Priorities

Thanks for joining us, Grace S!

My best friend Cassidy and I are in love with Cassandra Clare's books {the Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices trilogy}. They're gripping, hilarious, sarcastic, well-developed and full of incredible characters.

However they are also full of the ever-popular Love Triangles. Despite Cassidy's and my usually-similar tastes, the concept of Love Triangles provokes very different responses from us.

Cassidy cannot stand them. As in she hates, loathes abhors, detests, despises and wishes Love Triangles would go burn in Hell for all eternity and beyond. She says, and I quote, "There's never a good solution. Someone is always going to end up hurt. Love is something so special and sacred; it's wrong for someone to have to compromise love that way."

She says love is THE most important thing to her. Nothing else in the world comes before love in her mind. Had she known the latest Infernal Devices book, "Clockwork Prince," was going to end the way it did, she says she would not have read it until the final book was released.

Then, as usual, you have me.

I do not mind Love Triangles. In fact, when they take the front seat of a novel, I tend to shrug them to the background automatically and focus on something else. It's not that Love Triangles bother me so much that I have to shut them out; it's not that I'm just a cold-hearted shrew who like to see people suffer. It's just that...I don't mind them. They don't affect me emotionally.

To me, yes; love is important. However, there are a lot of things in my mind that go before love. Family, Honor, Justice, Patriotism, THEN Love.

Now, you might be thinking "What if someone's family is unreasonably against the person you love? Do you side with your ridiculous, unfair relatives?"

No, because that would be a violation of Justice and/or Honor. If your family hates your beloved for an unjust reason, then go ahead. If your family insists that your beloved is too lowly for you, then that's a violation of Honor and you ought to go ahead.

However, the one you love has committed some horrible hate crime against your family or insulted your family's honor, then yeah, sorry. Family first.

Honor, in my mind, always comes before Love. Now WAIT. Before you flip out, let me explain what I mean by Honor. I do not mean Pride, Arrogance, or Public Appearance. True honor comes when you are standing up for the right thing against all odds, shame and slander. You stand up for yourself, your family, and the ones you love. You protect their Honor, because in my opinion, your own Honor rests on defending the Honor of those you love. Therefore, Honor is almost like a BRANCH of Love, and never HAS to give way to it.

What if the person you love has committed a crime and is sentenced death, but has had a genuine heart-change since the perpetration?

I'll have to get back to you on this. I can never make up my mind. But in less extreme cases, Justice always wins out. An dishonest piece of scum is not worth obstructing Justice for.

What if someone's country forces them away from the one they love? If it rips them apart for merely racial reasons, then again, that's unjust and dishonorable and you ought to ignore "patriotism" in this case.

But if the one you love is an unrepentant enemy spy or holds beliefs counter to the spirit of your nation, then sorry. Country first.

Love IS very important to me, but I do think there are certain principles that should not be broken for it. That's what I mean by Love not being my "top priority." Cassidy and I have talked about this, and we've agreed to disagree. Love is the most important thing to her, and it's just not the most important thing to me. I don't think any less of her, and she doesn't think any less of me {unless you count repeatedly calling me a cynic "thinking less"}.

How do you guys feel about this?

~Stephanie