T.02.12 Intruder

In Which Jacob Is Mysterious and Bella is Dumb

Bella wakes up (shot). Jacob is breaking into her window, she yells at him, smacks him around and faints. Hey, the flashback light is flashing like mad, I wonder why? Essentially, Jacob can't tell her what's wrong with him, but since he promised not to hurt her and has expanded that to mean emotional distress, he's in a bit of a bind. We, of course, know what's going on and he gives her the clue to remember the "scary stories" scene. I was waiting for him to pull out a copy of the first book with a bookmark at chapter 6, but no luck.

After he leaves, Bella goes back to sleep and dreams. This allows her to figure it all out and she pegs Jacob as a Werewolf and she realizes he's part of Sam's pack. Really? Why do this via dream sequence? Why not give your protagonist some brains? Gods, it's bad enough that Bella is physically incapable thanks to Meyer's stable of super-powered monsters, but she's also constantly prevented from doing anything intelligent. Here's a golden opportunity to have Bella sit down and put the pieces together. Instead, Meyer hands her the answer via dream.

She wakes up after her epiphany and tries to rush off to see Jacob, but it's really early and she runs into Charlie downstairs. He's leading a hunt to track down the big, bad wolves. Bella has a crisis moment.

WHY?

Bella's hysterical card has expired. She's got all morning to put 2+2 together. She should know that Victoria is after her or at LEAST believe that Laurent is still out in the woods. She knows Victoria isn't a wahmpire and she knows that Jacob spelled out the Vamp vs WWolf thing way back when. How many more clues do you need? Apparently one, the clue where Jacob tells her outright they don't kill people. I'll bet that comes soon. I bet there's a lot of misunderstandings first.

SumUp D-

Duplicate boyfriends. Dream Sequences. Jacob the tongue-tied. Bella the idiot.

I honestly think Meyer doesn't like her protagonist very much. She certainly doesn't draw her as being very good at figuring things out on her own. The big mystery in the first book was Edward's wahmpireism. Bella had some early ideas, but it essentially boiled down to her being spoon-fed all the information she needed in a ludicrously simplistic manner. Jacob spelled out the vampire facts for her at the beach. Edward refused to give her any misinformation (even with perfect reasons) and either told her the truth outright or just acted mysterious. Once she had the base foundation we got three chapters of Q&A to fill in the rest of the structure. Viola, Bella didn't have to do much of anything.

Now that Bella doesn't have all the pieces laid out for her and has to do a tiny bit of work, she fails to do anything except accept the situation as given. How does she reach "Werewolf"? Dream sequence reveal, also known as deus ex machina. Then, she has a little misdirection thrown at her about dead hikers and wolves by Charlue. What does she conclude? Jacob is a murderer. Which you'd think she wouldn't bat an eye at, what with Edward's history of bloodshed. But no, she's all aflutter and upset. This means she can't draw the obvious line between Victoria or Laurent, one of whom has to be lurking in the woods, and the deaths of hikers. Guess the dream sequence should have highlighted the part about Werewolves being Native Protectors.

So there will be a big confrontation and lots of Q&A about Werewolves. We'll learn they're the good guys and Bella will again be surrounded by super-powerful beings to protect her from the other, super-powerful beings. Somehow this Werewolf and Victoria battle will draw Edward into danger and Bella will have to do something. Hopefully, she'll have to use some skill or brains to solve the problem, but I doubt it.