#theyre SO upset on sam's behalf

[sammyofold]

My family just hating on dean winchester at this point lmao. It's great because they're hilarious. Can't wait for more spn-inspired family memes

[panlight]

i watched eclipse recently and it just made me realise how...ridiculous it was that nobody died in the newborn battle. like a couple ppl got hurt (mostly only jacob) all the newborns died (rip bree) but nobody died in a battle that was promised to be bloody..all this to say that i think breaking dawn should have been a wedding and a funeral and the funeral should have been carlisle's...none of the baby nonsense, we meet carlisle's friends because theyre all coming to town for the funeral

I suspect that she was never going to be able to bring herself to kill any of these characters in the first place, but I think, again, we're in this "writing the books out of order" territory again where even if she wanted to kill some of these characters off (and I don't think she would, see: Breaking Dawn), she can't, because she needs them all alive for her Forever Dawn/Breaking Dawn ending. They all need to be there at the non-fight with the Volturi! They can't die in the newborn battle!

And I feel like this is a big reason why we don't get ANY follow-up or follow-through with the newborn battle after Eclipse, because the books that follows was written before Eclipse existed. Sure, she went back and edited it, took out Victoria and Laurent because they were already dead, made Irina the tattle-tale, and then we-wrote the middle second with pregnant!Bella from Jacob's POV because Bella dying on the couch made for a poor narrator in terms of seeing the bigger picture. But the bulk of the story was just that original Forever Dawn that was written after Twilight. So of course there is no fallout from the newborn fight; in the original draft of the 'Dawn' story, that didn't happen. She'd have to really go back and rework the whole thing to lend that fight any weight. You'd think it would weigh on at least some of the Cullens. Esme and Carlisle were ready to adopt Bree, and this is quite possibly the first time they've ever killed another vampire. There's no lingering angst and guilt and sadness from that? It's just right into wedding planning? This didn't bring up any of Jasper's old issues? Edward and Bella have no sense of guilt about the other Cullens and wolves fighting on their behalf? They don't feel bad about all those people Victoria forcibly conscripted to her army that were then killed? Bella's biggest problem is being embarrassed when people stare at her fancy new car? Really?

Now, imagine if someone (Carlisle or Esme or Emmett or Leah or Jared or Sam or whoever) had died in the newborn battle, and how much Forever/Breaking Dawn with this fairytale forest wedding dominating the first section would either a) not work at all or b) have to be MASSIVELY rewritten to factor in everyone upset about the death(s) of whoever. She wasn't gonna do that. Everything had to stay status quo so she could keep her original ending. And I think--writing-craft wise, I'm not speaking in terms of social issues/appropriation/racism etc--this was the biggest problem with the series, that she stubbornly stuck to the original ending that existed before New Moon and Eclipse were written. It boxed her in. She couldn't actually put her characters in any real danger because she knew how this was ending already. She couldn't let Aro make a play to keep Alice and Bella in Volterra, they had to go home and plan a wedding! She couldn't kill off any of the Cullens or wolves, because they all needed to be there at the Volturi confrontation!

But yeah, killing off Carlisle would have made a ton of narrative sense. The mentor character often dies in coming-of-age stories so that the young protagonists kind of have to fly on their own. Bella and Edward are never going to really have to do that. Carlisle (and Esme) are literally always going to be there; they're immortal. SM talks about how much Bella and Edward grow up, because they get married and have a baby, but have they grown up that much? They literally can't, they're trapped in eternal teenager-dom, no matter the wedding rings and baby. Killing off Carlisle in Eclipse would have absolutely shaken the foundation of the whole story and really made E/B 'grow up.'

It also would have been a really interesting way to address the whole "do vampires have souls?" issue. Do they just cease to exist entirely when they finally are destroyed? Does their consciousness continue on in some spirit form like a ghost? Is Heaven and/or Hell open to them? It might have been an interesting to callback to Edward's "Carlisle was right" moment in New Moon where he thought he was dead and in heaven with Bella. What does Edward hear/see/feel through Carlisle's mind at the moment he dies? What does Jasper feel? What sort of future might Alice glimpse? It could have been REALLY interesting, and Carlisle, son of a preacher man with an antique cross on the wall, is obviously the character to use if you want to do it.