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The Sparklepire Adventures (part 3 of ?)
Sep. 29th, 2010 09:43 pmJACOB: So, Bella, now that you’re single-
BELLA: But my soul is incomplete without He Whose Name Must Not Be Uttered, and I am bleak and empty without him.
JACOB: Uhm, yeah. You may have noticed that I often consider your being completely in love with someone else as secondary? Anyway, you’re single, so I can’t really think of any reason you shouldn’t date me.
BELLA: No means no! However, spending my every waking moment with you has brought a spark of joy back into my cold and dismal heart, so you can hold me hand when you want, as long as you don’t take it the wrong way.
JACOB: I shall interpret it the way most teenaged boys would. Oh my, I’m suddenly…very feverish.
BELLA: So am I!
JACOB’S DADDY BILLY: Don’t, worry, Bella, Jacob has mono even though you got sick with the exact same symptoms at the same time and you didn’t have it. Also, he’s hanging out with the guys he told you he thinks are a cult.
BELLA: OMG I shall be briefly distracted from my increasing consideration of potentially suicidal acts by this!
JACOB: Bella! Chill! I was, like, totally wrong and it isn’t suspicious at all that I now act completely different and praise the guy I was just calling a cult leader!
BELLA: Dude, even I’m not out of it enough to buy that.
JACOB: I, however, am completely oblivious to your increasing interest in dangerous things, despite being around for most of it and explaining things like cliff diving to you.
BELLA: Dude! Explanations!
JACOB: I cannot! So instead, I shall drop every hint possible!
BELLA: OMG WEREWOLF!
JACOB: Yes! I am a werewolf, the natural enemy of vampires! Now with 10 times more angst! Also, the angst and wolfness totally mean, you, like, kinda owe me your love or something. Maybe not “owe,’ but my passive-aggressive tendencies are definitely increasing, and since I’m blaming your boyfriend for this, I’m going to sulk even more now about you not loving me when you should.
BELLA: Tell me more about cliff diving. It looks all nice and dangerous and it’s been ever so long since I heard that lovely voice…
JACOB: But I have a brilliant idea! I’m forbidden to bring anyone along to a pack meeting, and some of the guys kinda hate your guts for dating a vampire, but it’ll go great!
BELLA: Sounds dangerous! Let’s go!
VIOLENT WEREWOLF DUDE: OMG VAMPBANGER! I kill!
JACOB: My property! I kill you!
OTHER WEREWOLVES: Yes, well, we’ll just pack up the girl and be off before her head accidentally gets ripped off the scuffle. Hey, we’re just going to take over your truck, ok? We haven’t had our turn at controlling you yet.
BELLA: Even my increasingly suicidal tendencies weren’t ready for that one.
EMILY THE ALPHA WOLF’S GIRLFRIEND: Hi there, when my boyfriend turned wolf, he ripped off half my face.
BELLA: …
WEREWOLVES: Can you imagine his pain at that?
EMILY: Yeah, I was kinda upset over that too.
BELLA: Wow, it must kill him to have to see that and think that it’s his fault!
EMILY: Or, uhm, when I look in the mirror? Since it’s my face and all. Also, I’m basically stuck with the dude forever and ever.
WEREWOLVES: The agony of endangering those we love!
EMILY: You might try pulling your heads out of your angst for a moment.
SAM THE ALPHA WOLF: Woman, quit talking and feed us! Also, pick up our socks and the stuff we’re throwing everywhere.
EMILY: That’s it. I’m becoming a lesbian.
BELLA: While everyone’s busy, I’m just going to wander through the woods alone, even though there’s an evil vampire lurking around who wants to kill me, and then jump of a cliff.
JACOB: WTF SHE ACTUALLY JUMPED OFF A CLIFF!
ALICE: ZOMG! I did not just have that vision I think I just had! I’ll just tell everyone about it before looking into things.
BELLA: Oh, Jacob, since you pulled me out of the water, maybe I’ll think a bit more about settling for you since maybe I do kinda owe you love…
READER: HEAD GO SPLODEY EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!
JACOB: OMG there is a vampire at your house! Paranoid hairtrigger temper and alpha controller tendencies activate!
BELLA: Dude! That’s Carlisle’s car! Good vampires!
JACOB: I have been a werewolf for 5 minutes and so clearly know more than you who interacted with them daily for months and were practically a part of their family! I will now storm off in a huff while voicing my conviction that my flounce is condemning you to death when you walk into your house! Oh yeah, I love you.
BELLA: OMG ALICE! I CLING TO YOU FOREVER AND EVER!
READER: OMG ALICE! AN ACTUAL OTHER WOMAN! WITH A PERSONALITY! I CLING TO YOU FOREVER AND EVER!
BELLA: I will hug you and sit in your lap and sob on your shoulder and never let you leave me again!
ALICE: I will look prim and stroke your back and try not to think about how good you smell. And then I’ll scold you for jumping off cliffs. You should be more considerate of things that could cause my brother pain.
EMILY: Is this what they call “lesyay”? Except for that last bit, of course.
ALICE? Lesyay?
BELLA: Lesyay?
STEPHANIE MEYER: Lesyay?
READER: Yes.
Ok, mostly kidding about that last bit (and entirely about Emily being allowed to actually stand up for herself) but that scene (which I was in the middle of when I stopped) had more realistic emotion than the rest of the book combined. Also a lot closer to healthy emotion than anything else in the book. Bella had too much emotional dependency for it to be completely healthy, but it was a start.
The central problem with Bella’s characterization in this book (and I specifically mean this book, as I doubt she’s in the middle of a fullscale depression in the others) is that, while the depression itself is fairly realistic, it’s being treated as a reaction to being dumped. And while that can (and does) cause depression, especially for teenagers, Meyer is treating it pretty much as Bella will be “fixed” is Edward comes back, which results in the other characters basically acting like she’s in a bit of an extended slump that will be fixed when she starts dating again or something. So it’s like, a good representation of depression, but framed as a woman being “fixed” by landing a man. And Bella’s analysis of Romeo and Juliet explains so much about this series, because it seemed to be Meyer explaining how both Romeo and Juliet and Edward and Bella have epic and eternal love and if they hadn’t died, Juliet never would have loved again. I mean, normally, when I come across Romeo and Juliet being discussed as epically romantic in fiction, it’s in the context of the cultural stereotype, as opposed to the actual play and romance, but this was completely serious about it.
But I’m actually more bothered by the werewolves and the racial implications than the gender stuff at this point? (Though I must say that I’m not sure if the tribe deliberately did something to create a wolf pack or if it was a magic reaction to the presence of vampires (it seems to be the former, though) but it’s very clear that:
1. The people in power in the tribe knew there would be werewolves.
2. They had a very good idea of who the werewolves would be.
3. They knew exactly what signs to look for, just in case there was any doubt.
4. They knew the transformation would be complete when the new werewolf had an extremely violent reaction to something.
5. They gave the people (all young men about 16-20, so far) absolutely no warning about any of this, and left them to figure it out for themselves.
And, naturally, the two “this was when I turned” stories have been the young men attacking physically weaker people (Sam attacked Emily and ripped off half her face, Jacob almost attacked his disabled father) who they have a strong emotional connection to. So what you have is a bunch of people who either turned young men into supernatural creatures without their permission or knew it would happen to them and didn’t warn them in either case, owing exactly what was happening to the boys and doing nothing until they risked permanently harming/killing someone they cared out. (This, naturally, is framed through the agony of hurting someone you care about, as opposed to how the victims might feel or think.)
And just as I’m working up a full on hate for the characters, I realize that virtually every POC in the book falls into one of these categories, and that this is how we resulted in rich white men hunting violent young POC-men through the woods.
And I stare at my screen in horror.
BELLA: But my soul is incomplete without He Whose Name Must Not Be Uttered, and I am bleak and empty without him.
JACOB: Uhm, yeah. You may have noticed that I often consider your being completely in love with someone else as secondary? Anyway, you’re single, so I can’t really think of any reason you shouldn’t date me.
BELLA: No means no! However, spending my every waking moment with you has brought a spark of joy back into my cold and dismal heart, so you can hold me hand when you want, as long as you don’t take it the wrong way.
JACOB: I shall interpret it the way most teenaged boys would. Oh my, I’m suddenly…very feverish.
BELLA: So am I!
JACOB’S DADDY BILLY: Don’t, worry, Bella, Jacob has mono even though you got sick with the exact same symptoms at the same time and you didn’t have it. Also, he’s hanging out with the guys he told you he thinks are a cult.
BELLA: OMG I shall be briefly distracted from my increasing consideration of potentially suicidal acts by this!
JACOB: Bella! Chill! I was, like, totally wrong and it isn’t suspicious at all that I now act completely different and praise the guy I was just calling a cult leader!
BELLA: Dude, even I’m not out of it enough to buy that.
JACOB: I, however, am completely oblivious to your increasing interest in dangerous things, despite being around for most of it and explaining things like cliff diving to you.
BELLA: Dude! Explanations!
JACOB: I cannot! So instead, I shall drop every hint possible!
BELLA: OMG WEREWOLF!
JACOB: Yes! I am a werewolf, the natural enemy of vampires! Now with 10 times more angst! Also, the angst and wolfness totally mean, you, like, kinda owe me your love or something. Maybe not “owe,’ but my passive-aggressive tendencies are definitely increasing, and since I’m blaming your boyfriend for this, I’m going to sulk even more now about you not loving me when you should.
BELLA: Tell me more about cliff diving. It looks all nice and dangerous and it’s been ever so long since I heard that lovely voice…
JACOB: But I have a brilliant idea! I’m forbidden to bring anyone along to a pack meeting, and some of the guys kinda hate your guts for dating a vampire, but it’ll go great!
BELLA: Sounds dangerous! Let’s go!
VIOLENT WEREWOLF DUDE: OMG VAMPBANGER! I kill!
JACOB: My property! I kill you!
OTHER WEREWOLVES: Yes, well, we’ll just pack up the girl and be off before her head accidentally gets ripped off the scuffle. Hey, we’re just going to take over your truck, ok? We haven’t had our turn at controlling you yet.
BELLA: Even my increasingly suicidal tendencies weren’t ready for that one.
EMILY THE ALPHA WOLF’S GIRLFRIEND: Hi there, when my boyfriend turned wolf, he ripped off half my face.
BELLA: …
WEREWOLVES: Can you imagine his pain at that?
EMILY: Yeah, I was kinda upset over that too.
BELLA: Wow, it must kill him to have to see that and think that it’s his fault!
EMILY: Or, uhm, when I look in the mirror? Since it’s my face and all. Also, I’m basically stuck with the dude forever and ever.
WEREWOLVES: The agony of endangering those we love!
EMILY: You might try pulling your heads out of your angst for a moment.
SAM THE ALPHA WOLF: Woman, quit talking and feed us! Also, pick up our socks and the stuff we’re throwing everywhere.
EMILY: That’s it. I’m becoming a lesbian.
BELLA: While everyone’s busy, I’m just going to wander through the woods alone, even though there’s an evil vampire lurking around who wants to kill me, and then jump of a cliff.
JACOB: WTF SHE ACTUALLY JUMPED OFF A CLIFF!
ALICE: ZOMG! I did not just have that vision I think I just had! I’ll just tell everyone about it before looking into things.
BELLA: Oh, Jacob, since you pulled me out of the water, maybe I’ll think a bit more about settling for you since maybe I do kinda owe you love…
READER: HEAD GO SPLODEY EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!
JACOB: OMG there is a vampire at your house! Paranoid hairtrigger temper and alpha controller tendencies activate!
BELLA: Dude! That’s Carlisle’s car! Good vampires!
JACOB: I have been a werewolf for 5 minutes and so clearly know more than you who interacted with them daily for months and were practically a part of their family! I will now storm off in a huff while voicing my conviction that my flounce is condemning you to death when you walk into your house! Oh yeah, I love you.
BELLA: OMG ALICE! I CLING TO YOU FOREVER AND EVER!
READER: OMG ALICE! AN ACTUAL OTHER WOMAN! WITH A PERSONALITY! I CLING TO YOU FOREVER AND EVER!
BELLA: I will hug you and sit in your lap and sob on your shoulder and never let you leave me again!
ALICE: I will look prim and stroke your back and try not to think about how good you smell. And then I’ll scold you for jumping off cliffs. You should be more considerate of things that could cause my brother pain.
EMILY: Is this what they call “lesyay”? Except for that last bit, of course.
ALICE? Lesyay?
BELLA: Lesyay?
STEPHANIE MEYER: Lesyay?
READER: Yes.
Ok, mostly kidding about that last bit (and entirely about Emily being allowed to actually stand up for herself) but that scene (which I was in the middle of when I stopped) had more realistic emotion than the rest of the book combined. Also a lot closer to healthy emotion than anything else in the book. Bella had too much emotional dependency for it to be completely healthy, but it was a start.
The central problem with Bella’s characterization in this book (and I specifically mean this book, as I doubt she’s in the middle of a fullscale depression in the others) is that, while the depression itself is fairly realistic, it’s being treated as a reaction to being dumped. And while that can (and does) cause depression, especially for teenagers, Meyer is treating it pretty much as Bella will be “fixed” is Edward comes back, which results in the other characters basically acting like she’s in a bit of an extended slump that will be fixed when she starts dating again or something. So it’s like, a good representation of depression, but framed as a woman being “fixed” by landing a man. And Bella’s analysis of Romeo and Juliet explains so much about this series, because it seemed to be Meyer explaining how both Romeo and Juliet and Edward and Bella have epic and eternal love and if they hadn’t died, Juliet never would have loved again. I mean, normally, when I come across Romeo and Juliet being discussed as epically romantic in fiction, it’s in the context of the cultural stereotype, as opposed to the actual play and romance, but this was completely serious about it.
But I’m actually more bothered by the werewolves and the racial implications than the gender stuff at this point? (Though I must say that I’m not sure if the tribe deliberately did something to create a wolf pack or if it was a magic reaction to the presence of vampires (it seems to be the former, though) but it’s very clear that:
1. The people in power in the tribe knew there would be werewolves.
2. They had a very good idea of who the werewolves would be.
3. They knew exactly what signs to look for, just in case there was any doubt.
4. They knew the transformation would be complete when the new werewolf had an extremely violent reaction to something.
5. They gave the people (all young men about 16-20, so far) absolutely no warning about any of this, and left them to figure it out for themselves.
And, naturally, the two “this was when I turned” stories have been the young men attacking physically weaker people (Sam attacked Emily and ripped off half her face, Jacob almost attacked his disabled father) who they have a strong emotional connection to. So what you have is a bunch of people who either turned young men into supernatural creatures without their permission or knew it would happen to them and didn’t warn them in either case, owing exactly what was happening to the boys and doing nothing until they risked permanently harming/killing someone they cared out. (This, naturally, is framed through the agony of hurting someone you care about, as opposed to how the victims might feel or think.)
And just as I’m working up a full on hate for the characters, I realize that virtually every POC in the book falls into one of these categories, and that this is how we resulted in rich white men hunting violent young POC-men through the woods.
And I stare at my screen in horror.