The fourth and final main installment of The Twilight Saga. Bella Swan, still human, marries the vampire Edward Cullen. When she gets pregnant with his child, which none of the Cullens even knew to be possible, ignorance about the baby is the Cullens' worst enemy.
This book contains examples of:
- AB Negative: The Cullens keep a refrigerator full of blood in their house. Naturally it's the very rare O-.
- Action Dress Rip: When Bella goes out for her first hunt in a tight evening dress that Alice put her in. As she gets ready to jump the river, the dress rips. Bella then rips both sides in order to get the mobility needed to run, much to Alice's chagrin. Prior to this moment, she also ditched the high heels.
- Action Mom: After Bella has a child and becomes a vampire, in that order. Subverted in that she never actually gets to do any fighting in the end, and at most she hunts some mountain lions and deer which are no match at all for her vampire strength. Played straight in the climax of the final film.
- Aerith and Bob :
- No risk of One-Steve Limit with "Renesmee".
- Joham's children are named Serena, Maysun, Nahuel and Jennifer.
- Ambiguous Situation: When Charlie talks about hunting Edward “to the ends of the Earth,” do the other wedding guests think he’s joking, or are they laughing nervously because they know he’s not?
- Artistic License – Biology:
- Pregnancy Does Not Work That Way:
- Vampires don't have any blood in their tissues, so Edward shouldn't be able to get an erection in the first place. Also, Meyer has said that Vampires' cells don't divide, but sperm is created by a type of cell division called meiosis, which means that Vampire men shouldn't be able to get women pregnant repeatedly a la Nahuel's father.
- Vampire venom at one point was stated to replace all fluids in the body which is why it turns into a sparkly rock like substance. If you follow that logic, his semen should have been replaced. So the first time they had sex and he orgasmed... she should have become a vampire instead of becoming pregnant.
- Also, Vampires somehow gain two extra pairs of chromosomes after they change. Yeah. They still can impregnate humans. And logically, gametes have 25 chromosomes, which with 23 of normal gamete makes 48. All human genes are in normal quantity and vampire genes seem to work in some range of quantity. One can infer that organisms can function (better or worse) with zero, one or two copies of both vampire chromosomes, like with 1-n X, 0-n Y (all the X, XXX, XXXX, XXY, XYY... syndromes) or even 2-3 21 chromosomes (Down syndrome).
- This also brings up the question of why male Vampires even produce semen if the species can functionally reproduce by biting humans.
- Bella, upon realizing that she's missed a period, thinks that she had "never been late a day in my life". It is all but impossible for an adolescent girl to experience predictable menstruation from menarche (first period) to young adulthood, and in most cases, it takes a year or more for a girl's cycle to stabilize into anything even approaching regularity.
- Werewolves also gain one extra pair of chromosomes. When their powers activate in adolescence. And Renesmee has one extra pair of chromosomes. Yeah, that she should have two unpaired chromosomes doesn't matter. In fact, the writing in Breaking Dawn has no clue at all when it comes to genetics.
- Bella sees rainbows around each source of light. We humans can experience the same using micro prism films, those glasses that make every light have a little image over them, or going around with the new 3D movie glasses. The only difference is that the glasses/prism film have a warning not to operate any machinery, drive, or go into direct sunlight wearing the glasses.
- Renesmee is a half human, half vampire hybrid who has an increased heart rate (at one point mistaken for that of a bird's, which would put her way above a human baby's heart rate) and a higher body temperature, and who is also growing at a rapid pace. Despite the massive strain this would place on one's metabolism, she gets by on just a few sips of blood a day.
- Someone (it's not specified who) diagnoses Bella with a ruptured placenta after she vomits blood. In case of a placental abruption, she would likely experience vaginal bleeding, but in this particular case where the amniotic sack is impenetrable, and it is uncertain how nutrition even gets to the placenta, it's more like the baby would be drowning in blood, whereas Bella's vomiting is more likely from iron poisoning from drinking all that blood.
- Artistic License – Geography: At one point, the book refers to the west coast of Brazil. The west is the only cardinal direction of Brazil that DOESN'T have a coastline.
- The paragraph actually refers to the western edge of Rio de Janeiro, which does have access to the ocean via Sepetiba Bay. Granted, the Port of Rio de Janeiro faces east on Guanabara Bay, so there's still a mistake, but nowere near as glaring. The only other instance is the "western cove" of Isle Esme, which, being an island, does have a coastline in every direction.
- Artistic License – Medicine:
- When performing a Cesarean, they sedate Bella with morphine, which means she is awake for it. She is astonishingly unaffected by being cut up and having her spine crushed.
- The moment he hears Bella is pregnant, Carlisle immediately starts conspiring with Edward to abort it without even talking to Bella, the actual patient, and doesn't seem to have had any intention to. A list of all the medical laws and ethics that violated could keep one occupied all day.
- When Bella is pregnant and the fetus craves blood, Dr. Cullen's answer is to have Bella drink it instead of just transfusing her; nutrients carry over from the mother to the unborn child via the blood stream anyway, so anything the mother eats needs to be absorbed into her blood before it can travel to the fetus. By drinking the blood Bella's digestive system would destroy most of the nutrients/components in it and leave very little left over for the unborn child, whereas if they hooked it up to her intravenously it would go more or less directly to the baby. They would have to worry about alloantibodies but even if they could only use some of their blood units that way, each unit would still be infinitely more useful than anything she drank. Then there's also the fact that the good doctor apparently buys large quantities of 0 negative blood for Bella's benefit - if she's going to drink it, why does it have to be 0 neg? Doctors also cannot purchase blood for their own personal use like that; it's very carefully regulated and it can not be brought to the doctor's home.
- There was no reason for three people with medical degrees to all agree to wait with the caesarean until Bella measured the same belly-size as a normally pregnant woman at nine months. Even human fetuses can manage outside the womb by the end of the second trimester, and Edward never reported that they could think.
- Then there's the minor detail that when a person's stomach fills up with human blood it tends to reject it. That's why people sometimes vomit blood in the first place - because it gathers in the stomach where it's not meant to go. Bella would just throw all that blood up again.
- Artistic Licence – Physics: While it is not exactly explored in the text, upon awakening as a vampire, Bella reports seeing eight-color rainbows, like it just had an extra band of color. Whether it is meant to be ultra-violet or infra-red, if she sees it as one color, it would still be a lot bigger than just another color band. If it is just that she only sees a tiny bit more of the electromagnetic spectrum, it is never made clear; the only possible revisit we get is that she can see clearly in the dark now, so it was probably infrared and probably more than a "tiny little bit".
- Author Appeal:
- It's been suggested that Renesmee being a "perfect" baby (i.e., not crying, being able to instantly say what's wrong, sleeping soundly through the night) sounds like the fantasy of a woman who's had several children (in the sense of "I haven't slept in three days, oh God help me"). Given that Meyer has three boys, there's probably a bit of Wish-Fulfillment there.
- Not to mention being grown up, married, and out of the house by about the age of seven!
- In a more disturbing and possibly unintentional case, Bella's horrific (but drastically shortened) pregnancy can make one wonder what her own pregnancies were like.
- It's been suggested that Renesmee being a "perfect" baby (i.e., not crying, being able to instantly say what's wrong, sleeping soundly through the night) sounds like the fantasy of a woman who's had several children (in the sense of "I haven't slept in three days, oh God help me"). Given that Meyer has three boys, there's probably a bit of Wish-Fulfillment there.
- Babies Make Everything Better: After being born, Renesmee brought peace between the Quileutes by having Jacob imprint on her, mended Rosalie and Bella's relationship, and won a lot of allies for the Cullen coven against the Volturi.
- Berserk Button:
- Bella accidentally breaks Seth's shoulder when she learns that Jacob nicknamed Renesmee after the Loch Ness monster.
- Jane of the Volturi did not take it too well when her pain-illusion power was rendered useless by Bella's mental shield. Which went from anger to hatred.
- Bilingual Bonus: Readers who understand Portuguese will get a laugh at Kaure assuming Edward is a Lobishomen, since the word (and the legend) derives from lobisomem, which means... werewolf. Even funnier in the Brazilian translation of the book, where they literally translate it as lobisomem, so to the readers it's easy to assume Kaure is mistaking Edward for a werewolf of all things.
- But I Can't Be Pregnant!: Bella's initial reaction to her little nudger. She accepts the fact quickly enough, though. Edward has a harder time of it.
- Call-Back: While Bella is turning, Alice puts her in a blue dress and stilettos, ostensibly the same outfit she dressed her in for prom in the first book. At the time, Bella assumed she was getting dolled up for the occasion of being turned; here, she is actually getting turned, and doesn't even realize she was getting dolled up until after it's over.
- Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends: With the notable exception of Leah, basically every major character is happily paired off by the end of the series.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Dying because your baby has broken your spine as it tries to get out of you is a bloody gruesome way to die. Of course, Bella gets "better", but still!
- Death by Childbirth: She is reborn as a vampire after her daughter's birth.
- Dhampyr: Renesmee. A few other Dhampyr are mentioned at the end.
- Divided for Adaptation: The book was adapted into two movies.
- Double Entendre: Emmett spends a whole chapter and a half making progressively less veiled comments about Edward and Bella's sex life. While her father is around!
- Dropped a Bridge on Her: Irina. Her death being a pointless gesture of cruelty was lampshaded in-story, but they had also made a big deal about the fact that they had an ally able to manipulate the elements. Even if the Volturi tore her apart, they could have re-assembled her afterward if he'd kept them from burning the pieces.
- Elemental Powers: The book introduces the vampire Benjamin, who has the power to physically manipulate the four classic elements of earth, air, fire and water.
- Emotional Maturity Is Physical Maturity:
- It doesn't matter if a character is a hundred years old or one, their maturity level will correspond to their physical appearance. Actually a plot point — children turned into vampires never mature or learn the consequences of their actions, and cannot be trusted not to simply slaughter a village whenever they get hungry.
- Averted by Renesmee.
- Enemy Mine: When the Romanian vampires show up uninvited to join the Cullens' group, they explicitly state that they don't care whether or not Renesmee is an immortal child as the Volturi believe. They're just thrilled that someone is finally willing to stand up to their old enemies, the Volturi, and they want in on it.
- Enfant Terrible: Babies who turn into vampires. Although they're never seen in the series, the description of one is enough to freak Bella out.
- Express Delivery: Oh boy. After Edward and Bella get pregnant the first time they have sex, they realize that the baby is growing too fast. In fact, the baby quickly tries to "eat" its way out of Bella, so Edward has no choice but to perform a caesarean on Bella. With his teeth, because they are the only thing sharp enough to cut through the protective barrier around the foetus. The damage the baby and the caesarean causes force Edward to turn Bella into a vampire.
- Fetus Terrible: The only people who seem convinced that Bella's child is a good thing are Bella and Rosalie. Everyone else just wants her to abort it. Considering that it began feeding on its mother's blood while in the womb, then tried to go after a cup of blood her mother spilled while still in the womb, destroying her mother's pelvis and breaking her spine in half in the process, it might have been a good idea.
- Foe-Tossing Charge: In the final battle in the last film, Alice kills or throws aside several Volturi mooks in order to get to Jane.
- Forgot I Could Change the Rules: Jacob has to submit to the will of Sam, the Alpha Wolf. When Sam orders him to help destroy the Cullens (and Bella), he remembers that he was born to be the Alpha but he had voluntarily given up the birthright. Choosing to become the Alpha frees Jacob from obeying Sam's orders.
- From a Certain Point of View: Meyer (in)famously claimed that vampires are unable to reproduce. When Bella later got knocked up, she went back and used Weasel Words to try and claim she actually meant that only female vampires can't have kids all along (evidently by claiming an obscure definition of "have").
- From a Single Cell: When Bella is transformed, she goes from starved, anemic and skeletal to healthy-looking with curves by venom alone.
- Happily Ever After: Bella gets everything she wanted and then some. She marries Edward, becomes a beautiful and powerful vampire, doesn't lose contact with Charlie, the Cullens are all happy and together, she lives in a beautiful cottage, her best friend Jacob finds his own soulmate in her daughter so he can be family now, the Volturi go without a fight, and she gets a beautiful baby girl who requires no raising outside of advice and love, since the kid is well out of diapers and spoon-feeding and screaming by the time she's a year old. However, Bella is an unreliable narrator and it might be Happily till the Volturi come with a plan to destroy the Ever After.
- Heel–Face Turn: Eleazar was once a member of the Volturi guard, but left in favor of a more peaceful lifestyle before the story begins, becoming part of the vegetarian Denali coven. However, he doesn't realize that the Volturi — or, more specifically, Aro — has nasty intentions until his conversation with Edward and Bella. After that, he blames himself for unknowingly supporting their corruption.
- Heroic BSoD: Edward has one when Bella tells him she is pregnant.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Bella makes it clear she's prepared to make it for the sake of her unborn child.
- Horrible Honeymoon: Bella and Edward's honeymoon on a privately-owned island in South America initially goes well for the most part, although early on there is a debacle over sex (the first time they have sex, Edward bruises Bella quite badly and he refuses to have sex with her again in case he hurts her more; Bella insists she's fine and goes to great lengths to persuade Edward to sleep with her again), as well as minor issues with Edward damaging beds during sex and the housekeeper being extremely wary of Edward (she knows he's a vampire and thinks he's brought Bella here to kill her). However, things really go downhill when Bella gets extremely sick from what she thinks is food poisoning only for her to realize she's actually pregnant. Edward is horrified that the half-vampire fetus will harm Bella and cuts the honeymoon short so they get back to the US and "get rid of it". Bella has already decided she wants to keep the pregnancy in spite of the risks, causing a rift between the couple.
- Inhuman Eye Concealers: The newly-turned Bella needs to bluff out her father when he unexpectedly visits. Part of this involves wearing brown lenses to cover her bright-red eyes.
- Instant Expert: Sure as a human Bella is a hopeless klutz. But, once she's a vampire she's free of any of the consequences faced by most newborns, such as the insatiable desire for human blood.
- Living Lie Detector: Maggie, an Irish vampire, can tell when one is lying. Charles can tell when you are being truthful, which seems to be the exact same thing. And Edward can read people's minds, which makes him a far more effective version of this.
- Living MacGuffin: In the last third of the book. Her shield ability - which blocks other vampires' mental powers - is integral to the Cullens' defense in the confrontation with the Volturi, as it allows her to block the abilities of the Volturi's trump cards, Jane and Alec.
- Mama Bear: Bella:
- She flies off the handle when she learns that Jacob imprinted on Renesmee.
- Bella does everything in her power to ensure that her daughter stays alive. That includes letting a dozen or more strangers risk their lives to protect Renesmee.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Siobhan is purported to have the subtle ability to visualize an outcome and have it come true. She herself doubts it. Her hope for a peaceful outcome with the Volturi does come true, but it's unclear if it's because of her or because of the Cullens' strategy. The end of the book has a list of the vampires, which marks her as having a special ability; however, it's unclear if this list is
Word of God or merely the word of one of the characters. - Mind Rape: Renesmee. Especially disturbing when you think of what she could do once she grows up and gains a better understanding of nightmare fuel. Doubly so since it's heavily implied that anyone seeing her visions can't help but believe them to be true.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Eleazar, realizing that Aro has been destroying innocent covens to gain skilled vampires - based on Eleazar's own information about these abilities.
- "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: Bella comes up with two names for her unborn child depending on whether it's a boy or girl: for a boy she has Edward Jacob in honor of the baby's father and her close friend, respectively, and Renesmee for a girl in honor of both Bella's mother Renee and Edward's adoptive mother Esme. Bella has a daughter, so Renesmee it is (although most people call her Nessie for convenience). Bella also states that Renesmee's middle name can be Carlie after Bella's father Charlie and her father-in-law Carlisle.
- Never Heard That One Before: During Bella's pregnancy, Jacob cracks a couple of blonde jokes at Rosalie. She's familiar with both of them.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands:
- Charles, a never-before-seen vampire at the end of the book, has the power to detect the truth and is introduced to confirm that all of the Cullens' claims are true. Maggie has the opposite power—she's able to detect lies.
- Kate's power to psychically electrocute others with a touch is pretty convenient, as it helped Bella learn how to expand her shield to protect everyone. This also applies to Zafrina's realistic visual illusions.
- Additionally, Eleazar's oh-so convenient ability to detect other vampire powers is the reason why Bella even knows her shield exists.
- No Periods, Period: The book reveals that Leah Clearwater, the only female in the Quileute werewolf pack, is a "genetic dead end" (as she puts it) because she stopped getting her period when she first became a werewolf. And she thinks this is a bad thing. Though, given how human anatomy and tropes work, she's probably right.
- Old, New, Borrowed and Blue: Bella gets roped into a fancy traditional wedding as a favor to Alice. "Something old" and "Something blue" are the sapphires that Charlie and Renee have put into a set of her grandmother's hair combs, "Something new" is her dress, and "Something borrowed" is Alice's garter.
- Parent-Induced Extended Childhood: It's mentioned that some vampires would intentionally create "immortal children", turning little children into eternally young vampires. Their vampire parents often found them enchantingly adorable... but unfortunately, these children were unable to emotionally and mentally mature, meaning they never acquired the self-control to moderate their hunger for blood; combined with their powers, this often led to them wiping out entire towns in their tantrums, so the Volturi ruled that any immortal children and those who created them would be executed.
- Plot-Relevant Age-Up: One-month gestation results in a September birth date. By December, Renesmee is walking, talking, and reading Tennyson. Another half-vampire reveals that maturity is reached at the age of seven.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Rosalie when Jacob throws a dish full of food at her:"You. Got. Food. In. My. Hair."
- Pyrrhic Victory: In the movies, the final battle in Breaking Dawn: Part 2 is depicted as this. All of the leaders of the Volturi are killed, but many allies die in the battle including Carlisle, Jasper, Seth, and Leah. However, the entire battle is revealed to be merely a potential future for Aro foreseen by Alice and is promptly avoided peacefully.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Jacob decides Bella's baby must die, because Bella apparently died giving birth to her. At least, that was until he looked into the baby's eyes.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: Edward and Bella arrive at their honeymoon destination. She takes a shower and goes out on the beach in a Modesty Towel where Edward is. She takes her towel off, he pulls her into his arms and... Oh look, it's the next morning.
- Shock-and-Switch Ending: For people who read the book series, the scene near the end of Breaking Dawn Part 2 where quite a few characters die is an absolute shocker. Once the scene completes, we see it was a vision Alice saw of the future, invoking this trope.
- Shoot the Medic First: Inverted. The Quileutes have a standing policy that Carlise is the lowest priority target should they ever attack the Cullens.
- Shot to the Heart: Variant: Edward injects vampire venom directly into Bella's heart in an attempt to save her life after a difficult childbirth.
- Someone to Remember Him By: Inverted, invoked, and rejected. Inverted in the sense that Bella is the one that would die if she carried out her pregnancy. Invoked when Bella tries to tell Edward that though she'll probably die, Edward will still have their child to love and take care of in her place. Rejected when Edward tells her he doesn't think he could possibly love their child if he/she is the reason for taking Bella away, as he/she would also be a representation of Bella's ignorance of Edward's choice in the matter.
- Succubi and Incubi: The Denali sisters, formerly—they are even said to have inadvertently founded the succubus myth In-Universe.
- Talking the Monster to Death: At the end of the last book of the series, a great battle pitting vampire against vampire is waived in favor of a lengthy discussion. Everyone goes home without a single punch thrown. This comes after reading through a lengthy training montage that is said to take weeks if not months of book time.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: After Jacob tells Bella that he imprinted on Renesmee and nicknamed her "Nessie", she becomes slightly hostile and cruel towards him. She even goes as far to try to kill him, but Seth gets in the way and saves him. And top of that, she won't let ANYONE nickname Renesmee "Nessie" because it's derived from the Loch Ness Monster. She eventually gets over all that, though.
- Traumatic C-Section: The scene wherein Edward rips Bella's unborn child out from her body with his teeth. Probably not intended to be as worrying as it is. Though considering that when they tried to do it the normal way, the scalpel broke. It's implied that they cut up her entire stomach, in a cross from ribcage to hip.
- Two-Person Pool Party: The Honeymoon, but in the ocean instead of a pool. Good thing it's a private island!
- The Unblinking: Referenced when Bella becomes a vampire and has to learn how to pretend to be alive; Emmet reminds her to blink at least three times per minute.
- Undead Child:
- Renesmee is apparently half-vampire, and aged to 17 in 7 years.
- The Volturi have also declared it illegal for any vampire to turn a child because vampire children lack the proper maturity level to do their part in maintaining The Masquerade and will never gain said maturity level due to being permanently stuck as children and thus, they inevitably threaten to expose the existence of vampires to the mostly unaware human population. The confrontation between the Cullens and the Volturi at the end of the book is prompted by another character mistakenly identifying Renesmee as one of these and subsequently reporting the Cullens to the Volturi for turning her.
- Unstable Powered Child: Immortal Children are the result of a vampire transforming a toddler or very young child. Since they're frozen and unable to develop their maturity any further, they're stuck in the body of a tiny immature child, but with the bloodthirsty nature and the maximum strength of a vampire, and are thus extremely dangerous and unstable, enough that the Volturi having outlawed them is never contested.
- Wife Husbandry: Jacob and Renesmee.
- Womb Horror: Human Bella gets impregnated by vampire Edward, and the Dhampir fetus starts slowly killing her. After she dies from the pregnancy and/or emergency non-medical C-section, Edward gives her an Emergency Transformation into a vampire to save her life.
- Worst Aid: Edward, a guy with two medical degrees, orders Jacob to start CPR on Bella even though she has a pulse (Jacob mentions that her heart is beating) and is coughing i.e. breathing. Doing CPR compressions can result breaking the victim's sternum when practiced by a regular human being, but by a supernaturally strong werewolf? Then again Jacob, for unknown reasons, goes for the inhales instead of the compressions, even though he ought to start with the latter compressions. If he does not know that, the guy with two medical degrees definitely would.
- Writers Cannot Do Math:
- Edward claims at one point that Renesmee gains a year and a half of development in around 1 month. This means she should have grown to the developmental level of around 18 in only a year, not in 5-7 years like the story claims.
- A one-month pregnancy implies a growth rate of nine to ten times the normal speed, whereas "five years in three to four months" implies a growth rate of between fifteen and twenty times normal.
- Although it was stated that her aging would gradually slow down as time progressed, Carlisle said her growth decelerated so slowly that they weren't even sure it was really happening. Which makes sense as, according to the above, she grew at least twice as fast as before she was born.
- Younger Than They Look: Renesmee. By the time she's only a few months old, she looks like a seven year old.
