Anti-Spork: The Darkest Hour and Twilight - Chapter 1 Part 2 (Section B):
Edward knocks on the back door, and a guard comes to answer it. Edward casually mentions that the guard’s name is ‘Francis Eggleston’. And after I’ve finished giggling at the name, it kind of becomes a tad frightening how he knows every last detail about the people around him. Again, this is yet another case where little things jump out and slap you in the face. He knows these people, despite never having talked to them. His ability removes from him the one thing he truly needs in order to be able to belong: communication. With his ability in place, he has no real need to communicate with anyone, and thus, he doesn’t express himself often, which leads to more isolation and disconnection.
He knows someone’s name immediately when most people have to talk to that person, chat a bit, exchange personal details - go through the motions of social contact. He never had a real need to since he was turned, so it makes sense that he didn’t really truly talk to anyone. He already was a pretty anti-social teenager before, and his mind-reading just made him even more so. And this is why I want to read The Blue Hour. It’ll be the first time in nearly a century that Edward will need to communicate with another person, try to read body language, interpret facial expressions…he’ll have to learn how to connect with Bella, and that is going to ultimately help him connect with the world.
Do you see how their relationship is so much better than the one in canon, even though it hasn’t even been written yet?
The relationship actually involves mutual contribution, and the participants actually become better people because of it. And Edward will have a better reason to be in love with Bella, other than that she smells tasty. She would be the one to get rid of the one problem that drove him down the path to vigilantism in the first place. She will be the one who can provide him the peace he so desperately longs for. She will be the one to finally lay his turbulent memories to rest, because she will be the one to guarantee that this sort of thing will never happen again.
The more I read The Darkest Hour, the more I look forward to The Blue Hour. Please, when is The Blue Hour going to be posted? I don’t think I can wait much longer!
Anyway, the guard takes one look at Edward and dismisses him in a rather off-hand and terribly rude manner. This shows one of Edward’s main problems with immortality in action - no one treats him like the adult he is. In the world’s eye, he will forever remain a teenager, whose decisions are to be mocked and who is to be patronised.
Edward and the guard argue back and forth about whether he should be let in. In the process, we kind of see another advantage of being able to read minds, this time without the tragic tint, but with a decidedly sinister one. Edward tries to get in by reading the guard’s mind and figuring out the password, which is swordfish because the password is ALWAYS swordfish (I admit I squee-d when I saw that shout out). His power is actually very useful in these circumstances and it will continue to help him as he starts his…erm…career of vigilantism.
I would be glad that his power is FINALLY doing some good for him, after all the shit it has caused him…but the reason he is using this, to get inside a nightclub where he can get drunk to forget all his sorrows, just makes the situation even more sad. The only bit of good his mind-reading does for him is enabling him to mess up his communication even more and undoubtedly destroy his connection with the world more. What he is trying to do here is basically hide, lose himself in drunkenness and fantasy where he doesn’t HAVE to care, instead of actually dealing with the problem.
This is also yet another step in Edward’s journey in becoming more and more ruthless. In the first part, we see Edward hating the fact that his body marks him as a predator and trying ignoring people’s thought because he doesn’t want to intrude. In this part, not only has he snarled at a Police Chief, a very predatory thing to do, but he is now rifling through people’s minds uninvited, in order to get himself something he wants.
Not only that, he tries to intimidate the guard, using his instinctual fear of him, too, leaning forward and staring the guard in the eye, reminding him that he is facing a predator. In the last chapter, Edward was absolutely distraught about his menacing nature, and yet he is already using it to his advantage here. He is THAT desperate.
It’s also quite ironic, in that all the traits that he has been complaining about, all the disadvantages, become advantages as soon as he starts behaving like a vampire. The reason he has to deal with so many difficulties is because he is trying to act like a human, whilst clearly not being one. It scares me how EASY it is to act like a vampire when your powers are shaped like that. It scares me how many advantages you can get just by acting like who you are, a murderer in this case.
And it scares me how Edward is already giving in so early.
Reading this through a second time and seeing the journey of descent makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
Despite being intimidated, the guard is resolute. The police allow the club to stay open because they get alcohol as well, but they will crack down on them if they started serving to kids. This actually shows that the police do have moral fibre. And it’s quite ironic in that the one time we see the good side of humanity, Edward is too enraged to notice.
The guard shuts the door and leaves Edward there, still outside, still alone. ‘Edward just stood there, quivering, frozen outside the door, wanting nothing more than to wretch it open and drag that insolent thug out and make his feelings on this matter clear.’
This will not be the last time we see this sort of thing. In fact, starting from now on, this desire for blood and violence only becomes more pronounced, and Edward lets his imagination run wild for longer and longer periods of time, imagining more and more detail, before reining himself in. This is yet another sign of Edward’s gradual fall from grace.
And the scariest thing is how natural this is. It doesn’t sound like it in this anti-sporking, but when you read the fic itself, you barely even notice Edward starting to get violent thoughts, despite previously being such a doormat. You are so caught up in his world, so sympathetic with his attempt at finding shelter and a place to belong, that you simply find yourself nodding along to his fantasies, barely even realising what you are condoning.
Not only is Mrs. Hyde writing Edward’s fall from grace, she is dragging the readers along for a ride too. She is causing a corruption in our values and beliefs, even as she directs Edward to his ruin. And that is terrifying. That goes beyond manipulating the emotions of your readers. You are warping their most fundamental beliefs, all within 10,000 words. I, for example, have never and shall never condone violence as an answer to anything, and yet the first time I read this passage, I was almost entirely on Edward’s side. I probably wouldn’t have objected at all if he ripped the door down and forced himself into the nightclub. It’s really scary, the things a good story do to you.
‘…he took a deep breath and turned and walked away, leaving the alleyway, his footfalls heavy but silent on the damp pavement.’
Again, this is another simply perfect piece of prose. Again, within a single phrase, within only part of a sentence, Mrs. Hyde conveys so much emotion and turmoil and conflict and character exploration that it’s simply stunning. His footfalls are silent because no one hears them. No one notices them. No one has any idea that he had even been there. He doesn’t make an impression. He is always outside, on the edge, ignored, outcast, forever a stranger to his own home.
And I also spy a tiny reference to the Twilight canon itself. Bella mentions in the first book that gravel doesn’t crunch when wet, because she apparently thinks rain turns pavement soggy. And Mrs. Hyde took that expression and basically said, ‘THIS is how you do non-crunching pavements, you idiot!’ to Meyer and proceeded to be so awesome that the verb ‘fish slap’ really cannot convey how awesome she is.
Anyways, angry and distracted, Edward almost runs into someone - a very unique experience for him. I never thought I would appreciate the ability to accidentally bump into people. Anyways, it’s another police officer this time, thankfully sober. However, he is still blatantly ignoring how his superior is getting drunk and seems to be on the way to getting some alcohol himself. This does not improve Edward’s impression with the police, and this also makes me roll around and squee because I LOVE foreshadowing.
The police officer is instantly suspicious of Edward, and it’s highly implied that it’s because of how he looks, ‘hollow-eyed and distracted and pale’. Because, you see Meyer, PEOPLE HAVE DIFFERENT CONCEPTS OF BEAUTY. And someone with heavy shadows around their eyes and is roughly the colour of chalk is NOT sexy in most people’s books!
I’m quite impressed that, despite keeping the ‘dazzling’ ability of vampires, Mrs. Hyde still makes their very appearance a disadvantage. We’ll keep seeing various people distrusting Edward and being outright hostile to him because of how he looks, which, you know, is not going to help his self-esteem. It seems the Mrs. Hyde is simply taking EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of being a vampire and turning it on its head and painting it as a horrible disadvantage, doesn’t it? Even his body, with all its strength and speed, is nothing but a hindrance towards his true goal - being a part of humanity.
Edward protests that he’s only out for a walk, but due to the natural hostility he rouses in people, the police officer is still not convinced. My sympathy for him knows no bounds. The police officer - Gillespie was his name - shoves Edward roughly with his night stick and demands that Edward go home and SERIOUSLY, that is not helping. I can almost see why he would go into vigilantism just based on these two encounters he had with the law enforcement.
And just as I am still sympathising with Edward, this happens:
‘Any words he might have had ready, anything he wanted to say was lost, as a black tide of helpless fury suddenly seized Edward, his pent up frustrations near exploding at this foul little man who dared to condescend to him! He wrenched away the offending nightstick, flinging it down the side alley with a clatter and a snap. ‘Don’t,’ he snarled, his voice thick with anger, ‘call me kid!’
Gillespie cowered where he stood as Edward drew himself up and stared him down, his muscles tight and trembling, and oh, how easy it would be to just pick him up and shake him, show him who was a kid, show him just who was really in charge here, to throttle him into submission and then just break him in half, and that thick sweetness would well up and he would drink - ‘
That was FREAKY.
In canon, Edward often rhapsodises poetics about how he is always THIS close to drinking Bella’s blood…but I never believed him. I always KNEW that he won’t do anything to her. The threat of him accidentally killing Bella was never a threat in the first place. I was simply unconvinced.
I am convinced here.
I was pretty sure that Edward wouldn’t commit his first murder whilst still under Carlisle’s care, but I really figured that the policeman had a more or less equal chance of getting out alive or not. This scene literally COULD HAVE gone either way. I really didn’t know if he would do it or not.
And this little scene, as disturbing as it is, really expounds on everything we know of Edward. The rage removes his ability to argue back or explain, cutting off communication. His fantasies of violence draws a stronger and stronger link between his human side and the baser side of himself, whilst removing his ability to connect with the outside world.
And his fury is ‘helpless’ in two important ways.
First of all, he is helpless against it. We know how much he despises being a monster, but the rage, almost a manifestation of the vampire in him, has him at its mercy. It takes over his thoughts easily and takes more and more effort to exorcise. He is defenceless against it, not because he is weak, but because that is who he is. The rage is the ‘natural’ part of him, and his humanity is the façade. The humanity has to be carefully cultivated and maintained, but the rage is entirely natural and self-sustaining. And that’s what makes his struggle so interesting. This is basically Dumbledore’s ‘the right choice or the easy choice’ in action. His resolve to not drink human blood is impressive because he has to go against everything he is in order to achieve it. The Cullens in Twilight? Please. We’ve never seen them having to deal with this dichotomy. Regardless of how much Meyer tries to cram in the cheese, we don’t believe it, because we’ve never been shown it. In Eclipse, there was a party in the Cullen’s house, where a whole grade of students were crammed into the general vicinity of vampires, and not one of them had the least amount of trouble.
Second of all, the fury is ‘helpless’ because no one can help him with it. The humans won’t understand his problem, and other vampires will just tell him to take the easy choice - drink human blood. The only person who can possibly guide him through his is Carlisle, and he is too busy screwing his wife, and Edward simply won’t TALK to him.
Here, we also see one of my predictions (not really a prediction, since I know how things are going to turn out) come true. Bottling up emotions is dangerous, because you inevitably explode, and Edward is coming very, very close to just that here. Edward has no coping mechanism. He has no efficient way of dealing with his emotions and laying them to rest. All of the frustrations in the last chapter has just been building up higher and higher in the past decade, and this is pretty much inevitable. The way Mrs. Hyde has written Edwards makes it almost ‘destiny’ that he’ll strike out on his own for a few years, and that is infinitely better than what happened in Twilight. Here, we’ve seen how tortured he is and how pent up he is. We’ve seen all of the shit he has to deal with. We genuinely understand why he might need a period of time away from everyone and everything so he can sort through his feelings. In Twilight, the only reason we ever get of Edward leaving was that he ‘resented the lifestyle Carlisle had pressed upon him’. The reason he left was because he didn’t LIKE having to eat animals. He set off with the very clear ambition of MURDERING PEOPLE in mind. In fact, if we take the Illustrated Guide into account, he set off with the intention of avenging Esme, which is even more disturbing, because when he left, he had a face and name in mind. He knew exactly what he was doing and is cold-bloodedly planning the murder of another man for revenge. THAT IS NOT COOL.
And this also carries through the theme of Edward being patronised and underestimated because he is stuck in the body of a teenager. No one trusts him or takes him seriously because he looks young. And he will always look young. There is simply no way he can get out of this.
And what is THE most important thing in this scene is how Mrs. Hyde chooses to depict it. What Edward is doing here may be understandable, but it is not justifiable. Although we are meant to think that the police officer is an asshole, we are clearly also meant to think that he doesn’t deserve that. We are supposed to be as horrified as Edward at what has just casually appeared in his mind. In Twilight, though, Meyer has always portrayed Edward’s murders as not only justified, but actually GOOD. We are meant to think of him as an angle, nay, a god, for slaughtering hundreds. We are simply meant to assume that his personal sense of justice was enough to condemn a person. We are meant to believe that he has a RIGHT to murder people who he thinks are bad. And we are meant to completely agree with him when he has detailed fantasies about violently killing people because they dared to go near his property. Murder was never portrayed as a bad thing in Twilight, because Meyer honestly believes that her vampires have a right to kill people, because they are ‘better’ than us.
Meyer, NO ONE, absolutely NO ONE will ever convince me that murder is something to be celebrated, that a murderer is someone to be revered. So you should stop trying to do exactly that because YOU FREAK ME OUT.
In the end, Edward manages to control himself and run away. And it’s quite interesting because he isn’t sparing the policeman because Carlisle Would Disapprove (which is canon!Edward’s reason for not murdering an entire room full of children for a nice strip of bacon), but because it’s WRONG. Because he has goddamned morals and he knows he shouldn’t be doing it, because MURDER IS FREAKING WRONG.
Anyways, he runs four blocks and collapses against a wall, pulling his hair and slamming his head into it, and although his fantasies were horrible, it really makes me wibble to see him loath himself so much. He berates himself on not being able to control his instincts better, and although I know that’s perfectly valid, I still want to grab him and tell him that he’s doing good enough. ‘He’d been winding steadily tighter all night, since first hearing Carlisle and Esme, and then Chief Sanders - and if he wasn’t careful, he was going to do something he would regret. Like he’d wanted to do to Eggleston. Like he almost had to Gillespie.’
It doesn’t matter to this Edward that he didn’t actually kill the policeman, he is thinking of himself as a monster just because the thought even entered his head, compared to canon!Edward who has never, EVER felt apologetic about fantasising about killing all the males in his school for daring to even think about his property in an inappropriate manner.
Also, that sentence is kind of oddly meta in a way, pointing out what I’ve been saying since the beginning of this anti-sporking. Repressing your emotions is not going to help, Edward. That’s what caused this mess in the first place.
This is also a fantastic demonstration of when fragments should be used. They are meant to punch the readers in the guts. You use them instead of full sentences because they are shorter and more to the point, so that the impact of the moment is not diminished by dithering. They are supposed to be reserved for dramatic and important moments, like when the main character first finds himself succumbing to his dark side and lusting for murder.
Let’s see how Meyer uses fragmented sentences, don’t we?
‘With a dizzying jolt, my dream abruptly became a nightmare.
There was no Gran.
That was me. Me in a mirror. Me - ancient, creased, and withered.’
Fragmented sentences are beautiful, beautiful sucker punches to the reader when used correctly…AND THAT MEANS NOT USING IT FOR YOUR CHARACTERS TO WHINE ABOUT BEING OLD. Yes, if you don’t know, that was the protagonist’s reaction to turning freaking EIGHTEEN.
Meyer, my disgust for you knows no bounds.
Edward tries to breathe deeply to calm himself…which is really the worst thing he could do under the circumstances, since he inevitably smells blood. I really like how Mrs. Hyde had describe blood here - ‘a delicious red throb of pulsing life’. This is…just…SUCH BEAUTIFUL FORESHADOWING.
And really, I imagine that’s exactly how a vampire will consider blood. It’s really quite wonderful the contrast between Edward’s human side and his vampire side. He’s been alternating between the two of them quite frequently in this part, whereas he was almost exclusively human in the last. We see him horrified at and scared of himself for one second, and for the next, he’s right back to lusting after blood.
Edward is breaking down. He is snapping.
And he is still alone.
He quickly heads out of town, ‘from the buzz of life from which he was forever barred’, again, with no real destination in mind. If you still don’t sympathise with Edward now, YOU HAVE NO SOUL. If I didn’t know it’ll ruin a beautiful piece of fanfiction, I would totally write fics based on The Darkest Hour where a self-insert shows up and buys Edward ice cream and gives him hugs and tells him everything is going to be okay. Seriously, this fanfiction is so good that it’s driving me towards writing self-inserts.
He avoids people with thoughts that he doesn’t really want to hear up close (something no one on earth will ever be able to empathise with and something that really makes me want to give him a damned hug already), and ends up in the docks and mills, basically, the industrial section. He chose this direction because he really didn’t want to be in the residential areas, where people will be unknowingly rubbing their human luxuries in his face. This is quite a contrast to what he thought in the beginning of this chapter, and we can already see him getting more and more bitter and vengeful. In the start, he was content to share in the people’s domestic bliss by proxy, but now it just enrages him. Not only is his fall a result of disconnection, but very much of jealousy as well. He may be a super powered being, higher on the food chain than humans and the stuff of legends, forever in his youth…but he’ll never be able to do something as simple as taking a nap in the sun or sharing chocolate with friends.
This is some very thought-provoking and philosophical stuff, you know, things you would expect to find in published fiction? Yeah. And now think about the themes Twilight explores.
Don’t worry, I smashed something, too.
There were fewer people here, which would be a blessed gift to Edward, and all of them are preoccupied with working, so their thoughts aren’t dangerous either. It kind of just struck me how isolated Edward is being. He is actively seeking out places with fewer people now, when, at the start of this very part, he was trying to integrate himself into the centre of town, and in the last part, he was desperately trying to fit in at school. It’s kind of scary to think of how broken he has become half way through the very first chapter.
LOOK at this!
‘Barges stood at the ready to transport their cargoes down river, towards Portland and on to the sea, out in the wide open, far away from the din and clatter of humanity, out where it was peaceful and quiet.’
Already, he has ceased in his efforts to fit in. Already, he is finding human company somewhat repulsive. And he’s not striking me as an arrogant asshole, either, which canon!Edward does every single line he is mentioned in. He just strikes me as so goddamned tired of it all that he just wants to be away from everything. I completely sympathise with his desire to just leave.
And it scares me to think that he’s only been alive for twenty-six years. He sounds so very weary and tired in that line, it almost sounds like something he would say during The Blue Hour, where he’s over a century old.
Even here, Edward is still haunted by his blood lust, tensing every time he passed a person. My god, now he can’t even walk down a street normally! And despite trying to run away from his vampire side, it’s still there, because it’s inside him. He can’t get away from it. No matter where he goes, he’ll have to continue dealing with it. And it’s just so very cruel to rob him of even the ability to go out for a walk, I mean…MY GOD. Mrs. Hyde, you are the most evil and cruel writer I have ever seen. I love you so much, in all kinds of inappropriate ways.
Apparently, they usually went hunting on the weekends, but Carlisle had an appointment, so they had to delay it, so the smell of blood is even worse to Edward, because he is literally starving. That begs the question why Edward doesn’t go hunting alone. Why does he need to have Carlisle and Esme there with him? I mean, it’s not like he can’t handle it, right? He should be perfectly capable of finding a deer or something and drinking from it. Why does he have to wait for Carlisle? Is hunting supposed to be family time? If so, he has seriously screwed up priorities. He is a danger to every human around him now, because he refuses to ruin family time with Carlisle?
I mean, if he can’t handle the hunger, why not go out hunting alone?
I think I know the answer. He’s afraid that it’ll make him appear weak. He’ll think that he’s being a burden to Carlisle by having to hunt so frequently. He’s worried that he eats too much. So he’s starving himself and using physical pain to force his vampire side to subside…because he thinks he should be able to deal. That if he can’t deal with this, then he’s not a proper vampire.
God…this guy really needs a therapist, NOW. I haven’t seen someone in such dire need of a therapist since Shinji Ikari. Oh, and HUGS. So many HUGS.
Well, Edward goes on to admit that the lack of hunting wasn’t what made him so desperate, but I still stand by my point that the lack of hunting DID matter. So, you know, my theory totally still stands. Anyways, the bloodlust of Edward always gets worse after experiencing sexual arousal, because one is a metaphor for the other. And this just makes Carlisle even more despicable in my book, because not only is he basically raping Edward, but he’s putting every single goddamned human around them in danger as well, because lust fuels their desire for blood. And he doesn’t care.
It’s even worse in this case, because Edward fled the house too early, the lust hadn’t gotten proper hold of him, so now he’s stuck in a state between arousal and normality, and he just isn’t quite sure how to deal with it.
And just at that moment, the most horrible thing yet to happen to him occurs.
A prostitute appears.
Edward sees her and suddenly realises that, well, the solution to all his problems is right here, which is kind of…tragically funny, it that makes sense. How many times have sporkers commented that canon!Edward seriously needed to get laid? Well, Hyde!Edward is doing it right now, but it’s not satisfying at all. It makes me want to scream at him to get away from her, because this is literally the WORST thing that could possibly happen to him right now. Edward, DID YOU FORGET THAT YOU ARE A MIND-READER? It is NOT pleasant to have sex with prostitutes when you can freaking see everything they think! I mean, you already have low self-esteem! What made you think this was a good idea?
But then again, it’s not like Edward would be the most knowledgeable person on how prostitution worked, right?
Go Forward to: Chapter 1 Part 2, Section C
Go Back to: Chapter 1 Part 2, Section A