“Twilight” rant 7: Carlisle doctoring Bella

what's your opinion, doctor?

Carlisle is a good guy.

This may be the only thing that the Native American werewolves and the Volturi agree upon. Certainly Bella thinks that he’s great. Perhaps she’s biased. It must be handy to have a good looking sweet ER physician, who never tires or is short-tempered, hanging around when you’re a terrible klutz. Charlie bends over backward defending Dr. Cullen in book one. Really, everyone thinks that he’s marvelous. Listen to Jacob’s ringing endorsement in Breaking Dawn:

Carlisle Cullen. Looking at him without that hate clouding my eyes, I couldn’t deny that killing him would be murder. He was good. Good as any human we protected. Maybe better.

I like Carlisle too. I admire him really. It must have been hard growing up with such a tyrannical father. Then to suddenly be turned into a vampire: so much pain and shock and trauma! I can hardly imagine it. Moreover Carlisle was all alone for the whole thing. He didn’t have others to guide him during his first vampire year. He must have ironclad self-control to have avoided killing anyone in the bloodlust that I’m sure he battled. After her wretched birthday party at the start of New Moon, Bella asks him how he could resist her open, bleeding wound. He modestly replies, “Years and years of practice… I barely notice the scent anymore.” So there! He’s very tough.

But what about Carlisle as a physician? There’re a number of practical considerations: how did he manage to get the right credentials what with his advanced age? How does he work with his patients when humans generally have a natural aversion to vampires? Does he periodically return to medical school or residency training when he’s struggling to keep up with new advances in the profession? Did he ever lose it in the bloodbank?

My real question, though, is the one relating to that special “medical intervention” that Elizabeth Masen demanded for her son on her death bed. “You must do everything in your power. What others cannot do, that is what you must do for my Edward.” And the rest is history: Dr. Cullen vampirizes Edward.

But that’s not all. Later we learn that Dr. C changes Esme after her suicidal jump from the cliff. At Rosalie’s insistent request, he converts Emmet following his mauling by bears. Rosalie herself is “saved” after she’s gang raped and left for dead by this good doctor. He even offers to change Bella after high school, though that doesn’t prove necessary.

In Edward’s case, Carlisle clearly had his mother’s informed consent to change him. Edward himself was underage at the time (though he probably should have been consulted about the proposed procedure as he was seventeen.) In the cases of Esme, Emmet and Rosalie, Carlisle just went for it, not telling the patients anything until it was too late. To me this places these actions in an ethical gray zone. I do recognize that we’re dealing with life-and-death decision making here. There probably wasn’t time to go before the ethics board or get second opinions. But I don’t get the sense that the doctor really thought through the consequences of these actions afterward.

The details of informed consent aside, once one decides that emergency vampirization is reasonable, then it’s a short step to using it as an elective procedure. Remember, this is Carlisle’s plan for Bella. Why not expand the treatment to the general population? It’s clear that being a vampire has tremendous advantages: good looks, endless energy, strength, potentially eternal life in good health. Shouldn’t everyone get this bit of work done? There is the whole dining out problem to contend with of course. Though what medical treatment doesn’t have unwanted side effects? Apparently you can learn to deal with it if you work at it. Plus if we all got changed, there’d be nobody left to feast on, so we’d all be “vegetarian” by default. Problem solved!

How can Dr. Cullen withhold this life saving procedure from humanity? Maybe he’s not such a nice guy after all.

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