In Which I Beg for Sweet Release From Breaking Dawn: Chapter 39 -- The Happily Ever After · 10:46am Jul 30th, 2018
If it means this book is finally over, yes it’s happy.
With the Volturi peaceably walking away after their charges were found to be baseless, everyone’s either departed from the Cullens or gloating. It’s noted that the Volturi will neither forgive nor forget this, but Alice will be able to tell the Cullens when the Volturi are coming. There’s talk about making the world free of the Volturi altogether; that is, letting vampire society devolve into a winner-take-all, might-makes-right one of chaos and anarchy before humans take notice and wipe the vampires out altogether.
Edward praises Bella’s shield — of course he does — and claims it’s mainly what convinced the Volturi to abandon their original plan and let the Cullens go, since it nullified so much of their advantage. We’re supposed to believe him because he’s a mind-reader, but I think he’s lying. I think the Volturi were largely impartial all along and Edward’s simply saying they weren’t to give everyone another reason to pat themselves on the back and save face. I mean, he’s proven to be deceitful and manipulative throughout the rest of the series, why not now? Then the talk turns to the werewolves:
“It was the wolves that stopped them in the first place,” I said.
“Sure was,” Jacob agreed.
“Absolutely,” Edward agreed. (Couldn’t you have picked another word besides “agreed” after Jacob used it?) “That was another sight they’ve never seen. The true Children of the Moon rarely move in packs, and they are never much in control of themselves. Sixteen enormous regimented wolves was a surprise they weren’t prepared for. Caius is actually terrified of werewolves. He almost lost a fight with one a few thousand years ago and never got over it.”
“So there are real werewolves?” I asked. “With the full moon and silver bullets and all that?”
Jacob snorted. “Real. Does that make me imaginary?” (I wish.)
“You know what I mean.”
“Full moon, yes,” Edward said. “Silver bullets, no — that was just another one of those myths to make humans feel like they had a sporting chance. There aren’t many of them left. Caius has had them hunted into near extinction.”
“And you never mentioned this because…?”
“It never came up.”
FUCK. YOU. This is just a load of bullshit to let the Cullens and the werewolves get away with being friends (and if they didn’t get away, that could’ve been the perfect opportunity to justify the smackdown). The Cullens have referred to them as “werewolves” in the past. And “it never came up” is something assholes say when they’re deliberately being obtuse. “Why didn’t you tell me my car was leaking oil like crazy and could break down on the highway, leaving me stranded in the middle of nowhere?” “It never came up.” By that justification, you could start walking around, punching everyone in the face. “Ow! Why are you hitting me?” “Your desire to not be hit never came up.”
Alice’s justification for the roundabout nature of her not-actually-cool seer plan is bloated, confusing, stilted, contrived, and relies a lot on assumptions, so I’m not even going to try to summarize it. Bella and Edward take a snoozing Nessie back to their cottage. Along the way:
“I have to say, I’m thoroughly impressed with Jacob right now,” Edward told me.
“The wolves make quite an impact, don’t they?”
“That’s not what I mean. Not once today did he think about the fact that, according to Nahuel, Nessie will be fully matured in just six and a half years.”
I considered that for a minute. “He doesn’t want her that way. He’s not in a hurry for her to grow up. He just wants her to be happy.”
Um, yes. He totally wants her that way. EW. He’s always acted like imprinting has a sexual component. And just because he wasn’t thinking it around you doesn’t mean he never thinks it. He’s had to control his thoughts ever since he became a werewolf and there have been bits in this book where he’s avoided thinking certain things around Edward. He wants her that way.
The conversation turns to Nahuel and attempts to get meaningful, which is a problem when there’s only five pages left, max, to explore that meaning. Something about Nahuel thinking of himself as a monster before seeing Nessie and wishing his father was like Edward.
“You are fairly ideal in every way,” I agreed.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOPE. CM + 1
Bella reflects that “the day belongs to happiness” since things are turning out great for everyone, particularly for her, because of course it must.
But most significant in this tidal wave of happiness was the surest fact of all: I was with Edward. Forever.
CM + 1
Once they arrive at the cottage and put Nessie to bed, Bella tells Edward she wants to try something and pushes her shield away from herself (doing that thing we heard about once), finally letting Edward read her mind.
“Now you know,” I said lightly, and shrugged. “No one’s ever loved anyone as much as I love you.”
What about all the other vampire couples, like Carlisle and Esme, who’ve been together for centuries? You two have known each other for only two years. CM + 1
So Edward can finally read Bella’s mind, and it’d be more meaningful if the characters won’t both horrendous people, and they kiss, and the book finally finally finally ends.
Clinginess Meter: 68 x 6
So that’s Breaking Dawn. Holy shit, it’s even worse than New Moon. In short, it’s a cement mixer. It’s slow and ponderous. Stuff’s moving around, but nothing changes or happens. The material inside is dull and each section is nearly identical to the next. There are lots of things I hate about it. I’m quite happy to finally have it behind me. And I really want the MythBusters to stuff it full of explosives and blow it up.
In long, where New Moon was just boring, I actively hate Breaking Dawn. It somehow manages to be the slowest book in the series, and that’s saying something. There’s no plot until the last third, and then, it’s an incredibly forced and stupid one. The climax isn’t, and is instead a bunch of people chatting with each other with barely a hint of tension. The Volturi have absolutely no foundation for being called villainous. Every character reveals the worst about themselves in their treatment of Bella and the baby. Nessie herself has no character — she’s flatter than salt plains — and yet she’s somehow the center of everything from the moment she’s conceived. And the subtext of everything — forced abortions, imprinting on a newborn baby, letting serial killers run wild to save your family — is downright sickening. The entire series has been low, but this book is easily the lowest point of all.
Tallying up the Clinginess Meter…
Clinginess Meter: 68 x 6 = 408
Pretty damn clingy. That’s past New Moon levels.
What have we learned?
- In non-visual media, mood and tone matter more than “set design”. You’ve got it all in your head: you know the exact way the flying buttresses support the castle, and it just looks so dang cool. You want the reader to see just how dang cool it is, so you describe that exact method of support to minute, perfect detail. The problem? No matter how well you describe it, your readers will never see it unless you’re an artist and draw it. The excessive description will slow down the story. Focus more on what the buttresses feel like. “The arms of the buttresses held up the castle like gnarled trees supporting a crumbling ruin” does more for a reader than a dozen lines describing just how gnarled they are. Within a single scene, it’s not much, but over a long story, it’ll keep the scenes moving along without sacrificing atmosphere. (That’s not to say you should never mention specifics; just don’t go overboard with them.)
- Perfection and getting stuff handed to you is boring. Okay, yeah, this is obvious. But this is the first time I really knew just how true it was. Characters reveal who they are in how they overcome obstacles. It doesn’t need to be a big obstacle — “I want my guitar to sound louder” is sufficient. Maybe they go overboard and say, “I’ll hook it up to my mad scientist friend’s giant amplifier”. But if they already had their own giant amplifier to begin with, it’d just look like something Neat they had to look cool. They might not have needed to struggle much to get that friend’s giant amplifier, but they still needed to struggle just enough to know that they’re serious about guitaring loudly. And if they turn it up full blast, regardless of how bad of an idea that is, it shows that they’re also impulsive.
- Whenever you drop an important name, give a reader something notable to connect with that name. Simple, but not exactly obvious (not to me, at least). Giving a reader something to link with a name helps keep characters distinct from each other. Sure, you might know that Thistledown and Griselda are two different characters, but showing Thistledown to be quiet and panicky in her first few lines while Griselda is boisterous and confident in hers goes a long way to showing why they’re different. A corollary: don’t introduce names in a mass, or else they’ll blend together even worse (although it can be useful if the POV character is supposed to feel overwhelmed and confused at all the names: “This here's Apple Fritter. Apple Bumpkin. Red Gala. Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Caramel Apple…”).
- A big buildup must have a big payoff. Frequently claim a character’s a strong fighter? They better have at least one fight scene. Repeatedly mention the possibility of a rockslide while your characters are climbing the mountain? There ought to be a rockslide. Brag a lot about how great your character’s car is? If there isn’t a car chase to show it off, I won’t care in the slightest. The more time you spend mentioning something, the more time you should spend letting that something play out. If it doesn’t do anything, if it doesn’t go anywhere, you’re just wasting the reader’s time with all the buildup. It won’t mean anything in either the long run or the short run, so why bother with it?
And finally, everything’s done. There’s other books in the same universe, but I don’t care. I’m not reading them. Twilight sucks. It’s terribly-written, with flat characters, limp plotlines, horrendous pacing, a distinct lack of editing, and numerous squandered ideas. I will never read them again if I can help it. They’re not guilty pleasures. They’re not even close. They have a few good moments, but those moments are smothered underneath a pile of dreck. Now, to go for a book that’s better-written and more suited to my intelligence. (cracks book open)
I am a bunny. My name is Nicholas. I live in a hollow tree…
Unless Bella's shield can distinguish friend from foe, Edward's definitely talking out of his rear end. She's always been able to block him. Unfurling her super speshul awesome mind barrier means that she should be blocking him from everyone.
In any case, thank you for slogging through this so we don't have to. It has been a most illuminating journey.
Now to go see what CinemaSins thinks!
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Just realized I phrased that wrong. Bella's not expanding her shield, she's "turning it off", so to speak.
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I meant the bit where she unfurls it over the entire "conflict" with the Volturi and Edward then justifies his praise with his own telepathy. If the thing blocks one side, then by all rights, it should block the other.
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Ooo, right. Yeah, never considered that part.
Holy crap. :O I never thought this day would come!
What will you do now? D:
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Read better books and get back to my own writing.
For over half a year I‘ve read and enjoyed this blog series. Thank you for... making it through this for edutainment purposes
Soo... when will you read Fifty Shades of Grey?
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Never in the foreseeable future. It's not quite as infamous as Twilight, so it's not the same.
HOLY CELESTIAL SHIT, it's finally over. Thanks for doing this. I'll definitely try to apply your lessons in my writing.
Thanks for putting yourself through all this so we don't have to. That sure was... educational, to say the least.
Only joined the pain train halfway through the previous book, but nevertheless it's been... educational?
I've had a morbid curiosity towards Twilight for a while. This has shown me enough to never want to bother.
Congratulations on surviving all the way through.