We hit the Freeform press room at this year’s New York Comic Con, where media outlets of all kinds got the chance to sit down with the Shadowhunters cast and executive producers. For our roundtable, stars Matthew Daddario and Katherine McNamara talked a little about the complicated moralities of the Shadow World, Alec seeking happiness for himself, and Clary being on the way to becoming a fully-fledged Shadowhunter.
Jumping off from the end of last season, when Alec and Magnus reconciled their differences and got back together, Matthew talked about Alec shifting his perspective on happiness and embracing a certain selfishness that was absent before: “[Before Season 2], happiness to him is sort of a far-off concept; he’s interested in the happiness of others, the safety of others, the well-being of others. Now he’s becoming more selfish – he’s opened up. All the hiding and all that, it’s all gone […] I think it makes him less of an admirable character, but it makes him more human.”
He continued to give hints regarding Alec’s emotional journey for Season 3: “That comes with insecurity. You avoid all these different emotions, but once you open up to some of them, you open up to all of them.”
On Clary’s development, Kat explained that Clary’s journey in Season 3 starts with her completing her Shadowhunter training and choosing her weapons. She teased, “[Her weapon choice] becomes kind of a big deal moving forward, the particular weapon that she chooses and why.”
She also elaborated on Clary’s desire to become a proper Shadowhunter, which has been a part of her arc for the past two seasons: “She’s put on missions officially instead of just as a tagalong or a trainee. Having that responsibility is amazing – it’s all she’s wanted. All she’s wanted is to be seen as a Shadowhunter, and be part of the team and to be helping out in a real way.”
But this is Shadowhunters, and everything can’t be as happy and uncomplicated as all that – especially not when it comes to the infamously prickly relationship between Alec and Clary.
Regarding Jace and Clary being the only two who know how Jace was resurrected, Kat explains, “They know their time is limited. They know that everything’s gonna hit the fan pretty soon – and they can’t ask anyone for help, because anyone they turn to is also implicated. That’s where the tension between [Alec and Clary] comes from.”
Finally, Kat and Matt both discussed the allegorical social issues that Shadowhunters touches on, expanding on the very grey morality that the denizens of the Shadow World often find themselves dealing with.
“Everything has grey areas,” Matt explained. “There’s different ways to look at everything that’s going on in the world […] Are Downworlders evil? No. And then, is the Clave good? No. Who’s evil, who’s good? It depends on the person; it’s on an individual basis. And the reality is that all of us are bonded simply by the fact that some of us are evil, some of us are good, and nothing else matters.”
“Except for demons,” he adds quickly – no grey area there, apparently.
Continuing in that vein, Kat suggested Sebastian (a.k.a. Jonathan Morgenstern) as the perfect epitome of this grey morality, as half-Shadowhunter and half-demon; with that, both Kat and Matt alluded to the differences between judgment based on intention versus action.
Of Sebastian, Kat explained, “He is inherently evil and has evil intentions, but all he wants is to be loved, and to have a family and to have his sister love him.”
Matt continued, “The famous saying is, ‘We judge others for their actions, we judge ourselves for our intentions.’ And if you switch that off, and you start to look at your own actions, and you look at other people’s intentions, you can sort of start to understand their motives better. I think there’s a lot of that in the show.”
Relating the fantasy back to reality, Kat added, “It’s amazing, this world where demons can be good and angels can be bad. It’s amazing to look at it, especially in comparison to our world today.”
She continued about the differences between Valentine and the Clave, and the difficult reality of Shadowhunter society: “The whole ‘cleansing the Shadow World’ is not what should be done, but the Clave is not good. But the people in the Clave are not necessarily – don’t have malintent.”
“They’re soldiers,” agreed Matt.
Check out our roundtable interview below:
Interviewer for BSS: Sara G.
