Cassandra Clare
I’m Cassandra Clare. I write the Castellane chronicles and the Shadowhunters books. The Last King of Faerie is out November 3!
Updated: 16 hours 46 min ago
Hi Cassie! Will Hyacinth make an appearance in TLKOF or in the other TWP books?
Okay, oddly, yes! She does make an appearance in TLKOF and does something fairly important. That was an excellent random guess. :)
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LKOF chapter sampler snippet
Meanwhile, back at the Scholomance:
“You told us your final project would be about solving crimes using magic. But this”—Catarina tapped the stack of paper in front of her—“seems to be about the alternate dimension Thule. It includes a section on how one might possibly get there—”
“That part is theoretical,” said Ty.
“All right,” Catarina said. “But …
the final project is supposed to cover the kind of work you want to do when you leave the Scholomance. You’re an adult Shadowhunter. Solving crimes using magic seems like something you could do. Attempting interdimensional travel to a hell world does not. I know your brother Julian visited that other world, but there were extenuating circumstances involved that will never be replicated.”
“I said it was theoretical—”
“If you opened a door to hell in your dorm room and a beast came through and ate you, that wouldn’t be theoretical.”
“No, I would call that empirical evidence. But I’m not doing that.”
Catarina templed her hands beneath her chin. “I believe you,” she said. “And I don’t think you actually want to go to Thule, even if a version of Livvy is alive there. I think you turned in a final project you knew couldn’t possibly pass on purpose.”
Ty froze.
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Hi! You recently mentioned how “some” of the POVs are Ty’s (and Ash’s) which made me wonder about the “access” we’ll have to his mind, and the reason you’ve said Ty and Ash. Meaning - you kept saying the main three are Kit, Ty and Dru, but I wonder if...
I'm so glad the book is something to look forward to. Lord knows we can all use that. :)
I've been thinking about all the discussion about this, specifically about POVs, and the questions I continue to get about who are the main characters, and I wondered: Is part of the anxiety about this because these three books have no clear protagonist?
All the other trilogies/series have a specific protagonist: Clary, Tessa, Emma, Cordelia. (TEC splits between Magnus and Alec.) The Wicked Powers has essentially four main characters, but I have never called them "four protagonists" and maybe I should.
Essentially, a protagonist is the one whose goals and choices drive the story. By this measure, all four of these characters are protagonists. Each has an equally important arc, plot-wise and emotionally. Each has a very specific destiny. [spoiler] As the prophecy we learned about in Better in Black is translated, they are the only people mentioned in it, and all of them are required for the prophecy to work. [/spoiler]
So there are actually four protagonists or main characters, and those are Kit, Ty, Dru and Ash. Yes, we see mostly Dru and Kit's POV in book 1. That doesn't mean that's the way the POVs will play out going forward; we have a lot more ground to cover! It's just how it turned out I needed to write this book.
I think essentially writers and readers come at the concept of POV from different directions. It sometimes makes me feel like I'm having difficulty translating what it's like from this side of things, but I'll try.
When you're anticipating a book but it isn't going to be out for a while, I think often there's a tendency to try to predict how it will go based on the limited information you have. Will my favorite character have enough presence in the story to make me happy? So you look to things like -- who are the POV characters? Who's on the cover or depicted in the promotional art? What can you infer from the snippets or from the jacket copy?
And unfortunately, this is not a very good way to predict what a book is going to be like or how you are going to feel about it! All the snippets and images and little bits of info like POVs or chapter titles, all added up, are a very tiny piece of a 180,000+ word book. And it's okay, of course, to anticipate and try to guess and get excited and get worried! That anticipating is a lot of the fun of waiting for a thing! But -- things like POV just in the end don't tell you very much about what a book is like, or how it's going to feel.
For writers, choice of POV is a storytelling tool. You use the tool in the way that seems best for the story. It's not about how much you like a character or whether they are central. I stayed away from a lot of Will's POV in Clockwork Angel because he had a secret I didn't want to share; regardless, I think of Will as one of the most important characters in the entire Shadowhunter series, not just TID. I ended up staying out of Ty's head a lot in LKOF because 1) he has a secret, too! and 2) there are things I want the reader to know about him that he can't know or be aware of and there is no way to convey that from his POV. We have to see it from outside because we know what he doesn't know. And 3) It's about the romance, too. I wanted there to be things Kit didn't know about Ty's feelings, and I wanted the reader not to know them either — not yet.
In TLKoF the bulk of the POVs are Dru and Kit's. But — and I know we may disagree — I don't believe POV factors that much into how important or central a character is. I do not think Ty is less of a main character in book 1 because we do not get his POV as often. I would have said that after James and Cordelia, Matthew was the most important character in The Last Hours and we never saw his POV at all.
And yes, as a neurotypical person, it is of concern to me how I write and portray Ty. I used multiple sensitivity readers to read for Ty in this book, a mix of people I know and people who do this professionally. I think people imagine that sensitivity readers are only necessary for scenes from Ty's point of view, but most of the readers' notes were on the sections not from his POV, because we learn about Ty, how he thinks and why he does things, from his behavior and his dialogue. We hear much more from him about his thoughts, feelings, emotions, habits, and the way he does things than we ever learned about him in TDA, and we learn the majority of them in scenes not from his POV.
Some people have asked if being worried about writing Ty correctly made writing his POV less positive or fun, but no, it didn't! I really love writing Ty because he has a lot of qualities I love; I'm just also worried about it. So far in LPOH his POV shows up the same amount as everyone else's and I'm enjoying it a lot.
If at the end of TLKOF you feel like you didn't get enough Ty POV and you want more, that's good — because you will get more, and at that point, there will actually be specific mysteries that you want addressed and they will be. Structurally, it didn't make sense to spend a lot of time in Ty (or Ash's) heads in LKOF, so when we do see their thoughts in LPOH, I think it's more enjoyable because we are getting the answer to what they were feeling during events we actually observed, and getting them earlier would be like reading the last page of a mystery first. (I know you're out there, people who do that! For shame! :) It's certainly more enjoyable for me as a writer to be able to hold some mystery back for maximum fun, and in the end we all do write the kind of stories we ourselves like to read and to create: we can't really do otherwise.
I'm off to Bookcon this week so not too around but I'll be back next week with some fun snippets from the Bookcon sampler! In the meantime, you have this giant novel of an answer to read.
I'm sorry if things haven't been great lately; I think it's been a pretty hard time for a lot of people and I often wonder what we'd all do without imaginary worlds to get lost in.
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Hi Cassie, could you tell us the name of a chapter from tlkof?
I'll be posting the whole list of chapter names in my next newsletter.
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Hi Cassie! I have been debating for awhile which TLKOF edition to order and was wondering if there’ll be any specific bonus content released in any of them, as that would affect my decision of which to get!! Thank you and hope your week has been great!
Hi! The editions are all visually different with different art and edges, but there is no different bonus content in them. The only difference is that some are signed.
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Is the Blackfriars Bridge deleted scene in LoS considered canon?
No, I don't consider any deleted scenes canon — I deleted them for a reason! I think they're interesting to see in terms of what stays in a book and what gets cut, but I don't think of it as canon (nor do I think of answers I give on social media as canon, because sometimes I'm talking about things that are not yet written and the details can always change!) The Shadowhunters Wiki is very good about marking what details are book canon (anything in the books, short stories, extra content if it's not "deleted") and what's not (me rambling, details that are corrected in later book versions, even.) I do my best to give you accurate answers and if the book has already been shipped off to the publisher (like LKOF) it's going to be accurate barring some tragic printing mistake. But for unwritten material, I have to allow myself to change something that isn't working, even if I talked about it before. I hope that makes sense!
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Hi! Is Ash queer or will he go down as the only straight faerie in history lol? Word in the streets is he’s Drusexual
I was about to write a longer answer but Holly said, "What about him would make people think he was straight?" She also suggested he could have gotten heterosexuality from his demon side, and I thought that was pretty funny so I'm sharing it. I don't think any faeries are really straight, though they can certainly lean more toward being attracted to one gender presentation or another. Some are aro/ace, but Ash is not. I do think he has a very very very hard time falling in love, as that requires trust and his has been broken many times.
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Hi Cassie! Since you’ve said that Dru, Ash, Kit and Ty will be the main characters of TWP (or at least of the first book), does that mean that the love triangle between Dru-Ash-Jaime has been scrapped? Or is it just delayed because Jaime won’t be a big...
It's not scrapped. :) Delayed? Unusual? Complicated?
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hi cassie!! will we have a lot of clary and ash moments through out the series?
Yes! It was very interesting writing what is a very very weird aunt/nephew dynamic. Interesting and fun. :)
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good morning cassie! my question is if the infamous SOBH kitchen reunion scene will be brought up between Kit and Ty in TLKOF, or just the concept of forgiveness re “how long do you think it will take you to forgive me”? - will ty bring up what...
They definitely discuss the whole "How long will you be mad" "I'm also mad" stuff, they kind of can't not discuss it. They do decide to put it aside in the pursuit of what they need to find, but that's temporary, as it has to be. If the kitchen scene gets a mention it is quite small as I think they definitely have much bigger emotions about other things.
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Maybe this is an odd question but is Kit able to safely consume faerie fruit?
He doesn't know . . . yet.
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if you could describe ash’s feelings for dru at the start of tlkof in one word – what would it be? <3
Conflicted.
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Hi Cassie! Just wanted to ask, we know from sobh that Kit and Dru text, but how much do they text each other? Do they text casually every few days, do they obsessively text each other every time something that they think the other would appreciate...
Yes, Kit is not a very reliable texter and does avoid conversations about Ty especially with Ty's sister (unfortunate for him that Livvy can hassle him literally eternally if she feels like it) and when they meet again in TWP they haven't been texting for a while. They are fond of each other, though, in a familyish way.
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Hey, Cassie! How old is Dru in TLKOF? Thanks!
She's seventeen. She and Ash are probably a few months apart in age though his age is slightly harder to pin down.
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Will we see Ty interacting with Irene in TLKOF? Is she just left with Anush? (I love Irene so much ❤️)
I also love Irene, but alas, you cannot take a lynx on a read trip easily. It does not mean Ty will never meet Irene tho.
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hey cassie, hope you’re doing well!! i was just curious, how involved is livvy going to be in tlkof in trying to mediate between kit & ty once they reunite? is she trying to get them to talk about things or is she just trying to let them work things...
She does think they should work things out, but she isn't really meddling. She at some point does warn Kit not to break her brother's heart (again) but otherwise she doesn't interfere, probably because she realizes that if they were to mend things with each other, it would have to be their decisions on their own terms.
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Hello Cassie, hope your well. I’m sure you are tired BVD questions and I know it can’t be published (or written) until after LKF because of the timeline. I was just wondering, since you are working on LPH now, if BVD is in the beginning stages of...
Hi! Well, BVD takes place in the time period between book 2 and book 3 of The Wicked Powers. So it can't be published until after book 2 regardless of schedule — you're right that working out a schedule for a co-written book is doubly complicated since you have to work with two people's schedules!
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Hi Cassie! I was hoping you could clear something up for us! I’ve seen a lot of people pretty confused about Ash’s age, since apparently he grew up pretty fast (or a longer time went by in Faerie than in the mortal world which is why he is around 13 in...
Ash is actually around eighteen in TLKOF. I don't know if that changes the calculations!
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Hello Cassie, Very excited for The Last King of Faerie. My question is: does Ash still have that chinchilla, or was it cut? Best wishes!
The chinchilla did not make it into the book, though there is a hint about it if you're looking closely. The chinchilla is angry about being cut and its agent is arguing that it should get a larger role in the next book, or at least a credit as executive producer.
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Hi Ms. Clare, I have noticed from the time you announced TWP trilogy obviously a lot of things have changed. I just need to confirm, Ty, Kit, Dru and Ash are in fact the main characters while Jaime, and the others are mostly supporting cast?
Ty, Kit, Dru and Ash are still the main characters; I wouldn't say any of the other characters are main characters.
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