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Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 3:09 pm
by simplymortal314
Yes, a new topic should be started. Though I have a few rebutuls.

Yes, Bella takes Jacob for granted at times. But, to say she always does is in correct. She thinks about him and how her choices would affect him. But, her natural reaction to Jacob's presence shows he is important to her and doesn't take him for granted. She is happy, and he's happy. It is not all Bella's fault it is also Jacob's. Jacob knows what he is getting himself into.

Then Jacob knows that by going to Bella's school he would hurt her and himself at the same time. He could have also tried to call her or met her somewhere else where they wouldn't have caused such big scene. Though who would want someone mad at them. She isn't only focusing on how it would be difficult to deal with both of them at the same time for her, but also how it would affect Jacob and Edward. Jacob is also being selfish here because he is more motivated by his wants and emotions than Bella. He wants Bella, so he tries to destroy her relationship with Edward.

She never exactly puts the Cullens and wolves in danger of the newborns because there isn't any danger for them, she just thinks there is. Bella wants Edward with her because she worries about him being hurt. By having Edward with her she is put at ease and that is why he agrees to her. He doesn't want her to worry.

It is ridiculous that Bella puts herself in danger to make herself feel better. If we just look at the basics, she is doing something for her own good. Which isn't a bad thing, it just proves she's human.

She does want to correct the fact that she hurts Jacob, she tries to stay away but he makes it difficult for her and she is still attracted to him, but doesn't know why.

I'm not saying ALL she does is for others, I did say that she does things for herself. She is motivated to maintain her and Edward's relationship. Not by selfish reasons.

She is not really self-centered. She is more centered around Edward and Renesmee and the rest of her family, than herself.
She is and has always been independent.. Just with Edward they became more of a single force, rather than two seperate ones. And do what it takes to stay that way and have everyone safe around them.

Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:16 pm
by somnium
I love and hate Bella at the same time.

I love her because she's very relate-able and very human, so you can totally understand what she's feeling and thinking.

I hate her because she gets Edward!!! I want Edward!!!

But anyway, I love Bella's character because she is very believable and so many times while reading the book I start believing that I'm Bella and I tend to experience all her emotions as she experiences them. I have to say though that after she became a vampire she was just soo... different. She wasn't the same Bella anymore and I couldn't really say 'hey OMG i would have done the exact same thing' She was a totally different person but I loved that she was much more mature now (not that she was immature before...) You could see her care for Nessie and love Nessie and when she gets the tickets and passports and steals the money you knew she was doing what she thought was best for her daughter, it was great to be able to see Bella as a mother (even if i wasn't able to relate to it much)

Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:18 pm
by unlikelyfan
Well, I can tell it was late when I attempted to type that last post...I am suprized anyone could understand it. But I still believe that Bella has grown to be a very strong person emotionally. I also feel like some of the annoyance toward her centers around the fact that everyone has been pulling for the male leads in these novels. The books have pretty much become all about Jacob and Edward and which one of them deserves to be with Bella...or rather just who is better for her. I think sometimes in all of the discussion people forget about Bella all together. When really, she is, as I have said, the key to everything. The simple human who has managed to survive and overcome in this supernatural world she has discovered. I do not disagree that she is a slave to her emotions...that is clearly evident...but also I think she is learning to control those emotions. Except maybe when it comes to the people she loves, such as her daughter and husband, and I do not know many people who would be able to control themselves when someone so close to them was put in danger.

well, anyways, thanks for taking my opinion into consideration...and as always...props for Bella "The once human."

Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:51 pm
by emmy
I liked how easy she was to relate to as a character. She was so plain and average and didn't think of herself as anything special. She was very modest and down to earth; you could so easily put yourself in her shoes.

Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 5:07 pm
by goddesskde
Ok, we are forgetting a few very important points. First off, Bella is 19. She is still a child herself, learning how to be an adult and a mother at the same time is hard enough let alone throwing in being a vampire and the threat to your entire family. It is amazing the strenght the character was written with. Secondly, when Leah yelled at Bella she was pregnant. It's pretty impossible to control your emotions during pregnancy. I used to cry over tissue commercials and there was nothing I could do about it. Heck there were times I would cry and couldnt really find a reason for the tears.
When Kate threatened Reneesme is when everyone was telling her she was going to far. She not only critisized Bella's ability to control her power, but she threatened to harm her child. Any mother would be angry to say the least. Most would do anything to protect their child from any harm coming to them and this is when I believe everyone here is saying she reacted badly to a less than glowing comment.
I think Bella is a very mature character for her age during the series. She demonstrated time and time again her willingness to make the hard decisions that life sometimes throws at you. That's just my humble opinion though ;)

Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 7:44 pm
by AgentCross
goddesskde wrote:Ok, we are forgetting a few very important points. First off, Bella is 19. She is still a child herself, learning how to be an adult and a mother at the same time is hard enough let alone throwing in being a vampire and the threat to your entire family. It is amazing the strenght the character was written with. Secondly, when Leah yelled at Bella she was pregnant. It's pretty impossible to control your emotions during pregnancy. I used to cry over tissue commercials and there was nothing I could do about it. Heck there were times I would cry and couldnt really find a reason for the tears.
When Kate threatened Reneesme is when everyone was telling her she was going to far. She not only critisized Bella's ability to control her power, but she threatened to harm her child. Any mother would be angry to say the least. Most would do anything to protect their child from any harm coming to them and this is when I believe everyone here is saying she reacted badly to a less than glowing comment.
I think Bella is a very mature character for her age during the series. She demonstrated time and time again her willingness to make the hard decisions that life sometimes throws at you. That's just my humble opinion though ;)
I'm with Bella on this one... she is Vampire frozen at 18... she didn't turn 19 till 3 days after she turned. :p

Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 7:58 pm
by y3nd0
goddesskde wrote:Ok, we are forgetting a few very important points. First off, Bella is 19. She is still a child herself, learning how to be an adult and a mother at the same time is hard enough let alone throwing in being a vampire and the threat to your entire family. It is amazing the strenght the character was written with. Secondly, when Leah yelled at Bella she was pregnant. It's pretty impossible to control your emotions during pregnancy. I used to cry over tissue commercials and there was nothing I could do about it. Heck there were times I would cry and couldnt really find a reason for the tears.
When Kate threatened Reneesme is when everyone was telling her she was going to far. She not only critisized Bella's ability to control her power, but she threatened to harm her child. Any mother would be angry to say the least. Most would do anything to protect their child from any harm coming to them and this is when I believe everyone here is saying she reacted badly to a less than glowing comment.
I think Bella is a very mature character for her age during the series. She demonstrated time and time again her willingness to make the hard decisions that life sometimes throws at you. That's just my humble opinion though ;)

I do agree with the first half of your post. Although I am only 17 and have never experienced the "wonders" of pregnancy, I have seen it. Everyone knows of the infamous mood swings and odd cravings you get when you become pregnant. When my older sister was pregnant, she was an emotional wreck. You say one little thing that would seem harmless to you, but she'd soak it in like a sponge. Sometimes she'd start to cry when she heard me reading a fairy tale for my younger cousin (she'd start crying when something terrible happens to the main character), and sometimes she'd get mad over spilled milk (literally).
So I guess I can say that I understand what Bella was going through when Leah yelled at her. When you're pregnant, you can turn ultra sensitive to the things around you.

Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:03 pm
by Twilightaddict
Hi everyone I think I'm blind or something haha not really /I just signed up for one of these acconts because I really like talking to people about twilight series but I don't know like where or how to post like my own thing. and what's the discussion here? If I was allowed id like to be in it :D

Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 12:38 am
by Auctorita
goddesskde wrote:Ok, we are forgetting a few very important points. First off, Bella is 19. She is still a child herself, learning how to be an adult and a mother at the same time is hard enough let alone throwing in being a vampire and the threat to your entire family. It is amazing the strenght the character was written with. Secondly, when Leah yelled at Bella she was pregnant. It's pretty impossible to control your emotions during pregnancy. I used to cry over tissue commercials and there was nothing I could do about it. Heck there were times I would cry and couldnt really find a reason for the tears.

I would hardly call it strength. If Bella actually had to endure and balance all those things at the same time then I would agree with you but she didn't. Bella was only Nessie's mother when she felt like being one. As soon as she wanted to go do something else she would just give her to Rosalie or Jacob to take care of her instead. Besides, Nessie is only an infant in a vague sense. She is very mentally mature, she can communicate effectively with everyone and she doesn't wake up crying in the middle of the night or anything like that. All anyone really had to do was play with her, feed her (and for only a week or so) and take her to bed.

Being a newborn vampire should be a difficult challenge, but again it wasn't. Bella had to fight the urge to kill humans like she had to resist the urge to binge on ice cream. There was very little temptation to overcome and she was nearly always able to maintain a clear mind with no effort at all. Therefore, with no struggle to control herself Bella was never much of a danger to her family and her temptation was always quite mild compared to what it supposedly feels like.

How can she be strong if there were barely any obstacles to overcome?

goddesskde wrote:When Kate threatened Reneesme is when everyone was telling her she was going to far. She not only critisized Bella's ability to control her power, but she threatened to harm her child. Any mother would be angry to say the least. Most would do anything to protect their child from any harm coming to them and this is when I believe everyone here is saying she reacted badly to a less than glowing comment.
I think Bella is a very mature character for her age during the series. She demonstrated time and time again her willingness to make the hard decisions that life sometimes throws at you. That's just my humble opinion though ;)
Kate's criticism was directed at Bella's current level of success in using her ability. She stated that she thought that Bella lacked motivation and needed to try harder to which Bella becomes angry because she didn't praise her like everyone else. This isn't insulting Bella's capabilities. To me at least, I thought that Bella's anger was just over the top and uncalled for.

I disagree that Bella is mature; I find her to be very immature. However I have already stated my reasons for that belief in previous posts.

Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 1:44 am
by holdingoutforjacob
goddesskde wrote:Ok, we are forgetting a few very important points. First off, Bella is 19. She is still a child herself, learning how to be an adult and a mother at the same time is hard enough let alone throwing in being a vampire and the threat to your entire family. It is amazing the strenght the character was written with. Secondly, when Leah yelled at Bella she was pregnant. It's pretty impossible to control your emotions during pregnancy. I used to cry over tissue commercials and there was nothing I could do about it. Heck there were times I would cry and couldnt really find a reason for the tears.
When Kate threatened Reneesme is when everyone was telling her she was going to far. She not only critisized Bella's ability to control her power, but she threatened to harm her child. Any mother would be angry to say the least. Most would do anything to protect their child from any harm coming to them and this is when I believe everyone here is saying she reacted badly to a less than glowing comment.
I think Bella is a very mature character for her age during the series. She demonstrated time and time again her willingness to make the hard decisions that life sometimes throws at you. That's just my humble opinion though ;)
you are also forgetting a few very important points, as is everyone else here that is saying bella so strong and mature and selfless.

first of all, come off it, did you really think kate was going to hurt nessie?? did you?? no. you did not. no one did. if you did then you were wrapped up in the book and weren't thinking about it logically. of course she wouldn't hurt a child. bella was pissed because kate said she wasn't trying hard enough. she wasn't. as was proved by the strength of her abilities when nessie was threatened. kate did what she had to do, and nessie was NEVER in any danger.

second of all, no one is blaming bella for crying - hell, i cry at everything! what i DO blame her for is that she sees when her actions are and will hurt people, she KNOWS when she's being selfish and self centered, she whines about it forever, then mopes about the consequences, then does it over and over again. in that she is immature.

however, please remember, this is my opinion of her in NEW MOON AND ECLIPSE ONLY. by the middle of breaking dawn i found her to be growing, and by the end of it it was very clear that she was well on the way to becoming the selfless human being we all knew she could be.

unlikelyfan, you appear to have a very VERY different view of self-centered than me, so i really do want to mostly drop that discussion. however, there were a few key points that i really do feel the need to make a point on.

first of all, just because jake's important to bella does not mean she doesn't take him for granted and take advantage of him. i don't think she ever really stopped to think about what he was putting himself through to try and save her life.

and that's another thing. jacob did not go after bella because he wanted her, that's not why he tried to "wreck her relationship with edward". jacob wanted to SAVE BELLA'S LIFE. to keep her human. the only way he saw that would work to accomplish that VERY NOBLE mission was to make her realize that she really was in love with him. so, his motivation for that wasn't just so that she'd pick him, but so that she'd pick life. he knew he'd be putting himself in the path of possibly immense heartache, but he did it anyway, just for that slim chance that it would be enough. that's pretty damn selfless if you ask me.

also, just because jacob knew he was probably going to get hurt doesn't dissolve bella's responsibility for what happened between them. they are BOTH responsible, but really, no one is to blame. it's just the way things were you know?

but honestly hon, if you read nothing else of my post, read this part. the bottom line is that in NM and EC, bella was immature and self-centered for several reasons.
1. she saw she was hurting people but didn't change
2. she thought her actions through and knew, at times, that they were selfish, but went ahead with them anyway.
3. she never felt as though she needed to show any particular understanding towards where jake was coming from. even if she didn't love him and he wasn't trying to save her life, she had chosen to continue a friendship with him, and she should have been more understanding to why certain things were hurting him, why he was bitter about certain things, but she was not, and in doing this, she took him for granted.

all of these DO NOT under any circumstances make her a bad person. i can't just account them to being "human" because "just human" mistakes and selfish moments happen infrequently, over small things, and bella's were frequent and over large things. but in almost all of them, it shows the ability to think outside yourself, she was just too young to really be able to do anything about it. she wasn't a strong enough person yet.

i think, in this case, it is very important to consider the environment bella grew up in. bella was always taking care of renee, from when she was very young. children grow out of things like self-centeredness because their parents teach them to do that. they provide a safe environment for their children in which they can grow and be annoying and self centered all they want, and know that it's ok, because in the end, if they go too far, their parents will reign them back in. they get to explore themselves and create themselves, and become themselves thanks to the boundaries set by their parents. bella never had these boundaries set, but she had such good morals instilled in her by renee that she turned out to be a good person. but renee was never really there for her, and now when everyone is just totally focused upon her, bella doesn't know exactly how to handle it. she never had renee to tell her - kid, it's not all about you, step outside yourself for a second here. - and teach her how to change in order to not repeat mistakes, and have the strength in herself to work hard to correct her faults. she doesn't know limits because they were never taught to her.


bella's faults really aren't her fault, and actually, she shows already in NM and EC a TON of potential to be a FANTASTIC person, even when she's at what i consider to be her worst. so then, in BD, when she grew up a little bit, the result turned out to be spectacular, a strong person who knows who she is.

it's funny, someone brought up that bella sort of disappears because everyone has a preference for her male lead - i totally agree! i think this is because she doesn't have a whole lot of confidence in her self, she doesn't have a very strong sense of "who she is". i think she's very intimidated by edward, so she sort of defers to him a lot, because she feels so inferior. plus she's very laid back, and he's very dominant. jacob and bella are both pretty laid back, so there's nothing to be intimidated by there, so she is just totally and completely her. self-centered parts and all. which is GOOD, healthy. she first has to figure out who she is before she can work on her faults. and i think she most is who she is with jacob, and so "jacob's bella" is what i tend to go off of. of course, that changes after the wedding in BD, when she realizes that edward is really hers, forever and always, and she's not so intimidated anymore.