Breaking Dawn Trivia

Learn about the symbolism, origin of names, and other interesting tidbits about Breaking Dawn

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• The cover of Breaking Dawn displays a chess board with two pieces on it, a red pawn and a white queen. This image symbolizes Bella's progression from being just a pawn to the board's most powerful player. The author also felt that the complex strategizing of Breaking Dawn finds an appropriate echo in an intense game of chess.
• Bella's "before car" in Breaking Dawn, a Mercedes Guardian, does not exist. A Mercedes Guard does, but the ever so humanly fragile and clumsy Bella needed a car whose strength exceeded imagination. The Guard is capable of withstanding small-arms projectiles, hand-grenade fragments, and other explosive charges. Additional safety features include run-flat tires, a self-sealing fuel tank, and a fire-extinguishing system.
• Kaure, one of the cleaning crew on Isle Esme, is part Ticuna Indian. As such, she would speak the Ticuna language-an indigenous language of South America, spoken today by 40,000 people in Brazil, Peru, and Colombia. Ticuna is a language isolate, not known to be related to any other living language.
• Bella is irate when she learns that her family members have nicknamed Renesmee "Nessie." Another Nessie is the Loch Ness monster, a creature that supposedly inhabits Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands, and reportedly looks like a plesiosaur. Nessie (of Loch Ness) is the subject of ongoing study by cryptozoologists-people who search for animals that are considered to be legendary or otherwise nonexistent by mainstream biology.
• As Bella endures her immortal transformation, she compares herself to Atlas, describing the initial portion of her change as a black weight she can't shoulder, only resist. Atlas, of Greek mythology, is often depicted with the terrestrial earth on his shoulders, when actually his legendary punishment for challenging Zeus was having to uphold the celestial spheres, or sky. Atlas continues to be a commonly used icon in western culture as a symbol of strength or stoic endurance.
• Stephenie Meyer acknowledges classical influences on her novels. Breaking Dawn shares similarities with Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, with its interconnected plots and magical enchantment. With much of the drama occurring under the light of the moon, Shakespeare's romantic comedy explores themes such as the dark side of love, the conflict between fantasy and reality, and the loss of individuality in order to be reborn in the love of another.
• Many of the vampires who gather at the Cullen house have never seen the Amazon vampires, Kachiri, Senna, and Zafrina, and all are impressed with their stature and presence. Another legendary Amazon is Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman, daughter of Hippolyta, was sent to America to bring the Amazon ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality to "a world torn by the hatred of men." Her powers include super strength, super speed, and stamina. She is highly proficient in hand-to-hand combat and in the art of tactical warfare. She also possesses an animal-like cunning and a natural rapport with animals, which has in the past been presented as an actual ability to communicate with the animal kingdom. Wonder Woman uses her Lasso of Truth (which forces those bound by it to tell the truth), a pair of indestructible bracelets, and an invisible plane to help her fight evil.
• Bella finds the burning heat of the vampire change unbearable-perhaps this process helps to prepare her body and mind to embrace the future as a Cold One. An organism that lives at a high temperature is called a thermophile; an organism that thrives at low temperatures is called cryophilic. Exposure to extreme heat for an extended period of time results in heat stroke. Exposure to cold leads to hypothermia. Both can cause death.
• When it is time to flee the epic vampire battle, Bella plans to send Jacob and Nessie to Rio de Janiero. The name Rio de Janiero means River of January. Commonly known as just Rio, the city is also nicknamed A Cidade Maravilhosa, or "The Marvelous City."
• A member of the Volturi guard, Alec employs a very useful weapon: anesthesia. Anesthesia comes from the Greek, meaning "without sensation." The word was coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. in 1846. Anesthesia is a pharmacologically induced reversible state of amnesia, analgesia, loss of consciousness, loss of skeletal muscle reflexes, and decreased stress response.