In Which I Read Twilight: Chapter 5 -- Blood Type · 5:37pm Dec 30th, 2017
Bella’s so over-the-moon about Edward taking her to Seattle that she’s late for class. She spends the next few hours in an Edward-induced haze. In the cafeteria at lunch, he asks her to sit with him and says he’s giving up trying to avoid her. Even though he still says they should stay away. No, he doesn’t say why. Bella changes the subject, admitting she’s trying to figure out what Edward’s deal is; she guesses a lot of stuff related to superheroes. It goes back and forth for a few pages and they’re both passive-aggressive about it and it’s so boring. Conversations in this book tend to be like that: the characters talk for ages and it never gets anywhere. And Bella being snippy with him doesn’t match up with her practically getting high from his presence a few paragraphs earlier. Edward says he’s dangerous and, again, refuses to elaborate. The mystery might’ve been interesting if A) the answer wasn’t part of the book’s blurb and B) we weren’t being beaten over the head with it.
Edward decides to ditch biology, while Bella still goes to it. Turns out the class is having blood tests today. Self-administered blood tests. And the teacher introduces the topic by grabbing a student’s hand and jabbing it with a needle, never asking for his permission. Bella’s revealed to be afraid of blood and starts feeling nauseous. In a nice change of pace, we’re completely shown, rather than told, that Bella hates blood; the book focuses on her reaction to seeing blood, and never once does she go “Oh no! I’m afraid of blood!”, in narration or otherwise. The symptoms get so bad that she nearly faints.
Mike (one of Bella’s friends, remember? Not that they appear much or have been developed much. You could slice them from the book entirely with very few changes. They’re just there to fill space) volunteers to take her to the nurse’s office. On the way, they run into Edward. The two boys have a macho-off, each insisting that they’ll be the one to take Bella to the nurse. Edward just goes whole hog and actually sweeps her off her feet to carry her there. He comments that he’s seen corpses with better color, which doesn’t strike Bella as a weird comparison.
Another person, also faint from the testing, enters, and Bella bolts. She explains it’s not the sight of blood that gets her, but the smell of it, so it would’ve been nice if we’d actually gotten any mention of the terrible smell of blood beforehand. (Tangential side note: I think smell is woefully underused when it comes to setting a scene, considering the reactions we have to it. “Ugh, what’s that smell?” can conjure up all sorts of images without even describing the smell.) Rather than go back to class, Bella decides to just head home, and Edward offers to drive her, saying she’s not well enough to drive yet. Bella heads for her truck, but Edward manhandles her towards his car, and I’m not making that up or exaggerating:
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, outraged. He was gripping a fistful of my jacket in one hand.
He was towing me toward his car now, pulling me by my jacket. It was all I could do to keep from falling backward. He’d probably just drag me along anyway if I did.
“Let go!” I insisted. He ignored me. I staggered along sideway across the wet sidewalk until we reached the Volvo. Then he finally freed me — I stumbled against the passenger door.
He lowered the automatic window and leaned toward me across the seat. “Get in, Bella.”
I didn’t answer. I was mentally calculating my chances of reaching the truck before he could catch me. I had to admit, they weren’t good.
“I’ll just drag you back,” he threatened, guessing my plan.
Our romantic lead, everybody. Ain’t he just super?
As Edward drives Bella home, the two of them talk about their families. This could’ve been a nice, sweet, getting-to-know-you type scene, but they don’t actually talk about their families. They exposit about them. They give the basic information, but they don’t talk about the quirks and foibles that make a family a family. They don’t talk about, say, the way that one uncle wears shorts and Hawaiian shirts to church in winter. (I’m not making that up, my uncle really does that.) It’s all just stuff readers need to know about their families. It’s flat and lifeless.
When they reach Bella’s home (even though she never gave Edward the address), he tells her that she seems to be a danger magnet, so she should try to not fall in the ocean during the beach trip during the weekend. Bella snaps back, “I’ll see what I can do.” The two of them are so well-adjusted, aren’t they?
I know I said the first chapter wasn’t that bad, but more and more, I’m beginning to see where the hate comes from. These characters are flat and insufferable.
Wow... just, wow...
Does that scene with the car qualify as kidnapping? It’s true he did actually drive her home, but he physically dragged her against her will. Any bystander could have easily assumed the worst.
Edit: For that matter, she could have easily assumed the worst. She barely knows anything about him except that he apparently has superpowers, that he’s physically attractive, and that he just claimed moments earlier to have seen corpses, plural.
Files this away under "tools to shamelessly steal for later use"
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If you make someone take even a single step that they don't want to, either by force or coercion, it's legally kidnapping.
(Generally within reason, of course. A parent taking their kid to their room isn't kidnapping, nor is like pushing someone. But if you're robbing a store, and you take someone hostage and force them to walk with you at gunpoint, it's kidnapping.)
So, yes. This is ABSOLUTELY kidnapping.
Ouch.