Wednesday, January 12, 2011

BLOGGING BREAKING DAWN, pt 9: Knocked Up!

Well, sure. Of course. I resisted the easy argument that Twilight is abstinence porn for a long time. It has a tangled relationship with sexuality, sure. Edward himself gets off on abstinence, and this is not painted as unsexy (though it isn't really painted as sexy, either), sure. S. Meyer seems almost pathologically unable to use the word "sex," unless it is in a conversation about maintaining one's virginity, sure. Of course. But still, it felt too easy.

AND YET. And yet Edward and Bella finally had sex, and it was thoroughly unremarkable. The furniture destruction was such a feeble attempt at being kinky that S. Meyer herself didn't seem to commit to it fully. Bella's enthusiasm for sex has a serious "protest too much" element to it (because S. Meyer is either unwilling or unable to depict sexuality in a convincing manner and seems to know it). Bella's having fertility dreams with weird pro-life overtones now. She's eating eggs by the dozen, feeling dizzy in the mornings now.

Twilight emphatically is abstinence porn. Or rather, it was. Now that our heroes have done the deed it needs to be something else. An honest, if paranormal, portrait of the early sexual experiences of a young couple? YEAH RIGHT. It's about teen pregnancy vis-a-vis abortion now, get used to it.

(And that tonal shift is why Breaking Dawn feels off compared to the other books. Or such is my working theory so far.)

Chapter 7: Unexpected

Bella has the same dream where she's trying to protect a baby from abortion doctors--er--the Volturi. Yet in this dream, something is different. There's a flash, a burst of light (hmm), and everything changes. Bella suddenly wants the Volturi to come at her, she's ready, she's fierce. She's a pro-life crusader! She's got the power of Jesus on her side! Or vampires, or whatever. I'm still trying to figure out how these symbols are supposed to shake out. I'm guessing vampires=Jesus, right?

She wakes up sweaty, because her personal air-conditioner is out hunting. They don't also have a real air conditioner Edward could have turned on when he left? He's left a note telling Bella to go back to sleep, but instead she gets up and starts making fried chicken at one in the morning. I'm not saying I haven't done basically the same thing, but still, that's weird. She starts eating it right out of the pan, but is immediately disgusted and nauseous and throws it all away. She falls asleep on the couch, and when Edward wakes her in the morning she feels a sharp pain in her stomach. Huh.

Edward apologizes about the lack of AC (ha!), but Bella shoves her way our of his arms and runs to the bathroom to throw up. She blames it on the chicken, which she says must have been rancid. Gee. How about that.

Bella says she feels fine, and Edward makes her breakfast. They watch the news, and Bella gets bored (of course) and turns to kiss Edward. Stomach pain again. She runs to the kitchen sink to vomit. Hmm. Very interesting.

Bella goes to her suitcase to look for some Pepto-Bismol, but before she can find it she gets distracted by "something else that Alice had packed for me." She picks up a "small blue box" and holds it thoughtfully. My first thought was condoms, like "oh, maybe we should have used some of these." But then she starts doing what we all realize is period math. (It takes another page before Bella confirms they are tampons.) When Edward checks on her and she shows him her box (you are welcome) he asks if she's trying to "pass this illness off as PMS?" Nice, Edward. She tells him she's late. Oh man, isn't that feeling the fucking worst, Edward?

Let's a take a moment to all groan in unison, yes? OYYYYYYY VEYYYYYYYYYYY, you know? I mean, on some level, I knew this was going to happen. But on almost all other levels, I was thinking, there is no fucking way something so stupid will happen.

S. Meyer's sexual politics only SEEMED impossibly reductive until now. S. Meyer's only SEEMED to be influencing her readers in a morally reprehensible way until now. This book only SEEMED like the worst book ever. Until now. There's a flash, a burst of light, and everything has changed. For the worse. Or maybe for THE WORST.

My fears about Book 1's curious epigraph seem to have been confirmed. I'm now almost certain S. Meyer flipped open a copy of Bartlett's and picked the first "difficult"-seeming line about childhood she could find. That is how S. Meyer's brain works. Never mind that Edna St. Vincent Millay's quote seems to criticize the basic premise of Twilight-- I don't think S. Meyer was reading that far into it. Like the eggs and the baby dreams, she was trying to foreshadow a baby with the subtlety of basically a jackhammer.

It occurs to Bella that the pregnancy symptoms she has been feeling are coming on a little too quickly for someone who has only been sexually active for a week or two. She examines her stomach in a mirror, and sees a "small but defined bump." Were it that this monster baby were not also a reflection of S. Meyer's sexual politics (the sexual politics of a gym teacher in 1954) because otherwise it could be a morbid good time. And maybe it still will be. "There was no way I could be pregnant," Bella says. "The only person I'd ever had sex with was a vampire, for crying out loud."

Good point. S. Meyer has never been very specific with the science of vampirification. They still breathe, but their hearts don't work. They don't seem to go to bathroom, and the female reproductive organs apparently don't make babies, but I guess guys can still ejaculate? (This deal just gets better and better!) Now, this is sort of crazy to suggest, but if Edward has never had sex and never masturbated-- which for some reason, I would believe-- if Edward has never ejaculated EVER before, I guess it's possible that there is still some sperm kicking around in him from 1917 or whatever. Maybe that's why the first time was so difficult for him? Dude was backed up like whoa. If you'd been waiting to get off for a century you'd bite a pillow too! In that light, and there is no way to put this delicately: Bella's lucky that when he came it didn't blow the top of her head off, you know?

S. Meyer's vagueness really paid off here; it's actually more ridiculous that someone would get pregnant the first time they had sex than it is that a vampire would have operational semen.

"I told him to pull out!"-Alice Cullen

Let's stop here, because I feel like you all will have something to say about this. Plus, you know, it gets worse.

17 comments:

Stephanie_DAnn said...

So so many things wrong here. As far as we can tell Stephenie Meyer doesn't even know that any forms of birth control exist. Charlie could have asked Bella if she wanted to get on the pill when he had that pathetic excuse for a sex talk.

Or one of the characters could have said "hey should we use a condom? oh, wait, never mind, we don't have to." That would be an ironic joke that would have been less awkward at foreshadowing a pregnancy than eating a bunch of eggs. That's just gross. (like a gross of eggs haha.)

On to the next rant. I hate that I'm now wondering how long sperm can live inside a dead man or an undead man. Likely, we'll never get an explanation of how this happened. Likely, Stephenie Meyer can't even explain where real babies come from.

I went back and reread the epigraph. If one of the books inside Breaking Dawn is narrated by the baby I might puke.

Suzette Smith said...

it's like watching a train wreck but with hilarious commentary provided by zachary little.

as we get closer and closer to the thing in this book that is REALLY gonna piss you off the tension becomes unbearable.

Suzette Smith said...

i meant anticipation.

Renee_Moody said...

If human eggs last significantly longer than human sperm, shouldn't vampire eggs last at least as long as vampire sperm? If something happens to one gender of vampires but not to the other, that's sexist and unrealistic.

I have more thoughts but they'll all make more sense after I've slept. I'll pick up where I left off later.

Emma said...

I get the feeling SM always planned for them to have a baby, and that's why Edward's so apposed to having sex with Bella- not because she believes in no sex before marriage and is trying to get across her views, but as a way to put off the baby till the fourth book so she could write other stuff too. Would also explain why she's put off Bella's vamping for so long. But it's such a ridiculous line to go down that I don't see the point. Of course, I could be wrong, put that's how I see it.

Kim said...

Back when this book first came out I remember reading a ridiculous explanation by SM as to how that could happen. I'll see if I can find it, but the basic gist was that when a person becomes a vampire, their body freezes at that stage, so vampire women couldn't become pregnant because that requires their body to change. Vampire men can still produce sperm, though, because apparently SM doesn't understand that sperm is a biological process too and not just magic fairy juice.

I was actually so in denial that SM could actually write something so stupid and ridiculous that I didn't realize what was going on until she said pregnant. I just kept thinking, no, there's no way she would do that, not even her. Man, was I wrong. I threw the book across the room at that point, too. Normally I would be on board with some crazy mystical monster pregnancy; those usually turn out pretty entertaining in Sci Fi. This time, though, I feel like it's just more of the same lazy writing. God forbid there be any kind of downsides to Bella choosing to love and become a vampire, even if that downside is something unimportant to her, like becoming a mother. She makes it such a huge point that she would be giving up this "normal" human thing and then poof! Let's bust in some more deus ex machina and fix everything with a little pink (or blue) bow. This whole book makes me so angry and so happy at the same time.

Kim said...

Oh, here we go. It's in her FAQ.

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/bd_faq.html

For anyone who doesn't want to read any spoilers on the page:

I focused my answers on the female half of the equation—female vampires cannot have children because their bodies no longer change in any aspect. There is no changing cycle to begin with, and their bodies couldn't expand to fit a growing child, either.

*Skipping a bunch of unrelated vampire biology*

Similarly, throughout the vampire's body are many versions of venom-based fluids that retain a marked resemblance to the fluid that was replaced, and function in much the same way and toward the same purpose...The normal reactions of arousal are still present in vampires, made possible by venom-related fluids that cause tissues to react similarly as they do to an influx of blood. Like with vampire skin—which looks similar to human skin and has the same basic function—fluids closely related to seminal fluids still exist in male vampires, which carry genetic information and are capable of bonding with a human ovum.

ZL said...

S. Meyer actually wrote that shit, Kim? ARE YOU KIDDING ME. I was mostly joking when I offered a pseudo-scientific answer. I never dreamed that S. Meyer REALLY had a pseudo-scientific explanation of her own. I have such a big morbid smile on my face right now.

I'm so glad you actually threw the book across the room. That is awesome.

Also: sperm isn't magical fairy juice? Damn!

But seriously folks: Correct me if I am wrong but women only have a certain number of eggs in them, right? Semen & sperm are continuously produced by the male reproductive system, yes? I'm trying to remember health class from freshman year of high school, which was, you know, a while ago. This stuff is hazy (and yet I vividly remember a girl asking if she could still get crabs if she shaved her pubic hair, my mind is weird).

But my point is, doesn't S. Meyer have it EXACTLY backwards?

ZL said...

Let's unpack this motherfucker a little bit:

"Similarly, throughout the vampire's body are many versions of venom-based fluids that retain a marked resemblance to the fluid that was replaced, and function in much the same way and toward the same purpose..."

Why isn't any of that in the book, then? It's not like S. Meyer has strayed away from bald exposition on the past. Why does she have explain so much shit after-the-fact? If you are an author, and your website has to have an FAQ section, I think you are DOING IT WRONG!

Anyway, there are MULTIPLE "VENOM-BASED FLUIDS"? (What, is S. Meyer writing a lab report right now?) So there is like, venom-cum, and venom-vaginal fluids (one would hope). Is there also like, venom-stomach acid? Venom-synaptic fluid? If you become a vampire alcoholic does blood replace the synaptic fluid?

I'm just laying all the cards out on the table.

Kim said...

Women are born with the number of eggs they will have, though millions of those die before they even reach reproductive age. Men produce new sperm continuously throughout most of their lives. So, yeah, she kind of does have it backwards.

The whole Breaking Dawn FAQ is hilarious. She's obviously put so much thought into her stories and yet the final product is so lacking in any clear explanation for 90% of what's going on. Maybe edit out the 500 pages of useless crap and replace some of it with that, hmm?

ZL said...

Hindsight is 20/20. Why do the work of world-building when you can just make it up after your books are already popular?

Stephanie, you are right be troubled by the total lack of acknowledgement of the existence of contraception. That's disconcerting, given S. Meyer's general religious bent.

Suzette, I'm shocked at how crazy it is already. The rest of this chapter is outrageously insulting. You're saying there is MORE to freak out about? I'm going to need to come up with a way to show outrage that trumps capital letters, aren't I?

Emma, I'm going to disagree with you again that S. Meyer always planned this. I think she doesn't plan anything.

Kim said...

Oh man, there is so much about this book that is insulting and offensive. It's leagues above the first three.

Dear said...

Zac, there is already a way of expressing outrage that trumps capital letters: blinking, scrolling text.

Embrace it.

Kira said...

Allow me to voice a gentle word in Stephie's defense. I would never go so far as to credit her with superior writing skills and I'll always leap on a chance to heap scorn on her BUT... having a FAQ section doesn't mean she's a shitty writer. In fact, any book that's popular, which creates a world with different rules than our own, will generate unanswered questions from inquiring super-fans. That's what super-fans do! They probe, questions, inquire, imagine, expand. That's the fun of being a fan, is allowing your mind to kind of stretch its legs and wander around inside this new universe. (Whatever, in the universe I'm creating in this comment, minds have legs that get cramped and need to stretch.)

In addition, as many writers know, when you're writing a book, you spend TONS of time writing stuff that won't actually be included in the final draft. When you're creating a world, you might have the genealogies of your characters stretching back generations (I believe Faulkner did that), but there's no way to include that shit in the actual book because very few people aside from you, the writer, will give a crap about that minutiae. Writers HAVE to create their worlds for themselves, in their notebooks or minds, so they can write about them with confidence. So the fact that she has answers to questions on her site doesn't mean she sucks and should've explained that shit in the books. She needed to have all that stuff for herself, and she graciously offered it to her readers, to answer their questions.

Obviously she is a weak writer. Obviously the logic holding most of the plot together in the series is made of dental floss and chewing gum and old pamphlets about The Church of Latter Day Saints. But let's not condemn her for just being a thorough author who takes the time to create her own bizarre biology to explain some crazy mind-melting plot points. That's an amazing piece of wackadoo author logic right there! Amazing! I applaud her! YES! DO create an alternate biology that kind of makes sense in a weird way!

I read lots of dragony fantasy series about swords and stuff and almost all of them include glossaries in the back and even breakdowns of major characters, how the timelines are calculated, explanations of the religions...and as a super-fan, that is the best part!

Actually, I've been reading the book that's being written kind of collaboratively online by several authors, including Neal Stephenson, who is one of my very favorites authors. The concept is really cool: people read the new weekly installments, and explore the evolving, reader-created wiki about the world in the book. If you subscribe, you get access to additional content related to the book, maybe articles about the historical inspiration for elements of the story or character portraits or maps and shit. And it's designed to feed the same impulse that Stephie's FAQ section is responding to - the desire of readers and super fans to immerse themselves more fully in a world they love.

Lastly, I'll just say that all writers would probably LOVE to have such enthusiastic fans that they get to create FAQ sections because people just want to know more and more and more.

Oh, also, I think that saliva is one of the venom-like fluids, which is why Edward wouldn't ever french Bella and just kept it to lame lip-mashing bummer kisses. His teeth are coated in poisonous saliva!

Kim said...

I don't have any problem with her creating an extensive back story. A good author does that. As hilarious as I find her vampire science, I'm glad she actually gave it some thought. I would have less of an issue with her FAQ section (because you are right, many authors do that), if her books didn't have so much unnecessary exposition in the first place. The books are hundreds of pages long, but include so little actual story or characterization. When you read the books you don't feel like the characters have a rich history because she isn't able to make that history "present." Making it present doesn't mean including every detail, but it does mean showing the reader than you thought more about the character aside from the fact that she's clumsy and has brown hair. Had I not done some of my own investigating and found the FAQ, I never would have known that she actually cared enough about her characters to give them more than passing thought. THAT is where she has failed as a writer, not in actually having a FAQ itself.

ZL said...

I was picking on the FAQ specifically, because in this particular instance, it's funny. If anybody REALLY NEEDED something like that, it's here.

Because the stuff that is in the FAQ section is barely there in the book. Next time we will see Bella's justification for her pregnancy, which reads a lot like the first part of that FAQ. But has it ever even been specified that Edward only closed-mouth kisses Bella? I hear that all the time, but I don't think I've ever actually read in in the text. Actually, do you know where I read it first? The Edge, that lesbian fanfic I wrote about. Alice tries to swallow all the venom in her mouth before she goes down on Bella or something. I don't think that is official cannon, you know?

It doesn't feel like fan service to me, Kira. It feels defensive.

ZL said...

Here's another problem that has just occurred to me while writing part 10: S. Meyer always explains her world by way of Bella guessing things. Some of the stuff Kim showed us from S. Meyer's FAQ show up at the end of chapter 7, in the form of Bella GUESSING how something could be possible. That is all we ever hear, and Bella is always right basically as soon as she starts trying to explain something.