On the latest Shadowhunters promo and why I’m so upset over it.

[terresdebrume]

Literally I'm fuming about the #Shadowhunters promo for #Malec what the fuck even??? 1st of all #MagnusBane is being RUDE AS FUCK

— Queer as in fuck you (@TerresDeBrume) March 26, 2016

So, the latest Malec promo. I made the mistake to use #Malec in one of my tweets about it (pictured above) and, unsurprisingly enough, it lead to pretty strong reactions. Unfortunately, Twitter is extremely impractical when it comes to trying to share complex arguments (especially in my case, I’ll admit. I’m a wordy fucker) so I figure I might as well try to articulate why I’m so upset about this preview.

Mostly, it’s got to do with two things: one, the idea that Alec would automatically be miserable in a marriage to Lydia is something that I strongly disagree with. And two, it bothers me that this preview shows both Magnus and Izzy acting without Alec’s knowledge (and therefore, without his consent) to go against something he initiated himself (aka the wedding) which is not a new phenomenon in the show. So without further ado, let’s go on to the full reasoning behind my position, once and for all.

I. Alec, his wedding, and being miserable

I think the first mistake that people make when analyzing this wedding is that they forget it’s a political wedding. Alec proposed within days of meeting Lydia, much too early for any real connection to take place. Furthermore, he didn’t hint at love at any point in his proposal, only at how he and Lydia could make their families/their names great again, which is very clearly a political goal.

Considering both of them are aware that they’re getting married for practical reasons rather than love, there’s absolutely nothing that says they have to remain celibate forever to honor their marriage. Nothing prevents them from presenting themselves as a couple and then having their own life on the side. Nothing prevents Alec from being married to Lydia and dating Magnus at the same time (provided that both Lydia and Magnus agree with the situation).

Yes, it requires a lot of communication—something that has been sorely lacking in the show so far—and no, there’s no guarantee that it would work, but there’s no guarantee that either Alec or Lydia would be miserable either.

And it bothers me that people use this line of argument against the Alec/Lydia marriage both in the show and in real life, because it’s a fatalistic outlook on things and it ignores the fact that different things work for different people. It presumes that the only way Alec could be happy is by being 100% with a dude (and, very often, by coming out) and that’s not the case for everyone. For some people, coming out is not an option—in fact, there are still too many people today for who coming out would be an actively dangerous and harmful thing. And no, I’m not just talking about the people who live in countries where homosexuality is punishable by death.

The idea that Alec can’t be happy while being married to Lydia, which he does in order to conceal that he is gay, bothers me because it furthers a line of thinking that every Queer person must publicly identify as such in order to be happy when it isn’t, and has never been the case. In the past, queer men and women have married each other for convenience, simply because it allowed them to, outwardly, conform to social expectations (thereby making their lives easier) while still being free to fall in love with whoever they wanted (and have an extra support on the side).

Honestly I can not, for the life of me, understand why the concept of a marriage that is not based on romantic love seems so impossible to so many people. Marriage is only as much of a sacred thing and commitment as you make it to be, and if both Alec and Lydia are willing to make it work, it’ll work.

So far, both of them have shown to be duty driven, to abide by the law and try to do what’s right. Those are core values in which they seem pretty compatible and they’ve also shown mutual support and acceptance, and while we don’t have a clear indication of Lydia’s life outside of her relationship to the protagonists, it’s still one of the most supportive relationships Alec has in the show so far.

Frankly once you have common goals, similar ways to reach those goals and mutual respect, I consider you pretty well set for a long-time partnership, whether it’s a marriage or anything else—no, it’s not a guarantee, but it’s still a pretty good set of odds in my opinion.

II. Alec and his lack of agency in the preview

This one is a pretty long point. I’m not going to go back on the books in this post—I’ve read all six of them plus “The Bane Chronicles” and I’m in the process of reading “Born to Endless Night” so if you want to discuss them, I’m all ears, but it’s kind of a different kettle. I also invite people who are interested in a more detailed deconstruction of Alec’s lack of agency (and other problems with the show) to read my episode by episode reviews, where I go in a lot more depth about this topic.

Basically my problem is that the video I’m refering to is making it pretty clear that both Izzy and Magnus acted without Alec’s prior knowledge, and therefore without his consent. Not only does pretty much everyone, including Alec(1), look surprised when Magnus comes into the room, this is the dialogue that immediately follows this apparition:

Jace: Izzy, did Alec invite Magnus?

Izzy: I did, but I didn’t think he’d show.

The problem with Izzy inviting Magnus to Alec’s wedding knowing that Magnus will probably try to prevent the wedding from happening is that she makes the decision that something should prevent the wedding that Alec initiated from taking place without a hitch. Having Magnus here is quite obviously not Alec’s decision.

Furthermore, by responding to being asked to leave with “This is between me and [Alec]” Magnus makes it explicit that he is coming on personal matters, not professional. There is no way this won’t lead to people asking question, and who is going to have to answer them? Alec. Unprepared and in a public place where everyone expects him to act a certain way.

Now, I get why this can sound romantic. I mean, we’ve all seen countless of rom-coms where the (male) protagonist stops the (most often female) love interest from getting married/taking a plane to her dream job/taking a big engagement and then gets chosen.

In this scenario, the protagonists are effectively sending the message of “Don’t do [the big thing you were about to do] and come with me instead”. In other words, the protagonists is confronting the love interest with a choice between the protagonist himself and another Big Thing (more often than not, an entire possible life). This is generally done after the Love Interest has explicitly declined the possibility of dating the Protagonist, and it is always presented in an all or nothing choice.

And of course, the Love Interest always picks the Protagonist over their wedding/dream job/exciting adventure because Rom Com, at its heart, is a genre that puts romantic love (more often than not between a man and a woman, but LGBTQ+ movies like Imagine Me and You or Yes or No also use this scenario) above everything else.

This creates a set of expectations in which, if someone (Magnus) crashes someone else’s wedding (here, Alec) we assume the romantic and “right” ending is for the person getting married (Alec) to let go of, well, everything in order to say ‘yes’ to the crasher (here, Magnus).

The problem with those grand gestures though, is that they’re always spur-of-the-moment, don’t-stop-to-think events—they always put the Love Interest on the spot in a very public situation in which they will be judged and generate passionate (and quite possibly negative) reactions whatever they do.

If Alec agrees to Magnus’ implicit request or canceling the wedding, he’ll upset his parents, upset Lydia (possibly causing the end of their good relationship), quite possibly upset the Silent brother officiating (2) and potentially lose everything he has if people reject him (which kind of brings us back to my point in I).

If, on the other hand, he asks Magnus to leave and proceeds with the wedding, he’ll upset Izzy (who has repeatedly advocated against the wedding on the ground that she doesn’t think it’s good for Alec) possibly also Jace (ditto) and risk losing Magnus who he is, indeed attracted to.

The end result here is that Alec is effectively cornered in a situation where he’s expected to lose everything he has or lose Magnus, which is an inherently manipulative setup to create around anyone, no matter how much you claim to doing it 'for love’.

This, by the way, is why I’m also upset at Izzy for doing this—because she knew it was a possibility and still invited Magnus. She is, at best, complicit in creating a setting that forces Alec to make a split second, highly emotional decision that might ruin his life and will, at the very least, highly complicate it.

This deprives Alec of the ability to make his own choice in a calm and rational manner (or as calm and rational as you can be when you’re afraid of being outed) in a situation that doesn’t basically boil down to 'Come out of the closet or I’ll leave’ you which, yes, is a coercive message to send to anyone but especially if the person you’re sending it to can potentially be harmed (morally and/or physically) for revealing a certain part of themselves.

III. The problem with Magnus’ attitude in general

I’ve already discussed this topic in a fairly extensive manner in my reviews (linked above) and I’m trying to keep this relatively short and to the point so I won’t go into details about all the people who invalidate Alec’s agency and how, or I’ll still be writing next week. I want to make it clear, however, that the list is not limited to Magnus—Izzy, Jace, Maryse and Clary have all, at one point or another, acted like Alec’s feelings (often his feelings about his sexuality, specifically) were irrelevant or less important than what they wanted/needed him to do at a certain point in time. These instances aren’t the topic of this post but I want to make it clear that they exist and Magnus is not the only character who acts in a dubious way toward Alec. (3)

With that out of the way, here’s a little list of the reasons why I tend to call Magnus a creep:

In 1x04 “Raising Hell”, Alec feels so uncomfortable with the idea that anyone could realize he’s gay that his resulting actions almost get Jace killed. Yet Magnus’ first reaction is not to ask how he’s feeling but to tell him there’s nothing wrong with being gay (4) thereby implying that Alec’s fear (which, again, was so intense it almost got Alec’s friend killed) has no reason to be. This is literally taking the focus away from Alec’s anguish/quite possible guilt over Jace’s narrow escape and putting it back on Alec’ sexuality—something that Alec does not want, as Magnus has just witnessed. Given that we know Magnus is attracted to Alec at this point, it reads extremely self-centered at best.

In 1x06 “Of Men and angels”, Magnus pretends that he needs 'virgin Shadowhunter energy’ (5) in order to make Alec come back to his place for a definitely flirty chat and this despite knowing that Alec isn’t comfortable with the idea of people knowing he’s gay. (6) Again, this is at best taking the risk of making Alec uncomfortable for the sake of Magnus having what he wants—in the best of case it’s extremely self-centered, and since it’s the second time in as many interaction that Magnus puts what he wants above what Alec may feel, I think you should be starting to discern a pattern.

In 1x08 “Bad Blood”, Alec walks in on a shirtless Alec and protests when Alec gets dressed. Yes, it’s done in a joking tone but not only is it the third time Magnus tries to get Alec to do something he obviously doesn’t feel like doing for his own enjoyment, it’s starting to send a pretty dubious message.

In 1x09 “Rise Up” Magnus offers to fix Alec’s fairly minor wound (nice), Alec refuses, and Magnus…keeps pushing, instead of respecting Alec’s right to decide what to do with his body. I mean I get it’s a wound but it’s not that big a wound, especially not for Shadowhunters standards, and besides it’s part of a well-established pattern of Magnus ignoring, arguing or outright going against what Alec expresses so that’s a lot less nice.

In the same episode, Magnus goes to hit on Alec right after he took Alec’s stele so Jace and Clary could steal the Mortal Cup. Considering that Magnus knows how important the Cup is to shadowhunters, he has to know how much trouble Alec could be in if the theft was discovered—but apparently that’s not enough to make him refuse. To be clear, I’m not saying Magnus has to be faithful to Alec—at that point they’ve known each other for less than a week—but it does show that he’s willing to go behind Alec’s back in pretty big ways and still act like nothing is amiss. Not exactly the sign of a trustworthy person, honestly.

Still in “Rise Up”, when Alec tells him he’s marrying Lydia, Magnus acts hurt about it. Not just disappointed (which I would have understood) but his attitude make him sound like Alec betrayed him in some ways which is both false (given that all they did was share drinks and talk) and pretty hypocritical considering the previous instance.

In 1x11 “Bad Blood” Magnus tries to talk Alec out of the wedding and Magnus replies by telling him he’ll be miserable (and I’ve already said what I thought of that above) and that “[Alec doesn’t] deserve this. And I don’t either.” which, again, is really very entitled of him. Let’s be clear: Magnus has every right not to get involved with a married man and nobody can fault him for that. What he can and should be faulted for, is acting like Alec somehow owes it to Magnus to not get married when, again, the two of them barely know each other and they aren’t even together (not to mention the marriage is actually politically and personally advantageous for Alec, since it allows him to regain his standing with the Clave and keep his homosexuality a secret, which is what he’s clearly wanted from the start)

Still in “Bad Blood” When alec asks Magnus to be Izzy’s lawyer, Magnus asks for sexual favors from Alec as a payment–at best, if you want to be generous in your interpretation, he’s talking about going on a date, which would be coercion. And even if it’s half played off as a joke, it’s still treating Alec’s very serious problem like it doesn’t matter (again with dismissing/downplaying Alec’s feelings) and perpetuating a pattern of Magnus being generally inappropriate at best, frankly out of line at worst.

And now we have the 1x12 preview, with all the problems I talked about in my point II. Honestly, I’m willing to change my mind about that particular scene, depending on how it’s handled—I did after all, drastically change my mind about the idea of Alec entering an arranged marriage (which, upon hearing of it prior to the show’s airing, I really, really hated) but honestly, given the patterns established so far and the problems inherent with the setting established in said promo, I honestly have very little hope of this being handled in a satisfying way—at best, I’m expecting damage control.

IV. Post-airing thoughts (Added March 30, 2016)

Having now watched 1x12 “Malec” in full, I do want to add to the list of “creepy things Magnus does” the part where he lures Alec to his flat under false pretense again and tries to make him call off the wedding by insisting Alec will be miserable again before he decrees that he’s breaking things off with Alec again…only to be seen two scenes later referring to his “relationship drama” when there isn’t any relationship in the first place. I should also note that during the aforementioned scene in his apartment, Magnus spends a lot of time in Alec’s personal space and indulges in quite a bit of touching that would be intimate between a couple but which, coming from a stranger, is honestly invasive and creepy.

However, to my own surprise, I’m actually less pissed about the wedding than I am about the moment I mentioned above. I’m still very pissed about the coming out, and I still hate the way it’s been brought but I guess if you compare things to the book it’s a tiny bit of a progress in that at least it’s kept relatively private, and also we haven’t had people tell us Alec could be stripped of his runes for being gay.

God my standards fall so low with this show I can’t even. Anyway, it’s still an offensive way to deal with the ship and this episode only comforted me in my hatred of Magnus, no matter how much some may disagree.

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(1) Yes, Alec looks pleasantly surprised. It doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t invite Magnus.

(2) Given that the Clave as a whole has been presented as rather sexist and that sexism is often coexisting with queerphobia, I think it’s a rather safe assumption to make that the Clave is probably homophobic too—although the exact degrees of it remain to be determined.

(3) For the record, Alec also acts like an ass at times, in particular toward Simon and Clary, even when he has a point. Personally I get where he comes from but, again, not the topic.

(4) The fact that we’re almost at the end of the season and the word 'gay’ hasn’t ever been uttered despite the numerous conversations/allusions that have been made toward it is not precisely a good thing either tbh.

(5) I discuss the problem with the idea of talking about 'Virgin Shadowhunter Energy’ in more depth here, if you’re interested.

(6) I’ve said before and I’ll say again that I don’t think Alec’s reactions in Mu Shu To Go are consistent with one another but this is not the topic of this post.