First, Meyer disregards the structure and rules of her fictional universe in the service of a “happy ending.” Second and much more disturbing to me, Meyer uses the device of Bella’s pregnancy to evacuate Bella of all personality and subjectivity, thus making the misogynist, anti-feminist project of the Twilight Saga clear.

So one of the reasons Breaking Dawn breaks down is that Bella and Edward’s baby-making explodes the rules of the fictional universe constructed in the first three books. In Twilight, Eclipse and New Moon, vampiric characters are not fertile because Meyer is very clear that they possess no bodily secretions. No sweat, no tears, no snot — do I need to go on? In case you need quotes to back me up, the authors of fan site the Twilight Lexicon have apparently corresponded personally with Meyer on this subject, and she explicitly says, “Most human fluids are absent…”

Yes, but she doesn’t explicitly say that Twilight vampires are sterile, you point out. Actually, she does when she says that a female vampire lacks “any kind of ovulation cycle.” Yes, but she never actually says that male Twilight vamps DON’T have functioning sperm, you say. It is true that Meyer does not ever state that Twilight vamps LACK functioning sperm. However, the statement that “most human fluids are absent” in Twilight vamps strongly suggests that they have no functioning reproductive systems. Furthermore, the specific information about the sterility of female Twilight vamps makes it clear that they LACK functioning eggs, from which it is very easy to conclude that male Twilight vamps lack functioning sperm. Therefore, the argument that Meyer left open the possibility of thriving male vampire sperm is an extremely weak and untenable one. [I can’t believe I’m writing this absurd line of argument.]

But don’t believe the author’s explanations in this matter of vampire fertility. Look at how the characters themselves behave: as if they are infertile. In fact, Edward, who doesn’t want to vamp Bella lest he deprive her of the opportunity of having babies, believes both male and female vamps are sterile. No one, not even his learned doctor “daddy” Carlisle, disagrees. That is, all the Cullen vamps believe that Twilight vamps are sterile because, as Meyer clearly shows throughout the series and in ancillary clarification, THEY ARE.

Meyer’s logical consistency and world-building go out the window, then, when Bella and Edward go against everything we’ve been taught about Twilight vamp fertility and HAVE A BABY. I wouldn’t mind them having a baby so much if Meyer could do some creative retconning that would successfully explain the Cullen kid in the context of the Twilight world. However, Meyer obviously prevented human/vampire babies from ever believably occurring in her fictional universe. Therefore, the only way that she could introduce one was through hand-waving, or an unexplained plot hole. It’s frustrating enough that Meyer destroys her fictional world’s consistency by tossing some vampire spawn into the mix. It’s beyond frustrating and, indeed, rather insulting, when she doesn’t even try to explain the existence of said spawn. Instead, she seems to think that readers will be so enraptured at the prospect of a precocious, darling, irresistible love child between Bella and Edward that they will not notice that the love child is an offense to the rules of successful fiction.

Part II is here. Part III is here.