What did I just read?
Finally, the long-awaited conclusion to Project Twilight. I give you my reactions and those of my 13-year-old self to chapter 21 through the end.
When last we left me in my Twilight-reading experience, I was marveling at Bella’s ability to not suck under pressure. This carried over into the beginning of Bella’s Cunning Plan in Action. Even though the plan went horribly awry, I was very impressed with Bella’s quick thinking and her determination to keep her parents from being hurt. She can act independently of him! I thought. She can! She still loves other people! …Hey, you’re being awfully quiet, 13-year-old Self.
“It’s just… if I say what I’m thinking, you’re going to make fun of me.”
I won’t, I promise.
“Okay… well, I actually got a little, like, choked up, I guess? When Bella was deciding to sacrifice herself for her mom and wishing that she could see Edward one more time and imagining what it would be like to see him coming through the airport and how sad he was going to be when she wasn’t there to meet him and everything.”
Um, yeah, well… I actually had a little emotional reaction to that, too damnitshutup. I’m not proud. But it was also about at this point that I realized why Jasper finds Bella to be so special, with her no-fear-of-vampires: she has an overdeveloped death drive. That is Bella’s Personality Trait that sets her apart from Nondescript Teenaged Girl, if she has any at all. She has an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation and a death drive speeding down the highway like the Vampire Volvo itself.
“I don’t know, I like to think I’d do the same thing for Mom.”
Yeah, but would you be all comfy and warm and fuzzy in the constant presence of vampires?
“No, we’ve agreed on the weirdness of that since the beginning.”
There you have it. So, Bella heads to the ballet studio of doom, and it turns out that the mysterious vampire who sired Alice-a mystery I was pretty sure Stephenie Meyer was going to leave unsolved because it had nothing to do with the Love That Is So True-did so to save her from our current enemy, James the hunter. OH COINCIDENCE.
“It was pretty convenient. And I kind of have to wonder-how did James ever start hunting Alice, if she was locked up in an asylum?”
I know, and even given that, how much of a challenge could she have posed for him? It’s like hunting a tiger in a cage at the zoo.
“I really loved Alice through the whole thing, though. She rocked.”
I agree. And I actually don’t have much in the way of notes for the whole Ballet Studio of Doom because it didn’t suck, either. BUT THEN. Apparently, when James threw Bella’s skull into that studio mirror, what remained of her brains leaked out.
“Wait, wait, there are a couple of other things to talk about in the hospital scene first, right? Before getting… all worked up?”
Right, right. Like how hard I laughed when Bella went from lamenting her essentially full-body cast to celebrating her continued ability to eyeroll. Oh, good. Because God forbid your intrinsic Teenager-ness in the form of eyerolling should be inhibited.
13E and I both hypocritically roll our eyes at Bella. It’s a toss-up as to who is better at it-13E with her actual teenager status, or me with my years of practice.
“We also finally saw Bella actually taking care of her mom, even though she was the one hospitalized.”
Yeah, true story. Bella was not making it up-Renee really is a crap mom. It almost made me respect Bella a little. Also, I just want to get Bella on record as having actually said this: “But it seems logical… a man and woman have to be somewhat equal… as in, one of them can’t always be swooping in and saving the other one. They have to save each other equally.” WHAT. NOW she’s talking about equality?! NOW?! After the fainting and the obsession and… I don’t even know what to make of that. I really do not.
“Can we please get to the part that made me mad? Because I know it made you mad, too.”
Of course. The part where we find out she must have permanent brain damage. Since you’re finally mad at Bella about something, Young Self, why don’t you tell us about it?
“Right. Well, I guess it’s, like… she wants to die. I mean, if she can’t be with Edward. But she was just going on and on about how much she loves her parents and how they need her to take care of them, and it’s like-what happened to that, Bella?”
EXACTLY! What about your stupid parents, Bella? WHO WOULD FEED THEM?
“And then she tells Edward, ‘You’re the only thing it would hurt me to lose.’ The only thing. And I wanted to scream, ‘WHAT ABOUT YOUR MOM TWO CHAPTERS AGO?’ How come that suddenly, like, just doesn’t count anymore? It sort of takes away from all of the cool things that Bella did before now! It just-argh!”
I KNOW! I mean, she went to such extremes with this whole “you’re the only thing that matters to me” declaration that I actually started to entertain the suspicion that the only reason she was so hellbent on saving her mom was because she didn’t want to feel guilty about her mom dying for her. And I was like, “Are you really that selfish?”
“I think I’m starting to get what you’re saying about Bella giving up who she is for Edward, because this is craziness.”
THANK GOD. You’re right, it’s like he back up shows up and suddenly she’s dazzled back into Helpless Victorian Angel Child, and she loses the ability to think.
“It made me mad.”
I’m glad it did. It should. It made me mad, too.
“I’m all for destined love and everything, and I would be fine if she would actually realistically consider, in a serious way, what she will be giving up for Edward. She’s not even bothered by it. If she was bothered, maybe, I don’t know.”
But she’s not. She’s not considering the consequences for herself or others. And that, my friend, is called “just being stupid.”
“When she’s with him she just doesn’t consider that there are other people in the world. And if she’s going to sacrifice herself for him like that, that makes it not even a sacrifice at all. It’s not even tragic, it’s just reckless.”
Well said. I’m proud of you.
“Look, can we please talk about the stupid epilogue now? I’m rambling.”
Sure.
“So, why does Bella think formal dress is required for vampirization, anyway?”
I do not know. Maybe because there is some kind of mental association between vampires and formal wear? Although that just makes the assumption kind of… racist, actually, and I’m surprised Edward wasn’t insulted. But no, she just condescended to go to prom for all of fifteen minutes and oh noes, actually enjoyed herself a little, for which her long-suffering self should apparently be handsomely rewarded.
13E rolls her eyes admirably. I’m about to give her the edge in that department. “She started out seeming like a normal teenager, and now she doesn’t even like prom. I mean, we’re not coordinated, and we have fun at our prom, right?”
Well… actually… we don’t exactly go…
“We don’t go to prom? I don’t go to prom?” 13E looks like I’ve kicked her puppy. “Why?”
Look, it’s not that big a deal. There wasn’t anybody going we particularly wanted to go and hang out with, that’s all. We’d have been bored. … Okay, fine, I regret it now a little, but only a little. Cheer up, it’s not like we’re Bella “uninterested in a normal human life” Swan. And we go to sorority formals later.
13E looks at me like I’ve dropped her puppy off a building. “I JOIN A SORORITY?!”
I DON’T HAVE TO EXPLAIN MY REASONS TO YOU, OKAY? The point is, by the end of the book, I was surprised to find myself actually sort of siding with Edward: Bella is in fact just a stupid kid.
“And he’s a perv.”
Absolutely.
“I can’t believe I go from not going to prom to joining a freaking sorority.”
Trust me. It all turns out okay. It was good reconnecting with you, Self. You make me seem much less romantic and more pragmatic than I actually am, just by comparison, bless you. But stop comparing yourself to Bella Swan. You already beat her at life in general.
“Thanks. I could turn out worse than you, I guess.”
This is turning into a very weird, self-congratulatory post. I’m going to wrap it up now. Anything else you’d like to say, 13E?
“BOOM!”
Thank you. Maybe we’ll be back for New Moon, maybe not. 13E is up for it, but after that travesty of an ending, my brain needs some time away.
Best line of the section goes to Edward Cullen: “I refuse to damn you to an eternity of night and that’s the end of it.”