Know, don't know, guess.

I apologize in advance for this. Because it's another rant about FREAKING SHADOWHUNTERS AND THEIR FREAKING FAMILY TREES.

Calming down. Calming down. Writing coherently. Trying to write coherently. Grasping onto whatever shred of coherence I have left. ALL THE FEELINGS I AM SO CONFUSED. How does this woman even know what's going on inside her own head?!

[Imagine this is a family tree. That is what it seems like.]

Things we know (using mainly last names that are relevant in the Infernal Devices):

-Jace is a Herondale. Stephen Herondale's son. Good. Okay.

-Clary is, technically, a Fairchild.

-Alec, Maryse and Isabelle are Lightwoods who look like Herondales. Actually, they are Truebloods who look like Herondales, but it's more amusing to think of them as Lightwoods who look like Herondales.

-Magnus knows something about parabatai where one died and the other one was destroyed by it.

-The main character in the Dark Artifices, Emma, is a Carstairs. I repeat: the main character in the Dark Artifices is a CARSTAIRS.

Things we don't know:

-How is Stephen Herondale related to Will Herondale?

-How is Jocelyn related to Charlotte? It's probably not even a big deal. It wouldn't be earth-shattering news if we found out that Charlotte and Henry are her great-great grandparents or something.

-How are the Truebloods related to the Herondales? In that vein, wouldn't it mean Alec and Jace are actually related by blood? In that vein, how?

-Is Magnus's parabatai story about Will and Jem, or does Cassie just want to freak us out?

-HOW IS EMMA RELATED TO JEM? Jem was an only child, as far as we know (but we also know the tendency of Shadowhunter siblings to pop out of the woodwork). Did he have a paternal uncle we don't know about? Why wouldn't we know about this uncle? Why wouldn't Jem have gone to live with him when his parents died, instead of going to the Institute? Also, the Carstairs-es(?) are not present in the Mortal Instruments, but the Herondales are. How did they get separated?

My theories:

-I don't even know how to begin to theorize about the Herondale family tree. Ideally, it turns out that Tessa can have children, so Jace & Stephen and/or Alec & co. are Will's descendants. But realistically, they would have to be descendants of a Herondale cousin (unless somehow Cecily could have passed down the Herondale name).

-I'm not really that concerned with forming theories about Clary & Charlotte.

-Again, ideally the Truebloods are related to the Herondales because a female descendant of Will/Tessa married a male Trueblood, and thus the Trueblood name was passed down until Maryse became a Lightwood.

-Preferably, Magnus's parabatai story is not about Will and Jem. Preferably neither of them dies, and Magnus once knew some *other* parabatai who were "so close they were almost the same person" (my logical side is telling me this can't be Will & Jem because they are not almost the same person. Will says they are "one" or whatever, but they are two very distinct people. Yeah, I'm listening to my logical side. *nods vigorously*)

-I've already stated my Carstairs theory, which really only brought more questions. The cycle continues.

Oh and one more thing: WHERE THE HECK DOES TESSA FIT INTO ALL THIS? Is she a warlock? Does the fact that she doesn't have the warlock mark mean she can have kids? Does she have kids?!

My only solace in this whole mess is coming from the fact that Cassie said she'd do a family tree after both TID and TMI are done. I'm probably going to need it, even when I've read all the books and know the answers to all the questions I care about.