"New Moon"

By Stephanie Meyer

"New Moon" is an improvement on "Twilight" in many ways.. There’s more foreshadowing, more interesting characters are introduced in the form of the Quileute werewolves, and the “action” of the plot is more evenly dispersed through the book. This does not make the action the strongest aspect of the book, it was simply improved upon. Most noticeably, an editor was brought on board so much of the hair-pulling prose that was present in "Twilight" is toned down or absent in "New Moon". Indeed, certain chapters are amusing and downright enjoyable. The improvement in the writing comes as a double-edged sword however – "New Moon" reads more swiftly than "Twilight", but without the distraction of awful writing, issues with the characterization, plot, pacing, and Bella’s crazy become much more apparent, so arguably the “improvements” only serve to highlight the numerous failings of the book. Furthermore, the themes present in the book are disturbing to the extreme for anyone capable of reading the subtext, or even people who are prone to taking what they read at face value.

The Glorification of Abuse

I already addressed some of my concerns earlier, but for the sake of cohesion I will also do so here, with additional information gleaned from my reading of New Moon, and thoughts that didn’t make it into the first “rough draft.”

Part of what troubles me is that Edward and Bella’s relationship is intended to be an epic love, a One True Love, a love that all other loves should envy and covet. Their loves are compared to other famous literary loves (with varying viability), and Bella even goes so far as to point out how special her and Edward’s love was at one point in "New Moon".

The other half of the problem is that this series is geared towards adolescent girls, an age bracket with a tendency to mimic and covet what is presented to them in a positive manner. By virtue of being protagonists, Edward and Bella’s interactions become the acceptable “norm” for the series. Unfortunately, this relationship is one that glorifies abuse, suicide, and the notion that all self worth is found only in one’s boyfriend. Bella and Edward’s Epic And True Love does not even approach standards for a healthy, “normal” relationship, let alone the be-all end-all of loves that it is portrayed as.

But what does “healthy” love look like? Not even going near the “Epic and True” levels Bella and Edward supposedly carry it, normal, maintainable, healthy relationships rely on maintaining trust, respect, and a level of realistic awareness and forgiveness of the shortcomings of both people involved. There also needs to be a balance of power (this is not S&M which is a different bag of cats), least one partner overrun the other.

Bella and Edward do not have any of these minimum traits that a healthy, “normal” relationship needs to endure, let alone their Epic and True romance. It could be argued that since Edward is not human, human norms should not apply to him. But Edward has human emotions, human needs, and human desires. Edward values humans and human related things. Edward is a being of self control, who is aware of the status of those around him and can gauge the consequences and morality of his actions. His vampire status does not make him excused. Furthermore, Bella is human with all the strengths and weaknesses (especially weaknesses) that entails, and should be held to human standards with just as strict an eye.

There is little respect or balance of power in their relationship. Edward inevitably ignores, sneaks around, or blatantly disregards anything Bella wants. Bella does not want to go to the prom? Edward still takes her. Bella doesn’t want a birthday party? Edward takes her to a surprise party. Edward has no qualms about manhandling Bella as if she were a large doll, blocking her path or physically restraining her when she’s about to do something he doesn’t like, and frequently expresses jealousy or anger towards any guy he thinks might take Bella’s attention away from him even as he bemoans about how much danger Bella is in around him. Edward controls all aspects of their relationship – he determines how much time they spend together, who Bella socializes with, and how far their physical intimacy goes. Bella has virtually no say in anything, and even her attempts to put down her foot on becoming a vampire are undermined by Edward. Bella herself notes that Edward’s attempts at reasonable arguments are mostly an attempt to stall or entirely put off Bella’s impending vampire status. Edward is also emotionally withdrawn – despite all the “I love you” talk, rather than discuss his fears about the relationship like a rational person, he runs off the second he starts having doubts. Edward also threatens suicide at the beginning of "New Moon", then brings it up again at the end, hearkening back to the tried and true “if you break up with me/if anything happens to you I’ll kill myself.”

Although Edward is the primary transgressor, Bella herself is not much better. Whining aside, Bella places her entire sense of self worth in Edward’s hands and has no ambitions beyond being by his side for all eternity (and not getting old because that’s gross). When Edward leaves her, she has no other support systems and collapses entirely, and even when she “recovers” she continues to be obsessive, and again, suicidal. Bella is perfectly aware of how accident prone she is, did she honestly think she could keep surviving her “extreme sports” expeditions forever? Of course, the danger doesn’t matter because she’s in love and it allows her to have hallucinations of Edward’s voice when she does it. Bella’s obsession goes far enough that when Edward comes back to her, she accepts him with no qualms. She isn’t angry that he lied to her, or that he left her a broken mess of a human being. In fact, the relationship between Bella and Edward remains static – Bella’s concern’s are the same as they were before Edward left her at the beginning of "New Moon" in that she feels he’s too good for her and will eventually abandon her when he gets bored (only this time for real). In addition to these other traits, the occasions when Bella does attempt to put her foot down, or becomes upset, she is frequently brushed aside, laughed at as unreasonable, or outright ignored.

All these things become even more damning when one considers what keeps the relationship going: physical attraction. Lust. That’s it. The reader is constantly assured by Bella that Edward is breathtakingly attractive, and Edward thinks Bella has really tasty smelling blood. The Volturi even have a name for it: “singers.” But what else to Edward and Bella have in common? What is it about Edward that Bella can’t live without, and vice versa? When Bella speaks of Edward, she describes nothing but the physical: Edward’s voice, face, body. She doesn’t talk about his ability to say the right things to make her feel confident, his love of Robert Frost, or his loathing of smelly cheeses. Edward similarly, doesn’t speak much about what makes Bella so worthwhile other than she smells good.

One can only conclude based on text that having no value outside your boyfriend is ok, suicide is a sign of love and devotion, letting your boyfriend decide everything is ok, and having a relationship based solely on physical attraction is not only acceptable, but preferable. One can only hope that, like other fads of the past (furby, beanie babies, and those little digital pet things), that Twilight will be put aside as the target audience of the books grow up, and should it experience a revival, it shall be as an example of bad writing and unhealthy relationships.

Plot Holes:

Werewolves ‘R Us: It’s heavily implied that the Quileute boys transform when there are vampires around. Natural enemies, protecting the land, etc. Yet, throughout Twilight, and presumably through the time before Bella arrived on the scene, none of the Quileutes fursploded. Not one. Not even when there were a full family of seven vampires living on their doorstep. While we are not given an exact time for when Sam – the first werewolf – first transformed, it is presumably as early as August or September – roughly when the last remaining Cullens (Jasper, Rosalie, and Emmett having long gone) leave Forks. One might argue that the fursploding did not happen sooner because the Cullens avoided the reservation – but Jacob certainly didn’t avoid Bella and even ran into Edward during "Twilight" with no results. Not to mention it’s only the proximity of Victoria and Laurent – only two vampires – that causes the fursploding in the rest of the pack. Certainly, the Cullens made an agreement with the old Quileutes a long time ago, but given that the agreement basically goes, “if you bite someone we’ll kill you,” the Cullens likely aren’t the exception to causing fursploding. Not to mention the Cullens still smell awful to the werewolves, and vice versa. No, the Cullens are still lumped in with the rest of the vampires.

Who Wants To Rule The World? : It’s been pretty much established that vampires are better than humans in every way. They’re stronger, faster, have heightened senses, and their immortality gives them the time to perfect skills and gather knowledge far beyond what a human could hope to accomplish in their lifetimes. They’re impossible to kill save another vampire or a pack of angry Quileute werewolves. I’m not sure what a nuclear warhead would do to one, but I’m pretty sure an attempt to drop one on a vampire would be futile given how fast the bastards can run. They’d be out of the drop zone by once they noticed that big thing in the sky coming towards them, and that’s if the people pushing the button think a few thousand (minimum) human casualties would be worth the chance of hitting a vampire or two. And those are just your average vampires, nevermind vampires like Edward, who can read your mind, or the halfpint who can kill you by looking at you funny. Presumably, the Volturi who have said halfpint on a leash are the reason that most vampires haven’t staked out little fiefdoms all over the world and made humanity their bitches.

However, what exactly is preventing the Volturi from doing the same themselves? Unlike the “vegetarian” Cullens, they have no attachment to humanity or need to protect humans. After all, there are 6,700,000,000 humans (roughly) in modern times. They’d be hard-pressed to wipe out that many, and frankly we breed like rabbits. Even by vampire standards, the Volturi are superpowered, and they make a point of gathering vampires of their ilk and keeping a leash on them. The Volturi are ambitious, organized, and have little serious opposition that I know of. Why haven’t these guys already taken over the world by the time Edward meets Bella? Humanity wouldn’t stand a chance. Even if none of them had world-domination aims (which I find unlikely given that they’ve taken it upon themselves to police their rules on their own over-powered species), and given that humans have practically no chance at killing them, why are they bothering to stay hidden from the masses? There’s practically nowhere a human can run or hide from a hungry vampire.

A possible – but dubious – theory is simply that the Volturi don’t have the numbers to openly keep the entire world under their collective thumbs. An estimate of vampire populations isn’t given, but one can assume that since the Volturi are special elite vampires, there are likely a buttload more of “regular” vampires who would still have no problem keeping human populations cowed. Not to mention the humans who’d sell out their own species for the chance to be a vampire (see: random human in the lobby of the Volturi hideout and Bella). So even if there aren’t enough vampires around to keep things on a lid, arguably humans looking for a shot at “moving up” or simply want the job perks could handle it (see: British Empire in India). But even then that doesn’t explain why they don’t pull the strings covertly instead. It would be child’s play to get through the security surrounding any human head-of-state.

So. Why aren’t the Volturi running the world?

Sparklevamps: Look, even though Meyerpeyers sparkle, this isn’t a well known fact. The Volturi actually make it a point to spread false information and myths about vampires. Nothing about commonly known vampire lore suggests that they sparkle. So why would Edward or the Volturi think that sparkling in the middle of the day would make any normal human think “vampire?” Either Edward had a case of stupid, or Meyer Did not do the research.

Also see above as to why the Volturi giving a damn about whether people know about vampires or not makes no sense.

Feeding Habits of Vegetarians: I sincerely doubt the Cullens could remain in Forks for as long as they have without wrecking havoc on the ecosystem, or without having to roam farther and farther for their meal. An average of how often vampires need to feed isn’t given, but since Alice says humans eat more regularly, and as evidenced during the ending chapters of Twilight that Alice and Jasper don’t feed for several days, it could be argued that vampires who chomp on wildlife only need to do so once, maybe twice a week. So, lets do a little math:

1.5 Animals per Cullen Per Week= 10.5 animals of various species per week. 16 Animals per month. 144 animals per year.

Humans have hunted out the wolves, and presumably have put a signifigant dent in other potential big-predator populations, and any prey that are valued for their horns (elk, deer, moose, etc) .Emmett alone would have cleared out the bear population not long after the Cullens arrived, given Emmett’s love of bear-eating, and knocked out a huge chunk of the deer and/or elk population between the beginning of "Twilight" and the beginning of "New Moon", let alone pre-"Twilight". Bitch, I watch the Discovery Channel, deer and elk do not reproduce that fast! And that’s not even counting “normal” causes of death for deer/elk – sickness, age, not finding enough forage in the winter – that will kill off the youngest and oldest deer/elk. Not only should this wreck havoc on wildlife populations – web of life people – but wouldn’t the humans who hunt, hike, and otherwise track the wildlife (local rangers) notice the sudden vanishing of large numbers of these animals? And where the hell do the Cullens hide the bodies? Do they make huge graves all over the place to “hide” their former dinners?

In other words, the natural balance in the Forks area of Washington should be a mess.

Character Break Down:

There are so many fricken incidental characters in this book that I’m not covering them all. Heck, some of the major secondary characters (the Cullen’s) and one of the primary characters (Edward) don’t show up until the butt-end of the book. I already covered Edward and Bella in the opening, so this is for the minor bunch and Jacob, who got introduced.