Note from 2020: I won’t be editing this post but since it’s been getting a handful of views recently, please do keep in mind it was posted in 2010. I was 18 years old. I do not care about your opinions on Twilight and I barely care about my own. This lives on as an archive, not as a stated continued opinion or interest. If you want to know what my current interests are, check out my portfolio here.
A few months ago, I wrote a post in defense of Twilight. Then I made a video about it. And on that video, I got a comment from a friend of mine regarding my lack of depth on my analysis. She went on to say “I dislike Twilight because of the inappropriate themes it is teaching my younger sister: a teenage girl’s [extreme] reliance on a male figure and willingness to do anything for that male (feeling of impending death without that male present), flippancy of pregnancy, etc.”
I’ve been mulling this comment over in my head for quite a while, and I think I finally have a good way to respond to it.
First, I’d like to recognize that my friend is right- on the surface, that’s exactly what Twilight is about. Bella is totally bonkers over Edward and needs him to function properly in society. And that’s bad. I wouldn’t want my younger sister to learn that lesson either. However, I’d like to focus on this reliance Bella has on Edward, and why in the context of the books, it doesn’t teach the lesson my friend is concerned with.
For those of you unfamiliar with the second book in the Twilight series, New Moon, let me give you a rundown. Edward decides he and his family are too big of a risk to Bella’s well being, and so in an effort to make his leaving her hurt less, he spins the lie in his velvety vampire voice that he no longer loves her. This, obviously, does not make it hurt less, and Bella kinda freaks out. For the next couple months, although she goes through the motions of regular life, her heart is clearly not in it. She frequently experiences symptoms I recognized as panic attacks from my own experiences, even when her good friend Jacob comes into the scene to ease her pain.
The most common criticism of this book, and the criticism my friend is expressing, is that Bella is pathetic and clearly too attached to Edward. It’s not healthy, and it’s not the lesson you want to teach young girls.
Ok, first off, why does every book have to teach a lesson? Just because something happens in a book doesn’t mean its supposed to be used as a guide for real life. If you’re dumb enough to follow verbatim the actions of a fictional character, you have problems beyond what Twilight could have exacerbated.
On a deeper level, though, you can’t criticize Bella’s actions without looking at the context of her character. So let’s look at the context, shall we?
Facts about Bella that we know from the first and second books:
1. Bella was raised by her mother, who isn’t the most responsible person
2. Bella learns from a young age that her mother can’t be held to her word. At five, she recognizes that her mother can’t always be trusted.
3. Although she harbors no resent for her father, who she refers to as Charlie, not dad, she doesn’t particularly like spending time with him because she didn’t see him enough as a kid to really establish a relationship with him.
4. Bella has essentially had to raise herself over the years, as her mother is, again, not the most responsible of people
5. Bella, recognizing that her mother misses her new husband, who travels for his job a lot, sacrifices her personal comfort and moves to Forks, a town she hates. Bella is 17 when she moves in with her father to allow her mother to travel with her husband. What were you doing at 17? Smacking your gum and complaining about your curfew on Facebook?
6. Bella has never had a real relationship
7. Bella has never been seen, in Phoenix, at least, as a person of romantic interest
8. Bella takes care of everyone around her. She buys groceries and cooks for her father, and takes care of household chores without being asked.
9. When Bella is upset, she internalizes whatever it is that is upsetting her because she knows the adults in her life, namely her parents, are not equip to handle it.
10. Bella spends most of her time in her own head because she doesn’t understand how to socialize properly, because she’s been too busy acting like she’s middle aged.
Now, taking all that into account, let’s look at Edward and Bella’s relationship and why it’s not abusive, like some people think, and it’s not unhealthy, as most people think.
1. Edward takes charge. While some people may find this misogynistic and stereotypical, Bella finds it relieving, quite simply. Bella has spent her whole life taking care of people- having someone taking care of her for a change is a much needed change, and she welcomes it. She needed a break.
2. Edward loves her unconditionally (although there’s a good portion of New Moon where both the reader and Bella are unsure about this) and showers her with constant attention. Bella has never been a person of romantic interest (see Bella fact #7). Edward pays attention to her like no one has ever done before, so naturally she is drawn to someone who appreciates her for all the things most people find strange or awkward.
3. Edward likes to watch her sleep, even before they technically become friends, let alone BF/GF. Ok. So it sounds kind of creepy. But the summer before my senior year, when Sean came to visit me and stayed overnight, I experienced something similar to what I think Edward experienced. Sean wanted to be up by like eight or something, so he could eat breakfast, hang out a while longer, and then get back on the road by noon. I went upstairs to where he was sleeping on the couch at around 8:30, and he was still fast asleep. I almost went over to wake him, but then found myself just sitting on a chair nearby and watching his chest rise and fall, his face relaxed and at peace. It didn’t feel creepy. It just felt… intimate. Maybe Edward should have waited until he knew Bella better and got her permission to watch her sleep, but come on. He’s a 109 year old vampire. At some point we’ve gotta stop comparing him to humans.
4. This one’s the kicker. Bella develops a panic disorder after Edward tells her he doesn’t love her anymore.
Ok. So this one needs a bit more explanation, because it’s the most disputed facet of Edward and Bella’s relationship.
First, let’s look at the circumstances surrounding Edward’s announcement. Bella has just turned 18, an event she is annoyed with because Edward’s body is perpetually 17 and she has that stigma about girls being younger than the boys they date. I can’t knock her for this because I have that stigma too. At the party for said annoying event, she gets a paper cut and is almost eaten by Jasper. Then like a week later, after acting all distant and weird for no apparent reason, Edward tells her he doesn’t love her.
It’s completely out of the blue, and that throws her off, especially when everything had been going so well. They’ve been dating for a while, and because both Edward and Bella are mature far beyond their apparent ages, their relationship surpassed “puppy love” a while back. Because of their respective maturity as individuals, they’ve attained a level in their relationship usually not seen until a second or third year of dating. Basically, Edward’s announcement is like a divorce. Incidentally, I’ve been through a divorce recently. You don’t just announce the end of a long time, very attached relationship and expect the person who wasn’t the implementer to shrug and move on.
Ok, now let’s look at Bella’s reaction. The first thing Bella does after Edward disappears is curls up into the fetal position and has a panic attack. Popular YouTube comedian Jack Douglass made a parody of New Moon where this is a central point of mocking. While I thought the overall video was funny, the portrayal of the panic attack was, frankly, a little insulting.
When all that crap went down with Dylan, the night he made his little “Dorky. Nerdy. Strange. Annoying. I’m done” comment, I cried for the first time in months and had a massive panic attack where I was clutching at my sheets in an effort to keep a grip on myself, trying desperately not to make a sound so no one else in the house would know how much physical and psychological pain I was in. Bella’s serious relationship just fell apart in a matter of a few lines of random, seemingly unprovoked dialog. For the first time in her life, she was appreciated and taken care of. And when that is ripped away from her, without any sense of closure whatsoever, of course she’s going to have a panic attack.
The longevity of these panic attacks is also cited as unrealistic and bad for young girls to read about, but if you’re even a little bit familiar with me, you’ll know that the time frame of Bella’s reaction is by no means untrue. I had panic attacks and feelings similar to Bella all throughout my junior year of high school. Heck, I still get them from time to time.
I guess the conclusion of this post should basically reinforce the argument that while on the surface, Bella seems like an vapid, obsessive teenage girl, in the context of her story, that is absolutely false. Before you go berating a character or a character’s actions, you should understand where those actions are coming from. And you should also understand that the character is entirely fictional and sometimes you’re not meant to read into them any further.
