They all seemed to know the legends, but believed that they are just that - legends. I think the only ones who took it seriously were the elders, because they had seen the change in their grandfathers. There's no suggestion that the whole tribe knew about that, though. Whether or not they would tell every member of the tribe what is happening now would be debatable, especially in this day and age, as betrayal by a member of the tribe would be a possibility. Imagine the publicity you could get!GrayceM wrote:Yes, but at this point, Claire is only two and Quil is probably similar to Jacob as being 25 physically but average about 16 years old. Won't the entire tribe, whether or not they know about the shape-shifting, realize that these kids aren't aging past this point in their lives? Sure they begin to age again when they quit phasing for a while, as explained but, that could be years. Were only the Council members supposed to know?
Because the boys have aged so much no one will probably notice that they are not ageing further for about another decade. In the old days, this was probably enough time to scare off any vampire menace and learn enough control to stop phasing for a long period, which would start them ageing again. I'd say this is still probably the intention of all the wolves bar Jacob, who now has a vested interest in living forever. I'm guessing that once the Cullens leave Forks, he will go too, and continue moving around with them so people don't know he's not ageing. Once the Cullens are removed from Forks, the vampire danger in La Push would probably only become a rare thing, giving the wolves a chance to stop phasing and return to normal life
From what the guide said I think that they (Billy at least) were hoping it wouldn't happen to their sons. Maybe they thought the Cullens wouldn't be around long enough to cause the change. They probably would have noticed Sam's absence. Perhaps that was why Old Quil went to see him, to see if there were any signs of the reason for his disappearance. There were, so they told him what had happened to him. After that, it was a foregone conclusion that more boys would follow, especially Jake, which is why Sam is watching him so much.GrayceM wrote:And come to think of it, were the elders watching these "boys" to see if there were any signs since they knew that vampires being close would bring on the change? They knew what the Cullen's were supposed to be, and he seemed to believe it, at least in the Twilight movie version. Why wouldn't they have had some sort of warning... Jacob tells Bella that it took Sam two weeks to calm down enough to change back...so why wouldn't the council have pulled them all aside and told them to at least recall the "legends of their tribe to sort of forwarn them it was a possibility. Didn't one of them (Billy, I think) mention that they had seen it happen when they were a child? And Quil's grandfather...