Chapter Nine

Hmmm, I’m getting ahead again. Time to start future-dating these.

Edward creep-o-meter: 3 — I know, I’m alarmed too.

So Bella comes home from her kidnapping and house arrI mean sleepover and Charlie has left her a note. While he’s actually here. Why didn’t he just tell her?

The note is about calling Jacob. Apparently he feels really bad for telling Bella to go off and die instead of becoming a vampire. Bella’s all “HMPH!” and stomps upstairs, as Charlie chides her for not being forgiving.

Bella has her mind set on laundry. Yes, readers, laundry. We are about to have a very exciting  laundry sequence.

Some of Bella’s clothes are missing, as well as her pillow. First she figures Alice popped them in the wash, because, well, I guess we all have friends who, um, randomly do our laundry for us? But her clothes are not in the wash, and neither are they in her hamper. I know you guys are on the edge of your seats here.  Unfortunately, the thrilling conclusion to “Where in the World is Bella’s Red Blouse?” will have to continue later, because Edward has arrived.

Edward’s golden eyes were wide, his nostrils flared, his lips pulled back over his teeth.

u r so pretty

Edward, faster than anyone can see him, runs up to Bella’s room, and then back downstairs. He grabs Bella around the waist and pulls her into the kitchen, looking around for laundry thieves. Edward indicates that someone has been here, one of his people. No, he doesn’t mean a gay man–although that would explain the missing blouse.

Don’t worry, though! It’s no one we know. I would hate for Victoria to sully her 0 line record for this series.

Clearly, they both reason, clearly whoever it was is just looking for Bella, and doesn’t seem to want to eat anybody. Charlie comes in at this point, demanding to know what they’re hissing about, and when he sees Edward’s furious face and Bella’s panicked one, he assumes they are fighting.

Charlie’s expression changed. Abruptly, he was grinning. “If you two are having a fight… well, don’t let me interrupt.”

Still grinning, he put his bowl in the sink and sauntered out of the room.

That’s our Charlie. Dad of the Year material right there.

Edward insists that they leave, and gives his “brothers” some calls we don’t get to understand because he’s just talking that fast. Apparently this is yet another vampire power.

I let him drag me along then, too panicked to think clearly. Charlie met my frightened eyes with a smug grin, which suddenly turned to confusion. Edward had me out the door before Charlie could say anything.

What, exactly, is the point of Charlie’s character? We are told he is a cop, yet he has never once demonstrated this through action or behavior, or even talking about work. His daughter is, he assumes, fighting with her boyfriend, and then he watches Edward drag her out while she looks terrified. And Charlie just stands there. He doesn’t chase after them, shout, demand to know what’s going on, he just lets a boy he openly dislikes literally drag his daughter out the door.

So, clearly, Stephenie reasoned that Bella must have a father, because she’s not immaculately conceived (although at this point it wouldn’t have surprised me). And hey, a cop father would be interesting, because “cop” is a masculine profession. And that’s where she stopped? You can argue that Charlie is stunted and unused to being a father, but Jesus, is he unused to being a law officer as well?

I hate these books so much.

Edward and Bella race to the Cullen mansion, where Edward heckles Alice for not Seeing someone pawing through Bella’s room. Alice stands up for herself, and Edward is about to just keep being a dick when.. he.. stops and apologizes.

This is really starting to confuse me. I guess Bella is making him “more human” or someone told Stephenie that her male lead was “a sociopathic asshole” or something.

Nobody seems to put two and two together on the whole “new vampires” thing from chapter one, and Victoria hating Bella’s guts. Seriously. No one thinks “Wait, maybe Victoria is making the vampires and she sent one of them to root through Bella’s underwear for some messed up reason!”

Instead they assume it’s the Volturi making sure that Bella is a vampire. Which I guess uh. Going through her clothes would totally prove.

Esme tries to argue that maybe this whole thing is a coincidence. Honestly, at this point, I’m reeling from the fact that the plot of a Twilight book was introduced before chapter twenty. Seriously. And there was even some foreshadowing of it in the first chapter. I’m floored.

Everyone agrees to a rotating schedule of watching Bella’s house in case someone else sneaks in to try on her jeans. Bella sort of just stands there as everyone argues about who’s trying to kill her and what they should do about it. Not exactly the most proactive character we’ve ever seen.

They go back. Charlie is smug because he thinks they’re still fighting. Jesus, whatever, Dad. Do us all a favor and just don’t be a character. I’d rather a Charlie Brown style adult we never see the face of and never actually understand.

Jacob called again. Poor guy.

She calls him the next morning (after warning Edward that she’s going to let Jake off the hook). Jacob apologizes rather fervently and offers up a life of servitude. But they’re totally not werewolf soulmates or anything. Bella sort of brings up that someone was kind of in her house yesterday and all the vamps are spooked, which means Edward takes the phone and he and Jacob have a Male Bonding Moment over how best to protect their clumsy, useless, mutual love interest.

Bella is like a Mac Guffin made human. She serves absolutely no purpose but to drive the plot. I never thought I’d see a main character that is, in all actuality and simplicity, a freaking plot device.

Anyway, we get a play-by-play of the conversation, which is basically “Edward said this. Then he paused. Then Edward said this. Then he had a longer pause.” It goes on for about a page and a half. Bella just sits there stupidly as everyone hustles to save her from the Laundry Vampire.  She finally gets the phone back, and Jacob is all “yeah we totes got this covered, I’m coming up there to scent out your panty thief.”

Annnd that’s it. Another chapter down. God damn it, these are so boring.

Chapter Four

Edward creep-o-meter: Edward is not in this chapter. However, in spite of this, he maintains a steady 6.

I don’t want you guys to think I’m copping out on recapping this crap, but I am being completely honest with you when I say that nothing happens in this chapter.

I will itemize it for you:

1. Edward is out hunting, so Bella is ever so lonely.
2. Bella goes to work. They tell her they don’t need her today.
3. Bella drives to La Push.
4. Bella and Jacob talk about vampires.
5. THE END.

I’m not sure how this counted as a full chapter. I also am not sure what Bella’s work schedule is supposed to be like. Does she only work on Saturdays? Or as the plot dictates?

Jacob is super bitter and angry, and takes pot shots at vampires every chance he gets. Bella gets all angry with him for making fun of the Cullens because they are good to the core and she and Edward are in love because he is the most beautiful flawless selfless thoughtful considerate sensitive man who ever lived and she loves him more than Jesus so stop being such a minority Jacob!

Then Jacob’s chin starts to quiver and Bella is all “aww I can’t get mad at you.”

THAT IS THE ENTIRETY OF THIS CHAPTER. This chapter’s whole purpose is to show that Jacob is angry and bitter (like every sixteen year old in existence) and we’re not supposed to like him as much as Edward. Which sucks, because I still think Jacob is freaking rad. It’s about time somebody thought something negative about the Good To The Core Cullens.

Unfortunately, it is because he doesn’t like the Cullens that we are supposed to hate him. Christ.

If it weren’t for the fact that later in this book, Jacob kicks the dog by (spoiler, oh noes!) forcing himself on Bella, I would continue to like Jacob more. Edward is not a lover. Edward is a figure of authority, a warden, a control freak, who’s only excuse for the downright horrible things he does to Bella is “I love you and I want to protect you.” That is never a valid reason, ever. “I love you” is not a get out of jail free card. “I love you” is not an excuse, it is a simple statement of fact and affirmation of devotion. “I love her” won’t fly in court when the woman or her family finally press charges.

Jacob, on the other hand, encourages Bella. He challenges her. They do fun things together. They are stupid together. They are freaking human together, instead of this bizarre circus of emotional manipulation that is Bella and Edward’s relationship. But Jacob doesn’t like the sparkly, impossibly benevolent vampires, due to indoctrination, personal experience, and hard cold fact. As a result, we are expected to dislike and distrust him, because the Cullens are so clearly (unrealistically) good.

Unfortunately, popular theory states that Stephenie Meyer did, at some point, realize that Jacob was being far more likable than Edward. Hence why later he forces himself on Bella, and in general is completely out-of-character for the whole book. We could write it off as “character development,” but when did Stephenie Meyer ever make use of that?

Jacob is the victim of character assassination via his own author. When she realized her misaimed fandom actually thought Jacob was a better match than her startlingly perfect main character, she did her best to make Jacob seem as slimy and hateful as possible.

Only to give him the consolation prize in the last book, because immaculately happy endings are not at all boring in the least.

You could say that the theory of the Death of the Author applies here, in a weird, juvenile sense. Stephenie tried her hardest to get us to interpret her texts as thus: Edward is perfect and thus the perfect mate; Jacob dislikes Edward and is thus imperfect and far inferior to him by simple fact of choosing to find him monstrous. However, there are still (still) cores of the fandom that insist Jacob was the better match, largely for the reasons I state above. There are also cores of the fandom who, desperate to find some merit in this series (maybe because they don’t want to admit they wasted all those hours of their lives reading this drivel), find unusual and at times brilliant interpretations of the story and characters, interpretations that I can 100% guarantee Meyer herself never actually intended.

Can you say this is the Death of the Author when the author herself was incompetent, at best? Can you really claim Meyer’s interpretation of her work is even as valid as her fans’, when she herself has no right clue how to tell a story, or build a believable setting, or create a fully-fleshed character?

Basically, what I’m saying is that if this chapter had something worthwhile in it, you guys wouldn’t have to read my pseudo-intellectual crap instead of a recap.

One more reason to hate Smeyer.