The Mortal Instruments series is a series I began just after I read Twilight. This was about 3 or 4? years ago when I hopped the YA train. It's a track I haven't hopped off since - there is just that wicked boom of books and too many stories to explore.
The Mortal Instruments, and the other series by Cassie Clare, The Infernal Devices, are a series I love to pick up when the new book comes out and follow along the story. It is very entertaining, I can easily get lost in this world, it's a good balance between realistic and fantasy, I am hooked by the characters, and it is basically a never-ending story of fun.
Because of this blind-love, I can forgive Grade B writing, predictability, strange love connections, and what have you. I haven't recommended this series to many people because there isn't even 1 particular element to this story that stands out above the rest in the YA landslide. I just love it.
I did just love it.
Here is my problem.
I've learned too much about the author. Normally, fan people love to learn about their favourite fiction characters by researching the non-fiction person (celebrity). That usually makes them deeper in love.
Not me.
The more I love a fictional character, the FURTHER I want to be away from the celebrity that represents this. Be it an actor or an author, I fear this - learning any dishonorable traits, qualities, standpoints, etc about the celebrity can change, warp and/or taint the image I have of my perfect fictional character.
For example; Ron Weasley. My favourite character in Harry Potter. I love Ron's lack of confidence, his bravery, his difficulty dealing with emotions, his volitileness, his gingerness. It's awesome. He's awesome. The person who represents Ron in the movies is Rupert Grint. He seems to be a pretty cool guy. While I'll enjoy pictures of Rupert people send me, I won't see him as Mr.Grint, but as Ron. I only WANT to see him as Ron. I don't CARE what other projects he's doing, what his dog name is, or who he's dating. Because the more I know about Rupert, the less Ron he becomes.
And we just can't have that.
I like Ron. I want to know Ron. If Rupert does something awful, like rapes kittens, well then my image of Ron will be so afflicted by Rupert... I can't look at that face anymore.
Cassandra Clare. She was just an author to me. I knew she is close to her fan base, feeds us a lot of stuff, joins us in squealing about the lovey relationships, she's very central to the whole thing. However, I don't want to get involved because everybody has skeletons in the closet, don't they? Secrets. The problem with secrets on the internet is that they never go away. Never. So when you've got a history, it will come back to bite you.
It bit her.
It bit me.
Rumour has it - (and it'll forever remain rumour to me) that Clare was a large fanfiction writer in the Harry Potter fandom. That's cool, I used to love to read HP fanfiction (even wrote some myself! awful things, they were). But there was a lot of cyber bullying, a lot of weird stalking, over the line creepiness, accusations, plagurism, etc. A quick search brings all that up. There are hate blogs and hate letters and hate hate hate against Clare. Not because she's a famous author, not because her writing is less than stellar, but HOW she became famous. That irks me. It irks me that she could have been involved even the slightest to cyberbullying and plagurism. I'm sure most of it is exaggeration, which is why it remains Rumour to me.
But this little bit has put me off just a slight. That sucks. THat sucks for me. I stopped following her on twitter, tumblr, etc, because I don't want to see her suffer, nor do I want to see the drama.
She's an author of a fantastic series for me, and I want to support her by buying these books when they come out, collecting the things that mean something to me, and seeing her movies come to life. That's how I'll be her fan. That's where I'm happy being a fan.
I'm sorry for her getting any abuse or critics at any time, that sucks. That's life. I'm sure the good outweighs the bad in the end.
I don't want to know. I don't want anything to change my crazy perfect love-blind vision at my favourite characters, fictional or not.
