Family
Valentine is the former husband of Jocelyn Fairchild, with whom he had two children (Clarissa Adele Morgenstern and Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern). Clarissa realizes that she is Valentine's daughter in the first book, City of Bones, but being raised by Jocelyn her whole life is void of Valentine's influence. His son however, is tutored by him and raised to be a very talented Shadowhunter and ruthless killer. He is later used as a spy for Valentine, taking on the name Sebastian Verlac. Valentine also takes on Jace Wayland as his adopted son. He trains Jace as well as Jonathan, making him as skilled a Shadowhunter as Johnathan.
Valentine also experimented on his children. Hoping to make a stronger and better Shadowhunter, he infuses Jonathan with demon blood while he is in Jocelyn's womb. However, a side effect of the blood was that it would "burn out his humanity as poison burns the life from blood." This gives him a son capable of incredible feats, but with little to no compassion or ability to love. The experimentation on Jonathan led to Jocelyn feeling sick and very depressed, so in hopes to make her feel better he gives her powdered Angel blood, not knowing that she was bearing a second child (Clarissa) at the time, making Clarissa infused with Angel blood in the same way that Jonathan was with Demon blood. With Jace, upon the failure of Jonathan to show any compassion, he gives Angel blood to Jace's mother (Celiné Herondale), hoping to create a stronger warrior, without the side effects Jonathan suffered from the use Demon blood. In the end, Valentine trains Jace, but is forced to leave him when he is 10 years old, making Valentine the only father Jace has ever known. It is also thought that out of the two boys, the angel and the demon, it is Jace that Valentine loved more, more than his own son.
Read more about this topic: List Of The Mortal Instruments Characters, Valentine Morgenstern
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.”
—John Paul II [Karol Wojtyla] (b. 1920)
“Being so wrong about her makes me wonder now how often I am utterly wrong about myself. And how wrong she might have been about her mother, how wrong he might have been about his father, how much of family life is a vast web of misunderstandings, a tinted and touched-up family portrait, an accurate representation of fact that leaves out only the essential truth.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“In former times and in less complex societies, children could find their way into the adult world by watching workers and perhaps giving them a hand; by lingering at the general store long enough to chat with, and overhear conversations of, adults...; by sharing and participating in the tasks of family and community that were necessary to survival. They were in, and of, the adult world while yet sensing themselves apart as children.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)