Midnight Sun tells the events of Twilight through the eyes of Edward Cullen, which means there are some interesting revelations through the story, among those what he was really doing while he watched Bella sleep. Stephenie Meyer shared her own version of vampires and werewolves in the novel Twilight, released in 2005. The book was the first in a series of four that told the story of the romance between vampire Edward Cullen and mortal Bella Swan, with werewolf Jacob Black in-between, as well as a clan of vampires who were against their relationship.
The Twilight series was a big hit, though it also drew a lot of criticism as the relationship between Edward and Bella isn’t really one to look up to, yet the novels fulfilled their purpose and entertained a whole generation of readers. The Twilight fandom grew even bigger when the books made the jump to the big screen between 2008 and 2012, but before the first movie came out – and just days after the fourth novel, Breaking Dawn, was published – 12 chapters of a fifth book, titled Midnight Sun, were leaked. As a result, Meyer decided to stop writing it and didn’t offer any updates until May 2020, when she announced that the book was finally coming out in August.
Midnight Sun is a retelling of Twilight but now with Edward as narrator, offering a new perspective to the story fans already know as well as to the relationship with his siblings and with himself. The book has some dark revelations, with Edward constantly fighting against “the monster inside him” and doing his best to keep what’s left of his humanity, but it also offers answers to some questions fans didn’t know they had, such as what Edward did while he watched Bella sleep. Vampires in Meyer’s world don’t sleep, so Edward had too much time on his hands and used it to watch Bella sleep, as uncomfortable as that is to many readers and viewers. Midnight Sun didn’t skip that part of Twilight and revealed that what Edward did while Bella slept was kill spiders.
During all those hours Bella spent sleeping, Edward did what he could to make sure nothing harmed her, including spiders. Given how many times he had gone through the high school experience and everything else he had learned in decades, Edward even mentioned the type of spider that crawled into Bella’s room, so he knew the bite could be painful, and he really wouldn’t let anything hurt Bella, so he crushed it. Edward also did some maintenance around the Swan house, though for his own interest, as he brought some oil with him to grease the mechanism and thus be able to move silently.
Meyer’s intentions with Midnight Sun were to show the other side of Edward Cullen, mostly his (even more) problematic side, which doesn’t help the creepiness of his actions. Edward sneaking into Bella’s room before they got to know each other has been one of the most criticized points of Twilight, and reading those scenes from Edward’s perspective definitely prove that his actions weren’t really from a place of love but one of obsession, and not even the guilt he momentarily felt can excuse what he did – but at least he got rid of some spiders.