Breaking Dawn: Final Assessment
ZeldaQueen: Howdy folks, here's where I post my final musings on Breaking Dawn. Enjoy!
Bella
I guess you could argue that Bella was a little more assertive and less submissive in this book than the others, but that’s kind of like arguing that being blown up is slightly less painful than ritual seppuku. Not to mention that it’s a case of too little, too late. If Bella had starting to stand up for herself a little more in the second book and gone from there, it’d have been more impressive. As it was, we only get two thirds of this book to get anything.
There’s also the fact that Bella is mostly only able to be strong and brave when she’s a vampire - meaning that as a human she was unable to be those things? I know Meyer hand waves the fighting thing as a product of high standards, that of course being surrounded by werewolves and vampires would leave Bella looking weaker and less able to keep up. Except that I never got the impression that Bella could take care of herself or be particularly strong amongst regular humans. So what’s the excuse for that? It’s just another case of human hate, that humans are weak and shallow and incapable of even trying to defend themselves against the supernatural or compete with their beauty or love or knowledge. And that’s another thing: Bella never speaks out against it. The perks of humanity vs. supernatural has been a strong theme in fantasy and science fiction and horror for some time, I know, and if we got that I’d be fine (one of my favorite manga lives by the theme that “ARMS will never defeat humans!”). But we are never shown at all in this book that there is any reason that humanity is preferable to being a vampire. Bella is told that she will have to deal with continuous bloodlust, but has none. She is able to hold back the temptations to eat her dad and the hiker and Jenks. She is self-controlled enough to impress the Cullens. We are only briefly told about her feeling any thirst at all, and then it’s dropped entirely. Compare this to the party in New Moon and how Edward spends the series crying about how he constantly wants to eat people, by the way, and this gets even more ridiculous. Bella is warned that she’ll never have children as a vampire. No problem, not only did she not want any originally but she still gets Renesmee (who I shall talk about more later on). Bella can’t eat human food? Who cares! Bella can’t see her family anymore? She is able to keep ties with Charlie anyway and leaves her mother up the river with no problems. Not only that, but Bella also gets a power that even scares the Volturi and impressive reflexes and speed and strength. So what’s the downside? What was there supposed to be that made her at all regret her decision?
All that aside though, Meyer still sees fit to shoehorn in scenes of Bella still being a whiny little kid who acts like a puppy towards Edward. She literally begs for sex on their honeymoon while being treated like a silly child. We hear that she is all upset and crying because mean old Leah has the gall to call her out on her past behavior towards Jacob. She knows or at least strongly suspects that Edward is breaking her things and monitoring all of her behavior and making under-the-table deals about her, but she all but ignores it - including the one where he agreed to let Jacob sleep with her if she got an abortion. She never calls Edward out on any of this, never shows any signs of anger or frustration over this, and never gives any indication of putting it all together or even remembering it later. For all it plays into her actions, I have no idea why Meyer sees fit to include any of these revelations. I guess it’s supposed to be that Bella thinks Edward’s being sweet and protective, but he’s not. Any sane woman (that being the key phrase here) would realize that, to paraphrase Mrs. Marcellus, “It’s one thing for a man to be protective of his wife. It’s another thing to spy on her odometer, break her truck, and offer her to other men for sex”.
Then there’s the entire pregnancy thing, which was seriously sped through and really felt unrealistic. I mean, I’m not saying it’s impossible, but Bella is extremely adamant that she doesn’t want children, insists that she thinks babies are a pain and never wanted any, believes that it’s physically impossible to have any with Edward anyway, and then finds out that she’s apparently several months pregnant after a few days…and her first thought is of how much she loves the fetus and wants a baby that’s pretty like Edward. We get a few pages of shock but no second thoughts, no considerations to how it’ll change her life, nothing. Meyer seems to be unaware that the nine months are pretty important for mother/baby bonding during the pregnancy (I guess this is supposed to be more of Meyer‘s “personal experience”, since she says that she dropped the idea of going to law school and wanted to be a full-time mother after having her first child). And again, Bella never seems disturbed by the fact that she’s dying and going through her pregnancy at a really fast rate or that she’s guzzling down human blood like they’re chocolate shakes. Not a single mention of her being the seriously bothered by this. I suppose the blood-drinking thing was supposed to be some attempt at horror, but even that falls flat because it makes no sense. Like I said before, babies don’t eat the food their mother eats, they absorb the food’s nutrients through the bloodstream. The baby would only get the nutrients in blood, in which case it shouldn’t matter what Bella eats, so long as it contains the correct nutrition. I can only assume that Meyer took health and nutrient courses for when she was pregnant with her children (or at least, you know, a few health classes in school). So how can she miss something like that?
And we get Bella as a vampire. The one thing she’s been literally begging for and whining about and trying to get for the past two books or so. But what does she do as a vampire? Throughout the entire series, she’s insisted that if she were changed, she could fight and keep up with Edward. And what does she spend most of her time doing as a vampire? Having sex.
Edward
He has the hotness thing going for him. Allegedly. And I say “allegedly” because if it weren’t for Rob being in the movies, I’d have no way to visualize him (at least with Bella we just have to imagine Stephanie Meyer). I guess we’re just supposed to use this.
Besides that though, what does Edward have? He has the personality of cardboard. We’re told at one point that he seems to be able to do literally any and everything, which is shakily hand waved with the “doesn’t sleep” excuse (he also says he’s the most learned after Carlisle - so apparently none of the rest of his family feels the slightest inclination to use the nights to study or brush up on anything as well?)
There’s not too much to say about Edward in this. He’s pretty much the same as in the other books: the domineering personality, the abusive behavior, the constant reiterations on how gorgeous he is, etc. Although I do believe that the abortion thing possibly is a new low for him. For God’s sake, how could Meyer think that something like that was endearing? Were we supposed to forgive it because he’s just sooooo upset at the thought of Bella dying that he’s willing to violate her body like that and remove something that she clearly loves and wants? We found out that he was willing to do it to her truck, but dang a fetus is something entirely different! And am I the only one who thinks that such reasoning shows that he cares more about his own happiness than Bella’s? If he really loved Bella and would do whatever it took to make her happy, why would he even consider something like that? If she wants to die for her baby then it might be considered rather stupid of her (please no comments on that, I’m referring to Bella alone and her…unique situation), but it’s still her decision. She’s the one carrying the baby, if she wants to have it at the risk of her own life, he ought to respect that. Now ideally, both of them would sit down and actually talk it out, but this seems impossible for these two, which is another thing I hated about this book. Still, it’s just like it is for the imprinted wolves and it’s just like das_mervin said - these guys don’t care about their “soul mates’” happiness, they care about their own. Which leads us to…
Jacob
Meyer deserves some sort of an award here. I’m sure it’s not easy to take a character who starts out so sweet and likeable and twist him into a smug and irritating jerk.
Because to be honest, I hate him in this. Hate him. From start to finish. He spends his entire part of the book whining about Bella even though he knows she’s married and won’t have him. He goes around angsting and yammering about revenge on Edward and killing himself like he’s some sort of Romeo Montague knock-off. He has some very brief moments of sanity when he listens to Leah’s advice and point of view…and his immediate solution is to imprint, to force his love on a strange girl. When he sees a girl who he bonds with in just a few minutes and clearly shares interests with, he refuses to try to pursue any relationships because he’s still too hung-up on Bella.
And then he imprints. On the daughter of the girl that he’s continually insisted was his One and Only. On the kid who he was heading off to kill not two seconds before declaring undying love for her.
I really don’t know what all about this is the worst - that Jacob, who was supposed to be representative of choice in love, was only able to be romantically satisfied through what was essentially brainwashing? That Meyer expects us to accept this development after trudging through two books of him screaming “BEEEEEELLLLLLLLAAAAAAA!” ala Street Car Named Desire? That he was only able to be at all happy after the aforementioned brainwashing? What sort of a message is all of that? Meyer seems to be telling readers that no effort needs to be put in to get over heartbreak on one’s own, that all it takes is just looking at the right person.
And after the imprinting, well he’s just a jerk. He pretty much takes over Bella and Edward’s roles as parents, butts in when it’s none of their business (Charlie, anyone), doesn’t do so much as stop home to visit his dad, and clearly has romantic intentions for the kid. Oh Meyer, you can dress it up however you want. You don’t fool anyone. It’s made perfectly clear that an imprinted person will eventually marry the person of their desires. With a kid, that’s called “child grooming” and is illegal.
Although I have to wonder, it says on Wikipedia that Meyer’s husband has retired from his job to take care of the children. Makes you wonder.
On a final note, I’ll state my biggest beef with Jacob in this - he completely abandons his obligations as a wolf and protector of humanity to cater to Renesmee. He doesn’t take his job as Alpha because he’s ready to shoulder the responsibility and take up his birthright, he does it because he doesn’t want the fetus destroyed. He doesn’t protect Bella and the Cullens because he’s trying to avert conflict, he’s doing it because he’s already being drawn to the object of his imprinting. He leads Charlie to the newly-transformed Bella just because it looks like Renesmee will be taken away from him, giving no thought whatsoever to the safety of Charlie. There's no warning for Bella and Edward, no assurance that they were prepared in any capacity for this, nothing. And he smiles and shrugs it off. When the Volturi show up, he orders the wolves to stand against them not because a group of notoriously dangerous and bloodthirsty vampires are showing up in a town of unsuspecting folks, but because Renesmee’s in danger. In fact, he stands by and lets the Cullen witnesses go off to eat people because they’re there to protect Renesmee. It’s all but stated that he wouldn’t put up with letting people die otherwise. And no one ever calls him out on this. No one tells him that he’s being selfish or stupid. Because a wolf who’s imprinted is treated like he’s in some wonderful new world and everyone scoots around to accommodate him. No one thinks that Sam is being too mean towards Leah in regards to the Emily thing and no one seriously treats Quil’s imprinting as weird or gross. I might add that Leah’s the only one who seems to be really bothered by Jacob’s imprinting (and this is apparently only because Renesmee is half-vampire) and of course she’s the one nobody listens to. And like I said, Jacob took up an Alpha position for all of this. It’s not like he’s some average Joe who’s being stupid but not hurting anyone except himself. He’s got even more obligations and responsibilities now. He literally has the power to force his pack to do what he wants, and he’s acting in the interest of an infant that he has no relation to and no right to hang around. It’s selfish and I cannot believe anyone could condone it.
Renesmee
I’d say I hated Renesmee too, except I sort of can’t and for one very good reason - I know virtually nothing about her. Oh we get enough to establish her as a Sue: the mental powers, the fact that everyone fawns over her, the fact that she’s so selfless and loving and intelligent. But we aren’t told anything about her, her personality, nothing. She just serves to be carried around like a doll.
It’s been pointed out and I think it’s well worth mentioning again, that the very Sue nature of Renesmee is horrid. Meyer’s made it no secret to the entire world and especially her husband that she considers Edward her ideal man (in other words, she has no problem telling the real life guy she’s married to that she’d have no problem dumping him for an abusive nut she wrote). Now she’s gone and told the whole world exactly what she wishes she has for a child. A sparkly girl who requires absolutely no care, not even a full nine months of pregnancy. And it’s not even like she has no kids of her own and is just showing one more bit of wish fulfillment, oh no. Meyer has three sons. I feel bad for the poor guys myself, they’ve got to grow up knowing that there mother wanted a kid who taught itself everything within weeks of birth.
We get a few tiny interesting bits with Renesmee. Like I said, her budding friendship with Zafrina was kind of interesting, as was her interest in the Romanians. But we get virtually nothing on any of that. I’m sure people would say “oh, she’s only a baby” to hand wave the lack of personality, except that she’s not. She grows up super-fast, she has complete awareness from birth, and everyone treats her as having the intellect of an adult (so apparently Meyer wants a baby that‘s not a baby?). I find it impossible to see her as a baby and thus hold her to adult expectations in those regards. On the other hand, Meyer can’t be bothered to give Bella and Edward personalities, so I guess there was never any hope for their daughter.
I’ve already said about how Renesmee’s super-fast learning doesn’t make much sense, but I’ll repeat it here. Meyer seems to think that when a child biologically reaches a certain age, they suddenly learn how to do something like walking or reading. Except that it’s not the age their body’s at, there’s also the fact that the child has spent that time watching and listening to learn. Renesmee has about a week to observe people walking and reading. There’s also the fact that she does it all perfectly, first time around. I don’t care how smart she is, people still stumble the first time they try things.
So in all for Renesmee? There’s nothing there. She’s just like a pretty doll to be shown off and carried around. She is perfectly well behaved (going out of her way in the womb to avoid causing Bella discomfort), doesn’t need diaper changes, doesn’t need to be taught anything, doesn’t need time-outs, doesn’t get cranky when she’s sleepy, and sleeps through the night within days of birth. And for those of you who thinks “that sounds great” then consider, what exactly is it that causes parents to bond with their children? Isn’t it the trials and tribulations of parenting that makes one really appreciate it and make the child’s love mean something? After all, how hard is it to love something that’s perfect? If I takes more effort to love a child that makes love difficult, isn’t that a more tested love?
Other Characters
I shall lump them all together because it’s not worth splitting them up.
Bella’s friends? They get a chapter before going “bye-bye”. Apparently none of them cared enough about her to give a call or write after leaving for college. And they also all seem to have been completely uninterested in finding out about Bella’s new life as a Cullen or the “tropical disease” she catches, both of which were undoubtedly well known in a town written to be extremely small and gossipy. This is all odd when you consider that Bella’s “friends” spent most of the series chewing on whatever news about her or Edward that they could find. Also, the treatment of Mike at the wedding was just cruel. Edward, you got Bella. You married her. Throwing her garter belt at Mike’s face isn’t endearing in the least, bucko.
The wolves? Most of them are dropped like hot coals too. We keep Seth and Leah who are probably the only two actually worth reading about (I am thanking the stars that Sam and his God-awful obsession with Emily was left alone more or less). Even then, Meyer piddles all over Seth’s character by having him join in the bashing of his sister. Keep in mind that his sister spent all of their time on patrol worrying about him and keeping him safe and being mocked by every other wolf. And he tells her, apparently completely serious, that “no one wants [her] here”. As for Leah though, I still believe that she is the only sane person in this entire series. She’s certainly the only one who reacts the most healthily and realistically to her heartbreak and is the most responsible and determined. The fact that she’s treated as a total pariah and hated on by most everyone in this series speaks volumes about Meyer. Still, I’m glad that the author saw fit to get her away from Sam and start on a much better life. Even if Leah’s ending is considered subpar by Meyer, I (and I know I’m not alone here) am totally convinced that it’s a million times better than Jacob’s or Bella and Edward’s and I’m glad for her.
The Cullens? Hit or miss. I still kind of like Carlisle, though I was annoyed that he was also in on the “drug Bella for the abortion” plot. Seriously, he’s a doctor. Doesn’t that kind of go against the Hippocratic Oath? Of Esme, there wasn’t really very much worth noting, besides the fact that she was just a way to keep Carlisle from going on with said abortion (because of course a man can’t do anything if their wife disapproves - dream on, Meyer). Jasper seems to pretty much serve as a way to extol Bella’s Sue-per self control as a vampire. Alice is still freaking annoying as heck and I gave up long, long ago trying to figure out how her powers work. Emmett was also very cool and refreshingly logical but hardly made any appearances, especially when he started to use that common sense (why is it that as soon as any of these characters start to be logical, Meyer puts them on a bus?)
J. Jenks? He served virtually no purpose. His subplot went nowhere. It was padding, pure and simple. Padding and just more of the dead herring to assure us that everyone would die. Oh, and providing someone else to drool over Bella’s hotness and remind us how in control of herself she is. Can’t forget that.
The other vampires? Seriously, Meyer just love taunting us. Because they really had a lot of potential and what happened? They were pulled out of Meyer’s rear in the last third of the book, simply to fulfill a plot point. They were just cut-outs. Besides select few, almost all of them were forgettable and about half just served the purpose of being “[insert vampire here]’s mate”. Kebi, Liam, Mary and Randall, Senna and Kachiri, Peter and Charlotte (at least until Midnight Sun), all of them are bland and don’t do anything the least bit important to the plot.
Now granted, there were several newly introduced vampires that had some potential. Like I said, the Kate and Garrett romance was kind of nice in the sexy way Bella and Edward never got, but again it was shoved into a couple of chapters. How are we supposed to believe that? Did Meyer never hear of the concept “strangled by the red string”? I also kind of liked Siobhan and Zafrina, but it’s the same with them - we don’t get enough time to get to know them or really care for them. Meyer doesn’t seem aware of the fact that if the readers don’t care about the characters, they won’t care if they die or not (hence why people don’t care when faceless mooks are mowed down in movies, but then feel bad when the actual protagonist dies). The massive gathering of allies in Deathly Hallows, for example, worked because the readers had been given six other books to bond with all of the characters. If Rowling had brought them all in for the end of the seventh book, no one would care about them.
And again, I bring up poor Irina and how disgusted I am that her death is all but ignored after the confrontation is over. Couldn’t anyone except for her sisters be bothered to remember and feel bad for the death of the only person who gave their life for the stupid Death Baby? On a slightly off topic note here, I’ve noticed that the three women who were single and described as being antagonistic to some degree - Leah, Sue, and Irina - were all single because their men left them. Sam imprinted, Harry died, and Laurent went off and was killed. If we believe that Meyer is making a statement about how single people are nasty and bitter and they are the ones to blame for it (which is kind of hard to miss), then what is she supposed to be saying there? That it’s the woman’s fault that she’s single if the guy is dead or leaves through a violation of free will? That if those women had just had stronger love then Sam wouldn’t have imprinted, Harry wouldn’t have had a heart attack, and Laurent wouldn’t have left and been eaten by wolves?
I’ll leave you all to draw your own conclusions.
Finally, our antagonists, the Volturi. What in the seven hells was Meyer trying to do with these folks? They are just inconsistent. I’m sure she was trying to make it like some tricksy group that appears to be working for the greater good but is really operating under sinister intentions, but that falls flat because in previous books they were clearly already feared and avoided like the plague! I almost get the feeling that when Meyer decided to use them as the antagonists at the end, she felt she had to do something to make them more interesting and just pulled that all out of her butt. The contradictions are also all over the place. First we are told by Edward that Eleazar left at his own free will and that the Volturi didn’t force anyone to stay. But then we’re told by Edward that Aro has a vampire named Chelsea brainwash people into being loyal to the cause and it’s stated that Elezar was only able to resist and leave because he was in true love - in other words, the Volturi were trying to brainwash him and thus he wasn’t allowed to leave when he wanted. And this is all treated like common knowledge and not some strange revelation. das_mervin again made a point that was very good on the screwy characterization of the Volturi - by Meyer's backstory, Aro was perfectly willing to kill his own sister to keep Marcus around (Marcus who is blessed with the sucky power to "sense relationships", woot). Yet here, we see that Aro is fine with letting Eleazar walk away once he meets Carmen and is free of brainwashing, Eleazar with the quite useful power to sense what powers other vampires or humans have. So...why didn't he have Carmen killed to keep Eleazar around? There is no answer to this, though I suspect this answers why the logical people disappear in this series - they start to notice all of the gaping plot holes and leave in disgust.
Also, the Catholic bashing is just rude. I’m not even Catholic and I’m kind of amazed at how blatant and nasty it is. Seriously Meyer, you suck at subtlety. You’d better not be sitting there thinking about how clever you were with that analogy. Because I’m sure a fifth grader could figure it out. They are clever buggers, those fifth graders.
The Plot
It sucked. Plain and simple. But that’s too easy to leave it at, so let’s have some more detail, shall we?
The biggest problem is probably the central conflict, or rather the lack thereof. In previous books, at least there was one main issue that went throughout. Twilight had Bella and Edward’s…erm “romance”, New Moon had Edward’s departure, and Eclipse had Victoria trying to kill Bella. In this, conflicts are just pulled out of the air and resolved quickly. The wolves want to kill Bella? Jacob breaks free and protects her with Leah and Seth. Jacob can’t get over Bella? Have him imprint on her daughter. Bella is dying in childbirth? Turn her into a vampire. Bella is preparing for insane bloodlust? No problem. The Volturi are coming to kill everyone? Stop them with a deus ex machina. Evidently Meyer couldn’t just pick one conflict and stick with it.
There’s also the usual mess of contrivances and idiocy that makes the conflicts happen to begin with. If Irina was so tight with the Cullens, why didn’t she at least ask them what was up with Renesmee? Why didn’t she ask her sisters for advice before going to the highest law in the vampire land? Why couldn’t Alice have left Bella with more advice? How did Alice’s powers allow her to see all of that stuff if Jacob and Renesmee were tied up in it? There’s also the inconsistencies with Bella’s mind-powers and the raping of Brazilian mythology (I swear, every time Meyer used the word “liboshomen” my eyes were twitching). Seriously Meyer, Google exists. It’snotthathard.
Finally, there were entire stretches of time when nothing happened. Jacob’s part of the book was just one long “go inside, go outside, whine a lot” and I seriously felt like my skin was being scraped the entire time. Bella’s parts were equally grating, but at least were familiar. I mean, I know that there are a lot of people who want this book to be made into two movies because it all can't be fit into one, but what the heck will they put into two entire movies? Take away the endless mental prose and how much is left?
There’s also the usual issue of dead herrings, which has Meyer constantly insisting that something won’t be happening and then making it happen. Apparently she doesn’t know that such a technique is usually reserved for comedies and not Epic Romances. It’s just bad writing though, especially for how she used it to make the climax. Yes, I know she wanted a battle of the wits, except that it was all over the place. It made no sense. The Volturi kept passing up excuses despite the fact that they weren’t supposed to even be listening to evidence at all! We were all but promised a huge battle and it was shaping up to be the only action that there would be after about five or six chapters of preparation. Not only that, but what the heck? All we’ve been told this entire series is how Bella could fight her own battles, if only she were a vampire. Well now she’s a vampire. This would have been the perfect opportunity for Meyer to dispel those arguments about Bella being anti-feminist. Have the battle and let Bella kick butt and play superwoman. But no, she just sits there! I know that strength can come from different sources, but give me a break! She just leveled the playing field and never even got her nails dirty. Heck, Meyer could have used the battle as a way to show Bella’s love for Renesmee - what better way to show a mother’s love than for her to go out and fight off more experienced and powerful vampires so that her baby could be safe? Thank you Meyer. You successfully managed to drain the one possible source of entertainment and explanation from this thing like water from a bog.
All In All?
Breaking Dawn has terrible characters, a terrible plot, and suffers the mortal book sin of being incredibly boring. If you must read it, take it out of the library or something. Don’t bother buying the stupid thing.
ZeldaQueen: And with that, I wash my hands of Breaking Dawn. I might go and spork some of Meyer's FAQ quotes, but it's not a certainty. As of now, I've prepared to begin my next sporking... *drum roll*
My Inner Life, aka the My Immortal of The Legend of Zelda fandom. Possibly one of the worst wish-fulfillment Sues in existence, extensive canon raping, and terrible grammar and sentence structures - what's not to love? I might add that two of the three sex scenes are still open for sporking and I'd really be grateful if anyone could help me out and spork them. Especially the first. I honestly can't even stand to listen to it being read.
On a final, off-topic note, Pittsburgh is finally having it's annual anime convention, Tekkoshocon! If there are any viewers in or near the Pittsburgh region who are attending, perhaps we might meet?
Back to: Breaking Dawn: Acknowledgments
Return to: Table of Contents
Bella
I guess you could argue that Bella was a little more assertive and less submissive in this book than the others, but that’s kind of like arguing that being blown up is slightly less painful than ritual seppuku. Not to mention that it’s a case of too little, too late. If Bella had starting to stand up for herself a little more in the second book and gone from there, it’d have been more impressive. As it was, we only get two thirds of this book to get anything.
There’s also the fact that Bella is mostly only able to be strong and brave when she’s a vampire - meaning that as a human she was unable to be those things? I know Meyer hand waves the fighting thing as a product of high standards, that of course being surrounded by werewolves and vampires would leave Bella looking weaker and less able to keep up. Except that I never got the impression that Bella could take care of herself or be particularly strong amongst regular humans. So what’s the excuse for that? It’s just another case of human hate, that humans are weak and shallow and incapable of even trying to defend themselves against the supernatural or compete with their beauty or love or knowledge. And that’s another thing: Bella never speaks out against it. The perks of humanity vs. supernatural has been a strong theme in fantasy and science fiction and horror for some time, I know, and if we got that I’d be fine (one of my favorite manga lives by the theme that “ARMS will never defeat humans!”). But we are never shown at all in this book that there is any reason that humanity is preferable to being a vampire. Bella is told that she will have to deal with continuous bloodlust, but has none. She is able to hold back the temptations to eat her dad and the hiker and Jenks. She is self-controlled enough to impress the Cullens. We are only briefly told about her feeling any thirst at all, and then it’s dropped entirely. Compare this to the party in New Moon and how Edward spends the series crying about how he constantly wants to eat people, by the way, and this gets even more ridiculous. Bella is warned that she’ll never have children as a vampire. No problem, not only did she not want any originally but she still gets Renesmee (who I shall talk about more later on). Bella can’t eat human food? Who cares! Bella can’t see her family anymore? She is able to keep ties with Charlie anyway and leaves her mother up the river with no problems. Not only that, but Bella also gets a power that even scares the Volturi and impressive reflexes and speed and strength. So what’s the downside? What was there supposed to be that made her at all regret her decision?
All that aside though, Meyer still sees fit to shoehorn in scenes of Bella still being a whiny little kid who acts like a puppy towards Edward. She literally begs for sex on their honeymoon while being treated like a silly child. We hear that she is all upset and crying because mean old Leah has the gall to call her out on her past behavior towards Jacob. She knows or at least strongly suspects that Edward is breaking her things and monitoring all of her behavior and making under-the-table deals about her, but she all but ignores it - including the one where he agreed to let Jacob sleep with her if she got an abortion. She never calls Edward out on any of this, never shows any signs of anger or frustration over this, and never gives any indication of putting it all together or even remembering it later. For all it plays into her actions, I have no idea why Meyer sees fit to include any of these revelations. I guess it’s supposed to be that Bella thinks Edward’s being sweet and protective, but he’s not. Any sane woman (that being the key phrase here) would realize that, to paraphrase Mrs. Marcellus, “It’s one thing for a man to be protective of his wife. It’s another thing to spy on her odometer, break her truck, and offer her to other men for sex”.
Then there’s the entire pregnancy thing, which was seriously sped through and really felt unrealistic. I mean, I’m not saying it’s impossible, but Bella is extremely adamant that she doesn’t want children, insists that she thinks babies are a pain and never wanted any, believes that it’s physically impossible to have any with Edward anyway, and then finds out that she’s apparently several months pregnant after a few days…and her first thought is of how much she loves the fetus and wants a baby that’s pretty like Edward. We get a few pages of shock but no second thoughts, no considerations to how it’ll change her life, nothing. Meyer seems to be unaware that the nine months are pretty important for mother/baby bonding during the pregnancy (I guess this is supposed to be more of Meyer‘s “personal experience”, since she says that she dropped the idea of going to law school and wanted to be a full-time mother after having her first child). And again, Bella never seems disturbed by the fact that she’s dying and going through her pregnancy at a really fast rate or that she’s guzzling down human blood like they’re chocolate shakes. Not a single mention of her being the seriously bothered by this. I suppose the blood-drinking thing was supposed to be some attempt at horror, but even that falls flat because it makes no sense. Like I said before, babies don’t eat the food their mother eats, they absorb the food’s nutrients through the bloodstream. The baby would only get the nutrients in blood, in which case it shouldn’t matter what Bella eats, so long as it contains the correct nutrition. I can only assume that Meyer took health and nutrient courses for when she was pregnant with her children (or at least, you know, a few health classes in school). So how can she miss something like that?
And we get Bella as a vampire. The one thing she’s been literally begging for and whining about and trying to get for the past two books or so. But what does she do as a vampire? Throughout the entire series, she’s insisted that if she were changed, she could fight and keep up with Edward. And what does she spend most of her time doing as a vampire? Having sex.
Edward
He has the hotness thing going for him. Allegedly. And I say “allegedly” because if it weren’t for Rob being in the movies, I’d have no way to visualize him (at least with Bella we just have to imagine Stephanie Meyer). I guess we’re just supposed to use this.
Besides that though, what does Edward have? He has the personality of cardboard. We’re told at one point that he seems to be able to do literally any and everything, which is shakily hand waved with the “doesn’t sleep” excuse (he also says he’s the most learned after Carlisle - so apparently none of the rest of his family feels the slightest inclination to use the nights to study or brush up on anything as well?)
There’s not too much to say about Edward in this. He’s pretty much the same as in the other books: the domineering personality, the abusive behavior, the constant reiterations on how gorgeous he is, etc. Although I do believe that the abortion thing possibly is a new low for him. For God’s sake, how could Meyer think that something like that was endearing? Were we supposed to forgive it because he’s just sooooo upset at the thought of Bella dying that he’s willing to violate her body like that and remove something that she clearly loves and wants? We found out that he was willing to do it to her truck, but dang a fetus is something entirely different! And am I the only one who thinks that such reasoning shows that he cares more about his own happiness than Bella’s? If he really loved Bella and would do whatever it took to make her happy, why would he even consider something like that? If she wants to die for her baby then it might be considered rather stupid of her (please no comments on that, I’m referring to Bella alone and her…unique situation), but it’s still her decision. She’s the one carrying the baby, if she wants to have it at the risk of her own life, he ought to respect that. Now ideally, both of them would sit down and actually talk it out, but this seems impossible for these two, which is another thing I hated about this book. Still, it’s just like it is for the imprinted wolves and it’s just like das_mervin said - these guys don’t care about their “soul mates’” happiness, they care about their own. Which leads us to…
Jacob
Meyer deserves some sort of an award here. I’m sure it’s not easy to take a character who starts out so sweet and likeable and twist him into a smug and irritating jerk.
Because to be honest, I hate him in this. Hate him. From start to finish. He spends his entire part of the book whining about Bella even though he knows she’s married and won’t have him. He goes around angsting and yammering about revenge on Edward and killing himself like he’s some sort of Romeo Montague knock-off. He has some very brief moments of sanity when he listens to Leah’s advice and point of view…and his immediate solution is to imprint, to force his love on a strange girl. When he sees a girl who he bonds with in just a few minutes and clearly shares interests with, he refuses to try to pursue any relationships because he’s still too hung-up on Bella.
And then he imprints. On the daughter of the girl that he’s continually insisted was his One and Only. On the kid who he was heading off to kill not two seconds before declaring undying love for her.
I really don’t know what all about this is the worst - that Jacob, who was supposed to be representative of choice in love, was only able to be romantically satisfied through what was essentially brainwashing? That Meyer expects us to accept this development after trudging through two books of him screaming “BEEEEEELLLLLLLLAAAAAAA!” ala Street Car Named Desire? That he was only able to be at all happy after the aforementioned brainwashing? What sort of a message is all of that? Meyer seems to be telling readers that no effort needs to be put in to get over heartbreak on one’s own, that all it takes is just looking at the right person.
And after the imprinting, well he’s just a jerk. He pretty much takes over Bella and Edward’s roles as parents, butts in when it’s none of their business (Charlie, anyone), doesn’t do so much as stop home to visit his dad, and clearly has romantic intentions for the kid. Oh Meyer, you can dress it up however you want. You don’t fool anyone. It’s made perfectly clear that an imprinted person will eventually marry the person of their desires. With a kid, that’s called “child grooming” and is illegal.
Although I have to wonder, it says on Wikipedia that Meyer’s husband has retired from his job to take care of the children. Makes you wonder.
On a final note, I’ll state my biggest beef with Jacob in this - he completely abandons his obligations as a wolf and protector of humanity to cater to Renesmee. He doesn’t take his job as Alpha because he’s ready to shoulder the responsibility and take up his birthright, he does it because he doesn’t want the fetus destroyed. He doesn’t protect Bella and the Cullens because he’s trying to avert conflict, he’s doing it because he’s already being drawn to the object of his imprinting. He leads Charlie to the newly-transformed Bella just because it looks like Renesmee will be taken away from him, giving no thought whatsoever to the safety of Charlie. There's no warning for Bella and Edward, no assurance that they were prepared in any capacity for this, nothing. And he smiles and shrugs it off. When the Volturi show up, he orders the wolves to stand against them not because a group of notoriously dangerous and bloodthirsty vampires are showing up in a town of unsuspecting folks, but because Renesmee’s in danger. In fact, he stands by and lets the Cullen witnesses go off to eat people because they’re there to protect Renesmee. It’s all but stated that he wouldn’t put up with letting people die otherwise. And no one ever calls him out on this. No one tells him that he’s being selfish or stupid. Because a wolf who’s imprinted is treated like he’s in some wonderful new world and everyone scoots around to accommodate him. No one thinks that Sam is being too mean towards Leah in regards to the Emily thing and no one seriously treats Quil’s imprinting as weird or gross. I might add that Leah’s the only one who seems to be really bothered by Jacob’s imprinting (and this is apparently only because Renesmee is half-vampire) and of course she’s the one nobody listens to. And like I said, Jacob took up an Alpha position for all of this. It’s not like he’s some average Joe who’s being stupid but not hurting anyone except himself. He’s got even more obligations and responsibilities now. He literally has the power to force his pack to do what he wants, and he’s acting in the interest of an infant that he has no relation to and no right to hang around. It’s selfish and I cannot believe anyone could condone it.
Renesmee
I’d say I hated Renesmee too, except I sort of can’t and for one very good reason - I know virtually nothing about her. Oh we get enough to establish her as a Sue: the mental powers, the fact that everyone fawns over her, the fact that she’s so selfless and loving and intelligent. But we aren’t told anything about her, her personality, nothing. She just serves to be carried around like a doll.
It’s been pointed out and I think it’s well worth mentioning again, that the very Sue nature of Renesmee is horrid. Meyer’s made it no secret to the entire world and especially her husband that she considers Edward her ideal man (in other words, she has no problem telling the real life guy she’s married to that she’d have no problem dumping him for an abusive nut she wrote). Now she’s gone and told the whole world exactly what she wishes she has for a child. A sparkly girl who requires absolutely no care, not even a full nine months of pregnancy. And it’s not even like she has no kids of her own and is just showing one more bit of wish fulfillment, oh no. Meyer has three sons. I feel bad for the poor guys myself, they’ve got to grow up knowing that there mother wanted a kid who taught itself everything within weeks of birth.
We get a few tiny interesting bits with Renesmee. Like I said, her budding friendship with Zafrina was kind of interesting, as was her interest in the Romanians. But we get virtually nothing on any of that. I’m sure people would say “oh, she’s only a baby” to hand wave the lack of personality, except that she’s not. She grows up super-fast, she has complete awareness from birth, and everyone treats her as having the intellect of an adult (so apparently Meyer wants a baby that‘s not a baby?). I find it impossible to see her as a baby and thus hold her to adult expectations in those regards. On the other hand, Meyer can’t be bothered to give Bella and Edward personalities, so I guess there was never any hope for their daughter.
I’ve already said about how Renesmee’s super-fast learning doesn’t make much sense, but I’ll repeat it here. Meyer seems to think that when a child biologically reaches a certain age, they suddenly learn how to do something like walking or reading. Except that it’s not the age their body’s at, there’s also the fact that the child has spent that time watching and listening to learn. Renesmee has about a week to observe people walking and reading. There’s also the fact that she does it all perfectly, first time around. I don’t care how smart she is, people still stumble the first time they try things.
So in all for Renesmee? There’s nothing there. She’s just like a pretty doll to be shown off and carried around. She is perfectly well behaved (going out of her way in the womb to avoid causing Bella discomfort), doesn’t need diaper changes, doesn’t need to be taught anything, doesn’t need time-outs, doesn’t get cranky when she’s sleepy, and sleeps through the night within days of birth. And for those of you who thinks “that sounds great” then consider, what exactly is it that causes parents to bond with their children? Isn’t it the trials and tribulations of parenting that makes one really appreciate it and make the child’s love mean something? After all, how hard is it to love something that’s perfect? If I takes more effort to love a child that makes love difficult, isn’t that a more tested love?
Other Characters
I shall lump them all together because it’s not worth splitting them up.
Bella’s friends? They get a chapter before going “bye-bye”. Apparently none of them cared enough about her to give a call or write after leaving for college. And they also all seem to have been completely uninterested in finding out about Bella’s new life as a Cullen or the “tropical disease” she catches, both of which were undoubtedly well known in a town written to be extremely small and gossipy. This is all odd when you consider that Bella’s “friends” spent most of the series chewing on whatever news about her or Edward that they could find. Also, the treatment of Mike at the wedding was just cruel. Edward, you got Bella. You married her. Throwing her garter belt at Mike’s face isn’t endearing in the least, bucko.
The wolves? Most of them are dropped like hot coals too. We keep Seth and Leah who are probably the only two actually worth reading about (I am thanking the stars that Sam and his God-awful obsession with Emily was left alone more or less). Even then, Meyer piddles all over Seth’s character by having him join in the bashing of his sister. Keep in mind that his sister spent all of their time on patrol worrying about him and keeping him safe and being mocked by every other wolf. And he tells her, apparently completely serious, that “no one wants [her] here”. As for Leah though, I still believe that she is the only sane person in this entire series. She’s certainly the only one who reacts the most healthily and realistically to her heartbreak and is the most responsible and determined. The fact that she’s treated as a total pariah and hated on by most everyone in this series speaks volumes about Meyer. Still, I’m glad that the author saw fit to get her away from Sam and start on a much better life. Even if Leah’s ending is considered subpar by Meyer, I (and I know I’m not alone here) am totally convinced that it’s a million times better than Jacob’s or Bella and Edward’s and I’m glad for her.
The Cullens? Hit or miss. I still kind of like Carlisle, though I was annoyed that he was also in on the “drug Bella for the abortion” plot. Seriously, he’s a doctor. Doesn’t that kind of go against the Hippocratic Oath? Of Esme, there wasn’t really very much worth noting, besides the fact that she was just a way to keep Carlisle from going on with said abortion (because of course a man can’t do anything if their wife disapproves - dream on, Meyer). Jasper seems to pretty much serve as a way to extol Bella’s Sue-per self control as a vampire. Alice is still freaking annoying as heck and I gave up long, long ago trying to figure out how her powers work. Emmett was also very cool and refreshingly logical but hardly made any appearances, especially when he started to use that common sense (why is it that as soon as any of these characters start to be logical, Meyer puts them on a bus?)
J. Jenks? He served virtually no purpose. His subplot went nowhere. It was padding, pure and simple. Padding and just more of the dead herring to assure us that everyone would die. Oh, and providing someone else to drool over Bella’s hotness and remind us how in control of herself she is. Can’t forget that.
The other vampires? Seriously, Meyer just love taunting us. Because they really had a lot of potential and what happened? They were pulled out of Meyer’s rear in the last third of the book, simply to fulfill a plot point. They were just cut-outs. Besides select few, almost all of them were forgettable and about half just served the purpose of being “[insert vampire here]’s mate”. Kebi, Liam, Mary and Randall, Senna and Kachiri, Peter and Charlotte (at least until Midnight Sun), all of them are bland and don’t do anything the least bit important to the plot.
Now granted, there were several newly introduced vampires that had some potential. Like I said, the Kate and Garrett romance was kind of nice in the sexy way Bella and Edward never got, but again it was shoved into a couple of chapters. How are we supposed to believe that? Did Meyer never hear of the concept “strangled by the red string”? I also kind of liked Siobhan and Zafrina, but it’s the same with them - we don’t get enough time to get to know them or really care for them. Meyer doesn’t seem aware of the fact that if the readers don’t care about the characters, they won’t care if they die or not (hence why people don’t care when faceless mooks are mowed down in movies, but then feel bad when the actual protagonist dies). The massive gathering of allies in Deathly Hallows, for example, worked because the readers had been given six other books to bond with all of the characters. If Rowling had brought them all in for the end of the seventh book, no one would care about them.
And again, I bring up poor Irina and how disgusted I am that her death is all but ignored after the confrontation is over. Couldn’t anyone except for her sisters be bothered to remember and feel bad for the death of the only person who gave their life for the stupid Death Baby? On a slightly off topic note here, I’ve noticed that the three women who were single and described as being antagonistic to some degree - Leah, Sue, and Irina - were all single because their men left them. Sam imprinted, Harry died, and Laurent went off and was killed. If we believe that Meyer is making a statement about how single people are nasty and bitter and they are the ones to blame for it (which is kind of hard to miss), then what is she supposed to be saying there? That it’s the woman’s fault that she’s single if the guy is dead or leaves through a violation of free will? That if those women had just had stronger love then Sam wouldn’t have imprinted, Harry wouldn’t have had a heart attack, and Laurent wouldn’t have left and been eaten by wolves?
I’ll leave you all to draw your own conclusions.
Finally, our antagonists, the Volturi. What in the seven hells was Meyer trying to do with these folks? They are just inconsistent. I’m sure she was trying to make it like some tricksy group that appears to be working for the greater good but is really operating under sinister intentions, but that falls flat because in previous books they were clearly already feared and avoided like the plague! I almost get the feeling that when Meyer decided to use them as the antagonists at the end, she felt she had to do something to make them more interesting and just pulled that all out of her butt. The contradictions are also all over the place. First we are told by Edward that Eleazar left at his own free will and that the Volturi didn’t force anyone to stay. But then we’re told by Edward that Aro has a vampire named Chelsea brainwash people into being loyal to the cause and it’s stated that Elezar was only able to resist and leave because he was in true love - in other words, the Volturi were trying to brainwash him and thus he wasn’t allowed to leave when he wanted. And this is all treated like common knowledge and not some strange revelation. das_mervin again made a point that was very good on the screwy characterization of the Volturi - by Meyer's backstory, Aro was perfectly willing to kill his own sister to keep Marcus around (Marcus who is blessed with the sucky power to "sense relationships", woot). Yet here, we see that Aro is fine with letting Eleazar walk away once he meets Carmen and is free of brainwashing, Eleazar with the quite useful power to sense what powers other vampires or humans have. So...why didn't he have Carmen killed to keep Eleazar around? There is no answer to this, though I suspect this answers why the logical people disappear in this series - they start to notice all of the gaping plot holes and leave in disgust.
Also, the Catholic bashing is just rude. I’m not even Catholic and I’m kind of amazed at how blatant and nasty it is. Seriously Meyer, you suck at subtlety. You’d better not be sitting there thinking about how clever you were with that analogy. Because I’m sure a fifth grader could figure it out. They are clever buggers, those fifth graders.
The Plot
It sucked. Plain and simple. But that’s too easy to leave it at, so let’s have some more detail, shall we?
The biggest problem is probably the central conflict, or rather the lack thereof. In previous books, at least there was one main issue that went throughout. Twilight had Bella and Edward’s…erm “romance”, New Moon had Edward’s departure, and Eclipse had Victoria trying to kill Bella. In this, conflicts are just pulled out of the air and resolved quickly. The wolves want to kill Bella? Jacob breaks free and protects her with Leah and Seth. Jacob can’t get over Bella? Have him imprint on her daughter. Bella is dying in childbirth? Turn her into a vampire. Bella is preparing for insane bloodlust? No problem. The Volturi are coming to kill everyone? Stop them with a deus ex machina. Evidently Meyer couldn’t just pick one conflict and stick with it.
There’s also the usual mess of contrivances and idiocy that makes the conflicts happen to begin with. If Irina was so tight with the Cullens, why didn’t she at least ask them what was up with Renesmee? Why didn’t she ask her sisters for advice before going to the highest law in the vampire land? Why couldn’t Alice have left Bella with more advice? How did Alice’s powers allow her to see all of that stuff if Jacob and Renesmee were tied up in it? There’s also the inconsistencies with Bella’s mind-powers and the raping of Brazilian mythology (I swear, every time Meyer used the word “liboshomen” my eyes were twitching). Seriously Meyer, Google exists. It’snotthathard.
Finally, there were entire stretches of time when nothing happened. Jacob’s part of the book was just one long “go inside, go outside, whine a lot” and I seriously felt like my skin was being scraped the entire time. Bella’s parts were equally grating, but at least were familiar. I mean, I know that there are a lot of people who want this book to be made into two movies because it all can't be fit into one, but what the heck will they put into two entire movies? Take away the endless mental prose and how much is left?
There’s also the usual issue of dead herrings, which has Meyer constantly insisting that something won’t be happening and then making it happen. Apparently she doesn’t know that such a technique is usually reserved for comedies and not Epic Romances. It’s just bad writing though, especially for how she used it to make the climax. Yes, I know she wanted a battle of the wits, except that it was all over the place. It made no sense. The Volturi kept passing up excuses despite the fact that they weren’t supposed to even be listening to evidence at all! We were all but promised a huge battle and it was shaping up to be the only action that there would be after about five or six chapters of preparation. Not only that, but what the heck? All we’ve been told this entire series is how Bella could fight her own battles, if only she were a vampire. Well now she’s a vampire. This would have been the perfect opportunity for Meyer to dispel those arguments about Bella being anti-feminist. Have the battle and let Bella kick butt and play superwoman. But no, she just sits there! I know that strength can come from different sources, but give me a break! She just leveled the playing field and never even got her nails dirty. Heck, Meyer could have used the battle as a way to show Bella’s love for Renesmee - what better way to show a mother’s love than for her to go out and fight off more experienced and powerful vampires so that her baby could be safe? Thank you Meyer. You successfully managed to drain the one possible source of entertainment and explanation from this thing like water from a bog.
All In All?
Breaking Dawn has terrible characters, a terrible plot, and suffers the mortal book sin of being incredibly boring. If you must read it, take it out of the library or something. Don’t bother buying the stupid thing.
ZeldaQueen: And with that, I wash my hands of Breaking Dawn. I might go and spork some of Meyer's FAQ quotes, but it's not a certainty. As of now, I've prepared to begin my next sporking... *drum roll*
My Inner Life, aka the My Immortal of The Legend of Zelda fandom. Possibly one of the worst wish-fulfillment Sues in existence, extensive canon raping, and terrible grammar and sentence structures - what's not to love? I might add that two of the three sex scenes are still open for sporking and I'd really be grateful if anyone could help me out and spork them. Especially the first. I honestly can't even stand to listen to it being read.
On a final, off-topic note, Pittsburgh is finally having it's annual anime convention, Tekkoshocon! If there are any viewers in or near the Pittsburgh region who are attending, perhaps we might meet?
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