Breaking Dawn
discussion
the whole "vampires can't have babies" issue.

Welcome to biology for the insane.


b) I'm not sure what point you're making here. I think this entire discussion board has been about trying to see the book through the eyes of other readers; that's why we're sharing and discussing our reactions. What are we supposed to be trying to see here that we're not?

So, the vampires are pretty super human with crazy abilites, like being able to put their body back together after being ripped apart. They have super brains, super strength, super lots of stuff. If they could do that, whose to say they couldn't they get an erection when they want to?
But you'd think they the male vamps would know if some sort of fluid escaped from the deed and would worry about how that might affect Bella. Oh well. If they knew that then they would have used protection and the only way Bella could get pregnant then would be if the protection failed, it happens. Hmm, maybe that would have been cool still. Then the baby would really be meant to be.


You cant compare to "human" sex to vampire and human sex... its uncomparable because the second one is unrealistic. Therefore, it is possible... Stephenie made the fiction series... she can write it the way she wants and how she wants.
Breaking Dawn was incredible :-)

Meyer has gone to a lot of trouble to explain the science of her vampires. We understand, biologically, what happens to a person when they become a vampire. Therefore, we expect the same sort of explanation when something we thought was impossible (vampire reproduction) turns out to be possible after all.
Stephenie Meyer can absolutely write her story the way she wants. My problem is that she doesn't explain things that appear to contradict each other.





Lol, im sorry if that was too much for any of you.





The entire thing will boggle me forever, fiction or not.


Honestly, Meyer's explanations are so contradictary, it's a wonder no one's losing brain cells. First she says that a pregnant woman who is turned would be pregnant forever and vampires don't change at ALL from the state they were in before the change, which is why Alice's hair doesn't grow, and yet the venom "heals" all damage, which definitely qualifies as major change (especially considering the broken and bleeding state some people are in before hand).
*still boggling over here*


The writing is so mangled and Meyer's character descriptions so contradictory, finding something wrong isn't as difficult as you'd like to believe. Which is why people are talking about it, and that's the point of having a discussion post.
If you don't want to talk about it, you are more than welcome to find a discussion that praises the book and refuses to acknowledge that there's anything wrong with it.
The fact is that people find this book lacking, and insulting them isn't going to change that.

Well, at least you tried. :) It would be an interesting situation if it were true: Renesmee both killing and preserving/protecting Bella at the same time.


I think this is more of an issue of Meyer's squeamishness than anything. I don't see her putting a study on sperm and masturbation in her books.

Haha, I don't think she'd address it so directly in a book. My point is, they'd know pregnancy to be possible.



There have been legends around for centuries about vampires having sex with human women and impregnating them. Stephanie Meyers talks about that in her books. During the honeymoon after Bella realizes she is pregnant Edward talks to the house keeper about it. Then as the family is doing research in South America, Alice comes back with a Women and her nephew who had a vampire father. All of this is based on legends that have been around for hundreds of years.
Stephanie apparently did some research for her books. She didn't just make it all up.

Most of the vampires who were "misbehaving" and impregnating humans were south slavic or central/south american. They were hiding what they were doing from the Volturi and other vampires.
So it is very possible that they would not have known this a possibility. But the incubus and succubus were said to be very sexual in legend; tying bloodlust and sex very close to one another, so vampires being passionate is not farfetched. And again, I've been reading vampire books for over 25 years. This is not new fiction or information.


When Renesmee broke Bella's sp..."
And then theres the part in the transformation when she suddenly feels her lower half on fire after the venom repairs the spinal break.


If that were true then they'd also be able to cry. But they can't.
She should have just kept the answer to vampire babies mystical/unexplained. But she started using biology to try and explain a supernatural being that goes comepletely against the laws of science. She did poor research on chromesomes as well.
She sort of shot herself in the foot by adding science to the mix.

Sorry, if Edward's sperm were in cryogenic stasis and he still had junk in his trunk, RenFailmee would be a full human, not a vampire/human hybrid.

I read that, and it still doesn't work. Here is the important sentence:
"Like with vampire skin—which looks similar to human skin and has the same basic function—fluids closely related to seminal fluids still exist in male vampires, which carry genetic information and are capable of bonding with a human ovum."
The problem with this is, the important part is NOT the seminal fluids, but the cells (sperm) that are swimming around in it. Otherwise, guys with vasectomies are going to be in a LOT of trouble! :)
Meyer further shoots holes in this theory when she pronounced that her vampires do not change or grow. Female vampires would be pregnant forever if changed in that state, remember? Alice's hair hasn't grown back since she was changed. This means male vampires are sterile too. No growth, no cells means no sperm, vampire or otherwise. So there IS NO GENETIC MATERIAL for her seminal fluid analogue to carry.
If she had stuck with magic and some kind of vampire mojo that made babies, it would have been fine. But she started going into how many chromasomes a vampire had, so we're stuck with Mendelian genetics, and she didn't make it work in that regard. You can't have it both ways.

So vampire sex should be possible. It's just the whole transfer-of-genetic-material that causes problems. If Edward is still a virgin, he should have all the sperm he had at the time he was turned. Since the vampire venom changes the genetic structure of every cell in his body, it's possible it changed around his haploids, as well, making vamp!baby possible.
Except that Meyer has stated that he has no sperm - presumably, it was destroyed and replaced by venom, which is known to alter genetic material, but should completely rewrite any genes it comes into contact with. So, assuming that the venom is ejaculated like semen, it should at the very least turn the ovum into a vampire cell, which would prevent cellular division in the zygote, since that would constitute a "change"... Yeah, no. This still doesn't work.

Wasn't something said about them having to kiss carefully for fear that venom might turn her or something...???
Maybe I'm wrong about that.
But what everyone else has been saying is right. Even if Edward was 'frozen' when he got turn and that some how meant he still had sperm inside him, it would be human sperm (infected with Spanish Influenza no less). So it should have been a human child, not a creepy hybrid.

However, Meyer did kind of screw herself over by trying to explain this all with science that she doesn’t understand. All of their fluids were replaced with venom—including their sperm—and then when she realized her mistake, she tried to worm her way out of it by making it so that the venom worked the way the other fluids would have, even though I believe there was never a mention of this before Breaking Dawn.
So, vampires can most definitely have babies and they have throughout mythology for a very long time. However, Meyer’s vampires should not be able to have babies. But that’s my take on it. Feel free to disagree with me.

At leats we still have Nephillim to write stories about, but then most of them have veered away from the lore as well.

The Paranormal Romance and Young Adult genres are quickly destroying most ancient lore and mythology. Don't get me started on the misuse of Greek Mythology in young adult books.


Actually, Meyer did write a book about vampire abilities. It's in: The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide.
Problem is, she doesn't give any better information there, than she did elsewhere. AND she goes one step further by changing what she said from previous interviews. Take a look at my comments here. Instead of her vampires being living rock with crystallized cells, now their tissues are "not as pliant." This tells me she knows what she wrote is having a hard time flying on its own. Doesn't matter. She's not backing off the "no growth and change" rule. So as long as that's around, she's got a plot hole you can sail the Enterprise through.
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The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide (other topics)
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Breaking Dawn (other topics)The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide (other topics)
"Most human fluids are absent in my vampires. No sweat, no tears, no blood besides that which they ingest–they don’t have their own blood. They do sort of have saliva–the venom makes their mouths wet, at least. When they drink blood, it runs through their body and makes them strong. It floods through their old blood ways, though they don’t have circulation anymore. It lightens their eyes* and flushes their skin slightly."
now, that being said, in her novel she claims that the male vampires can impregnate because their bodies do not need to change, but the female bodies do. A poor excuse, but an excuse non-the-less. However, what a lot of people fail to see is that it doesn't matter whether or not he has sperm, or if his organs are frozen or not. She clearly states in this quote that her vampires no longer have circulating blood right? Well how the hell can Edward get an erection without circulating blood?? Without circulating blood, Edward can't even have sex with Bella, non-the-less get her pregnant. I am very disappointed in Stephanie Meyer and her lack of writing in this novel. she clearly can't remember or abide the rules she set for her own writing.