Choices aka Ars Longa Vita Brevis

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Lacuna Scion
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Re: Choices aka Ars Longa Vita Brevis

Post by Lacuna Scion »

Wow. My email subscription cannot keep up with this thread. It kind of chills for a week or so and then there's a boatload of new ideas to take in.

December um... wow. That was one heck of a post and I really hadn't thought of your views of Bella giving up her life as choice versus sacrifice or salvation. It's interesting and I think I agree for the post part; I had just never really considered it.

I think that may be the key point here. Like love, which is the predominant theme in this series, you do not freely choose it and it's not always in your best interest. It is quite often a sacrificial event. Any love romantic love, parental love or even friendship love. They all at some point lead us to tough spots... not even decisions because is there ever really the choice?

I also enjoyed the point that FD is quite similar to BD in the course that the novel takes. Again it was pointed out that SM didn't completely abandon the outline and start over. However my argument for this is that she couldn't. She has talked on at least one occasion about the development of characters in her head. She is a character writer; and it's like Edward and Bella and everyone else is in her mind telling her what's happening. She's just the scribe. So, yes the NM and EC detour was unanticipated but it eventually spills us out to where we were originally going (as all detours do). But that wouldn't have changed what her characters were set on doing or telling her.

Edward was set on that wedding and Bella was set on making him happy; that, I think, if we want to debate choices that inexplicably alter life paths is the one for us. It's true, the rest weren't really "choices" in the end were they.

In all honestly Nessie was the best thing that ever happened to B&E because I don't think they ever would've come to any kind of agreement. And if they did someone would be upset in the end. Nessie was able to give them an out--whether they liked it or not--Bella was forced into a transformation not out of necessity but out of love (for a couple people too) and sacrifice; though it was a different kind of love and sacrifice wasn't it? Edward knew Bella was dying. No matter how you sliced it, but he opted to give her the happiest afterlife she could've dreamed. After Nessie she could have gone on the wherever or she could have spent forever with Edward. Edward's actions seem more to me as giving someone what they want at their moment of death, just to a far greater degree.

It's turned into an act of saving, for me, because Edward would've had to live without Bella and have Nessie as a constant reminder of what "could have been". And what kind of fruitless labor it would have been for Bella to bring a literal miracle baby into the world and never get to fully appreciate her.

I think that makes sense. I tried real hard :)
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aka_tennyo
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Re: Choices aka Ars Longa Vita Brevis

Post by aka_tennyo »

I think one point here is that Stephenie Meyer actually wrote the original Forever Dawn before she ever rewrote Twilight and the rest of the series for a younger audience. To her this is simply a natural conclusion after all this time, and perhaps she didnt think twice about it. Maybe we're actually not misreading it as such, but reading too much into it. She may have gone off the track part of the way, but she was going to end up at that point eventually which may have caused her to overlook some of these inconsistancies?

Perhaps the fact that she thought this was why I realised while reading that it is true that BD seems to have completely dropped what was in the previous books - yes I noticed it too and agree. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to make that comparison here, but it's a little like Harry Potter, what with it splitting off the track of the previous stories and leaving the reader completely confused as to why this new thing has suddenly popped up. (Oh yeah, it totally lacked the Bella voice in the other books, for sure).

Anyway, I have to admit that what you're writing sounds very awfully glorified. I haven't read the Twilight books for a long while now, so perhaps my memory has been dulled. For me, I suppose because I agree with the decisions in a personal way - I do not really care for children and I do get called 'bloodthirsty' because for my disregard for some things - so perhaps I don't see the decisions to take that much weight for me. I can understand what it might cost Bella but I don't feel it myself. Not much of a sacrifice to my thought apart from the pain - cant stand pain. -_-;

I know this has been a little 'personal opinion' so far, sorry. -_-;

Okay, anyway, with the salvation thing. It looks to me more like a case of Edward's selfishness more than anything much. Sure, if he didnt save Bella she would die, he probably thinks she'd feel betrayed and Charlie'd probably be mad as well as Jacob, but in the end, Edward chooses to save her because he actually doesnt want her to die. Anyway, this is where I lose my train of thought and need to come back... (probably because I actually have a maths test tomorrow I need to study for. -_-; )

It's the parts where Bella is 'enduring' and where Bella awakens as a newborn which really miff me though. She wakes up and doesnt even have to go through all the newborn things, but oh, she is different and will run away from humans. I find it (and yes, this will sound offensve) just like SM to do that. And that shielding trick which realy got to me. Not hard to guess why I dont like BD...

Let me reply later when I'm in a slightly more organised frame of mind. :\
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