Chapter 14: Family

Better once every 6 months than never, right?

I kid. I know I shouldn’t neglect you, Twilight blog, but these books are just so bad. Someone found me on my gaming tumblr, of all places, to ask when I would be making another post, and I just can’t say no to that. I respond very well to nagging when it comes to Girl&Twilight.

Anyway, when we last left off, Bella was going with Jacob to meet his wolfie friends.

Bella essentially begins the chapter by saying that all the First Nations boys look the same, and the boys respond with rage. Not towards her internal (and probably slightly accidental on Smeyer’s part, but that’s clumsy writing for you) racism, but because she is there at all. Bella sort of cowers while Jacob deflects the insults being thrown at Bella, insisting she can help them. It’s not very effective.

“Right, protect her!” Paul roared in outrage. Another shudder, a convulsion, heaved through his body. He threw his head back, a real growl tearing from between his teeth.
“Paul!” Sam and Jacob shouted together.
Paul seemed to fall forward, vibrating violently. Halfway to the ground, there was a loud ripping noise, and the boy exploded (pg.325).

I would like you to take a moment to really appreciate that last paragraph. He seemed to fall forward (he didn’t actually?). Precisely halfway to the ground (so he’s hovering now?) he exploded. As in, literally exploded. Somehow this explosion resulted in Paul being a werewolf now.

Except he isn’t a werewolf, because Smeyer doesn’t actually seem to know anything about werewolves. I mean, lycanthropes usually don’t transform at will and need a full moon to trigger the transformation, but not all lore goes that way so I’ll give Smeyer a break there. I do want to point out that Jacob and his friends don’t transform into werewolves though. They transform into very large wolves. Not man-wolves. They’re more shapeshifters than lycanthropes. This bothers me. So I am going to refer to them as wolves from now on because lycanthropes they are not.

I also want to point out that there exists a wolf named Paul. Is this hilarious to anyone else? No? Just me? Paul the big, scary wolf.

Anyway. Jacob transforms/explodes to fight with Paul the wolf. Bella is puzzled because she can’t figure out how all that wolf fit inside Jacob.

Jacob and Paul fight, and Sam orders the other boys to take Bella to “Emily’s.” Along the way, the boys chuckle about oh haha that Paul he is always losing his temper and Jacob shredded his last pair of sneakers and Billy can’t afford any more ohoho and then they make bets on which wolf will bite the most out of the other because it’s such a manly man sport to fight each other and Bella is just standing there like

and honestly I am feeling the same way.

The boys (Embry and Jared) resolve to go to Emily’s because “she’ll have food waiting” and they ask Bella if they can drive her truck because she looks like she’s going to be sick or have emotions or something girly like that. The boys bet on whether or not Bella will puke. Bella doesn’t puke. They also say stuff about the vampire treaty but I’m assuming it doesn’t matter because Smeyer’s plot devices never really hold from chapter to chapter, so whatever.

Emily is Sam’s finacée (Sam is the leader of the wolves). Embry tells Bella not to stare at Emily. When Bella asks why she would stare, Embry uncomfortably replies that “hanging out around werewolves has its risks.” Emily and Sam’s house is more of a tiny shack. Emily is very beautiful, but she has huge, terrible scars down one side of her face. Scars that look suspiciously like scratch marks from a wolf’s claw. Bella later notices scars up Emily’s arms and hands, too. Bella just dismisses it like it’s no big deal: “Hanging out with werewolves truly did have its risks, just as Embry had said.” Sam enters as Bella remarks how deeply in love Emily and Sam seem to be. He kisses her scars before he kisses her mouth. Is this supposed to be romantic? What is the moral of the story here? Being with someone so violent he nearly kills you is okay as long as he seems to love you the other half of the time? I feel like that is the message I am getting from Twilight as a whole. It is so not okay.

Emily refers to Bella as the “vampire girl” and Bella refers to Emily  as the “wolf girl.” This is more underlying misogyny on Smeyer’s part again, like the biggest part of these women’s identities is through the men who are their partners. Emily’s only roles so far seem to be being concerned for her fiancé and the other boys, who seem to be like her adopted sons, and preparing meals for everyone. Very traditional female roles, here.

Eventually, all the wolves in their human form are in Emily’s shack, eating muffins. Jacob explains that the red-haired vampire (Victoria) is after Bella because the Cullens killed her mate. It is acknowledged that this is illogical, which makes the plot even stupider… even the characters point out its stupidity. In any case, they devise a plan to catch and defeat Victoria. Jacob tells Bella she should stay in La Push as much as possible, and he will make sure Charlie is often at Billy’s too. Sam stops him to ask Bella if that plan is okay with her, and I can’t decide if that is a nice thing for him to do, or if he is just sort of pushing chivalry around.

Bella goes home that night, and a very confused Charlie tries to figure out why Bella is suddenly best friends with Jacob again and hanging out with the group she had thought was a cult that morning. Bella is just like “oh we made up, they’re fun.” Charlie also lets us know the story the rest of the world heard about Emily’s face: she was supposedly mauled by a bear.

In bed that night, Bella wonders if Jacob is right and she is a hypocrite after all. She wonders if she would still love Edward even if she knew he had killed many humans. It is understood that he almost certainly did. It is also understood that Bella would almost certainly love him no matter how bloodthirsty he is, and it wouldn’t have kept her away from him. Her justification?

Love is irrational, I reminded myself. The more you loved someone, the less sense anything made (pg.341).