Re: Choices aka Ars Longa Vita Brevis
Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 4:07 pm
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
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