Reading Twilight So You Don't Have To: Chapter Seven
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven: Nightmare
After hearing Jacob's scary story, Bella has a nightmare in which Jacob is a werewolf and Edward is a vampire. Mike is there as well, and he and Jacob are urging Bella to run while Edward is telling her to come. Then Jacob turns into a wolf and attacks Edward, and Bella screams, then wakes up.
Okay, I think we're done here. This is pretty much the entire book in two pages. Sure saves a lot of time.
Ah, no such luck. Now we get two more pages of every mundane thing Bella is trying to do to avoid looking up stuff about vampires on the internet (including the inevitable complaints about how slow the internet was here in hicksville). She finds a site that lists all the various myths about vampires in one place, reads about one legend that doesn't seem relevant to Edward, but maybe foreshadowing something? Then we get this musing from Bella:
It seemed that most vampire myths centered around beautiful women as demons and children as victims; they also seemed like constructs created to explain away the high mortality rates for young children, and to give men an excuse for infidelity.
As opposed to this particular vampire myth, which centers around a perfectly perfect beautiful man and seems like a construct created to explain away female empowerment and give girls a model of ignoring red flags and letting perfectly perfect-looking boys control everything they do.
And again, not a hint of irony or authorial self-awareness.
She finds one myth amongst all the negative ones about the Italian Stregoni benefici, a good vampire that is the mortal enemy of all evil vampires. And she is relieved. Because she can glom onto this one myth among hundreds that even if Edward is a vampire, he could be good.
Seriously, she is such a textbook case of someone walking into an abusive situation and looking for anything she can to tell herself all those red flags don't really mean anything. If there was any hint at all that the author actually understood this, it could actually have some potential.
Another thing. Why is it that Bella immediately buys into this and starts looking up vampire stories? Where's the initial laughing it off as a crazy story or legend that any normal person would do first? For all the weirdness and warning signs, none of them really point to so out of the ordinary that anyone other than Fox Mulder would jump to, "Okay, he's a vampire. NOW it makes sense!" I can see curiosity and looking up vampire myths online, but preceded by Bella falling asleep listening to a CD over and over again specifically to keep herself from thinking about what Jacob had said, and then the nightmare, clearly she is taking this rather seriously. Why? Even though the story is first-person from Bella's point of view, Meyer is still not giving us enough of what's going on in her head for me to buy this almost unquestioning acceptance of Jacob's story, even though he himself laughed it off as a somewhat folksy legend. So I kinda take back that a little authorial insight could have given this book some potential. Authorial insight and some basic classes in creative writing. (aaron_allston, do you have space for her in your next writer's workshop????) ;)
Then she goes on to compare the myths to the things she observed about Edward and the story Jacob told her.
Speed, strength, beauty, pale skin, eyes that shift color; and then Jacob's criteria: blood drinkers, enemies of the werewolf, cold-skinned, and immortal. There were very few myths that matched even one factor.
Wait. What? I'm not much of a vampire expert. I'm a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan and I've read Dracula, so I guess everything I know about vampires I've learned from either Bram Stoker or Joss Whedon. And yet, it seems to me that most vampire stories contain a whole bunch of these qualities. Strength? Check. Beauty? A must. Pale Skin? Ever hear of a vampire with a tan (Blacula and Love at First Bite's George Hamilton excluded)? Blood drinkers? Seriously? Are there any vampires that aren't? Immortal? Barring the possibility of a stake through the heart from a snarky blond co-ed, pretty much. And yet she can't find myths that list even one of these qualities about vampires? What kind of hack site is she looking at, anyway?
Ooh, no mention of sparkling, either.
The one sort of common-reference thing Bella does think of which doesn't fit Edward is that "vampires couldn't come out in the daytime, the sun would burn them to a cinder. They slept in coffins all day and came out only at night."
Actually, it's mostly Joss Whedon's vampires that burn to a crisp in the sun. Stoker's Dracula was merely weakened by the sun, not killed. And even Whedon's vampires can come out in the daylight, so long as they cover up or stay out of direct sunlight. And what has Bella been complaining about since before she even arrived in Forks? The lack of sun. In fact, she makes a point of noting that the first time she saw the sun since she moved there was when she went to the beach. And who was absent that day? Bingo.
Oh, Lord. We finally have her questioning why she would even begin to believe that the Cullens were vampires, and what does she do? Blame Forks. "I decided that most of the blame belonged on the doorstep of the town of Forks--and the entire sodden Olympic Peninsula, for that matter."
Yes, Bella. It's the town's fault that you are a complete moron. And now I want a t-shirt that says, "And then Edward turned Bella, and Buffy staked them both. The end."
So, feeling stupid, she goes out into the forest alone. And, naturally, in the wet, dark forest, scary stories seem more possible, so she decides Edward is clearly "not... human. He was something more." And that he maybe could be a vampire. Or a superhero.
And then we get more Potential Abuse Victim 101 as she mulls over what to do if it turns out to be true:
Only two options seemed practical. The first was to take his advice: to be smart, to avoid him as much as possible. To cancel our plans, to go back to ignoring him as far as I was able. To pretend there was an impenetrably thick glass wall between us in the one class where we were forced together. To tell him to leave me alone--and mean it this time.
I was gripped in a sudden agony of despair as I considered that alternative. My mind rejected the pain, quickly skipping on to the next option.
I could do nothing different. After all, if he was something... sinister, he'd done nothing to hurt me so far.
There is so much wrong with this that it's hard to unpack it. First of all, she's known him for a few weeks, barely done more than talk to him a couple of times, and he saved her life. But the thought of staying away from him grips her in an "agony of despair." This, boys and girls, is what we call a Red Flag. It is not a sign of a good, healthy relationship. And no matter what the romance novels say, it is not romantic. It's creepy. Second, if he's "something... sinister," that doesn't really matter, because he'd done nothing to hurt her. Kind of mob wife thinking, isn't it? But he's so sweet and good to the kids! Yeah, he offed a half dozen people last month, but he's never done anything to meeeeeee.
And let's not forget those last two words: "so far."
Here's a lesson in how abuse works. Abusers don't walk up to people they like and ask them out by punching them in the face. They start out nice and sweet and romantic. And then there are small things. He's a tad possessive. It's sweet, really, when you think about it. Then he doesn't want you to see your friends. Because he loves you sooooooooo much he wants you all to himself. Is that so wrong? And when you do want a night out with the girls, he pouts. Or gets really angry. But can you blame him? It really is your fault for coming home late, right? And so what if he slapped you. It was just that one time, and you can see how you made him mad because you looked at that other guy in the restaurant. And what's one little black eye? You shouldn't have argued with him about politics, because you know how sensitive he is...
See where I'm going here? Abuse always escalates. It's like the story about the frog and the boiling water. Throw it in a boiling pot, and it's gonna jump out. Put it in cold water and slowly turn up the heat, and it will stay until it boils to death, probably rationalizing to itself that it's just one little degree warmer, what's the big deal?
So if you ever find yourself thinking "he'd done nothing to hurt me so far," RUN, do not WALK away. Because there should be no "so far." It shouldn't even cross your mind that he has the potential to hurt you. And if it does, then that's a sign that something is not right, that the water is one degree warmer than it should be, and you'd better get out before it starts to boil.
But this is not what Bella does. She decides--and it is clearly a decision--that no matter what, she wants to be with Edward. And for the first time in the entire book, she is now happy. The sun comes out the next day, she chats amiably with her father, she even eats "cheerily."
I want to stop here, to let this sort of sit, because this is exactly why I find these books so dangerous to kids. Decide to ignore warning signs that your crush is an abuser, and life will be sunny and happy. But the chapter doesn't stop, so...
She goes to school on Monday, happy in her decision and the sunny day. Mike shows up and asks her out and she sighs, wondering why she can't have a pleasant conversation with Mike anymore. Uh, when did she ever? She turns him down by telling him Jessica likes him, thus dodging again her responsibility for being straight forward with him.
When it's lunch time, she panics when the Cullens' table is empty. Because it's sunny, see, and she was hoping to see them in the sun and disprove her suspicions. "Desolation hit me with crippling strength."
How long has she known this guy again?
Now the rest of the day she is "dismal" and "spiraling downward." Because clearly life has no meaning if Edward isn't in school one day!!!11 She even is glad when school is over so she can be "free to pout and mope." HER words, people! She mopes, feeds her dad, asks if she can help Jessica and Angela go dress shopping the next day, while worrying what he would do without her to make dinner, since it's the little woman's job to feed the man of the house. But she decides to leave him cold cuts to assuage her womanly guilt, then after another sunny and Cullen-less day at school, heads off to Port Angeles (out of town!!!111) to go dress shopping with the girls and not think about Edward.
So, to recap: Deciding to ignore signs of creepiness and nurse crush on creepy guy = sunshine and happiness. Absence of creepy guy = spiraling despair. And all of this = romance. Seriously, Stephanie Meyer, I don't know which to recommend more: a good writing workshop (aaron_allston. Look him up at Dragon*Con, GenCon, or Origins.) Or some good info on domestic violence.
Chapter Eight
Quick Links:
Why I'm doing this | Preface & 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 16.2 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | Epilogue |
Discussion Questions
Chapter Seven: Nightmare
After hearing Jacob's scary story, Bella has a nightmare in which Jacob is a werewolf and Edward is a vampire. Mike is there as well, and he and Jacob are urging Bella to run while Edward is telling her to come. Then Jacob turns into a wolf and attacks Edward, and Bella screams, then wakes up.
Okay, I think we're done here. This is pretty much the entire book in two pages. Sure saves a lot of time.
Ah, no such luck. Now we get two more pages of every mundane thing Bella is trying to do to avoid looking up stuff about vampires on the internet (including the inevitable complaints about how slow the internet was here in hicksville). She finds a site that lists all the various myths about vampires in one place, reads about one legend that doesn't seem relevant to Edward, but maybe foreshadowing something? Then we get this musing from Bella:
It seemed that most vampire myths centered around beautiful women as demons and children as victims; they also seemed like constructs created to explain away the high mortality rates for young children, and to give men an excuse for infidelity.
As opposed to this particular vampire myth, which centers around a perfectly perfect beautiful man and seems like a construct created to explain away female empowerment and give girls a model of ignoring red flags and letting perfectly perfect-looking boys control everything they do.
And again, not a hint of irony or authorial self-awareness.
She finds one myth amongst all the negative ones about the Italian Stregoni benefici, a good vampire that is the mortal enemy of all evil vampires. And she is relieved. Because she can glom onto this one myth among hundreds that even if Edward is a vampire, he could be good.
Seriously, she is such a textbook case of someone walking into an abusive situation and looking for anything she can to tell herself all those red flags don't really mean anything. If there was any hint at all that the author actually understood this, it could actually have some potential.
Another thing. Why is it that Bella immediately buys into this and starts looking up vampire stories? Where's the initial laughing it off as a crazy story or legend that any normal person would do first? For all the weirdness and warning signs, none of them really point to so out of the ordinary that anyone other than Fox Mulder would jump to, "Okay, he's a vampire. NOW it makes sense!" I can see curiosity and looking up vampire myths online, but preceded by Bella falling asleep listening to a CD over and over again specifically to keep herself from thinking about what Jacob had said, and then the nightmare, clearly she is taking this rather seriously. Why? Even though the story is first-person from Bella's point of view, Meyer is still not giving us enough of what's going on in her head for me to buy this almost unquestioning acceptance of Jacob's story, even though he himself laughed it off as a somewhat folksy legend. So I kinda take back that a little authorial insight could have given this book some potential. Authorial insight and some basic classes in creative writing. (aaron_allston, do you have space for her in your next writer's workshop????) ;)
Then she goes on to compare the myths to the things she observed about Edward and the story Jacob told her.
Speed, strength, beauty, pale skin, eyes that shift color; and then Jacob's criteria: blood drinkers, enemies of the werewolf, cold-skinned, and immortal. There were very few myths that matched even one factor.
Wait. What? I'm not much of a vampire expert. I'm a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan and I've read Dracula, so I guess everything I know about vampires I've learned from either Bram Stoker or Joss Whedon. And yet, it seems to me that most vampire stories contain a whole bunch of these qualities. Strength? Check. Beauty? A must. Pale Skin? Ever hear of a vampire with a tan (Blacula and Love at First Bite's George Hamilton excluded)? Blood drinkers? Seriously? Are there any vampires that aren't? Immortal? Barring the possibility of a stake through the heart from a snarky blond co-ed, pretty much. And yet she can't find myths that list even one of these qualities about vampires? What kind of hack site is she looking at, anyway?
Ooh, no mention of sparkling, either.
The one sort of common-reference thing Bella does think of which doesn't fit Edward is that "vampires couldn't come out in the daytime, the sun would burn them to a cinder. They slept in coffins all day and came out only at night."
Actually, it's mostly Joss Whedon's vampires that burn to a crisp in the sun. Stoker's Dracula was merely weakened by the sun, not killed. And even Whedon's vampires can come out in the daylight, so long as they cover up or stay out of direct sunlight. And what has Bella been complaining about since before she even arrived in Forks? The lack of sun. In fact, she makes a point of noting that the first time she saw the sun since she moved there was when she went to the beach. And who was absent that day? Bingo.
Oh, Lord. We finally have her questioning why she would even begin to believe that the Cullens were vampires, and what does she do? Blame Forks. "I decided that most of the blame belonged on the doorstep of the town of Forks--and the entire sodden Olympic Peninsula, for that matter."
Yes, Bella. It's the town's fault that you are a complete moron. And now I want a t-shirt that says, "And then Edward turned Bella, and Buffy staked them both. The end."
So, feeling stupid, she goes out into the forest alone. And, naturally, in the wet, dark forest, scary stories seem more possible, so she decides Edward is clearly "not... human. He was something more." And that he maybe could be a vampire. Or a superhero.
And then we get more Potential Abuse Victim 101 as she mulls over what to do if it turns out to be true:
Only two options seemed practical. The first was to take his advice: to be smart, to avoid him as much as possible. To cancel our plans, to go back to ignoring him as far as I was able. To pretend there was an impenetrably thick glass wall between us in the one class where we were forced together. To tell him to leave me alone--and mean it this time.
I was gripped in a sudden agony of despair as I considered that alternative. My mind rejected the pain, quickly skipping on to the next option.
I could do nothing different. After all, if he was something... sinister, he'd done nothing to hurt me so far.
There is so much wrong with this that it's hard to unpack it. First of all, she's known him for a few weeks, barely done more than talk to him a couple of times, and he saved her life. But the thought of staying away from him grips her in an "agony of despair." This, boys and girls, is what we call a Red Flag. It is not a sign of a good, healthy relationship. And no matter what the romance novels say, it is not romantic. It's creepy. Second, if he's "something... sinister," that doesn't really matter, because he'd done nothing to hurt her. Kind of mob wife thinking, isn't it? But he's so sweet and good to the kids! Yeah, he offed a half dozen people last month, but he's never done anything to meeeeeee.
And let's not forget those last two words: "so far."
Here's a lesson in how abuse works. Abusers don't walk up to people they like and ask them out by punching them in the face. They start out nice and sweet and romantic. And then there are small things. He's a tad possessive. It's sweet, really, when you think about it. Then he doesn't want you to see your friends. Because he loves you sooooooooo much he wants you all to himself. Is that so wrong? And when you do want a night out with the girls, he pouts. Or gets really angry. But can you blame him? It really is your fault for coming home late, right? And so what if he slapped you. It was just that one time, and you can see how you made him mad because you looked at that other guy in the restaurant. And what's one little black eye? You shouldn't have argued with him about politics, because you know how sensitive he is...
See where I'm going here? Abuse always escalates. It's like the story about the frog and the boiling water. Throw it in a boiling pot, and it's gonna jump out. Put it in cold water and slowly turn up the heat, and it will stay until it boils to death, probably rationalizing to itself that it's just one little degree warmer, what's the big deal?
So if you ever find yourself thinking "he'd done nothing to hurt me so far," RUN, do not WALK away. Because there should be no "so far." It shouldn't even cross your mind that he has the potential to hurt you. And if it does, then that's a sign that something is not right, that the water is one degree warmer than it should be, and you'd better get out before it starts to boil.
But this is not what Bella does. She decides--and it is clearly a decision--that no matter what, she wants to be with Edward. And for the first time in the entire book, she is now happy. The sun comes out the next day, she chats amiably with her father, she even eats "cheerily."
I want to stop here, to let this sort of sit, because this is exactly why I find these books so dangerous to kids. Decide to ignore warning signs that your crush is an abuser, and life will be sunny and happy. But the chapter doesn't stop, so...
She goes to school on Monday, happy in her decision and the sunny day. Mike shows up and asks her out and she sighs, wondering why she can't have a pleasant conversation with Mike anymore. Uh, when did she ever? She turns him down by telling him Jessica likes him, thus dodging again her responsibility for being straight forward with him.
When it's lunch time, she panics when the Cullens' table is empty. Because it's sunny, see, and she was hoping to see them in the sun and disprove her suspicions. "Desolation hit me with crippling strength."
How long has she known this guy again?
Now the rest of the day she is "dismal" and "spiraling downward." Because clearly life has no meaning if Edward isn't in school one day!!!11 She even is glad when school is over so she can be "free to pout and mope." HER words, people! She mopes, feeds her dad, asks if she can help Jessica and Angela go dress shopping the next day, while worrying what he would do without her to make dinner, since it's the little woman's job to feed the man of the house. But she decides to leave him cold cuts to assuage her womanly guilt, then after another sunny and Cullen-less day at school, heads off to Port Angeles (out of town!!!111) to go dress shopping with the girls and not think about Edward.
So, to recap: Deciding to ignore signs of creepiness and nurse crush on creepy guy = sunshine and happiness. Absence of creepy guy = spiraling despair. And all of this = romance. Seriously, Stephanie Meyer, I don't know which to recommend more: a good writing workshop (aaron_allston. Look him up at Dragon*Con, GenCon, or Origins.) Or some good info on domestic violence.
Chapter Eight
Quick Links:
Why I'm doing this | Preface & 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 16.2 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | Epilogue |
Discussion Questions