In Which I Beg for Sweet Release From Breaking Dawn: Chapter 2 -- Long Night · 1:19pm Jun 23rd, 2018
This must set some kind of record. These are the very first sentences in the chapter:
“I miss you already.”
“I don’t need to leave. I can stay…”
Four words in, and CM + 1. Wow. Even by this series’ standards, wow.
It’s the night before the wedding, and our resident codependent couple is in the middle of a kissing session. Quite a clingy one, too:
Sometimes it was so easy to forget that I was kissing a vampire. Not because he seemed ordinary or human — I could never for a second forget that I was holding someone more angel than man in my arms…
Our gazes locked for a moment; his golden eyes were so deep that I imagined I could see all the way into his soul. It seemed silly that this fact — the existence of his soul — had ever been in question, even if he was a vampire.
“Of course he’s got a soul! He’s purty!” CM + 2
They talk a little about the wedding. Bella says she’ll miss her family and friends, which I don’t believe a word of. Even if she truly will miss them, she still wants to be a vampire.
I laughed but then was serious. “Edward, we’ve been through this and through this. I know it will be hard, but this is what I want. I want you, and I want you forever. One lifetime is simply not enough for me.”
CM + 1
Emmett and Jasper stop by, ready to take Edward to his bachelor party. And by “bachelor party”, I mean, “hunting”, which is perfectly normal and basically grocery shopping for the Cullens. What kind of guy spends his bachelor party grocery shopping? In fact, hear it in Jasper’s words:
“Relax,” Jasper told me — and I did. “We Cullens have our own version. Just a few mountain lions, a couple of grizzly bears. Pretty much an ordinary night out.”
A bachelor party isn’t ordinary! That’s why it’s a party!
Almost the moment Edward’s gone, Bella begins fretting.
The bed seemed too soft, too warm without Edward in it.
She’s complaining about her bed being soft. CM + 1
To try to keep herself from getting to jumpy, Bella mentally reviews the guest list. On it are a coven of five vampires from Alaska, also vegetarians. However, three of them — Tanya, Kate, and Irina — are in mourning from someone they’d lost a thousand years ag- Okay. Really? A thousand years ago and they’re still mourning? Move on. They’re gone. Anyway, the person they lost was their “mother”, the one who created them. The Volturi killed her for not keeping the secret of vampires (and it’s still not explained why keeping the secret of vampires is so important). She broke the secret in a particularly horrifying way:
“What they were thinking, [” Carlisle said, “] those ancient ones, I can’t begin to understand. They created vampires out of humans who were barely more than infants.”
Vampire infants, immortal children, were supposedly so beautiful that one couldn’t help but love them. However, they were frozen mentally at the age they were when they were turned, and so couldn’t be taught. If they got thirsty for blood, they immediately fed, and they had tantrums that could destroy villages. The group’s mother created an immortal child and was killed for it. Since that time, the creation of immortal children has been decreed illegal by the Volturi. When she finally falls asleep, Bella has a dream of an immortal child feeding on her friends and family.
Clinginess Meter: 7
Hey. The bit on immortal children is going to be important later. Can you tell? It’s awfully subtle, between the sudden infodump and blatant dream sequence.
Also, holy shit is the whole concept fucked up. Vampires want a beautiful baby to coo over, so they turn an infant. First, that infant is doomed to three days of intense pain as they turn. Then they’re developmentally stuck as a baby, never able to grow up, never able to learn, never able to live. And they’re cursed with a thirst that they can never understand, a thirst that causes them constant pain. They’re stuck that way. Forever. Because some vampire wanted a cute widdle baby.
That’s assuming the kid lives, by the way. A human needs to survive being bitten to be turned, and a lot of vampires lack the self-control to stop feeding once they taste blood. How many babies do you think were utterly drained for each created immortal child?
And I haven’t even gotten into the parents. Where did the babies come from? How many happy couples had their newborn suddenly vanish in the middle of the night, never to be seen again? How many people were traumatized by that? How many marriages were destroyed?
Man. Getting killed for creating an immortal child is getting off lightly.
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And now I'm imagining Apple Bloom in Bella's place. A young, very stupid Apple Blook trying for a cutie mark in monster reformation. Except I'm pretty sure her friends would've pulled her back from the brink long before this point.
Also, at first I read that as "a coven of fire vampires from Alaska." I was intrigued, then immediately disappointed. Of course, that sentence could describe most concepts introduced in this series. The others are just immediately horrifying, like werewolf imprinting and vampire infants.
You're right, vampire babies is freaky. In a better story, it'd be the entire horror plot!
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As I like to say. "Twilight- A touching story about necrophilia, bestiality, pedophilia, and child murder!"
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”And here we see the fire vampire in its natural habitat. They are possibly the most specialized hunters on the planet, the only known predators adapted to hunt phoenixes, and exclusively phoenixes.”
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Also dragons and the occasional irate unicorn.
While I agree to the clinginess increment from the other part of that sentence, I have to *shudder* come to Bella's defense on soft beds.
Then again, I pretty much sleep on a wooden plank with a thin mattress. I hate soft beds.
On the baby vampires thing....
I read an Anne Rice book or two in my misspent youth (more like one and a half)... I distinctly remember one of the characters being a several-hundred year old, permanently stuck in a 6-year old body, because yes, "some vampire wanted a cute widdle baby". Not sure which of the two situations is worse.
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Fire vampires! They don't sparkle in the sun!
They BURST INTO FLAME! Like any self-respecting vampire versed in tradition!