Midnight Sun Chapter 9(again) Part 1

Yes, someone screwed up. I went back to the beginning of the last chapter and looked and it’s a nine. Not an eight that didn’t scan quite right but an actual nine just like this chapter is also nine.

This chapter is called “theory”. I have to think Otis means it in the most colloquial sense because what Bella comes up with is nowhere on par with the theory of gravity. I’d put it up there with the Flat Earth Theory or Geocentrism.

“Can I ask just one more?” she entreated instead of answering my demand.

Really Otis? Is that what the goddamned question mark means? That she “entreated”, because Ed is too damned posh to simply ask, ol’ Eddie? I thought perhaps it might have meant Bella was going to flap her arms and drool copiously before slamming her head onto the concrete.

Ed says she can have one more but then it’s off to bed with her and if she presses her luck then they won’t be going to Six Flags tomorrow. Bella wants to know how Ed knew she wasn’t in the bookstore and instead went south. Oh, oh, I know this one. Could it be that he’s got a GPS bug stuffed in her bra? Maybe he went around with a photo asking people if they’d seen her. Oh, right. Mind powers. Which she just accepts without blinking because she’s retarded.

That’s something that never quite made sense to me. Bella’s supposed to be smart, or at least a studious person. She does well in class, from what little we’re told at any rate, so I have to imagine she’s not supposed to be as credulous as a five year old. Yet she basically rolls over and accepts it when Ed says he can read minds.

I would figure Otis would have taken the opportunity to show off Ed’s powers by making him prove it to Bella. That way she’d have a reason to believe him. Anyone else would just laugh and chalk it up to a lame joke and said something like ‘prove it’. Then Ed would demonstrate and Bella would be stunned and appropriately so.

Instead she just wants to know how it works and who’s mind Ed can read. He says everyone but her. Which makes sense because that’s what he said in Twilight so he has to stay in canon. Unfortunately this means he isn’t mentioning Chaz even though it was shocking enough he made a big deal of it at the hospital. Speaking of Chaz, why did Ed just recently notice Chaz is immune? Wouldn’t Ed have run into Chaz at least once in his years at Forks and then noted how strange it was that he wasn’t getting a clear signal?

Anywho, Bella asks why he can’t read her mind and Ed suggests her mind doesn’t work like everyone else’s. Bella starts to panic because it might mean her brain is an I-pOde bought off a blanket in the shady part of town rather than the name brand. Ed just laughs because she’s just learned he can read minds and she’s worried she’s the freak.

Now couple this with how often Otis tells us Bella is selfless. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Did you feel that headache starting in the front of your head? The way the pain starts dripping into your eyes like sweat? Yeah, that’s called cognitive dissonance and it hurts when you’re consciously trying to make it happen.

Ed tells her about himself and all Bella can think of is herself. Thank you Otis, that right there was the nail I needed to lay that concept to rest. Bella is so self absorbed that if someone wrung her out, there’d be two of her. And Ed’s no better, all he can do is belittle her for not keeping focused on what’s really important, him.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying that these characters have to be reflections of all that is good and right in the world. Far from it. That’s a perfectly reasonable character flaw that would make each of them more interesting. But instead of letting it exist, Otis takes her magic brush and tries to paint over it. See, she says, see how noble my characters are and how much better they are than everyday people? Rather than have them grow out of it she tries to pretend it’s not there and that’s part of what makes these people so damn unlikable.

Bella then freaks out because Ed is doing over one hundred miles an hour. Ed just laughs and reassures her that he can sense any traffic or animal obstacle that could possibly get in the way. Yet, Bella has good reason to be frightened. Just a moment ago she learned that Ed’s powers don’t work on everyone and she seems to realize that, yes, this means he could make a mistake. And at that speed he might be fine but Bella’s still fleshy body would fall apart like an old sock monkey.

But Ed continues to assuage her fears saying that he’s never been in an accident and never even had a ticket and that he has a built in radar detector. Sorry, Otis, you wrote yourself into a corner with that one. I’ve already covered this but I’ll say it again. If there’s one person like Bella, immune to mind powers because of head injuries, then there are hundreds just floating around and maybe more similar animals too. Ed can’t avoid these people forever and Bella’s not special. You don’t like it Otis? Too bad, you wrote it that way.

Ed wants to know what her “theory” is anyway and keeps pressing her on it. We finally get to the part where she explains where, not what it is just where, she got the idea. From Jacob. Ed goes into drama queen mode because she must know everything and that’s bad. Never mind that he could still just blow it off as superstition, hearsay and just plain silly.

But no, Ed gives in and confirms what Bella believes. Not because he’s really worried about it but because he wants her. Again, this would be fine as a character flaw but Otis tries to play it off that Bella’s just too sharp and too brilliant to fool. You know, the same girl who’s never noticed what model of truck she drives or what they serve for lunch at school or that there is a whole subculture of media about vampires. She’s a regular Sherlock Holmes I tell you.

Remember how the treaty conditions between the Cullens and the Quileutes were crystal clear in this series? Yeah, neither did I. Ed says he should have guessed that the newer generations of the locals would think it merely legend and talk about it. Somehow this means the treaty is broken or something.

I supposed this meant I was now free to slaughter the small, defenseless tribe on the coastline, were I so inclined.

Huh? So one kid babbles about something that no one would ever believe because it’s plain stupid and that means they’re as good as dead? How does that work, anyway? Is there any rhyme or reason to this treaty or is it along the line of ‘we agree not to bother the Cullens and, in exchange, they agree to pretend to respect our reservation boundaries and customs unless the plot requires otherwise’? I’m thinking they need to fire their lawyer and seek new counsel if that’s how loose the treaty is.

Oh and Otis? If you’re male protagonist is casually thinking about how he can, somehow, legally slaughter a bunch of innocent people if he wants to then he’s probably not the noble type. No matter how many people in the story say otherwise.