In Which I Tolerate Eclipse: Chapter 11 -- Legends · 3:19pm May 14th, 2018
Bella’s having a good time at the bonfire party. All the wolves are there, plus Sue Clearwater (the widow of Harry Clearwater, the guy who died last book), her kids Leah and Seth, Emily, and Kim, the girl Jared imprinted on. Bella notices Seth, in spite of being pretty young, is looking a lot like Jacob did before he became a werewolf, and wonders if he’ll turn out the same way. Everyone quiets down when Billy begins telling a tale, a tale of how the werewolves came to be. In other words: more backstory, bitches!
Once upon a time, long before the white men came, the Quileutes were attacked by a rival tribe and driven offshore, into their boats. However, some Quileute warriors, the Spirit Warriors, could astrally project themselves and influence the world in various ways, such as causing storms and talking with animals. They drove off the other tribe. Generations passed, and the Quileutes were led by the Spirit Chief Taha Aki. One of the Spirit Warriors, Utlapa, dreamed of conquest, and when Taha Aki learned of this, he had Utlapa exiled. Now, the Spirit Chief had a secret place where he would leave his body when projecting and sweep up and down the coast for threats. Utlapa found the place where Taha Aki left his body and took it over while Taha Aki was projecting. Utlapa-in-Taha-Aki killed his own uninhabited body to trap Taha Aki in the spirit world and then assumed Taha Aki’s place in the Quileutes.
Utlapa ruled the Quileutes wantonly and forbade projecting, so no one would know what he had done to Taha Aki. He claimed to have seen a vision of great danger. Eventually, Taha Aki took control of a wolf, asking for it to make some space in its head, and attempted to make contact with the Quileutes. Although the Quileutes were scared at first, they soon recognized that the wolf was influenced by a spirit. An old Spirit Warrior defied Utlapa’s edict and crossed over; once he saw Taha Aki’s spirit, he realized what had happened. Unfortunately, Utlapa killed his body just as he returned to it so he couldn’t tell any others. Taha Aki was so angry at this that his anger was too great for the wolf’s body, and he turned into a man, the flesh version of his own spirit. Utlapa tried to run, but Taha Aki chased him down and killed him. And so, whenever the Quileutes were threatened, Taha Aki would turn back into a wolf to protect them; his grandsons also inherited this ability. And that’s how werewolves were made.
Not a bad backstory/legend, all things considered. When you read it, it even feels kind of legend-y in that half-summary, half-story exaggerated sort of way. Some parts don’t always make sense, but since all good legends have parts that don’t make sense, I’m letting them slide. But just when you were settling down, here comes backstory two, motherfucker!
Some years after the above, Taha Aki had found his soul mate in his third wife and stopped shifting so he could grow old with her. Rumors from the nearby tribes about a monster murdering people came filtering down, and some of Taha Aki’s sons went to investigate. They found a thing that looked like a man, but was as cold and hard as stone (and I’m just gonna say “vampire” from now on). When they found the vampire, he was in the middle of feeding on a woman. They fought it, tore it to shreds, and brought the pieces back to the elders for examination. The pieces tried to reassemble themselves, so the elders burnt it. However, the vampire had a mate, and she came down for revenge. She killed a lot of people, and the lone wolf warrior at the time tried to fight her. Unfortunately, he was no match for her and was killed. Taha Aki shifted to his own wolf shape in his rage and started fighting her, but he was old. Taha Aki’s third wife, remembering some of the stories she’d heard about both this vampire and the first one, realized she could be distracted by the scent of blood. And — this is so stupid that I’m going to make an exception to the whole “ignore illogic in legends” things — instead of cutting open her palm or something, she stabbed herself in the heart with a knife. This distracted the vampire, enabling Taha Aki to kill her. So, from then on, Taha Aki’s descendants only became wolves if there were vampires around. (Why no one wolfed out from the Cullens living around Forks for a few years, we don’t get an explanation.)
Again, not a bad legend, although not as good as the first one. Why all the backstory? Did Eclipse turn into the Backstory of the Day Club?
The stories end the bonfire and Jacob returns Bella to Edward. At her house, he says he’s been reading to pass the time: Wuthering Heights. You know how New Moon had a few weird Romeo and Juliet allusions? Eclipse does that with Wuthering Heights. Edward says that, after seeing Bella with Jacob, he can sympathize with Heathcliff a bit more. I’ve never read Wuthering Heights, but isn’t Heathcliff kind of an obsessive, abusive psycho? Actually, maybe he’d get along well with Edward. That night, Bella dreams about the tale of the third wife, only with Billy fighting Rosalie, and herself in the role of the third wife.
One of the good things about these backstory-heavy chapters? No clinginess.
Clinginess Meter: 15
One of things I’ve always asked about backstory: how much is it necessary? I mean, the legends were interesting, sure, but did we really need to know where werewolves come from? I like coming up with backstories, myself, so I understand the allure of showing them off, but I try to keep them unmentioned unless necessary. In fact, an unmentioned backstory can be more interesting if it’s connected with something out of the ordinary. Like, say you’ve got a character with a prominent scar across her face. She doesn’t trust the viewpoint character enough to tell him when he asks; it’s a very personal story. By the time she does trust him, he doesn’t care about it anymore. The reader’s left with a nice mystery to keep them guessing that doesn’t cause any plot holes. At the very least, if you can’t resist the urge to dump a backstory on us, make sure it doesn’t take up an entire chapter.
Of course, if I stripped out everything that was unneeded in these books, we’d probably be left with… ten chapters. In the whole series.
One thing I have to say in favor of the backstories: They're consistently more interesting than the main one.
I'm pretty sure Heathcliff is a cat. :B