As the prolonged standoff between the Volturi and the Cullens continues, I continue to ask: how sure are we these dudes are evil? We are told so by Edward in New Moon, sort of, I mean he kind of implies it at us, but the evidence did not really come down in his favor. Back then, Aro and the gang were nothing but reasonable—they tried to talk Edward out of suicide, even!—and they let our heroes go in peace. Yes, they did kill a bunch of innocent humans right after that, but let's fast forward to Breaking Dawn: the Cullens are now allowing their many guests to hunt all over Washington and Oregon, killing innocent humans, too. On balance, the Cullens and the Volturi are doing equal amounts of evil.(And in fact, it is indicated somewhere that older vampires don't have to feed very much, right? So the gang of recruits on the Cullen side is probably doing more damage to the human population than the Volturi are, at the moment.)
Putting humans aside, let's look at vampire-on-vampire violence. In these books, the Volturi have killed exactly one vampire: Bree Tanner. Edward has murdered Victoria and James, Jacob has murdered Laurent, Seth Clearwater has murdered Riley, and the rest of the Cullens and wolves have murdered an indeterminate number of newborns. Advantage: Volturi.
Of course, the Volturi could prove me wrong. They could bust out some straight-up evil shit in this chapter. Except no, spoiler alert: instead they listen to Carlisle and behave reasonably. WHOOPS.
S. Meyer seems to think it is enough to hear from Edward that the Volturi's thoughts are evil. This is a relatively typical religious point of view—that sinning in your mind is just as bad. Sorry Stephenie, but that is not enough for me. Actions speak louder than thoughts. Even for Edward.
Chapter 36 (cont'd): Bloodust
So Irina gets brought forward to testify about the baby she saw, and of course she looks over at Renesmee and is like oh, uh, she looks bigger! Caius, a Volturi brother who has been important for the last ten seconds and will continue to be for the next five, gets really angry. Aro steps back in, takes Irina's hand, and confirms that the child in her memory is smaller. Well yeah, eye-witness testimony is notoriously unreliable, Aro! Dude should know that by now. I mean, I know Irina is right, but this moment of hesitation on Aro's part means there probably won't be a fight. Carlisle sighs in relief, and I just sigh.
Aro insists on getting “every facet” of the truth, and asks to read Edward's thoughts. Aro is totes a Twi-hard; he wants to see the bed-breaking sex scene too! As Edward steps forward to share all the dirty deets, Bella has a sudden fit of rage.
My muscles tightened, and I acted automatically...The shield blew out from me in a bubble of sheer energy, a mushroom cloud of liquid steel.
Bella can feel the “points of bright heat, dazzling sparks of light” surrounding her, like S. Meyer is sending notes to the visual effects team for the film adaptation. Seriously though, isn't this kind of a big problem, that all of the action is internal and invisible? This scene is 100 vampires standing around in a clearing while Bella thinks really hard; she notes that the full realization of her powers has gone totally unnoticed by everyone else in the clearing (and everyone in the movie theater).
Bella can easily follow Edward with her shield, but pulls back so that Aro can penetrate him (you're welcome). It happens, and Bella realizes (more or less) that Aro has seen her naked from every possible angle. And here's where it stops feeling even a little like Aro is a bad guy: Edward asks if Aro understands the sitch now, and he replies that he does: “I doubt whether any two among gods or mortals has ever seen quite so clearly.” He delights in the idea of Renesmee and asks to meet her. “What an addition to our histories!” he exclaims. And then he informs Caius that “the justice we intended to deliver no longer applies.” Well, okay then. Can we all go home and end this book now? No?
S. Meyer, always her own worst enemy, immediately starts trying to dig herself out of the hole she didn't even have to dig into in the first place. “This should have been good news,” Bella says. But she hears a “double meaning” in Aro's instruction for Caius to “ponder” what has happened. What could the double meaning be? Did he kind of do a headfake “L” sound so that it could have also been “plunder”? Bella brings RNSM forward, flanked by Jacob and Emmett. Felix and Demetri also come forward like this is the coin toss at the beginning of a football game. Then, inexplicably, Bella flirts with Felix for a few lines.
I smiled wryly at the mountainous vampire. “Hey, Felix.”
Felix chuckled. “You look good. Immortality suits you.”
Aro and the others pause for a second to appreciate how sexy Bella is, and then Bella removes her (wait for it!) mental shield from RNSM so she and Aro can chat. The shield “ripple[s] out behind [Bella] like a cape.” Again, good luck, Bill Condon. (The fact that we're not going to see how they handle this shit until November 2012 makes me not even want to see it. Move up your release date, Summit!)
Somewhere along the way, S. Meyer decides she doesn't even have to try and convince us anymore. If she wants Aro to be evil she can just change a club into a spade, and so that is what she does, right there in the middle of the page: Aro assures RNSM that he's not going to hurt her family, and Edward and Maggie (WHOEVER THAT IS?*) react “at the lie.”
(*Was Maggie introduced as a vampire who can tell when people are lying? I can't even remember. If so, she is literally in this book solely for that “hissing” above. And S. Meyer is the dumbest writer in America.)
It's almost as if S. Meyer realizes, at the end of this chapter, the mistake she has made by only telling and never showing w/r/t Aro's/The Volturi's evil. She she can't go further than this chapter if she doesn't make a course correction. And of course, going back and REVISING is out of the question—I am absolutely certain that she did not re-write so much as a single page of this book. So Aro just abruptly turns evil. He makes several earlier offers of peace and Edward does not react at all “at the lie." Then suddenly, the fifth or sixth consecutive olive branch is the one he doesn't really mean. I don't buy it at all, but again, we're supposed to take her word for it.
Chapter 37: Contrivances
Indeed! So I guess the football game analogy was apt, because at the start of this whole shebang the Cullens and the Volts gathered about a hundred yards apart. Then Edward et al met Aro in the middle. Now, instead of heading back Aro waves his team forward, moving the line of scrimmage so that everyone is only fifty yards apart. Bella and Edward retreat back to their huddle. Caius starts babbling some of the dumbest ancient-villain-speak I have ever heard, asking Aro how he can “abide this infamy” and that sort of crap. Shut up, Caius. But he's trying to call an audible (if I may extend my football metaphor as far as I can take it).
The Volturi become aware that the pitchfork-wielding mob they brought with them has stopped thirsting for violence and has instead started whispering confusedly amongst themselves. I feel your pain, guys. Bella flexes her shield into a dome and realizes that if any bad guy comes under her umbrella, it will go back to only protecting her—they'll be insider her magnetic field or whatever. Oh no! So she concentrates really hard, and, within that same page, manages to get her shield to wrap around each person, clinging to their forms like fabric. OK. WHY IS THIS EVEN IN HERE, THEN? S. Meyer introduces an imaginary problem and then solves it before it has any impact on the story; it's like she's trying to convince us how hard she thinks about this stuff. The problem is, she thinks really hard about the mechanics of Bella's magic shield but doesn't think really hard about what makes a satisfying dramatic arc. PRIORITIZE, LADY! Then Bella realizes that if she concentrates on shielding Jacob, all the other members of his pack are protected too. OH COOL WAIT I DON'T FUCKING CARE EVEN A LITTLE BIT. This is like, fucking page 700.
And then the same pattern of “inconsequential problem is brought up and then solved immediately” repeats. Caius starts complaining about the werewolves, saying that “the Children of the Moon” are vampires' sworn enemy and here the Cullens are cooperating with them. Edward points out that it is the middle of the day, and that Jacob and his ilk are not “Children of the Moon.”
Edward's jaw clenched and unclenched, then he answered evenly, “They aren't even werewolves. Aro can tell you all about it if you don't believe me.”
Aro then calmly explains that though Jacob and the guys “think of themselves as werewolves,” they are actually “shape shifters.” OH OKAY! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS BOOK? WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING? OH THE VOLTURI ARE EVIL NO THEY'RE NOT YES THEY ARE AGAIN OH BELLA'S SHIELD DOESN'T WORK OH NOW IT DOES OH THE WOLVES ARE THE ENEMY OF VAMPIRES OH THE WOLVES AREN'T WOLVES AND NO ONE HAS MENTIONED IT BEFORE BUT IT'S IMPORTANT NOW FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK THIS SHIT FUCK IT I HATE THIS I HATE READING THIS FUCKING BOOK WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK? FUCK!
2 comments:
You sound like you're enjoying yourself immensely. I made it through one True Blood book and that was enough sexy fantasy vampires for me. Though i'm probably full of it and will almost surely read Meyer's horseshit too. I just hope you didn't pay for the privilege.
Yeah, I'm really curious how they'll film this, since she specifically points out that no one can see her shield and that fact even plays into the action at one point.
Meyer seems to have two levels of bad in this book: One I can get behind because it's just crazy enough that it reaches the outrageously funny (vampire baby) and then there's this. I thought it the first time I read it and I still think it now - it's like she just let the series get away from her. It's very self-conscious, more so than the other books. The others, you can tell she was writing for herself. With this book, she seems very aware that she has an audience and she's trying (and failing judging by the response when it was released) to write what she thinks they want.
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