Breaking Dawn: Chapter 8 - Waiting For The Damn Fight To Start Already - Part 1
Projection Room Voices: Part 2 of Breaking Dawn sporking about to begin. ZeldaQueen, are you ready?
ZeldaQueen: Nearly. I’ve looked over the notes and notes from the future for this though, and I’d like to request a few additional sporkers for help.
Projection Room Voices: Certainly. Which ones?
ZeldaQueen: Hmm, what about the Cheer! girls?
Projection Room Voices: All four of them?
ZeldaQueen: On second thought, just Alex and Lita. Sam and Jo might have a bit of trouble, if the hints that I’ve gotten are any indicator…
Projection Room Voices: Very well. *intercom* Will Alex King and Cher Lita Harper please report to the Sporking Chamber?
*minutes pass while elevator music plays*
Lita: What is it? I was sleeping!
Alex: Greetings comrades! What endeavor so thoroughly taxes your mental and emotional prowress in sporking that you must call upon us for aide and support?
ZeldaQueen: Um, we’re doing Part 2 of Breaking Dawn.
Lita: Never heard of it.
ZeldaQueen: It has vampires in it.
Lita: Like from Basements & Balrogs?
ZeldQueen: They sparkle and have X-men powers.
Lita: Spar - wah?
Alex: Never fear, dear friend! We shall not fail you in your time of need! Let us set forth with our sporks at hand so that we may do a great service to readers everywhere and protect the Realm of Literacy. Begin the Media!
Projection Room Voices: Playing Media in 3...2...1...
Chapter 8: Waiting For The Damn Fight To Start Already (Part 1)
Lita: That’s the title?
Alex: Indeed, it appears to be better suited to be the caption of a picture.
ZeldaQueen: They all appear to be like that for this section. Which doesn’t make much sense, I mean with Bella she has the intelligence and logic of Jack Chick so you could understand why she could only muster one-word titles. Jacob isn’t particularly long-winded though. Oh, and we also get a quote from the bard.
Lita: Meyer's really attached to those, isn't she?
ZeldaQueen: Yep. We get A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is pretty appropriate. After all, nothing says "true love" like a play about dominating females, brainwashing love, and threatening rape in the woods.
Lita: Look, can we move on? The quote is "And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays."
ZeldaQueen: Pfffft! Meyer must be secretly psychic about her work. Or she's secretly doing some gloriously sneaky joke.
Alex: It matters not. We then move on to our glorious…very badly mislabeled…opening in which…only one sentence long…Preface.
ZeldaQueen: Yeah. We get the quote “Life sucks, and then you die” and then someone - Jacob I presume - saying “Yeah, I should be so lucky” And that’s it. No names, no action, no lead-in, it literally is only that.
Lita: Hey, shouldn’t Meyer have said where the quote was from maybe?
Alex: Indeed, if one borrows the sage advice and sayings of others, then one had best give them credit. What sort of a person would shamelessly steal the words of others?
ZeldaQueen: Keiran Halcyon. Forget that though, I ran a Google search I ran while Alex was talking, but I still haven’t found the origin of the phrase. I do remember it being on Style’s T-shirt in Teen Wolf though.
Lita: So Meyer’s a liar when she said that other stuff didn’t influence her?
ZeldaQueen: Quite possibly, but I doubt she would have liked the movie. Scott actually makes a choice about the girl he wants to date and it isn’t an infant.
Lita: Weird.
Alex: Shall we continue, gentlemen? After that rather brief and generically bitter and “emo” quote, we move straight along into the dark depths of the first chapter documenting the tragic tale of one Jacob Black.
Lita: Yeah, “tragic” in the sense that we have to sit through this. And we start straight off with Jacob fighting with fellow werewolf Paul, who’s mooching off of him, sitting on his sofa and watching his TV and eating all of the Doritos, the horror. Listen buddy, I’ve got a family of eight and a D&D group that’s always crashing at my place, plus my three friends. Do you see me getting worked up just because they decide to sit on the furniture and watch TV and have a few chips?
Alex: I was unaware of the fact that our weekend rendezvous were such a bother to you.
Lita: They aren’t, I’m just saying that it’s not like it’s that much that Jacob’s got to put up with there. Paul’s mooching a little, not stealing his loose pocket change and eating his house plants.
ZeldaQueen: …I don’t think “rendezvous” is the word you were looking for there, Alex. Anyway, Jacob is really annoyed and we find out that Paul’s there because of Jacob’s sister, Rachael. You remember Rachael, mentioned once way back in Chapter 6 of Twilight, when Bella is stunned to find that she was in college, as Rachael is only a year older. Well apparently Meyer remembered that she had a single female character who was doing something with her life, because it turns out that Paul has imprinted on her last summer, when Rachael came home. To be fair though, apparently Rachael actually had graduated from Washington State by that point in time.
Lita: Is that the best sort of relief we get in this?
ZeldaQueen: Considering how the Emily and Claire imprinting went - yes. I wouldn’t have put it past Meyer to have had Rachael drop out of college to marry Paul. Jacob is grateful that Rachael is now in the loop - since wolves can tell the imprintees everything - but is none to pleased by the fact that Paul will be his brother-in-law one day, nor the fact that four of the ten wolves have imprinted by now. Because it was mentioned before that it was rare and Jacob remembers this and is angry that it is happening so much and finds the love-at-first sight thing sickening.
Lita: Hey, I hear you. All of those couples at Tandy, always making out in the corridors…
Alex: Nonsense! The joining of two to be one is a beautiful concept that may be traced back to the dawn of time. Love is, after all, but a battlefield and -
Lita: *reading series footnotes* One of the wolves imprinted on an infant.
Alex: We must…undertones of pedophilia…carry on bravely with this…very disturbing…tradition of…that’s quite nauseating.
ZeldaQueen: Yep. Now you know. Just wait until we get to the wolf girl Leah.
Lita: Wait, why do the Native Americans all have Old Testament names?
ZeldaQueen: Meyer named most of them after her siblings. Including Paul, the violent one, and Jacob who’s…just Jacob. Oy.
Lita: So yeah, Jacob has had enough and punches Paul in the nose, breaking the nose, SWEET!
Alex: Perchance did the author take into account the angle and force, so that we might judge how close to the “bone to the brain” technique Jacob came?
ZeldaQueen: Alex, Meyer didn’t even take into account wind speed and water tension when Bella leapt off of a cliff in New Moon. Facts are optional for her and I’m not exaggerating.
Alex: …That makes no sense whatsoever.
ZeldaQueen: You caught on quickly. Jacob notes that his father seems to be handling the imprinting thing better, though he spends a lot more time at the Clearwater household, which Jacob thinks is not much better. "No Paul, but plenty of Leah."
Alex: What sort of mockery is this, in which this woman's name is dragged through the mud before we even see her?
ZeldaQueen: Did you guys read the series footnotes for this at all?
Lita: No! We didn't know we'd be sporking this! Hold on a minute. *scans furiously* Here we go, Leah Clearwater is the only female werewolf, was screwed over when her fiancee Sam imprinted on her cousin Emily, and is considered angry and bitter and shrewish by the pack as a result.
Alex: Excuse me? Angry and bitter?
ZeldaQueen: Yeah, I wonder why. So guys, please buckle in. Leah is Meyer's chew toy for anti-feminism and since this section is about wolves...
Alex: We must forge onward. Only when we are strong in spirit may we grow in strength of body.
Lita: Whatever. Let's get on with it.
ZeldaQueen: Jake starts angsting over Bella's inevitable death or faking thereof and how exactly the Cullens would go about doing it. He also pretty clearly expresses his desire to attack and kill the Cullens and is very annoyed with Sam for having the gall to tell him to uphold the treaty and leave them alone until they draw first blood (har har). He also thinks about how he can get Edward in a one-on-one fight if he kills one of the other Cullens first.
Alex: But tell me, was it not Edward alone with whom Jacob held a grudge?
ZeldaQueen: Yep.
Alex: And he intends to kill just to invoke Edward's wrath? What sort of dishonorabl strategy is this?!?
Lita: Hold on a second... *flips through Midnight Sun footnotes* Isn't this eerily similar to Edward planning how he wants to rip up that Mike kid and those rapists?
ZeldaQueen: Mmhmm.
Lita: And these guys are what the author considers to be the best kinds of men to date?
ZeldaQueen: Exactly.
Alex: What utter stupidity! I am disgusted to think that such a backwards and primative view could be held in this world of progression! What kind of insanity would cause anyone to think in such a manner?
Lita: Word. Makes me glad that we have each other, Alex.
Alex: Well...and Sam and Jo as well...correct?
Lita: Yeah, and them too. Why're you all nervous now?
ZeldaQueen: Jacob takes off for the beach, where he meets packmate Quil, who is there with Claire, the girl he'd imprinted on and will marry one day.
Alex: This "imprinting", I believe, was viewed by many sporkers before us with much ire and revoltion, true?
ZeldaQueen: Exactly. As Claire runs around the beach, Jacob asks Quil if she's hit the "terrible twos" and is told that she in fact just turned three. He -
Lita: WTF?!?!?!?
Projection Room Voices: No chatspeak in the Sporking Chamber.
Lita: Shut up! *to ZeldaQueen* This is the guy who swore eternal love to an infant?
ZeldaQueen: Yeah, wasn't that in the series footnotes.
Lita: I think so, but I think I kinda blocked it out...
Alex: This is disgusting! Such putrid views ought never to be brought up outside of police arrest series! And yet this is being portrayed as something innocent and pure, love of the highest degree? Madness I say, madness!
Lita: Yo, say what you want about that date we had, it was a lot less creepy than this.
Alex: Never again will I complain when you force me to dress in a tuxedo and follow you to grace the halls of Kirby's Steak House with your presence.
ZeldaQueen: Oh, and this is how Claire speaks:
"'Gone, gone, gone,” Claire sang, “Cwaire pway wid Qwil aaaawl day. Cwaire nebber gowin home.' She let go of me and ran to Quil. He scooped her up and slung her onto his shoulders."
Lita: You know, I'm fairly sure that my three-year-old sister doesn't talk like that.
Alex: She does not. I believe that to be less "accurate" than "stereotypical" in the dialect of childhood. Has Meyer never had children before?
ZeldaQueen: Yes, several. But nothing else in this series has been factually accurate, so at least she's staying consistent. Jacob and Quil discuss Claire's third birthday, in which Quil was dressed in a tiara and play make-up. Claire begins to demand that Quil pick up a rock for her and he starts trying to guess which one. And we get this:
"The weird part was, Quil was having just as much fun as she was. He didn't have that face on that so many of the tourist dads and moms were wearing-the when-is-nap-time? face. You never saw a real parent so jazzed to play whatever stupid kiddie sport their rugrat could think up. I'd seen Quil play peekaboo for an hour straight without getting bored."
Lita: This...is getting creepy.
Alex: "Getting"?
ZeldaQueen: I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is a terrible theme in this series where the "true loves" slowly edge their way into a character's life and replace friends and family. It's most prominent with Bella, when Edward cuts into the time she spends with Charlie and her friends and abuses her truck - which I pointed out before was a gift from her dad that she says she liked. But there are others. Look at Emily. She and Leah were very close and Emily never wanted Sam. Then Sam imprints on her and starts fawning over her and the next thing you know, Emily is engaged to him, kissing him, and apparently has dropped Leah like a hot potato. We see at the beginning of this chapter that Paul is constantly hanging out at the Black household with Rachael, which has begun to pit her against Jacob. In all of these cases, the girl is being separated from her family and shifted to her boyfriend/fiancee.
Now arguably, this is a theme which has been used in other places, one of the oldest being the myth of Hades kidnapping Persephone. Time was, women were expected to leave their own families to join their husband's. That was how it traditionally was, and still is in some places. There is still a problem here - the ages of the girls. Bella is eighteen, Rachael is nineteen, and while I'm not sure how old Emily is, she's probably in her early twenties. While those were ages in which girls were shipped off to be only with their husbands years ago, it's different today. While a girl in that age range is technically an adult, she'd still normally be dependant or at least still linked to her family. Even if she's dating or engaged, her family would still play a big part in her life (I might add that society also tends to be suspicious of early marriages in general - as Bella noted, people see it as rash and the sort of behavior associated with a girl getting knocked up and trying to hide things). But these girls are already being separated. That is not right at all.
Still, there are probably some people who would find it acceptable in the case of Bella or Rachael or Emily. But let us now look at Quil and Claire - as an imprinted wolf, he is spending every spare minute with her. He is caring for her, playing with her, and as Jacob put it, is basically her nanny. We never see her being cared for by her parents, only Quil. Jacob, in the quote above, basically came right out and said that Quil - a man who imprinted and was all ready for love and marriage - was better at caring for Claire than her own parents were. In other words, he's already begun to edge his way in and replace them. Before she is even in kindergarden. WHAT THE HELL MEYER, HOW DO YOU NOT SEE HOW THIS IS WRONG? From the way it looks, Claire is not getting the proper bonding with her parents. Quil has taken over in that department. Which leads to another problem: Westermarck and Filial imprinting. Yes Meyer, real-life imprinting. Ready for a lecture everyone?
Lita: Have at it.
Alex: Speak, dear friend, and educate the streaming masses who seem to believe that this is "good" literature.
ZeldaQueen: Thank you. Let's start with Filial imprinting. In this type of imprinting, a young child learns the characteristics of its parents. It lets the child learn behaviors, but more importantly it also lets the child learn who the parents are. It's mostly been observed amongst birds, so many of you probably see those pictures of ducklings following people around like the person's their mother.
ZeldaQueen: Now here's the thing - filial imprinting is also applicable to human children. In other words, a human child like Claire would imprint on a person that she percieves to be "parent" to her. Now granted, I am not entirely sure how young a child must be when filial imprinting takes place. But I believe that the formative years happen before age four, which Claire has yet to reach. So let's say that's the case. And let's say that Quil spends more time with her and caring for her than her actual parents do (which appears to be the case) - wouldn't she imprint on him and see him as her "parent"? In other words, he's taken the role of parent from her biological parents before she has even bonded with them!
And it gets even better. Let's skip along to the Westermack effect. This is what is known as reverse sexual imprinting. In a nutshell, it's a phenomenon in which when a person is raised in close proximity to another for the first few years of their life, they are desensitized to sexual attraction to that person. In other words, this is why you don't normally feel the urge to screw your siblings that you've lived with since you were one year old. Studies have verified this and proven that the critical age for the effect to take place is age six. That is to say that if children are reared together before age six, they do not feel sexual attraction to each other. Claire is three. She is being raised by Quil more or less.
In other words, Meyer has failed long and hard and has been very creepy in the process. In trying to establish a relationship that she insists is innocent and pure, she has only set up something doomed - Quil will inevitably want to marry and nail Claire. And yes, he will. Because Jacob gives us this:
"Though I did think it sucked that he had a good fourteen years of monkitude ahead of him until Claire was his age-for Quil, at least, it was a good thing werewolves didn't get older. But even all that time didn't seem to bother him much."
ZeldaQueen: So yes, he has every intention to marry Claire with all that implies. And there's no way she can refuse. She has to continue his bloodline and have babies. But as my five-second search on Google demonstrated, there's very little chance for Claire to return those feelings. Psychologically, she'd register him as a parent or at least a family member and not feel sexually attracted to him. So what then? She'd feel like she would be sleeping with her dad! Oh, and Meyer? Some other theatrical and literary characters who planned to marry girls that they knew since said girls where children?
ZeldaQueen: Funny how those couples usually aren't remembered as the paragons of romance.
Alex: *eye twitches* I really...
Lita: I roll the dice to see if my +3 katana can let me commit suicide... Dang it.
Alex: Impailed upon your own sword...or rather, not.
Lita: I need a new Dungeon Master.
ZeldaQueen: I need a break! Can we get a break?
Projection Room Voices: Find a stopping point first.
Alex: Ugh, very well! As Quil frolics with his underage paramour, Jacob has the gall to as the outlandish question of if Quil has ever considered dating another girl while he awaits his beloved to hit the legal age, or at least her pre-teens. Quil stands with his mouth agap and seems to honestly not know what sort of answer that question warrents.
Lita: Quil then turns his attention back to picking up rocks with Claire, Jacob apologizes like his question was uncalled for or unusual, Quil asks if Jacob has considered getting over Bella and dating other girls, Jacob insists that he sees no one else either, and THIS IS SO WRONG! How can the author think this is sweet?
ZeldaQueen: It's pathetic! Jacob's a teenager with his entire life ahead of him and he's mooning over the first girl he apparently got decently attached to and who married someone else. Meyer, people move on and date other people if first relationships don't work out! Stop making it look like that's a selfish and evil thing to do! *pants furiously* Anyway, Sam calls all wolves to assemble and Jacob agrees to go find out what it's about so Quil doesn't have to leave Claire if he doesn't have to and is this a good stopping point?
Projection Room Voices: Erm...yes. Yes it is.
ZeldaQueen: GOOD! You know, I usually like werewolves over vampires, but this sucks! Meyer has taken my favorite mythological creature and made them creepy and stupid and I hate them and they make me angry!
Alex: Agreed. May I be so bold as to request that you not ask us to spork this section again anytime soon?
ZeldaQueen: *grumpily* Fine! I'll get someone else!
Lita: Great. I knew that +2 Cloak of Escape would come in handy!
Projection Room Voices: Okay...just go take a break and you can finish the chapter later.
Onward to: Chapter 8: Waiting For The Damn Fight To Start Already (Part 2)
Back to: Chapter 7: Unexpected
Return to: Table of Contents
ZeldaQueen: Nearly. I’ve looked over the notes and notes from the future for this though, and I’d like to request a few additional sporkers for help.
Projection Room Voices: Certainly. Which ones?
ZeldaQueen: Hmm, what about the Cheer! girls?
Projection Room Voices: All four of them?
ZeldaQueen: On second thought, just Alex and Lita. Sam and Jo might have a bit of trouble, if the hints that I’ve gotten are any indicator…
Projection Room Voices: Very well. *intercom* Will Alex King and Cher Lita Harper please report to the Sporking Chamber?
*minutes pass while elevator music plays*
Lita: What is it? I was sleeping!
Alex: Greetings comrades! What endeavor so thoroughly taxes your mental and emotional prowress in sporking that you must call upon us for aide and support?
ZeldaQueen: Um, we’re doing Part 2 of Breaking Dawn.
Lita: Never heard of it.
ZeldaQueen: It has vampires in it.
Lita: Like from Basements & Balrogs?
ZeldQueen: They sparkle and have X-men powers.
Lita: Spar - wah?
Alex: Never fear, dear friend! We shall not fail you in your time of need! Let us set forth with our sporks at hand so that we may do a great service to readers everywhere and protect the Realm of Literacy. Begin the Media!
Projection Room Voices: Playing Media in 3...2...1...
Chapter 8: Waiting For The Damn Fight To Start Already (Part 1)
Lita: That’s the title?
Alex: Indeed, it appears to be better suited to be the caption of a picture.
ZeldaQueen: They all appear to be like that for this section. Which doesn’t make much sense, I mean with Bella she has the intelligence and logic of Jack Chick so you could understand why she could only muster one-word titles. Jacob isn’t particularly long-winded though. Oh, and we also get a quote from the bard.
Lita: Meyer's really attached to those, isn't she?
ZeldaQueen: Yep. We get A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is pretty appropriate. After all, nothing says "true love" like a play about dominating females, brainwashing love, and threatening rape in the woods.
Lita: Look, can we move on? The quote is "And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays."
ZeldaQueen: Pfffft! Meyer must be secretly psychic about her work. Or she's secretly doing some gloriously sneaky joke.
Alex: It matters not. We then move on to our glorious…very badly mislabeled…opening in which…only one sentence long…Preface.
ZeldaQueen: Yeah. We get the quote “Life sucks, and then you die” and then someone - Jacob I presume - saying “Yeah, I should be so lucky” And that’s it. No names, no action, no lead-in, it literally is only that.
Lita: Hey, shouldn’t Meyer have said where the quote was from maybe?
Alex: Indeed, if one borrows the sage advice and sayings of others, then one had best give them credit. What sort of a person would shamelessly steal the words of others?
ZeldaQueen: Keiran Halcyon. Forget that though, I ran a Google search I ran while Alex was talking, but I still haven’t found the origin of the phrase. I do remember it being on Style’s T-shirt in Teen Wolf though.
Lita: So Meyer’s a liar when she said that other stuff didn’t influence her?
ZeldaQueen: Quite possibly, but I doubt she would have liked the movie. Scott actually makes a choice about the girl he wants to date and it isn’t an infant.
Lita: Weird.
Alex: Shall we continue, gentlemen? After that rather brief and generically bitter and “emo” quote, we move straight along into the dark depths of the first chapter documenting the tragic tale of one Jacob Black.
Lita: Yeah, “tragic” in the sense that we have to sit through this. And we start straight off with Jacob fighting with fellow werewolf Paul, who’s mooching off of him, sitting on his sofa and watching his TV and eating all of the Doritos, the horror. Listen buddy, I’ve got a family of eight and a D&D group that’s always crashing at my place, plus my three friends. Do you see me getting worked up just because they decide to sit on the furniture and watch TV and have a few chips?
Alex: I was unaware of the fact that our weekend rendezvous were such a bother to you.
Lita: They aren’t, I’m just saying that it’s not like it’s that much that Jacob’s got to put up with there. Paul’s mooching a little, not stealing his loose pocket change and eating his house plants.
ZeldaQueen: …I don’t think “rendezvous” is the word you were looking for there, Alex. Anyway, Jacob is really annoyed and we find out that Paul’s there because of Jacob’s sister, Rachael. You remember Rachael, mentioned once way back in Chapter 6 of Twilight, when Bella is stunned to find that she was in college, as Rachael is only a year older. Well apparently Meyer remembered that she had a single female character who was doing something with her life, because it turns out that Paul has imprinted on her last summer, when Rachael came home. To be fair though, apparently Rachael actually had graduated from Washington State by that point in time.
Lita: Is that the best sort of relief we get in this?
ZeldaQueen: Considering how the Emily and Claire imprinting went - yes. I wouldn’t have put it past Meyer to have had Rachael drop out of college to marry Paul. Jacob is grateful that Rachael is now in the loop - since wolves can tell the imprintees everything - but is none to pleased by the fact that Paul will be his brother-in-law one day, nor the fact that four of the ten wolves have imprinted by now. Because it was mentioned before that it was rare and Jacob remembers this and is angry that it is happening so much and finds the love-at-first sight thing sickening.
Lita: Hey, I hear you. All of those couples at Tandy, always making out in the corridors…
Alex: Nonsense! The joining of two to be one is a beautiful concept that may be traced back to the dawn of time. Love is, after all, but a battlefield and -
Lita: *reading series footnotes* One of the wolves imprinted on an infant.
Alex: We must…undertones of pedophilia…carry on bravely with this…very disturbing…tradition of…that’s quite nauseating.
ZeldaQueen: Yep. Now you know. Just wait until we get to the wolf girl Leah.
Lita: Wait, why do the Native Americans all have Old Testament names?
ZeldaQueen: Meyer named most of them after her siblings. Including Paul, the violent one, and Jacob who’s…just Jacob. Oy.
Lita: So yeah, Jacob has had enough and punches Paul in the nose, breaking the nose, SWEET!
Alex: Perchance did the author take into account the angle and force, so that we might judge how close to the “bone to the brain” technique Jacob came?
ZeldaQueen: Alex, Meyer didn’t even take into account wind speed and water tension when Bella leapt off of a cliff in New Moon. Facts are optional for her and I’m not exaggerating.
Alex: …That makes no sense whatsoever.
ZeldaQueen: You caught on quickly. Jacob notes that his father seems to be handling the imprinting thing better, though he spends a lot more time at the Clearwater household, which Jacob thinks is not much better. "No Paul, but plenty of Leah."
Alex: What sort of mockery is this, in which this woman's name is dragged through the mud before we even see her?
ZeldaQueen: Did you guys read the series footnotes for this at all?
Lita: No! We didn't know we'd be sporking this! Hold on a minute. *scans furiously* Here we go, Leah Clearwater is the only female werewolf, was screwed over when her fiancee Sam imprinted on her cousin Emily, and is considered angry and bitter and shrewish by the pack as a result.
Alex: Excuse me? Angry and bitter?
ZeldaQueen: Yeah, I wonder why. So guys, please buckle in. Leah is Meyer's chew toy for anti-feminism and since this section is about wolves...
Alex: We must forge onward. Only when we are strong in spirit may we grow in strength of body.
Lita: Whatever. Let's get on with it.
ZeldaQueen: Jake starts angsting over Bella's inevitable death or faking thereof and how exactly the Cullens would go about doing it. He also pretty clearly expresses his desire to attack and kill the Cullens and is very annoyed with Sam for having the gall to tell him to uphold the treaty and leave them alone until they draw first blood (har har). He also thinks about how he can get Edward in a one-on-one fight if he kills one of the other Cullens first.
Alex: But tell me, was it not Edward alone with whom Jacob held a grudge?
ZeldaQueen: Yep.
Alex: And he intends to kill just to invoke Edward's wrath? What sort of dishonorabl strategy is this?!?
Lita: Hold on a second... *flips through Midnight Sun footnotes* Isn't this eerily similar to Edward planning how he wants to rip up that Mike kid and those rapists?
ZeldaQueen: Mmhmm.
Lita: And these guys are what the author considers to be the best kinds of men to date?
ZeldaQueen: Exactly.
Alex: What utter stupidity! I am disgusted to think that such a backwards and primative view could be held in this world of progression! What kind of insanity would cause anyone to think in such a manner?
Lita: Word. Makes me glad that we have each other, Alex.
Alex: Well...and Sam and Jo as well...correct?
Lita: Yeah, and them too. Why're you all nervous now?
ZeldaQueen: Jacob takes off for the beach, where he meets packmate Quil, who is there with Claire, the girl he'd imprinted on and will marry one day.
Alex: This "imprinting", I believe, was viewed by many sporkers before us with much ire and revoltion, true?
ZeldaQueen: Exactly. As Claire runs around the beach, Jacob asks Quil if she's hit the "terrible twos" and is told that she in fact just turned three. He -
Lita: WTF?!?!?!?
Projection Room Voices: No chatspeak in the Sporking Chamber.
Lita: Shut up! *to ZeldaQueen* This is the guy who swore eternal love to an infant?
ZeldaQueen: Yeah, wasn't that in the series footnotes.
Lita: I think so, but I think I kinda blocked it out...
Alex: This is disgusting! Such putrid views ought never to be brought up outside of police arrest series! And yet this is being portrayed as something innocent and pure, love of the highest degree? Madness I say, madness!
Lita: Yo, say what you want about that date we had, it was a lot less creepy than this.
Alex: Never again will I complain when you force me to dress in a tuxedo and follow you to grace the halls of Kirby's Steak House with your presence.
ZeldaQueen: Oh, and this is how Claire speaks:
"'Gone, gone, gone,” Claire sang, “Cwaire pway wid Qwil aaaawl day. Cwaire nebber gowin home.' She let go of me and ran to Quil. He scooped her up and slung her onto his shoulders."
Lita: You know, I'm fairly sure that my three-year-old sister doesn't talk like that.
Alex: She does not. I believe that to be less "accurate" than "stereotypical" in the dialect of childhood. Has Meyer never had children before?
ZeldaQueen: Yes, several. But nothing else in this series has been factually accurate, so at least she's staying consistent. Jacob and Quil discuss Claire's third birthday, in which Quil was dressed in a tiara and play make-up. Claire begins to demand that Quil pick up a rock for her and he starts trying to guess which one. And we get this:
"The weird part was, Quil was having just as much fun as she was. He didn't have that face on that so many of the tourist dads and moms were wearing-the when-is-nap-time? face. You never saw a real parent so jazzed to play whatever stupid kiddie sport their rugrat could think up. I'd seen Quil play peekaboo for an hour straight without getting bored."
Lita: This...is getting creepy.
Alex: "Getting"?
ZeldaQueen: I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is a terrible theme in this series where the "true loves" slowly edge their way into a character's life and replace friends and family. It's most prominent with Bella, when Edward cuts into the time she spends with Charlie and her friends and abuses her truck - which I pointed out before was a gift from her dad that she says she liked. But there are others. Look at Emily. She and Leah were very close and Emily never wanted Sam. Then Sam imprints on her and starts fawning over her and the next thing you know, Emily is engaged to him, kissing him, and apparently has dropped Leah like a hot potato. We see at the beginning of this chapter that Paul is constantly hanging out at the Black household with Rachael, which has begun to pit her against Jacob. In all of these cases, the girl is being separated from her family and shifted to her boyfriend/fiancee.
Now arguably, this is a theme which has been used in other places, one of the oldest being the myth of Hades kidnapping Persephone. Time was, women were expected to leave their own families to join their husband's. That was how it traditionally was, and still is in some places. There is still a problem here - the ages of the girls. Bella is eighteen, Rachael is nineteen, and while I'm not sure how old Emily is, she's probably in her early twenties. While those were ages in which girls were shipped off to be only with their husbands years ago, it's different today. While a girl in that age range is technically an adult, she'd still normally be dependant or at least still linked to her family. Even if she's dating or engaged, her family would still play a big part in her life (I might add that society also tends to be suspicious of early marriages in general - as Bella noted, people see it as rash and the sort of behavior associated with a girl getting knocked up and trying to hide things). But these girls are already being separated. That is not right at all.
Still, there are probably some people who would find it acceptable in the case of Bella or Rachael or Emily. But let us now look at Quil and Claire - as an imprinted wolf, he is spending every spare minute with her. He is caring for her, playing with her, and as Jacob put it, is basically her nanny. We never see her being cared for by her parents, only Quil. Jacob, in the quote above, basically came right out and said that Quil - a man who imprinted and was all ready for love and marriage - was better at caring for Claire than her own parents were. In other words, he's already begun to edge his way in and replace them. Before she is even in kindergarden. WHAT THE HELL MEYER, HOW DO YOU NOT SEE HOW THIS IS WRONG? From the way it looks, Claire is not getting the proper bonding with her parents. Quil has taken over in that department. Which leads to another problem: Westermarck and Filial imprinting. Yes Meyer, real-life imprinting. Ready for a lecture everyone?
Lita: Have at it.
Alex: Speak, dear friend, and educate the streaming masses who seem to believe that this is "good" literature.
ZeldaQueen: Thank you. Let's start with Filial imprinting. In this type of imprinting, a young child learns the characteristics of its parents. It lets the child learn behaviors, but more importantly it also lets the child learn who the parents are. It's mostly been observed amongst birds, so many of you probably see those pictures of ducklings following people around like the person's their mother.
ZeldaQueen: Now here's the thing - filial imprinting is also applicable to human children. In other words, a human child like Claire would imprint on a person that she percieves to be "parent" to her. Now granted, I am not entirely sure how young a child must be when filial imprinting takes place. But I believe that the formative years happen before age four, which Claire has yet to reach. So let's say that's the case. And let's say that Quil spends more time with her and caring for her than her actual parents do (which appears to be the case) - wouldn't she imprint on him and see him as her "parent"? In other words, he's taken the role of parent from her biological parents before she has even bonded with them!
And it gets even better. Let's skip along to the Westermack effect. This is what is known as reverse sexual imprinting. In a nutshell, it's a phenomenon in which when a person is raised in close proximity to another for the first few years of their life, they are desensitized to sexual attraction to that person. In other words, this is why you don't normally feel the urge to screw your siblings that you've lived with since you were one year old. Studies have verified this and proven that the critical age for the effect to take place is age six. That is to say that if children are reared together before age six, they do not feel sexual attraction to each other. Claire is three. She is being raised by Quil more or less.
In other words, Meyer has failed long and hard and has been very creepy in the process. In trying to establish a relationship that she insists is innocent and pure, she has only set up something doomed - Quil will inevitably want to marry and nail Claire. And yes, he will. Because Jacob gives us this:
"Though I did think it sucked that he had a good fourteen years of monkitude ahead of him until Claire was his age-for Quil, at least, it was a good thing werewolves didn't get older. But even all that time didn't seem to bother him much."
ZeldaQueen: So yes, he has every intention to marry Claire with all that implies. And there's no way she can refuse. She has to continue his bloodline and have babies. But as my five-second search on Google demonstrated, there's very little chance for Claire to return those feelings. Psychologically, she'd register him as a parent or at least a family member and not feel sexually attracted to him. So what then? She'd feel like she would be sleeping with her dad! Oh, and Meyer? Some other theatrical and literary characters who planned to marry girls that they knew since said girls where children?
ZeldaQueen: Funny how those couples usually aren't remembered as the paragons of romance.
Alex: *eye twitches* I really...
Lita: I roll the dice to see if my +3 katana can let me commit suicide... Dang it.
Alex: Impailed upon your own sword...or rather, not.
Lita: I need a new Dungeon Master.
ZeldaQueen: I need a break! Can we get a break?
Projection Room Voices: Find a stopping point first.
Alex: Ugh, very well! As Quil frolics with his underage paramour, Jacob has the gall to as the outlandish question of if Quil has ever considered dating another girl while he awaits his beloved to hit the legal age, or at least her pre-teens. Quil stands with his mouth agap and seems to honestly not know what sort of answer that question warrents.
Lita: Quil then turns his attention back to picking up rocks with Claire, Jacob apologizes like his question was uncalled for or unusual, Quil asks if Jacob has considered getting over Bella and dating other girls, Jacob insists that he sees no one else either, and THIS IS SO WRONG! How can the author think this is sweet?
ZeldaQueen: It's pathetic! Jacob's a teenager with his entire life ahead of him and he's mooning over the first girl he apparently got decently attached to and who married someone else. Meyer, people move on and date other people if first relationships don't work out! Stop making it look like that's a selfish and evil thing to do! *pants furiously* Anyway, Sam calls all wolves to assemble and Jacob agrees to go find out what it's about so Quil doesn't have to leave Claire if he doesn't have to and is this a good stopping point?
Projection Room Voices: Erm...yes. Yes it is.
ZeldaQueen: GOOD! You know, I usually like werewolves over vampires, but this sucks! Meyer has taken my favorite mythological creature and made them creepy and stupid and I hate them and they make me angry!
Alex: Agreed. May I be so bold as to request that you not ask us to spork this section again anytime soon?
ZeldaQueen: *grumpily* Fine! I'll get someone else!
Lita: Great. I knew that +2 Cloak of Escape would come in handy!
Projection Room Voices: Okay...just go take a break and you can finish the chapter later.
Onward to: Chapter 8: Waiting For The Damn Fight To Start Already (Part 2)
Back to: Chapter 7: Unexpected
Return to: Table of Contents