okay so just finished my reread! and I have a theory!!! this isn't to pressure you into saying anything or giving up parts of the plot I just needed to get it out lol
okay so. I do think that simon's backseat passenger is an "angel". but I /also/ think that angels aren't so dissimilar from demons. they could perhaps come from the same place/origins. the sides also aren't defined by whether you're an angel or a demon. it's more just politics.
I think that "angels" and "demons" are at war, still. it's mentioned that there was a war between angels and demons eons ago and that it ended, and demons said they won, but I think it's still going on. and raziel coming to earth and creating the nephilim 800 years ago was simply a bid to turn the tide of war. like, the situation on earth is a small battle in a much, /much/ larger war. it's like stationing a garrison to protect one castle in an entire province, only the garrison is shadowhunters and the castle is earth, and the province is... angeldom? heaven? idk.
the "politics" comes into play in regards to raziel and simon's angel. i feel like they're both the same thing- simon calls to the shadowhunters' blood for a reason- but they're on opposite sides of the war. look at how it wants to destroy all the shadowhunters and how raziel's statue and the fallen shadowhunters' seraph blades shattered. the demons are trying to extinguish all angel-aligned life perhaps, and the angels the opposite. earth/the dimension earth is in is angel territory, and earth is the way in, which means that raziel put the nephilim there to keep the demons at bay and to hold that dimension/world/whatever. all the other lives simon or simon's angel has lived are all people that the angels' aligned themselves with. perhaps they all were nephilim adjacent beings. and simon's angel has been sent out to destroy them, just as it did before.
I also think there's something a bit personal between raziel and simon's angel. they could know each other, or perhaps they're related through samael. idk, but I feel like it could be funny that earth is kind of small beans in the grand scheme of things and this is just simon's angel trying to pull on over raziel lol. like petty revenge. the idea of simon's angel having very complex motivations that go beyond "end shadowhunters", and stem from pettiness/anger/jealousy/etc would be so interesting.
on that note too!! I think the iyr/iyrem/however theyre spelt are some of simon's first lives, and he fell in love with nurma/jace. perhaps Jace and maybe even a few of the others like Isabelle/Alec/clary were being punished and were being reincarnated. maybe simon's angel found them, and having their frirends/lovers die over and over again turned simon's angel away from raziel/the angel's side. or maybe it's the opposite and they're beings from another dimension, a dimension which in a way began earth's. but idk, it's very murky.
anyway that's all lol, just wanted to put that out there. maybe some other readers even agree or want to debate!
hope ur doing well sia! take as long as u need with the update, it'll be brilliant regardless of how long it takes to come out
…oh my goodness
luxken how dare
this is so much cooler than what is actually going on, why are you reading Runed when you could be writing this??? Write this??? Please??? omg
legit concerned you’ll be disappointed when all is revealed now 😅
not really
…well, maybe a little concerned
this is so freaking cool (and must have taken so long to write up) that I’m going to reward you with some clues;
It’s not chance that the Sword ended up on Earth, but what is going down could have taken place on any world with sapient life. Nobody looked at Earth and went ‘yep, it needs to be that one.’
If it was taking place on another world, we wouldn’t be getting a happy ending. There are Things on/about this world that will make all the difference, though the Powers That Be did not know that when arrangements were made.
The Nephilim were created for a reason, and the last 1000 years are mostly irrelevant to it.
It would be more accurate to say it was a ceasefire, rather than that the demons outright won, but the war really is over and the angels really did not win.
if they’d kept fighting they would have lost
Honestly I am very ill atm but this made my weekend, so thank you :DDD
(And THANK YOU being told to take as long as I need really means so much😭😭😭 <333)
This is intended as a quick, non-spoilery guide to the OCs, worldbuilding, and runes in Runed. I encourage you to just use ctrl+F for whatever you’re looking for; you definitely don’t need to have the whole thing memorised.
Page of OCs is up; worldbuilding/glossary and runes should be forthcoming shortly!
verbose anon! I have a question - could an agela expand indefinitely? like say, you have sariel, but then you have jimon being the romantic kind (forget the name), then you have clary (a shadowhunter) and simon become parabatai. and would clary be able to work with sariel? would simon be able to? are they all considered an agela, or are there different words for it? can multiple agela exist together? like, say, clary simon jace are an agela, since they'd all be connected like jocelyn valentine luke, but jace is also a part of sariel. or does jace being a part of sariel disqualify him from joining an agela with simon and clary? and could someone who formed a romantic bond with clary become an agela with her and simon, even though simon is connected to someone a part of an agela?
okay this was multiple questions but i was curious /0\
GREETINGS, VERBOSE ANON! (I am working on the character charts, btw. Not sure where to most conveniently post them yet when they’re done, though.)
Copy and pasting this next bit from a 2015 answer;
Now, agela bonds come in three types; closed, open, and mixed. A closed agela is one in which every member of the agela is bonded to every other. The Sariel agela is a closed one, because Izzy is parabatai to Alec and Jace, not just one of them, and Alec and Jace are bonded to each other too. Imagine it like a triangle; every point is connected to every other point!
An open agela is one in which not everyone is bound to each other. If Izzy had only become parabatai with Jace, for example, then their agela would be an open one - three links in a horizontal chain, not a closed triangle. See?
A mixed agela is just that; an agela that contains closed triangles but also open bonds - imagine if, now, Izzy also became parabatai with Simon. There’s still a closed bond between Izzy, Jace and Alec, but Izzy and Simon would have an ‘open’ link. Most agela of 4 or more people end up being mixed.
I think what you’re talking about, re there being Alec-Izzy-Jace and Jace-Simon-Clary, is a mixed agela - because Jace is part of both ‘triangles’, they all make up one agela, not two.
If Jace became parastathentes with Simon, Simon would be joining Sariel, and agela Sariel would turn from a closed agela into a mixed one. Simon wouldn’t have a direct connection to either Alec or Izzy, but he would be able to sense them through his connection with Jace - it just wouldn’t be as loud or as clear as if they had a direct bond.
Simon could then become parabatai with Clary. Clary would then also be a part of agela Sariel.
Does that make sense?
(I wish I could draw this for you like a family tree, I feel like an illustration would be easier to follow than writing this with words!)
If you took two pre-existing agelae, and one person from each bonded to each other, you get one really big agela instead of two. So it’s not really possible to join another agela in the way I think you mean - by joining, you merge both agelae together. If Alec (agela Sariel) bonded with Will (agela Anael) then Sariel+Anael become one agela. (And need a new name, probably.)
While this is theoretically totally possible, I suspect it’s never actually happened, historically.
To answer your original question, re how big can an agela get: there is no technical limit to how many agelai you can have, but there is a practical one. Every person added to an agela makes the agela bond stronger; more intrusive, more powerful, more intimate. It’s difficult enough for Alec, Izzy and Jace to keep hold of their own personalities with an agela of three; that becomes harder and harder to do the larger the agela gets. Three to five members is the average size for an agela, not only because of this but also because it’s rare for people to have that close a relationship with so many people. How many of your friends/lovers would YOU want to soulbond with?
I hope that covers everything! If I missed a question or misunderstood something (or you have more questions) feel free to poke me!
verbose anon here again (I'm just about to start a reread of runed lol) - do you reckon you could make a character table? you have quite a few ocs, and they can get very confusing, especially since updates are pretty spaced out (which is fine!). It wouldn't even have to be very long, just a few lines about what we know about them so far - race, appearance, gender, sexuality, relationships. I especially struggle with that group of "downworlders" who are working against simon and trying to destroy him. there's just so many of them! and I feel like I can't quite appreciate them because I have a horrible memory. no pressure if not though! I totally understand that working on runed is already a pretty big undertaking. just thought I'd ask :] I feel like it could be a good resource for other readers too. hope you're doing well <3
I would love to! I think that’s a really great idea, probably something I should have done ages ago!
I just don’t know what kind of table you’re picturing - could you link me to something similar? If I try to make one from scratch I just KNOW I’m going to overcomplicate it!
(And I’m so happy to hear you’re embarking on another reread! It makes me so happy that you find it worth rereading 🥰)
