Breaking Dawn Chapter 10 – Wife-sharing hero

Previously: The boys talked about a wife swap and forced abortion.
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Annie: I’d like to point out that the name of this chapter really sums up our journey through this series: “Why didn’t I just walk away? Oh right. Because I’m an idiot.”

Kirsti: I will solidly take the blame for suggesting that we continue with this trainwreck of a series after finishing book 1. Sorry, ladies. I regret that decision more than I regret any other decision in my life, including the time I thought it would be a good idea to eat three huge helpings of pie and I threw up all over my parents’ bathroom.

Marines: I mostly blame the Traumateers and not you, K, if that makes you feel better. I like having these guys around.

Annie: Moving right along. We open this chapter with Jacob having an internal argument about how nothing felt real and that he was going to ask Bella to move in with him and have his babies. But he can’t do that, because he thinks it’s twisted and wrong. And a few other things, Jake, but sure. That’s a good place to start.

Catherine: He’s still not nearly disgusted enough with that suggestion to qualify him as a decent human being. 

Annie: He’s decided he will try to talk to Bella about the whole killing her monster baby thing, though, even though Jacob knows Bella won’t listen to him.

Jacob wonders about the proximity to the Cullen house and whether Edward strategically chose it so that the other vampires couldn’t hear their fucked up conversation. They arrive at the Cullen house and Jacob feels confident they didn’t hear them, as they look confused and suspicious instead of outraged.

Bella is just anxiously staring at Edward, because of course, but she does quickly glance at Jacob. Jacob is a cheating narrator too, and tells us that just by looking at Bella, who’s greyish pale instead of just regular pale, that he can see how the stress is making her feel worse. Ooookay.

Mari: Her skin is a mood ring now so that’s cool!

Annie: Edward announces that they’re going to let Jacob and Bella speak privately, but Rosalie isn’t here for that. Edward promises that all will be well, and he makes a comment about how it’s actually the vampires that Bella is afraid of. Apparently that makes Edward mad:

“The emotionless voice was cracking, showing the anger through it.”

Bella insists that she isn’t, and Edward tells her that it’s fine. Uhh, yeah, it’s fine. Bella can feel whatever the fuck she wants to feel. You can’t police her emotions, too, Eddie.

Catherine: Seems like such a small hop from ‘I’m gonna strap you down and cut out the baby inside of you.’

Annie: Jacob calls Bella’s need to constantly have to please Edward as ‘sickening’ and I agree. He also says that she’s a classic martyr, and okay. But also stop talking now, because you are also an abusive, manipulating fuck.

Mari: Leave it to Bella to be all, “guys no! I’m not mad about you wanting to strap me down and forcibly cut into me. I love you.” She should be very angry.

K: You say “classic martyr,” Jacob. I say “victim of ongoing emotional abuse.” Potato, potahto.

Annie: Edward makes the vampires clear out and then Jacob goes to sit next to Bella on the floor.

Jacob rubs Bella’s hands with his warm, wolf hands and they talk about how awful Bella looks. Bella tells Jacob that she’s glad to have him there, because she’s sick of the drama (C: Yeah, because Jacob is SO drama free, right?)  They banter a bit and then Bella asks Jacob if Edward really asked him to speak to her. Jacob says that Edward did, but he knows there is no point. Bella wants to know why Jacob agreed to talk to her, but he doesn’t really have an answer for her. Before he can come up with something, Bella tells him that it’ll all work out and Jacob gets mad. Bella likens the experience to magic and taunts him for not being a believer. Bella tells Jacob that he must have some magic coming his way in the form of imprinting.

Mari: LITERALLY ABOUT TO BE BORN. ~*Magic*~

K: FORESHADOWING SHOTS!! (At this point, I think we all just need the alcohol…)

Annie: Jacob wants to scream at her, but he doesn’t because she’s so fragile looking. Not because, you know, it’s abusive.

Catherine: He always takes this tone that Bella not being in love with him is ‘HER fault grrr!’ He’s so fucking entitled. You can’t guilt someone into loving you, you absolute dick dribble.  

Mari: Um… imprinting? 

Annie: Instead, Jake tells her that just because he might imprint on a stranger – IF ONLY IT WAS A STRANGER! – it doesn’t make it okay that Bella is pregnant with her husband’s demon hell spawn.

Jacob rants about what the point of loving her was, and her loving Edward, if she was just going to die. Bella insists that this is a good thing and she calls it faith???

K: Thank you for reminding me about my favourite Twilight related video of all time. 

Annie: Bella puts her hand on her stomach in such a way that it indicates to Jacob that Bella thinks she is dying for the demon spawn. Bella tells Jacob that she isn’t going to die. Jacob argues that there is no way Bella is going to survive this, he doesn’t believe Bella is strong enough. Bella says that she’s got this and then explains her grand plan to Jacob: She’s going to follow the Cullen family tradition: ’emergency vampirization’.

Catherine: Which is a relief, honestly. Because I thought Meyer was gonna just straight up fill out the rest of the book with Bible passages for a second there. 

K: It was definitely a close call. I’m not sure she made the better decision…

Mari: I just don’t get why they haven’t done this already and why it’s this big lead up….? Is it the soul thing again? Like if Bella is dying wouldn’t it make sense to be all, “oh, come here. Let me nibble on you a sec…” 

Annie: Jacob pleads with Bella to not be turned that way, and again tells her about that Edward would go nuts if Bella died. Jacob continues to try continues to try to reason with her, but she tells Jacob that she’s not going to kill ‘him’, referring to the demon spawn growing inside her.

Jacob gets sarcastic and says he’d have brought blue balloons if only he’d known. Bella explains that she doesn’t know for sure, because there is a hard membrane around the baby that has defeated the ultrasounds, but that she just knows that it’s a boy. (M: You know nothing, ever, girl.)

Jacob tells Bella that she isn’t carrying a normal, beautiful baby but Bella is convinced it’s fine. Jacob is mad again and Bella pats him on the head like the dog he is.

Jacob is still mad and still doesn’t think it’s going to be okay. He questions Bella because she’s only ever been interested in Edward. Jake wants to know why she’s suddenly all into being a mother. Bella explains that she still isn’t into motherhood, but she is into this particular baby. Ugh. (C: UUGGGHHHH.)

Jacob and Bella fight some more about whether or not the demon spawn will kill Bella or not. Bella’s shirt lifts up, revealing dark bruising all across her stomach. Jacob is horrified, but Bella explains it all away by saying ‘he’s strong’. Jake feels sick. Me, too, Jake. Me, too.

K: Seriously. This is some majorly fucked up shit, Steph. “Don’t have sex until you’re married. But don’t have sex after you get married because you’ll get pregnant and your baby will murder you from the inside out.” Like…..?????

Annie: So basically don’t have sex, ever. If you’re a woman. Not sure how that’s going to work for them…

Jacob then decides to try Edward’s plan. He tells Bella to be a ‘good girl’ and just do what Carlisle says, and then she could stay alive and try again.

Catherine: I go blind with rage whenever someone calls a woman over the age of 6 a “good girl” so I reflexively punched my book. But this book is a fucking brick. So now my hand hurts. And the evil of this book remains untouched. 

K: Womp. (I get equally ragey when my dad pats me on the top of the head. I’M NOT A FUCKING DOG, OKAY??)

Annie: It takes Bella a second to figure out what Jake is getting at. Bella freaks out, because she doesn’t want just anyone’s baby. Jake says that it wouldn’t be a stranger’s baby. Bella goes from being confused to asking if Edward had sent Jake to ask about the baby swap.

Instead of being pissed off at Edward, she softens, thinking about how much she’s hurting Edward by refusing to have an abortion. Or having the baby and then letting them kill it? What in the hell is going on here? This is gross, gross, gross.

Hold please, or else I’m not gonna make it.

Okay. Jacob tells Bella she could totally make Edward happy again, but Bella isn’t listening. She starts questioning Jacob about the whole do-over baby wouldn’t be a stranger’s baby. Bella wants Jacob to tell her exactly what Edward said. Jacob avoids fully answering but they lock eyes and Bella figures it out. She is all ‘He’d do anything for me!’ and not ‘this is some fucked up shit’.

Catherine: “He’d agree to not cut out my baby as long as I agree to have dubiously consented sex with another man. He’s so generous!” Love how we’re putting this on Edward because him lending her out to someone else is such a HUGE ask. Because she is clearly his property now. 

K: I hate so much about this book. And every time I think I can’t find something else to hate, guess what? STEPH SURPRISES ME AGAIN.

Mari: For a prudish book, this idea of framing Edward as a hero for wife sharing is super weird so I guess we can all just agree that Meyer’s #1 message is just, “I don’t know how anything works.” 

Annie: That’s my current working theory.

They banter some more and Jacob is hurt that Bella has zero interest in swapping out the baby she’s currently carrying in exchange for a baby that is half his. GROSS.

Bella’s all ‘I can’t hurt this baby anymore than I could hurt you’, and Jacob decides he’s gotta go, because he’s addicted to Bella. Bella asks Jacob why he came, and he tells her that he needed to make sure she was still alive. She asks him if he’ll be back ‘before’… her death? The birth of the hellspawn? She’s vague on that. Jake tells Bella that he’s not going to hang around and watch her die, and he leaves.

Jacob starts heading back towards La Push, striping down as he runs. Naked!Jacob is running and then he shifts into wolf form. The wolf pack are glad that he’s reconnected to the psychic wolf hotline, except for Sam. Sam is pissed and orders Jake home. The pack can tell that Jake is all messed up, because of their psychic connection. They don’t know what to say to Jake, and Meyer uses this opportunity to show us she doesn’t know how to write words:

“Their shock was just a silent shout in my head.

Wordless.

!!!!”

This is a book, friend. Not a text message. What the actual hell.

Catherine: This is a book? !!!!

K: Who knew wolves could talk in punctuation. Stephenie Meyer, apparently. 

Mari: Here’s the wordless shout in my mind right now. Ready?

....................../´¯/) 
....................,/¯../ 
.................../..../ 
............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸ 
........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\ 
........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...') 
.........\.................'...../ 
..........''...\.......... _.·´ 
............\..............( 
..............\.............\...

Annie: A++, forever.

Jacob is halfway home and the wolf pack all start running towards him. They meet up in a clearing outside of La Push and the wolves start pacing in synchronization and start thinking in synchronization.

And I’m now basically picturing the wolf pack like this:

But like, hairier.

K: Perfect.

Annie: Only Jacob and one other wolf aren’t participating in the synchro. The pack is worried about the safety of all humans and what the demonspawn might do to them. They decide they have to kill it before it’s too late. Jake wants them to think about things, like the treaty. Sam argues that their treaty doesn’t cover half human, half vampire baby monsters and a baby would be too young to follow the rules of a treaty. So it’s best they kill it now.

Jacob points out that the vampires aren’t super excited about the new addition, either, so Sam sifts through Jake’s memories to find the image of Rosalie getting protective of the baby vamp, and broadcasts it to the rest of the pack.

…Is that a new feature of the psychic wolf network? (C: Probably. Meyer is bad at writing.)

Jacob and Sam argue about how it’s just a baby and how that’s exactly why it needs to die ASAP. Jake figures out the plan involves killing Bella, which Leah helpfully says it’s just speeding up the inevitable as the girl is gon’ die anyway.

K: I feel you, Leah. There’s always gotta be one person who tells it like it is. No one really likes that person, but sometimes you just have to cut through the bullshit. Just like how my students don’t particularly like me when I tell them that I don’t like the Twilight series because it’s misogynistic and racist and condones abusive relationships. OH WELL. 

Annie: Jake jumps at Leah, but before he can do too much damage, Sam bites Jacob and drags him back, telling him to calm the fuck down. Sam tells Leah to be respectful of Jake, cuz they’re going to murder his human friend, which is something they shouldn’t take lightly. When Seth, the other non-synchronized wolf, learns about the immediacy of the plan, he starts pleading with Sam that maybe they should at least check with the Elders before they commit murder.

Sam tells Seth he can’t be buddies with the Cullens right now, and he will do s he’s told. Seth then falls forward, with his wolf head on the ground in some form of forced submission, under the weight of the alpha’s command?

Catherine: Which is apparently an actual weight. Like a tangible one. Wha?

Mari: I’d guess it’s about half of the actual weight of the weight of the crappiness of this book, but that’s a guess. 

Annie: Sam paces around his dissenters, telling them that they need the whole pack for this double murder.

Sam is giving out fight strategies while the rest of the pack continue to pace. Except for Seth and Jacob. Seth is having his nose pressed to the ground, while Jacob fights against Sam’s will. Is that how this works? Sam is basically a puppet master? He controls even his pack’s bodies?

Sam apparently hates making Seth kneel ‘before him like a slave at the foot of his master‘. Umm, hey, Stephenie? Fuck you.

K: WHAT THE FUCK, STEPH. LITERALLY NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS OKAY.

Annie: Sam is only pressing the issue because he feels it’s the wolves’ duty to murder Bella and the vampire baby. Sam goes back to planning the fight, deciding which wolf takes which vamp depending on fighting skill level.

Jake can’t believe how earlier he was looking forward to fighting the vampires and now he’s thinking about how killing Carlisle will be murder because he’s a good vampire and he wouldn’t fight back. Jake likens killing Bella to killing himself, so yay for more casual suicide references. Sam tells Jake to get his shit together. That the tribe comes first. Jacob is all ‘nope’ and Sam is super pissed.

Sam growls at Jacob and tells him there are no loopholes this time, that Jake’s gonna murder vampires because the Alpha says so.

This apparently crushes Jake and he collapses, laying under Sam on his belly in submission?

What the fuck is that?!? Like the emotional weight and pressure is so much, that he’s forcing super strong Jacob to collapse physically?

Oh, but it’s the end of the chapter.

Mari: Just in time because no one should be forced to consider the logistics of the psychic wolf network. No one.

 

Next time on Breaking Dawn: Will Jacob ever rise up from under the emotional pressure? Find out in Chapter 11.