Previously: "How Soon Is Now?" and "Alice Cullen Sets Bella's Khaki Skirt On Fire." Also, today is Jackson Rathbone's birthday. So close to Christmas! What a drag.Chapter 4: Gesture
The reception starts, Bella says it's “twilight over the river” (hey, she said the name of this saga!) and the sun is setting behind the trees. Edward and Bella are greeted by various extraneous characters; Seth Clearwater is there with his mom, whom Bella observes with her always-withering eye. “Her face was thin and fierce,” she says. You can't be even a little charitable toward the less pretty on your fucking wedding day, Bella? Later Edward will ask if Bella has seen herself in a mirror yet. When she finally does, she rhapsodizes about how gorgeous she is for a while. Such a nice girl.
She sees Billy Black and weirdly muses for a whole paragraph at how he's so magical and exotic and shit. What the hell is that about? I assumed this was a dry party, but... Anyway, she notes that he seems very at ease despite his knowledge that a breach in the treaty will be coming very soon. She wonders if instead of war, there will be “a truce” between the wolfpack and the Cullens. Oh, I was wondering where we were going to get a plot from! There you go! Way back in New Moon, Jacob reminded Edward that the treaty precludes the biting of anyone. Bella is (theoretically) going to be bitten very soon. And of course, I doubt the treaty has any kind of provision excepting cases paranormal marriage/consensual biting; the werewolf founding fathers didn't have a lot of legislative foresight. As history shows, Native Americans are really bad at treaties.
Bella finally meets the Denali vampires. It's uneventful; they seem like nice enough ladies. They apologize about the whole thing where they abandoned the Cullens at the eleventh hour, and one of them makes a joke about how she still doesn't have a husband. “Keep the dream alive,” responds one of the others. This is all in front of Bella, by the way. The Denali vampires are like your mom's weird younger sister who always makes all these self-deprecating jokes about her personal failures and you laugh but mostly to keep from feeling uncomfortable. Thankfully, they shuffle off so Deputy Mark (he did get mentioned more than once! I guess I need to eat my hat or something) can greet the newlyweds.
We get a few nice wedding details: they do the thing where they feed each other cake, Edward actually swallows it (you're welcome?). Then Edward removes Bella's garter with his teeth and throws it in Mike Newton's face. YA BURNT ONE LAST TIME, Mike Newton! But seriously, that's going to be it for Mike Newton, right? Can we throw some of this dead weight overboard or are we going to keep adding characters? Bella dances with a bunch of the dudes at the party, including Mike Newton (ugh he's already back) but Edward cuts them off because Mike is (it is strongly suggested) is thinking about how much he'd like to fuck Bella's fucking face.
Bella has the aforementioned moment where she looks in the mirror and thinks about how much she'd like to fuck herself, basically. (Thought-reading-wise, this has got to be a rough day for Edward.) When you couple it with S. Meyer's obsession with pointing out the dark skin of the Quileutes, Bella's obsession with her own skin looking like “cream and roses” is a little troubling. Really, the excessive whiteness of the gorgeous Cullens is itself a little troubling; also S. Meyer always qualifies talking about the beauty of the Quileutes by exoticizing them – it's like, textbook self-loathing white supremacy. BUT ANYWAY.
Edward becomes aware that Jacob is lurking in the woods outside the party. I don't want to think about what he's doing out there. But really: he came to see Bella. Of course Jacob is going to show up and ruin this (marginally) interesting scene (that was already a little ruined anyway). Edward doesn't tell Bella (or us) anything about Jacob being there until he walks her to the edge of the forest; I half expected him to be like “blow me.”
Jacob comes out and hugs Bella hello, she immediately starts weeping with joy. Dude's only been gone for fifty seven pages, Bella! Relax! Edward excuses himself because he owes Rosalie a dance, Jacob very deliberately holds Bella's hand to his chest. They start dancing, not to the music playing a few yards away, but rather “the rhythm of his heart.” That's some heart you got there, Jacob! Can it do waltzes and shit? They talk for a long fucking time about how nice it is to see each other. There's a lot of predictable re-hashing of Jacob's angst over, you know, EVERYTHING. Dude did just throw a several-week-long temper tantrum after all, never forget. But Jacob stops being apologetic and starts edging toward apoplectic when he says he's going to remember Bella like this and he trails off, suggesting basically that he's going to pretend she died. Bella feels bad. “My relationship with Jacob used to be so easy. Natural as breathing,” she says. When, exactly? Haven't they always been strained by Jacob's pressure to make it something more? Their relationship was natural as breathing in Twilight, when it barely existed, I suppose.
Bella tells Jacob she's not being changed tonight after he assumes as much. He implies that she's putting it off; she says she doesn't want to spend her honeymoon “writing in pain.” Well, maybe you shouldn't have waited to lose your virginity until now, kid! Oh wait, she means the vampire thing. Jacob says it's not like she can have “a real honeymoon” with Edward anyway, so why wait? Bella weirdly snaps and tells Jacob she is going to have “a real honeymoon.” He is taken aback.
Can we talk about how weird it is that everyone is perfectly capable of understanding everyone else's vague euphemism for sex? At no point does Jacob go “Whoa, wait, you're going to have SEX with him? Are we talking about the same thing?” When he expresses his disbelief, he still uses the fucking phrase “a real honeymoon.” I'm a smart guy, and I'm especially good at decoding sexual euphemisms, but even I would ask for clarification before I freaked out like Jacob is about to.
Like she's the nervous virgin bride herself, S. Meyer still can't quite bring herself to be explicit. This scene is still written to sail over the heads of younger readers like some of the earlier conversations about sex in this saga. (Notably, one of the only times the word “sex” is used is during a discussion about NOT having sex between Charlie and Bella.) The problem is (if you can sense where this story is going) understanding the fact that they are going to fuck is going to be important. This is not the time to be quaint! S. Meyer would rather her story not make any sense to younger readers than have to admit the truth. This is the YA fiction equivalent of Abstinence-Only Education.
So when Jacob realizes Bella and Edward are going to fuck, he gets very angry. He says it's a “sick joke.” Jacob's outrage about paranormal sex carries some uncomfortable echoes of the sort of people who object to interracial marriage. And as always, when S. Meyer is invoking a controversial issue (domestic violence, child molestation) the side she seems to agree with is the wrong one. Because Jacob's objections (Edward could kill her, it's unnatural) have been expressed by Edward in the past and will be again very soon. It's bothersome how S. Meyer is both comfortable with creating symbolic parallels to social taboos and then coming down on the very firmly established wrong side. Is Sam Uley going to take multiple wives in this book too? Is Bella going to be impressed by the healthy relationship(s) that result? Jacob grabs Bella and starts shaking her, asking if she's lost her mind. Edward and Seth appear and free Bella from Jacob's clutches; Jacob threatens to kill Edward. Just as abruptly, the wolves appear from the forest and pull Jacob away.
Bella and Edward return to the party, where Bella notices the Cullens all trying to hide their stressed out faces. Jasper and Emmett are hovering near the edge of the dance floor, apparently still ready to jump into action. (Rosalie and Alice are presumably dancing with each other, you're welcome.) I like little details like that; it's a pity they have to come in the midst of such thematic ugliness. Bella tries not to be upset about Jacob; she makes plans to “flagellate” herself for this later. I'm sure Alice packed a whip or two in your suitcase, Bella, don't worry.
As they dance, Edward starts hesitating about the sex. Jacob's getting karmic revenge on Bella, setting in motion the chain that's cock-blocking her like this. Edward starts mumbling about how he should let Jacob kill him for even thinking... and Bella is like “WHOA.”
“You and me. That's the only thing that matters. The only thing you're allowed to think about now. Do you hear me?”
“Yes,” he sighed.
Wow! That was like a quantum leap in terms of Bella's agency, did you see that shit? Emmett asks to dance with Bella, and after that she gets passed around the dance floor for a while. When she finally returns to Edward, Alice appears and starts telling them it's time to leave for the airport. Edward and Bella won't stop kissing, and there's a kind of funny scene where Alice hovers around them making various threats and growling quietly trying to get them to stop. Alice is mollified when Bella finally goes with her to change out of her dress and thanks her for the wedding.
“Everything was exactly right. You're the best, smartest, most talented sister in the whole world.”
That thawed her out; she smiled a huge smile. “I'm glad you liked it.”
Bella has a tearful goodbye with her mother and an actually-kind-of-moving farewell to Charlie; he's leaning up against a wall hiding because he's crying. Awwwwwww.
“I love you forever, Dad,” I told him. “Don't forget that.”
“You, too, Bells. Always have, always will.”
I don't know what's going on with all those commas, but whatever. They get in the car, which has a bunch of Alice's only very gently worn designer shoes hanging off the back (“Thug lyfe!”-Alice Cullen). As they pull away, the last thing Bella sees is her parents: Phil has his arms wrapped around Renee, but Renee is holding hands with Charlie. It's a weirdly progressive moment for Twilight, and just a great moment in general.
And then of course Bella hears a piercing howl coming from the woods because Jacob fucks up everything, always.
The reception starts, Bella says it's “twilight over the river” (hey, she said the name of this saga!) and the sun is setting behind the trees. Edward and Bella are greeted by various extraneous characters; Seth Clearwater is there with his mom, whom Bella observes with her always-withering eye. “Her face was thin and fierce,” she says. You can't be even a little charitable toward the less pretty on your fucking wedding day, Bella? Later Edward will ask if Bella has seen herself in a mirror yet. When she finally does, she rhapsodizes about how gorgeous she is for a while. Such a nice girl.
She sees Billy Black and weirdly muses for a whole paragraph at how he's so magical and exotic and shit. What the hell is that about? I assumed this was a dry party, but... Anyway, she notes that he seems very at ease despite his knowledge that a breach in the treaty will be coming very soon. She wonders if instead of war, there will be “a truce” between the wolfpack and the Cullens. Oh, I was wondering where we were going to get a plot from! There you go! Way back in New Moon, Jacob reminded Edward that the treaty precludes the biting of anyone. Bella is (theoretically) going to be bitten very soon. And of course, I doubt the treaty has any kind of provision excepting cases paranormal marriage/consensual biting; the werewolf founding fathers didn't have a lot of legislative foresight. As history shows, Native Americans are really bad at treaties.
Bella finally meets the Denali vampires. It's uneventful; they seem like nice enough ladies. They apologize about the whole thing where they abandoned the Cullens at the eleventh hour, and one of them makes a joke about how she still doesn't have a husband. “Keep the dream alive,” responds one of the others. This is all in front of Bella, by the way. The Denali vampires are like your mom's weird younger sister who always makes all these self-deprecating jokes about her personal failures and you laugh but mostly to keep from feeling uncomfortable. Thankfully, they shuffle off so Deputy Mark (he did get mentioned more than once! I guess I need to eat my hat or something) can greet the newlyweds.
We get a few nice wedding details: they do the thing where they feed each other cake, Edward actually swallows it (you're welcome?). Then Edward removes Bella's garter with his teeth and throws it in Mike Newton's face. YA BURNT ONE LAST TIME, Mike Newton! But seriously, that's going to be it for Mike Newton, right? Can we throw some of this dead weight overboard or are we going to keep adding characters? Bella dances with a bunch of the dudes at the party, including Mike Newton (ugh he's already back) but Edward cuts them off because Mike is (it is strongly suggested) is thinking about how much he'd like to fuck Bella's fucking face.
Bella has the aforementioned moment where she looks in the mirror and thinks about how much she'd like to fuck herself, basically. (Thought-reading-wise, this has got to be a rough day for Edward.) When you couple it with S. Meyer's obsession with pointing out the dark skin of the Quileutes, Bella's obsession with her own skin looking like “cream and roses” is a little troubling. Really, the excessive whiteness of the gorgeous Cullens is itself a little troubling; also S. Meyer always qualifies talking about the beauty of the Quileutes by exoticizing them – it's like, textbook self-loathing white supremacy. BUT ANYWAY.
Edward becomes aware that Jacob is lurking in the woods outside the party. I don't want to think about what he's doing out there. But really: he came to see Bella. Of course Jacob is going to show up and ruin this (marginally) interesting scene (that was already a little ruined anyway). Edward doesn't tell Bella (or us) anything about Jacob being there until he walks her to the edge of the forest; I half expected him to be like “blow me.”
Jacob comes out and hugs Bella hello, she immediately starts weeping with joy. Dude's only been gone for fifty seven pages, Bella! Relax! Edward excuses himself because he owes Rosalie a dance, Jacob very deliberately holds Bella's hand to his chest. They start dancing, not to the music playing a few yards away, but rather “the rhythm of his heart.” That's some heart you got there, Jacob! Can it do waltzes and shit? They talk for a long fucking time about how nice it is to see each other. There's a lot of predictable re-hashing of Jacob's angst over, you know, EVERYTHING. Dude did just throw a several-week-long temper tantrum after all, never forget. But Jacob stops being apologetic and starts edging toward apoplectic when he says he's going to remember Bella like this and he trails off, suggesting basically that he's going to pretend she died. Bella feels bad. “My relationship with Jacob used to be so easy. Natural as breathing,” she says. When, exactly? Haven't they always been strained by Jacob's pressure to make it something more? Their relationship was natural as breathing in Twilight, when it barely existed, I suppose.
Bella tells Jacob she's not being changed tonight after he assumes as much. He implies that she's putting it off; she says she doesn't want to spend her honeymoon “writing in pain.” Well, maybe you shouldn't have waited to lose your virginity until now, kid! Oh wait, she means the vampire thing. Jacob says it's not like she can have “a real honeymoon” with Edward anyway, so why wait? Bella weirdly snaps and tells Jacob she is going to have “a real honeymoon.” He is taken aback.
Can we talk about how weird it is that everyone is perfectly capable of understanding everyone else's vague euphemism for sex? At no point does Jacob go “Whoa, wait, you're going to have SEX with him? Are we talking about the same thing?” When he expresses his disbelief, he still uses the fucking phrase “a real honeymoon.” I'm a smart guy, and I'm especially good at decoding sexual euphemisms, but even I would ask for clarification before I freaked out like Jacob is about to.
Like she's the nervous virgin bride herself, S. Meyer still can't quite bring herself to be explicit. This scene is still written to sail over the heads of younger readers like some of the earlier conversations about sex in this saga. (Notably, one of the only times the word “sex” is used is during a discussion about NOT having sex between Charlie and Bella.) The problem is (if you can sense where this story is going) understanding the fact that they are going to fuck is going to be important. This is not the time to be quaint! S. Meyer would rather her story not make any sense to younger readers than have to admit the truth. This is the YA fiction equivalent of Abstinence-Only Education.
So when Jacob realizes Bella and Edward are going to fuck, he gets very angry. He says it's a “sick joke.” Jacob's outrage about paranormal sex carries some uncomfortable echoes of the sort of people who object to interracial marriage. And as always, when S. Meyer is invoking a controversial issue (domestic violence, child molestation) the side she seems to agree with is the wrong one. Because Jacob's objections (Edward could kill her, it's unnatural) have been expressed by Edward in the past and will be again very soon. It's bothersome how S. Meyer is both comfortable with creating symbolic parallels to social taboos and then coming down on the very firmly established wrong side. Is Sam Uley going to take multiple wives in this book too? Is Bella going to be impressed by the healthy relationship(s) that result? Jacob grabs Bella and starts shaking her, asking if she's lost her mind. Edward and Seth appear and free Bella from Jacob's clutches; Jacob threatens to kill Edward. Just as abruptly, the wolves appear from the forest and pull Jacob away.
Bella and Edward return to the party, where Bella notices the Cullens all trying to hide their stressed out faces. Jasper and Emmett are hovering near the edge of the dance floor, apparently still ready to jump into action. (Rosalie and Alice are presumably dancing with each other, you're welcome.) I like little details like that; it's a pity they have to come in the midst of such thematic ugliness. Bella tries not to be upset about Jacob; she makes plans to “flagellate” herself for this later. I'm sure Alice packed a whip or two in your suitcase, Bella, don't worry.
As they dance, Edward starts hesitating about the sex. Jacob's getting karmic revenge on Bella, setting in motion the chain that's cock-blocking her like this. Edward starts mumbling about how he should let Jacob kill him for even thinking... and Bella is like “WHOA.”
“You and me. That's the only thing that matters. The only thing you're allowed to think about now. Do you hear me?”
“Yes,” he sighed.
Wow! That was like a quantum leap in terms of Bella's agency, did you see that shit? Emmett asks to dance with Bella, and after that she gets passed around the dance floor for a while. When she finally returns to Edward, Alice appears and starts telling them it's time to leave for the airport. Edward and Bella won't stop kissing, and there's a kind of funny scene where Alice hovers around them making various threats and growling quietly trying to get them to stop. Alice is mollified when Bella finally goes with her to change out of her dress and thanks her for the wedding.
“Everything was exactly right. You're the best, smartest, most talented sister in the whole world.”
That thawed her out; she smiled a huge smile. “I'm glad you liked it.”
Bella has a tearful goodbye with her mother and an actually-kind-of-moving farewell to Charlie; he's leaning up against a wall hiding because he's crying. Awwwwwww.
“I love you forever, Dad,” I told him. “Don't forget that.”
“You, too, Bells. Always have, always will.”
I don't know what's going on with all those commas, but whatever. They get in the car, which has a bunch of Alice's only very gently worn designer shoes hanging off the back (“Thug lyfe!”-Alice Cullen). As they pull away, the last thing Bella sees is her parents: Phil has his arms wrapped around Renee, but Renee is holding hands with Charlie. It's a weirdly progressive moment for Twilight, and just a great moment in general.
And then of course Bella hears a piercing howl coming from the woods because Jacob fucks up everything, always.
4 comments:
:( Jacob ruins everything...
The bit where Edward removes her garter always confused me- they're in the middle of a wedding reception with lots of people around, and he's got to bend down, lift her dress, and then remove the garter with his teeth (sounds fiddly)all without anyone noticing. Plus now Mike Newtons got a garter, which can't lead to anything good- and doesn't Alice still want it back?
Emma - That's a pretty typical custom at weddings, though generally you have a special tossing garter for the occasion. He doesn't have to do it without anyone noticing because they are specifically watching him do it. It's like the male version of tossing the bouquet.
And as far as like, is Mike Newton using it as a personal sex toy now?-- I think Alice was joking about wanting it back. By saying that, she was making it "something borrowed."
Because S. Meyer has never alluded to Alice & Jasper getting married, have you noticed? Not their bag. So why would Alice have a garter? Especially one that wasn't attached to chains and that sort of thing.
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