This post is about what I chose to take from Cassandra Clare's recent essay-long response to a fan's question on Tumblr, which I will post in a read more cut later so as not to take up too much space here.
Basically, what I took from this is that Will and Tessa are endgame (I just can't get enough of this tumblrspeak). Why else would she have spent this much time defending Tessa's reaction to Will's "news"? She's obviously telling us that Tessa is DRAGGING OUT her declaration of love for Will. Not that it won't happen. And questions like the one this person asked are probably the reason she thinks we'll be surprised at the ending, because people seem to think that Will and Tessa are hopeless now. But, SURPRISE! They're not. And I believe this is why she purposely did not acknowledge the whole "99.9% chance that Will x Tessa is doomed and was from the beginning," because if she was planning on having Tessa end up with anyone but Will, she would have led us on and said "well, I wouldn't say they're doomed," or something along those lines. But she said nothing because she knew that would scare us. That would make us believe the asker is right and they really are doomed. It's all simple reverse psychology, really.
So, pretty much this whole post was her telling us that in Clockwork Princess, Tessa is going to have time to process her feelings for Will. "I wish he were the kind of person I could love... Oh look, he DOES have a heart! I CAN love him! Actually I'm pretty sure I have loved him all along!" And then something will be able to happen to get her out of marrying Jem without disrespecting him or damaging her honor. Because if these things don't happen, what is the point of the love triangle? What is even the point of the third book? I mean, I realize there is more plot to the books than the love triangle, but honestly that's hardly even 30% of what any of us cares about.
What I'm saying is, I see no reason why she would let the readers see so early on that Will is, like, the most selfless and decent person in the whole series (and also funny, so funny), if she wasn't going to have Tessa realize it too. She wouldn't make us root for Will and then not give him the happy ending he wants.
“I understand why Jem proposed to Tessa, and none of his behavior shocked me. What shocked me was TESSA’S behavior. I understand that in her eyes, Will fucked up, big time. But when he finally explains his reasoning and tells her about the curse, etc., I really thought she would at least be honest and tell him she loves him too. I know there is a 99.9% chance that Will x Tessa is doomed and was from the beginning, but they are my all-time favorite ship (I blame you for writing so well) and I am worried beyond belief at what will happen to HIM.”
Well, there are two things to consider here, and here’s the first: before you can say “Tessa should be honest and tell Will she loves him” you have to objectively consider whether that’s actually true at all. Can, and does, Tessa love Will? If she does love him, is she in love with him—romantically, able to trust him with her heart and hand? If she does love him, does she know it, can she be sure of it (given she’s had all of five minutes to assimilate the idea that he loves her)? Tessa knows that she cares for Will—she knows that there is a strong sympathy between them, she believed she was coming to love him in Clockwork Angel, but then Will deliberately ripped apart the trust that made that feeling possible. Her repeated mantra throughout Clockwork Prince is “I wish he was the sort of person I could love.” And now he is revealing that he is — but she has no time to get used to that idea or to consider what that means in terms of whether she returns his love in the way he would want, especially since she knows she now loves Jem. (Yes. Loves Jem. She does not feel sorry for him, or motherly towards him. She loves him.)
Will has, all this time, been resolved to hide his secret soul at all costs. The reader sees him bowing his head at the gates before a ghost, desperate and destroyed by love for Tessa, the reader sees him vulnerable in front of Magnus talking about how much he cares for Tessa and Jem. Tessa is not the reader: Tessa has only just been allowed in, finally, to see Will’s secret soul. As I noted before, when Will tells Tessa he loves her, he doesn’t ask her to marry him: he knows she would never agree! Agreeing to marry someone in the Victorian era is no small potatoes: it says you trust them not to hurt you, to ‘shelter you from the very winds from heaven.’ In that time a man had enormous power over the woman he married: even more than now, by choosing a man to marry, a woman was putting her whole life in his hands. Tessa can’t be sure of Will in that way yet—she’s been burned before!—and she can’t yet be sure of her feelings for him. She feels the affinity between them, but she cannot trust it. She has to learn to know his heart, because he has always hidden it from her—from everyone—and foxy though mysterious bad boys are, real love can’t exist without knowledge.
And secondly there is the not small issue of Jem. Jem, Tessa does know fully, as he’s never hidden anything from her. He’s a true and honorable gentleman, and even though a large part of this series is about the discovery of love—learning what love really is, what true love endures—she can be sure she knows him and loves him, and that that’s real, in a way she can’t yet be sure of Will and her feeling for Will. She states with absolute certainty to Will that she loves Jem enough to marry him and make him happy. In fact, she gave her word to do so when she accepted his proposal. Your word was an important thing to give in these times: for instance, a gentleman who has offered to marry a lady literally could not back out (‘jilt’ her) without people regarding him as dishonorable; he could even be sued for ruining her life. A lady was under no less expectation. What you are asking is not for Tessa to be “honest”, but for Tessa to pad Will’s feelings at the expense of her own honor and both their pride.
Tessa is a faithful girl and true: she not only genuinely loves Jem, as she tells Will, but she has given him her word to love him and marry him. It would go very much against the spirit of that promise to say to Will ‘Oh gosh, I wish I’d known your feelings sooner, hot stuff, this changes everything!’ She is stunned and rocked to the core by Will’s news—so much she had to teach herself to believe about Will, in the light of the evidence of his behavior, no matter what her heart was telling her, is wrong—but Tessa remains honorable and steadfast in the love she does feel and has promised to honor. Tessa could not respect herself, or face Jem, if she told Will any such thing. She’s the girl who loved and wanted to save her brother, no matter what, and the girl who could still care for Will after he’d insulted her in a way that at the time would have been unforgivable. Will loves her because of who she is—he knows her secret soul—because of this. And he loves Jem, too: as Tessa knows: not only owes him his life, but loves him. Will would not ultimately be made happy by Tessa betraying Jem or betraying herself. When he says “You cannot love me” he means he knows she cannot love him and say so and retain her honor — honor matters to these people — and therefore she is trapped: whether she loves him or not, she can never say so. If Tessa were so totally bereft of honor and moral decency as to tell Will she loved him in this scene — thus burdening him with a piece of information neither of them can act on, making it even harder for him to go on pretending everything is all right while she marries Jem, making it harder for Will to ever move on if that’s what he decides to do, and placing them both in a hateful position where they’re keeping a shameful secret from Jem, who they both love — well, he’d probably stop loving her. (Aye, there’s the rub…)
Which leaves them all in a terribly tangled situation. Yet Will is now, at least and at last, able to show people he does have a heart. You’re worried for him, of course—I very much appreciate that!—and he is heartbroken, but the burden of the curse has been lifted from him. I’ll say no more, but we will see what that means for Will, and for Will and Tessa’s relationship—and for Will and Jem’s relationship—in Clockwork Princess.
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