Shadowhunters and Alternate Realities

A lot of sci-fi and fantasy stories like to delve into alternate realities at some point—and why wouldn’t they? Alternate realities can be a lot of fun. They allow writers to discuss characters from multiple perspectives and explore “what if” scenarios, which can certainly be interesting. After all, a character in one dimension may have completely different motivations and personal history to their counterpart in another dimension.

I love alternate realities. I love seeing how the same character reacts to different situations and upbringing, and I love how seeing these differences presented in an alternate reality helps to inform that same character in the main reality. Thankfully for me, alternate reality storylines are everywhere, from Charmed, to Stargate SG-1, and now even in Shadowhunters. These storylines are interesting character studies and an effective way to teach both the characters and the audience the consequences of bad decisions. Because this is often the purpose they serve, alternate realities are almost always dystopias compared to the main reality. Very rarely are they used for the opposite purpose—to be utopias compared to a main dystopian world. So I found myself pleasantly surprised when Shadowhunters did just that in its latest episode.

Magical Mondays: Alternate Realities are Hard

Alternate realities are one of my favorite things in speculative fiction and fanfiction, but they’re often poorly written. These types of stories are extremely interesting and explore different concepts within the main narrative without necessarily destroying the original canon storyline. The problem is that many of these alternate realities are poorly done and don’t follow any sort of logic. So while alternate realities can be really creative, they are also really easy to screw up.