BLOGGING BREAKING DAWN, pt. 15: Division Day

Previously: Killing Yourself To Live

Chapter 10 [cont'd]: Why Didn't I Just Walk Away? Oh Right, Because I'm An Idiot

Jacob leaves Bella's side after she more or less laughs off his (Edward-prompted) offer to be her sperm donor. Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, Jacob is hurt by this rejection even though he knew it was coming. I mean, when you offer to make a baby with a girl after she aborts the possible monster she's pregnant with-- that's really putting yourself out there. Bella asks if he'll be visiting again, and he says no; their ostensibly final goodbye is brief and uneventful, and there isn't even a chapter break. No one is trying to convince us this is real, and not even Jacob or Bella acts like it. See you next Tuesday (or maybe sooner) Bella!

Forgive the expression, but am I the only one having a “boy who cried wolf” problem with most of this book? So many potential threats (and therefore plot threads) have evaporated that tension has just completely ceased building. It dissolves into the misty Forks air every few pages, and now I can't take anything seriously. The only real problem left is Bella's baby, and it's hard not to feel like that one is going to resolve easily and then thinly segue into whatever the next story is. (There's nothing necessarily wrong with an episodic novel, but that's what New Moon was. This is supposed to be the final installment-- one would think it would feel sort of, uh, final.) I knew Bella and Jacob would see each other again before it happened, and I knew that the situation that is about to arise with the wolfpack would be over before it began. If everything always works out, happy endings stop feeling happy. They just get boring. This book is making me feel dead inside.

As Jacob leaves and Bella says she loves him, this happens:

I almost turned around and fell down on my knees and started begging again. But I knew that I had to quit Bella, quit her cold turkey, before she killed me, like she was going to kill him.

Much as I hate that comma-packed sentence, I dig the sentiment: Bella is a harbinger of death. Anyway, Jacob strips naked in the Cullen front yard, “not caring who might be watching,” (“Oh hello...”-Alice Cullen) and returns to wolf form. The pack mind greets him happily, realizing he hasn't been killed by vampires. But as the story of what Jacob saw makes it to them on the wolf wireless network (how good is the streaming consciousness quality, I wonder?), they freak the fuck out. Here's how S. Meyer renders it, after the wolves see Bella pregnant, being protected by Rose, Edward's anguish, etc:

Their shock was just a silent shout in my head. Wordless.
!!!!

We got it the first and second times, S. Meyer. At the very least, keep yourself to three exclamation points, yeah? (How many do you think S. Meyer uses in the average e-mail?) Anyway, the wolves rush toward Jacob, they meet somewhere in the middle, and immediately everybody starts pacing around and howling and it's basically Let The Wild Rumpus Start over there. What results is a kind of interesting scene, though one that takes a while to suss out given S. Meyer's penchant for vague and piecemeal description: Jacob, who is relatively calm, stands in the center of a clearing while the wolves angrily circle and argue with him. Most of this wolf stuff is totally unfilmable (am I the only one who has been pitying poor Bill Condon for the last few chapters?) but this could be good.

The consensus among the pack, and mostly among Sam (huh?), is that Bella's baby-to-be is “dangerous” and an “abomination.” (Maybe the most telling word: “unnatural.” The suggested interracial thing is almost certainly accidental, but let's embrace it so we have SOMETHING.) And very quickly Sam decides they will go to the Cullen house and kill all of them. Talk about hair-trigger, huh? Only a chapter or two ago, Sam Uley was the voice of moderation and peace in our time. What the hell happened? (All of the sudden wolf-Gandhi is like, “Forget namaste. It's time to get na-nastay.” Okay, so there's a reason I don't write action movie dialog.)

This flare up seems disproportional. The wolves never heard Carlisle's story about the vampire babies, but they act like they did. Realistically, they have no reason to fear it. On some level, S. Meyer must sense that-- Sam Uley mentions in passing the strength of the newborn vampires they have encountered in the past, as if that justifies it. Oh, you mean the newborns you killed by the dozen, Sam? The unreasonable fear and panic coming from the wolves makes this whole thing ring hollow already.

The best part about this scene is the nagging fear among the wolf pack that one of them will die in battle. It comes up in their thoughts sporadically and in passing several times, like no one wants to think about it but can't help it (this is probably the way boobs come up under normal circumstances). Of course, I don't care if any of them die, and I'm actively hoping that something takes Quil out, but I like that touch anyway.

There's a dark moment when Sam assigns wolves to each member of the Cullen family like it's a high school basketball game: “Leah you get Alice! Seth: set the pick!” Jacob tries to be the voice of reason, but stupidly asks how they plan to kill the creature “without killing Bella.” (Earth to Jacob: bitch is going down!) When it dawns on him that Sam isn't going to scrub up and perform surgery after he offs the Cullens, he gets angry. Seth Clearwater, like Jacob, is troubled by what is about to happen, and when he protests Sam uses his Alpha status to command Seth to fight. Jacob gets assigned to Jasper; Sam himself says he will fight Edward.

He'd left the easier targets to for the younger wolves and Leah. Little Alice was no danger without her future vision to guide her, and we knew from our time of alliance that Esme was not a fighter. Carlisle would be more of a challenge, but his hatred of violence would hinder him.

I know nothing bad is going to happen, but if Alice dies I'm just going to quit, okay? (With any luck, the pro-abortion members of the Cullen family will just join up with the wolves. Alice and Jasper are realists, you know?) Also: note again the casual sexism of Leah being grouped with the new, weak members. Anyway, what's up with Jacob's solemn, Billy-Black-at-the-camp-fire tone here? This guy is half Huck Finn and half historian: “Our time of alliance”? The word “hinder”? Well, shucks! Jacob is struck by the thought that Carlisle will be easy to kill because he won't want to hurt his attackers, which is a compelling image, and Sam orders him to get his shit together. When Jacob continues to object, Sam uses his Alpha command abilities-- the wolves hear a “double voice” when he turns it on-- to force compliance. Do you think Emily gets off on the Alpha thing? Or is she the only one who gets to boss Sam around, if you know what I mean?

“Forget namaste-- it's time to get na-nastay.” -Emily

Sorry.

Chapter 11: The Two Things At The Very Top Of My Things-I-Never-Want-To-Do List

Jacob lies on the ground, in wolf form, still trying to resist Sam's order but feeling increasingly compelled to obey. There's more strategizing, but Jacob doesn't pay much attention. Is he as bored as I am? But he has a realization that, as predicted, dissolves this plot thread and creates a new one.

Jacob, you may recall, is the True Alpha. When he realizes he has it in him to disobey, he feels “the bonds” fall off of his body. The recognition comes with, Jacob says, a kind of “hollow power.” Because “an Alpha's power came from his pack,” and Jacob doesn't have one. He was once in a wolfpack of a dozen or so, but now he is a one man wolfpack. Sam realizes what has happened as soon as Jacob approaches him; one of the nice things about the pack mind is plot developments never have to be spoken aloud.

Sam accuses Jacob of being blinded by his love for Bella; Jacob doesn't exactly deny it. There's an interesting moment then when Sam then assumes that Jacob is going to fight him: Jacob doesn't want to, but almost involuntarily does because he feels challenged. The violent, primitive tendencies of the wolf pack works as a criticism of masculinity, too. Not that S. Meyer intended that, but let's pretend she did.

Jacob tells Sam he won't break up the pack, but urges him to reconsider his plans. Then he rushes off while the rest of them howl impotently in the background. Jacob weirdly chooses this moment to summarize his story so far. “Today had begun like any other day,” he says and then recaps the plot. “How did it change so completely, turn all surreal?” It doesn't feel all that abrupt to me! Jacob is interrupted by what he thinks is someone chasing him, but it turns out to be Seth Clearwater. And his wolfpack, it grew by one. So there were two.

They argue for a moment-- Jacob tells Seth to go home, but since he refuses to use his alpha-ordering abilities to take away Seth's will, the kid stays in the picture. Seth points out that they can no longer hear the thoughts of the rest of the pack, even though they can still hear them howling. Now that they have formed a separate group, the connection has been severed. Technically, you'd think that cut off would have happened as soon as Jacob made his realization, right? Seth Clearwater has a loose justification for us:

I think that when you turned your back on Sam, that was a pretty significant move. A change. And when I followed you away, I think that was significant too.

Okay, good enough. As they approach Chez Cullen, there's an amusing beat where they think positive thoughts so the Cullens won't think they're coming to attack. (“Circle the wagons, bloodsucker,” Jacob thinks for Edward's benefit; when you think of "bloodsucker" as being like Jacob's "motherfucker" it makes his lame insults a little more interesting.) Of course, for every pro there is a con, for every alpha an omega; there's a totally useless moment where the wolves greet Edward, Jasper and Emmett outside and because Edward says “They want to kill Bella?” without emphasizing the question mark enough, he nearly causes Jasper and Emmett to attack Jacob and Seth. It's not even played as comic, it's just there. These kind of weird diversions would be forgivable if we had any forward momentum, but we don't.

Another thing we've lost without Bella as our narrator is any depth the Cullens may have once had. They walk around in the background of scenes, rarely speaking. (Alice comes out on the porch and then goes to Jasper's side, but only has one throwaway line: she asks Jacob to switch forms, and when he doesn't, asks Edward to explain what is going on. Then, upon hearing, she hisses. At least we have that.) We had the wolf pack for a chapter or two, not that they were really equivalent, character-wise; S. Meyer treats them like she probably treats actual minorities: like she can't even tell the difference between them. But now even they have faded into the background. Most of the action in the last few chapters has played out between Edward and Jacob alone. We're more stuck with these assholes than we've ever been.

Seth and Jacob proceed to run patrols around the Cullen house. There's another stupid, unnecessary moment when Jacob lets mentally slip that Edward wants Jacob to kill him should something happen to Bella-- something that I thought was an empty threat but apparently was an official part of their agreement-- and Seth howls in protest. Unfortunately, Jacob told Edward they would howl if there was any trouble (like a page before. S. Meyer can't resist knocking the pin down AS SOON AS she sets it up) and so he has to run back to the Cullen house to tell them it was a false alarm. When he gets there, he sees Bella through the window. The furniture has all been pushed out of the way, and she's on a hospital bed with tubes sticking out of her. Awesome! Why are we stuck outside with the dogs when all the morbid stuff is happening inside? Jacob has been hearing a dripping noise which turns out to be the IV. “Some fluid that was thick and white,” Jacob says. “Not clear.” You know what? I'm not even going to go there.

"It'd be easier if you just swallowed this stuff. HEYOOOOO."-Alice Cullen

There's a moment where Jacob tries to loosely connect his break from the pack with what's happening in the Cullen family: essentially Rosalie is being a bitch to Carlisle and uses “we” to refer to herself and Bella (and the baby?). “Like they'd formed a pack of their own,” Jacob says. Well, you're stretching with your narration a little, Jake, but I appreciate the effort.