BLOGGING ECLIPSE, pt. 31: Heads Will Roll

Whoa, you guys. This chapter is great! It's short, it has a reasonable plot twist (some might say predictable, but don't we want our plot twists to sort of make sense?), and it concludes with a kind of spectacular show of violence. Plus, Jacob isn't in it at all! Perfect! S. Meyer does a decent job describing the aforementioned action - I've long predicted that the giant newborn showdown would not be depicted in this book, and I was mostly right. But S. Meyer actually does us one better, bringing another fight to Edward and Bella on the mountaintop.

I enjoyed this chapter, but let's keep things in perspective here: the mountain where this fight takes place has some very unclear geography in my mind's eye (I'm not even totally sure it's a mountain), and as always with S. Meyer distances and scale are impossible to determine. That sort of thing is cleared up by the film adaptation, I'm sure. But it shouldn't have to always be that way. When you watch the Harry Potter films you say to yourself “That's exactly how I pictured it.” When you watch the Twilight films you say to yourself “Oh, that's what it was supposed to look like.” Previous entries can be found in the directory.

Chapter 24: Snap Decision

Bella lays face down, hoping to be struck dead after kissing Jacob. That's an understandable reaction. Edward appears and starts comforting her, for the moment unaware of what transpired. Of course it doesn't take long for the news to telepathically spread. He reacts admirably, or course, chuckling at Jacob's dirty tactics (in response to the dick move Edward pulled getting Bella to talk about their engagement while Jacob was in earshot. Of course, Edward's dick move was clever and had the truth on its side and Jacob's dick move was horrifying and manipulative, but Edward and S. Meyer don't seem to realize this, so whatever) and asking Bella if she really believed Jacob would have killed himself “just to clear the way for me.” Bella is so filled with self-loathing she can't even be mad at Jacob for lying. That seems like a mistake! She also can't understand why Edward isn't angry with her. “You're only human,” he says.

“There are holes in your life that I can't fill. I understand that.”

That's what he said! You could fill them if you wanted to, buddy! STEP UP! Anyway Edward tells Bella that she loves Jacob, and she can't really argue. You notice everyone has to tell her this, though?

“You love him,” he said.
“I do?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh, okay.”

I mean, that's not exactly how it goes, but that is sort of how it's been going. She tells Edward that she loves him more, at least. She wants him to be mad at her, to call her “every bad name you can think of.” Kinda sexy, Bella! But Edward can sense that the fight is about to start, and he wants to have the last word on the matter. “I'm not going to make you choose between us,” he says. “You can have whatever part of me you want, or none at all, if that's better.” Either his generosity or the prospect of a polyamorous relationship sets Bella off and she tries to fuck him again. “You said I could have any part of you I wanted,” she says. “I want this part.” No word on what exactly she gestures at or grabs, but I think we can guess. “Make me forget how awful I am,” she says. “Make me forget my own name.” I'm sorry, what? That really just got said?

Finally something seems to be happening down below, and that's not a euphemism for anything, I mean the fight finally starts. Edward starts channeling the wolfpack hive-mind and starts speaking the narrative aloud, in first person plural, like a George Saunders short story or something – “Sam's taking us around to head off the ambush party,” and “We can hear Emmett – he's enjoying himself,” and so on. It's kind of cool, and would have made for an interesting way to write about the entire fight, but Edward stops abruptly and Bella fears the worst. Someone has died, perhaps? The next thing she knows, she's outside the tent – Edward has picked her up and torn his way out in a flash. He shouts for Seth, the werewolf on duty, to “go” and presses Bella against a wall to protect her from whatever is coming.

In retrospect, it's hard to believe I didn't see anything coming. Eclipse has been essentially a heist story for the last few hundred pages, everyone planning and training for the big event. And of course, Something Always Goes Wrong. I guess I just assumed the “something wrong” was the storm last night. But what if that had been it? Edward and Bella would sit on the mountain and then come down and everyone's okay, the end? Instead we have an organic twist, but one that I didn't think about in advance. How much of that is S. Meyer's skill or luck or my stupidity is hard to say.

“Victoria,” he said, spitting the word, making it a curse.

"Fucktoria!" Bella was right and Victoria was behind the vampire army. Edward very quickly explains away why Alice didn't at least see this coming, and it makes no sense, but whatever. “She never meant to fight with them. She made a spur-of-the-moment decision to find me, guessing that you would be wherever I was. She was right.” Victoria gets to have her mind-cake and eat it too, but c'mon now – if she never planned on fighting with the newborns, why is she anywhere near the scene of the battle? And what train of thought was she on in the first place in order to make the spur-of-the-moment decision that led her here in the second place? In other words if she wasn't thinking about joining the newborns and wasn't thinking about finding Bella, WHAT THE FUCK WAS SHE THINKING ABOUT? At some point she would have had to think about something in the neighborhood of coming with the newborns in order to break off at the last minute, at which point Alice would have seen her, right? Did she just start spinning around in circles somewhere in Canada until she caught Edward's scent? WHY AM I TRYING TO SORT THIS OUT? I ALREADY SAID “WHATEVER.” WHATEVER!!!

WHATEVER, there is a fight now! Cool. Victoria has brought a friend, it turns out his name is Riley. One of the great things about Edward being able to read minds is we never have to wonder very long what anyone's name is. Though I don't really think about my own name very often, do you? Victoria is predictably described as having flame-like hair and a mean expression – but when she speaks Bella reacts to her high girlish voice. Good thing they recast Bryce Dallas Howard in this part! Anyway, Victoria and Riley advance on them, and S. Meyer has a bravura twenty or thirty lines in which Edward plays mind games with Riley, Riley struggles to focus, and Victoria postures and tries to get an angle at which to attack Bella. It's genuinely tense and well paced. Edward starts confirming suspicions Riley must have had, telling him that Victoria is using him and everyone else to get at Bella, that this is all about her former lover. It's strongly suggested that Victoria has been banging Riley and does intend to use him as a distraction for Edward so she can kill Bella and escape. Edward tries to convince Riley that there is another way to live, all the while moving toward him.

“Last chance, Riley,” Edward whispered.

This is a great bad-ass moment for Edward – we haven't seen him close to this since he confronted the would-be rapists in Port Angeles in Twilight, and that was just tough talk. He's about to knock some heads together ("and he means that more literally than you can imagine."-Jasper). Edward's been an oversensitive and indecisive religious zealot for too long. Why haven't we seen more of this?

Victoria stops Edward from making any progress with Riley, and right as they seem poised to strike Seth-wolf bursts out of the woods and tackles Riley. Victoria is audibly shocked. She knew about werewolves though, right? She's run into them before! In a few lines Edward will answer one of her thoughts and confirm that Seth won't turn on him; I'm only noting this because again, nothing about Victoria's appearance makes any sense. Does Alice know about it yet, by the way? Presumably the fight on the ground is over now. It wouldn't take long for the Cullens to get here, and it seems like they should be getting here! BUT WHATEVER!

Over the course of this scene, Seth gradually tears Riley to pieces, and it is brutal and great. Random chunks of vampire keep landing next to Bella while Riley screams in frustration and pain – at one point Seth bites an arm off and it lands near Bella with the fingers still moving. Riley is a guy who has just been introduced to us, but he's been framed as basically innocent, a victim of Victoria's machinations. He still dies a horrible death, eventually losing both arms and then getting killed mid-scream, and I give S. Meyer tons of credit for being absolutely unflinching. It's equal parts awesome and upsetting watching him die.

While that's happening, Edward and Victoria are fighting in fast motion, and Bella can't see exactly what is going on. That's handy. Edward is reading Victoria's thoughts and keeping her from advancing on Bella, and whenever they break he plays a similar mind-game with her, saying James never loved her either. Get a new trick, Edward! I'm picturing like a wrestling announcer right now: Edward Cullen is about to use his signature move, telling his opponent that no one ever loved them! Right to the sternum!

Riley, who still has at least one arm at this point, sends Seth flying into the cliff face above Bella, and shards of rock rain down on her as the wolf collapses nearby. She instinctively grabs a shard of rock (Bella has survival instincts?) but eventually decides (obviously) to cut herself instead (like the third wife, duh!) to distract Victoria and Riley. Bella doesn't have the guts to stab herself in the heart, though. (Wait a minute, why did the third wife stab herself in the heart?) She cuts her arm (nice message! Cut yourself to help your boyfriend!) and somehow manages to hear Edward's exasperated sigh. (And she remarks how weird it is that she could hear it – I don't think S. Meyer is playing fair with her narration you guys!) The distraction is enough for Seth to spring back into action and tear Riley's other arm off – and that's pretty much it for our new friend. Thanks for stopping by, Riley! R.I.P. Get it, because Seth RIPS him apart? Victoria tries to bolt, but Edward catches her.

Edward's mouth brushed once across her neck, like a caress.

AND THEN HE RIPS HER FUCKING HEAD OFF AND IT ROLLS INTO THE FUCKING FOREST. AHAHAHA that literally happens! FUCK YES, THIS CHAPTER. SEE YOU LATER, VICTORIA'S FUCKING HEAD!