In Which I Suffer Through New Moon: Chapter 14 -- Family · 2:58pm Mar 30th, 2018
Apparently shirtlessness is a symptom of lycanthropy, because the first thing Bella notices about all four of the other members of Jacob’s pack is that they’re void of thoracic covering. Great.
All of the other werewolves are a bit miffed that Jacob managed to get around Sam’s order and tell Bella what’s going on. One of them in particular, Paul, is incredibly angry, to the point that he loses control of himself and transforms into a wolf. Jacob also transforms and the two of them begin fighting; Sam tells the other two, Embry and Jared, to take Bella someplace else. Neither of them seems all that concerned about Jacob and Paul fighting. In fact, they take a bet on who’ll mark the other. Bella’s nauseated by the thought of this, so Embry drives them to the house of Sam’s fiancee, Emily. Bella sees that Emily is quite scarred.
The right side of her face was scarred from hairline to chin by three thick, red lines, livid in color though they were long healed. One line pulled down the corner of her dark, almond-shaped right eye, another twisted the right side of her mouth into a permanent grimace.
She had the sleeves of her lavender shirt pushed up, and I could see that the scars extended all the way down her arm to the back of her right hand. Hanging out with werewolves truly did have its risks, just as Embry had said.
You know, this one character does a lot more to show “werewolves are dangerous” than anything Edward did in Twilight for “vampires are dangerous”. Although I’m a bit confused as to how the scars continue all the way down her arm, assuming they’re supposed to be from the same incident; I can’t imagine the position she was in for that to happen. It’s like she had to have her arm extended in just the right way.
Anyway, Emily’s basically the team mom for the werewolves, making them food and reprimanding them for not saving any for the others. In spite of whatever happened, she and Sam are deeply in love; once Sam comes to the house, the first thing he does is start kissing Emily, who responds in kind.
This was worse than any romantic movie; this was so real that it sang out loud with joy and life and true love. I put my muffin down and folded my arms across my empty chest. I stared at the flowers, trying to ignore the utter peace of their moment, and the wretched throbbing of my wounds.
CM + 1
Jacob and Paul follow Sam in, looking none the worse for wear and laughing. Jared and Embry notice a small scar on Paul’s forearm and take it as evidence that Jacob marked Paul. According to Jacob, it’ll be all gone by the evening; healing’s a wolf thing, apparently. Sam takes charge and they have a brief conversation about tactics, now that they know what Victoria’s after.
Bella spends the day in La Push (Billy leaves Charlie a message at home), and, in spite of Jacob’s reassurances, can’t stop worrying about Victoria. That night, she tells Charlie that she and Jacob made up and she was wrong about Sam. When in bed, she thinks about the differences and similarities between Edward and Jacob and whether she’s being a hypocrite in confronting Jacob about killing people while loving Edward.
I curled into a tight ball. No, Edward wasn’t a killer. Even in his darker past, he’d never been a murderer of innocents, at least.
But what if he had been? What if, during the time that I’d known him, he’d been just like any other vampire? What if people had been disappearing from the woods, just like now?
Would that have kept me away from him?
I shook my head sadly. Love is irrational, I reminded myself. The more you loved someone, the less sense anything made.
First of all, Edward was a killer. Of bad guys, but still a killer. It was the guilt of being a killer that drove him back to Carlisle, remember? (Of course, whether only preying on bad guys makes it “better” is open to debate.) Second, if Edward killed innocents and had still been killing innocents, I should hope you’d stay away from him. Third, that last line belongs in a much better book.
Clinginess Meter: 46 x 3
At first, I didn’t think this chapter was too bad. But then I finished the book and, looking back, it’s mostly character development for characters with little to no role in the story ahead. I really don’t know why the series keeps introducing large bunches of characters — Bella’s friends, the Cullens, and now the werewolves — and then chucking most of them away.
Do we ever see any squishy mortals other than Emily who've actually been injured at all by werewolves?
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No. Not even through Breaking Dawn. To be fair, werewolves keep their minds, aren't blood-crazed, and we later learn that this incident was an accident.
...Because it's a crappy story? :V
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So.... still more proof that the werewolves have absolutely no reason to keep hidden, and would currently have vastly superior press compared to the vampires if they were actually open about everything.78.media.tumblr.com/e30ba197113c5fa3769439b3640ad503/tumblr_na03htdHBp1rvzu9do1_250.gif
For all we know, the whole "feral, uncontrollable monster howling at the moon" idea was invented by the vampires in the first place. If I was an immortal blood-sucking killing machine, I know I'd want my biggest threats to be horribly discredited.