Eclipse Chapter 13 – A nice murder story.

Previously: A newspaper article.
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Marines: We’ve been super inconsistent here and when that happens you can just blame it on me. This month in the ongoing saga of why my life is kind of chaotic, I started a brand new job after being out of the country for a couple of weeks. Also, though, reading this book is hard.

Kirsti: SO FREAKING HARD OH MY GOD. 

Annie: I’m on week 3 of my 7 week vacation and I’m still finding it hard to read this book, so.

Catherine: I gave me a bad papercut. It bit me, you guys. It fucking fought back. 

Mari: Obviously, this is becoming a long and arduous journey.

We open with Jasper explaining that his arm is covered in bite scars, as we probably assumed when Bella was like, “his arm looks like my hand!” Except his arm is covered and Bella has like one little bite, but she can’t help but remind us how she’s always suffering in the exact! same! ways! as pretty much everyone on the planet, including Native Americans (see: two chapters ago).

Jasper starts telling his story but it is interrupted in the narrative every sentence or so for such thrilling details as: Bella gasps; Carlisle and Emmett decide they don’t want to listen to childhood trauma and watch TV instead; Alice sits at Esme’s feet; Edward is studies Bella’s face; Bella shudders; Jasper isn’t worried about scaring Bella with his story because he’s not as “overprotective” as Edward; and Bella frowns. Stephenie Meyer sure does know how to telling a thrilling story!

Okay, let’s back up here and recap the actual story (K: Must we?):

Jasper starts by explaining that more densely populated areas make it easier for vampires to feed without attracting notice. He also mentions, though, that southern vampires are apparently really, really evil and only the Volturi keep them in line. In the North, they are nomadic and civilized human killers who enjoy the day and night. In the South, they only come out at night and are fighting a constant war. Apparently, some genius vampire decided that if he were the only vampire in a big city, he’d have an unlimited food supply.

A vamp named Benito came along and started taking out covens with his newfound strategy of creating armies of newborn vampires. Baby vamps are super strong and volatile, but they are unskilled, predictable and will also eat each other, I guess. Vampire covens in Mexico heard about what Benito was doing, so they made their own baby vamp army and WAR, etc. It killed a lot of people but Jasper dismisses this as explained in human histories by some disease or other.

K: Ugh, vampires going on rampages in Mexico because no one cares about brown people in this world. Fuck you, Steph.

Annie: Time to double down on that racism, Stephenie. Excellent work.

Mari: The Volturi finally stepped in and basically started killing everyone with baby vamps.

After the Volturi finished cleaning house, they went back to Italy. The survivors in the south kind of learned their lesson but not really? They still wanted to dabble in baby vamps but they were more careful about it. Sometimes they get out of control and the Volturi stepped in and killed a bunch of them.

Basically, this is all relevant (probably because of Seattle but also) because of Jasper’s turning story. He joined the Confederate Army (of course. OF COURSE.)(C: Meyer is… American, right? So.. she should know..?) and it is working for them that he happens across three female Mexican vampires, who are of course so beautiful it hurts. The vampires ladies talk amongst themselves and basically decide to eat Jasper. Two of the ladies go away, leaving one to do the job alone.

K: My favourite part about him joining the Confederate Army is that he was only 16 but successfully convinced them he was 20 because “I was tall enough to get away with it.” Yes, because HEIGHT is the only physical difference between a 16 year old and a 20 year old…

And then we jump straight to racist bullshit: “Even the little black-haired girl, whose features were clearly Mexican, was porcelain in the moonlight.” Because the ONLY way that a brown person can be beautiful is if they look white. I hate everything. 

Annie: Talk about completely unnecessary details. What the fuck does it matter that he was 16 and had to lie to get into the army, or if he was legally old enough to join. It doesn’t. Fuck this part of the ‘plot’. And of course Stephenie wants to take the time to remind us yet again how racist she is. 

Your racism only makes me hate you more, Steph. Keep it coming.

Catherine: It totally matters because ALL OF THE CHARACTERS GET BACKSTORIES THIS BOOK. YOU GET A BACKSTORY! AND YOU GET A BACKSTORY! AND YOU! 

Mari: I went on a paragraph rampage about the description of the Mexican vamps which was offensive for it’s mention of typically Mexican features (STOP) coupled with whiteness but I deleted it in my first draft because I got lost because I didn’t know if I was more offended by the idea that to be beautiful you have to be white or the MF BS that there are no light-skinned Mexicans so this is a BIG DEAL.

HEY, STEPH? GOOGLE IT.

ANYWAY. Jasper jumps in his story to a few days later when he wakes up as a vamp. Bella idly wonders if he’s editing some part out and if that has anything to do with the tension that Edward is exuding. Can we pause to talk about how ridiculous that is? Clearly this implies that Edward is tense about what potential details Jasper would reveal to Bella. This only makes sense if Bella is a child and Edward is her parent, not from boyfriend and girlfriend who are supposed to be equals. Basically, Edward is still the worst, EVEN WHEN HE’S JUST SITTING AND LISTENING TO A STORY.

Catherine: Jeez Ed-mom. Let the girl listen to the damn story. Next he’s gonna tut and say this isn’t appropriate for young minds and it’s time for bed now. 

Mari: So, anyway again, Jasper is a vampire now and the three lady vamps, Maria, Nettie and Lucy, start building a baby vamp army, but carefully. They train their babies and reward them for good behavior and such. Jasper was a good fighter, but he kept killing the other soldiers until Maria “promoted” him to lead baby vamp. At that time, they got to be an army of about 20. They went to Maria’s hometown of Monterrey and conquered it easily. Maria was so pleased that she started to eye other cities to conquer. Then other people would come and fight them. And this pattern continued for the first years of Jasper’s life.

K: I stop to have a rant about a 17 year old leading an army and Steph not having even a remote understanding of how nineteenth century warfare worked. Officers rarely interacted with troops and stayed off the battlefield. They rarely had battle experience and focused instead on strategy. But sure, a 17 year old – WHO WAS INEXPLICABLY A MAJOR IN THE CONFEDERATE ARMY – could totally lead an army of tiny baby vampires. Sure.

Annie: Yes, but then Stephenie would’ve had to go and do research, K. And we all know she gives zero fucks about historical accuracy.

Catherine: She spends all the time she could be doing research coming up with synonyms for ‘orchre’ and ‘russet’. 

Mari: She still mostly uses ochre and russet, though, so you know. Time wasted.

Things changed “decades later” when Jasper developed a friendship with a baby vamp named Peter. Peter was supposed to help Jasper purge his army of baby vamps who had grown into toddler vamps and were no longer useful. Peter tried to convince Jasper to spare them, but to no avail. It turns out Peter had a girlfriend. They run away together and Jasper lets them go.

Even more years after that (…are we there yet?), Peter comes back for Jasper and tells him of the cool Northerners who are civilized murderers, or whatever. Jasper is sold and runs away with Peter and Charlotte. He finds, though, that even though things are better, he’s still battling depression. Peter points out that it’s always worse after Jasper hunts. See, Jasper can manipulate emotions, but emotions also affect him. So, something something, being surrounded by people he was about to murder made him real sad. He ends up leaving Peter and Charlotte.

Finally, he makes his way to Philadelphia and there he meets Alice, who was waiting for him because psychic. They hold hands and fall in instalove. (K: “You’ve kept me waiting a long time,” is the first thing Alice says to him. That’s one heck of a meet-cute.) Alice has heard of Jesus Carlisle and is determined to find him, so she and Jasper head off together. (C: Not at all cult-like.) Edward jumps in and says that it was weird when they arrived too because Alice knew everyone’s name and also kicked Edward out of his room. They all laugh and Bella declares this a very nice story. Everyone looks at Bella like she’s an idiot because this story was 90% mass murder. She defends herself, though, and says it’s nice because it ended with twoo lurve. Duh. (C: Bella FFS.) 

We switch gears again and head back to the fact that there is probably a baby vamp army in Seattle. Jasper doesn’t get why, since no one claims Seattle, but all the signs are there. Their only hope is to kill the baby vamps before the Volturi get involved. Edward points out that they are probably the target for the baby vamps since they are the nearest to Seattle. The others aren’t so sure about that.

K: Page 303 and some plot finally graced us with its presence…

Mari: I’m sure we’ll be regretting it shortly.

Alice still isn’t having any useful visions, just weird flashes of things, as if someone keeps changing their mind. Edward thinks this seems like someone is doing it on purpose, changing their mind often and quickly so Alice won’t see them….?

Like… what the hell is that?

I’m going to Seattle! PSYCHE. I’m not. PSYCHE. I am. PSYCHE. I’m not.

How tiring is that? How often do you have to change your mind? Does just thinking it constitute changing your mind or do you have to really ~*believe*~ it? Wouldn’t deciding to change your mind a lot still constitute a decision that Alice could see? How many questions to a full breakdown?

Annie: About a dozen. But your mileage may vary, it’s not a complete science.

Mari: They talk this over some more and we get to their new theory: the Volturi made a deal with someone in the south. Someone in the South was to come and deal with the Cullens so the Volutri wouldn’t get their hands dirty. Edward has a conveniently timed memory of something he read in Aro’s head that was basically jealousy over Carlisle’s big and super powered coven. Edward thinks this is definitely what’s happening. Carlisle and Jasper don’t buy it.

Either way, Carlisle asks Jasper to teach them how to kill baby vamps. Jasper says they could use Tanya’s help, so Carlisle calls Tanya. We only hear bits of the conversation (we should make this part of the drinking game), but Tanya apparently says no. Edward hears something and responds to it out loud, which could also be part of the drinking game, though it’s really just part of all the many reasons Edward is a dick. (A: That list of reasons is getting long.)

After another full page of this conversation we aren’t privy to, Carlisle comes back to explain: Laurent was involved with a vampire in Tanya’s coven, and she’s holding a grudge against the werewolves who ate him. Tanya is willing to help if the Cullens give them permission to take out the werewolves. Bella dramatically cries out, but Edward tells her to slow her roll ’cause obviously they aren’t going to do that.

Catherine: Conversations with Bella must be like a roller-coaster ride of overdramatic emotional reactions. 

Mari: I mean, she gasps more than she remembers to breathe, so yes.

Jasper is sure they could win the fight, but asks at what price? Bella looks around dramatically at her vampire friends.

This chapter is over so now I look around dramatically at my wine bottle and glass. At what price have I won the fight of this chapter?

 

Next time on Eclipse: It’s never to middle of a war-y for a graduation party in Chapter 14.