The Darkest Hour: Chapter 3 Part 2 (Section C)

[sos_sporkers]

SOS: Hey, guys! I find that it’s pretty damned hard to do any part that has murder in it, because I’d be too busy going stabbity-stab to pay attention to the underlying themes and what not. So, guess what? I’ve got someone else here with me again! Just to keep me on track and stop me from flouncing off.

Pre-slavery!Mantra: Hello, gentle viewers. *Glances at characterisation tag* Oh, do you have to rub it in like that?

SOS: Yes. It’s a part of my contract. Anyway, in the last chapter, I…er…became a little distressed near the end, and didn’t provide much real analysis. I’m sorry.

Pre-slavery!Mantra: You seem to do that a lot. And stop it with the tag. It’s annoying.

SOS: Well, all I’d wanted to say was that Edward is going onto the docks for much the same reason he wanted to hunt deer - to prove that he CAN. That he can still go back to living the way he did, and what happened at Chicago was just a one-time accident and no more. His vampire side firmly won against his better side back in Chicago, so he’s doing this as a challenge to his vampire side, and if he were able to go through the city and resist the temptation of blood, he would score a symbolic victory. He’s doing it so he can subvert the loss of his humanity at the end of Chapter 2 and throughout Chapter 3 Part 1. So, even at this point, merely a few pages before Chapter 4 and 5, he’s still trying to connect with whatever miniscule scrap of humanity he still retains.

Mantra: And it’s pretty damned obvious that it’s not going to happen. The moment he said anything about going into a city, we all knew he was going to kill someone else there. In fact, I have half a mind that he’s going in there in the first place to satisfy the new crack habit he’s got, and all of this philosophising is just him trying to wank up an excuse. I mean, some of the things he says are pretty typical for addicts.

SOS: Oh yes, I agree. You can really take it both ways. *Reads ahead* Oh dear, we’d better Spork this next section.

Mantra: I agree. It’s crammed so full of delicious, delicious denial.

SOS: Well, it’s more that it’s an insight into his psychology now that he’s recovered a bit from his angst coma at the start of this chapter and how his escalating denial and fear of himself drives him to ruin again.

Mantra: I like my version better.

Edward firmed his jaw. He wasn’t coming here to eat anything-anyone.

Mantra: Ah, so he’s gonna eat someone. You’d think he’d have learned that every time he swore he wouldn’t do something, he did that thing.

SOS: That would require self-awareness.

Mantra: True. And yeah, my theory is totally right. That is SO totally the thoughts of an addict. Seriously, the only thing that dock had that could POSSIBLY attract him to it was the people.

Despite the fact that the brief, disgusting mouthful of deer had awakened his hunger once more, he felt in no danger of losing control.

Mantra: Oh, REALLY? You’re HUNGRY and you REMEMBER how hard it is to resist blood, but you’re in absolutely no danger of losing control, huh? GOD, this guy is an idiot.

SOS: So yeah, that’s why I think as much as he’s doing this because he’s compelled by his addiction, he’s also entering the city to prove to himself that he’s perfectly able to go back living the way he had, and that the realisation that he's become a vampire at the beginning of this chapter is false.

It’s important to keep this in mind for Chapter 6 too, because this is really what differentiates his two attempts at redemption. Here, he’s doing it mostly for selfish reasons, for his own peace of mind, and selfishness does not bring you redemption.

He wasn’t constantly left panting around his fangs at the merest whiff of a passing human-and, to his delighted surprise, was no longer behaving like a bitch in heat,

Mantra: They even have a refractory period! *Collapses in laughter*

SOS: That’s…a rather interesting way to think of him actions throughout the previous two chapters. I mean, I definitely got an impression that he was sexually frustrated from Chapter 1, but most of the time, he didn’t want to kill people and drink their blood because he was attracted to them. It was because he was ANGRY at them. They were trampling all over his efforts at belonging and his memories, and that’s why he wanted to attack.

Mantra: And oh yes, Edward, a good fuck will make abstaining from sex SO much easier. That’s definitely how sex works. *Rolls eyes*

now much more able to control and suppress the infuriating sexual desires that so consistently seized him at inopportune moments.

SOS: How the hell would you even KNOW? You hadn’t been around humans since after Reggie! If you’re so goddamned certain, then why go into a big city? Why not go to a smaller town and just skirt around the edges and sniff some humans and see if you can deal with that? If wouldn’t hurt anyone! See what I mean by he’s just doing this to prove to himself that Chicago didn’t HAVE to end in disaster?

Mantra: And see what I mean by all of this rambling is just justification for getting another hit?

He could handle simply walking in the city.

SOS: Yeah, it’s pretty obvious that the main reason he’s not able to achieve redemption now is the fundamental selfishness behind his attempt. He’s going to dive headlong into a populated area, just to give himself the peace of mind, and doesn’t even consider what would happen on the off chance that he failed.

Mantra: You were simply walking in Chicago too, Eddie. The way he insists on simplifying his task, it’s fairly obvious that he doesn’t WANT to think about the difficulty of resisting sweet, SWEET human blood. In fact, he doesn’t talk about bloodlust at all in this entire internal monologue, only indirectly alluding to it by talking about his boners. So yeah, it’s no wonder he can’t do it, because he clearly hadn’t thought ANYTHING through.

SOS: Because he’s too afraid to think things through. Thinking would require acknowledging that there’s a problem to begin with, and he doesn’t want to feel that there’s something wrong with him. This is an especially effective scene because we’d JUST finished seeing exactly why Edward can never and will never fit into vampire society, and that explains why he desperately clings to humanity. It’s not only that it symbolised the only years in his life that were happy, but it’s literally his only chance at ever achieving belonging.

But why did he want to?

Mantra: *Throws up hands* Oh my GOD, he’s an IDIOT!

SOS: Oh, I can’t WAIT to see what excuse he wanks up for wanting to go into the city.

Mantra: And it says something that he doesn’t start contemplating this until he’s already on the docks!

He was bored and he was lonely, yes, but he was used to that-he deserved that.

SOS: Huh, interesting. So Edward literally sees loneliness as a PUNISHMENT. That’s certainly another insight into his mentality and explained why he got so angry at the people he encountered back in Chapters 1 and 2. They were rejecting him and casting him out, so no wonder he got upset, because he saw them as handing out punishment that he didn’t deserve.

Mantra: Used to that? USED TO THAT? Just how idiotic can he GET? Yeah, you were SO used to loneliness - that’s why you came out of the mountains and decided to re-immerse yourself in civilisation! You were so used to loneliness, that’s why you insisted on going to your hometown and getting all soppy over the flashbacks! You were so used to loneliness, you were devastated when your schoolmates were mean to you! Hell, even at the start of this chapter, you couldn’t call that being USED to loneliness! That’s just being NUMB. You weren’t used to it so much as WALLOWING in it, because you were being EMO.

SOS: Yeah, I know, he’s an idiot. But hey, at least the idiocy here is the cause of genuine psychological issues and portrayed in a negative but also realistic light, and helps us sympathise with the character, as oppose to the author-induced-stupidity of canon?

No, what he wanted was to show himself that he could walk among people again, that he was not a slave to his bloodlust, that he was not a monster.

SOS: Holy shit, I swear to god, I totally hadn’t read ahead to this part when I wrote that beginning bit.

Mantra: Yep, that’s talent right there - getting the audience to know a character so well within merely two and a half chapters is HARD.

SOS: That…that is a MIND-BLOWING amount of talent right there. And while the need to reassure himself and deny his vampire part could potentially give him enough strength to resist blood, even if he was able to do so, he still wouldn’t achieve redemption. From this point on, he’d basically be refraining from drinking for a purely selfish and personal reason.

He had made a mistake.

SOS: *STABBITY STAB* OH YES, MURDER IS JUST A FUCKING MISTAKE.

Mantra: Huh…something else that requires a lot of talent. Changing the readers from firmly sympathising with Edward in the very beginning of this chapter to slowly starting to see him as a villain (or at least morally-grey) protagonist about half-way through.

SOS: He doesn’t even pass the FIRST step of redemption! While he acknowledges that he did a bad thing, he’s determined to downplay the crime! I suppose this was the only way he could think of to pull himself out of the angst coma and DO something, but seriously! Inventing euphemisms for murder is the greatest way to ensure that you continue to commit murder!

Mantra: Yeah, he probably doesn’t want to think about it as, you know, murder because when he tried, he felt horrible guilt and that was painful. After all, did you see him jump up and run for it when his internal monologue got a bit TOO close to the truth at the beginning? It hurts too much to acknowledge what he’s done, so he’s just going to nicely sanitise and hand-wave it in his head, the pussy.

SOS: …Huh. That’s actually a pretty nice Fridge Logic moment. I mean, we all know canon!Edward was a complete fucking coward, complete with hiding under the stairs and all, and whenever something bad happens, he runs the fuck away. And Hyde!Edward here also does a lot of running away, as we’ve seen in the previous chapters, and very much out of a desire to avoid pain. But Mrs. Hyde actually portrays this “coping method” of his as incredibly self-destructive and never glorifies him or calls him a hero. In fact, a huge part of the story is about him learning to face his actions no matter how painful it is. His fleeing is a part of his character arc. That’s…just BRILLIANT.

A terrible mistake, yes, but a mistake nonetheless, an act that he had in no way meant to perpetrate, and had no intention to repeat.

SOS: *STABBITY STAB*

Mantra: *Scowls* Stop that. Seriously, just stop it. If you wanna kill people, go ahead and kill people. Hell, I’d even cheer you on. But don’t try to dress it up and make it all FANCY like. That first time wasn’t even a mistake - it was more like an accident. A mistake implies that if you watch out, you won’t do it again. But you’re gonna murder someone even if you watch out, because we’ve all seen how your vampire side just pops out at the slightest whiff of blood and override EVERYTHING.

SOS: YOU HAD NO INTENTION OF DOING ANYTHING TO START WITH, AND YET YOU STILL ENDED UP MURDERING SOMEONE! SO WHY WOULD HAVING NO INTENTION OF DOING ANYTHING HERE STOP YOU FROM MURDERING SOMEONE!?

And now he was doing his penance, going in among the people here to show them and himself that he was not a danger.

SOS: OH MY GOD, HOW? JUST HOW IS EXPOSING MORE PEOPLE TO THE THREAT OF BEING MURDERED HELP YOU REPENT FOR MURDERING SOMEONE????

Mantra: *Sighs* I see that you’re going to be indisposed to make much analysis. Well, I guess I’ll have to do your job for you…*Picks up script and reads in a bored voice* Again, we see the importance of the first two chapters here. Even though relatively few plot events happen in them, they introduce to us how Edward’s mind works, with all his denial and obsession and self-loathing. And that’s important because every single trait lead to his ultimate downfall. His obsession with the past and glorification of it caused his disillusionment in Chicago and lead to Reggie. And here, his denial and obsession with belonging is driving him towards yet another hard fall.

A lot of Suethors give their characters wangsty back stories just for the purpose of fishing for sympathy, and no matter what it is, an abusive parent or being raped, it almost never impacts on the personality of the character at all - they’re still all arrogant shitheads. And Mrs. Hyde is the Anti-Suethor. Every single event, every single thought that has passed through Edward’s head, is laying down the foundation of his fall from grace. The denial and obsession and self-loathing weren’t just there to build him up as a well-rounded and likeable character, but were also PLOT important.

Most authors either have plot advancement, or have the plot ground to a halt so they can squeeze in some angsty character development. And it’s very rare indeed to see one with enough talent to balance both seamlessly.

SOS: Thanks…

Mantra: Eh, I exist to save your ass.

Chicago had been an accident.

SOS: O.O Holy shit, I swear to god I didn’t read ahead when I scripted Mantra earlier.

Mantra: And this time down to the exact wording? Either the writing is Just That Good, or you’ve spent so long thinking about this story that Eddie is starting to invade your brain.

SOS: *Thinks* Nah, I don’t really feel like Cleopatra, so it’s definitely the first option.

Here, he was in control.

SOS: I hope to GOD Edward doesn’t think a change of location is going to help him resist blood any better. Because I fail to see the difference between this situation and Chicago.

Mantra: That’s because you’re…more self-aware than Edward. Maybe.

SOS: I would guess another reason for his failed attempt at redemption would be the infuriating ARROGANCE. I understand that the over-confidence isn’t confidence so much as him repeating a mantra in order to reassure himself, but even then, his steadfast refusal to even consider the sort of damage he’d wreck if he fails makes me VERY angry. He’s putting the lives of god knows how many people in danger here (especially if he lost control and accidentally murder someone while being witnessed, which would get about half the city smote by the Imperials)! And he’s calling it PENANCE.

Alright, shall we go back to recapping?

Mantra: That’s a rather strong word. It’s more like “rambly sporking with less frequent quotation”.

SOS: So, Edward walks along the wharf-

Mantra: -while ‘fingering the hole’.

SOS: Yes, thank you, Mantra. You should probably know that any innuendo in this fic is completely intentional, and almost always deeply symbolic.

Mantra: *Pouts* That’s no fun.

SOS: But yes, Edward walks along the wharf while fingering a hole in his jacket pockets. And that is, in fact, symbolic. Because Mrs. Hyde is Just That Good that she can pull off Jacket Pockets of Symbology.

‘He briefly thought of trying to find a needle and thread to mend it-but then laughed darkly to himself at the idea. Yes, mend the hole in your coat pocket, Edward, while leaving the elbows and the knees of your pants in tatters.’

Because if you’ve got bigger problems that you can’t fix, then you might as well not even try to fix the smaller ones, huh?

Speaking of, why HASN’T he brought new clothes yet? Just how much money did he bring with him? He’s passed through a few towns since coming out of the mountains, so that should be plenty of time for him to buy something, right? It’s rather odd that someone as…er…Edwardian as Edward would not grab a clean change of clothing at the first chance.

Mantra: And considering how much prejudice he’s faced because he’s dressed like a hobo, and how his appearance only accentuated the subconscious revulsion that all humans feel towards him? Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense. Unless, of course, he has a thing for mending his clothes himself, because he’s just such a sweet little housewife.

SOS: Well, whatever puzzlement I had over that passage is quickly forgotten, because THIS happens literally in the next sentence.

‘-he wasn’t Edward Mason anymore. He wasn’t even human anymore. He should let go of all the silly minutiae of human life-they no longer mattered to him.’

OH MY FUCKING GOD, ARE YOU EVEN KIDDING ME, I WILL FUCKING END YOU, YOU DIPSHIT, GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Mantra: That- I just- *flaps arms*

SOS: And okay, that was a great moment to really turn the readers against Edward as he morphs into someone tragically different from the Edward we met in Chapter 1, as well as set up his disgust and horror at himself later on, when he finally wakes up and realise what an asshole he’s been. But to be honest? I actually didn’t like this passage here, and not just because Edward is being…being THAT.

And by ‘I don’t like’, I mean a COMPLETELY personal, biased opinion. There’s been a lot of what I felt to be pretty obvious indicators that Edward was running away from his realisation that he was a fucking vampire now. As soon as that thought entered his head, he jumped up and ran away and tries to go into a city to, as he said himself, prove that he could do it. It seems pretty obviously a desperate bid to reclaim some semblance of humanity to me. So it just doesn’t make sense to me that he’d dismiss humanity like this. I mean, I can see him perhaps coming to think of humanity this way later down the line, after his twelfth murder of something, when he’s become desensitised, but it just doesn’t really fit with his motivations at all.

And not to mention, Edward stick with a LOT of “silly minutiae of human life”, like stealing new clothes and then leaving MONEY for it or showering throughout Chapters 4 and 5, you know, when he’s supposed to be pretty detached from humanity. So, this sort of sentiment just really stands out because it feels like it’s not carried through. His behaviour later doesn’t reflect it, and I really can’t tell where it came from. So it’s just a bit…jarring. I mean, especially after all the reveal about how important it was to him to prove to himself that he COULD still be a part of humanity, that he didn’t need to be cast out…

Mantra: Though it’s still got some sweet symbolism there. After all, a lot of times, as we’ve seen in Chapter 2 Part 2, people treat Edward with hostility because the dirty clothes amplify the whole PREDATOR!!! thing and also tone down his dazzling. So we can see his dismissal of the need for clean and whole clothing as a symbol of how he’s stopped worrying about people’s opinions because he just doesn’t care anymore, and he doesn’t plan to have further interaction with people. Though that mentality does come out of the left field a bit…especially after an extended flashback all about how he can’t belong.

SOS: It’d still be a bit OOC too. I mean, it’s EDWARD, who’s supposed to pretty much be an Edwardian gentleman. It just seems weird that he wouldn’t care about personal hygiene or presentation because of a shift in morality. I mean, even if he stopped caring about what people thought, you’d think he’d still make sure his clothes were nice and clean just because he’d feel more comfortable that way.

So uh…minor nitpick aside, Edward wanders about the docks, and the prose is, again, FUCKING AWESOME.

‘Like all of the more industrial areas, the shadows grew quite quickly, bubbling up from the spaces between the ships and the warehouses and swallowing up the buildings just back from the river.’

This makes me fangirl particularly hard because I’ve tried to write some extensive description of shadows and the darkness, but in a single sentence, Mrs. Hyde utterly PWNED my pathetic little attempt. GOD, she is SO awesome.

Mantra: And, of course, there’s the symbolism. Edward’s own darker side is bubbling up from between the cracks of his denial and fear and swallowing him. And of course, the vigilante spree he’ll go on will darken the city.

SOS: Edward describes what he observes, including how he can hear rats move because of the heightened senses brought by the human blood he consumed. Because showing is a good thing.

Mantra: And it’s symbolic that while Edward was always ready with some poetic description of the places he visit (which are mostly positive too), the first thing he notices here is the darkness and the vermin. A very nice insight into his changed perspective indeed.

SOS: Perhaps even more symbolically, Edward describes the dock workers in the exact same terms that he used to described the rats, and the two descriptions are written with a parallel structure to really bring the similarity out. So, not only did the trauma from Chicago make it so that he’s more focused on the negative parts of nature and society, perceiving them as filled with pests and vermin, but he sees PEOPLE, that which he used to glorify, as being the same as said pests and vermin.

Mantra: And then he says this about the dock workers. '[They were] broadcasting their thoughts to the sky for Edward to hear as clearly as the sounds from the rats.’ Oh yeah, Edward, those people were going around thinking for the SOLE purpose of having you listen to them. Oh yeah. Nice to see that we’re putting that new habit of shifting blame to good use. And for extra points, why don’t we repeat how people are like rats a few more times. That’s DEFINITELY the very definition of penance.

SOS: And to think that in Chapter 1, he was upset at himself for being slightly bitter at Carlisle…

Anyway, we then get the usual list of what people are around and what they’re think, because consistency is nice. And showing and not telling is even nicer, yo.

Mantra: I can’t believe you haven’t mentioned this already, but isn’t it interesting that although Hyde!Edward, much like canon!Edward, can only hear surface thoughts, one of the few non-surface thoughts he can read informs him of the name of his targets. Nothing else, just the name. His mind-reading is keeping him distant enough from the people by accentuating negative thoughts, but also keeping him just attached enough with the identification of his victims, so it can always torment him with guilt later on. Very diabolical. I like it.

SOS: And Mantra’s right. Here again, all the thoughts Edward can hear offends his delicate sensibilities in one way or another. Dishonesty, resent, poor personal hygiene (though Edward really can’t say anything after the mending holes comment), er, thoughts about ‘that pretty young boy with the talented tongue’-

Mantra: Unfortunately neither from nor about Edward. I’m heartbroken.

SOS: -And…what’s pretty obviously Edward’s next victim, Froggy McBain.

Mantra: Oh god, that poor guy! His high school life must have been nothing but one gigantic pantsing!

SOS: Froggy is loading a crate onto a truck, and…’damn, there looked like there was some good shit in there, and as soon as he got his share he was going to hit it and hit it hard…’ I think that means he’s smuggling drugs. I’m not very knowledgeable about these things. And you can tell he’s going to be Edward’s victim because his thoughts sort of…permeate the narration and go on for about three lines, where other are brushed over in a sentence. And that’s a FANTASTIC way of showing what it looks like when Edward zeroes in on someone and concentrates on them, as opposed to just letting the thoughts from different people flow through his head.

Mantra: Of course, Edward’s involvement is pretty much cemented when we see him abruptly veer off course and go after Froggy. And of course, it doesn’t even occur to him how this is pretty much EXACT what freaking happened in Chicago. In control, are we, Eddie?

SOS: Though it is interesting that even before he established his MO, the two people Edward killed were still both criminals. Although the fact that criminal thoughts draw more attention, especially from someone as, well, prudish as Edward, explains the coincidence, it still makes me wonder if Edward was being so drawn here because on some subconscious level, he realises that it’s easier to rationalise accidentally killing a criminal than waiting to get crazy from bloodlust and accidentally murder an innocent old grandma or something.

Mantra: Or his brain remembers what happened in Chicago and is going, ‘CRIMINAL THOUGHTS? THE LAST TIME WE HEARD THAT, WE HAD THE OMG BESTEST ORGASM EVER, MOAR NAO PLZ.’

SOS: And it’s very interesting that this murder is what really kicks Edward into the vigilante killing-spree lifestyle, instead of that of Reggie. With Reggie, Edward entered the fray in order to directly save an innocent and no matter what the outcome, we can definitely say that one person at least benefitted from Edward’s actions. He was interrupting a very violent crime that many see as completely unforgivable, and he had no intention of killing Reggie until Reggie had attacked him and would have most certainly killed him had he been human. And even then, it was clear that it wasn’t EDWARD doing the killing, so much as his dark side.

Although drugs most certainly ruin lives, Edward was still interrupting a passive crime, and we can tell that he wasn’t doing it to save anyone. And Edward is completely lucid and in control throughout this confrontation, so it was ALL him. And you can argue that with Reggie, Edward couldn’t have done much except directly intervene, because by the time he got the police to believe his story and rush to the rescue (and remember, he tends to be distrusted due to the PREDATOR!!! thing), it definitely would have been too late. But absolutely NOTHING here is stopping Edward from getting proper law enforcement involved.

Mantra: Not to mention the hypocrisy. Considering how Edward is pretty much a drug addict himself. Not to mention how drug addicts can be rehabilitated a whole lot easier than someone who can only get off if his partner is unwilling and hurting, so there’s a far greater chance of Froggy being redeemed one day if he’d lived.

SOS: Edward sneaks over to where Froggy is and…we actually get a fairly…awkward piece of prose. ‘He could see the broken lock where the door had been forced, could see the dark man-shapes slinking underneath it and out again…’ I don’t know, ‘man-shapes’ just seems like a really…weird way to describe figures in the dark, and it kind of sound unintentionally hilarious too. And it makes no sense that Edward’s sight is good enough to see a broken lock and yet not humans, especially since it’s dark, so his eyes should be working better than normal. And I’m really not sure what the ‘slinking underneath it’ could mean, because all I can see is people squeezing through the little gap under the door, and I’m pretty sure that’s not what’s happening…

Mantra: But we do get a nice fishslap after that, though, as the crates that the men are stealing are labelled as ‘medical supplies’. It’s SO totally full of morphine.

SOS: They apparently have a lookout, who, according to Edward, can’t see him. And he knows that because he’s standing in the shadows. I…I don’t think it’d work like that. I mean, Edward is REALLY FREAKING PALE, and when you’re that pale, the ambient light reflects off of you, and you end up being really, really conspicuous in the dark. It’d make sense if Edward was hiding on a roof or something, because the lookout wouldn’t be looking in that direction, or was exploiting his good eye sight by spying on them from REALLY far away…but neither is the case here, so I’m a bit confused.

Mantra: I’m fairly certain Edward is being an unreliable narrator again, though. He’s just reassuring himself that there’s no way the situation can go wrong and that humans have far too weak eyes to spot him, so that he can persuade himself to stay there and watch on, and maybe convince himself that they deserve to be killed. I mean, otherwise, it’d make no sense why he’d think this, ‘…it wouldn’t have mattered if they had [seen him], because Edward could hear them all, hear their filthy thoughts…’ Because his mind-reading doesn’t really matter at all in this situation.

SOS: Unless, of course, he’s already decided that he’s going to kill all of them, and his mind-reading will allow him to track them. And it doesn’t matter now if they see him and react violently, because he was already going to engage them and kill them. Which just makes this section even more horrible because he’d barely seen these people and listened to their thoughts for 5 minutes, and he’s already made a judgement as to whether they deserve the freaking capital punishment or not.

The thoughts from Froggy again permeates the narration, and it’s even more ironic here, because his thoughts really weren’t that different from Edward’s at all. And I wonder if he was targeting Froggy this way because Froggy reminded him of himself, and this is some weird way that he’s releasing the self-loathing that’s been accumulating since the start of this chapter. I guess he sounds a little too self-righteous here for that to be the case, but that’s still an idea...

Mantra: Or it’s just because he’s no better than Froggy and his friends.

Oh yeah, and it’s confirmed here that it IS indeed opiates in the crate. I’m SO awesome.

Edward briefly shows what could be his principles, being all disgusted by the past crimes these people have committed, but it doesn’t last long.

SOS: In fact, it doesn’t last any more than that paragraph. He might have intervened because he was outraged at their crime and was ridding society of a bunch of unrepentant criminals or whatever else he wanks up to sooth his guilt later, but it becomes immediately obvious that Edward isn’t doing this for any altruistic purpose, but is merely, again, venting his frustration and indulging in his addiction. He interrupts Froggy’s gang, and this happens:

‘They all jumped satisfactorily, and while he felt a familiar impotent anger when they all relaxed at the sight of the kid who stepped out from the deepest shadows, it was largely surmounted by a sense of amusement.

They really have no idea.’

This isn’t about justice. This is…this is an EGO-TRIP! Edward is lording his superior power over these guys! He’s revelling in their fear and goddamned ANTICIPATING the upcoming bloodshed, because he’s venting all of his anger at the people who patronised him because he looked like a kid! Look at the way he describes these people’s reactions, ‘They all jumped SATISFACTORILY.’! Do I even have to say what’s wrong with this?

Mantra: Nope, you said it all. Edward’s just proving how big his dick is to these people.

SOS: So yeah, he might have stepped in because he saw that these people were habitual criminals, but he definitely didn’t end up killing them because they were criminals. He was just doing it as personal vengeance against everyone who’d ever dismissed or patronised to him! He wasn’t killing these people because they were drug sellers, but because they reminded him of- of that deacon that refused to let him into Grace Church, for example!

Mantra: As opposed to how he killed Reggie because Reggie tried to murder him (and because his vampire side had firmly taken over by then and he couldn’t stop himself). Yes, he killed Reggie for the blood, but that action was set off by attempted murder. Whereas his actions here are set off by…being underestimated.

SOS: It’s increasingly obvious that Edward is SO totally doing this as a way of venting as one of the gang members tells him to run home to his mother, and while Edward is immediately resentful, he keeps mockingly smiling in their face and patronising right back to them, while trying to hide his fangs, not because of a fear of exposure, but to keep the gang members underestimating him and ignorant.

He’s TAUNTING them, guys. He’s inciting and provoking them and HOPING that they’d attack him, so he’d have a reason to hit back. He’s standing around, leisurely bantering with them, luring them into a false sense of security, so that when the moment comes, they’ll experience the maximum amount of fear. What he’s doing here is planned and calculated and in cold-blood, and it’s fucking CREEPY.

Mantra: And made infinitely worse because you just know that he’s rationalising all of this as dealing out justice. This is why Light Yagami made me want to punch his face in, you know. Pretentious mass-murderers are annoying.

SOS: And because he’s acting like a vampire and giving in to the dark side here, his powers aid him, and he intercepts Arnie before he had the chance to draw his knife. And all the while, it’s more than obvious that Edward is enjoying this SO very much, describing ‘that delicious surge of fear’ and basically revelling in his power…apparently having forgotten what the source of this power is.

Mantra: He throws Arnie away and he lands on ‘a tarp-covered pile of pallets’. I, for one, refuse to believe that’s an accident. Edward made sure he’d land there, because he doesn’t want Arnie to die yet. That would be boring and anti-climatic, having them die before they had the chance to wallow in their fear and cower before him. No, he wants to keep them alive so he can toy with them more and show them just how pathetic they are, and let those bastards know not to call him a child. He’s playing with his food, is what he’s doing. I mean, he’s laughing and grinning and eagerly issuing challenges and all!

Well, Edward keeps playing with his food, being all gleeful and jumping up at the last moment so they’d run into each other and everything. And normally, I’d be applauding that, except for how he still freaking thinks that this is dealing out justice. Delusional people irritate me. They need a good smacking. Especially people who are THIS mind-bogglingly delusional. He’s thinking, ‘who was the boy now?’ and insisting on talking to the gang members as though they’re children, and yet he STILL doesn’t fucking realise he’s doing this out of nothing but personal vindication? What an IDIOT!

SOS: And then there was this.

‘It was over too soon, much too soon for Edward’s liking. He could have gone on all night, loosing his fury on this pack of hyenas, proving over and over again that he was no boy, and that he was the one with the advantage, and to make them pay for their actions, for underestimating him.’

Just…HOW? How can ANYONE be THIS deep in denial?

Mantra: Oh yeah, Edward, that was VERY just of you there. You’re definitely doing this in order to protect society. You’re beating them up because they sell drugs. This has NOTHING to do with your insecurity about your dick. At all. You’re not proving anything at all. Even though you technically admitted that you are. But nope, this is ALL about justice. *Throws up hands in frustration*

SOS: Edward continues jabbing at Froggy’s friends as they run away, calling them ‘nothing but a bunch of dumb common criminals’. God, even knowing what happens in Chapter 6, it’s really hard not to hate Edward now.

Mantra: Wait a minute…he’s letting them go? He’s just…letting them run? Dude, they SAW his fangs. They saw him jump a kilometre into the air! They saw a scrawny little teenager fling grown, muscular men around like they weigh nothing! Sure, they might rationalise that and hand wave it or something, but there’s still a chance they’d get SUSPICIOUS. I mean, they probably won’t think VAMPIRE!!!, but they’d definitely think there was SOMETHING going on! I don’t think the Imperials are going to be happy about that. Seriously, THIS IS NOT HOW YOU UPHOLD A MASQUERADE.

SOS: Edward’s far too busy having a power trip to bother with them. And they’re probably gonna be hunted down by Imperial officials at one point and killed, as well as anyone they interacted with that they might have leaked information to, as well as anyone those people interacted with…so, instead of saving anyone, Edward had just doomed an untold number of people. Truly, he’s doing this out of justice.

Mantra: And then Edward decides to ramp up the hypocrisy even more, with this:

‘Well, one of them was stupid-or rather, his desperation for the morphine they’d been trying to steal made him stupid…’

Well, you were stupid - or rather, your desperation for the reassurance that you’d been trying to get made you stupid.

SOS: I swear, it’s pure GENIUS that Edward’s first victim is a rapist, who mirrors the rapist sides of Edward brought on by his vampirism, and his second is a drug addict, who again mirrors his mentality. There’s always that sense of hypocrisy, that Edward was hardly better than his victims, running throughout.

Edward compares the gang to animals AGAIN (which is really starting to piss me the fuck off), and then is disgusted at Froggy’s addiction. Because god knows EDWARD had never been addicted to something, right? *STABBITY STAB*

Mantra: Hilariously enough, Edward calls Froggy a ‘pitiful excuse for a man’. Because you, Edward, are the very epitome of humanity. You know what it means to be a man, alright, Mr. ‘[I] was a vampire’.

SOS: Froggy runs for the crate, and Edward easily blocks him, and so he runs for the truck, loaded with similar crates, and really, watching him so panicked and desperate actually evokes an odd sort of sympathy. He’s so…pathetic that it’s hard to be as repulsed by him as I was by Reggie. And if I keep the withdrawal symptoms of Morphine in mind? It’s not hard to feel very sorry for Froggy at all.

Mantra: Not to mention, there’s a far better target to direct your anger and hate in this scene: Edward. Because hypocrisy is irritating, dammit, and the more he freaking LAUGHS at Froggy’s desperation, the more I’m reminded of Edward’s own little drug problem, and that just makes me want to punch his face in.

SOS: Froggy gets increasingly desperate and decides to…take drastic measures, and that’s where the action gets a tiny bit confusing.

‘…he turned and he dashed for the half-loaded truck. A dark chuckle escaped Edward at the pathetic desperation that he could both see and hear.

(so close, so close, needed it, was right here, not about to let some sorry little son of a bitch kid keep me from it, no, it’s mine, do the same thing like with the last one who tried)

Edward had only just had time to turn…’

Why did Froggy feel the need to attack Edward now? He was running for the truck, which is loaded with Morphine, and Edward hadn’t taken any action to stop him yet. I mean, yeah, he could probably deduce that Edward WILL stop him somehow, but it seems like his priority would be running to the truck first, and he’d only get desperate when Edward blocked him AGAIN, showing him that there’s no way he can get to his drugs. Also…since when did Edward turn AWAY from Froggy? I’m a bit confused as to the location of the crate and the truck, and it sounds like Edward had his eyes on Reggie the entire time…so unless Froggy had magical teleportation powers, Edward shouldn’t have to TURN to fend off an attack, right?

Mantra: I don’t really care, because in the very next phrase, Froggy shoots Edward. I mean, I know nothing’s gonna come of this, but still. That bastard needed to be taught a lesson. Now, shoot him in the head while he’s distracted.

SOS: Though the onomatopoeia used to describe the gun going off did make me GRRR just for one second, likely because I’ve sporked far too much Bound For Glory.

The bullet gets Edward in the side, and his reaction is very telling, ‘no, dammit, I was winning, and I am going to show them!’ This has never been about justice. EVER. It’s all about vindication and venting and vengeance and other words that coincidentally start with ‘v’.

Mantra: Of course, he starts bleeding, and we all know what happens when Edward bleeds - he goes Berserk (that was a fantastic manga, by the way). He almost immediately switches from pain to fury because he’d lost HIS blood, and it’s really quite an interesting look into a vampire’s psychology, with the way they obsessed over blood - not just blood they’re going to drink, but blood that they’ve already drunk. Very few vampire stories explore that.

SOS: Edward gets all angry because how DARE Froggy retaliate! This was supposed to be HIS ego-trip!

Mantra: And Froggy actually takes my advice and shoots again, unfortunately not in the head. Alas.

SOS: Oh, and Edward was shot because he was leaping at Froggy and was in midair, so he couldn’t dodge. Because JUST because you’re faster and quicker, doesn’t automatically mean you’re a better fighter. Someone untrained like Edward still makes stupid, STUPID mistakes like going airborne in a fight. And the onomatopoeia when the gun goes off makes me GRRRR again. Sporking makes you sensitive to the oddest things…

Mantra: This time, the bullet gets him in the chest, and again, I’m impressed with the way his obsession with blood is portrayed. It really makes sense why a vampire would be obsessed about avoiding injury.

SOS: Though it still makes me want to go stabbity-stab on him, because…well, ‘no! The blood! His blood! His life, all leaking out onto the ground, and with it his strength and his speed and his power, no, no, no!’

This isn’t about preventing himself from starving and needing blood again, because it’d mean he’d have to drink more. This isn’t about potentially dying due to the loss of blood. He’s just upset because oh noes, he’ll be less POWERFUL now. And considering that he got into this fight to show off his power to begin with? *STABBITY STAB*

Mantra: And then there’s all that emphasise of how it’s HIS blood. He’s completely wiping from his mind the fact that he’d STOLEN the blood, by killing its previous owner. And by thinking about it this way, he can nicely avoid having to think about the murder he’s committed, effectively sanitising it. See? It’s this kind of cowardly, hypocritical behaviour that makes it impossible for me to root for you.

SOS: Apparently, Froggy had been trying to get away with a crate, and what follows is one tiny, tiny moment where I genuinely feel sorry for Edward.

‘(Goddammit, why won’t you die?!)

“I can’t die, Froggy,” Edward hissed…’

That. That is sad.

Mantra: Well, Edward is described as having clammy skin as he jumps for Reggie, and the way he describes his body ‘[crying] out for food, for blood, for life’? I can see the sadness. Because those symptoms and those thoughts are SO stereotypically that of an addict, and yet Edward continues to call Froggy a ‘scum’, and the complete lack of self-awareness here is just PATHETIC.

SOS: Though it’s interesting to know that lack of human blood makes even their regeneration slow down. It’s another reason for why Edward would become so dependent upon human blood so quickly, as well as brilliant foreshadowing.

Mantra: Froggy tries to run, but instead slips and falls, and then there’s blood. And it’s quite obvious what happens next.

SOS: Again, I have to applaud Mrs. Hyde for the prose in this section. It really perfectly captures the sense of time stretching out and everything being in slow motion, which is damned hard to do in a prose-medium where the readers decide the rate at which they read. That takes TALENT. We’ll close off here with the implied murder of Froggy. I’d wanted to do the rest of this chapter in one part, but alas, I will never be able to accurate estimate how much ranty fangirlism I’ll engage in.

Before I bid you farewell, I’d just like to talk a little bit about this scene as a whole, specifically how SAD it is. And I don’t mean sad as in regretful that Edward falls so completely. I mean that how very PATHETIC Edward is in this scene and how sad the lengths his addiction drives him to. And by addiction, I don’t just mean blood. Edward’s lust for blood only really comes into play near the very end of this scene, spurring him to attack and eat Reggie. When he first interrupted, there wasn’t any bloodlust and he was completely and perfectly lucid.

But throughout this scene, there was a tone of…of bitterness and almost childish vindication in Edward’s thoughts. Like I said, he was basically just showing off here and going, ‘Oh yeah? You think I’m a kid? Well, could a kid do THIS? Huh?’ And then flouncing and destroying everything in a tantrum. It’s all of his frustration at being continuously rejected and dismissed exploding out…and the sadness is the futility of his actions. He clearly won’t help ANYTHING by beating the gang up, and if anything, he’s just made belonging even more difficult by indulging in his bitterness. And every sentence spoken in condemnation of Froggy and his friends just reflects right back on Edward!

Like how I said I felt sorry for Froggy seeing his desperate, I feel sorry for Edward in much the same way. He’s desperate for belonging, he NEEDS to prove to himself that he’s better than a criminal, and yet every single act he performs in this section is just so futile and in some cases actually damaging to his goal that…he really just comes off as incredibly pathetic.

Anyway, see you next time, where we get the first POV switch of the series.

Go Forward to: Chapter 3 Part 2, Section D

Go Back to: Chapter 3 Part 2,  Section B