Bella Swan Cullen

[Bronze Haired Girl]

This is the place to discuss all the things you've wondered about Bella as an individual. Keep posts about Edward and Bella's relationship to the general discussion forum.

Edward and Bella's relationship discussion found here.

Please remember the Discussion Guidelines. Posts will be edited or deleted as needed at the moderators' discretion without warning.

[Stormy]

Bella has really matured during the series.
I love her transition from average teenage girl to vampire mom (:

[mlola619]

Bella has really matured during the series.
I love her transition from average teenage girl to vampire mom (:

Agreed. Although i must admit i always found Bella to be mature, then again maybe that's cause I'm 17 as she was in Twilight. We're practically the same age- so in my opinion every decision she's made i've seen as mature.
I must admit i really do enjoy the new Bella- she's taken on a new responsibility as a vampire and as a mother; and in that sense she's matured in all the right ways. I think i'm just so glad BELLA'S FINALLY A VAMPIRE to be honest

[holdingoutforjacob]

mmm i think bella has always been mature in the ways she shows maturity in this book. i have been one of the people who say she shows very little maturity, and i still find her to be highly immature. although that is still based on the previous three books, not BD. in BD, her maturity wasn't tested in nearly the same ways as Eclipse and New Moon. however, when it was, her lack of it showed.

for instance, in the beginning, before the wedding, before jake comes back, when bella is worried about him, she continually talks about how she will miss "her best man" and how there will be "an empty seat at the wedding" and just basically feeling sorry for herself. i wanted to wring her neck. she wasn't even going to invite him to the wedding! edward had to send the invitation behind her back! it just seemed very self-centered to me.

and then again, when she was pregnant, well let's just say that i was so proud of leah for standing up for jake.

and then AGAIN, when she found out that jacob had imprinted on renesmee, and she basically attacked him. it wasn't his fault! he had no control over it! of all people, SHE should know that! it was quite unfair. i don't blame her for being upset, not at all. i just think it shows that she's still self centered and immature, for taking it out on him. it was not even a maternal instinct, since she was upset, not out of fear for nessie, but she was furious because "already, nessie didn't only belong to me". selfish much?

HOWEVER, there were some things about her in this book that i thought were much improved. her communication with edward, for instance, made me so happy. i think once they were married, and she knew he wouldn't leave her, a lot of her insecurities vanished, and so she could yell at him and tell him how it really was, without being so timid. and that i really liked.

i also loved her determination to master her power.

and then the plan she made for nessie and jake, i was so proud of her. THAT was very mature and grown up, and she did it all on her own.

[Auctorita]

Meh, I found Bella to be more immature in Breaking Dawn, particularly after she became a vampire. Even though she had a newborn child she only seemed to take care of Nessie when it suited her. Once she felt like doing something else she would always just give her to Rosalie or Jacob to take care of instead. Bella didn't neglect her, but from what I read she didn't appear to be all that committed to looking after her child. Aside from that, after her transformation Bella becomes quite overly sensitive and melodramatic. She gets all upset and cries because Leah yelled at her for her treatment of Jacob and when Irina tells her that she isn't trying hard enough when training her ability she becomes so angry just because she stated her opinion (she wasn't insulting her or anything). It left me with the impression that Bella can't accept any comment that is less than praise without getting viciously angry or upset. To me Bella was much more mature in previous novels.

I do agree though that I was happy to see Bella become a vampire too. I was incredibly curious to see what being a newborn would be like.

[holdingoutforjacob]

well....leah yelled at her while she was pregnant with nessie, so she wasn't a vampire yet. but i completely agreed with leah. it kinda bugged me that everyone was walking on eggshells to keep bella happy. she was being incredibly selfish in basically killing herself just so she could have edward's baby, making everyone watch her do it, expecting jacob to be around for it.....it was just so selfish. someone needed to tell it like it was. although it didn't make a difference if no one reinforced what she said.

i think you mean kate, not irina. irina tattled, remember?

what bella can't do is take when someone criticizes her or something and learn from that. she is incapable of learning from her mistakes. some people don't understand why i get so frustrated with bella when she does stupid stuff, because, as they say "everyone makes mistakes". but a mistake is something that happens once. not multiple times.

[Auctorita]

I agree I was quite happy to see that someone would finally tell Bella off for her selfish behaviour, only to be disregarded because Bella had to cry about it. My respect for Leah grew so much more after that incident and lost nearly all for Bella.

i think you mean kate, not irina. irina tattled, remember?

what bella can't do is take when someone criticizes her or something and learn from that. she is incapable of learning from her mistakes. some people don't understand why i get so frustrated with bella when she does stupid stuff, because, as they say "everyone makes mistakes". but a mistake is something that happens once. not multiple times.

My apologies I did mean Kate, I just wrote Irina for some reason.

Yes, Bella doesn't handle criticism well and she never really tries to overcome her oversensitivity either. What irritates me is that everyone else seems oblivious to this fault and act like her overreactions are completely justified.

[holdingoutforjacob]

well, think about who the people in a position to notice it are. edward, who loves her more than life itself, jacob, who also loves her more than life itself are the only ones who can possibly notice it as much as we, the readers, can. charlie's not that in tune, renee lives a billion miles away and bella just took care of her anyway, and the rest of the cullens don't see her that much. i suppose the wolves do, but they don't see her much either, seth's too nice to say anything about it. leah, however, is not nice. and i love her for that. so much. this is the first time the cullens have had a taste of her self centeredness, and they just see it as protecting her baby anyway. (i'm not even sure i can blame her for that either....) and they have never seen her in action before, so they must be bewildered by leah. however, bella deserves to be taken to task for how much she takes jacob for granted.

i'm sorry for the vagueness on what about that bothered me so much, i loaned out my copy of breaking dawn - hicksville doesn't have a bookstore, go figure - so all i remember is that it made me really mad!

personally, i don't care if you cry about it when someone yells at you - i would. what matters to me is if you can recognize your faults and correct them as much as possible.

[unlikelyfan]

Well, I don't really get what is with all the Bella hating...but I choose to take the higher road and ignore the fact that all these people are criticizes the main character of the novels they lvoe so dearly..without Bella there is no story. And I know...Oh Edward, Oh Jake....Bella is the one who risked her life, her friends, her family, her own life!...for hte sake of love...and that is really selfish...but also undeniably beautiful....and also what every other person in the world wishes they had the strength to do.
I was so happy for her when she became a vampire and she was actually so much better at it than most would ahev dreamed! This is what she deserved...to me it shows that she got her happy ending because she did what was right for her, for love. She got it all....because she risked it all and was willing to give it up in order to be with the one she loved.

and I am babbling...

but my point....

is that Bella...is I think emotionally the strongest literary character in the series. It all goes back to Romeo and Juliet...sad but true...and it doens't stop there. it gets a lot from Tuck Everlasting too...although Bella is much more selfish than Winnie Foster...she didn't care about anything than the fact that she loved Edward Cullen and wanted to spend all of eternity with her.

oh sometimes i am too much for myself. I just write bs like its my job. haha

[Auctorita]

There were plenty of vampires present to witness the exchange with Kate and all of the other Cullens were there when Leah yelled at Bella. It's not that difficult to notice that someone is overreacting and yet everyone always seems to agree with Bella. I understand that the others would not voice their opinion on it when Leah yelled at Bella for Edward's sake (they wouldn't want to make things worse), but with Kate they all tell her she is going too far just because she gave some minor criticism to Bella. No one ever tells Bella that she was being oversensitive but instead blindly agree with her.

It's not the fact that she cried that bothered me it's all the pity she inflicts on herself and expects to receive that I find irritating as if she can't possibly be at fault. Which is similar to what you said anyways.

Just because Bella is the main character doesn't mean that I have to like her, she isn't the only character in the series. Anyways I fail to see how Bella is emotionally strong, I find her to be more of a slave to her emotions really.