Ah the holidays draw near as Life and Death draws to a close. I’m glad we can all ring in the new year without anything Twilight in our lives.
Life and Death, Epilogue: An Occasion Part 1
At this point, Twilight and Life and Death are so different it seems pointless to even compare them since I can’t do a side-by-side reading. Seriously, in Twilight Edward takes Bella to prom, and in Life and Death Beau and Edythe attend Beau’s funeral.
Yep, Archie and Eleanor faked Beau’s death in a way I find very confusing:
I didn’t know the stranger’s name. I hadn’t wanted to know every detail about how Archie and Eleanor had faked my death. I just knew that someone roughly my size who had been recently interred had taken one last trip. I assumed that all the identifiers had been destroyed—teeth, prints, etc. I felt pretty bad for the guy, but I suppose he didn’t mind. He hadn’t felt anything when the truck veered into a ravine somewhere in Nevada and burst into flames. His family had already mourned. They had a tombstone with his name on it. Like my parents had now
I’m not surprised that in a Stephenie Meyer book, “I hadn’t wanted to know every detail” actually means, “I’m going to give you a fuckton of unimportant details.”
Yet, I still have questions. Did they take this body from the car before anyone actually found his body…or did they dig up the charred remains? Because if they did take the body from the car before anyone had a chance to find it…why didn’t they just leave that body and fake Beau’s death without a body? Given at least one situation was going to be missing a body, why not let it be Beau? That poor other family!
The rest of the vampires attend the funeral, and lay the groundwork to have Edythe be homeschooled next year…for some reason. I guess to keep Beau company since he’ll never be able to leave their house again? There’s one throwaway line that says the Cullens don’t want to leave quickly as it would seem suspicious, but why are they planning on sticking around next year? I think people would not be fussed if they left after like a month. Seriously, Beau will be able to hang out in the forest with his new family and not much else.
Bonnie is also at the funeral, and it’s pretty clear she knows Beau is not really dead. Because werewolves getting involved was the loose end everyone needed to be tied up.
Beau and Edythe watch as everyone heads home except Charlie, and Beau finally expresses grief over the situation. Edythe apologizes to Beau, saying this wasn’t what she wanted for him. Reasonably, Beau asks what she did want.
She sighed. “Best-case scenario? I hoped that… I would get strong enough that we could be together while you were human. That we could be… something more than just boyfriend and girlfriend. Someday, if you didn’t outgrow me, more than just husband and wife. We wouldn’t be able to grow old together, but I would have stayed with you while you grew old. I would have been with you through all the years of your life.” She paused for a second. “And then, when your life was over… I wouldn’t have wanted to stay without you. I would have found a way to follow.”
She looked startled when I laughed. It wasn’t a very robust laugh, but I was surprised that it felt good.
Even fucking Beau realizes what an awful and creepy plan that was.
They also chat about how it could have played out differently if Beau was changed when he was a little older. They act like it’s better this happened now, but I think Beau could have had a chance to leave things on better terms with his parents. The last conversation he had with Charlie was terrible!
I blinked a few times. “Wow. I’m… super flattered. You would really marry me, Edythe?”
“Is that a proposal?”
I thought for half a second. “Sure. Sure it is. Will you?”
She threw her arms around me. “Of course I will. Whenever you want.”
…I guess why not? But equally why yes right now? Edythe may be like a hundred, but Beau is actually 17! Can’t he have five minutes to get used to being a vampire before getting engaged?
Anyway, Beau and Edythe (and Meyer) try to convince us all that it doesn’t make a difference that things played out how they did because Beau always would have had to be a vampire. Otherwise, Edythe would have just killed herself after he got old and died. CALL ME CRAZY, but what if they both have the emotional maturity of 17 year olds and this plan is severely flawed?
Whatever, because werewolves show up, furious because they think the Cullens have killed Beau and forced him to become a vampire. What a wacky misunderstanding.
During a tense, porch face-off, Beau recaps the plot for the werewolves. However, because the pack-leader isn’t a descendent of the werewolves the Cullens made their pact with…Beau, Edythe and Carine need to go talk to Bonnie who is a direct descendent so she can make the final call.
Why didn’t Bonnie just come to this meeting in the first place? If there was even a chance that the Cullens hadn’t killed Beau but had given him a choice to become a vampire, her attendance would have saved everyone a lot of time and stress.
Edythe looked at me. “Yes. They want to meet at a neutral location so that Bonnie can see you and make the call.”
Because the Cullen’s porch hinders their ability to make a decision about Beau?
“See me? But I can’t get that close….”
“You can do it, Beau,” Edythe said. “You’re the most rational newborn I’ve ever seen.”
Yes, Beau is apparently the calmest, most perfect new vampire ever. He basically was always destined to be a vampire. Meyer has this incredible knack to overcomplicate so many aspects of her story and then massively oversimplify the rest of if. HOW DOES SHE DO IT?!
As Edythe, Beau and Carine prepare to meet the werewolves, Archie reveals this:
“I didn’t see them,” he whispered. “I didn’t know they were coming. I can’t see now—I can’t see this meeting. It’s like it doesn’t exist.”
I could see that this was news only to me. The others had heard it before we’d arrived, and Edythe had already picked it out of his head.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“We don’t know,” Edythe answered sharply. “And we don’t have time to figure it out now.”
I can’t imagine this will have any real consequences, but I thought it was important to share and build tension before Matt’s conclusion tomorrow.
“I’m glad we can all ring in the new year without anything twilight in our lives” DON’T JINX IT!!
Anyway, I can’t imagine I’ll ever read Life and Death, but I enjoyed this all the same(: nice job!
I guess this is the moment we find out Meyer is releasing a RE-gender-swapped Twilight where Bella is a vampire and Edward is a human.
I think the whole bit with the body is that they found someone who has been in a car accident a little while ago, who had been buried. They found out the accident details (though I don’t know why. Maybe to insure the person was innocent?) And they dug up the body and reburied it in Beau’s grave.
Also what was that bit about Edyth wanting to get strong enough to be with Beau? She’s the vampire, right? Shouldn’t he have wanted to get strong enough for her?
Haha what? Edythe is a woman so she knows instinctively that she’s the one who has to do all the work to make the relationship last.
I think that meant she would be strong enough to restrain herself physically so they could bone without her killing Beau with the strength of her vampire vagina?
I thought they did like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Eraser: snagged an approximately Beau-like body and then staged a fiery car wreck with it, thus removing any identifying features and ensuring a closed casket. Although the text is pretty ambiguous and I can understand the assumption that Meyer would choose the least sensible actions for her characters.
I found this to really be the most horrific part of the story. Beau and Edythe watch this funeral while carrying on a conversation and feeling a twinge of pity. All I thought was how absolutely terrible for Beau’s parents, especially Charlie, considering their last conversation. Beau’s all, yeah that’s kind of sad, while Charlie’s life is over considering he’s a parent losing a child. I remember be irrationally angry at the trite way Meye decided to write this. Whatever, what more can I expect from her.
Yeah it feels like there’s just this very vague, passing empathy for Beau’s parents. We’re supposed to just be like, “Oh, they’ll be fiiiine. TRUE LOVE PREVAILED. Woulda happened anyway.”