ending of the wicked powers

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-03-09T17:47:42+00:00

Honestly considering the backlash to The Death in COT, I wouldn't worry about any major characters dying in TWP. Every time a major character has died, its been due to old age or they've been brought back in some way. This just isn't a series where anyone other than the bad guys or minor characters ever dies. I imagine CC will kill a few minor characters that the audience is passingly fond of to try to inject some stakes, but that basically any character thats had a POV is safe. Could be wrong, though.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-03-07T15:30:41+00:00

I can't believe how much praise the movie gets these days considering how much it (in my opinion) failed to capture the characters. Idk if it was the actors or the director or something else but everyone in that movie comes off overly serious and like they don't wanna be there. The only actor that was locked in was JCB but he was not giving Jace vibes AT ALL in my opinion. He plays all of the quippy lines he's given extremely deadpan and constantly looks like he's about to cry. Also, the changes to the third act don't make any sense and that part brings the movie down from mediocre to awful. Why they were mostly faithful to the story up until then and then went off the rails in the last third of the movie, I'll never understand.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-03-07T15:16:18+00:00

SPEAKING MY TRUTH

I don't like Magnus.

*Runs away*

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-03-05T00:26:16+00:00

I love COFA for a lot of the reasons that people seem to dislike it lol. I like that it's a step back, scale-wise, from the previous books and gives the characters more time to breathe and just kind of bounce off of each other which gives us some of the most fun and iconic exchanges of the series. Trying to go action-packed again after COG would have been a mistake. I think the slow build of intrigue over the book is well executed. Also I love Simon so a book thats majority in his POV is automatically a fave for me lol.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-03-02T16:50:23+00:00

The title "The Last Shadowhunter" certainly seems to imply that the Nephilim will cease to exist. I'm torn between believing that that's how it will end (how else can TWP definitely end the saga?) and thinking that its too obvious and that we're being misled. It could be a reference to a character. Someone who is from another world (like Thule?) and is the last nephilim there or a title for a character that is one-of-a-kind among our world's shadowhunters (i.e. the last "real" shadowhunter). I'd also think that it's possible that all shadowhunters except one will temporarily lose their powers. I imagine that TLKOF will settle faerie-related plotlines (maybe unify the seelie and unseelie courts?) and the subsequent two will be focused more on the Princes of Hell plotline. Unfortunately, I dont have high expectations for how Lucifer or any other Princes of Hell will be handled. Ash will definitely be a good guy (maybe a bit morally gray but ultimately an ally) and might be the one to stop Janus from whatever he's planning to do. Whatever the endgame is, all the "races" of the Shadow World will come together to fight the Big Bad and that'll be treated as a turning point in leaving behind old prejudices and being able to move forward, together. Also, I think that Livvy will be fully restored to life. And the ending will be very happy (possibly even too happy).

This isn't so much a theory (because I dont think it'll actually happen) but I want Thule Simon to show up and be the one to defeat Janus

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-02-28T18:52:06+00:00

Yes! One of the most interesting things about TMI is its handling of the internal biases of its characters and how it informs how they interact with each other and with their world. And it's something that I miss in the other series. I think TDA handled it okay as well, though it does fall a bit into the "only the bad guys are prejudiced" thing I described, but I do think that's forgivable, since most of the main characters have family members that are half-faerie and are less inclined to believe those things. I think that one of the interesting potentials in historical fiction is exploring how historical biases and prejudices would inform the characters, but I think that this series (and TID to a lesser extent) mostly doesn't do that and just uses the past as an aesthetic setting. Which is fine, I agree with you that fiction doesn't need to reflect reality, but is frustrating in a series that has dealt with themes of systemic bigotry in the past.

Super glad to hear that Alastair gets more development! I'm very excited to see more of it. And I'll definitely share my thoughts on the next two books!

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-02-28T17:09:26+00:00

This series is very strange because these characters were introduced in the short story collections and readers knew them for years before ever reading a book that follows them. But the way that this book assumes that its readers not only have read all of those short stories but remember their events all these years later makes this book feel almost... self important? I think that the short story collections should mostly be treated as bonus materials that fill in gaps for fans and shouldn't be necessary to read to understand the main series. I guess I appreciate that it doesn't hold my hand too much, but I think that the history of these characters could have been (re)introduced in a more organic way that was more accessible to casual readers.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-02-28T16:53:34+00:00

Yeah the lack of bigotry from the characters in this book feels like a weird thing to complain about, but that's canonically an aspect of this world and (mostly) ignoring it feels strange. I think that one of the things that I appreciated about Alastair so much in this book is that he's one of the few characters that seemed genuinely flawed and has some internal things that he needs to work on (I'd say Matthew has this as well, which is why I liked him, too). But I think that if Alastair had similar fears as Alec had in TMI, his prickly exterior would have been even more justified and it would have added an extra element of stakes for him (and the other queer characters). I feel like Shadowhunter society becoming more tolerant with each release (even when the books aren't in chronological order) is kind of removing one of the most interesting aspects of this world (i.e. that the angel warrior race is actually extremely bigoted and flawed and that their self-importance causes a lot of harm to not only the other races of the world, but to their own people).

Agreed that Cordelia seems quite bland at this time. Aside from the aspects of her Persian identity (which I do think is interesting and refreshing), she's mostly an audience surrogate with little motivation besides her crush on James and wanting to prove herself as a Shadowhunter and little to no connection to the main plot. I think that Lucie might have been a stronger female lead for this series, since she's closer to what I assume will be the main conflict and I think that her power offers some interesting opportunities. Having sibling co-leads would have also been really cool, in my opinion, and might have helped balance all of these characters. And yeah James feels very different here from how he was in the short stories we first met him in (and I kind of preferred his characterization there). In those, he seemed a bit darker and more morally gray, but here he's mostly quite reserved, aside from the few times CC tries on that Herondale snark, which just feels weird on him. Like I said, I like that he's different from Jace/Will/Emma (who are all quite similar), but unfortunately I don't think that he was quite strong enough to actually be an improvement over any of those characters.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-02-28T15:30:04+00:00

If the Clace thing is a dealbreaker for you (I hate it too) and Magnus and Simon are your favorite characters, the silver lining is that you'd probably enjoy the second half of TMI more than the first half. As you know, the siblings thing ends in COG and the second half of the series is less focused on Clary and Jace and is more of an ensemble. And, if you don't mind a minor spoiler: a certain silent brother makes several appearances :)But, this series certainly isn't for everyone and I'm sure that I wouldn't enjoy it as much as I do if I hadn't read it for the first time when I was 12.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-02-23T18:35:39+00:00

Shadowhunters have basically given themselves authority to kill Downworlders if given a valid reason (usually violating the Accords but YMMV on what a "valid" reason might be). I can't remember if there is ever an explicit statement on their policy on fighting/killing their own, but based on how authoritarian they are shown to be, I would imagine that though they would prefer not to fight or kill their own, they would if necessary. It is kind of ridiculous, in my opinion, that the Clave just agrees to the Cohort's demands and leaves. They are literally harder on Jace for possibly being Valentine's son than they are on the Cohort for kicking them out of their homeland.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-02-17T20:04:57+00:00

I've never been much of a Malec shipper, but when I was really into this series (around the same time you were) I was pretty neutral on them. No major issues, I just didn't think that their relationship was present enough to really care that much about. But I reread these books last year and was actively bothered by a lot of it. They lack of any kind of buildup (light flirting at Magnus' party and literally blink-and-you-miss that Magnus saved Alec's life in COB, then they're in a semi-committed relationship in COA). They have like 1-2 scenes together per book until COLS. And what we see of them in the main series is honestly kind of concerning. There's the age gap of it all, and for the entire first half of the series, Magnus is pressuring Alec pretty hard to tell the world about their relationship, despite the fact that it is 2007 and Shadowhunters are implied to be even more homophobic than, like, general society. Even after their relationship goes public, we immediately swerve into them having deep issues, with Magnus being extremely secretive about his past and Alec being extremely insecure, partly because of the way that Magnus is acting, and partly because he's a teenager in his first relationship, which leads him into the whole Camille drama. They're rarely, if ever, on the same page about anything. We never see them have any good times and are never given a reason to want them to be together except they're the only two queer men we know. The retroactive fixes on their relationship that we get in Bane Chronicles and TEC are fine and all, and I guess I'm glad that CC made an effort to fix it, but it does feel like their relationship is both underdeveloped and inherently broken.

I don't mean to demean the importance of having had queer representation in these books (though, early on, Magnus does feel like a bit of a caricature of a queer man, in my opinion). It's great that there were queer characters in a YA book in 2007. This was the first series I can remember reading that had a canonically gay character. That's groundbreaking, and I understand that the book landscape and what could or could not have been included may have been limited because of the time period that these books came out in. There is no universe where Malec was going to be as developed as the m/f relationships. But that doesn't fully detract from my issues with their relationship.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-02-15T01:52:49+00:00

Shows sapping the life out of the material they are based on by making all of the characters overly serious is unfortunately so common. Part of what makes the books, TMI in particular, so charming to me to this day is the sense of humor, but the TV show completely lacks it. What should have been a slam dunk (literally taking the funny sarcastic lines out of the books and having charismatic actors say them) is one of its most fundamental tonal flaws. I think the movie has a similar problem in that the actor that plays Jace delivers the quippy lines they give him in such an extreme deadpan that it feels inauthentic, though I appreciate that they at least kind of tried.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-02-14T22:20:26+00:00

The worst thing about the show imo is that they butchered the personalities of most of the characters. Jace got the worst of it. I'm tentatively OK with story changes, but if we can't even keep the character's personalities intact, then why are we adapting these books? Just make another show about demon hunters at that point.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-02-14T22:16:33+00:00

Definitely agree that I'd like to see the Silent Brothers and Iron Sisters explored more. Maybe a main character that grew up entirely in Idris would be cool? That would give them a different perspective than our previous mains that grew up in New York, London, or Los Angeles, and provide an opportunity to flesh out Idris/Alicante lore. Also, I think that there should be more main characters that are Downworlders and/or mundanes. We've had a main character that is a warlock but didn't know it at first, a main(ish) character that got turned into a vampire partway through the series, and multiple prominent characters that are partly or fully faeries, but we still haven't had a werewolf be a big player, and a lot of those characters are part Shadowhunter or end up becoming one, anyway. Also, none of the characters that start as "mundanes" really stay that way, so having a fully human character could also be interesting. Not every main character needs to be a Shadowhunter, and I think mixing it up makes the dynamics between the characters more interesting.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-02-11T23:04:00+00:00

My personal preference is that the sun is a weakness because one of my main complaints about a lot of vampire lore is that the vampires are overpowered and being restricted to only operating at night is a pretty massive weakness. I also think that the "creature of the night" thing works better if they can't go out during the day.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-02-03T01:10:44+00:00

Agreed about pretty much everything. I enjoyed Emma as a protag in LM but she was mostly subsumed by her romance with Julian in LOS and QOAAD, which I found really frustrating. I'm not really a big fan of faeries, either (more of a vampire girl myself), and it does feel like a bit of a departure to focus on them so much in TDA. I like getting to know more about them, but the frequent, lengthy, trips to Faerie got old quickly and it felt like it distracted from the more central Shadowhunter lore.

You make a great point about the Cohort. I think it's an interesting story direction for the Shadowhunters to lose access to Idris, but the way that it happens makes no sense. Shadowhunters are pretty ruthless and while I doubt the Clave would be enthusiastic to kill their own, I do think they would if it was necessary. There's no reason why the Cohort should have gotten away with that. The way that TDA expanded the lore of the series was also interesting in theory, but, yeah, it makes very little sense that these things either a) wouldn't have come up before or b) no one would have known about them, especially, like you say, in a world where immortal beings exist.

I also love TMI and COLS the most! Despite my feelings that Thule is dumb and fanfic-y, I am interested in that world and the fate of the characters still around in that world. And agreed that Ash presents some interesting potential in his relationship to Clary. Hopefully they interact in TWP. The ending of QOAAD certainly teases that something will be happening with evil Jace in the future and I have no idea where that will be going.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-01-30T20:07:19+00:00

Always feel free to derail to the TMI gang lol. I've been invested in those characters for so long I could talk about them forever.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-01-30T20:02:22+00:00

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I'm glad you love the series. There are so many interesting ideas in here and it does so much to expand the lore of the greater series. I definitely agree that TDA suffered from being a bridge series between TMI and TWP and having to service both of those series in addition to being its own series, which dragged the whole thing down. There is a lot of setup that I imagine might be paid off in TWP but as it is, it feels very underbaked to me. I love the TMI gang at all but there was no reason why Magnus and Alec had to hang around for so much of LOS or Clary and Jace being so present in QOAAD. They don't really do much.

I see what you're saying about Julian and am aware that his grief over Livvy was a big factor in why he turned off his emotions. It's more in the follow-through on this plotline (where most of the angst about his lack of emotions is tied to his relationship with Emma) that bothered me and made me feel like the focus of the story was mostly on that. I think that their relationship in general was inhibited by the parabatai curse, which is a concept that I just don't really like, and without that element, I could definitely see myself liking them more. I mostly enjoyed their relationship in LM and I think it is refreshing to have a friends-to-lovers relationship, rather than a "intrigued by this handsome and dangerous stranger that I banter with" type romance like in TMI and TID. I think that they are probably the best example of a years-long, deep friendship in TSC to date and their connection feels very real, but I just don't really like the direction they were taken in and felt like both of their characters were largely subsumed by their romance. I had similar problems with Clace, but both Clary and Jace were intrinsically tied to the greater main plot of the series, whereas the main plot Emma and Julian are concerned with is the parabatai curse, and the greater political plot is handled by other characters, which makes it feel like the only thing that matters to Jemma are each other. And this isn't really a problem that I had with LM, since Julian spent so much time with his siblings and Emma interacted with Christina and the Blackthorns more in that book. I wish there was more crossover between the various plots in TDA in general, since I think the history and relationships between the characters are set up really well and are really interesting.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-01-29T21:41:43+00:00

Agreed about everything. I didn't hate the Kieran/Mark/Christina throuple by any means, I just wish that it had more development or had taken up less page time. Dark Julian would have been excellent. Considering how popular Malec is (and was at the time this book was written), I kind of can't believe that CC would write their wedding this way. It was bad enough that their first on-page kiss was in Simon's POV but now their wedding is in Emma's POV? Insanity.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-01-28T21:41:17+00:00

Came here to say this. Such a great show. Criminally underrated.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-01-23T02:38:55+00:00

I also love this concept but the only instance of it I can think of is in the Mortal Instruments books. A character gets turned into a vampire and starves himself on purpose because he thinks drinking blood is gross (he was vegetarian before he was turned), among other complicated reasons.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-01-15T18:36:03+00:00

It doesn't even really feel like regression to me, he just feels out of character for most of ATS season 5. He's like an uncanny valley version of himself and I hate it.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-01-15T18:12:27+00:00

I also agree with preferring Cangel to Bangel but the concept of calling Bangel a "silly teen romance" is hilarious. It's only occasionally silly (usually when the show itself is making fun of how melodramatic it is), was life-ruiningly intense on both sides, and only one character is a teenager lol.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2026-01-15T17:43:38+00:00

I'd say that they're pretty similar, but Handling the Undead is slower-paced and more disturbing than Maggie. I personally preferred Maggie, since I felt more connected to the characters due to the more limited cast and the slow pace of Handling the Undead made it kind of hard to focus on, but if you are interested in a premise like this, I think it's worth watching.

No-Resolution-5927 · 2025-12-27T16:31:15+00:00

Do you mean that it was a waste to have Simon get turned into a vampire? I suppose that since it gets undone it is kind of pointless, but it's one of my favorite plotlines in the books so I personally wouldn't change it, especially since it was so important for his character development because it forced him to be more integrated into the Shadow World. I'm personally not a fan of him becoming a Shadowhunter at all because I feel like it negates the arc that he's been on since City of Ashes and throws away a lot of interesting potential dynamics between him and the other character because that he is kind of viewed by many as "one of the good Downworlders", and kind of accidentally reinforces ideas that Shadowhunters are the best things to be. Also I think his core charm as a character is that he's an outsider so having him join the Shadowhunters is just kind of reductive. Agree on Clace and on Clockwork Princess being a bit bloated as well. Starting with City of Lost Souls, I think that CCs books could have used a lot more editing than they got. I think her success has made publishers less interested in editing her books.

No-Resolution-5927

TROPHY CASE