Twilight Chapter 12 review: Just Get to the Damn Sparkling Already.
I didn’t think it was possible for padding to exist in the novel medium.
Twilight proved me wrong in chapter 12.
To be more specific, I was aware that Twilight was already padded a bit by Bella’s constant gushing about Edward’s appearance, but those are just minor things that add up to a mild annoyance. And it only really started to get bad during chapter 9, which is when Bella affirms that she’s in love with Edward and he goes from being the subject of a mystery to the subject of a romance. So you could make a case that the increase in prose describing Edward has its purpose in the story and is necessary to show us that Bella is smitten with him; after all, Bella’s narration is too dry to get that feeling across any other way. Still a case of bad writing (a competent writer would be able to show Bella’s infatuation with Edward growing without mentioning the vampire’s perfect face every other sentence) but not padding per se.
Chapter 12 blows that out of the water. It is almost entirely pointless.
The chapter starts with the follow-up to Bella meeting the Blacks and Charlie from the end of chapter 11. And… nothing happens. Charlie doesn’t learn that Bella’s seeing Edward. Billy doesn’t learn that Bella’s seeing Edward. Jacob does learn that Bella’s seeing Edward, but he laughs it off and is unaffected by the information (knowing what happens later in the series, this is hilarious). Oh, and Bella doesn’t crush Jacob’s delusions when she has the chance. Everyone leaves the reunion in exactly the same position they entered it.
Bella even lampshades the pointlessness of the scene in her narration when she claims she almost completely forgot about it when she wakes up the following morning.
Before Bella goes to bed though, Charlie talks to her and tells her that he’s planning to go fishing with some police buddies on Saturday, but if Bella needs a companion for the trip to Seattle he’s willing to cancel. Bella says that she doesn’t mind being alone, in order to keep him away so Edward can take her somewhere unknown without her father noticing.
That was the only part that mattered in their discussion, and it sickens me to write it down like that. But that’s what happened: Bella lied to her father so that she could see a boy behind his back and let him take her somewhere she’s never been before, and explicitly not the place her father thinks she’s going to be.
The next day, Firday, Edward drives Bella to school for a third day in a row. After a reminder that it’s still Edward’s turn to ask questions (the dick), it cuts to lunch and… without warning, Edward says he should have let Bella drive to school herself. Because he and Alice are leaving right after lunch so that Edward can feed before his date and, with him and his car gone, Bella won’t have a ride. Bella says that she can walk home. Edward objects and says that Bella’s truck will be in the parking lot by the end of the day. Bella thinks that there’s no point since she left her keys in her pants on Wednesday and they must be buried in the laundry room; there’s no way Edward could find them even if he broke into her house.
Of course, after Edward introduces Bella and Alice to each other and he leaves with his sister, the rest of Bella’s day is glossed over and she finds her truck where Edward parked his car this morning, with the key. And a note written by Edward that only says “be safe”.
Aside from Alice’s formal introduction, this whole business about Bella’s truck is pointless. It only serves to hint at Edward’s… visiting, and chapter 11 already did that with the CD player. Oh, and Edward’s… visiting gets hinted at again later in the chapter, which doubles the pointlessness of it.
Don’t believe me? After Bella gets home from school in her truck she makes a big deal about choosing an outfit for her date tomorrow. The following morning she greets Edward at her doorstep, and guess what?
Edward’s wearing a matching outfit! What a coincidence!
Except it’s very much not a coincidence, because Edward saw Bella’s date outfit overnight and dressed accordingly. Edward only had to leave school early because that was the only way he could feed without giving up watching Bella sleep. He doesn’t need to sleep himself, after all.
One hint could mean anything. Two hints are enough to make a logical deduction. Three hints?
That’s mind-numbingly obvious and insulting to a reader’s intelligence.
If the business with Bella’s keys were omitted, and Bella drove to school on her own and met Edward at lunch where he’d bring up leaving early to feed before the date, then there’d still be enough foreshadowing for savvy readers to predict Edward’s… visiting without being obnoxious about it. Especially since the truck business is the only one with a dead herring in Bella thinking there was no way Edward could locate her keys.
Also, in between lunch and getting to bed, Bella tells Mike (during Gym) and Jessica (over the phone after school) that she cancelled her plans to go to Seattle with Edward but still won’t go to the dance. These moments are pointless too since Bella’s ultimately just swapping out one lie for another; nothing is gained or lost by leaving Mike and Jessica under the impression she’s going to Seattle with Edward. These moments do have Bella reflect that it’s getting easier for her to lie to people, but that’s a lie in itself since we’ve seen her lie effortlessly from the very beginning.
What of consequence is left in the chapter, at this point?
Charlie’s plans and Alice’s introduction still matter, as pointed out earlier. And Bella getting to bed on Friday night. And Saturday morning, which is just Edward showing up with a matching outfit and giving directions to Bella to take her to a clearing in the middle of the woods at a dead end in the road, ending right as Edward’s about to step into the sunlight and show Bella his sparkling.
And all of that could be cut shorter since it’s littered with the gushing I explained at the beginning of the review. Mostly in regards to Edward on Saturday, but interestingly enough Bella considers Alice just as attractive. Even though what little we do get of an objective description - tiny with messy black hair - leaves the impression that Alice looks like a child who doesn’t know how to take a shower yet.
Maybe it’s Bella’s deeply repressed motherly instincts coming to the surface and wanting to give this dirty little girl a bath. It would be more interesting than her “relationship” with Edward as it is now, at any rate.
Oh, and Alice shares a name with the protagonist of Alice in Wonderland while Bella’s one letter away from Belle, the protagonist of Beauty and the Beast. They’re both named after Disney princesses. Was that intentional? Maybe. Is that Sue-ish? Definitely.
Regardless... it’s settled. Mike’s too good for Bella and he has Jessica anyway, so I’m on Team Alice for the moment.
Shame though, because Alice is apparently the only Cullen that supports Edward’s courting of Bella; everyone else is confused right now. And Rosalie in particular seems to hate the idea outright what with the glare she gives Bella in the middle of Alice’s introduction.
As for the introduction itself, it was a good idea on Meyer’s part; isolating Alice and introducing her to us on her own sends the signal that Alice is special among the Cullens and that she is going to be particularly important down the road. And considering how vital Alice’s power is to the story as a whole and how Alice is the Cullen that Bella bonds with more than any other except Edward himself, those signals are well-placed.
Enough about Alice, though. The only thing left I really want to talk about is Bella getting ready for bed. She’s apparently quite restless and can’t get to sleep without taking some pills.
So Bella drugged herself to sleep because of pre-date anxiety.
I’d say this was an effective display of Bella’s anxiety and a decent character moment, but the problem is chapter 9 exists. Bella was almost gang-raped and later on got her entire worldview shattered due to Edward going into detail about vampires, and she didn’t need drugs to fall asleep after those. Because of chapter 9, Bella using drugs to fall asleep before a date comes off as melodramatic and Bella getting weaker because of Edward’s abuse. And that’s not the impression Meyer wants to be giving me.
So at last we’ve come to the end of chapter 12. Basically nothing happened aside from laying the stalker foreshadowing on too thick and saying hello to Alice. A whole lot of this chapter could have been cut and nothing would be lost. Even with the intention to end a chapter on Edward about to sparkle, this whole chapter could have been condensed and tacked on to the end of chapter 11, which already ended on a cliff-hanger.
Next time, well… Edward’s going to sparkle. Prepare your anus.
