Jocelyn Fray

Other versions
* Book Jocelyn
* Film Jocelyn

**SPOILER WARNING: Plot details follow. *Caution is advised!***

## Jocelyn Fairchild

**Jocelyn Fairchild** was the bold and protective mother of Clary Fairchild and the estranged wife of Valentine Morgenstern. According to her friend Hodge Starkweather, she was one of the best Shadowhunters to have ever lived.

## Biography

### The Circle

A member of the Circle during its formative years, Jocelyn was married to its leader Valentine Morgenstern and was best of friends with fellow Shadowhunter and Valentine's *parabatai*, Luke Garroway. She was also apparently quite close to Hodge Starkweather.

Jocelyn stayed by her husband, believing that the Circle was working towards a noble goal. She eventually came to see that Valentine's goals had become increasingly extremist, and that he and his comrades constantly broke the Accords in brutal acts against Downworlders. One of the first times Jocelyn realized that Valentine was too far gone was when she saw him after he'd just massacred a group of warlocks. She tried to make sense of his actions at first, even considering asking her father to help him, but Valentine simply justified his choices by saying the Accords were a fallacy.

During this time, Jocelyn and Luke both tried to control the situation and help Valentine, but both were vehemently ignored. Their efforts brought them closer, and the pair fell in love. Though neither acted on their feelings because of their love for Valentine, Luke still felt that part of the reason Valentine's personality took a drastic turn was because he noticed their bond and suspected that they were having an affair and that he began experimenting, injecting himself with Downworlder blood, to earn Jocelyn's heart back.

In time, she and Valentine had a son, whom they named Jonathan Christopher. Unbeknownst to her, Valentine began giving their unborn sons injections of demon blood through her womb. Jocelyn quickly saw the effects in her son even as an infant.

After the Uprising, Jocelyn finally acted against Valentine and took the stolen Mortal Cup while Luke confronted him. She disappeared without a trace for a long while that even Luke thought she'd been killed. Valentine even went as far as burning down the Fairchild manor and leading her to believe that their son was dead. She took what remained of Jonathan's baby things and kept it in a box that had his initials, J.C., on it.

### New York

While on the run, she eventually gave birth to another child she'd conceived with Valentine before their falling out—a daughter, whom she named Clarissa—and she changed their last names to Fray. In doing so, she turned her back on the life of Shadowhunting to raise her daughter away from the dangers of their world. She and Luke were eventually reunited, and the pair remained friends and parts of each other's lives.

For eighteen years, Jocelyn was able to evade capture by the Circle. Still in hiding but finally settling down in New York, Jocelyn opened a store, Greenpoint Antiquities, and hired the warlock Dot as her assistant. As Clary grew older, Jocelyn realized that hiding her past from Clary may not be so easy with her seeing the Shadow World for what it was. After an incident with a water demon, she took the young Clary to the High Warlock of Brooklyn, Magnus Bane, and had him remove all memories of the Shadow World. She has since kept the secret from her, much to the disapproval of Magnus and Luke. She also concealed the identity of Clary's father, telling her that it was a man named Jonathan Clark.

### Kidnapped

On Clary's 18th birthday, however, Jocelyn finally accepted that it would be more dangerous and unfair to Clary to keep hiding their past from her. She had planned to talk to her about it and got to give her a Fairchild stele before Clary left with her best friend, Simon, abruptly.

When Clary returned home from Magnus's club later that night, Jocelyn was distraught to hear that she encountered Shadowhunters and demons. Jocelyn tried to explain it to her, but Dot arrived to tell her that the Circle had finally caught up to her. Jocelyn then sent Clary through a Portal, to Luke at the station. Jocelyn confronted the Circle members and, before she could be taken, drank a potion that put her into an indefinite dream state.

Jocelyn was brought to Valentine's hideout in Chernobyl. Valentine took to watching over her in his spare time and talking to her, taking extreme offense if any Circle members spoke unfavorably about her. Meanwhile, Clary and Luke frantically worked to find and get her back.

Eventually, Valentine "let" Clary retrieve her mother's body, telling her that it had always been his intention to allow them to reunite and wake Jocelyn, and that they would eventually join him. She was awakened by Magnus with a spell from the Book of the White, and she was reunited with Clary and Luke.

### Loyalty

Upon waking, Jocelyn shared a brief happy reunion with Clary, Simon, and Luke, during which she learned that Simon had become a vampire, and that her son, Jonathan, was alive and had been taken by Valentine. After this, she immediately clashed with Clary and Alec, Jace's *parabatai*, about how to deal with Jace. She tried to kill Jace the first chance she got, believing Jace to be innately evil, angering the others further. It was only when Clary was also taken by Valentine that she helped the others track Jace, knowing it would lead them to Clary, as well. When her help endangered Alec's life, she repented and helped Jace escape from the werewolves hunting him.

After some time, the Council decided that Jocelyn's loyalty was still in question, particularly due to her involvement with Valentine and the disappearance of the Mortal Cup. They reassigned her to Idris and, tired of running, Jocelyn simply agreed. She invited Clary to go with her, and though she considered it, she eventually turned her down. On the other hand, Luke insisted on going with her, and the pair shared a kiss.

Before she could leave, a new demon created by Valentine infiltrated the Institute and began possessing other Shadowhunters to kill their own. When the demon-possessed Alec, it fed on the feelings of anger he still harbored for Jocelyn's recent decisions and made Jocelyn his target. The possessed Alec killed her, and she was later found by Clary. Unable to get over her death, Clary tried to resort to Iris Rouse's dark magic to bring her back but backed out before she could be resurrected. A funeral was held for her and the others who died on the day of the attack on the Institute and the City of Bones.

### Messenger

Over a year since her death, Jocelyn reappared as a spirit and was sent by Raziel to deliver a message to Clary. Even though Clary's abilities to "create" new runes had been useful in numerous life-or-death situations, Raziel perceived her abilities as actions against the balance of nature. Jocelyn warned Clary that if she created another rune, Raziel would strip her of all of her gifts, runes and memories of the Shadow World. Having fulfilled her part, Jocelyn's spirit returned to Heaven, leaving a devastated Clary in her room. Despite her mother's warnings, Clary would ultimately create a rune to kill her brother Jonathan to save the world from his rage, causing Raziel to slowly de-rune her and take her powers and memories of the Shadow World away. After Alec and Magnus' wedding, Clary was seemingly rendered a mundane human. However, a year later, Clary was capable of seeing and recognizing Jace despite his glamour, suggesting Raziel had forgiven her actions and was restoring her abilities and memories.

## Personality

Seen as beautiful, warm, and protective, Jocelyn was a woman who would do anything to protect those she loves. She loved her daughter Clary "more than words" and treated her mundane best friend Simon as if he were her own son. In her younger years, she had a considerable influence on other Shadowhunters and encouraged them to join the Circle before realizing just how corrupt Valentine had become.

As a Shadowhunter, she was one of the finest of her generation—highly-skilled and idealistic, believing in and striving for peace. While she was with Valentine, however, she was a little naïve to his true nature at first before she finally saw his dark side.

## Physical appearance

Jocelyn had dark red hair. Along with various other runes, she also had a permanent round rune on her neck that symbolized her membership with the Circle. During her time away from the Shadowhunter world, Jocelyn had her runes hidden with glamour.

## Skills and abilities

* **Nephilim physiology**: Being Nephilim, Jocelyn possessed a variety of enhanced physical and mental abilities granted to her by the angel blood of Raziel in her veins and also by the angelic Marks of the Gray Book. This included enhanced strength, speed, agility, stamina, and coordination.
	+ **The Sight**: As a Shadowhunter, Jocelyn was naturally and easily able to see through most magical illusions and layers of glamour over reality.
	+ **Runic magic**: Due to the angel blood in their veins, all Shadowhunters are able to apply runes on their skin without any real danger. These Marks, in turn, give varied effects that serve to benefit the wearer.
	+ **Use of heavenly weapons**: As a Shadowhunter, Jocelyn was also able to perform tasks unique to their species, such as the ability to use and call on the power of angels for their seraph blades, as well as to handle any heavenly weapons or objects with effect, which would normally not work for other species. In particular, these are tools made of *adamas* and forged by Iron Sisters.
* **Teleportation:** As a spirit, Jocelyn has the power to instantly herself in between Heaven and Earth. Raziel sent her to earth to lecture her daughter, and then she teleported back to Heaven.
* **Swordsmanship:** Jocelyn was highly-skilled in swordsmanship. Jocelyn was considered by some to be among the best Shadowhunters of her time. Even after years of no longer fighting, she was still quite graceful and lethal.
* **Unique Shadowhunter ability**: According to Luke, some Shadowhunters have unusual angelic powers and may be passed down. In Jocelyn's case, she and Clary had the shared ability to press physical objects into paper, transforming them into drawings or paintings, and were conversely the only ones able to "reach into" the pictures to extract the hidden object.
* **Art**: Jocelyn was a particularly skilled and talented artist.

## Possessions

* **Stele**: A tool used to draw runes onto the skin of Shadowhunters, Jocelyn utilized a stele to draw Marks for varied effects. Jocelyn had a custom stele that had been passed down through generations of Fairchilds, which she eventually passed onto Clary.
* **Seraph blades**: A standard Shadowhunter weapon that Jocelyn was able to wield proficiently; despite her isolation from the Shadowhunter, Jocelyn kept a seraph blade.

## Trivia

* She was portrayed by Maxim Roy in a recurring role. Susanna Fournier portrayed a younger version of the character in the first season.
* The showrunners and writers recognize that Jocelyn is alive in the books. When they came up with the idea of killing her off, they called the author Cassandra Clare "because [they] knew [they] were messing with canon in a deep way." According to Todd Slavkin, she'd approved of the twist, agreeing with the writers' view that it would be a powerful factor and adversity needed to realistically push Clary into her hero's journey.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1x02: *The Descent Into Hell Isn't Easy*
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 1x06: *Of Men and Angels*
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 2x01: *This Guilty Blood*
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 2x02: *A Door Into the Dark*
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 1x01: *The Mortal Cup*
6. ↑ 1x05: *Moo Shu to Go*
7. ↑ 1x11: *Blood Calls To Blood*
8. ↑ 1x13: *Morning Star*
9. ↑ 2x03: *Parabatai Lost*
10. ↑ 2x04: *Day of Wrath*
11. ↑ 2x05: *Dust and Shadows*
12. ↑ 3x22 All Good Things
13. ↑ 1x04: *Raising Hell*
14. ↑ Shadowhunters EP Defends [Spoiler]'s Surprise Death | TVLine