between them all. I have also decided to keep these lists to just the top 5 because otherwise I would simply list all of the characters from all of the books and I feel that would get a bit tedious. I am going to do my best to keep this list spoiler free, so that anyone can read it, but there may be a few minor spoilers. If you haven’t read the books though you probably won’t understand this post anway though, so I suggest you go away and read them (all) and then come back and gush with me. Now that I have explained how this works though lets just get into it because I can’t wait to gush about all of my favourite characters:

William Herondale

It has now been 4 years since I first read the mortal instruments, which is crazy to think about, but considering how much I loved Cassandra Clare’s first series you may be surprised to hear that I only read the Infernal Devices last year. There is no reason for me not reading them straight away other than time slipped away from me and I had other books to read as well as homework to complete and school to attend. When I did finally pick the trilogy up though I was immediately sucked in. I adored everything about it and that included William Herondale! He is funny, witty, kind and so incredibly brave. He is also reckless and can be rude at times, but despite his flaws he is an amazing character who loves with all his heart and everything he does is to protect those he loves from harm. I will forever love Will and no one and nothing will ever change that.

Simon Lewis

I feel like Simon often gets looked over because he ins’t the coolest, or the most badass character and he isn’t a shadowhunter by blood. This means he is often overshadowed and forgotten about, but he has always been one of my favourite characters because he is in the situation that every fangirl/boy dreams of being in. He was dragged into a world that was similar to one of the movies or video games he loves so dearly and of course he was a bit freaked out, but he did think it was cool really. I also feel as though Simon doesn’t get enough credit for everything he went through and did. He got turned into a vampire, became a daylighter, fought with the shadowhunters and helped unite the downworld with the shadowhunters and of course sacrificed himself, so that Magnus could live. I love him for being so brave and taking everything in his stride without complaint. Simon is of course also incredibly funny and even if the shadowhunters don’t appreciate his jokes I did because I am a nerd just like him.

Tessa Gray

I love Tessa Gray. It is a simple and plain fact and that will never change. She was a woman in the 1800’s in a very difficult place, she was kidnapped and forced into things, she was ridiculed and laughed at buy the Clave and she saw her brother die. She endured so much within a very short span of time and never once faltered. She kept her head held high and did what she wanted. It didn’t matter that she was a woman because I think everyone who has read the books knows that she didn’t follow a single rule that women of that time were meant to and I loved it! She was an avid reader, which was very rare for a girl of her status at that time, but she learnt anyway and she took the same approach to the shadowhunter world, which she flourished in.

Alec Lightwood

Alec is one of my favourites for a couple of different reasons. The first is that even though he is being pulled this way and that and his loyalties are constantly being tested he always had the courage to choose what he knew to be right even if it meant bringing ‘shame’ on his family or going against the Clave. For someone who was brought up to do nothing but follow the rules and bring honour to the Lightwood name this would have been very difficult for him, but he did the right thing and I think that is admirable.The second is the value he brings to the story. Throughout the story we see Alec struggling with his sexuality and coming out, which is amazing to see in any book, but to see this kind of representation in a fantasy novel is even better. We are seeing more and more representation throughout the contemporary genre, but it is still quite rare in fantasy, so it was refreshing to see as well as important – Also Malec is the best ship that has ever sailed.

Clary Fray

The final character on this list is of course Clary Fray, the main character. I love Clary for one main reason and that is that she reminds me so much of me. She is an artist and sees things differently to other people. While I was reading the books I found myself predicting some of the decisions that Clary was going to make because they were so similar to the choices I would have made in that situation. A lot of people won’t agree with me and they will say that they find Clary annoying and that she is reckless and doesn’t think things through; I completely see where that is coming from, but it presonallt doesn’t bother me and I have chosen to look past her flaws. I love Clary because to me she is me and I don’t think anything more needs to be said.

Those were my top 5 favourite characters from Cassandra Clare’s books! I hope you enjoyed reading about some of my favourite characters an that you’ll come back for the next Favourites Friday. Do you agree with me on everything I have said about them? What are your favourite Cassie Clare characters? I’d love to know! I am always open to talk about any of Cassandra Clare’s books, so feel free to leave a comment or you can DM me over on Instagram (@weeklybookcraft).

Goodbye for now!

Over and Out