Episode 37: Salt In The Wound
Episode 37 of The Descent Is Easy discusses Salt In The Wound, Episode 7 of Season 3 of Shadowhunters.
This week we discuss Magnus and Luke’s amazing disappearing act; how the long awaited Simon Alec interaction isn’t quite what was wanted, but was maybe what was needed; the many ways in which Alisha Wainwright is awesome; a hug 40 episodes in the making; how Magnus and Alec continue to be a basket of onions; the surprisingly brutal departure of Mimi Kuzyk; how the Owl seems to have turned into a shark who steals thumb; and have we mentioned that Alisha Wainwright is awesome?
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8th February 2019 @ 2:19 pm
I agree that Magnus was expecting a different response from Alec when Clary confessed that she had been lying about Jace dying. One thing that stood out for me was that Clary had lied to Alec on several occasions and to his face about Jace, yet he reacted to her confession with such compassion. In contrast Alec didn’t lie about the soul sword but didnt disclose the information (breaking trust), yet Magnus reacted with such anger. I thought Magnus looked at Alec almost with admiration for being so compassionate. I’m curious if it crossed Magnus’s mind re the contrast in his response to Alec.
7th May 2018 @ 11:37 pm
I have thoughts about graveyard security. Get a drink and sit yourself down: concise is not my style. XD
Iris nearly revived Jocelyn with just a lock of hair. Sure, she may have been about to come back wrong, but I’m quite sure that the Clave don’t want Valentine back right or wrong.
Also, given that werewolf teeth and vampire hair are both potion ingredients, I’d be more surprised to find out that Nephilim body parts weren’t useful magically than that they were (setting ethics aside as necessary).
So high security graveyards made sense to me, but raised 3 issues:
1. The security guards were a bit slow weren’t they?
2. Isn’t fence jumping is a security risk? (thanks for pointing it out, I’d probably have failed to notice it)
3. Why not destroy the bodies to remove the risk – cremation?
I have – possibly not very good – explanations for these.
1. The risk in the graveyard is in using body parts, which requires digging up a grave, which takes a bit of time. Since we know how Owl!Jace passed security, it was presumably Alec & co entering the graveyard that brought security onto the scene. Security arrived quickly enough that I can’t imagine Alec & co having time to dig up a body. Jace just had an unanticipated head start.
(Owl!Jace being able to pass security by killing Imogen is obviously a flaw, but not imo with the episode – I can see them not accounting for that possibility when they increased security and it’s just a hole that needs plugging.)
2. Thanks to the time security has to respond they don’t need to keep people out of the graveyard, they just need to know if someone enters without passing security. I can totally buy that there is some sort of sensor surrounding the graveyard that sets off an alarm in a guardhouse of sorts if someone enters without going through security.
3. There are three things I thought of here:
a. Nephilim aren’t cremated for the same reasons many mundanes aren’t cremated – personal beliefs about the afterlife and how to get there/personal preference/any other reason people have for choosing burial over cremation (or vice versa).
(The other two are either/or really and there might be canon that contradicts one, but I’m not sure one way or the other: I don’t know if Jocelyn was buried or cremated or if we don’t know; I don’t know if, like Jace’s parents, she was condemned to the cemetery of the disgraced; I don’t know if we know of any non-disgraced Shadowhunter who was buried; etc.)
b. It could be that burial rather than cremation is part of punishment and a mark of disgrace – like being buried in non-consecrated ground was for Christians (mainly those who committed grave crimes or suicide – which was considered a grave crime at the time, but feels like it should be separated out anyway). It could also be that the potential uses of body parts for the Clave’s benefit was seen as good reason to keep these corpses rather than destroy them – similar to the way that 14th century dissections were performed executed criminals: it was considered disrespectful to use a body thus, but the people in question were considered to have sacrificed their right to such respect through their actions in life. So good Nephilim will be cremated so their bodies can never be misused and bad Nephilim will be buried in case the Clave requires Nephilim body parts for some magic at a future date.
c. If burial isn’t restricted to the disgraced then it could be that the body parts can be used in positive spells that require a lineage link. E.g. only your parents’ or grandparents’ bones would work in the creation of a particularly strong protection spell. In which case there might be laws similar to our own governing how consenting to the use of your body or parts thereof after your death works. Or it could be that all body parts can be used with the Clave’s permission because helping future generations of Shadowhunters is part of their duty even after death.
8th May 2018 @ 11:35 am
Excellent points all – I think we have to assume that Shadowhunters bury their dead rather than cremate them (thought you’re totally right, that should be a practically enforced tradition given what it’s possible to do with people remains) as we currently have no information to the contrary.
There’s almost always potential for people to get round security measures with the ‘cut off the thumb’ thing – so don’t have particular issue with that. Your point 3c is interesting (loving the systematic comment style, by the way), because yes totally you can imagine that there are less grisly uses in a world of magic, where carving of a sliver of soul is a standard practice for non-dark magic, and as you say, vampire hair and werewolf teeth are used routinely.
Thanks for getting in touch!
8th May 2018 @ 12:56 pm
oh god, what a gloriously gruesome trail of thought, I LOVE IT!!! I cannot wait to discuss this on the episode tomorrow. thank you so much for that (intelligent and also disturbing!!) input hahaha
6th May 2018 @ 3:21 pm
Err, I think my comment was eaten, lol! I’ll just write it again.
You mentioned how Magnus has never been to the one to apologize first, or admit his wrongs first, and it reminded me of a post I saw where it talked about this. I don’t remember exactly what it said, but I think it said something along the lines of having to do with his emotional walls, and that while Alec has had a hand in breaking down most of those walls, there are still some walls that Magnus has left up that still won’t let him be emotionally vulnerable about some things. I think that one little analysis shows a lot about Magnus in that while he has changed a lot in these last couple of months, he’s not perfect, and that there are things he still needs to work on.
I also liked what you said about Magnus and Alec’s hug in terms of it helping them admit to their wrongs in their fight. It is indeed a lot harder to admit you’re wrong to someone while looking them in the eye, and I thought that them apologizing to each other by saying it softy in each other’s ear not only made it more sincere to me, but also more sweet and heartfelt. I hadn’t thought about that before hearing you talk about it, so I thought that was interesting.
Great episode, you guys!
6th May 2018 @ 6:14 pm
Sorry for the website trouble, shan’t happen again! at least not if you use that same email address 🙂
I know a lot of people in the SH fandom struggle with Magnus and the fact that he’s apparently “never in the wrong” and I find that interesting because the fact that he’s not apologised doesn’t mean he’s not been wrong.
And the fact that he’s fallen in love with Alec, who literally has no walls protecting his heart, is going to change him, but we are still talking 2 months vs 400 years. Even if we don’t assume all 400 years have been bad, we know at least a hundred of them were… that’s a lot of history to overcome and a lot of bad expectations from a relationship for Alec to prove not to be the case over, and over, and over… I find that fascinating!
personally, I am awful at apologising. I will move mountains to make something up to the person I’ve hurt but looking them straight in the eye and saying ‘I’m sorry’ is really hard for me, so that scene just really resonated on a very personal level to be honest.
glad you liked the episode, thanks for messaging, and for going through the trouble of doing it twice!! haha
5th May 2018 @ 4:24 pm
Hi guys!
I wanted to comment on some points you made. I don’t remember if it was you two who said it, or if it was a post that I read (or if could’ve been both), but somewhere I saw something about how Magnus has a hard time apologizing for things, and your comment about how Magnus has never really apologized reminded me of that. Admitting you’re wrong and that you said things you shouldn’t have can be difficult for anyone, and I can see how it’s especially hard for Magnus because of the fact that he’s been let down so many times by people he’s cared about, so he finds it hard to express feelings in that area.
I also thought it was interesting what you said about Magnus and Alec’s hug. It was so full of intimacy, and it showed that they’ll always be there for each other, but it also made them admitting their wrongs a lot easier and heartfelt. It’s a lot harder to admit you’re wrong to someone when you’re looking directly at them, which I think has a hand in the difficulty Magnus has with apologizing, and them softly saying it in each other’s ear made it not only more sincere, but also more intimate and heartfelt.
(P.s. I’ve commented here before as Gracie, but I commented here with my Tumble name in case you wanted to chat on Tumblr about anything)
5th May 2018 @ 12:24 am
You can always tell when I listen to these in the car because I don’t really get to comment the way I do on the computer lol
Re Alec’s posture in the War Room scene (50:58) and the sort of weight he’s carrying (and this is probable something you address at some point later but I haven’t gotten there yet): I think from the war Imogen produces the line about the Kill Order being placed on Jace that he must be aware that there IS a protocol in place for Shadowhunters who have become possessed. It has probably never been implemented (or very rarely throughout a thousand years of history) because Shadowhunters are supposed to be immune to that sort of thing (there are reasons why stated in book canon) but in addition to just, you know, general worry about Jace and conflict over what to do with Clary, you have to imagine that right now, he’s thinking that if Jace is possessed and the Clave DOES find out about it, it will actually be Alec’s job to carry out that Kill Order. Ouch.
Re Magnus’s reaction shot in that same scene (57:52) I think also something to keep in mind is that, canonically (and textualized by Magnus himself multiple times) Alec keeps surprising Magnus. Historically, Alec’s reaction when Jace or Izzy are in danger is to get very aggressive and to tear people’s heads off. He’s done it to Clary, yes, but he’s also done it to Magnus himself in 2×01 (when worried about Jace) and in 2×09 (in Raphael’s apartment with Izzy.) So in addition to all the things you’ve already said about Magnus’s decision to turn away from this moment of potential confrontation between Alec and Clary, I have to imagine that Magnus is also sort of using this to take Alec’s temperature on where Alec will fall with regard to Magnus’s share of blame in this situation. When Alec is forgiving and understanding, not only is that very different from the Alec we have seen even as recently as the end of season 2a, it also telegraphs an Alec who might not, in the end, hate or blame Magnus for the role he played in these events. So I’d say it was surprised, yes, but there probably was some hope, and if there was, that’s why.
5th May 2018 @ 9:56 am
Don’t know if you’ve finished yet, but if you have (and if not, spoilers) I hadn’t linked the Kill Order at the end back to the beginning of the episode and you are of course absolutely right! Alec would know. And while most Head’s of Institutes wouldn’t be out in the field doing “the dirty work” Alec would of course not risk anyone else doing it or put this on anyone else. Of course he’s aware that this would be the Clave order and of course he’d be doing it himself… DUDE! that’s brutal!
and yeah, I think you’re absolutely right about Magnus. He will have been steeping in his guilt ever since he realised. And he knows the way Alec blows up when things go wrong, and the times it’s happened to Magnus, Magnus was entirely innocent or tangentially sort of kinda involved whereas this… he has genuinely fucked up. so yeah, he must be worried about the reaction he’s going to get, and it so is not what he expects… it’s a beautiful scene!!!
12th May 2018 @ 3:17 am
So apparently I forgot to turn on notifications when I left that comment, and didn’t realize it until listening to this week’s episode. I was wondering at how unlike you two it was not to reply lol.
Anyway, yeah. In case we all needed that extra kick in the feels.
8th May 2018 @ 11:42 am
For the record I had not linked the kill order thing specifically to the scene in the ops room either, and am now appropriately horrified by the implication – Alec is almost always so very aware of consequence – I’m not sure there’s much of anything that happens to him or around him that he not constantly evaluating the cost/benefit analysis of. Interesting that even the moments of apparent impulsiveness come at the end of a fairly long contemplation/build up.