The Darkest Hour - Chapter 3 Part 2 (Section A)

[sos_sporkers]

SOS: Hello, gentle viewers. We come back from a highly unprofessional personal anecdote/tantrum and proceed to the next part of the anti-sporking. And yes, things are only going to go downhill from here. The start of this chapter is a direct continuation from the last, and you've seen what it did to me. So, while I'm not going to cop out of this, I will NOT do it alone. So, I have with me the trusty NG55, who has helped me brave many fics. She will be here as morale support and pointing out things I may have missed.

The night was still, the city lights gleaming on the waterfront. The current was slow, the water almost smooth, and the barges seemed to leave only the tiniest hint of a wake as they pushed their ways up and down the river. The air was motionless, nary even a breath of wind to stir the trees, the quiet broken only by the occasional lowing horn of a ship or the sudden clattering roar of a passing train that burst onto a bridge only to quickly recede into the darkness on the other side of the river.

SOS: SERIOUSLY, THIS FIC NEEDS TO BE MADE INTO A MOVIE. Just…the beautiful, BEAUTIFUL prose! What more could I say? It’s just BREATH-TAKING!

Well, I can say that the description of the scenery places emphasise on one thing: PEACE. Everything is still and peaceful and serene, and after what happened in the last chapter? This is just juxtaposition in the worst way possible. We all know the internal turmoil of Edward and just how much conflict he is in, so the peaceful description here brings home not only how chaotic his emotions are...but how no one can ever sympathise with him. No one has gone through what he has.

That, and it points out how out of place he is, too. All of his angst and pain doesn't fit into the landscape at all. After three chapters, he is still an oddity, an outsider. He still can't belong. And it compounds the grievousness of his previous sin. Nature has always been a refuge for him, but as he finally committed a sin against nature by murdering someone, it ceases to be a source of comfort for him, instead becoming alien.

NG55: Oh, I agree. A movie based on The Darkest Hour? Oh, yes! I'd go see that! Anyway, it's true that Edward is a stark contrast to the peaceful environment around him. It is also, to me, a symbol of how time goes on, people move, like a river's flow. It never ends. Edward's life had ended long ago, while life and time itself, still goes on.

Edward saw none of it.

SOS: Not only is this sentence literal, in that he is too preoccupied with his inner pain and fear to notice the beautiful nature, but it's also very symbolic. Right now, Edward really can't see any peace or joy or positive thing in the world.

This is especially poignant as we saw in Chapter 2 Part 1 that Edward enjoys taking refuge in nature. He is comforted by nature, gains a sense of identity from nature, and truly belongs in nature. And, in a way, his connection of nature made him sympathetic in a lot of ways. The way he just enjoyed the beauty of nature and the freedom it brings is very reminiscent of a child, and thus encouraged the readers to like him. This isn’t just about him getting cut off from the in-universe world, but also a disconnection from the readers, something that’ll be very integral to his change into a villain (or at least morally ambiguous) protagonist.

NG55: Speaking as someone who has fondness for nature, I could relate to him back there. And really, because Mrs. Hyde took the effort of showing us the person he was before his downfall, we feel bad for him here, even though what he did was completely wrong, unforgivable, and even just cruel. Canon!Edward didn’t even feel guilty about his murders, but if he did, I doubt any of us would see it as anything other than a convenient way to wangst and draw attention to himself. But here, we can understand Edward’s feelings, and that understanding leads to sympathy. We actually CARE about Edward’s emotional state here.

I mean, he’s totally right in that he’s become a monster and allowed his dark side to take over, but at the same time, we still care about him and want him to find happiness.

SOS: I also wonder if that little bit was denial on Edward’s part again. It’s not that he CAN’T see the tranquillity of his surroundings, but that he won’t. I can understand why he’d be preoccupied by his internal struggles, but that just sounds like he’s running away from reality again and refusing to see nature because it would remind him of what he WASN’T - natural.

Truthfully, he hadn’t seen much of anything for the past few weeks.

Nothing but a pair of sightless, staring eyes burned into his brain, and all he heard were the last terrified shrieks of a dying man as his life was ripped away.

SOS: I'm quite surprised that Mrs. Hyde literally managed to do the blank pages in New Moon well. Well, actually, I’m not. She can do anything well. But you know what I mean. Not only was it a shorter period of blank here, and therefore much less narmy, but she actually gave us a sense of what went on in the blank weeks. Not to mention, her protagonist has a very good reason to fall into an angst coma. He is trying to come to terms with the fact that he killed, metaphorically raped, and then ate a man...and ENJOYED doing it. God knows, I angsted for a few days just from reading the chapter.

NG55: Absolutely. Mrs. Hyde has managed to fill in the blank days perfectly. It’s summed it up with just the right amount of words. Simple, but effective. With these words, we can piece together everything perfectly.

Edward drew his knees up under his chin, huddled high above the Mississippi atop an old and rusting trestle.

SOS: This is actually a rather interesting motif in this story - Edward huddles into foetal position whenever he faces pain. Whilst it is a very common thing for people to do (Shinji did it a lot in Evangelion), it's still quite symbolic here, as it signifies a return to childhood - of vulnerability and innocence and dependence on someone else.

Even more, curling up is a defensive gesture, often done to protect the vital organs. So, again, this simple gesture conveys how much pain he is in and, at the same time, how helpless he is. He can't fight back. The most he can do is protect himself.

NG55: In foetal position, his head would be resting on his knees, and that, again, is quite symbolic of how he's very much in denial. That position allows him to ignore the outer world and thus the wider implications of his actions.

SOS: I also find it symbolic that despite the picturesque landscape, Edward is huddled up on an 'old, rusting trestle' - the only sign of decay around him. His immediate environment contrasts with the larger one and emphasises his desolation even more.

NG55: He's like a single black dot on a white piece of paper.

It was a long drop to the water below. And he was perched precariously at the very tip-top of the ageing girder. It wouldn’t be surprising for one to fall, to plummet into the river below, landing with a sickening, back-breaking smack and sinking down, down, the water filling his lungs, his vision fading as the last of his oxygen slipped away…

SOS: It is chilling enough that we know Edward is contemplating suicide, but what makes this even more chilling and horrifying is that he CAN'T die. Again, from the very start of the fic, his body, his very nature, has been his biggest enemy. It prevents him from everything he wants, whether it be belonging or death. Here, we can really understand why Edward would hate being a vampire.

NG55: Indeed! I know I'll be getting ahead of myself when I say this, but this comes to really give us a reason why he would be so against Bella, or any human being in general for that matter, becoming a vampire. But I have to agree with your earlier proposal that he’s in denial. We all know why he wants to die here - because he can’t handle living with the knowledge of what he’s done. Because he can’t face decades and centuries fill with Reggie’s screams and dying pleas. He’s still trying to run away, from his guilt and responsibility. It’s just that he’s cornered, so he can’t.

SOS: That, and maybe he’s trying to punish himself, too. He can’t make his crime any better, and doing nothing is only tormenting him, so he’s going to try to do SOMETHING, even something as horrible as drowning for all eternity, because he’s willing to go through any amount of pain to get some inner peace right now.

And I think that’s a huge part of the reason why he doesn’t achieve full redemption just yet, and instead relapses. He knows what he did was wrong, he feels very bad about it, but he can’t motivate himself to at least TRY to make up for what he did. Perhaps it’s because he honestly can’t think of a way to make it better…but I have a feeling that, like NG55 said, it’s more about denial. It’s far more pleasant to focus on ways he can run away from this than ways he can make things better, but that would involve having to think about his crime. He’s going about dealing with guilt in a very self-destructive and delusional manner, so no wonder Mrs. Hyde had to beat him up to show him why this is wrong and he’s being STUPID.

THAT DOESN’T MEAN SHE’S NOT A SADISTIC BASTARD, THOUGH. *WEEPS*

Vision fading, helpless screams growing faint and hoarse, the searing agony of his neck torn open, his hands fighting for purchase against his unrelenting attacker, but his arms growing weaker and weaker, and the sudden terror of realizing that he was about to die-

SOS: Edward's nature won't allow him to refrain from killing people, but at the same time, it won't allow him to remorseless kill people either. His nature pushes him to murder, and when he does, it then does all it can to make sure he feels just how horrible it is. There's no way he can win.

That, and this moment is kind of symbolic of how Edward CAN’T run away from this, again like NG55 said. His mind is so occupied with it that there’s no refuge he can take. It doesn’t matter what he’s trying to distract himself with, because he always circles back to this, and even if he succeeds momentarily, it’s always lurking back there, gnawing away at his sanity.

NG55: This is a brilliant fishslap moment. The Canon!Edward never faced any consequences from his killing spree, likely because Meyer thought murdering puny humans wasn’t worth punishment. But though Edward here can’t get in trouble with the authorities, Mrs. Hyde still manages to punish him, just by giving him a conscience. But more than that, she ensures that we’ll feel bad for Edward. That we’d sympathise with him and want him to get better, as oppose to how all we want Canon!Edward do is DIE IN A FIRE.

Edward sucked in a harsh, unnecessary breath,

SOS: This is also quite an interesting motif, too. Edward takes unnecessary breathes when he has to deal with pain or any other strong emotion. Again, a rather common reaction, but it says so much more in this context.

Edward is emulating human behaviour and finding comfort in it. After everything that has happened, he still relies on old human habits and traditions to soothe his pain. Despite his body, his nature, Edward is a fundamentally human character - and that's what makes him so relatable and likeable. Because he isn't some perfect alien being. He is us. He is what we would be if we were in his situation. He is human.

NG55: It seems that the murder of Reggie has almost snapped him back to his mindset before Chapter 3 Part 1 happened…or even before Chapter 2 happened. His contempt for humanity, his disgust at modern society, is all dialled back now. He understands the gravity of his crime, instead of just dismissing it as pest control, as Canon!Edward no doubt did. And it’s very realistic that such a huge incident would do that to him - make him think over his conclusion again and realise that yeah, humans did deserve to live in peace. That and, again, it makes us sympathise with him more.

SOS: It also carries through the drug metaphor too. Some drug addicts have this cycle thing, or so I heard, where they wake up and realise that what they’re doing isn’t good and swear to lay off the drug, and maybe they can go for a few days, or a few weeks, or even a few months without another hit, but sooner or later, they succumb to the cold turkey. But then, after some time of indulgence, they again realise what they’re doing is wrong, and so start the cycle again. And given that human blood is basically made out to be the most addictive drug EVER here, it’s quite appropriate that as horrified as Edward is by his actions, now that he’s had a taste of it, it’s going to be nigh impossible to deny himself his urges.

whipping his head to the side in a futile effort to banish the agonies of a death not his own,

SOS: While his actions are indeed futile here, it's the only thing Edward CAN do under the situation. Again, there's the themes of helplessness and loss and denial...and another look at how Edward is trying to push the incident away or wallow in his angst instead of being proactive, which is what he needs to be in order to start on his road of redemption.

NG55: He's a vampire, he has eternal life, he has a strength and speed, he has the abilities of a superhuman and beyond. He's practically a comic book superhero in human form. He is all of that, and more, but guess what? He is helpless, alone, and so human. A moment like this only proves how human and sympathetic he is.

but so much worse for being brought about by his own hands-the memories, the sensations that had belonged to someone else and that had seemed inconsequential at the time, but had come rushing to the fore after-afterwards, where they had remained since that horrible night in Chicago.

NG55: Vampires are, well, a nightmare come to life (at least in this verse). Yet, deep within that still lies the side of him that brings remorse. So, really, we just can't completely hate him for what he does. And it's not glossed over and passed off as nothing important, as if it has no bearing. Edward will always remember this with pain and regret. And just the fact that he feels so bad about what he did counts as a step towards redemption and perhaps forgiveness from the readers.

SOS: And I’d like to point out that it wasn’t that those sensations stuck around him since that night. It’s that EDWARD is stuck in that night. He’s never moved beyond the incident. Just because he physically ran away and put as much distance as he could between himself and that dock, that doesn’t mean he can emotionally remove himself. And that’s a GOOD thing. As you said, it shows us that redemption is POSSIBLE for him and makes us that much more likely to forgive him. If he were able to easily emotionally distance himself from that…well, he’d become his canon counterpart.

No, not even if he fell-if he jumped-from his place on the bridge would he be free of them. He would hit the water, yes, and his back might even break, but as he sank, his body would right itself, and he had no need to breathe, and so he would hit the bottom whole and awake and aware, and he would still hear the man’s-Reggie’s-screams, feel his struggles, and see through his eyes the mad, monstrous face of the creature that attacked him, that killed him, that ate him.

SOS: Again, a profound sense of despair and helplessness is invoked here. There is absolutely nothing Edward can do. There is absolutely nowhere Edward can hide. After spending 3 chapters establishing how Edward deals with all of his problems by running away or ignoring it, Mrs. Hyde here is waving in Edward's face something he can't possibly ignore or escape from.

She is asking him, at his darkest and most fragile moment, to stand up and face his problems - something he has never been able to do. And when he finally gains the strength to do that, when he finally figures out what he should do and DOES IT, that's when she relents in her heart-stomping. Or not, because she's a cruel bastard.

NG55: And that’s where we see just how important the first two chapters are. Sure, in terms of plot (like, actual events), most of the important stuff happen in the later chapters. However, the first two chapters are crucial to our understanding of his character. We know his past, his aspirations, his relations to people, his troubles, his worries…and we have to know it, because while the actual events of the book are important, his psychological journey is so much MORE important than anything external. This is why stories that feature internal conflicts are so much harder to write, because it requires the audience to be very, VERY familiar to the character. And it takes a great deal of talent to create a character so well-rounded and human and relatable.

SOS: And I do love how he emphasises Reggie’s name here. He’s not allowing himself to generalise and homogenise people, because the last time he decided that humans were all X, he murdered someone. He’s forcefully reminding himself of Reggie’s name, of the fact that he was a person and he had a family. He’s personally making sure that he can’t emotionally distance himself from what he did, because he understands just how horrendous his acts were, and he’s not letting himself run away. So, even though he’s moronic and in denial, I maintain that in the end, he’s still a fundamentally good person.

Edward held up his hands in the dull light of the moon. They were the same hands he’d always had-

SOS: Again, this is a motif. One thing Edward hates the most about his crimes is that it leaves no mark. He is too perfect a killer, and that scares him. This also follows through the theme of alienation with his body. In the first chapter, we saw how Edward's physical appearance created a dichotomy with his mental age. In the second chapter, we saw how his physical perfection made him feel like he was wearing a stranger's skin. And here, we see how his persevering innocent look creates a contrast with his actions, making him an involuntary liar.

This is a tale of alienation, and how much more alienated when you can’t belong in your own body?

NG55: SOS summed it up way too perfectly, folks. I can't say anything else. Except...supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

SOS: Is that from Mary Poppins? That’s from Mary Poppins, isn’t it? ISN’T IT? My GOD, you must be a prophet.

pale, slender, with narrow palms and long fingers. A pianist’s hands-one day, he’d once hoped, a healer’s hands. His mother’s hands.

SOS: Oh, and Mrs. Hyde goes ahead and defiles all that he holds dear as well, associating his dreams, his memories of his mother, even his appearance with the act of murder. She is systematically removing everything good and treasured in his world, all of his sources of comfort. And she decides to do so by making them all a reminder of his first and darkest crime.

And that is why I say all writers are sadists

NG55: It’s interesting the progression of association, too. First, he identifies his hand as those of a pianist’s, contrasting such a civilised activity with the act of murder. Also, it’s quite symbolic in that piano is one of Edward’s hobbies and it’s clear that it calms him and brings him joy, and now he won’t ever feel at peace doing it, because of what he associates with his hands. Also, we see that he plays the piano to distract himself from reading his family’s minds, so it perhaps symbolises how he can’t distract himself anymore, whether from unwanted thoughts or his own actions?

Then he calls them a healer’s hands, again, contrasting a profession that is based around helping people to the violent crime he had committed. Also, seeing as becoming a doctor has been his dream since he’s a small boy, it could be symbolic in that this murder destroyed Edward’s future and yanked him astray. That, and wanting to be a doctor is a tie that binds Edward’s two lives together - as a human and as a vampire. This association cuts that tie, just like how the murder removes Edward from his own humanity.

Lastly, he says that they’re his mother’s hands. I don’t think I even need to say why even further separation from his parents is depressing. But remember Carlisle’s little speech about for what purpose Edward lives in Chapter 2 Part 2? Where he tells Edward that he’s a monument to his parents? Well, Edward not only misinterpreted that, but now he’s destroyed any chance he has at following it correctly. He was still very much a symbol of his parents when Carlisle was talking to him. But now, he won’t ever be able to claim that he’s a representative of his parents on earth, because he’d be associating two of the most selfless people he knows with a murderer.

They looked no different. There were no lingering bloodstains indelibly branding the skin like Bluebeard’s key. No evidence whatsoever that he’d used them to take a man’s life.

No evidence that he was a murderer.

SOS: *Flaps hand at fic* I think anything that can be said about that passage is more than amply expressed in the prose. Anything I might add will only ruin its beauty. So, shall we move on?

NG55: Please. Anything I say will amount to nothing.

SOS: Oh wait, I have a note from the future. Let me see…”Bluebeard? I knew there would be MANY fishslaps against Twilight in this fic, but I never expected one against 50 Shades of Grey…though considering its origin, I guess that’s appropriate too.” Huh…weird.

He wrapped them around his shins and buried his forehead against his knees, slowly rocking where he sat.

SOS: This rocking motion is a lovely motif too, and it's quite symbolic as it resembles a mother comforting a child. And that's exactly what Edward needs right now: the unconditional love of a mother, forgiveness, and comfort. Unfortunately, those are also three things that he had lost forever a decade ago.

The burying his head in his knees again signify an escape from reality, a desire to run away from it all and not have to face anything.

And the wrapping of his hands around his shins, in the style of a hug, again conveys to us just how broken and alone he is, and how all he wants is some comfort. But he has no one, so he has to hug himself. And by curling up, he’s made himself smaller, thus creating a sense of fragility, youth, and vulnerability.

And the fact that he does all of these things as a substitute for crying just puts the final nail in the coffin. It gives us a good idea of just how helpless he is, of just how futile all of his actions are, because not only can’t he make the situation better, he can’t even properly express his grief at it. All he can do is some paltry substitute, and he has to make do with it because he’s no longer human.

Mrs. Hyde is simply the best writer of tear-jerker I have ever seen. And she writes a protagonist who can't cry, ironically.

NG55: I am not worthy, not by a long shot. What SOS just said, do I need to say more? It's all right there, as we read it. Presented to us perfectly.

Edward didn’t know what day it was.

SOS: Time is actually a major motif in this story, as it should be in anything featuring an immortal being. This sentence not only conveys to us how Edward has become numb to everything, even the passing of time, but also reinforces how, to him, time literally has no meaning anymore, because it has ceased to affect him.

NG55: Time is just a shift from one day to the next for him. There is no future to dread or look forward to. He's just there. Existing.

SOS: That, and a great fishslap towards the blank pages in New Moon. See, Meyer? This is how GOOD writers convey a sense of numbness and emptiness. By, you know, ACTUALLY WRITING ABOUT IT. Not just hand-waving it like some pussy and fucking throwing in BLANK PAGES because they can’t fucking write!

He only knew where he was from the thoughts he would glean from the engineers on the passing trains.

SOS: It is interesting here that Edward gains a sense of place from those around him. He knows where he is in relation to everything because of the people around him and how THEY have a sense of place. It emphasises his dependence on others and the importance of belonging, especially if you take the knowledge of location here as a symbol for his sense of place in society.

NG55: As far as anyone who knew him in the world, he's dead. Even Carlisle and Esme, the only two people who’d understand him and care about him, he left of his own volition. He's supposed to be dead, along with his parents. And frankly, he wishes that were true. But there's nothing he can do about it.

St. Louis. Far from Chicago. Far away from what he’d done.

SOS: and there you go. Edward is STILL dealing with his problems by running away because, frankly, that's the only thing he knows how to do. That's how he's been taught to deal with things. Whenever they are about to be found out at a new place, what do Carlisle and him do? RUN AWAY. Edward is still very much a child, and left alone, he can't figure out how to deal with his problems. So he falls back to the default: just run away and hope that it doesn't catch up to him.

NG55: And frankly, with his problems up to this point, running away has always helped somehow. I mean, even you said in Chapter 2 Part 1 yourself, if he never went to Chicago and went sight-seeing in Antarctica or something, he would never be subject to this pain. Running away is a horrible way to deal with things, but he doesn’t realise that, because it’s a legitimate coping method for him. It's too perfect by this point!

Not far enough. It would never be far enough. He needed no bloodstains on his hands-not when they were permanently seared into his heart

SOS: And he finally realises it too. In this case, running away simply doesn't work, because it's not the locations that are causing him pain. It's himself. And he can't run from what he is.

NG55: He can run and go anywhere he wants. He can escape the crime scene, and no longer face the sight of it in person. But the memory will always be there. No matter where he goes, the nightmare will be there.

He’d run from Chicago. He’d run, and he hadn’t stopped running all day or all night. He didn’t remember any of it-all he knew was the horror, the crushing guilt of what he’d done.

He’d killed a man and drank his blood.

SOS: Interesting. Here, we can see that Edward has allowed this single event to take over his life (and for a psychologically appropriate reason too). He’s completely identifying himself by this one event. He doesn’t remember any other qualities he has, except that he’s a murderer. And while this is a logical outcome of his characterisation, this only makes the situation worse, as it encourages him to wallow in his angst. He’s so obsessed about this event that he literally can’t look past it, to see what he can do to make it better, how to learn from his mistakes here and move on. His guilt brings about self-destructive actions, and his obsession establishes a negative feed cycle. No wonder he ends up falling so completely by Chapter 4.

He hadn’t wanted to. He hadn’t meant to. That wasn’t what he’d gone to do at all.

SOS: But the interesting thing is, this wasn't an accident either. Edward might not be able to see it, but we could - how all the internal conflict has been building up inside him, escalating with every incident that alienates him from the world. The very moment we saw Edward go after that rapist, we all knew what was coming. Edward hadn't WANTED to do it, sure, but this is also an inevitable outcome of everything we’ve seen building up. Meaning? Mrs. Hyde made a sympathetic character go forth and murder the shit out of someone…for an entirely psychologically appropriate reason. *SWOON*

NG55: Well, I see it as a continuation of the biting = drugs theme. That is, after all, a quite typical line from an addict. Like you said, there’s a sort of cycle going on with some of them, and they do genuinely realise that taking drugs is bad, but can’t stop themselves. So they alternate between indulgence and crushing guilt, which they sooth with more drugs, of course. Really, taken out of context, it wouldn’t be hard to convince someone that this was a line from a drug addict.

SOS: Something else that’s interesting is that…well, most people would actually support the notion that serial rapists that show no sign of repentance deserve the death sentence. And yet what Edward did was still unambiguously presented as a Very Bad Thing. And for good reason, too. It’s not the fact that he killed a rapist here that’s the problem - it’s that he’s capable of killing at all. It’s the physical proof that his vampiric nature had triumphed and he had lost his humanity. Sure, he’s fallen psychologically at least at the end of the last chapter, but he hadn’t quite doomed his “soul”, so to speak, until this moment. He’d just become the monster he’d been fighting for a decade.

NG55: Things must be even worse with how very intimate the murder had been. It wasn’t indirect or distant, like a shooting or something - it was very physical and direct, and there was no way Edward could pretend he hadn’t done it, or that he hadn’t gotten pleasure from it. Add to that the fact that he KNOWS his victims, his angst here is very well justified.

The man had been planning to rape that girl-how could he just stand aside and let it happen?

SOS: Again, Mrs. Hyde raises the question of whether vigilantism is justified. Whether Edward should feel better about his deeds because the person he had killed was 'bad'. Whether it would have been more morally correct if he had went the other way and let him rape the girl.

These are all heavy topics. The concept of Justice and what is acceptable sacrifice for it has been a major theme in many, many literary pieces. And I personally consider this to be one of the most thorough and compelling explorations.

NG55: Hmm…the murder might have been presented as a Very Bad Thing because of the reason he had done it, too. If he’d murdered Reggie because that was the ONLY way he could save his victims, then I might have been more forgiving. But at that point, Reggie’s target was already out of danger, and he killed Reggie because Reggie had attacked him. He was doing it out of a personal reason. We saw what was going on in his head, and it was all about how he was being attacked and slighted.

SOS: Exactly. This is why I love the fic so much. As much as you can rant about what an idiot Edward is (and he IS an idiot)…when you’re put in his place, you know you’ll probably end up doing the exact same things as him. I find it fascinating just how inevitable his downfall is…and yet also how personal it is. Every act of his directly contributes to this outcome, and yet at no point could he have taken a course of action that would allow him to avoid it.

All he’d wanted to do was stop him.

He’d stopped him, all right.

SOS: This is an interesting point. Up to a certain point, Edward's actions were justifiable. He could have beaten the rapist up, let the girl run away, and extracted himself from that situation, and there would have been nothing morally wrong about that (or at least I think not). If he really wanted to, he might even take the rapist to a police station and put him in the hands of the justice system. Had he done any of those, we would be 100% behind his back (or at least I would).

But he killed the man. And he killed him for pleasure, for the sake of nothing but a big, hearty meal. And that's where his actions start edging into the definitely unforgivable.

NG55: Exactly true! It just proves that Edward has very little control over his vampiric nature, even after 10 years. What he ended up doing was unforgivable, especially since, in a way, he wanted it. He can’t deny the fact that he’d enjoyed every minute of the blood-drinking. Of course, he couldn’t exactly help it. It was a purely physical reaction, and in many ways, his mind was overridden by the hunger and lust building up over a decade. But given how much self-loathing he harbours, I doubt he’d see that.

Edward hissed between his teeth. Was it his fault that the man’s perverted lust had whipped him into such a frenzy beforehand?

SOS: Aaaaaaaand, there he goes, justifying his crimes to himself, probably the only way he can face himself again. *Sighs* And this reluctance to face what he has done and admit it for what it is - completely unnecessary murder - is what will complete his fall.

He was given a chance here. The chance to turn around, acknowledge what he did was a terrible thing, stay away from humanity, and just not do it again. But he didn't take it, because to do that, he would have to admit what he was and face himself. And Edward isn't strong enough for that.

NG55: I'll say one thing, when a character or real-life person actually blames someone else for their downfalls when it is clearly THEIR OWN DOING, it makes me rage. However, this is slightly averted because Edward isn't being a douchebag for the sake of being an asshole douchebag. He isn't strong enough to face this, and doesn't know how. So he questions, was it even his fault? Did the rapist really play a part in his downfall?

SOS: I guess, in a way, his question here is very legitimate. If Reggie had been just a mugger, Edward might not have felt it necessary to intervene, because all his target would have lost was external possessions. And though he probably would have beaten up and ended up eating Reggie if he was just a regular serial killer hiding in an alley or something, given the link between bloodlust and lust, it’s still logical to think that Reggie’s being a rapist was a major contributing factor to how quickly things escalated. This is probably especially true given how much Edward was thinking like a rapist while he was going after Reggie.

He had no control over the voices in his head-he couldn’t help the fact that just being near the man in the throes of his twisted arousal had sent him into a borrowed state of fevered hunger too.

SOS: Well, there you go. Question answered.

His vampiric nature, which has been steadily obstructing his life more and more since Chapter 1, has finally overcome him. And the result is murder. Because murder is a part of every vampire's life. It is natural to them. And, like heroin addicts, they have to fight with themselves every single day in order to prevent themselves from doing it.

See, Meyer, if you want us to praise your protagonists for NOT being murderers, you actually have to make the act of not murdering DIFFICULT!

NG55: Exactly as SOS said. Now yes, normally I would argue that Vampire Folklore is subjective, but since it was established this way in both Meyer and Mrs. Hyde's universes, we can roll with it. Anyway, this is exactly the point. We read a story to see the protagonists overcome challenges and become better people! What is the point to a story if there’s no challenge to overcome?

That hadn’t been the first time that particular individual had set out to rape and murder, either-only the last times he’d managed it. Edward had heard it all, seen it all-the reason Reggie had been so aroused already was not only in anticipation of the act he was about to commit, but from the intense memories of his prior “successes”.

SOS: We know for a fact that Reggie is despicable. That he is a ROUTINE rapist. That he wasn't going to be brought to justice. And that he was actively looking forward to the rape of an innocent girl. He was utterly disgusting and definitely deserved retribution...

But this issue goes beyond simply that. It wasn't about whether Edward was right in killing that rapist. This incident opened a doorway, created a precedent. He had let his vampiric nature WIN. He had tasted the sweetness of blood, and we all know how addictive that damned thing is.

Mrs. Hyde took the 'you are my brand of heroin' line literally, and Edward here just got the first hit. The moral conflict here isn't that he had done it, but that there was a huge chance that he will do it again.

Fishslap, indeed.

NG55: That's what is scaring Edward the most right now. To know that he might just very well do it again. While he may have killed a man who arguably deserved it, it isn't just that. It's knowing that he can.

A bitter laugh escaped him. That was one point on which Edward’s conscience didn’t need to bite him. The man had been a menace. Edward had stopped a crime, and brought him to justice.

But who would bring Edward to justice?

SOS: Precisely no one. And that's what's scary about this situation. There is absolutely no one around who can stop him if his vampiric nature takes control again. It is entirely up to Edward himself to deal with his actions and prevent himself from doing the same thing again. He is being asked to come off of a heroin habit at his most vulnerable and uncertain moment, and frankly, he just isn't strong enough.

Also, isn't it creepy that even in the midst of his angst and guilt, he still has no problem thinking of himself as Justice? While, like I said, his murder of Reggie MAY have been justified, that mentality is still a lovely hint towards why he can't achieve redemption yet.

NG55: Personally, I’m just screaming at him to get back to Carlisle right now…but of course, he’s an idiot. He doesn’t want help. He wants punishment.

That had been his first thought when he came to, huddled and keening under a tree somewhere in a rolling forest. He was a murderer-and he must pay for his crimes. But…to whom would he turn himself in?

SOS: Again, a brilliant metaphor for how there is no one he can turn to for support or comfort. No one that can help him overcome his problem. In this case, he can honestly say that no one understands his pain, because even his fellow vampires won't understand his problem with killing one measly human

Edward is utterly isolated and alone during the darkest period of his life, and because of this solitude, because of this all-encompassing loneliness, he falls. Because he has no one to turn to, when James comes onto the scene, he falls for the promise of communication and connection immediately

Loneliness is Edward's greatest enemy in this book, and he is losing badly here.

NG55: Again, we see here that Edward is not a BAD person, per se. He’s done a very morally reprehensible thing at this point, but that didn’t make him immoral himself. He’s still very noble, and you can still see his parents’ influence in him. When he finally gets a hold of his senses after such a traumatic incident, he instantly assumes that he must be punished. He never considers his own self-interest at all. It’s amazing how Mrs. Hyde can make a murderer so sympathetic mere paragraphs after, well, a brutal MURDER.

Let's also try to look at this at a weird angle. Let's say Edward does go to turn himself in. On paper, that's the right thing to do. But that would open up a can of worms. The police dig into your records, and they are GOING to spot false identification. They’ll inevitably discover how he was supposed to have died in 1918. And that would raise a LOT of questions. Edward would risk A LOT if he did that. It's no wonder he's so alone in all of this, and has no one to turn to, to make it right.

He couldn’t go to the police-what would he tell them? He had no identification, and there was no evidence to tie him to the crime. And what would he confess to? That he hadn’t meant to, but he’d accidentally drained the man dry?

SOS: NG55, I think you just predicted the future.

It's true. There is simply no one around who can help him through this. Really, I know I ranted against Carlisle a lot in the beginning, but I’d give everything to have him here to talk Edward through this mess, because he's the only person that'd really know what Edward is going through and how to deal with it.

NG55: First off, okay, that's just uncanny...but then again, not far-fetched. That too is a problem! If anything, the cops would think he was a teenager with mental problems who decided to pull a mean-spirited prank on them.

They’d be more likely to put him in an asylum than a prison.

SOS: Really, you have to stop predicting the future.

NG55: I can't help it! *Laughs*

SOS: Well, at least we can all agree that Edward needs a THERAPIST. NOW.

And in either case, even if he was incarcerated, it wouldn’t take too long for them to see that he didn’t age-and that was not an option. Human contact to the point of exposure was forbidden by the Imperium.

SOS: The Imperium has a specific LAW in place to prevent fraternising with humans. Vampires can't stay in any one place long enough to make friends or build connections, but must constantly drift throughout society, becoming more and more disconnected with each new location. Not just his own body, but the very justice system he is in, the one he hopes to turn to for help after his crime, preaches alienation.

NG55: That's very true. You can't make friends or connections at all, otherwise it compromises your entire existence.

And if Edward exposed himself,

SOS: The fangirls would be overjoyed.

he would be taken prisoner and punished. It was no more than he deserved, and for a moment he’d thought that would be the way-until he remembered that the Imperial forces would also wipe out any evidence of him. And that meant wiping out any and all humans who had seen him.

SOS: ...WHAT? ANY AND ALL HUMANS WHO HAD SEEN HIM? WHAT?

How would they even achieve that! Vampires are nomadic! They would have travelled all over the world! How could the Imperials keep track of who would have seen them and who hadn't?

Or do they just raze any place the vampire had been in?

In that case, wouldn't the humans get suspicious? How, you know, entire towns and cities would be wiped off the map?

HOW THE HELL COULD THEY POSSIBLY MAKE THAT WORK?

NG55: Exactly! How does that work? Okay, I'll suspend my disbelief and imagine they might get the name of EVERY SINGLE PERSON that has ever laid eyes on an innocuous vampire. So, what will killing them all solve? Really, what would it solve? Unless Edward told them right out he's a vampire, they're just going to assume he's any other guy. And on top of that, if they never see him again, of course they won't question it! Edward isn't famous, so it's not as if he would gain a reputation from it.

If you never see someone again, you just chalk it up that they now have a different life and moved away, plain and simple.

SOS: I guess the intention here is that they'd kill everyone he was FRIENDS with, but...that was pretty poor wording there, because...HOW THE HELL CAN THEY REMAIN SECRET IF THEY ROUTINELY WIPE CITIES OFF THE MAP?

I mean, take Edward here. He had just left Chicago, a major city in America. If, say, he turned himself into the Imperials now, they would have no idea who had seen him in Chicago and who had not! So...what, are they going to destroy the entire city of Chicago?

NG55: I'm willing to bet Edward is just exaggerating, or is a bit of an unreliable narrator. Because really, that makes no sense.

SOS: Yeah, let's go with unreliable narrator.

But he couldn’t just go to the Imperial authority, either. They would do nothing-as far as they were concerned, what he’d done was perfectly natural.

SOS: And here we see how as much as Edward can't fit into human society because he is a vampire, he can't fit into vampiric society because he is far too human. What he considers to be so heinous a crime that he fell into an angst coma is everyday business there. He cannot condone his own kin, but he cannot return to his past kin.

A line from Chapter 1 summed his situation up quite well, I feel, 'trapped between being a boy and being a man.' Except in this case, we see him trapped in the nebulous grey area between human and vampire

NG55: It’s like the exact opposite of the ‘best of both worlds’. Here, he’s getting the shittiest deal out of both of worlds.

His lip curled at the thought. Yes-natural, and quite a tidy job of it, really, feeding on someone who no one would miss, and leaving no evidence even in his haste to escape. They’d not punish him.

And so that left Edward alone to punish himself.

SOS: OH, FANTASTIC. Somehow, he had found an even WORSE way to deal with his problems than freaking running away! 'Punish himself', that is so...THIS GUY NEEDS A THERAPIST

NG55: If only it were that easy.

SOS: It's really quite interesting here that it's true that Edward had been an exemplary vampire. His murder of Reggie, whilst a crime of passion, was perfectly executed so that no one can trace it back to him or to vampire-kind. He tried for 2 chapters to join humanity and failed miserably every time, and yet the one time he relaxed his guard, he fit seamlessly into vampire society...and he is disgusted by that.

Again, a constant contrast between desiring belonging and yet failing to gain it and trying to prevent himself from belonging to something that his body forces him to belong to

He’d wandered aimlessly, mindlessly,

SOS: Because he has no direction, no goal, no purpose. He has no idea what he can do about this situation. And he can't let himself think, because all of his thought is occupied by the last screams of his victim. Not to mention, no amount of thinking is going to help him here. 'Aimless and mindless' is actually a brilliant way to describe Edward all throughout Chapters 4 and 5, too.

Oh, Symbolism. You make me so happy in my panties.

back in amongst the trees of the Midwest.

SOS: We see a retreat to nature several times in this fic - when Edward is first changed, when Edward leaves Carlisle, and when Edward commits his first murder.

Nature is very much a symbol of peace and nurturing here, and Edward runs to it whenever he has to deal with a new situation but can't figure out how. Nature in itself is almost Edward's mentor and guardian. Which says something when you consider that the entire Chapters 4 and 5 are set in an urban setting. Symbolism, bitch.

He avoided people at all costs, despite the fact that he was, perversely, not at all hungry.

SOS: It's scary how, as soon as he gave in to the Dark Side, all of his problems went away. If he had been a traditional vampire, he might have even called this liberation.

Meyer, it's only heroic when you overcome something if it's actually difficult to overcome! IT'S ONLY A SACRIFICE IF YOU ACTUALLY HAD TO GIVE UP SOMETHING YOU PRIZED!

He hid himself in caves and crevices during the days, and roamed the forests at night like a ghost, lost and alone.

SOS: I don't understand why I even started this anti-sporking. Just read that. Just read THAT ONE SENTENCE, and you'll have all the analysis and breakdown you need of this series.

It summarises this story more succinctly and elegantly than I ever can. This is a whole story about hiding, about retreats to nature, about aimlessness and lack of purpose, about unlife and the denial of death, about being LOST AND ALONE

There is nothing I can add to that, so I'm going to move on.

NG55: Considering I really don't have much to add to begin with, I will say this. At least this Edward has proven to be a way better character than his canon counterpart. With some good writing to back it up, we get this kind of an eloquent sentence to sum up everything. Now let's move on, shall we?

What was he to do?

What was he?

He was a vampire.

SOS: Edward became a vampire in 1918, but he hasn't lost his humanity until now. Finally, his transformation is complete.

NG55: Poor Edward.

SOS: Indeed. I love the contrast here with canon. There, turning into a vampire is an occasion for celebration, a symbolic way of reaching heaven, ascension to a higher plane of existence. Here, it is an absolute TRAGEDY. We genuinely MOURN the moment Edward finally loses his feeble grasp on his humanity. Becoming a vampire is actually a BAD thing.

That, and I have a feeling this is yet another reason he isn’t able to achieve redemption in this chapter. He’s already given in. He couldn’t think of anything he could do to make the situation better…so he just gives up and gives in entirely. By conceding that he’d destroyed his own humanity, he’s also given up fighting.

Anyways, I think I'll be able to deal alone now. Thank you, NG55 for your help. I may have to call upon you later, but for now, you can go free!

NG55: You're welcome, SOS! And thank you, too! So long for now, folks! *Snaps fingers and pops away*

Go Back to: Chapter 3 Part 1

Go Forward to: Chapter 3 Part 2, Section B