BLOGGING ECLIPSE, pt. 14: Ordnance Tactics

Previous entries can be found in the directory (updated 8/30).

Chapter 10: Scent

Bella and Edward are in mid-playful-argument because Edward is leaving for Jacob's visit; she doesn't understand why they refuse to be around each other. Still holding out for that threesome, eh Bella? When Edward hugs her goodbye, he buries his face in her hair and then laughs. I see what you are doing there, Edward – that's the most polite way of marking his territory he can think of. (And that last sentence was the most polite way of expressing that sentiment I could could think of.) Bella starts doing the dishes and Jacob comes in; there's a running gag where she keeps spilling water all over herself around him, getting soaking wet. Read into that what you will. She observes that Jacob is, as always, half-naked. It's becoming a joke now, like S, Meyer is feeling guilty. Well, starting to feel guilty; she still wants to titillate. This is having your ab cake and eating it too. “Is it so impossible to wear clothes?” Bella says, before mentally admitting that his muscles are “impressive.” See how you can straddle that divide? See how that's what she said?

Jacob explains that it's more practical to just carry around one item - “My clothes don't just pop in and out of existence when I change – I have to carry them with me when I run.” S. Meyer has decided to address the “Incredible Hulk Problem” head on, then. Jacob has a cord around his ankle that he apparently uses to keep his jorts fastened to his wolf-self. Why the jorts, if it has to be one item? Why not make it a jumpsuit, Jacob? All of the werewolves could do it, like a team uniform. Then at least they could go into convenience stores and the like. Do you think Jacob's cutoffs are the kind where the pockets stick out the bottom? I hope so.

He grinned. “Does my being half-naked bother you?”
“No.” I answered too quickly, but I felt like I had a responsibility to all women and gay men in that moment.

Bella starts blushing, which she says is “left over from embarrassment at my own stupidity” and not at all to do with Jacob's abs. I like that Bella's denial is even extending into the narration – she does not speak those lines aloud. Jacob goes and gets the scent of the intruder, and then returns to help Bella with the dishes. He asks her, “What's it like – having a vampire for a boyfriend?” which seems like a line entirely written here so it will show up in a movie later so it can be used in the trailer for said movie. I've been re-watching Weeds, and in the first season Mary-Louise Parker gets stuck with a lot of lines like, “I'm just a mother selling weed in the suburban town of Agrestic!” I guess in case people were just tuning in. This whole conversation is a little like that. But there's a “fuck you” to vampire purists in there too: Jacob asks if they kiss, and Bella says yes.

“You don't worry about the fangs?”
I smacked his arm, splashing him with dishwater. “Shut up, Jacob! You know he doesn't have fangs.”

Take that, Anne Rice! Go bitch about this at the next D&D game, nerds! Jacob continues to question her. (“Is his dick ice cold?”-Where this is heading) Bella gets frustrated. “I scrubbed a boning knife with more force than necessary,” she says. Boning knife! That's some symbolism right there if I've ever seen it. (“If there's a boning knife in the kitchen in the second act, some people will bone by the fourth book.”-Anton Chekov) Jacob brings up Bella's upcoming conversion; she tells him the plan is after graduation. Jacob's fists clench – one of them closing around the knife he was drying off.

So for a while in high school I was working as a cold-side chef at a restaurant, and my friend Brian got a job there too. It was my job to train him, and naturally I was a little too cavalier with my demonstrations. Midway through the day I went to get the pit out of an avocado, and tried to do it with the tip of the knife while holding the avocado in one hand. I don't know exactly what happened, but obviously the knife ended up in my hand rather than the avocado pit. So yeah, all of S. Meyer's descriptions of the deep gash in Jacob's hand hit a little too close to home for me, it's hard to know if it's well written or not. I was mostly just cringing and feeling phantom pains in my hand and scanning the page.

Bella starts insisting they go to the hospital, which Jacob refuses. “You look like you're going to pass out, and you're biting your lip off,” he tells her. It's been a while since we've had a good lip bite! This scene is written like we are all supposed to have forgotten that werewolves can heal, but Bella is the only one who has. Remember that scene in New Moon where Jacob offers to cut himself to show Bella? She doesn't! So when he shows her the pink line where the gaping cut was seconds before, it all comes back to her. She gets out some bleach and starts systematically scrubbing away the blood around the kitchen, like Dexter in a kill room. “We're a bit sensitive to blood around here,” she says. Though I would imagine werewolf blood would not be particularly tempting to a vampire anyway. Jacob says he's going to take off, and goes to hug Bella goodbye. He pushes her away immediately, since she reeks of vampire, nice work Edward. As he leaves he invites her to a party at La Push tonight (talk about short notice! Werewolves have no tact) and Bella is again noncommittal. Jacob bristles this time.

“Is he your warden now, too? You know I saw this story on the news last week about controlling, abusive teenage relationships, and –”

Between this and the jokes about Jacob's constant nudity, there's a weird tension in this chapter. The universe of Twilight is fundamentally bizarre and morally reprehensible, but until now it never seemed like S. Meyer knew it was bizarre and reprehensible. So we could at least give her the benefit of the doubt – the story is batshit because she is also batshit. But the more it seems like S. Meyer is aware of what she is doing, the less sense any of it makes. It's like in Inception when Ellen Page brings the two mirrors together, and Leonardo DiCaprio warns her that the more dream-like (and in a sense, self-aware) she makes the dream the less structural integrity the whole thing has. It's bad enough having Quil Ateara fall in love with a two year old child unwittingly. But to do it wittingly is even worse. I thought S. Meyer was accidentally warping the minds of a generation of teenage girls. Is she doing it on purpose? This dream is collapsing.

Edward returns as Jacob leaves, asking if they got into a fight. Bella insists they didn't, and Edward indicates the bloody knife sitting on the kitchen counter. “Dang! I thought I got everything,” Bella shouts. Dang?

Edward picked up the mail on his way back in – he has an acceptance envelope for Bella. From Dartmouth. Sure, okay. I'm not saying Bella isn't ivy league material, but the fuck-up after fuck-up driving the action in New Moon isn't the strongest endorsement. Hell, her narration isn't the strongest endorsement. I guess college admissions essays rarely have scenes of dialogue, so that minimizes the damage she could have done. My aforementioned friend Brian just graduated from Dartmouth, so I asked him for a react quote to this development.

(617): As a Dartmouth alum, how does it feel to know that in Twilight: Eclipse, Bella gets accepted there?
(202): Never been more proud of my alma mater.

It's very strongly suggested again that Edward bribed the school and Bella will be staying in the Edward Cullen dormitory (which will not be co-ed, obviously), so I'm sure Dartmouth's admissions office is proud too. Bella resists, and Edward tempts her with how proud it would make her parents if she attended for just a year. Dang, he's good. It starts to work, but she shakes it off and maintains that she will be sending a deposit to the University of Alaska, but only as an alibi. When I had to cash in all of my savings bonds and close my checking account to make my first tuition check it was hard enough, and I at least was actually going to college for my trouble. “This whole secrecy and deception thing is kind of a pain,” Bella observes.

Edward's expression hardened. “It gets easier. After a few decades, everyone you know is dead. Problem solved.”

Ouch. But Bella doesn't wilt. Good for her. I don't know if we're supposed to be hoping she won't choose to be a vampire – we're not, right? So far the only reasons against are “it's not nice to upset your parents” and “it's nice to be a parent.” I'll take immortality please, I think my mom will understand.

Bella has to go and re-adjust the washing machine, which gets thrown off balance by the single towel inside. That's a nice detail – who hasn't had to deal with a washing machine like this? (“There are benefits.”-Betty Draper) It's what makes this video so cathartic:

Bella asks Edward to find out where Alice put her pillow and clothes – Edward seems perplexed by the request. He immediately concludes that the vampire intruder must have stolen the items in question; they had her scent on them. (That he doesn't have to ask Alice if she cleaned Bella's room is a little creepy. Edward must do routine brain-scans on Alice, something no normal brother with a sister as whorish as Alice would do.) Bella's not going to get her pillow back? That sucks! I mean, it's also scary that yet another person seems to be after her or whatever, but her pillow? DANG! Edward gets the newspaper and the headline again advertises mass death in Seattle – the police have “no leads.”

“Carlisle's right... yes...very sloppy. Young and crazed? Or a death with?” he muttered to himself.

Obviously it's not that sloppy, if the police have no leads! Edward is convinced it's more than one newborn vampire, and that the Volturi will soon intervene. And nobody wants the Volturi coming for a visit; they're like your relatives who live across the country and only come home every five years and you just do everything in your power to avoid going to that fucking cookout. Edward fears his family might have to do a preemptive strike.

“We don't want to step in unless it's absolutely necessary. After all, it's not our responsibility.”

Right. Dozens of people are being slaughtered just MILES away, and you have super-strength and near invulnerability. What was it that Uncle Ben said to Peter Parker again? “With great power comes hiding from responsibility?” Is that right?