Several Reasons The Twilight Saga Pisses Me Off pt. 2

 

Several Reasons The Twilight Saga Pisses Me Off

By Isa H.

Alice's "Gift" 

Alice's ability is both the most potentially powerful and yet the most ill-conceived and WASTED power in this whole series. Yes, I am including Avatar dude. It still boggles my mind that he was in this series... more on that later. 
 

So, how is it ill-conceived? Well, because a reliable precog in any story means that there's no chance for things to go wrong. There are two ways you can write a precog: fuzzy on the details, or wildly unreliable. This allows for some tension about the plot and how it's going to unfold, and some doubt about how things will turn out for the characters. BUT Alice's powers are treated as freaking INFALLIBLE. Even though it's repeatedly shown that they aren't, and Smeyer even reluctantly admits that they aren't, EVERYONE acts like they are. In the same scene that she admits that her powers completely failed, and Edward almost died because of it, Aro uses one of her visions as a reason NOT to mess with Bella and Edward. Meaning, he's acting like the powers that are PROVEN to be unreliable ARE reliable. And nobody corrects him. And having the ability to read every thought Alice has ever had, he has no excuse. 
 
 There's also the uselessness of them. Yes, she can see the future, but only in a flowchart way. Person will choose A or B, which will lead to other simple choices that are easily followed - if he chooses B, then that leads to C or D, and if he chooses C, that will lead to E and F, but if he changes his mind and goes with D, then he's instead given choice G and H. It's incredibly simplistic and doesn't really allow for the incredible complexity of the world. It's like a choose-your-own-adventure book. 
 
Ever heard of the Butterfly Effect? It's the idea that even tiny changes in the world have ripple effects that can seriously change events. Consider: Person has choice A (go on a bus to another city) or B (don't). He chooses A, but delays for two minutes to get a hot dog, he ends up missing the bus. So, he has to take a DIFFERENT bus to the same location. If he hadn't missed that bus, he would have ended up in the wrong place and been mugged. But because he was on a different bus, he meets a new friend who might introduce him to his future wife two years in the future, at a party thrown by a person the guy MIGHT meet if he wears blue socks, etc. 
 
Yes, that's also incredibly simple, but it's an example of how even small things can have a huge effect on a person's life. And really, this makes her powers ridiculously easy to thwart. All you have to do is keep doing stuff on the fly or do something that can't possibly lead to that outcome she predicted. Stop for ten minutes and look at carpet samples - that would be enough to thwart her. 
 
But her powers are also useless because of the timing. There is NO consistent timing for her visions of the future, and no consistent way that they work. Whenever Smeyer needs a crisis, her visions are either waaaaaaayyy too late (the guy almost running Bella down) or completely absent (Jasper going nuts and trying to kill Bella). What's the point of having powers if they ALWAYS notify you way too late that something bad is going to happen? Sometimes Alice's visions are SO late that they become totally pointless; she could have just as easily have SEEN that van approaching Bella. 
 
And that would be fine... if it were noted as being a flaw. But no, Alice's foresight is totally reliable, and we should never question it. 
 

And you know what? SOMETIMES IT DOESN'T WORK AT ALL. For instance, she apparently has no visions about Victoria and Laurent returning to Forks, even though she can easily see Bella jumping off a cliff. She also doesn't foresee her OWN BOYFRIEND, who is always on the verge of losing control and whom she monitors with her foresight, suddenly attacking Bella. And neither of these incidents are EVER MENTIONED as failures. We're just meant to ignore them. 
 
So yeah, Alice's powers are way too specific for any kind of actual reliable plot involvement, but they're also too useless for how much people rely on them.  

 

The Power Overload in Breaking Dawn 

 
I think one of the most obvious ways that Breaking Dawn spun out of control was the vampire superpowers. Yes, vampire powers like mind-reading or precognition were established in the first book, but those are pretty standard superpowers. And honestly, they aren't too implausible with the premise that these are human abilities amped up (although why a biological mutation would cause THAT is never explained). 
 
But then in New Moon we started getting vampires whose powers made less sense, like only being able to sense thoughts if they were touching someone. And inflicting pain psychically. And... relationship identification. But then in Breaking Dawn, Smeyer went totally off the rails. In more ways than one. 
 
Okay, some of them are still vaguely plausible, like "the ability to distract people" or "repulsing people" or "the ability to not have anyone notice you"... although I'm not sure if those are superpowers so much as personal liabilities that they just claim are superpowers. And "ability identification" just seems like stating the obvious. 
 
And there are a few who just don't seem like they should NEED to be superpowers. I mean, did Victoria NEED to have an evasion superpower? She can't just be really stealthy and good at losing people? Did Heidi need to have supernatural sex appeal instead of just being vampire sexy? 
 
But now... now, in Breaking Dawn, there are vampires who can BREAK RELATIONSHIPS... because yeah, personal relationships aren't based on shared personal experiences or memories. And then there's "visual projection." One of the Amazons has the power to be a HOLODECK.  She literally makes people see completely convincing, realistic depictions of whatever the f*ck she wants. What the hell is that a natural outgrowth of?! And why was it even necessary? 
 
And then there's "psychic electrokinesis," meaning the vampire can zap people like a taser. Again... what is this a natural outgrowth of?! A tendency to zap people with static electricity?! 
 
But as bad as those are, two of them are so bad that my brain is rotting. Ready? 
 
There is a sparklepire who can control earth, fire, water and air. He is apparently the only one in the world, which makes me think Smeyer watched Avatar and decided to nakedly rip it off. Again... exactly what preexisting human ability leads to THIS? Affecting other people's minds, precognition, mind-reading; all these are all preexisting theoretical supernatural powers. You can find them in other stories. I could stretch my imagination enough to believe that actual real skills could attain supernatural accuracy, like James' tracking or Maggie's ability to detect lies. 
 
But elemental manipulation? There is NO theoretical ability OR real skill that can translate to that! Not unless you're God and make planets for fun. And the worst part? This power is useless. Completely useless. It really doesn't have ANYTHING to do with the plot except introducing another creepy character who comes across as the victim of a pederast.  

 

Speaking of God, this brings us to the OTHER the-f*ck-is-this? superpower. Allow me to introduce Siobhan. She's another one of the five million vampires introduced in Breaking Dawn that I think we're supposed to care about even though we've never seen them before, they don't do anything interesting and they're ultimately just there to tell us how wonderful the Cullens are and how much the Volturi suck.  
 
And there are exactly two noteworthy things about Siobhan: 

• She is the ONLY female leader of ANYTHING in the whole Twilight series. Maybe this was Smeyer's feeble response to people calling her books sexist, or she had a split-second of logical thought. 
• She can control reality. No, I'm not kidding. SHE CAN CONTROL REALITY. 

And yes, we are not meant to question this. I know Smeyer has serious issues with creating tension because she's always assuring us that nothing is actually dangerous to her characters... or at least refusing to show us anything interesting. But in this book, she has a character who can literally decide "I want things to turn out this way" AND HAVE IT HAPPEN JUST BECAUSE SHE WANTS IT. Thus, assuring that there is absolutely NO risk that things will go badly for the main characters, which sucks when this is the final book of a series and SUPPOSEDLY has a climactic clash with the bad guys. 
 
But no, this character just wishes for everybody to be happy and wander away from it unharmed, and it happens BECAUSE she wished for it. And it's not left ambiguous whether this woman is just very lucky, or whether she has this power. We're assured that she TOTALLY does have this power, it is reliable and apparently doesn't have limits.  

Who Are All These People?  

Another bizarre part of Breaking Dawn is the supporting cast. Which is huge. And... I don't know why.  For the previous three books and maybe half to two-thirds of Breaking Dawn, the vampire cast is pretty small. We've got the Cullens. We've got half a dozen Volturi, we have Victoria, James, Riley and Laurent, and lots of nameless cannon fodder that nobody cares about because they're not important. Most of those characters don't have a big presence in the series, and most of them don't even have a lot of screen time.  
 
But Stephanie Meyer decided that the last half of the last book was the ideal time to introduce a whooooooooole bunch of new vampires who are totally important to Carlisle and his faux-family even though we've never seen them or heard about them before, except for those chicks from Alaska. It's like she realized that her "saga" is about as epic as a sitcom episode, so she tried to cram in a huge cast and tell us that this is some kind of epic, important event... which ends with nothing really happening. 
 
What's wrong with this? With any actual saga or large-scale story, you have to introduce your cast gradually. Imagine Lord of the Rings if Eowyn had only been introduced a few minutes before she slew the Witch King. Or if Lando was introduced as Han's old frenemy JUST so he could fly the final mission against the Death Star. Imagine how awful that would be. Imagine the Harry Potter series if Luna Lovegood and Dobby and Remus Lupin were all introduced in Deathly Hallows.  
 
So if you want us to think these people matter, don't have a tiny, emotionally incestuous cast for three and a half books, then cram in a bunch of new characters. If they are important enough to feature and have backstories and names and take part in the not-very-grand finale, then don't introduce them at the last minute. 
 
So why did Smeyer introduce these characters? Allegedly it's because the Cullens need people to "witness" for them... whatever that means. I'm not entirely sure.  

 

What "witness" apparently means is: even more people show up to tell the world how awesome and perfect the Cullens are, and how they are way better than the Volturi, so don't you dare investigate them for committing a crime that someone mistakenly reported. It's kind of like Charlie's work as a cop. But ultimately, the characters are just useless. 
 
There MIGHT be some kind of flimsy reason for the characters to exist if there was actually, you know, A FIGHT. But there isn't. Instead, a bunch of people turn up to announce "Yay Cullens! They're perfect! Boo Volturi! You suck! Which accomplishes nothing in the long run except filling up space. The Volturi don't leave because of anything they say or do - they leave because Alice shows up with a hybrid to prove that hybrids are totally a thing, and the Volturi accept the whole thing and just walk out.  

Biological Vs. Supernatural  

 
This is one of those things that probably bothers me a lot more than it does other people: the fact that Smeyer can't grasp the difference between biological and supernatural vampires and werewolves.  
 
See, there are two kinds of creatures in these sorts of stories:  
 
 

• Pseudo-scientific ones, like a virus or aliens or even consisting of a separate species. A good example is the werewolf type shown in the new Dr. Who series, which is actually a sort of parasitic alien thing that infects hosts and causes them to react to moonlight by shapeshifting. 
• Supernatural ones, where the supernatural essence is fueled by spiritual or magical... stuff, such as a demon or losing their soul. Like Dracula, who is repelled by Christian items because it's spiritual vampirism, or Buffy where it's all about the vamps losing their souls. 

 
The problem comes when an author tries to marry these together, because.... it almost never works. The biggest problem is just that the supernatural and the scientific don't match up. Just look at the people who think science and religion are diametrically opposed, and only one can valid. I think this is stupid, because they approach different facets of reality. A SCIENTIFIC approach has measurable quantities and effects that can be mapped out and have some kind of similarity to things that already exist. A supernatural one like demons and the soul CAN'T be measured or scientifically validated. For one to produce the other... well, it basically needs God to get involved. 
 
Honestly, I have only read ONE vampire/werewolf novel where the supernatural and biological worked well together: George RR Martin's Fevre Dream. The basis of vampires in that was that they were actually a different species, which came about as a result of God's intervention after Cain murdered Abel. So God actually turned them into a NEW SPECIES similar to humans - they cannot interbreed with humans, they have their own set of species traits, and it cannot be transmitted to humans in any way.  
 
And Smeyer wants it both ways. Even though she's as scientifically savvy as a person who believes the Earth is flat, she tries to introduce scientific explanations for things like vampirism and shapeshifting. You know, things like venom, cell membranes, genes being added to vampires and werewolves, etc... things that can be measured.  
 
And it doesn't work when paired with Edwards "my soul will cease to exist!" angst, or the vampires being defined as "undead." She's trying to have all the angst of Anne Riceian vampires from an actual supernatural font, while using pseudo-scientific explanations for how they exist. THEY'RE NOT SUPERNATURAL. They are more like mutants, with all those new genes and new fluids and pervasive cell change. And that doesn't INVOLVE THE SOUL any more than being one of the X-Men does! 
 
Consider that Smeyer actually goes out of her way to mention that Twilight vampires have extra chromosomes. Their vampirism is DIRECTLY linked to those magically-appearing extra genes. 
 
It's even worse with the werewolves, because Smeyer actually goes out of her way to come up with a SUPERNATURAL explanation for the Quileute werewolves to shift, which involves spirit-walking and sharing a body with a wolf and stuff like that. Except it's also genetic and inexplicably carried by the Y chromosome. Hm. 

Seriously? NOBODY notices? 

 
One of the most ludicrous ideas of the series is that the Cullens manage to completely fly under the radar in human society, and that Bella is the ONLY person who manages to figure out their secret nature. 
 
Let's set aside the fact that Bella repeatedly shows the deductive skills of a houseplant, and that about half the story in New Moon is based on the fact that there are werewolves, she has been told there are werewolves, she has SEEN the werewolves and has been told of their relationship to vampires, which she sees in action for herself... and she still can't figure out that werewolves exist.   

 

She also is told that Victoria is in the area and gunning for revenge.... which makes it a huge shock for her when she finds out Victoria is in the area and gunning for revenge. And she is shocked to find out that there might be a tenuous connection between mysterious deaths in the area, and vampires who explicitly tell her that they kill humans. 
 
But let's forget about that for a moment. The whole premise of the series rests on every. Single. Person. That the Cullens meet being completely unobservant of the VERY OBVIOUS weird shit about them. Even if people didn't figure out they were vampires... despite all the blood-drained animal carcasses in the region... THEY WOULD KNOW THERE WAS SOMETHING WEIRD ABOUT THEM. 
 
I mean, the Cullens are not spending their time in little out-of-the-way places where they won't come into contact with people. They are deliberately going to lots of places full of people like hospitals and public schools so the maximum number of people can see them. 
 
And they're supposed to be attention-grabbers. Supposedly they're super-hot and everyone crushes on them or is jealous of them. Nobody gets to be all "The Cullens who?" - all the nurses crush on Carlisle, pretty much all women (including middle-aged receptionists, WTF) lust after Edward, and Rosalie and Alice pretty much take over the prom with their expensively dressed sex appeal. They are not being subtle about their presence. 
 
And when that happens, PEOPLE NOTICE YOU. They notice details about you. If you saw a very attractive person with GOLDEN eyes, you would definitely notice and remember their eye color. If that eye color CHANGED, it would probably stick out even more.  Also, supposedly sunlight makes them sparkle. Uh, no person living a semi-normal life can exist entirely in ambient light. It just doesn't happen. Sooner or later, you're going to have to walk by a lamp. 
 
AND their skin is supposed to be super-ultra-mega cold. As in, it's regularly compared to ice AND concrete/marble/granite/other hard stony things. Just try walking through public school hallways and classrooms all day without touching anyone. If you were ice-cold and/or rock hard, PEOPLE WOULD F*CKING NOTICE. 
 
Just consider Carlisle. He is a doctor. In a hospital. Doctors have to touch people. They might notice if their doctor's hands are not only cold, but ICE-COLD AND ROCK HARD. They also are in surroundings with lots of light/neutral colors and harsh lighting. Good luck not sparkling when that happens. And if ALL the nurses are besotted with Carlisle, why do none of them notice his shifting eye color?! 
 
Now admittedly they might not realize they are vampires. They might think they are blood-drinking aliens. Or blood-drinking faeries. Or some other species that leaves blood-drained animals littered through the woods, decimating the local wildlife. But they would definitely know that there was SOMETHING strange about these people, and be able to explain exactly what the strange things were. 
 
I can only conclude that everybody in Forks - and all the other places they live - has figured out that the Cullens are vampires (or maybe blood-drinking fairies or aliens), but are too polite to actually mention it. There's no other reason for nobody except Bella to have deduced the obvious.  

No Renfields 

 
One thing you quickly notice about Smeyer is that she has contempt for humans compared to her precious sparkling vampires. No humans could ever hurt her vampires, no humans are as smart/strong/fast/talented as her vampires, and of course the vampires don't need humans for anything except a civilization to leech off, money, services like building their f*cking McMansions, etc. They don't even really need them for food! They just prefer it. 
 
And the natural extension of that is that they also don't need Renfields. What are Renfields? In vampire fiction, Renfields are basically human followers of vampires who do the crap that vampires themselves can't.  

 
This makes logical sense, because vampires couldn't logically do EVERYTHING they would need to keep secret. This is especially true of any large group of them. The larger and more organized the group, the harder to hide them, and the more outside ties are needed. How are you supposed to get electricity, running water, legal issues, quicklime, ways to hide all those bodies, transportation, etc, if you don't have any people interacting with the outside world? The answer: you can't. 
 
"How dare you shut off our power! Don't you know what we are?" 
"No, not really, sir." 
"...." 
"Hello?" 
"I can't tell you. It's a secret." 
"Uh-huh." 
"But I'm really scary and intimidating, and I will slaughter you and everyone at your company!" 
"Sure you will. We'll turn your power back on when you send us a check." 
"I can't. I... don't have a bank account." 
"Why not?" 
"... JUST BECAUSE, OKAY?" 
 
This is one of those things that just doesn't work in a modern setting. You just can't have unobserved, unnoticed centers with electricity, elaborate decorations, heat, air circulation etc. You can't have them flying in dozens of people every few days without tickets which means money, or a private jet that needs fuel and maintenance. You can't have them being totally unnoticed without people to file fake police records, obscure footage, manipulate the news, and handle all the dead bodies. 
 
I could stretch credibility to buy that the nomadic covens could go basically unnoticed, because all they're taking from humans is blood. They're not being secret and unnoticed while also having their own buildings and infrastructures. But the Volturi are another matter. (In short: You can't have a large cadre of vampires going unnoticed while having all the benefits of being known to the world in some way.) 
 
This is the kind of thing done better in some other shows, like Being Human. In that series, vampires have infiltrated positions that allow them to cover up things; the local vampire leader is a cop, which lets him make sure the cops don't investigate the suspicious deaths and stuff. Those vampires don't need human servants because they can, mostly, blend in with the humans and take care of potential threats from a HUMAN level. 
 
But it doesn't seem like the Volturi do that; they seem to only be Volturi and not have any influential jobs outside it. So, it's really ridiculous that the Volturi have a grand total of ONE human servant. ONE. And she doesn't really seem to do anything that a vampire couldn't do - she isn't out there erasing footage or bribing dirty cops or being a prominent politician. She's a RECEPTIONIST in an underground facility that you only know about IF YOU'RE A VAMPIRE.  
 
Even Smeyer seems to belatedly realize that this wouldn't work, because in Breaking Dawn she introduces a human lawyer who has been forging official documents for the Cullens for many years. Yes, apparently their elite smarter-than-you tactic of having a printer isn't enough to fool everyone, so they now need a human to provide everything they need. 

Edward The Totally Super Scary Mofo. No Really, Please Believe Me 

 
One of the things Smeyer seems to have trouble with is the idea of showing vs. telling. One of the biggest problems with this is that she tells us ALL THE FRIGGIN' TIME that Edward is a scary, dangerous guy whom even other vampires dare not fuck with, because Bella can't imagine any vampire more dangerous and scarier than the Cullens.  

 

But it dawned on me when I was reading the end of New Moon: Edward is one of the least scary people in the entire series. No, really. We're told repeatedly how scary and dangerous he is, mostly by himself. Bella keeps claiming that she can't imagine anyone more powerful, scary and amazing than him or the other Cullens, but that seems to be just because Edward said it so often that her tiny brain eventually adopted it.  
 
But how does Smeyer show it? 
 
 

1. Nobody we see is scared of his anger. No other vampires react whenever he throws a tantrum or gets mad. In fact, they make a point of IGNORING him whenever he does.  
2. His super scary aura of boundless predator danger... which nobody at the school notices.  
3. His girlfriend, whom he informs could be crushed like a cracked eggshell approximately once every two minutes, keeps noting that she's not scared of him at all. Over. And over. And over. 
4. He gets butthurt when people AREN'T scared of him. He body-tackles Bella to try to intimidate her when she says he's not scary (which she STILL isn't scared by), and sulks at school because nobody is freaked out by him. 
5. He doesn't fight in Twilight. Instead of leaving Bella to the ministrations of Carlisle, a doctor who is not tempted by human blood, and attacking the vampire who had beaten her up and bitten her... he sits there letting other people do the fighting. 
6. When does the scary, menacing, super-strong Edward try to fight someone? When he's confronted by a TWELVE-YEAR-OLD GIRL. And he gets his ass handed to him on a platter. 
7. While everyone else is fighting against the newborn army, he's off hiding on a mountaintop with Bella. 
8. When Edward and Alice are up against two of the Volturi... it's abundantly clear that they're going to get their butts kicked. 

 
 
Now, I fully acknowledge that- well, even though I'm pretty Edward lies and exaggerates about how awesome the sparklepires are, since his girlfriend is stupid enough to believe him- that the vampires are a lot stronger and faster and more physically adept than humans. This is pretty standard in vampire tales because people want to be vampires. Therefore, I know that Edward is faster, stronger and more theoretically capable of kicking ass than any huma, but I don't believe it.  
 
The simple fact is that all the stuff about Edward being "scary" should be based on my knowledge of his strength and speed and his shitty driving skills. I know that he has those things, but it's purely intellectual. On a visceral, emotional level I don't see him doing anything except throwing tantrums like a spoiled child and failing miserably to intimidate others and TALKING about how dangerous he is. Therefore, I know he SHOULD be scary, and yet I don't find him scary or expect anyone else to. 
 
As a comparison, let's consider Sam Gamgee in Lord of the Rings. One of the first words that comes to mind when people mention Sam is "brave." Nobody could ever deny that Sam is a very brave character - the mere act of following Frodo once he finds out about Ringwraiths and stuff like that shows that he is a brave little hobbit who will never move from his path. The Nazgul and orcs are the stuff of nightmares for Sam, and he sees things are even worse and more repellent in his journey, and yet he never even wavers. But does Sam ever call himself brave? No; even the omniscient NARRATOR only definitely uses the word "brave" for him ONCE, and the word "courage" mostly to describe what he's trying to summon up. Sam would never use such a word for himself. 
 
What convinces us of Sam's bravery, and makes that one of the greatest characteristics he possesses? His actions. We are SHOWN what he does out of courage, like charging an orc tower single-handed, or fighting Shelob, or facing down strangers who could kill him easily. The very act of following Frodo into Mordor, on a suicide mission that would have almost certainly destroyed them both, is an act of courage. We don't have to be TOLD that he's brave, because we already know it. We feel it. We experience it. 
 
He is the opposite of Edward, who tells us constantly that he's scary and dangerous... and while Edward should be, his pathetic ineffectuality and his constant ego-masturbation totally undermine any scariness he might have had. You might be able to convince people with words alone of something... but when someone points out that it's all words and no actions, the bubble is popped. The spell is broken. And suddenly, like the emperor's new clothes, everyone can see what the text is actually showing us. 
 
The "telling" is necessary because Smeyer basically needs to brainwash her audience. Unless she TOLD us how deadly the vampires are, and how scary Edward is... would his actions actually support it?  

 
 
 

Where's The History? 

 
This is something that struck me when I was thinking about when Edturd was born. The Twilight books have no sense of history. I don't mean just the vampire history, although that is painfully shallow, what with whole wars being just kind of glossed over. I mean that vampires live through whole world-changing eras of human history, and it just sort of isn't noticed. I mean, the closest we have to acknowledging this is Edward fussing about how Frank Sinatra is superior to groundbreaking rock'n'roll. 
 
There are only a couple of exceptions I can think of, both centering around Edward's early life. One was Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918, which obviously was used to make Edward sick so Carlisle could "save" him without his consent. The other was World War I, which would have been going on during Edward's teen years, and we're in fact told that he wanted to be a soldier and fight in the war, although it ended the year he became a vamp... and, well, America only ENTERED the war near the end, despite him apparently wanting to all along. So, I doubt he would have gotten to anyway. 
 
The problem is that no world events ever seem to be noticed by the vampires. Like yeah, they acknowledge WWI happened. One of the worst wars in history - not because of the number of people killed, although it was massive, but because it was so ineptly handled, so traumatic, so pointless, and so badly-finished that it led to ANOTHER world war.  
 
And yet.... there's no acknowledgement of it except that Edward wanted to be a soldier. He didn't have any friends that died in the mud, there was no real emotional investment there. Why didn't Carlisle sign up since he's nigh-unkillable and SUCH a devoted doctor? Not enough pretty, underage boys in the army? 
 
And there's so many other things that they were presumably present for that are never even touched on. I mean, World War II was devastating in every way, yet it might as well have not happened for all the acknowledgement in this one,  even though you'd think even "perfect" vampires might be a wee bit worried about things like atom bombs. 
 
Or what about Carlisle? He was born at the start of the Jacobean era, right after the Tudor dynasty had finally puttered out. He was alive during the whole Guy Fawkes thing. The foundation of the first British colonies in the New World, which led to the formation of TWO major countries. The start of the Thirty Years War. And that's during his LIFETIME, even before he became a vampire. 
 
And that doesn't include other things as well. What about the American Revolution, and the formation of a new nation that changed world politics forever? What about the formation of the British Empire, seeing his homeland become an empire that literally spanned the world? What about the creation of new countries like Australia? What about the more casual travel to places like China? What about the rise of terrible powers like the Soviet Union, which was very different from any civilization before it, and whose Cold War with the US led many people to believe that the world could be destroyed? What about the abolishment of slavery in many countries, including a war in the US partly over the issue? What about 9-11 and the rise of terrorist organizations? What about the counterculture of the mid-twentieth century, which led to new attitudes about sex, art, culture, gender, etc.?  
 
Any person who lived through those times would have seen - even from a distance - a lot of really dramatic important things. Even if they weren't personally involved, it would be impossible to not see the world reworking itself into new shapes repeatedly. How would a person from the early 1600s see these events? 

 

What do we get from his history? He met an Italian painter, and his dad was one of the witch-burners from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. THAT'S ALL.  

 

Or the Volturi. They've been around for THREE THOUSAND  YEARS. But there's no sign that they really saw anything during their time as vampire lords. But the rise and fall of whole empires and civilizations appears to have happened while they were doing other stuff, so they just didn't notice. Really, why would you? 
 
One of the best things about including vampires in fiction is imagining a character NOW who has had the experience of seeing important historical events firsthand. You can handle this in a funny way, like Spike talking about being at Woodstock. Or you can use it in a serious way, like Henry Fitzroy being the (real person) bastard son of Henry VIII, who became a vampire instead of dying of tuberculosis. But it allows the author to imagine how things have been, and how a person from then would see the world now. 
 
Instead, we get a lot of people whom we're told are really old, and a cluster of random dates. Like Bella herself, the vampires have no well-rounded backstory, just a lot of black space and a few details. 
 
 
 
 

Blank Space 

 
Lots of online critics have talked about how vacuous, bland and featureless Bella is. Vacuous, bland and featureless Stephenie Meyer has claimed that she did this on purpose so vacuous, bland, featureless teen girls could more easily pretend to be her. 
 
Personally, I disagree with them. Bella has plenty of personality, it's just that it's all vile, conniving and selfish. However, Bella does have some glaring blanks, including her past.  Yes, we're told some stuff about Bella's past. Her parents divorced when she was a baby, she lived in a posh suburb of Phoenix despite her mother having no skills, education or job, she once did ballet, and she went to school there. Seriously, I just summed up Bella's entire life until she came to Forks in ONE sentence. EVERYTHING.  
 
Now this wouldn't be so jarring if : 

1. Bella wasn't the main character. 
2. There was a plot to distract us. 
3. Bella didn't spend half the first book talking endlessly about Phoenix. 

I mean, Frodo Baggins didn't spend all of Fellowship talking about his life at the Brandybuck compound, so it doesn't really matter that we know almost nothing of what happened there. But because Bella never shuts the heck up about Phoenix, it's very noticeable that she had no friends there, no memories, no places she liked to go that weren't directly plot-related, no people she knew, no actual experiences in school.  
 
Sure, she mentions/shows PLACES she's familiar with, like the airport or her former school. But you never get the sense that she actually spent any real time there. We never hear about her old friend X or her time doing Y or that awful teacher Z who gave her such a hard time.  And as with a lot of flaws, this is something that happens a LOT in Twilight. All the characters supposedly have been places and done stuff, but there is no sense that they actually have. We're TOLD that they've been everywhere worth going and done everything worth doing, and yet I totally can't buy that. 
 
But with Bella it's utterly unforgivable, because NOTHING HAPPENS in these books. And we spent 95% of the series in her vacant head. The least we could get is some sense that she did SOMETHING in her life besides drool after Edward. 
 
And this is even more baffling because SMeyer based Bella's life in Phoenix ON HER OWN. She grew up in the same city, in the same suburban region, probably attending the same school (despite Bella trying to pretend that she’s sO hOoD). She spent her whole childhood and adolescence there. She mined so much of her teen bitterness for Bella's experiences in Forks, so how come she couldn't mine it a little for anything BEFORE Forks?  

Renee, Rotten Mom 

 
As with the sex thing, you would not know from reading this series that Meyer is a grown woman with children, because... she depicts parents in a super-weird way. And nowhere is this more obvious than Bella's mother Renee. 
 
Renee is, to put it nicely, an imbecile. In order to make Bella look super-competent, mature and responsible, Meyer essentially makes Renee functionally incompetent to the point where she is incapable of navigating her own neighborhood, cooking for herself, paying her own bills or going grocery shopping. If Renee was capable of caring for herself like any other adult, then how would we ever know how wonderful Bella is?! 
 
Frankly, when writing YA fiction, you need to write competent adults who actually do their jobs and are not tolerated despite their plot-necessary incompetence. JK Rowling did a semi-decent job with this, especially after the first couple books of her Harry Potter series - while obviously the adults like Dumbledore and Snape are sometimes unaware of what's going on, they also know things the heroes do NOT and have their own plans. Furthermore, they don't allow the Hogwarts students to essentially run wild and do whatever they want for months at a time. 
 
Renee? She's a blithering moron to make the "heroine" look good. And worst of all, Meyer doesn't seem to grasp that it shows Renee to be a horrible mother. In the books, Renee is "good" because she lets Bella do whatever she wants. She doesn't seem to grasp that a parent who is completely incapable of caring for their child - or even themselves – is not a good parent. I'd also like to remind you that Smeyer just brushes off the whole circumstances of Bella leaving Washington as a baby. I've never been divorced, but I'm pretty damn sure that when you share a child with someone, you can't just grab the baby and leave for another state with the intent of never coming back.  
 
The whole "Renee is an idiot unfit parent" thing is even more egregious in Life and Death. Meyer's whole reason for not gender flipping Charlie and Renee was allegedly that custody wouldn't be given to a man unless the mother was an unfit parent. She then completely undermines this by demonstrating that Renee is an unfit parent, since she needs her child to "take care" of her and apparently keeps him so isolated from real life that he has never seen a normal parent/child relationship.  

So, yeah, that about sums it up for what I can rant about on a school platform. Thanks for reading!