Midnight Sun

When three strange vampires visit the Cullen’s baseball game, Meyer sets up the second primary conflict in Midnight Sun. One of these vampires, James, is a traditional antagonist. He and his comrades are vampires, but unlike the Cullens, they do kill humans for blood. James, like Edward, has supernatural abilities—his make him an excellent tracker. This ability is triggered when the Cullens try to protect Bella at the baseball game, and James becomes immediately obsessed with capturing and killing Bella. As Edward describes to Bella, “it’s his favorite game, and we’ve just made it his most exciting game ever” (533). James’s obsession with Bella puts her again in life-threatening danger, from which Edward will have to save her, while also furthering Bella’s perpetual desirability. The danger this situation puts Bella in reintroduces Edward’s inner conflict between desiring to be with Bella and believing himself evil for endangering her in the first place.

Edward’s first impulse is to protect Bella, even at the expense of the safety of both of their families. However, Edward must put his desire to always be with Bella on hold when Bella produces the most intelligent plan to escape James. Even Emmett is impressed with the plan, saying, “she’s diabolical” (520). This plan, which proves Bella’s own ability to help rescue herself from danger, forces Edward to both endanger some of his family for her sake and rely on others to protect what is most precious to him. Bella proves how far she is willing to go to protect her own family and the Cullens. When she creates a rouse to trick James, she risks her own life and hurts her own father deeply. As she leaves, Edward thinks, “I knew she would never cause anyone this kind of pain, especially not her father, if there were any other way at all” (529). In the short term, this defies Bella’s usual instinct to protect her own family, although in the long term, it is best for Charlie’s safety.

Chapter 24 serves a buildup of tension as Meyer delays the inevitable fight between James and the Cullens. This chapter is also an opportunity for Meyer to fill in details not available in Twilight, the novel to which Midnight Sun is a companion. Much of Midnight Sun’s plot is a perfect match to Twilight’s, only from the perspective of Edward, rather than Bella. Chapter 24 represents a notable place where the two must split up, and therefore this chapter’s material is new, even if the details of Edward’s, Emmett’s, and Carlisle’s attempts to catch James only briefly delay the fight that the reader knows will soon take place.