Get In The Damn Car! (Pg. 88-104)

First a bit of correction, last week I only really covered to P. 88, initially the plan was to end the chapter but those three pages gave me some real traction so for brevity’s sake I ended where I did. This is what would have been the rest of the chapter.

I said last week that my mind constantly switches between the feelings of hate and pity with Bella. In Edward I have no such issue, he is the epitome of a douche bag and I loathe him. Having never been a teenage girl I can’t understand what the draw is, I get it with Romeo Montague–a gangster who is willing to over look the rival blood coursing through Juliet Capulet’s veins in order to love her, but Romeo treats Juliet well, like a lady and suffers for her. Edward…well he likes to play games.

Bella and Edward, are not Romeo and Juliet despite what various blogs may say on the issue. I know that initial meetings, and the courting phase of any relationship is supposed to be awkward but it shouldn’t be uncomfortable awkward bordering on the creepiness that oozes from Edward Cullen. Sitting together at lunch Edward spends most of the time hinting toward Bella that he’s bad and dangerous. The mark of a truly heinous person. The “bad boy” types that undoubtedly my daughter will eventually bring home don’t sit around and brag about it like this. They flaunt authority, develop their own rule systems, and have a generally stoic demeanor. The person who brags isn’t bad, he’s overcompensating. In all likelihood he’s not the dangerous type that a 1950s sitcom dad would tell his daughter to stay away from, he’s just a shy meek introvert that is going to kill himself overcompensating. Most women that I have met can see right through this bullshit…especially the smart ones which Bella claims to be but simply isn’t.

Bella admits that he could be dangerous “But not bad,” I whispered, shaking my head. “No I don’t believe that you’re bad.”
–”You’re wrong.”

No, she’s not. A truly bad person, who was aware of their own ‘badness’ wouldn’t warn someone else. They would say it once and then let that person just find out for themselves. This is the guy in college who will sleep with a girl, and tell her that she’s not going to find a boyfriend with him. Hugh Jackman played this character very well in a movie called Someone Like You: “I don’t pretend to be the white knight.” He then goes on to explain that whatever expectations they bring to him, are their fault not his. He, at least, was honest in the beginning.

It’s a way of removing guilt from the inevitable future break up. Tell them this isn’t going to last, and you can feel that they are on borrowed time. They should relish the experience because all they are really doing is taking a trip on the Titanic, you know how it ends but isn’t the trip worth it?

Well it depends on who the captain is, or more importantly how many times the captain has been in the sea. Most of the time both the man and the woman are around the same age, which makes our normal “bad boy” better ethically. If I’m 21 and the girl I’m telling this to is 19, we don’t have that much of an experience differential, I can’t completely take advantage of her because at that point in my life I’m pretty much just guessing too. In Bella’s case this is much worse because she’s 17 (she finally tells us this in these pages) and he’s over a hundred. He’s had years to practice which makes him bad for two reasons.

The first is that he has to resort to these sorts of games to attract a woman in the first place. At 100 and still in possession of his wits, he should be able to just charm the hell out of this girl drawing from a life experience with women, this is “incompetent bad.” The second version is “morally bad,” because he is purposely seeking out the victim and then treats her like a victim.

Edward skips Biology, Bella goes and this is the day the Bio teacher is going to have the class determine their blood types. A simple process made more complicated by the oddly coincidental fact that Bella is a hemaphobe, that is, she’s afraid of blood. She faints in class, because she can smell blood and Mike escorts her to the nurse’s office. Along the way Edward sees the goings on and interrupts. Which leads me to the question: if he skipped class why is he still hanging around the school? Obviously he needed to be there to forward the plot but without another excuse it’s just lazy writing.

Edward takes over and notices that Mike doesn’t like him. Well, duh, but this allows him to explain it to Bella furthering his own cause to be viewed as the bad boy. The proof breaks down like this, Mike doesn’t like me, Mike likes a lot of people, therefore I’m the bad boy. Which is faulty logic even for a hypothetical syllogism, Mike may not like idiots, or the pretentious, or whatever. Yet this all works on Bella who is now absolutely smitten and agrees to let Edward take her home.

Remember earlier when I said that Edward was ethically bad as well as incompetent? Well here comes the proof. Edward is walking Bella in the parking lot after using his magic powers to convince the school nurse to excuse a pale, 110 pound girl, who fainted twice out of gym class (which is like my magic ability to predict the outcomes of the Superbowl on Monday). Bella notices that they aren’t walking toward her truck but to Edward’s Volvo. She protests, she’s going to drive herself home, because she’s a strong independent girl who just fainted twice at the sight of a drop of blood.

Edward disagrees, he insists then after her further protests he orders, “Didn’t you hear me promise to take you safely home? Do you think I’m going to let you drive in your condition?’ his voice was still indignant.”

On one hand he has a point, she did just faint twice. On the other hand this attitude is about him not her, (I should point out that this is being said to her standing outside of the car while he is sitting down. If he cared so much about her, then either he would have opened the door for her and placed her in the passenger’s seat or they would be standing beside her car), “Didn’t you hear me promise…”

It reads like the excuse an abusive boyfriend gives to his crying girlfriend in the corner, “do you think I want to do this…” I’ve had experiences with girls in abusive relationships, I have heard them make excuses for them and it’s always like Edward here. "He never wanted to hit me, sometimes I just frustrate him and he loses it," etc. It’s about ownership and Edward feels entitled.

Bella considers running to her car but decides against this because, “He’d probably just drag me along anyway if I did.”
“I’ll just drag you back,” he threatened, guessing my plan."

By the arm no doubt, twisting it until it spiral fractures and she dreams up an excuse to tell Dr. Cullen at the hospital. All that’s remaining for him to say to her is the title of this post. Yeah he’s bad alright, just not in any good way, yet millions of teenage girls are idealizing this relationship? I wonder how the abuse help lines are going to handle the call volumes in five years?