Maryse Lightwood

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Maryse Lightwood is a Shadowhunter and the former head of the New York Institute who was exiled from Idris as punishment for her involvement with the Circle in the early 1990s. She is the ex-wife of Inquisitor Robert Lightwood, and the mother of Alec, Isabelle, and Max, and the adoptive mother of Jace.
She resides at the New York Institute along with her children and grandchildren.
== Biography ==
=== Early Life ===
Maryse Trueblood was born in Idris to the Truebloods Adam and Marisa on October 30, 1968. She was raised in Idris alongside her older brother, Max. At some point during her life, her brother left the Clave, choosing to leave his Shadowhunter life and live as a mundane to marry one; this decision made Maryse an outcast among her peers.
When Maryse was young, her parents used to take her brother with them to hunt demons and leave her alone at home, saying she’d be frightened if she went with them. Maryse, however, tried to tell them she was more frightened worrying they’d never come back.
As a child, Maryse was unusually short. Because of this, she became more determined to train with a large variety of weapons but found herself unable to use the broadsword. She had a massive growth spurt in her early teens, after which she was able to finally use broadswords, and it became her favorite weapon.
Maryse was taught how to cook when she was young because most women were not trained as warriors before her generation. When she was old enough, she was sent to the Shadowhunter Academy. Sometime while she was there, she met and befriended Valentine Morgenstern. He recruited her to his group of misfits, which later became known as the Circle. Around this time, she met Robert Lightwood, whom she began dating and eventually married after they left the Academy. The couple continued their work in the Circle and were even known for being nearly as bad as Valentine himself when it came to discriminating against Downworlders.
She and her husband attended Valentine and Jocelyn Fairchild's wedding. A short while after, Maryse became pregnant with her first son, Alec.
In 1989, Maryse joined the rest of the Circle on a trip to New York as part of their revolution campaign. During the encounter, the Circle massacred the Whitelaw inhabitants of the Institute, all of whom were defending the local Downworlders.
When Jocelyn, Luke, and others left the group, Maryse and Robert were among those who remained loyal to Valentine. Valentine's charm kept her—and most of the other members—clinging to his words, especially since Valentine had claimed to trust her the most out of the whole Circle—something he had told almost every other Circle member.
In the early 1990s, the Circle staged an Uprising during the signing of the Ninth Accords. The members armed themselves with demonic weapons and marched into the Accords Hall, intending to disrupt the signing to send their message against Downworlders. Jocelyn and Luke arrived with reinforcements to fight back, however, and the Circle became outmatched, though many had already been killed. Thinking of her son who needed her, Maryse surrendered.
Afterward, the remaining Circle members—those who failed to escape and survived—were tried with the Mortal Sword. Because of the fact that they had a son, and due in part to their connections with influential Shadowhunter families, she and Robert were given lenient sentences: the Lightwoods, including their innocent infant son, Alec, were exiled to New York, where they were to run the Institute as 'punishment', though it was a job that they grew to love over time. Meanwhile, their fellow Circle member Hodge Starkweather was banished along with them; unlike them, however, Hodge was literally confined to the Institute grounds.
Robert and Maryse' relationship, already built on a weak foundation, became even more strained as Robert, who was never as interested in the Circle as Maryse, partially blamed her for their banishment. Had she not become pregnant with their second child, a daughter they named Isabelle, Robert would have apparently left her then. Around eight years after they had first been exiled, Robert had an affair with Annamarie Highsmith and planned to leave Maryse for her. However, Maryse became pregnant with their second son, so Robert stayed. Maryse then named the boy Max, after her brother, despite their estrangement.
A year after Max's birth, Maryse was sent a ward in the form of Jonathan Wayland; the ten-year-old boy was then believed to be the son of their old friend Michael Wayland, who was thought to have been murdered recently. Charged with his upbringing, Maryse grew to love Jonathan, caring for him as if he was her own and giving him the nickname "Jace," which he grew to prefer over his real name.
=== Return to New York ===
For the signing of the Tenth Accords, Maryse and Robert went to Alicante, bringing along their youngest son Max, as representatives to participate at the signing.  When they returned, her children had already met Jocelyn and Valentine's daughter, Clary, and it had been discovered that Valentine was alive and that Jace was his son. Because of this newfound knowledge, Maryse tried to distance herself from Jace. She even suggested that it would be best if Jace left the Institute—though the reason for this was because she secretly wanted to save him from the wrath of Inquisitor Imogen Herondale.
When Valentine refused Imogen's trade for Jace, in exchange for two of the Mortal Instruments in his possession, Maryse snapped her out of her astonishment so they could mobilize and rescue Jace from Valentine's ship. Because of the short notice, they could not get reinforcements from the Clave and stormed the ship despite their numbers.
Shortly after the battle against demons on the ship, when they returned to the Institute, Jace began packing, having decided to leave the Institute. Maryse convinced him to stay by explaining to him the reasons behind the things she'd told him. She begged him to stay, if not for her then for her children who loved Jace dearly. Nothing she said convinced him until she sung the French ballad she used to sing to Isabelle and Alec when they were children and told him that she also used to sing it to him secretly. Jace was moved enough to wordlessly agree to stay.
=== Mortal War ===
The Lightwoods prepared to leave for Idris to attend a major Council meeting. When Clary argued with Jace about going to Idris with them, Maryse spoke out against Jace and reprimanded his beliefs about Valentine's next actions.
While Maryse, Robert, and the other adult Shadowhunters were at the Council meeting, a boy they knew as Sebastian Verlac climbed up the demon towers and used his blood to disable the wards.
After the battle, Maryse, the Lightwoods, and Jace mourned over the loss of Max Lightwood, who was killed by Sebastian, whom they learned was Jonathan Morgenstern, during Valentine's attack.
=== Sebastian's Resurrection ===
A couple of months after the events of the Mortal War, dead Shadowhunters started to appear. To find who was behind it, Maryse brought Clary and Luke to the morgue, where Clary used a recently-discovered necromancy rune to reanimate a murdered Shadowhunter for questioning. Horrified by the negative effects of the rune on the dead Shadowhunter, Luke chastised Maryse, but she argued that he had no right to tell her how to run her Institute.
When Sebastian returned to life, he used the Mark that Lilith had put on Jace to manipulate him, and disappeared with him. Maryse managed to track Jace, who had been marked by a special Rune that was commonly used by Valentine to track members of the Clave. She was shown to be relieved that he was alive.
In order to rescue Jace and stop Sebastian, Maryse fought in the battle against the Dark Shadowhunters at the Seventh Sacred Site. She killed Jeremy Pontmercy, who was confronting Jocelyn, which showed the fraught relationship between the two women. Soon afterward, Maryse called in Brother Enoch and Brother Zachariah to show them a message from Sebastian Morgenstern: a pair of sawn-off angel wings, dripping in golden ichor, with a note that read "Erchomai," Greek for "I am coming," and signed with his full name.
=== The Dark War ===
Maryse called her children, Clary, Jocelyn, Luke and the rest of the New York Conclave to the Institute for a meeting. Maryse told them about Sebastian's recent attacks on Institutes for the past two weeks and about the latest attack on the Los Angeles Institute. Maryse explained that the Blackthorn children and Emma Carstairs, with the exception of the eldest brother Mark, went missing and that Helen was with Aline in Idris. Maryse told her children to pack up their things as all the Institutes were being evacuated and all Shadowhunters had to return to Idris to discuss Sebastian and his Endarkened army.
They went to Idris through a Portal which was opened by the warlock Catarina Loss, substituting Magnus. Maryse and her children had their house in Alicante due to Robert being the new Inquisitor. Maryse and Robert and their children and the other Shadowhunters attended the Council meeting, mourning the Shadowhunters who were Turned or were killed when Jia and Robert interrogated Julian Blackthorn and Emma about the events that happened at the Los Angeles Institute. The Clave also interrogated Julian's siblings; Tiberius, Livia, and Drusilla, with the exception of the youngest, Octavian.
Maryse and Alec witnessed when Isabelle confronted Robert about the knowledge of his affair with Annamarie Highsmith. Maryse and Robert ran over to Alec, worried about him, as he collapsed onto his knees due to Jace being hurt during the battle at the Adamant Citadel. Maryse attended the funeral for the Shadowhunters who died during the Citadel battle, among other Nephilim.
Maryse, Robert, Alec, Isabelle, Clary, Simon Lewis, Kadir, Aline, the Blackthorns, Emma and the other Shadowhunters attended the Council meeting as Jia told them about the Downworld representatives' and Jocelyn's kidnapping by Sebastian. Matthias Gonzales, the former Head of the Buenos Aires Institute and Endarkened, threatened Jia's life and told the Clave to surrender both Clary and Jace up to Sebastian. Alec, Maryse' son, saved Jia's life from Matthias. Maryse participated, along with Robert, Jia, Aline, Helen, and the Silent Brothers Enoch and Zachariah in the discussion of whether or not to deliver Clary and Jace up to Sebastian.
Maryse and Robert were furious and frantic when Alec, Jace, and Isabelle fled Alicante with Clary and Simon, unaware they went to the demon realm, Edom, to rescue the Downworld representatives and Jocelyn, which they told to Jia and Patrick. The four of them, along with Kadir, Diana Wrayburn, Tomas Rosales, Brothers Enoch and Zachariah, and other adult Shadowhunters had a meeting about the Fair Folk's betrayal and asked for aid from the warlocks of the Spiral Labyrinth against Sebastian and the Fair Folk.
Maryse, Robert, and the other adult Shadowhunters participated in the battle against Sebastian's Endarkened, and the faerie warriors. Maryse and Robert were happy and grateful when Alec, Jace, and Isabelle returned unharmed from the demon realms.
At the Council meeting after the Dark War, the Clave had the Fair Folk sign a set of sanctions for their betrayal which they begrudgingly accepted. Helen and Mark Blackthorn, because of their faerie blood, also got caught up into the Clave's punishment of the Fair Folk. Helen got banished to Wrangel Island to study the wards which devastated her and her girlfriend, Aline, while her brother Mark was refused rescue and left with the Wild Hunt indefinitely, despite his family's objections.
Maryse and her children returned to the New York Institute while her husband, Robert, stayed in Alicante.
Maryse, Robert, and their children along with their Shadowhunter and Downworlder friends attended Jocelyn and Luke's wedding at Luke's Farm. Maryse and Robert ended their marriage. However, they still cared about and loved one another. Maryse was seen talking to Jocelyn during the wedding reception.
=== Grandkids ===
A few years later, Alec and Magnus adopted Max, and later, Rafael. Maryse went on to have two more biological grandchildren, along with Jace and Clary's kids. She adores all of them.
== Personality ==
Maryse is a passionate and proud Shadowhunter. Though she was once a member of the Circle that targeted Downworlders, she has since grown to care for the lives and rights of Downworlders and views them as valuable allies. She cares deeply for her children.
== Physical Appearance ==
Maryse has blue eyes and black hair. She strongly resembles her daughter, Isabelle - a taller bonier version, while Alec is said to have inherited her eyes and structure—her thin, wiry build.
Category:Shadowhunters