Exeunt with Hautboys: Chapters 15-19

Let's take stock here of actual threats in the Twilight series thus far.

In the last book, three evilvamps showed up. One of them tried to eat Bella and was squished by the Cullens. The second, Laurent, bailed in the first book but returned in the second to track Bella and down and reveal the last vamp, Victoria, is plotting a grand, bloody revenge against Bella for the death of her mate by the Cullens, (read: above squished.) Then the wolves descended and tore the shit out of him. This leaves one vampire. Just one.

Five werewolves, and arguably an entire tribe of Quileute Indians, verses one vampire with a solitary goal of rendering Bella into a smear and an afterthought. (Bravo, lass!) Why are Meyer's supernatural entities so full of strategy fail? Why must they always split up to go hunting away from their places of safety and numbers and their quarry's singular goal? If the Cullens could count on their fingers with any accuracy in the last book, these vamplings would never be an issue. But no. The werewolves scatter to track Victoria and leave Bella to wander into danger around the homestead with only a handicapable babysitter.

In Chapter 15, Bella's near-death experience comes not at the hands of Victoria, nor from the quintet of newbie werewolves guarding her. Told to remain safely in La Push, Bella decides she needs her hallucinatory Edward fix and jumps off a cliff.

I've argued long and loud that the single most terrible aspect of the Twilight series is the protagonist and narrative voice of Bella. And now I must make it official. Bella is the only real antagonist in these stories of whiny teenager verses self. Again, if this were a complicated cautionary tale about the sexualization of young girls in modern society, even with the Mormon undertones, I would appreciate it. In Joan Jacobs Brumberg's The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, the author discusses the risk of today's feminine youth acting without the protective if prohibitive moral guidelines and supervision once provided by previous generations, and the danger of sexuality introduced to girls lacking the emotional maturity to handle it. Put a pretty vampire face on the preying media trying to sell an adult and idealized body image to teenagers, and you have Twilight: the Sensemaking, the most romantic after-school special ever.

Maybe I'm grasping at straws here. But I can't accept Meyer's books at face value because they suck donkey balls. There must be an undertone, a deep, baseline of theme I'm not grokking. I must justify the attention I'm throwing into this trash in some means or I'm left with only my literary rage to keep me warm against the long stretch of wintry night the next two (plus one novella) books promise.

That or else I'll begin hallucinating Joss Whedon's cautionary snarl, "Crazy crisp dialogue. Incredibly tight plotting. Big emotion." and "Remember to always be yourself. Unless you suck."

Oh, Joss! I'm so lost without you. *sniffle*

Right, Bella tosses herself off a cliff, nearly drowns, and her ass gets rescued by Jacob. During her recovery, she undergoes a complicated analysis of Shakespeare, focusing on Paris from Romeo and Juliet, and trying to determine if Romeo dumped his rebound Capulet for Rosalind, would Juliet shack up with Paris. The answer is a resounding I DON'T FUCKING CARE! Yeah, we get it. Jacob isn't your first greatest love. But you should grow a spine and try to move on and be happy because that's life and it only gets worse, so find the fuzzy that makes you happy and fuck it relentlessly.

Also, if Jules hadn't taken vows with Romeo, I do see her retreating back into the safety of her family and marrying Paris, hating Montagues, and raising the next generation of Verona gang bangers. Romeo would trip from one emotional high to the next until he finally shacks up with Mercutio and finds true slashy love. And then gets killed by Verona gang bangers. Jerk.

Bella can't make a decision, even when Jacob gives up on gentle reasoning and takes a page from the previous book and goes for the sweeping emotional gesture and tries to kiss her. They are predictably fashionably interrupted by the appearance of Alice Cullen. Why Jacob doesn't lay into that one out of spite and claim his vacillating bride, I don't know. But he leaves so Alice can roll out the plot contrivance of the book. Her visions showed Bella leaping off a cliff but nothing else. Instead of keeping this to herself, she tells Rosalie who then tattles to Edward, who takes his Claudio act further and not only claims responsibility for Hero's Bella's death, but decides he too must die.

The audience goes wild.

For some reason, Bella decides she has to stop this shit, so the "snapping narrative" is reduced to a crawl to accommodate a trans-Atlantic flight to Italy. Why? Because instead of waltzing back to Forks and throwing himself to the very capable wolves in a thematic display of contrition for Bella's death, Edward jaunts off to beg death at the hands of the only (other) vampire family in the world, the Volturi. The who? Yeah, they got some mention in Twilight in a conversation better suited for making out. Chapter 19 ends with her and Alice and a stolen car arriving in Volterra, just before the strike of noon when Edward plans on outing himself to the crowd and forcing the Volturi to end him.

Gee, I wonder if she'll make it on time?

Flat tire! Flat tire! Flat tire!