Clockwork Prince
discussion
That is not Jem on the cover
Since no one ever answered this I have to ask again: How is that hair silver-coin coloured? These few highlights look rather like relfected light and the rest is all black.Plus what exactly are the "part Asian features?" I see none that you wouldn't get with full European ancestry.
In addition, this guy looks pretty bulky and in good health.
Plus the contact lenses (if this is indeed that Forrest Hoffmann guy) look rather blue than silver on the cover.
Plus his rosy skin, makes me think Clare chose a Will-look alike as the model (remember she claimed to have chosen the model and approved of the cover).
Wow. People are getting really emotional over this. It's just a cover. You should see the Russian cover for one of Richelle Meads Bloodlines books. They really made Sydney look like Rose. But in the end it's just a cover designed to draw people to a book on a shelf. Maybe in Russia they prefer girls in leather to buttoned shirts & slacks (don't blame them) and maybe the publishers thought this guy would draw readers to Clockwork Prince. He is a good looking guy. Sure, they could've picked a good looking guy that looks more like the description of Jem but they made a judgement call. How do people feel about how Jem is illustrated in the Manga books?
That is not an answer. That is evading the question. Don't try to change the subject.Plus, apparently you didn't read what I wrote. It was not the publishers chosing the model, that was Clare.
Answer the question!
You are emotional aren't you? Someone else can answer. I'm not invested enough to carry on with this.
Quite the contrary, I am annoyed by people constantly claiming the same you did and whenever challenge they never provide any jsutification for their claims. And when challenged they start laughing, get insulted, start insulting, evade the answer etc. etc.And if you are not invested enough to carry on with this then do not post in the first place since its pretty obvious what sort of thread this is here.
Plus: Learn some respect, it will suit you well in the future.
Andre wrote: "Quite the contrary, I am annoyed by people constantly claiming the same you did and whenever challenge they never provide any jsutification for their claims. And when challenged they start laughing..."I said I was not invested *enough*, not that I wasn't invested at all.
As for learning respect. I'll keep that in mind. In the spirit of giving advice, you could learn to calm down a bit. I'm sorry I didn't give the post you wanted, I was just contributing my view point like everyone else here.
well im honestly when i bought this book i immediately knew it was jem..yeah yeah i know hes not what most of us pictured but....well i actually dont know what to say...
Dawyn.S.Hunter wrote: "well im honestly when i bought this book i immediately knew it was jem..yeah yeah i know hes not what most of us pictured but....well i actually dont know what to say..."Same here :)
Ash wrote: "the guy on the cover looks like an old magnus if you ask me"That is new and while I think he looks nothingh like Magnus, with his black hair and good health I think all he needed was a tan and cat eye contact lenses to show Magnus, it would at least be more fitting than having Godfrey Gao on the cover of the Chronicles, since this model obviously has European ancestry while Gao has none, he probably doesn't even have Malay ancestry.
Dawyn.S.Hunter wrote: "well im honestly when i bought this book i immediately knew it was jem..yeah yeah i know hes not what most of us pictured but....well i actually dont know what to say..."
Ok, that is honest, but still there remins the unanswered question why you (and Aimee and Dawyn and all the others) thought that was Jem. No one here could ever present an answer that actually explains that. Some said because of the cane, so what Jem is definied by clothes and tools?
Some because Clare said so, so what, her word is law? Other asked who else it is supposed to be. What sort of answer is that? Plus it could just as well be his father or Will holding the cane.
@Ash: It's Xavier Callicott with double "t" and yeah I see what you mean, the face is a tad more angular around the jaw than described for Jem, but the rest, especially the frame fits Jem very well. Allegedly the guy they took is called Forest Hoffmann: http://biblioceraptor.tumblr.com/post...
And I know many will say "he looks Asian" but I have to say it: the guy looks so European that I wonder whether he really has any traits pointing towards recent East Asian ancestry or whether he is simply looking like an unusual European. What is clear is that apart from the eyes and hair he fits Will's description very much (hair, nose, cheekbones, lips, msucular), especially with his buff body. But in either casem, because the cover model fits Will so much and Jem barely (and even that is a stretch in my mind), plus the prevalance of people looking like Jace or Will in her stories I came to the conclusion that consciously or unconsciously Clare chose a model (that is what she claimed after all) that looks like Will instead of Jem.
@Aimee
I am very calm when writing this. If I wouldn't I would have gone crazy a long time ago with all the people insulting left an right on this thread.
Also you can state your opinion, you are free to do so, but still, what would you call it when you ask someone a question and the person responds with a statement that has next to nothing to do with what you asked? Would you call that respectful? Would you say that you got an answer to your question?
And considered how often things like that happen when the topic is brought up I have long since become suspicious of it all. Why not outright say what the reason is? Why the evasions, why the new questions, why the insults, why the "answers" that never hold up to scrutiny if its allegedly so obviously Jem?
Would you not think something is fishy there?
well..here goes..i know it doent look like him.and all but...in the book as it said he was half asian ..i assumed looking at the cover that this was meant to be jem.....plus since the first cover was will..i didn't think would be him or a new character as no one was said to be like this "asian" person on the front cover....well, theres my answer
Well it does seem to fall into the "who else is it supposed to be category" to me, but I can respect your opinion. So I think we can agree that Clare should have done a much better job.And just out of curiosity, what would you have said if it would have been any of these guys:
http://www.teenidols4you.com/blink/Ac...
http://skatespy.com/wp-content/upload...
http://philnews.ph/wp-content/uploads...
http://www.wn.de/var/storage/images/w...
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LI14zyjbXTk...
Andre wrote: "Well it does seem to fall into the "who else is it supposed to be category" to me, but I can respect your opinion. So I think we can agree that Clare should have done a much better job.And just o..."
are you asking my opinion on if they would suit jem as the book cover ???
@Dawyn:Yes, I wanted to know your opinion.
@Ash:
Yep, that was a pretty straightforward and clear answer. I can respect that. Thanks for taking the time.
I know its supposed to be Jem on the cover of course, but considered how little this guy actually resembles Jem and how easy it was for only us two to find models that would have fitted much better, I do suspect the desire to see Will again was influencing Clare's choice of the model and so I think she should not be given the credit she got for that cover, especially not since Jem has so many traits that are usually associated with stereotypical depictions of Chinese people (physically weak, intelligent [but never truly the hero], delicate, unlikely love interest, unlikely beauty, exotic or inhuman looking [he was once even stated to be looking like a vampire and another time like a ghost], always calm, speaking mandarin [although shanghainese would make more sense] even if there is no reason to, musically gifted, always supportive).
And if that model was clearly looking like Jem, no one would have ever mistaken him for Will not even for a milisecond, since Jem has such a distinct look.
Plus Will's type is pretty prevelant in her books, just like Jace's. We not only have Will, Jace, Alec and Sebastian, but also Gideon and Gabriel Lightwood, Woolsey Scott, all described as good looking, in Will and Jace's case so often even diehard fans roll their eyes and groan at it. And in the Bane Chronicles its pretty much the same. Every guy Magnus has a relationship with or fancies, and who gets a description, looks either like a version of Jace or Will: Axel von Fersen, Edmund Herondale, James Herondale (I think Magnus fancies Will as well, and for a guy not into Jace he has some weird descriptions), that blond werewolf from New York City, and his ex from the latest Chronicles story. He also described Stephen Herondale in a tad too .... smitten way.
So I have big trouble believing that the similarity between the cover model and Will is a coincidence.
And as for Hoffmann's eyes... you do see similar looking eyes among Northern and Eastern Europeans from time to time, just like among Central Europeans. Trust me I saw Europeans with a full blown epicanthic folds a few times by now.
honestly i dont know i mean i showed my sis and she liked, i think it was marcel?? because he was hot...but..yeah i dont know.sorry..
You know, before Jem was sick, he had black hair and dark eyes. Maybe he they chose the healthy Jem for the cover.
Dawyn.S.Hunter wrote: "honestly i dont know i mean i showed my sis and she liked, i think it was marcel?? because he was hot...but..yeah i dont know.sorry.."No problem. And be lucky you only saw the face, the guy is an Olympic gymnast and his body is a testament to that.
Sanne wrote: "You know, before Jem was sick, he had black hair and dark eyes. Maybe he they chose the healthy Jem for the cover."
You are not the first one saying that, and each time the problem is that when Jem was healthy he was 11 years old, does this guy look 11 to anyone?
And lets say they did it, why chose a healthy version of Jem?
I think it is more like an idea, to envision our own selected character on each TID cover. Will on CA, Jem on CP1 and Tessa on CP2. It is not necessarily true, but sometimes, when readers love a book or the writer too much, they do not bother whether the 'truth' provided by the writer is the real truth or simply to prevent any further arguments.
Nurlely wrote: "I think it is more like an idea, to envision our own selected character on each TID cover. Will on CA, Jem on CP1 and Tessa on CP2. It is not necessarily true, but sometimes, when readers love a bo..."Then the question is: Whose vision was this cover?
Darknessnugget wrote: "I didn't think that was Jem at first. But after a while it became obvious that that was supposed to be him. It's not bad, but I always pictured his hair as a bit more pale. Cool cover none the l..."
And there is another problem, the picture is highly photoshopped, so they would not have been able to change his hair? Fans on deviantart managed to do this.
Andre wrote: "Then the question is: Whose vision was this cover?"Ms Clare and her fanatic fans's vision.
And that is the problem in my eyes. She seems so focused on Will and Jem that she always seems to chose their types.
I think the covers for TMI 1 - 3 are very nice and TMI 4 - 6 covers look like adult romance novels while TID covers are just weird.
At least they show faces, I always wondered why the covers of TMI 1-3 never showed faces. I am not surprised why Jace was half-naked though. That is in the spirit of the books.
They show more than faces, which is rather 'meh'. TMI 1-3 gave me things to imagine more than those runes. Half-naked Jace? I have no complaints at all.... hahahaha.
Nurlely wrote: "They show more than faces, which is rather 'meh'. TMI 1-3 gave me things to imagine more than those runes."I think the problem is rather that now that they show faces its is completely obvious that the covers don't actually tell you anything about the people involved. I mean what does the CP1 cover actually tell you about the person depicted? Or any of the other? As long as the faces were hidden people thinking about the covers had to fill the void, but now all you get is pretty faces and nothing else.
And I don't think we would have ever seen Simon half-naked on the cover, or on any cover period, even though having him on the cover of CoG would have made much more sense than Sebastian.
Ash wrote: "True. True. The first three books were pretty anonymousy, and CA was the same... It's like Cass was tentative about it or something... Idk. And why is it that they always have this shirtless idea o..."I think after seeing the whole covers, I am glad that there are no faces for TMI 1-3. City of Lost Souls looks like a Harlequin novel and I had to cover my book during my reading. I agree with Simon thing. It is so bad that the mundane Simon is denied the cover because he is less attractive than Sebastian (not Alec) and has to surrender book 3 to him. Such a weird decision.
I don't think the guy on CoG is supposed to be Alec. At first I thought so as well until I noticed the sword and Alec's primary weapon is a bow. So I think the guy is supposed to be Sebastian.And I think Clare & Co regularly disregard people or treat them badly because of looks. Or can you name any ugly person that was ever on the side of the good guys in the books?
In addition its not attractive people that attract readers to books based on looks, they have plenty of such covers, but standing out and/or telling them something about the books. Which none of TMIs or TIDs covers actually do. They are like the names, they seem cool but upon closer inspection they have not much depth to them, of any.
OOppss... My mistake. It was Sebastian on City of Glass cover.
Btw... I am reading City of Heavenly Fire now. I wonder if Ms Clare is so obsessive over the reckless Jace she decided to go on with him being his old-self, despite of being killed and resurrected twice. Dang!
Too bad that I am so crazily in love with Jace I wanted to end the story by reading the last book.
Annoying part? As predicted before, Ms Clare is 'promoting' her next series in COHF by writing more Emma & Julian.
Ash wrote: "Though i understand that a better looking person on the cover would attract people more...(at least those who havent read it yet) and it is practical if you think about it in a business way.... "I don't actually need a handsome looking boy for fantasy novel's cover, especially when he does not do the character he is supposed to portray justice.
For an example, I like The Iron Knight's cover.
I heard about that. Doesn't the book start with Emma's viewpoint?Of course there is also the giant plotholes as to why Jem didn't live with his relatives instead of in London. I know the wikia says he did it because of his parabatai and all but what reason did Will have to stay in London? Not that these two were ever equals. The writing clearly shows that in Clare's mind Jem is subordinate to Will.
um...guys, that is obviously Jem on the cover. hes supposed to be Asian since hes from Shanghai. also, he has silver hair, even if its not bright. he is also pretty pale looking to me. he might not be drawn EXACTLY like hes described but its very clearly Jem.
Belle wrote: "um...guys, that is obviously Jem on the cover. hes supposed to be Asian since hes from Shanghai. also, he has silver hair, even if its not bright. he is also pretty pale looking to me. he might not..."Ok, I will hold back here (alot) and only ask these few questions:
1) Jem's skin was described as so pale that Camille stated he could be a vampire and his hair was described to be the color of an untarnished shilling, so the darkest would be light gray. Does this look light gray to you?
2) Being from Shanghai, especially in that time, does not make you "Asian". Shanghai had the Chinese central city and three areas called concessions for the imperial powers: French, American and British. So why is hes from Shanghai of any relevance?
3) Jem is not Asian he has a Chinese mother and a British father, both Shadowhunters of course, so he is half. Plus his first description in Clockwork Angel described a very European looking person. So what exactly makes him Asian?
4) In what way is he not drawn EXACTLY like hes described? What in your mind seperates him from the book description?
Yep.... it unfortunately didn't stop there. The Emma's part... :(Haven't got to that Will-Jem scenario.
I remember that Jem was sent to London because his uncle was supposed to live there. But when he didn't manage to do so, why did he stay behind? Because he was a drug addict and London provided him that? Was not there any amazing silent brother to cure him with a better method in Idris instead of letting him consumed drug in London?
That is the problem with the whole being in London scenario. It makes no sense, neither for Will nor Jem. If they had actually predicted that Jem would not live past the age of 15, why not sent him to Idris? Why into dirty and polluted London, why not the scerene landscape of Allicante?I haven't read about his uncle in the books yet. Is it mentioned in Clockwork Princess?
Plus the drug they could have easily provided him in Idris as well. Shadowhunters come from all over the place and meet there, why they don't use the tunnels of the Silent Brothers for travel eludes me, and so the chance would have been greater for someone to find a cure one way or another.
Will would have been cut off from his family there as well.
So in the end: they are in London because Clare thought it was cool and nothing else. At least I cannot think of any other pausible reason at the moment.
I think the story of Jem's uncle was not in the books, but from Clare's blogs (forgot which one exactly). Very convenient, isn't it? I suppose the London part was initially written because Ms Clare has been in England or is fond of England although she seemed to neglect the whole history lesson and just took Victorian era from the country simply because it was fascinating and convenient.
Extremely convenient. Would it have killed her to write that down? Sounds to me like someone pointed that out and she tried to fix it like she did with Magnus's varying ages. Well for my judgment of her works I go only by the books anyway, since in 30 years or so people will look at the books, if they do it at all, and not her blogs.She didn't just took the Victorian era, I think she basically only took the rich part of Victorian middle class. Since the stuff Jess and Tessa spew out fit that one. Working class woman could not affort that and aristocrats were supposed to do more than just sit around and be good housewives.
I didn't dedicate myself enough to read her blogs. For me, the story is what the book serves me, not what the blogs do. Someone told me once that my fact was not correct, since there was an additional info in the blogs. Gosh
An additional info in the blog... In 30 years people, if they do it at all, will read her books and not her blogs unless they search for it. Also in the blogs she might just as well try to cover up her mess, but this doesn't negate the mess she produced before.The books tell uss what she first decided to publish, not the blogs. Plus if the books don't show what she wanted in her head then she should have invested more effort, plain and simple.
Okay guys you seriously need to calm down. Its Jem on the cover and that's that. I dont get what your problem is. Why cant you just enjoy the books? You have to focus on the fact that the picture on the book doesnt look like Jem when in fact it does instead of just reading and enjoying the book. Jeezz.1) due to his illness, Jem walks with the aid of a jade-topped cane which also camouflages as a weapon - a sword.
Which is clearly shown on the cover
2) he is thin and fragile looking, but has graceful, odd bright silver hair and bright silver eyes. Unless you're color blind or just blind in general- his hair is gray
3) the color is drained from his hair, skin and eyes by the demon drug
4) he has fine boned, Asian features due to the fact that he had a Chinese mother and a British father. His Chinese name is Ke Jian Ming and he was born in Shanghai, and sent to the London Institute at age 12 after the murder of his parents
Yes his hair does look light gray to me, and im not gonna sit here and define the color that light gray is. And he had a chinese mother so unless you never learned abou genetics he is gonna have partly asian genes and therefore asian features. China is located on the continent of Asia. Not all Asians are Chinese. But all Chinese are Asian. It's an ethnic group and nationality, sharing a language (though many different dialects), and culture. So yes the fact that he is chinese DOES make him asian.
thank you...
Belle wrote: "...2) he is thin and fragile looking, but has graceful, odd bright silver hair and bright silver eyes. Unless you're color blind or just blind in general- his hair is gray..."Wow... is this how you are going to do it?
Let's see how color blind or blind in general other readers are... compared to you.
The picture was displaying a night scene with bits of light here and there. The white is most likely the light reflected by the hair. If the hair is silvery grey, a bit of light will make it shine and shows more of white hair instead of more black hair, as the cover shows.
Andre can answer this and the rest of your comments. I just interfere because I can not stand your self-righteousness in accusing ones who disagree with you.
okay umm you guys are the ones who hounded me for writing that it was Jem so dont be a hypocrite. and yeah, that is how im gonna do it. also wtf are you talking about? its freakin gray!!! dont talk about lighting or background when his hair is gray. it doesnt matter if its dark or light. its gray ok. and how was i being self righteous. you staed you opinion and i stated mine. if anybody is being self righteous then its you. like seriously your gonna focus on the fact that his hair is dark instead of light. its amazes me that your focusig on that instead of all of the other things indicating that its Jem. so if its not Jem then who is it?
Ruby wrote: "Okay, you guys all had some pretty fair points here. But, if his mom was Chinese that makes him somewhat Asian, right? ..."No, it does not. I am Asian. I am from Indonesia, the same country Magnus's mother came from (although Ms Clare did a horrible mistake in our history).
If an Indonesian woman marries a British man, their offsprings will be British and not Asian (or Indonesian), following their father's family line.
You can call them half Asian or Indonesian, but to call them Asian means that you are lacking in history lesson.
This is not about anyone saying bad things about the cover. It is indeed beautiful, but it does not mean it has to be Jem. It is not what Ms Clare claims about but what she writes in her books that tell us how the cover should not be James Carstairs.
Belle wrote: "okay umm you guys..."I think you need to advise yourself the same thing you told others. To calm yourself down.
I don't think I even came to respond to your comment until the one before this comment, when you said about colour blind. Maybe instead of generalising some readers as 'you guys' you can direct your comment to Andre.
Hypocrite? LOL. Do you really think using bad words will make you superior? Nope dear. It probably just shows us your quality.
dont dear me. and you showed us your quality too. you know what, its fine. you have your opinion and i have mine. while i dont agree with your thoughts im done arguing about. your not gonna change your mind and neither am i. goodbye.
LOL...How wonderful.If you do not wish anyone to respond on your comment or respond back when being attacked then you should limit yourself to just a group discussion.
Wow, this wakes a lot of memories and both what Belle and Ruby wrote I read who knows how often here. But fine, let me adress the few points here:1) The old "this is gray" (respectively in other cases silver) despite it being a dark color is nothing but trying to shout out other opinions in my mind. Jem's hair was not simply described as gray or silver, but as the color of an untarnished shilling, and this is how such a shilling looks like: http://www.cruzis-coins.com/shillings... And it referred to all of Jem's hair, not just some silver here and there.
2) This thread is about the cover and not the books, the opinion about a cover is not the same as a book. I didn't like the book but Nurlely did and she still thinks that is not Jem. So this "why can't you just enjoy the book" is of no relevance in my eyes for the topic of this thread.
3) So what the guy on the cover has a cane? That cane did not always belong to Jem, so by that logic it could just as well be his father. Why on earth is the cane so important to you? By that logic you should say that the CA cover does not show Will since Will wears no hat.
4) The man on the cover is not only not thin, his posture simply hides his frame, but also very healthy looking. The opposite of what Jem is constantly described as. Also fragile looking shows itself in the face as well, shadows, hollowed cheeks, tired look etc.
5) The guy on the cover has normal black hair, blue/grey eyes and pink skin. That is not Jem, Jem is so pale that Camille stated he could be a vampire, he was time and again stated as ephemeral looking and even likened to a ghost and the guy on the cover looks nothing like that.
6) Apparently that name "Ke Jian Ming" comes from a tumblr entry of Clare's:
what’s jem’s proper chinese name, like first and last with characters?
Jem is Ke Jian Ming. I don’t know how to put characters on Tumblr. ☹ But I have noted down that this is “a different Ming than the “common” one (bright). this one is a character with mouth and bird next to it, which means birds singing. she says it’s associated with singers as well as those who can beguile with music.”
She in this case is my friend Cindy Pon’s mother, who I torture constantly with questions about Mandarin. The woman is a saint.
It is worth keeping in mind that in Chinese, the surname comes first. Initially when I was thinking about this question I went looking for research about it – as there was nothing that necessarily said Jem had a full Chinese name: there’s so little about biraciality that you can research for that period, there’s no hard and fast rules. I assumed his surname was “Carstairs” and that was that. But then I thought perhaps his mother might want him to have a name more fully Chinese, in which case the surname here, “Ke,” would be hers, and his name is Jian (meaning “healthy” or “sword”) and Ming — which together sounds a little like James and has the added connotation of music.
There is so much wrong with this, starting with the fact that someone actually asked for a "proper Chinese name" as if there was anything inherently wrong with Jem Carstairs. Also "Jian" can also mean "worthless" or of "lower value" depending on the signs used. Not to mention why would his mother even give him a second full name? Neither Han Chinese nor the Shadowhunters had any customs like that, the wife took the family name of the husband and that was it. But either way if this name is so important she should have written it in the books, but she did not. It seems rather that she thinks what she is doing there is good but it only shows how many mistakes she makes. Keep in mind: Jem is supposed to be a main character. Important facts about them you write in the books they feature in, not some blog somewhere on the net. And fact is that the name Jian appeared only once over the entirety of the Infernal Devices, so it is clear that Jem's background in that regard is not important to Clare. Furthermore a name is just that, a name, it doesn't necessarily say something about a person's culture. Or will you deny me being German because I have a French forename?
7) Keep in mind, Nurlely and no one else of those saying that the cover doesn't represent Jem ever accused someone of being blind, but you Belle did that several times in just one post and so many others of the defenders have not been polite as well. If you cannot yourself see how rude you are, there is nothing we can do to change that. That I why you come along as hypocritical and self-righteous to us, because of your tone, your choice of words and your attitude reflected in them. You do not write like someone respecting other people's opinions and being interested in a conversation about the topic. You come along as someone who only claims freedom of opinion but who truly only regards her/his own as valid.
8) So Asian features are fine-boned? You do realize that many people in East Asia have very broad and strong looking faces right? Also he came to London at age 11 according to CA, not age 12. But it's not as though Clare could even keep the description of Jem at that age consistent.
9) And actually I did learn about genetics, and I also have some experience in the field. Just because you have an "Asian" parent doesn't mean you yourself look anything like it. There are plenty who don't look a thing like their "Asian" parent. Which is not surprising since both East Asians and Europeans have a range of characteristics and when a person from e.g. Japan that already looks quite European in comparison marries a European the child has a good chance to look like a full blood European, but it might not. That is the fact of genetics, you don't get a 100% predictable result. This "he will have Asian features" is nothing but the old tale that "mixed" people are always identifiable.
10) You said yourself that Jem left Shanghai as a child, so a good deal of his further development was in London, so he would have absorbed local things. And trust me at age 11 it is entirely possible to forget your mother tongue. And the mere fact that you stated "But all Chinese are Asian. It's an ethnic group and nationality, sharing a language (though many different dialects), and culture." reveals how little you know of the country, its customs and history. All people who are part of the nation of China, or more precise the People's Republic of China, would be Asians by nationality so to say. But racially speaking not all of them would be, the best known are the Uyghur. And with them we are at the next falsehood of your claim: "Chinese" is not an ethnicity, it is the word people so often use and in fact it usually refers to the Han majority, but they are not the only ethnicity in the People's Republic, another well known group are the Miao, also known as the Hmong, actually the late Qing Dynasty were Manchus and not Han. And they have different cultures, the Uyghur are Turkic and the Hmong have some customs closer to Europeans and Middle-Easterners, some other ethnicities are still matriarchal, unlike the strongly patriarchal Han. All in all China has 56 recognized ethnic groups and 292 living languages. And that, as I indicated already, shows itself in the different cultures. As a matter of fact, would Jem be from Shanghai he would not simply speak British English and Mandarin, but also, and maybe more likely Shanghainese, which is a dialect of Wu Chinese, which is a separate language from Mandarin. Not to mention that at the time of Jem's birth Shanghai, to a large part due to the Taipeng Uprising, became more and more mixed and many Chinese of the nation would have seen Jem as nothing but a foreigner.
11) The "who is it supposed to be" is easy to answer. The claim is that it is supposed to represent Jem, but what something is supposed to be and what it is are to different shoes. After Earth was supposed to be some action packed father-son story and it was a giant snorefest. And so it is for many here with the cover. It is supposed to be Jem, but the guy matches Will much more than he does Jem and in my case that plus the fact how much Clare swoons over Will and his looks make me think she consciously or unconsciously chose a model that looked like Will and not Jem. After all she chose the model and she chose the cover. So in my eyes she did not try and make the cover look like Jem. She might claim and even believe that, but for me the cover speaks a different language.
12) That Clare is a bestselling author has nothing to do with the cover or anything else. It means she is successful and if you ask me, I think it's because her books are so convoluted, safe (they are not progressive and challenge nothing) and ripped off that fans often mistake her inconsistently written stereotypes and giant plotholes, plus purple prose, for 3-dimensional characters and well thought through stories. She is given credit beforehand, and critics are maligned and ostracized. Like many here do constantly. Say one thing against the books and it will never take long for someone to come along and violently attack you.
And one final point that all of the defenders should keep in mind and actually think about:
If the model on the cover is a true and honest, a realistic and faithful representation of the boy described in the book, why does this thread exist? Why are there so many people who at first glance thought that was Will despite Jem being described as looking so unlike Will? Why do you need to ask "who else is it supposed to be"? Why do you need to bring the cane in? Why do people react violently so often when their opinion that this represents Jem is challenged? Why do you have to say "it's gray/silver" and swear? Why do you have to bring up the People's Republic of China?
Why does all of this exist, if that is truly Jem on the cover?
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Books mentioned in this topic
Clockwork Angel (other topics)Clockwork Prince (other topics)
A silvery haired Brandon Lee. That would be ideal. But honestly, the boy depicted on the cover is pretty much how I pictured Jem.