Reading Breaking Dawn: Chapter 37 (Contrivances) and Chapter 38 (Power)

The song for this chapter is Unbreakable by Fireflight

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The day fast approaches when I will type my last and final chapter review for TwilightGuy.com. After this post, there’s only one left. It’s somewhat of a bittersweet ending to a long road through these books — I don’t want to reach the end, but the only way I’ll know who survives and who dies is to push onwards. I think perhaps I’ve taken the longest time to read this series than anyone else on earth

Now that I’m finally moved in to my new California apartment, I’ve managed to dig out my copy of Breaking Dawn and get back to reading! Where I left off, Aro just withdrew from the Cullens to consult with his brothers about the strange situation facing them. I don’t exactly know for sure where Aro personally stands on this. He seems to flip-flop between wanting to follow the rules, and wanting to kill them, and then wanting to be friends with everyone.

Still, I think the real issue here is how much Carlisle and his group challenge the rules that the Volturi have stuck to for so long. Normal, respectable vampires have absolutely nothing to do with those pitiful humans besides around mealtimes, and especially not werewolves. It’s simply one of those things that they don’t do, and their society is built around this idea. For Carlisle and the Cullens to challenge this brings forth an entirely new way of thinking for the Volturi, and it seems that a lot of them are set in their ways and don’t want to buy into it. They seem to have this idea that Carlisle is simply wrong to be friends with the werewolves:

“Yet Carlisle encourages a familiar relationship with this enormous infestation–no doubt in an attempt to overthrow us. The better to protect his warped lifestyle.”

I suppose when you get down to it, Jacob and the others aren’t really werewolves after all. But they pretty much seem to be. The shape-shifters thing seems purely technical to me. It would be like saying that a humanoid creature that drinks blood isn’t technically a vampire because he/she sparkles — they’re just blood-suckers.

These witnesses are quite the fickle bunch. It seems like they showed up ready to kill the Cullens without any defense at all, then ten minutes pass and suddenly they’re hmmm-ing in deep thought, siding with the Cullens, then Irina gets killed and they’re suspicious again. I want to knock each of them on the side of the head and demand that they make up their minds already.

Also, I can’t ever seem to read Aro well. It’s odd how he seems to think this is all just one big merry affair that he’s traipsing through:

“Ah, Amun, my southern neighbor!” Aro said warmly.

“I’m grateful I have others to deal with the tedium!”

“Oh well, we’re all together now! Isn’t it lovely?”

While I find it a bit hard to imagine a tear the size of a baseball, the farewell of everyone as the battle slowly begins is a bit heartbreaking. I don’t really know how I would react in a situation such as this one, where everyone I know and love is about to die all at once. Edward has waited for hundreds of years for Bella, and he’s going to lose her this quickly? I think that the heartbreak of that would be far more incapacitating than anything that Jane can throw at them.

Of course, I knew that Alice wasn’t gone forever! It would be entirely unlike her to simply disappear and leave her family and Bella behind to fight alone: it bears no resemblance at all to her character all this time. I had a feeling that she would show up at just the right time, with her own set of witnesses she had been searching for to help save the Cullens. Obviously, Renesmee isn’t quite alone in the world, now that Nahuel has decided to pop up unannounced. It is very much thanks to him that those fateful words are uttered by Aro:

“Dear ones,” he called. “We do not fight today.”

It might seem a bit anticlimactic, when considering how long the Cullens have prepared for this war, and for their own deaths during it. But actually, it seems more to me like they have come out victorious in the end. To fight would have meant their end — and now, they can continue to live in peace.

Question For The Comments: Were you happy with the resolution of the confrontation, or would you have preferred to see a war happen?

——NOTES——

- I will be posting about the final chapter in Breaking Dawn shortly!