Sometimes Jessamines make their own decisions

This post is in response to this post, which brings up some very good points.

source

But the thing is, I still mostly hate Jessamine. As a character study in the vapid and boring, she's great. (I'm being serious. She is the way she is for a reason). As a real person, even, who makes mistakes and has faults and sometimes wants the wrong things, she's perfect. But as someone that I can bring myself to like? Not so much. And that's fine. I don't need to like a character for him or her to be a good character-- that's not how it works. So let me get this out of the way: I'm not going to argue that you should hate Jessamine, or that she's a villain (she's not), but I am going to argue that maybe we're supposed to love hating her.

Jessamine is everything that was wrong with how women were viewed in the 19th century. She's got this badass streak a mile wide, and yet she pushes it down and gets more miserable every time she has to use it, because she wants to be a meek little kitten. She wants to be like all the regular women she envies because they don't have to get their hands dirty. Now, you may argue that she wants this because of society's conditioning in that time; she believes women are meant to be passive creatures because that's what The Man has taught her. But if you argue that, you're wrong. Jessamine has spent a good portion of her life in the Institute, being trained to kill demons and the like. With a parasol. She's spent all of that time with Charlotte, who has the kind of power that women so rarely saw back then, and who still manages to be a woman. Being a Shadowhunter hasn't turned Charlotte into any less of a female, so it's not like Jessamine legitimately has that to fear.

Jessamine's fear is not being accepted. And she lets it hold her back. And she judges other girls (read: Tessa) constantly for not wanting the same things as her, for wanting more than the life that's been given to them. Jessamine, she wants less than the life she's been given. She wants simplicity and domesticity and to have a man around to affirm her femaleness. Is there anything wrong with Jessamine wanting different things? No, but there is something wrong with her attitude toward it. She belittles everyone who isn't her idea of the perfect human specimen. She betrays the people who have cared for her since her parents died, the people who affectionately call her Jessie (which, you'll notice, I refuse to do), because she has it in her head that doing so will get her what she wants.

Yes, she was tricked. But at the same time, she knew what she was doing. If we pretend that she had no part in her own demise, that she was an Innocent Pawn in a Game of Evil, we're treating her exactly the way she wanted to be treated. As a passive 1878 girl who simply didn't know any better. But that's the thing-- that has never been who Jessamine is, because if it were, she wouldn't spend so much time fighting against her own life. She may not have known that Nate was never interested in her, but she did know that he was planning on handing Tessa over to Mortmain. Tessa had never done anything to warrant that, but Jessamine chose Nate anyway because she saw something in it for herself. She's selfish, and that's a quality that just does not fly with me.

And then, when Jem and Tessa go to visit her in the Silent City, she teases them. She mocks Tessa for having feelings for both Jem and Will, and she teases Jem-- Jem! Tell me, what kind of person teases Jem?!?*-- for not being able to keep his hands off Tessa on the way there. As if she has any right to talk, Miss I-Betrayed-You-All-For-A-Nefarious-Psychopath.

So yes, I do think Jessamine is a victim, rather than a villain. But I'm not just talking about what Nate did to her. She's her own victim because she brought this on herself, too.

To sum up, there are reasons to like Jessamine:

1. She usually says what she's thinking-- especially if it's snarky. (her "perfectly reasonable fear of annoying idiots" quote is one of my favorites)

2. She's a fascinating character.

3. She's not a villain.

But my reasons for hating her are:

1. She wants to be the victim...

2. ...but that's not all she is.

3. She's selfish.

4. The things that come out of her mouth fill my feminist self with such disgust that I almost want her off the page completely.

5. I almost respect her too much to label her as "poor naive Jessamine."

*Other than Will, who is allowed.