Twilight: Bad Thoughts... Bad People?

Content Note: Death, Murder

Twilight Recap: Bella has been carried by Edward to the nurse's office after nearly fainting in Biology class.

Twilight, Chapter 5: Blood Type

   "You were right," I moaned, letting my eyes close.
   "I usually am -- but about what in particular this time?"
   "Ditching is healthy." I practiced breathing evenly.

I quote this exchange for two reasons.

First, I think this can reasonably serve as evidence in support of the theory that Edward's ha, ha, Bella feels faint and it's hilarious behavior is probably meant by the author to seem endearing. I say that because Bella seems to take Edward's shenanigans in good spirit and even jokes a little with him here, while she rests and recovers. So while that's not really my thing and I still think Edward should have verified that Bella had a bit of gallows humor before he started snickering up a storm, this can at least be taken as a sign (finally!) of chemistry. So...yay?

Second, words alone cannot express how amused I am at Edward's announcement that he is "usually" right. I haven't read the whole series, but I have seen all the movies and I honestly cannot off the top of my head think of a single time when Edward is right. He's wrong about needing to avoid Bella in order to be happy. He's wrong when he leaves her alone and she nearly dies as a result. He's wrong about Jacob pretty much all the time. He's wrong about Bella's pregnancy and how to respond to it. Edward is wrong more often than he's right. And this isn't a new thing. Edward has been wrong lots of times in the past. He was wrong when he struck out on his own from Carlisle and ate humans. Being wrong is kind of what Edward does.

Why does he say here that he's "usually" right? I honestly don't know. I can't tell if this is meant to be a bit of self-effacing wit -- in which case it doesn't make a whole lot of sense because Bella lacks context for the twist that he's actually usually wrong, but then again when has Edward ever let a consideration for his audience stop him from making in-jokes? -- or if we're supposed to take this at face value. Is Edward's claim to rightness an informed attribute or a subtle demonstration of his ego or something else entirely?

I honestly wonder if Edward does think he's usually right. His actions certainly seem to stem from this attitude -- throughout the series, he repeatedly makes unilaterally bad decisions on behalf of Bella and he carries out these decisions with the attitude of one who has never known self-doubt. As much as he angsts about his past and what he has done and what he has lost (which isn't often, mind you, but it does crop up from time to time) there's no real sense to me that he's learned anything from his long life. I realize that getting older doesn't guarantee learning and growing and discovering that one is not always right -- I had a grandfather who could give Edward a run for his money on the self-assured jerkface scale -- but it seems that what with Compassion!Carlisle and Loving!Esme and the rest of the scooby gang around that Edward might have learned a little... humility? compassion? something! in his 100+ years. He seems not to.

And I know there's the whole "vampires don't undergo personality changes" theory, but that one just plain doesn't make sense to me. How can Edward become a husband and a father if he can't grow mentally and emotionally?

   "You scared me for a minute there," he admitted after a pause. His tone made it sound like he was confessing a humiliating weakness. "I thought Newton was dragging your dead body off to bury it in the woods." [...] "Honestly -- I've seen corpses with better color. I was concerned that I might have to avenge your murder."

This is an interesting exchange to me.

If Edward had been relying on his mental telepathy to keep dibs on Bella via the other students, he would have known what was going on with her well before he saw Bella and Mike emerge from the building. He seemed not to know what was going on, however, given his shrill is she okay, what's going on questioning, which seemed to point to him being in a panic on seeing Bella incapacitated. So I think we can assume that Edward in that moment was not mentally stalking Bella, but was rather relaxing in his car listening to music as he claims. Score one point for Edward not being as creepy as usual.

Then, if we believe this statement of his, we have to assume that he had a moment of panic for Bella before barging into Mike's head to get the short story on what had happened. (Either that or Mike actually was thinking about killing and burying Bella, but I think we can disregard that theory based on Edward's lack of overt hostility to Mike both now and in the future.) This isn't the first time that Edward has been so concerned for Bella's safety that he's disregarded everything else around him (that honor goes to The Parking Lot Incident), but there is a consistent pattern here that he is worried for Bella first and only manages to take stock of the situation after. I'm not going to give him a cookie for that, but I do vastly prefer Frightened-For-Bella Edward to Laughing-At-Bella Edward. Score one point for Edward caring about someone other than himself.

So if we take the gist of Edward's statement here as true -- that he didn't know that Bella was okay and that he experienced a moment of worry -- I wonder if we can't take the rest of his statement as true, by which I mean the dead-body-on-the-way-to-be-buried part. Earlier I ranted that Twilight keeps the sexual danger confined to Big City Strangers when I personally think Mike fits a rapist profile much better, so at first glance this exchange felt like more sugar-coating by having Edward go over-the-top with the threat rather than refer to the more obvious danger Mike represents. But on further reflection, I decided that this is actually a case of Edward projecting: he wants nothing more than to kill Bella and cover up his crime (so that his family won't have to move), so in a moment of panic his subconscious assumes that Mike wants the the same thing. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it.

   "Poor Mike. I'll bet he's mad."
   "He absolutely loathes me," Edward said cheerfully.

I'm also interested in Bella's surprisingly on-target statement that Mike must be angry. Mike is angry, we'll see that later, and Bella correctly surmises that he is and she voices that opinion out-loud. Up until now, Bella has kept most of her critical thoughts about Mike (and everyone else) in her head, and now that she has a safe and sympathetic audience in Edward, those thoughts are seeping out.I'm not sure how I feel about that.

A major problem with Bella is wrapped up in her thoughts. Not all first-person narrated novels are meant to have a reliable first-person narrator, of course, but I think Bella is meant to be pretty reliable as far as these things go. So when she narrates her impressions about people, I think we're meant to take those impressions to the bank as generally truthful. The problem is, those impressions are rarely expressed... kindly.

Because Bella's thoughts towards the people around her are so negative, there's a very understandable backlash from a lot of readers. We feel sorry for Jessica and Mike and Erik and the rest of the high schoolers for being so maligned by Bella, simply because they aren't pretty and sparkly and mysterious like the Cullens. At least, I certainly do: I'm still irked at the "chess club type" moniker applied to Eric simply because his face isn't crystal clear, and the "prattling" from Jessica that Bella can't be bothered to listen to. Who died and made you princess, Bella?

And yet... is that a fair reaction? If Bella were a real person, I'd say no. Douglas Adams once called telepathy "that most cruel of all social diseases", and I think a large part of that boils down to the fact that most of us are not very nice people in our heads. A huge part of being "nice" comes down to censoring our words, but it's pretty much impossible to censor thoughts. There are days when I hate pretty much everyone on earth and while it wouldn't be appropriate for me to voice those feelings, if one of you happened to have a streaming audio of my thoughts into your ear, I hope you wouldn't judge me for having a bad day. And even if I consistently thought bad things about the people around me, I'm still not sure that would make me a bad person if I was also consistently polite and kind to them. I mean, I've got co-workers and family too, you know? (*rimshot*)

But... Bella's not a real person. I can't keep saying that authors Make Choices and that those choices Matter and then not apply that same reasoning to Bella. Bella isn't cranky at everyone on earth because she exists; she's cranky at everyone on earth because S. Meyer made her that way. And... I'm not sure what to do with that. Is she a cathartic character meant to show that Good Girls are allowed to have Bad Thoughts? (And coming as I am from a religious upbringing that absolutely considered Bad Thoughts to be sinful, that message can be pretty dang cathartic indeed.) Is she negative because S. Meyer wants us to agree with her that Mike and Jessica and Erik and the rest of them really do suck? Is she a clever interpretation of a clinically depressed character? I seriously do not know. Maybe it's all of the above.

But now Edward is here and Edward -- being that he is Bella's super-special-soulmate -- will share in the snark. Edward is just as negative as Bella when it comes to other people! They can bond over their amusement that Mike is mad!

Again, I'm not sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, I kind of want to point at Edward and say "here is a fantasy fulfillment character because he doesn't judge Bella for her Bad Thoughts. In fact, he shares and validates them. And that is okay." And I'd be lying if I said I've had a romantic relationship where there wasn't bonding over some shared annoyance -- most frequently a person who was a mutual co-worker or co-student or relative or something. So there is a measure of realism here. On the other hand, I'm on record feeling that Edward has a dreadful attitude towards people, so it's hard for me to be all "yay, Bella has someone to hate humanity with! Go on with your cool alternative selves!"

And it also doesn't help that Mike keeps being loathsome so I can't even really feel sorry for him. So I guess I'm saying that I just want all the Forkians to go die in a fire. Just please don't judge me for thinking that right now!

   I could see she was about to make me lie back down, but the door opened just then, and Ms. Cope stuck her head in.
   "We've got another one," she warned.
   I hopped down to free up the cot for the next invalid.
   And then Mike staggered through the door, now supporting a sallow-looking Lee Stephens, another boy in our Biology class. Edward and I drew back against the wall to give them room.
   "Oh no," Edward muttered. "Go out to the office, Bella."
   I looked up at him, bewildered.
   "Trust me -- go."
   I spun and caught the door before it closed, darting out of the infirmary. I could feel Edward right behind me.
   "You actually listened to me." He was stunned.
   "I smelled the blood," I said, wrinkling my nose. Lee wasn't sick from watching other people, like me.

FLAG ON THE PLAY.

Edward has zero right to be stunned that Bella listened to him, unless his stunnedness comes from "the last time she listened to me, I totally went back on my word and proved I was not at all trustworthy, and yet she listened to me again despite having no reason to." Edward, you do not get to pretend that Bella is oh-so-hard-to-reason-with when she has (a) kept your secret all this time without any reason to do so, (b) has given you astonishingly little flack for breaking your word to her, (c) agreed to drive out of town with you on a day-trip over the weekend, and (d) came running to your beck-and-call at lunch when you waggled your finger for her.

   "People can't smell blood," he contradicted.
   "Well, I can -- that's what makes me sick. It smells like rust . . . and salt."

I don't even understand this one. Of course people can smell blood. Blood, in fact, has a pretty strong smell depending on quantity and how long it's been out of the host body. You don't have to make a habit of visiting abattoirs to know this, as every mystery book ever will have the moment where the protagonist creeps through the dark room and gets the shivers as they smell the pool of blood that they are currently tromping through. Or, really, if you're a woman, you can just have a period once in awhile! (Although we have decided that period blood isn't the kind that the vampires lose control over because otherwise Jasper doesn't work.)

I think Edward means that people can't smell the teeny tiny little pin-prick of blood that Lee Stephens is cradling from his stuck finger. That I probably would agree with, although if there are super-tasters then it wouldn't surprise me if there are super-smellers. (My mom, who has strong reactions to a good many scents, can smell the slightest hint of cigarette smoke and most perfumes from practically a mile away. Eerie!) But I'm dinging Edward anyway for having such imprecise speech, especially on a subject that he should know a little bit about. Forget the doctor training for a minute and remember that a vampire really should know something about the smell of blood because the gig is up if someone gets a whiff from your breath or clothing. Ten points from Gryffindor, Edward. (OF COURSE Edward is in Gryffindor. He's a MAIN CHARACTER. Gosh.)

Now shall we have a nice Two Minutes of Hate for Mike? Oh, I know it's more satisfying when I lob it at Edward, but we've got a good thousand or more pages to go for him and Mike will only be with us a short time longer. Let's savor him while we can.

   Mike came through the door then, glancing from me to Edward. The look he gave Edward confirmed what Edward had said about loathing. He looked back at me, his eyes glum. 
   "You look better," he accused.

*clears throat*

Yes, thank you, Mike, and don't think I don't note your accusatory tone.

I appreciate your implication that I may have been faking in order to get out of class, which very nicely manages to obscure the real pain I've been feeling. I also gather that you feel like I've gotten better because of my proximity to Edward -- you have no doubt picked up from my facial expression that being near him makes me feel happy -- and that you want to register your disapproval of this method of recovery. Obviously, I owed it to you to get better with you by my side because you've called "dibs" despite my turning you down once already for a date to the school dance.

You may consider your concern for my well-being registered and filed away in my mental registry and you can keep on thinking that treating me with hostility is likely to convince me to change my mind and give you a chance at a romantic relationship with me. I mean, I already have hostile-but-hawt Edward here by my side, but maybe you still have a chance to carve out a niche with your hostile-but-decent-looking repertoire. Because if there was one thing I needed less of in my relationships, it was physical attraction.

*ahem*

I feel better now.

30 comments:

Nathaniel said...

I wouldn't automatically say that Bella constantly carping about others in her mind is saying "its okay to have bad thoughts, it doesn't make you a Bad Girl." From my perspective, it toxically reinforces really destructive behavior far too common among girls, were you say nice things to someones face while inwardly hoping they die in a fire. And then sniggering at them later with the appropriate people.

Can I also say it made me grin to see that my Two Minutes of Hate comment seems to have spurred its further use? My narcissistic moment for the day.

Ana Mardoll said...

Judas comforts himself from his position of being gnawed on by Satan by telling himself, "Well at least I don't have it as bad as Bella Swan."

This nearly made me spit water all over my keyboard. So awesome.

Bella: Have to? Have? So even when you're killing Mike, it's still my fault.

Cannot BELIEVE I missed that. *headdesk forever* This. Yes. A thousand times. Yes. Gah.

Silver Adept said...

And we are reminded again that, to a man, the men in Bella's life are jerks. Edward and Jacob we will have a lot of time for, but Charlie, Billy, Mike, and all the rest all seem to be following suit in their own special ways.

If Bella is a super-smeller, that might also help contribute to why she's so remarkably out-of-balance. If you can smell the gym socks of everyone around you and it makes you pretty nauseous, then you're always going to be a little unbalanced. Still, this is something that should have manifested enough times for her parents to have noticed and to have taken her to a doctor to see if there was anything to be done about it (activated-charcoal nose-filters, perhaps?)

Anyway, back to the Hate. In this scene, Mike comes across as sullen as much as Disapproving - he hates that Isabella seems to be doing better with Edward because it means that Edward stealing her from him might have been the right thing to do. Still working on the theory that Mike has a Social Silver Spoon as a can-do-no-wrong boy, it's another strike to his ego that he wasn't able to fix her problem and get her romantic attention. Soon enough, he's going to start noticing that people aren't interested in him for him, but only in what they can gain from association from him, and at that point, the walls come tumbling down and Mike starts doing increasingly desperate things to try and regain his social status, or at least the feeling of power that he had before Isabella Swan came to town.

At that point, Edward's apparent concern that Mike is going to kill Bella and dump her body somewhere might be justified. But Edward is too early to be voicing that concern, narratively speaking, as we haven't seen the wheels come off or Mike start to exhibit the signs of coming unglued. Perhaps we have Jessica to thank for Twilight not becoming the book about being dangerously in love with the vampire stalker and absolutely terrified of the human one, despite both of them wanting to kill the main character. Mike Newton may have been able to save enough face and salvage his social network enough by allying with Jessica that he can maintain his fiction.

As for Edward, um, he really doesn't have a reason to be going down the path of "Mike's going to kill her" - Edward can't read Bella's mind, but he sure as hell can read Mike's, and Mike is theoretically concerned that Bella is in poor shape and apparently getting worse. Mike might have a fleeting thought of "zOMG, is she going to faint? Or die? And what will that do to me?", but unless Mike is really, really screwed up in the head, he's not looking for places to ditch the body. So I think your projection theory is as good as any, Ana.

And last, unless I'm lacking context, I can't read Bella's statement about Mike being mad as anything other than an assertion of the truth as she knows Mike. Mike is mad, because Mike is possessive, jealous, and seems to believe that women are there as trophies for him to collect, and because Mike was just upstaged pretty badly by Edward Cullen, perhaps the one person in the town that could very easily crush him just by flaunting his own social and actual bling in a concentrated way. That's not Bella being negative, that's Bella being on-target. As we've seen elsewhere, Bella likes to ascribe unwarranted negative aspects to people, but this time, she's just stating what's there. One descriptive adjective or action there would contexualize the whole thing. Is Bella laughing ruefully, or snarkily, or is she playing it straight?

*sigh* So many words used as purple prose or otherwise as sprinkles on an already iced cake, and then there are spots like this where some icing is really needed to understand things as a whole.

Silver Adept said...

And we are reminded again that, to a man, the men in Bella's life are jerks. Edward and Jacob we will have a lot of time for, but Charlie, Billy, Mike, and all the rest all seem to be following suit in their own special ways.

If Bella is a super-smeller, that might also help contribute to why she's so remarkably out-of-balance. If you can smell the gym socks of everyone around you and it makes you pretty nauseous, then you're always going to be a little unbalanced. Still, this is something that should have manifested enough times for her parents to have noticed and to have taken her to a doctor to see if there was anything to be done about it (activated-charcoal nose-filters, perhaps?)

Anyway, back to the Hate. In this scene, Mike comes across as sullen as much as Disapproving - he hates that Isabella seems to be doing better with Edward because it means that Edward stealing her from him might have been the right thing to do. Still working on the theory that Mike has a Social Silver Spoon as a can-do-no-wrong boy, it's another strike to his ego that he wasn't able to fix her problem and get her romantic attention. Soon enough, he's going to start noticing that people aren't interested in him for him, but only in what they can gain from association from him, and at that point, the walls come tumbling down and Mike starts doing increasingly desperate things to try and regain his social status, or at least the feeling of power that he had before Isabella Swan came to town.

At that point, Edward's apparent concern that Mike is going to kill Bella and dump her body somewhere might be justified. But Edward is too early to be voicing that concern, narratively speaking, as we haven't seen the wheels come off or Mike start to exhibit the signs of coming unglued. Perhaps we have Jessica to thank for Twilight not becoming the book about being dangerously in love with the vampire stalker and absolutely terrified of the human one, despite both of them wanting to kill the main character. Mike Newton may have been able to save enough face and salvage his social network enough by allying with Jessica that he can maintain his fiction.

As for Edward, um, he really doesn't have a reason to be going down the path of "Mike's going to kill her" - Edward can't read Bella's mind, but he sure as hell can read Mike's, and Mike is theoretically concerned that Bella is in poor shape and apparently getting worse. Mike might have a fleeting thought of "zOMG, is she going to faint? Or die? And what will that do to me?", but unless Mike is really, really screwed up in the head, he's not looking for places to ditch the body. So I think your projection theory is as good as any, Ana.

And last, unless I'm lacking context, I can't read Bella's statement about Mike being mad as anything other than an assertion of the truth as she knows Mike. Mike is mad, because Mike is possessive, jealous, and seems to believe that women are there as trophies for him to collect, and because Mike was just upstaged pretty badly by Edward Cullen, perhaps the one person in the town that could very easily crush him just by flaunting his own social and actual bling in a concentrated way. That's not Bella being negative, that's Bella being on-target. As we've seen elsewhere, Bella likes to ascribe unwarranted negative aspects to people, but this time, she's just stating what's there. One descriptive adjective or action there would contexualize the whole thing. Is Bella laughing ruefully, or snarkily, or is she playing it straight?

*sigh* So many words used as purple prose or otherwise as sprinkles on an already iced cake, and then there are spots like this where some icing is really needed to understand things as a whole.

Lunch Meat said...

Another possibility is that Edward knew what was going on from the moment he saw Mike and Bella, from reading Mike's mind, but is now confessing false concern fear for her in an attempt to endear her to him. Even if Edward can't read her mind to know how to manipulate her perfectly, he could still be trying out different approaches.

depizan said...

This is an aside, but I flipped through the manga version at work the other day and was struck by how much better than the book it seemed. Part of it is that in reducing the story to a two volume manga, some of the unpleasant bits were lost (also some of Bella's unflattering thoughts about people), but a lot of it is in the expression choices the artist made. The result is a much more human Bella (and one who seems to like her friends). Actually, between those two things, I think most of the characters come off more human and likable in the manga.

Odd that the adaptations of the book result in more likable characters.

GeniusLemur said...

On the "I'm usually right," at the beginning, I think you missed a possibility. Yes, Edward is usually wrong, but does the author realize that? In the Left Behind deconstructions over at Slacktivist, there are many times when that's inescapably the case. It could be that S. Meyer intended Edward to be always right on top of everything else, and just didn't realize how bad his track record ended up being.

Laura said...

A different thought about Edward's "I'm usually right" (I admit I haven't read the books, but I adore the deconstruction) - Edward's life is probably filled with snarking about people like " He absolutely loathes me" - he can sit at the table with his siblings and remark cattily on who is secretly and foolishly infatuated with who but won't say anything, and who hates someone else - and he's usually right, because he can read their minds. Sure, he isn't right on the big decisions he makes, but they're pretty rare compared to all the amount he can be right about people because he's eavesdropping on their secrets.

Rikalous said...

Team Lee Stevens! The only eligible male in Forks who hasn't been a jerk yet.
---
Perhaps we have Jessica to thank for Twilight not becoming the book about being dangerously in love with the vampire stalker and absolutely terrified of the human one, despite both of them wanting to kill the main character.

That sounds a lot like the plot of Generation Dead, except with publically known non-stalker zombies instead of secret stalker vampires.
---
@depizan: Like the Left Behind movies, filtering the story through someone who can go "You know, this makes our heroes look like awful people," has to make it better.

Ana Mardoll said...

Laura, that's brilliant! It works in text and we didn't have to bend over backwards to make it fit. He's "usually right" because he's relying on telepathy when he talks to people. Perfect!

@Rikalous, totally wanting Team Lee Stevens shirts now... LOL.

chris the cynic said...

@Rikalous, totally wanting Team Lee Stevens shirts now... LOL.

I was going to point out how quick and easy it is to set up a custom shirt, but it actually too way longer than I expected to make an incredibly boring Team Lee Stevens shirt. I don't even remember why I have a shirt shop, I've never even tried to make something I thought anyone would buy.

-

I am tempted to make an entire series:

Team Edward
(Why choose the lesser evil?)

Team Jacob
(The abuse you don't want, the racist stereotypes you crave.)

Team Mike
(Keep it in the species.)

Team Tyler
(Sorry about the van thing.)

Team Eric
(Date the Chess Master.)

Team Lee Stevens
(The only male who hasn't been a jerk yet.)

Team Alice
(This is going to happen. Trust me. I know.)

Team Jessica
(You're not even paying attention, are you?)

Team Angela
(I'm the only one you actually like.)

Team Lauren
(Sorry, what was that?)

Team Leah
(Let's get out of here together.)

Ana Mardoll said...

I'm wracked with indecision, Chris. I think I love ALL of them.

I like the double meanings, but especially the Jessica one. Because Bella doesn't pay attention to her, and the reader would have to be not paying attention to assume they'd be a good pairing. Heh.

But I'm going to pick Team Leah as my fave. :D

Marie Brennan said...

Re: the smell thing, I don't know what would be necessary to qualify as a super-smeller, but I will usually pull off whatever bit of my sandwich the pickle touched because that scent (which I hate) is contaminating my food, and I can tell my husband had a gin and tonic three hours later.

I cannot, however, smell a pinprick's worth of blood.

Amarie said...

*squeals happily*

Chris, how much does the Leah t-shirt cost?! I swear, I'll use my tuition and book money for it!!! :D :D :D

Rikalous said...

Team Leah:

Sure, you only dreamed about kissing Bella because you're in a hive mind with Jacob. We believe you.

chris the cynic said...

If you actually want one it looks like it would be 19 dollars for a light one or 24 dollars for a dark one.

chris the cynic said...

Team Bella
(I am rock. I am an island.)

Silver Adept said...

Oh, very nice, all of these, and especially with the Simon and Garfunkel for Team Bella.

bekabot said...

Why Edward isn't aware (via The Mind of Mike) that Bella is actually not dying:

- It's Bella and her shield. I wish to suggest that in life, as in undeath, Bella's shield covers not only Bella, but those in her immediate vicinity. However, while Bella is still alive, her (non-enhanced) shield covers only people (other than herself) who are in her immediate vicinity — and this applies to Mike when he ends up carrying her across the Forks High campus after her wooze-out in Mr. Banner's class. So that when Edward, who is listening to music in his car, runs his automatic welfare-of-Bella check (by tuning into the minds of people in close proximity to Bella) he realizes to his alarm that he hears nothing. Naturally, he is unsettled and sallies forth to check up on what's going on.

"How can Edward become a husband and a father if he can't grow mentally and emotionally?"

- Heeee. Plenty of guys become husbands and/or fathers though they can't grow mentally or emotionally — and they lack Edward's excuse b/c they're still alive. (The same goes for women who become wives and mothers even though they're mentally/emotionally stuck at Age Whatever, of course.)

"...But on further reflection, I decided that this is actually a case of Edward projecting: he wants nothing more than to kill Bella and cover up his crime (so that his family won't have to move), so in a moment of panic his subconscious assumes that Mike wants the the same thing. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it."

- Bingo.

Darth Ember said...

Psh, like Edward would be avenging her murder. He'd kill Mike purely out of self-indulgence. He can't get away with other killings so easily these days, but avenging his dear sweet Bella? There's an excuse that'd get Carlisle off his back if he nommed Mike.
Well, that and pique that someone other than him killed his Delicious Bacony Person.

Also, I think I've decided to ship Mike/Lee Stevens. Because he helped Lee just like he helped Bella, and at least with a non-Bella person Mike might not remain afflicted with Sudden Jerkface Syndrome. I don't know if it's that Bella is an all-devouring black hole of morality who supernaturally turns everyone around her into assholes sooner or later, or if the Watchful Gaze of SMeyer only warps characters who are currently handy as plot devices, but getting well out of the way would be good for Mike either way.

Nathaniel said...

Hah, that would be chilling if done in narrative.

"Mike was frozen, trapped within the grip of some foreign power. Despite his best efforts, Mike still had yet to figure what was happening. All he knew was it something to do with that... girl.

Bella. Mike would shudder upon thinking that name, when allowed to. Whenever she got near, within earshot or eyesight, his entire body would suddenly freeze, start acting on its own volition. If he was lucky, he got warning. Not that it made it much better.

Making the situation even worse, nobody seemed to tell. None of his friends saw fit to comment on his behavior around Bella. And that terrified Mike even more. Was it only him? Was it affecting others as well? It was crazy! Was he going crazy?

Suddenly, he heard a moan. Mike felt his eyes turn towards the source. It was her. She seemed to be nearly passing out. To the sight of blood? But they were barely pinpricks!

Mr. Banner said, "Can someone take Bella to the nurse, please?" To Mike's despair, he his hand jerk up like it had been asked for someone wanted to win the lottery. While Mr. Banner asked Bella if she could walk, Mike's body eagerly strutted towards Bella, as though he was ecstatic for an excuse to touch her.

He tried to shout. "I'm not doing this! I'm not some kind of creep! Can't you see! None of this is me! Please! Oh please, someone help!" His mouth remained fixed an a wide, shit eating grin.

As he roughly forced...that girl done the hall, as though he barely cared about her, Mike was crying. But only on the inside. Even his tear ducts had betrayed him. As his soul collapsed into despair, he thought he heard something, a voice on the edge of his consciousness. It said something like... "Marrrryyyy Suuuuueeee...."

Mime_Paradox said...

OhmyfugMikeisaController! [/Animorphs reference]

chris the cynic said...

And Chris, thanks so much for that link! Now I can be an Irresponsible College Student and spend my work study money on something other than books and summer tuition! Wooo!!! :D

That's actually not the link I gave, apparently Zazzle only allows Team Leah shirts if you don't have them associated with the word "Twilight" and so they removed the thing I linked to. I've never really understood Copyright law. I know that Team Leah is not protected in any way but I guess that saying that Team Leah is related to Twilight is somehow sketchy? I don't really get it. I suppose you are using their name to drive people to your product, but I thought that was only a problem if you said it was official merchandise. I don't know.

As I said, Copyright is strange to me.

Cafe Press seems to have a deal with the Twilight people so that they don't have to go through all of those strange maneuvers. I was actually linking to something that contained "Team Leah" and the parenthetical, like the products here.

Yes, I appear to have two shirt shops I never use. I blame Will Wildman. Anyway, Cafe Press has a deal with the makers of Twilight and having looked through their rules I'm pretty sure that doesn't violate any, so I'm pretty sure that will actually stay up long enough for people to see it.

Fluffy_goddess said...

Oddly enough, having Mike bring Lee Stephens to the nurse makes me feel... retroactively less irritated at his having been sent to escort Bella to the nurse. It suggests that Banner basically picks one kid to do escorting duties each year (which, I don't know, maybe he expects to need one, but procrastinated picking one because he was busy smashing things?) and Mike is it regardless of who gets sick, instead of Banner singling out Mike as appropriate to be hanging around Bella.

Plus, the shared snark here feels a like one of the nicer moments so far, to me. If there's ever a time when you *should* be free to be snarky, it's when you're feeling rotten but in a safe space, which Bella is. She's already been told that the Cullen kids seem to think they're above everybody else, so why should Edward care if she's less than generous and kind about someone he probably looks down on anyway? And even if he scolds her for what she's said, she's got the ready-made excuse of being ill. So she can say what she likes without hurting her relationship with him or anyone else, her words are innocuous enough that she could get away with claiming he misrepresented her tone if he spreads them around, and she gets to explore her potential relationship with Cute Asshole a bit, to see if they're compatible. In other words, she's flirting, and he's responding just as she'd like. It doesn't make her into any more likeable a person, but it makes their relationship look a little more relationship-ish, a little less murder-in-the-making-ish.

Aspermoth said...

Oh my God. I've just realised something. Bella Swan has textbook dyspraxia. http://www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/services/ad_symptoms.php So far, she has gross motor difficulties, she's over-sensitive to smell, she has difficulty listening to people in groups, she's erratic with good and bad days, and she's prone to low self-esteem and depression.

Ana Mardoll said...

Oh my goodness. I've not heard of dyspraxia before, but you're right. She hits almost every symptom. o.O

chris the cynic said...

Why is it that whenever something like that is linked to I think, "That's me!" ?

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Punctuation question, how does one punctuate a question ending in a quotation that ends with an exclamation point? Stacking punctuation marks doesn't feel right, but I don't see another way

Notoftenpunctual said...

Something occurred to me recently that ties in very nicely with this post:

*Word of God says that vampires' personalities never change, once vamped, right?
*So how do we explain the fact that Edward's personality does actually change after Bella becomes a vampire?

Obviously, you're a long way off from this point, but, in the second half of "Breaking Dawn" there is a noticeable shift. A lot of the behavior I hated about him in the earlier books--and even in the first half of that one--seems to kind of melt away. He becomes less boastful/smug and less of a controlling dick. He lets Bella take the lead in the relationship and follows her without challenging her any more than is reasonable for two people negotiating plans. He even publicly demonstrates respect and pride and trust in Bella, for who she is and for her accomplishments. He's certainly not perfect. But, unless I'm really remembering incorrectly (and it's possible) he is significantly, seriously improved.

So here's what I think now: What if the entire "Twilight" saga (or at least "Breaking Dawn") is a fantasy about becoming a man's equal, written by someone who has a really hard time imagining a situation in which that would be possible?

We've talked a lot about other common fantasies that seem to be at play here ("Your marriage will be perfect and you will always be in love like you were the day you got married!", "Sure, you're shy and awkward and don't think you're pretty, but all the guys in school want you!", etc.). I think this could be another one. When Bella gets vamped, she becomes Edward's equal. And he starts treating her as such. And wouldn't that be a wonderful change to imagine if you've never experienced it before?

Fluffy_goddess said...

It's a universal feeling, I think. Most first-year psych students go through their textbooks and self-diagnose with half a dozen things at least, and every year at least a few of them go to their professors and have to be talked down because a) self-diagnosis is not easy, and owning the textbook does not make you an expert, that takes studying a bit more, so quit assuming you're secretly a sociopath and nobody's caught on yet, and b) most of these things are extreme versions of normal behaviour, ie everyone gets a few of the symptoms, but that's not a problem unless they take over your life.

Kat said...

I think Edward would be in Slytherin because he thinks what he is makes him better than everyone else.

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