In Which I Tolerate Eclipse: Chapter 24 -- Snap Decision · 12:49pm Jun 10th, 2018
With Jacob gone, Bella’s lying on the ground, waiting to die. With Bella whining, I’m sitting in my chair, waiting for the book to end. Edward asks her what’s wrong, and when she explains, he says Jacob’s “cunning”. The reasons are weird and I don’t care. Edward asks Bella if she really thought Jacob would go out in a blaze of glory to clear the way for him. Given that Charlie is the only character with something approaching a human personality, that option shouldn’t be discounted out of hand. Whatever. Jacob’s not going to let himself die.
Getting back to the personality part: seriously, it is really hard to get a handle on these characters, and not in a way that implies they’re complex and multifaceted. Bella in particular just has bizarre reasons for doing whatever she does. When Edward tries to reassure her that he’s not going to make her choose, she says she wants him to fight and make her feel like dirt because… I can’t even tell why. Her train of thought technically hasn’t derailed, but it’s a steam train in an electrified subway traveling backwards while going the wrong direction on the wrong gauge. A derailing would make more sense.
Whatever. Seth’s still hanging around in wolf form, acting like a mental cell phone, so Edward reads his mind to get a view on what’s happening. The newborns have arrived and clash with the Cullens and the werewolves. At one point, Edward says a newborn got distracted by Bella’s scent, and Leah took him down before he could even turn. Remember this, specifically that Leah’s the one killing him.
Suddenly, Edward and Seth both freeze, and Seth takes off into the woods. Victoria happened across Edward’s scent, guessed that Bella would be with him, and made a spur-of-the-moment decision, one Alice couldn’t have seen, to follow him. That quick thinking alone makes Victoria one of the smartest people in the series. Oh, and Edward says, “You were right. It was always Victoria.” as if her being the one to create the army is supposed to be a reveal.
Random side note: when Bella thought Edward had left her, she went comatose. When Edward thought Bella was dead, he tried to commit suicide. When Victoria knew James was dead, she promptly got her shit together and prepared to unleash hellfire on the people responsible. The one who remembers their lost loved one, grieves for them, but still lives life in spite of that loss is the bad guy, while the good guys can’t live without their loved ones. Hmm.
Victoria and a newborn she kept with her arrive at the campsite. Edward tries to talk to the newborn, Riley, and turn him against Victoria with the information he’s gleaned from their heads. He says Victoria only ever saw him as a tool and never really loved him. He tells Riley that there’s more to life than blood and violence, and if he leaves Victoria, he can live that life. It’s a halfway-decent scene, to be honest. Victoria, however, claims that Edward’s the one who’s lying. Before they can get anywhere else, Seth rockets out of the forest and slams into Riley. As Seth and Riley fight, Edward and Victoria engage each other.
As the fights progress, Bella realizes they’re too close; Edward and Victoria are nearly equally matched, while Seth, although ripping chunks from Riley, keeps getting pounded by the newborn’s strength. Bella needs to provide a distraction somehow. Her mind goes back to the third wife in the Quileute legends, the one who killed herself rather than just cut her palm or something, and the way every Cullen had snapped to her when she cut herself way back at the beginning of New Moon. She grabs a stone to cut herself on the arm.
Even before Bella can break the skin, her actions distract Victoria. Edward throws her into a tree, then quickly grabs Riley and rips off his arm while he’s distracted by Seth. With Riley now crippled, he’s easy prey for Seth, who rips him apart. Victoria realizes she’s outmatched, but Edward catches up to her and rips her head off.
Clinginess Meter: 36
You know what Victoria doesn’t do? Monologues. She’s still not a great villain, being offscreen for most of the book, but she’s still got a bit of an edge that James lacked. Believe it or not, the fight scenes were alright, with virtually no pointless banter. The two even get written differently; Edward and Victoria, the skilled fighters, have their duel described almost poetically (badly poetically, but still), while Seth and Riley, the newbies, are clearly more about brute force. It’s just a shame that Bella — you know, the main character? — barely contributed anything. We barely even hear her feelings, since the descriptions feel a lot like those of a third-person narrative, and she never needs to move, so it feels like she’s just sitting in one spot for the whole scene.
Whatever. I’ll take what violence I can get.
It's a shame that it's all come down to vampire fights and I am just having a hard time caring. :B This should be better than it is.
Clearly these characters are a lot more capable when not shouldering the burden of protagonist duty. Just look at what happened to Jacob when he went from supportive side character to romantic rival.