Hostage (Pg. 421-431)

Still holed up in the danky motel room, Alice and Bella have a brief discussion about how one transforms a person into a Vampire. Way back in this book Edward spoke of Carlisle's history and Bella noted that there was something in his turning that he was leaving out.* I posited that it was sex for two reasons: first because it was funny and I could easily reference a horrible movie that I rented**. The second was that it made sense for Edward to repress the memory and skip over it. What else could be so traumatic, unless it was a shared blood drinking action like Ann Rice used in Interview With A Vampire (the movie, I never read the book)?

Alice explains that her kind are infused with a superfluous weapon--venom. They bite a human and the venom is carried on in the bloodstream, then after a little bit they are transformed into vampires. Apparently this is so traumatic that Edward can't just explain that this is all it takes. I have the feeling that our author wanted a bit more but then couldn't come up with anything that would be original but non-sexual. So this is kind of a let down.

What isn't a let down is what Alice is doing right now. Alice is furtively sketching the room from her vision. This is good, it makes a lot of sense. They need to see the room, and by illustrating it they can move forward to solving the mystery. James is in the room but other than that we only know that it is populated by a gold rim around the walls and there is a wooden table and a television. Without the table it sounds like he is on a private jet or in a limo, either would make sense since Carlisle followed him to Vancouver where he boarded a plane but then there is that table. Bella looks at the drawing and recognizes it as her mother's house.

Alice is on the phone immediately and declares that, "Edward is coming to get you."

Right, my question is to ask how that helps anyone? Alice had the vision yesterday,** so we don't know when it is coming true. Since it involves a Vampire we do know that it is going to be more accurate than otherwise. We have been shown that her visions are pretty damn good too so Edward's presence will only serve to get Bella away from the situation. I suppose that is a good thing but it is only marginally good. None of these people have even considered laying a trap yet. Which is really odd considering that they know exactly what James is after. Just carelessly clue him in and then waylay him on the way there. For being super-predators they really don't think like one at all.

"But my mother...he came here for my mother, Alice." No you idiot, he's after you. Your mother's house is merely a means to an end. However James isn't the sharpest tool in the shed not considering that there could be a trap for him.

Then there's a phone call which Alice hands to Bella mouthing to Bella that it is her mother. Bella begins to calm her mother down, because we must remember that she's emotionally unstable, when a male voice begins talking. It's James and he's right where Alice thought he would be but didn't do anything about it. This ploy of James is a cliche, but well apt for the situation and level of intelligence we are used to reading about, as he gets Bella to answer in one word terse sentences until she's out of ear shot.

Even then, he's aware of the super hearing of the Vampires and continues the charade. Good thing he knows he's called a cell. He's also smart, "Why don't you walk another room now so you're face doesn't ruin everything?"

Good move, score 1 for James. How many movies does this not happen in? The person has to suck up their facial expressions while the cops listening in pretend not to notice and then never act on their observations. Basically every mystery in an episode of CSI involving hostages revolves around the double cross and no one seeing it coming.

James, for all his cunning on the phone, is a complete idiot. His plan, on the Dark Knight Joker Scale of Over-Complication (patent pending), is about a 6. It's needlessly complicated which gives it an original scale of 8, but since it only relies on one other person we can knock it down to a 6. He wants Bella to ditch the super sensitive vampires and go to her mother's house. The very same house that Alice and Jasper have just said they were going to keep an eye on. That's not such of a problem since Bella plans on escaping them at the airport, but James can't know that. What he can know is that there is only one reason they would be in Phoenix to begin with. He's being careful but not careful enough, the phone call is probably too risky. Extended conversation with your intended victim and giving her a location to call him from? No possibility that information could be used against you. Good thing he's up against Bella and the Cullens because there are two possibilities that the Cullens sans Bella are ignoring: that James is either at Bella's mother's house or on his way there. In either case the Cullens' quarry is at a place known to them, or on his way. This is the, and I mean THE, perfect opportunity to get him. After all didn't Carlisle and Edward seek to lure him away for just this purpose? Maybe Alice and Jasper aren't equipped to handle James but they can certainly keep tabs on him.

And Bella is being just as stupid in keeping this quiet. She should just confess what James has told her and the three can wait for Edward and Carlisle and make a plan. While her plan on the DKJSOC is a 0, she just isn't thinking it through. Getting away from a person in an airport, especially post 9/11, is pretty easy. Yet Bella has to outwit the future seeing Pythian of Alice. Alice, who in the meantime is deep in thought on the bed, we know what this means--she's seeing the future.

She breaks from this to reassure Bella that "We'll make sure she's (her mother) fine, Bella, don't worry." Curious that Alice can't see that James already has her, which leads me to believe that Alice is playing Bella right now and already knows what is going on. I hope so because to assume otherwise would mean that Alice's prescience comes and goes for the plot's sake.

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*I covered it in September 28th's post. http://reading-twilight.blogspot.com/2010/09/mysterious-case-of-dr-carlisle-pg-329.html

**Modern Vampires if you are curious, but don't actually see it.

**Which, by the way, it is getting harder and harder to remember what day it is...my best guess is that it is Thursday.

Foundation of Absurdity (Pg. 410-421)

One of the things that is important when writing long papers for graduate school is to build the argument off of sound premises. No matter how good the writing itself can be, it doesn't work if the argument itself has a catastrophic flaw. I learned this the hard way about a month ago. The professor remarked that he felt the conclusion and the latter half of my paper was well organized and well thought out, the only trouble was that in the beginning a made an error involving the reversing of two terms. No matter how well the paper turned out (even the first part was well done he said) the error negated the entire thing. It was one of those mitigated compliments, "I liked the paper a lot but..." That 'but' dropped the paper all of the way into the low B's. Not good at all.

This week's section is quite similar to that paper. It's well done, in fact, extremely well done if not for the absurd situation that brings Bella, Jasper, and Alice into the dank motel room by the airport in Phoenix. The idea that our heroes would have to run all of the way to Phoenix is laughable, the fact that their adversary would be able to follow them is equally so, and this whole shielding Bella's father from what is going on is half-ridiculous, but it's a pretty big half.

The half that isn't ridiculous is that Charlie has to be kept in the dark because to tell him everything would mean confessing the secret of the Cullen's nature. The fact that one person seems to want to murder Bella would have an easy cop solution--guard her with firearms, that won't work here and Charlie's cop brain is going to need to know why. I get that part, it's the other part that doesn't make sense. James, the "tracker,"* doesn't know who Charlie is. Furthermore he doesn't even know who Bella is! He just knows her by the errant scent that he picked up when the wind blew in his direction and then placed that on her person. He could pick her out of a lineup but as for her name, where she lives, etc. There isn't much that he knows. They could have driven to Seattle and hid in that population once they were sure he wasn't following them, but we need the mother/daughter conflict I suppose.

Thinking that all of their actions make perfect sense Bella and company wait for Alice's phone to ring. They wait and wait. Bella wants to know why they are going to all of this trouble for her, "Do you think any of us want to look into his eyes for the next hundred years if he loses you?"

Jasper is claiming that the rest of the Cullens are being altruistic in regard to Edward. The problem for them is that in a hundred years they are going to have to look into his eyes and see it. I mentioned this two weeks ago so I won't spend more time rehashing it. Unless they are planning on turning her into a vampire then this might be an issue but that raises a whole host of new issues,** I still side with Rosalie. She might be Edward's girlfriend, but that's it for now, it's a cold way of looking at things but this is a lot of trouble just to make sure that Edward doesn't get sad(der).

They wait, and wait. Here is where the writing really steps up. Meyer describes the passing of time and the boredom that Bella experiences, "Sometimes I stared at the abstract prints, randomly finding pictures in the shapes, like I'd found pictures in the clouds as a child." This, and others like it, convey the feeling of being bored in a motel. Those paintings are the most innocuous things in existence, they aren't designed to be looked at--like muzak, they are there to be ignored. Their non-meaning is so pungent it's offensive to the taste which is why no one ever steals them. Get bored enough and you begin to wonder what it is and why it was painted. I really love the whole scene here.

Finally the phone rings and Alice jumps up. We also finally get the full description of the plan. Edward and Carlisle headed North to draw James North and then they were going to turn and trap him. Esme and the remaining Cullens were to head West to draw away the feral woman vampire, then return and keep vigil over Charlie's house. It's a stupid plan because Esme had donned Bella's clothes thus part of her scent so shouldn't both vampires be tracking Esme? Apparently not, because Carlisle and Edward lured James all of the way to Vancouver, where he got on a plane and headed back to Forks...they assume, although I guess they could have checked on that.

After the phone call, Bella tries to call her mother to warn her of danger. Which is stupid, because while it is possible that James could have determined who Bella's father is by following them to his house, there is no way that he could determine who her mother is, given the different last name, different city. Bella thinks about James checking the school records but how? You can't just walk in and ask for a child's school records, there are forms to fill out and while James has some vampire powers in that vein, Edward couldn't even use them to change classes in the beginning of the book. Obviously bureaucracy has grown to meet the needs of the bureaucracy just enough to make sure the vampires can't override the schools.***

Alice has a flash. I love these sections as Meyer is really at the top of her craft here. Alice sits up straight and then stares off relating her vision, "Just the mirrors, and the gold. It's a band around the room. And there's a black table with a big stereo, and a TV."

It's not a good description of a room, but it's a good description of a dream about a room as it's happening. It reminds me of Ashley Judd in hypnosis during the movie "Kiss the Girls"--a panicked description about a vague memory. The whole rest of the section is about them trying to divine the room, and where James could possible be. The only trouble is that we haven't seen the room in the book so far, or if we have we haven't been told we have. This whole section would be great, if it weren't for the foundation of sand it's all built on. And don't even get me started on the aside about how to create a vampire, that's for another time.

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* Which by the way we have no idea what exactly a "tracker" is yet.
**For example: what if they can't cure her of the blood lust?
***I've always suspected that teacher's unions were too powerful.

Is It Safe? (Pg. 407-410)

We're at a seedy hotel by the airport, inside is Jasper, Alice, and Bella waiting for a phone call to find out whether or not it is safe. Along with the oddly reminiscent scenes this book has with 90s era softcore pornography, it is starting to become a cliched cop movie. In that movie I see Bella as the witness to a murder in which the male-female cop duo, who totally don't get along are waiting to hear from their snitch whether the witness can be moved or not. The trouble with that scenario is that it is far more interesting than what is going on here.

Bella has switched clothes and then been carted off back to Arizona to hide from James, the tracker (we still don't know that means) who is in Forks. It should be noted that this drive is over 1500 miles and would take almost a straight day of driving. By all of this we can assume that it is now Tuesday. The night baseball game was on Sunday, they panicked and ran, 24 hours of driving and then a groggy Bella wakes up...Tuesday at the earliest. This also means that for Charlie, his daughter has been missing for two days but since he isn't that central to the plot or the story we don't have to concern ourselves other than a fleeting mention that Bella makes.

"Edward reminded me that you have to eat a lot more frequently than we do." Alice comes skipping in with this witty writing. This comment breaks the fourth wall, it reminds us that we are obviously in a vampire story. Alice goes to school with high school kids, they interact with humans all of the time so why should she need to be reminded that Bella needs to eat. This far in the book we know who the vampires are, we don't need to be beaten over the head that Alice is one of them. The comment further serves to get Bella to mention Edward without him actually having to be in the room. Lest we forget that he is also in the story.

There's a brief exchange between Bella, Alice, and Jasper wherein Bella wants to know what is going on, and why everyone is so careful and quiet. With the absence of lucky strike cigarettes, and Joe Pesci this plays more like a scene from JFK only with more paranoia. In that movie Pesci's character and everyone else thought they had something to fear, in this book we have an actual fear but it is so remote that the tension seems false. If Phoenix was only an hour away from Forks or a couple of hours it would seem more real, or if Phoenix was the size of Port Angeles than, again that would be something else. Here, past 24 hours and 1500 miles of water, wind, and bridges the odds of James being able to continue to track them should let them relax.

Bella is, of course, not concerned about herself but about the fate of Edward. The bit about the waiting is good, I'll grant that. The whole thing is about not knowing that something is going on when something probably is going on, and then wondering what the outcome of that something might be. Yet in two days, no one can pick up a phone?

Finally when someone does call they just tell Bella that everything is fine. But, "Her eyes were wide, honest...and I didn't trust them."

They were so honest she couldn't believe them at all. Is that irony or is actual irony?

Fort Sensible (Pg. 401-407)

"The Indians said, throw out the captain and everyone will be spared."
"What happened?"
"They threw him out! And that's why it's called Fort Sensible."
              --The Simpsons, "Whacking Day"

We're back after a week off so that I could finish my assignments for the semester. We bring up a classic episode of the Simpsons, from when it was good,* because it illustrates a problem that the Cullens are having with Bella that only one of them seems to understand. To recap, three new vampires are in town and two of them really really want to kill Bella and eat her. Out of the blue, the Cullens decide that the best course of action is to rush her out of town forcing her to abandon her father with no prior notice. All of which she accepts with only token protest. I should note here that this is indicative of the religion of the writer. If a person marries in to a Mormon family, they have to adopt the ways and means of the new religion. I'm aware of this through personal experience as well as many testimonials regarding the religion. The Mormons take to shunning non-Mormons, this is evidenced even by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the very first Sherlock Holmes story "A Study in Scarlet," although it's less fatal now.

They are trying to escape a Tracker, which is some sort of super vampire that they can't just hide from. Which is an idea that never really crosses their mind. James isn't from the area, and although it's not that big, he doesn't know where anything is. They could hide her in town and then set a trap, but apparently none of the Cullens received the gift of knowing how to bait a trap. Which is odd given how old they are supposed to be, just watching season 2 of the A-Team would allow them to have basic knowledge of this concept.

Intelligently, however, their plan involves having Bella switch out of her clothes. Edward asks Rosalie to do this and Rosalie, clearly the most intelligent of the group replies, "Why should I?' she hissed, 'What is she to me? Except a menace--a danger you've chosen to inflict on all of us."

Rosalie's reply is pragmatic, and the rest of the Cullens must understand this because they don't rebuke her. I understand that she is supposed to come off as a bitch here but she's right. Bella isn't anything to them other than Edward's girlfriend. There are many numerous ethical theories put forth throughout the history of Philosophy that will state that Rosalie is being unethical. From Plato to Kant to Rawls, and even Levinas who said that our first duty is to the other, but Rosalie has a point. Bella isn't important other than being Edward's current relationship. He's not 17, he's a vampire who will not die of old age while she will. Later Jasper will tell Bella that they are protecting her because they don't want to see him lonely again, which is very nice for family cohesion, but she will die. Furthermore it's implied that Bella's scent is something different, more special than other humans so other vampires will be hungering for her if they catch it as well. Rosalie wants to sit this one out, I don't blame her. At most protecting Bella gives the undying Edward, what, another 70 years? It sounds like a long time for us mortals but to the undying it's like a week. Aside from Happy-Go-Lucky Alice, she makes the most sense.

Speaking of the precognitive, they actually consider her when they formulate their plan which I'm calling the "Audrey Hepburn Gambit" since I watched three episodes of Leverage and Ocean's 13 in the last week.** Esme and Bella go off to the room to undress each other (seriously) and switch clothes: the plan is that Esme dressed like Bella will go off in the jeep. Later Jasper and Alice will drive Bella somewhere and meet up with Edward. It's like a bait and switch but a little over complicated. Why not just leave at the same time, James can't be in two places at once?

Someone gets handed a "tiny silver phone" which given the time of this writing and the apparent wealth of the Cullens was probably a Motorola Razr. I'm just mentioning that.

Carlisle, before putting on his black leather gloves and popping a cigar in his mouth asks the brains of the operation, Alice, "Will they take the bait?"

Good job, centuries old patriarch, consulting the person who actually can tell how things are going to turn out. It would have been better to come up with about five or six plans and then ask her how they would end up but at least you are aware that your shitty plan still needs the future to work out.

They speed off. Bella falls asleep and wakes up in Arizona. Jasper asks her for directions to the airport, which Bella gives and then asks why, "It's better to be close, just in case."

Having been written post 9/11 this is the part of the plan that doesn't make any sense. You can't just go into an airport and buy a ticket in a hurry. That's a security flag. You also need at least an hour to get through security, so if James has figured out the Hepburn Gambit and is on his way then they need to pack up Bella, drive to the airport, buy a ticket, check their bags and get into the hanger. Then they will be sort of safe, if James doesn't follow them and do they exact same thing. Or James could just lose interest. I've seen cheetahs and bears do this on the discovery channel (er, National Geographic since Discovery is about motorcycles now for some reason), the prey gets too hard to catch and they go after something else. Since James has already eaten in Seattle he can't be that interested in one person.

Although he's a hunter and Laurent has said that it's the chase that thrills him. If that's the case, then isn't all of this running, hiding, and switching actually making him more interested in all of this?
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*Which is always more than six years ago, and a statement which is true as long as it is made after season 7.
**I just love the names they give to these elaborate cons.

That Almost Makes Sense...(Pg. 390-403)

This week I became aware of something as I was reading, that I have made a mistake. Not an actual mistake, mind you, because it was something that I couldn't have known given that I don't read ahead in this book; but something I was questioning in the last update actually had an answer. We'll get to that in a little bit, but for now we are outside of Bella's house getting ready for their insane plan to usher Bella out of Forks so that she can be safe from the Tracker, James. Remember that their plan is to get Bella to convince Charlie to let her leave Forks tonight (Sunday) and head back to Phoenix where despite the fact that she has no job, is completely socially inept, and has no money she plans to get her own place.

After Emmet unbuckles her seat belt she tells Edward she loves him and then mentions that he ought not to listen to anything she is going to say afterward. I almost decided to do that myself, just to see the difference between Edward's point of view and the story. Then I realized upon beginning that it would make no sense to do that since Edward never listens to her anyway. Sure he hears her words but he isn't going to take orders from a woman, that's crazy talk.

She runs in the house faking a cry and hysterics slamming the door. Charlie is understandably concerned and inquires whether or not Edward hurt her. When she replies no he asks what is wrong because he thought she liked him, "I do like him--that's the problem...I don't want to be trapped in this stupid, boring town like mom!"

Here's my problem: she's been in the town for nine months or so, and never once did she utter a peep about this. Now when she first moved she was regretful, which is normal. I have moved out of cities several times, and each time it was a sad occasion. Then I got over it, and Bella did too. I know that she is acting here, but her choice of lie is awfully transparent. Why not say that Edward emotionally hurt her? Given the context of their date Charlie probably wouldn't question this being the impetus behind her emotional state. It doesn't matter in the long run, because Charlie is a bad father and an idiot so he takes it in stride. Although he does make a brilliant suggestion one that I felt he ought to do last week, "Just wait another week,' he pled still shell-shocked, 'Renee will be back by then."

Bella's stupid plan forgot one crucial detail: that her mother may not be prepared to have her back. I mean this was the reason she left in the first place right? Her mother's boyfriend was a baseball player and they went on the road a lot. Given that we know baseball season is in full session Bella couldn't anticipate the fact that at the current time her mother may be somewhere else--in this case Florida. Bella leaves anyway but not before hitting her father below the belt by aping the exact same lines that her mother used when she left him. Which is a horrible thing.

Not that she said it, I actually get that. She needed him to want her to go if only for an instant. The horrible thing is that she knew the exact wording that her mother used when she left. That must have been a good conversation, "so if you ever want to hurt Charlie this is exactly what I said to him when I left the two of you in Forks to go screw minor league baseball players like that movie Bull Durham..."

The real absurd part is that it works. Charlie should have grabbed her by the arm and stopped her from leaving. Remember it is Sunday and if he had any real sense he wouldn't have let her go in the first place.

Successful as her gambit was they are now in the truck speeding off with Alice in the distance behind them. Bella asks about the tracker and Edward knows, "The tracker followed us. He's running behind us now."

So he followed you? Funny that didn't get mentioned before when they pulled up. Between the telepath and the psychic no one figured that out. James isn't immune to their powers as we have seen, in fact, he should be pretty clear in Alice's mind since he's a vampire. James is out there hunting them like the Predator but no one seems to suggest standing and fighting. It was brought up before and i wonder why they are against it now? It can't be for Bella's sake, because James couldn't hurt her without getting killed by one of the other three vampires around her.

The other question is why no one at the Cullen's house misses James. The three agreed to hear Carlisle out, and forbid themselves from hunting in the region but no one seems to be aware that he (and Victoria we later learn) are gone? Furthermore there is the added problem of Charlie. His otherwise obedient and servile daughter just ran out of the house acting completely out of character, a normal person might try and contact the last people that saw her, i.e. the entire Cullen family, to find out what just happened.

Why is James tracking Bella? Edward knows, "If you didn't smell so appallingly luscious..."

I like that phrase. It shows the Meyer can really string some words together when she wants to. I have repeated that sentiment several times over the course of this blog, she can write great descriptions she really knows adjectives--it's just plot and character she has a hard time with. What I hate about the phrase is that it gives Bella more importance than she herself thinks, and we think as well. It's the kind of crap that makes Leia's ship get attacked by Vader's near Tatooine. Of course that of all the possible times, in all the possible places, James had to whiff Bella who is the most attractive human for vampires...even though no one else but Edward has even mentioned it.

Edward explains further, "If I had stood by, he would have killed you right then."

Yeah, except that standing by is exactly what Edward did. He stood there and snarled. I guess the snarling means he did something, but of course, there is also Laurent who made the pact with Carlisle, and the rest of the Cullens who could have stopped James. Good thing Edward was there or else the exact same thing would have happened that did.

So back at the Cullen's stronghold everyone is wondering what to do about James and Victoria. Naturally they ask Laurent who explains how deadly James is, and how in 300 years he's never seen anyone so dangerous and that is why, "I joined his coven."

Last week I mentioned that even though James wants to kill Bella he can't because "Laurent is the patriarch of this clan. If Laurent says no, he'll have to obey...that's how it works in the other vampire media." Not only does this mean that I'm wrong about an assumption I made with the available evidence* but that there is something of an actual danger here. James doesn't need to be unleashed because there is no leash. This surprise is not only limited to myself but also to Bella and everyone else. It's a surprise but I'm not sure why it's there.

Since most of the Vampires in this universe are not like the Cullens it would be a fair assumption for the other vampires that the Cullens would be normal and not vegan. Why put up the subterfuge? Wouldn't the fact that they had deceived the local vampire chief be more risky than openly announcing who they are?

On the one hand the worry about James makes a good deal of sense, on the other the Cullens couldn't have known that so we're back to square one. Well, almost...I mean Alice and Edward could have known and maybe that explains their actions but why did they not mention it to Carlisle who thinks that he is sitting down with the leader. I am beginning to get the idea that not one vampire in this world has any idea what they are doing. And that includes the prophet.

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*That since Laurent was talking to the Cullens it meant that he was in charge.

Planning for the Inevitable (Pg. 380-389)

"Edward's impatience was almost tangible as we moved at human speed to the forest edge?"

We left off two weeks ago with a trio of new vampires who have come curious at the loud noises that they heard which they figured could only be produced by vampires playing baseball. They then became curious not only at the Cullen's ability to remain in one place for long periods of time but also that Bella, a human, was just hanging around with them. Carlisle instructed Edward to take Bella home and the three vampires were going to join him at the Cullen's house.

They are in an isolated clearing in the middle of the woods, so it makes sense that they want the prey out of the area. What doesn't make sense is why they are moving at normal speed. They don't normally travel like that by themselves so why now? Obviously, these people are frightened of the new three so I guess they are keeping their guard up. First off, the Cullens outnumber Laurent and company, and even though we are forced to picture the alien vampires as being older and more ferocious that's just appearance wise. If Laurent looked 50 it could still mean that he's younger than Edward. Furthermore moving slowly is silly, even if we grant their speed is based on precaution, because you have Edward who could sense the volition of any potential attacker, and more importantly you have Alice who should see it coming before even that happens. They get her to the truck and buckle her in, for some reason Emmet holds her down. Their plan is to head South to some sort of vampire safe house, all of which makes zero sense.

The three vampires smelled Bella's humanity and started drooling, or the equivalent of. Isn't this normal behavior for their kind? The Cullens reaction to this is evidence that they have never been around other vampires in the midst of humans before. Carlisle has some experience which is why he is the most rational of all of them. As soon as they are away from him they formulate escape and attack plans. Edward has a problem.

His problem is that, like the people that were harassing Bella in Port Angeles, he believes that thought equals action.* We don't know what those three were planning but Edward equated their thoughts with action and almost killed them for it. This is the type of reasoning that puts women in Burqas in the Middle East: if I as a male see a beautiful woman and find her desirable that desire is uncontrollable and I will sexually assault her. Therefore all women must be covered from head to toe in shapeless garments, it's for their own protection.

Edward's mentality is just the same. He needs to kill the trio because they reacted normally in the presence of food. Now this would all make sense of Edward and company weren't vampires, but they are. Because they want to eat her they are already guilty of doing so, it's really for Bella's safety that he wants to murder three of his own kind for being normal.

This leads me to a problem I can foresee in the series, that like his supposed age his vampire-ness is going to come and go. Caution is ok, but paranoia is just over-reacting. How does Bella react?

"I won't! You have to take me back--Charlie will call the FBI! They'll be all over your family--Carlisle and Esme! They'll have to leave, to hide forever."

Strange phrasing but otherwise ok. Bella's father is a cop, and if she's gone for too long he knows who she is with. I doubt his reaction would be to immediately call the Feds** but she can't just be locked away somewhere, she does have her own life to live.

"Not over me, you don't! You're not ruining everything over me!"

Damn it. I thought she was having a normal reaction to be forcefully dragged away and hidden from the world. Instead she's worried that the poor vampires will have to pull anchor and move to another place. Something they've done before. The problem is that she's entirely romanticized the world of vampires. Much like people do with the American Mafia, wanting to be a part of that world without realizing that all of that money comes from drugs, prostitution, robbery, and murder. Bella fails to understand that if the Cullens have interactions with others of their own kind then those others will more than likely be blood drinkers. They aren't always going to be friendly since they will not have had the aid of Puritan English Christianity to purge them of their normal nature to eat humans.

"He's a tracker, Alice, did you see that? He's a tracker!"

So, not Laurent, but the other male, James, is some sort of Vampire ranger or something. This worries Edward, more so than it should because couldn't all Vampires with their superior senses track a human? Edward did in Port Angeles so what is the big deal, aside from the fact that Edward isn't James?

They just aren't listening to Alice: "There's another option," Alice said quietly."

They ignore the psychic. The issue here is that just because he's a tracker, and because he mentally planned to attack Bella, doesn't mean he's going to do it. Seriously, I'm not being nit-picky here, all of this is taking place before their visit to the Cullen's house where Carlisle is going to have to explain how it works in his neck of the woods. He wants to eat her, out of his own nature, but Laurent is the patriarch of this clan. If Laurent says no, he'll have to obey...that's how it works in the other vampire media.

They formulate a plan, after repeatedly ignoring Alice, that Bella is going to go home gather her things with Edward, and leave town for Phoenix. Apparently Charlie is going to just agree to this. They tell her to say whatever it is she needs to and Charlie will just let her leave. Because every parent is just like that, he wouldn't tell her to sleep on it and talk about it in the morning. He wouldn't need to contact her mother to make sure she can return to Phoenix.

After all Bella is "quite old enough to get my own place." With no money, no job, and no references; in a city she hated while also being a minor. The plan is so stupid that it's like it has been dreamed up by 14 year olds, not one 17 year old and three near Centurions.

At this point Carlisle and the three should be back at his house discussing the rules of the Olympic forest. So they are safe, but you wouldn't know it from their discussions. They've decided that Bella and Edward will go into the house, Alice will wait in the car ready to go, and Emmett will walk around outside looking for the Tracker. It's a decent plan, but I have a better one: why doesn't Edward use his ESP to see if the other vampires are around and if they aren't just wait outside her window or in her room like he usually does? Emmet and Alice can run back up, since they are all so powerful and outnumber the one vampire they are afraid of--it's much simpler. I said their plan was decent but it ignores their superpowers. Alice's foresight should be able to detect them coming, it did before, and Emmet has the super strength so what is the problem?

Any plan at this point is needless. Edward should just wait at the house and send Alice and Emmett home to ask Carlisle what is going on. When they get there if it's just Laurent and Victoria hurry back. That is far more reasonable. Instead Edward and Bella enter the house to go through with operation "ridiculous."

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*Just like Immanuel Kant

**For some obvious jurisdictional confrontation that we see in the movies I picture Charlie being the loose cannon, "Forks is my town and its my daughter, you Feds just think you can stroll in and take this investigation over! You can go to hell, I'm doing this my way!"

T-Day

No update this week due to travelling (left my book where I am not), school (working on other things), and because of the holiday (which is really just an excuse it's not like I don't have the time). At this point I might as well blame it on a hockey game.

So we shall all have to wait one week for " pithy and over-intellectual commentary on silly books for teenagers..."

A nice comment from one of my readers on facebook.

What really burns me about this week's lack of post is that finally, finally it looked like something was going to happen plotwise. We've had almost 400 pages of nothing happening. No self-reflection not a whole lot of character development, she does stuff and says things so I guess that is some development technically anyway. Finally though, we were going to get some plot that isn't the dumbed down Pride and Prejudice/Romeo and Juliet spin off crap that we had been getting. Oh well...

American readers have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone else have a good week.