On , there are about 97 fanfictions about Sebastian/Jonathan Morgenstern. That sounds like quite a bit until you pull up the number for Jace, which is a pretty hefty 2,530, more than half the fanfictions about the Mortal Instruments. Considering his sorta gigantic role in COLS, one would assume that with relevence comes new stories (albeit how crappy/out-of-character they are). Being a curious bugger myself, I began to wonder myself.

I'm going to admit it, Sebastian is easily one of the most interesting while well-developed villains in anything I've ever read. (I'm looking at you, Steve Leopard, for number one) But yes, even the fangirls have to admit it, he's a bad guy defined by the excuse me rather d**ckish things he does. He threatens to eradicate the Shadowhunter race, invite demons to runnover the world, brainwashes Jace into being his b****, etc. Hell, he murders a ten year old. But he doesn't look like it. There's no falcon perched on his shoulder, and he's not some massive imposing figure looking down on you as he monologues about sympathizing with Satan and why murder is perfectly okay.

Let's go back to Valentine.

Everything about Valentine speaks EVIL. Not in real life maybe, but in the shows we watch when we're kids where the bad guys are always delusional too cool charismatic jerks that everyone follows. Tom Riddle, Darth Lord Sidius, etc. We've barely met the guy in City of Bones and every gut in our bodies tells us "He's a bad guy, mhmm. That's the one" And we're not proven wrong. But Sebastian-He's the guy bringing girls over to his apartment and taking his sister out for hot chocolate in France, not plotting how to steal some random sword. Sure, Sebastian sneaks around looking at the stuff of heaven and having meetings with demons and fairies, but again, the way Sebastian goes about doing it seems more like the thing you would do looking for an apartment to buy, not destroy civilization as we know it. At most, Sebastian seems self-serving. You could even say that Sebby acts more like COB Jace than the actual Jace himself was: Observant, sarcastic, condescending, and cool. (To be fair, the real Jace is possessed, and doesn't act like that around Clary anymore)

It's all an act. Or is it? Jocelyn was slightly mistaken when she says that Sebastian only pretends to have emotions. Except for a few blatant lies about regret, Sebastian hasn't exactly pretended to be a saint. He simply withheld all his nasty, disgusting impulses long enough to get what he wanted, just like in City of Glass. It's no wonder that Clary couldn't quite believe that the boy she was forced to cope with for a week was murderer of a ten year old. Jocelyn gave her the wrong warning.

If you subtract all those despicable characteristics, you're left with a shell that could resemble Jace's. But those characteristics are undeniably much more insidious, powerful motivators and factors of Sebastian's personality. If you picked apart Jace and Sebastian's personalities, the words cool or snide or observant would pop up. Jace himself was terrified of that possibility. But what is blatantly remarked at the end of COLS is that although those few features may unite them, there's so much more going on in both of them that comparison would be ridiculous.

So what does this all have to do with fanfiction? When you read a book or watch a movie, you don't see the idea that the author called a character, and then fleshed out into words. You only see the words, or the images/audio. You have to analyze a character backwards, getting to know them like people you would meet in school. The more deeply involved you are with the creation, the more understanding you are of the character. In most fanfiction, people simply write the behavior they see, and what they want to see (For example, what if you want to see Jace and Clary dating in high school? Or Katniss and Peeta discover Facebook?) You plop what you know about said characters in that setting, and adapt the character to it. It's not the same character the author created, but more importantly, it's something that matters to you.
Why does nobody write about Sebastian? The mask he wears in front of people constantly changes, enough that trying to figure out his character takes an epic analysis on Tumblr to understand. Even after we met the real guy in his apartment, we don't really know how Sebastian behaves in a natural setting because he is always manipulating the variables for his own benefit. Which also makes him impossible to 'love' because you can't quite see what he really is.

So yeah, that's that.

Thanks to Cassie Clare for writing such a well-thought out, interesting villain. We need more of those in the literary world.