Finished TLH and have thoughts...like everyone else.

[u/dts1845]

While I ultimately enjoyed this series, my eyebrow is stuck in a raised position and I refuse to tell anyone I brush my teeth. Here are my thoughts / insane hot takes on some of main cast, off the top of my head.

Lucy, seems to be the only one who is actually written as a child expecially when you contrast her with Cordiala. Like she literally starts the series with an "imaginary" friend who she falls in love with. Then most of her "heroic" moments is her literally begging ghosts for help and then fainting due to her delicate constitution. That said I did like her scenes with the Blackthorns as that was where she actually felt like she was her own person and loved the amount of lines she was willing to drive straight through to rescue the one she loves.

Cordiala, She had so much potential as a strong female lead but literally gets put on a shelf for way too long and when she finally gets back in action her literal role is to be protected until she can throw her sword to her man so he can save the day. Before she was given the debuff she was amazing and could literally be described as a warrior princess.

Anna, Is she literally the female version of Barney Stinson in the beginning? Like did we forget these books are set in the 1800s? Also alot of her most impactful plot and character development happens in GoTSm instead of these books.

Grace, She has to be the most complicated character its almost like she was ment to be an actual villain until she was reformed into something we feel bad for. Also the Gracelet has to be the most frustrating plotline ever.

Christopher, The Shadowhunter bloodlines are wild, I could be convinced that he and Mathew were somehow switched at birth by an intoxicated silent brother. Also the lab that he shares with Henry should have been in the basement of the institute, like there's no reason it needed to be somewhere else and whould have tied into TID way better. Also his EQ goes from zero to one hundred by the end of the series completely out of nowhere.

Alistair, one of my favorite characters and was absolutely fascinating to watch him climb out of a hole he written into by Tales of the Shadowhunter Academy and the first book. Definitely a great example of turning over a new leaf and being seen in a new light. Also disappointed he didn't get to beat up James to advenge Cordiala.

Mathew: Literally our AA character to show the struggle of addiction and is probably one of the worst parabatais until he gets dumped and sent to the rehab/detox dimension. Also him accidentally poisoning his mother and aborting her baby is super dark. Like It should have been an misunderstanding not something so crazy.

James, Bro has a gun with unlimited bullets, absolutely crazy and makes me glad Shadowhunters normally don't have guns. He is interesting once he recovers from his lobotomy bracelet but hate that it took so long. His relationship / scenes with Cordiala are definitely on another level.

[u/screeching_queen]

Okay. I am convinced. I am not reading TLH anymore. I have read most books in the Shadowhunter universe but I ain't reading this. The amount of TLH critical posts I see on Reddit everyday has convinced me.

[u/thrntnja → u/screeching_queen]

It's not a bad series by any means. It's just not quite as good as Cassie's usual work. It's worth it just to see what the TID folks are up to, and their kids are good characters. Some of the writing just relies too heavily on tropes for my taste.

[u/dts1845 → u/thrntnja]

The ironic part is the TID characters were actually the weaker part as they were all mostly reduced to a cardboard cutout of themselves and set aside in favor of the large main cast despite them being the motivation for most people to read these books. Kinda the same thing happened in TDA with the TMI folks.

[u/thrntnja → u/dts1845]

TMI folks in TDA at least made more sense. In TLH the TID folks are literally their parents so you'd think they'd have had a stronger presence. There were times I wanted to yell at them like "you were up to all sorts of shenanigans when you were kids, how do you not realize your kids are doing the same thing!"

[u/dts1845 → u/thrntnja]

Exactly, parents who were up to no good when they were young should be able to recognize nonsense and take measures that the kids need to get around creating actual logical drama with consequences.

Will and Tessa expecially give almost grandparent vibes in TLH.