Breaking Dawn Chapter 15 – Building up to baby love

Previously: Everyone was nice to Jacob and he hated it.
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Catherine: The title of this chapter is ‘Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock’, which is appropriate because I can feel my life slipping away as I read it. (K: Samesies.) (A: Ditto.)

We begin with Jacob thinking more about Leah and how much he hates her. This time it’s because, although Leah is ‘trying hard’ to think less aggressive thoughts, (I guess?) she still doesn’t like the vampires and she doesn’t like Jake and Seth’s friendship with them. Jake realizes, though that Leah has been less of a bitch to him and wonders if it’s because he understands her hostility better now. I don’t even want to guess what he means by that. But apparently Leah threw the food and clothes that Esme gave the wolves into the river. Lol.

Marines: They are bonding over being hateful, it’s cool. Though, to be fair, some food and clothes doesn’t really erase racism.

Kirsti: I mean, when you really think about it, the clothes and food kind of exacerbate the racism when you’re talking about Indigenous characters… So I’m totally on board with Leah being all “Fuck your white saviour-ism” about it.

Annie: I just hate everyone and everything at this point. Racism, misogyny and bigotry, oh my!

Catherine: Jake begins to wonder (like 7 chapters into this shit) why the Cullens don’t just take Bella away somewhere where Sam and the pack can’t find them. Like to Alaska or space or hell or something. (M: They can run anywhere!) Seth hears this thought, because they’re in wolf form and says that he asked Edward that already and the answer is because Carlisle has already built up enough doctor cred to abuse in Forks but anywhere else they’d have to start over. No joke, all that medical shit they stole, the hospital bed, the beepy monitors. Oh, and apparently he has ‘the credentials to get more’. Great. Very ethical.

Mari: They are super fast and stealthy killers with billions of dollars. You are telling me that doctor cred is the only way for them to steal things? Things that our lovely commenters have already pointed out they shouldn’t be able to operate in their middle of nowhere home? You are telling me his “doctor red” includes being able to wheel out an x-ray machine? HOKAY. SURE. GOOD PLOT.

Annie: Hold the phone. Is this the first time the plot didn’t walk out of the forest?!? But yeah. Between their vamp super powers, their money… there’s got to be a better way.

K: Have these people never seen an episode of Buffy? JUST. BREAK. IN. 

Catherine: Seth does note that they apparently bought the blood that they’re giving Bella. So they didn’t kill a drifter or anything.

Also, Edward doesn’t want to risk moving Bella even though she’s feeling better. Seth accidentally lets it slip that Bella talked to Charlie on the phone, and Jake flips out. He asks why they would tell Charlie she’s feeling better, since it will just get his hopes up, and she’s still going to die.

….Okay. Because it’s his daughter?

Meyer is clearly trying to show us that Jacob is still assuming that Bella is going to die here, but this argument is weak. Why wouldn’t they let Charlie talk to Bella? If nothing else, this Brazilian flu or whatever the fuck they said she had, is suspicious as shit. Like, I’m pretty sure that’s what they said Jonathan Harker had. And we all know the Cullens are about protecting their rep over anything else.

Seth says that it was Bella’s idea and Edward seemed to be thinking the same thing that Jake is now. Jake is dismayed once again to be on the same wavelength with Edward. When will those two crazy kids just kill each other and spare us any more of this.

K: Not soon enough.

Mari: If them thinking alike is supposed to prove that they both love Bella a lot, it’s failing. I think it just proves that Bella is the unluckiest bitch ever and got herself two overprotective abusive assholes in one tiny, weirdly supernatural town. 

Catherine: Word. That’s some shitty luck.

Jake starts to run off in a different direction, and Seth asks him to make sure he’s back soon. Apparently he’s been switching off with Edward in regulating Bella’s temperature by… laying on her? IDK how that would work. But they’re doing it. And Jake’s turn is up.

When Jake returns to the house, Bella is in the bathroom peeing and Edward is brooding on the couch with Esme and Alice. Bella comes into the room with Rosalie supporting her.

“And, just like before, Bella’s face lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning. Like I’d brought her the greatest gift ever. It was so unfair.”

There’s that ‘kid’ imagery. About the girl he thinks is hot.

Is this 50 Shades? Did I fall and crack my head open and start recapping the wrong book?

Mari: There’s no actual nakedness to accompany the terrible child imagery, so I think you are safe.

K: Unless Jake’s passed on the stinky vampire clothes that is. WHO KNOWS.

Catherine: Don’t be silly, no one takes their clothes off in Twilight (that’s how you get pregnant and die).

Jake goes to sit next to Bella to warm her. Apparently he’s chooses to do this by holding her hand and putting his other hand on her face. When will these crazy kids just enter a threeway marriage and leave me the fuck alone?

Jacob’s stomach rumbles, and Alice sends Rosalie to go get him some food. Rosalie huffs out of the room and comes back with a DOG BOWL onto which she has scratched the word ‘Fido’ and put a steak in it.

Look I CAN’T. I can’t with the racist innuendo in this book. If Meyer had taken even a second to realize how a white character bringing a POC character a DOG BOWL to eat out of looks, we could have avoided this. The white privilege is so blinding I feel like I should be wearing sunglasses.

Jacob then asks her what you call a blonde with a brain, and he says ‘a golden retriever’. This book has driven me to the opinion that we were never supposed to like any of these characters and Meyer is just as surprised as we were that anyone did.

Mari: You tell yourself that if it makes you feel better to believe that she created things this hateful on purpose.

K: I’m now wishing I’d gone with my original plan of finding a copy of this at a charity shop just so that I could tear the pages out and burn them as we progressed through recapping this. I’ll settle for pointing out to teenage girls that it’s racist and full of abusive relationships. #savingthenextgenerationonekidatatime

Catherine: There are no explanations. 

Jacob asks Bella when the due date for the baby is, and she admits that they don’t know, but Carlisle has guessed based off her rate of growth that it will be in about four days. This sobers Jake who still thinks that she’s gonna die when the baby is born. He realizes that having a deadline makes it harder for him to think about them leaving.

“Also funny how, even knowing that it was almost over, the hold she had on me only got harder to break. Almost like it was related to her expanding belly—as if by getting bigger, she was gaining gravitational force.”

Apparently his ‘need for her’ is getting ‘stronger than ever’. Hang on. I’m gonna vom. (M: I can’t believe she’s building us up to falling in love with a baby.) (A: I can. This is written by Stephenie Meyer.) He wonders if he feels this way because she is dying. And no, I’m here to tell you it’s because you’re attracted to her fetus. You awful human being.

Jake realizes that he’s crying at the idea of her dying, and Bella tells him it’s gonna be okay. Or, she ‘croons’ it. Because she is Mother Giya now and she holds the wisdom of the universe.

K: Literally me, while reading this page/chapter/book:

Catherine: Aim for the sun! 

Jake asks Bella why she wants him there and she tells him that he’s one of her favorite people in the world. He tells her that ‘sucks’ as in ‘don’t tell me that ’cause it hurts to know we can’t be together’ and I’m over here like, remember when you sexually assaulted her, you bag of dicks? Bet that hurt, too.

Bella tells him that when he’s there she feels like her ‘family is complete’. Okay, but neither her mother or father is there? Guess they can eat shit now that she has this weird cult to love her.

Mari: She won’t even call them mom and dad. The whole point is that Bella liked no one and nothing until the abusive prick and the, uh, other abusive prick who is going to marry her baby came along. 

K: Who needs parents when you have a son-in-law while you’re still pregnant?!

Annie: Well, she’s not like other girls, guys. As in, she has no agency, she’s just property (when she’s not the host of the coming of the demon spawn). Property doesn’t need parents, just owners.

Catherine: Jacob gets mad about this answer (HOW SURPRISING) and yells at her, accusing her of liking his pain, and she flinches. She’s very ill, remember. So this is a great time to scream at her.

Bella starts mumbling about how they got ‘off track’ and that she did something wrong and then she falls asleep.

“I waited for her to pour some more lemon juice into my papercuts, but then a soft snore came from the back of her throat.”

JFC get the fuck out of here, edgelord.

Jacob asks Edward why Bella called Charlie. Edward tells him that she’s sure that she’s going to be turned into a vampire after the birth, so she doesn’t think she’s getting his hopes up. Even if she was dying, wouldn’t she want to, like… talk to her father one last time? Maybe even, perchance, her mother? Or does she just straight not give a shit about them for real anymore?

Jacob reminds him that she won’t be able to be around Charlie after she’s turned because she’ll eat him. Edward says that she plans to stall him by telling him that she’s been moved to a special hospital on the other side of the world for the first year. (M: Wooooooow.) (A: How stupid do they think Charlie is?)

Jacob says that even if she doesn’t see him, Charlie’s gonna figure out that something is different about her. (K: Noooooooooo, really?????)

Edward, toying with our sanity, says:

“She thinks he’ll come up with his own explanation. She assumes he’ll get it wrong. After all, we hardly adhere to the vampire canon.”

Well, looky-loo who read some fucking Amazon reviews for once.

Mari: MONEY on “hardly adheres to the vampire canon” being word for word part of a negative review Steph-Steph once read. MONEY. 

Annie: At first I doubted you, Mari, because that would require Stephenie to get on the Google box and like, research and read things. And we all know she’s allergic to research and facts. But she did probably read reviews for her books, so.

Catherine: I would have to give you that money.

Jacob says it’s ‘weak’ of Edward to go along with this just to keep Bella happy and I’m like ??? She’s basically dying, dong face. Why would he NOT be trying to keep her happy and calm right now?

Jacob asks what the plan is during the birth, and I want to take a second to note that this is all happening in one scene. This ENDLESS exposition about plans and Charlie and plans and the birth and Bella and plans is in a scene that lasts for a whopping 16 pages. I mean, there are no actual section breaks in this chapter, so technically it’s all one scene, but this info dump in the house is 16 mother fucking pages long.

Mari: We all gather ’round and appreciate you, oh dearest Catherine, for reading this. Today, our gratitude is all for you. 

Catherine: I’m a SAINT. Anyway, back to it. Let me get my shovel.

Jacob wonders how they are going to get the baby out of the hard sack of vampire skin that Bella told him she was envisioning it in or whatever. Edward says that from the little research they’ve been able to do the creatures apparently chew their way out on their own.

What research—? Aw fuck it. I don’t care. THAT’S A FUCKING ALIEN.

Mari: “This has never happened to anyone ever but also our research shows…” BEST SELLER.

K: MY TIME HAS COME. I have been saving this gif on my hard drive for the past 2 years just for this moment, friends. Are you ready? You’re welcome:

Catherine: PERFECTION. It was worth the wait. Does anyone in this entire world hate Twilight as much as RPatz? Besides us, I mean. Also, yes, SURELY THERE WERE OTHER WAYS LIKE MAYBE THE VAGINA?!?

Annie: Nope. If the current political climate has taught me anything, it’s that pussies are weak and couldn’t possibly birth a baby, as they were designed to do.

Catherine: Oh man, yeah. Mine faints at the sight. It’s THAT delicate.

Jacob appropriately almost barfs at this information. Edward says that they’ve been researching ancient stories and myths and other vague shit. Which sounds totally legit. Edward tells him about Kaure and says that she warned them that the creature has to be killed immediately because it’s gonna get strong. Jacob asks what it says about the mothers and this time it’s Edward’s turn to flinch. Obviously, the mother’s die because of that whole, ‘chewing through the womb’ thing.

Rosalie speaks up and says that of course no one survived because brown people are just naturally inferior. Oh wait, this is what she says.

“Giving birth in the middle of a disease infested swamp with a medicine man smearing sloth spit across your face to drive out the evil spirits was never the safest method. Even the normal births went badly half the time. None of them had what this baby has—caregivers with an idea of what the baby needs, who try to meet those needs.”

Um, Rosalie, WTF? That was pretty fucking racist, Meyer. Holy shit. I don’t even know what to say here.

Mari: You’ve already said the most important thing:

K: TIMES. INFINITY. Holy shit, Steph. Nooooo. 

Annie: Nope. Not here for ANY of this. 

Catherine: Jacob thinks that Rosalie is pretty callous about Bella’s safety and even Edward gets mad. Jacob throws the dog bowl at her and calls her a dumb blonde. Jacob and Alice both laugh at this. I guess Alice hates Rosalie now or something. Whatever. Fine. Girl hate at this point is so far down on the list of things that are wrong with this book.

The noise wakes Bella who suddenly tenses and tells them that it’s okay and that the baby is just stretching. She feels bad that he doesn’t have enough room, and Jake is disgusted that she still talks in an adoring tone to the thing that’s tearing her up inside. Me too, tbh.

She compares the baby to Jake when he was going through his wolf growth spurt and Jake is all disgusted again. This gives Carlisle, who came into the room when Bella woke up, an idea about the fetus genetic makeup JFC who care no one care.

Carlisle says that Jake is similar to the baby because of his accelerated growth and the fact that Alice can’t see either of them in her visions.

They start talking about how Jacob has 24 chromosome pairs or whatever and then Carlisle and Edward start talking genetics and doctor stuff and Jacob can’t understand any of it so he tunes it out. More like Meyer can’t understand any of it so she didn’t want to write it.

Jacob starts thinking again about how the vampire is gonna have to chew its way out of Bella’s uterus (Fair. Hard thing to forget. I know, I’ve tried.) and that not many things can chew through vampire skin. Only the baby, his own teeth and vampire teeth. This makes him remember what Rosalie– who doesn’t care that much about preserving Bella’s health– said about getting the baby out ‘safely’ and ew. Chapter over.

Next time Breaking Dawn: The baby keeps beating Bella up in Chapter 16.