Bella Swan Cullen #3

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holdingoutforjacob
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen #3

Post by holdingoutforjacob »

I really don't think that SM was setting out to create a myth. People call it mythical because it contains elements of the paranormal, of the mythic. The legends she created weren't meant to be taken seriously, but were plot devices. While I don't defend the writing as spectacular - believe me, I find faults in it just like you - I think maybe you're taking it a tad bit too seriously, Knives.
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December
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen #3

Post by December »

Jazzgirl wrote:While I do love the literary critique, this is really the thread for it, though. There isn't really any way at all to tie this back to Bella and her heroic love for her vampire, other than to say that the mythical misdirection doesn't fool her one bit and her life becomes about nothing but myth and legend. But, then again, I suppose that isn't my call to make.

You're absolutely right, Jazzgirl: mea culpa! I'm going to split this thread, and move the myth/realism discussion to a thread of its own. This may take me a little while to accomplish -- in the meantime, let's return this conversation to Edward and Bella. Check back here in a little while for a link to the new discussion.


ETA
Myth & Realism discussion now open on the Explorations thread.
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December
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen #3

Post by December »

Knives wrote:You're right, December, in that I don't find Bella's infatuation with Edward - or Edward's with her - at all realistically portrayed - or even mythically portrayed with any degree of skill. On Bella's end of things, I've seen plenty of girls fall head-over-heels in lust with guys and want to start dating them - or even start dating them. When the rush wears off, they usually break up, either because they drive each other insane, or because the girl realizes how shallow her attraction actually was and she seeks greener pastures.

Hmm. I think I want to press you to distinguish between the realistic portrayal of an infatuation, and the portrayal of a realistic infatuation. That is to say... Is it probable -- realistic -- for Bella to remain so helplessly, head-over-heels, intoxicatingly in love with Edward year upon year? Of course not. It’s contrary to everything we know about human nature: no real relationship is like that. In this sense, Edward and Bella’s relationship is purest fantasy, untarnished by the faintest blemish of, well, real life.

But does Stephenie convincingly conjure up for us that state of intoxication, so that we feel, with Bella, her obliterating fixation on Edward? Obviously, readers’ responses differ here, but I personally have to answer: yes. Does it make sense to me that Bella feels this way? Does it answer to my own commonsense beliefs about how she should be feeling about this boy, a year on, if this were a realistic account of real people? Not one bit. But that doesn’t stop me from believing in her feelings, from being drawn in and vicariously experiencing them -- because minute by minute, something about that insanely self-absorbed first-person narrative of an obsession, that account of every blush she feels creeping over her face, every forgotten breath and missed heartbeat, seduces me into that imaginative sympathy -- that illusion of being there -- which good storytelling can evoke.

I guess on reflection that’s not necessarily the same as realism. Maybe I believe in Bella’s preternatural passion the way I believe in other kinds of monsters and magic I encounter in good fantasy writing -- convincing, without for a moment resembling real life. Except....there is this irreduceable core of realism about that passion (unlike the monsters): that IS exactly what being in love feels like. I’ve been there -- we all have -- and it’s utterly recognizable. This is a story hovering on the boundaries between the real and the fantastical: anchored at one end in a very realist preoccupation with what things feel like, and then launching off into a wild blue yonder of fantastical what-ifs: what if you met an impossibly perfect immortal being and fell in love forever? what if you were tormented by an insatiable craving to kill the woman you loved? what if your true love was a doomed immortal and you must either join him in that doom, or grow old while he remains eternally young? (What if you were sharing a body with another woman? In this respect, The Host is Twilight all over again...). Stephenie is interested in the psychology of the fantastical: taking everyday people and extrapolating a realist account of their response to unreal circumstances....

And yes, if this sounds like the antithesis of a mythic narrative -- it is. I don’t want drag this conversation off topic again (!), so I’ll just repeat here that I think the two can and do coexist. When I talk about Twilight having a “mythic” aspect (and I realize it’s not quite the right word) I’m not talking about the fact that it’s fantastical. In a weird way, all that stuff -- the werewolves and the bloodlust and so on -- can go on the realist side of the ledger as easily as on the mythic. What I’ve got in mind as "mythic" is something else: something which I suppose depends on the fantasy but isn’t defined by it. But this belongs on another thread!

ETA
Urgh. On rereading...maybe this post does too -- though it was meant to be about Bella and Edward and the realism of Stephenie's portrayal of their love....
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December
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen #3

Post by December »

(Myth/Realism discussion thread now open here)
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selle
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen #3

Post by selle »

I'm new here, so you will excuse me for interrupting discussion, but reading this topic I saw someone (can't remember nick and couldn't quote :() says, paraphrasing, something like that SM makes Bella kinda hypocritic with all that Edward - Jake stuff. Like, how she can be in love with both of them?
I find Bella a lot like me. In a thousand ways. And I can completely understand her "Edward - Jake stuff". Feeling your world crashing down is the worst feeling ever. Losing someone who is your life, who practically owns you, your mind, your soul... There's no person in this world who can say it's piece of cake. Jake was at the right time in the right place we can say. He helped her when she was on the lowest possible level of existence. "Between pain and nothing I'd chosen nothing." she said. "Nothing" is dark hole that she was living in, without any light, without any feeling... Jake made her get outta there. Isn't it normal that she start to feel SOMETHING for him. She could love him, love him for saving her from hell. But Edward is The One who is reason of her existence. She may be torn between them two, just because she doesnt want to hurt Jake, cuz she knows what it looks like. And she was scared for Gods sake. She was everything but confident, and Edward left her once... Logical? Let me see the girl in this world, who after breakup with words "You don't belong with me." "I don't want you to come." won't be afraid and scared. And if we add her viewing Edward as a god, and her as a clumsy, average, non - selfconfident girl... :)

And, have you ever think about Jake's imprint on Reneesme? He was IN LOVE with Bella, not imprinted on her, but on her daughter. And as Bella Reneesmes' mother is, isn't that make sense that he loved something what will give birth to the reason of his existence, eventhough he didn't know that? As we all know, wolves don't know who will they imprint on ;) Bella also stop viewing Jake that way after Nessies birth...

Bella can't be hypocritic believe me. :D

Sorry for interrupting once more (:
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holdingoutforjacob
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen #3

Post by holdingoutforjacob »

This thread has been dead for weeks, so you're not interrupting anything!! :D

I agree that it's absolutely completely natural that Bella would fall for Jake. It's almost a pattern for her. She looses her reason for existence, and Jake becomes her new one. We could debate all day about whether or not that in itself is healthy, but it is what happened, and it's only natural that she would have very strong deep feelings for him.

I tend to disagree with the theory of Jake only being in love with or loving Bella because she was going to be Renesmee's mom, mainly because I'm fully on the side of the theory that Jake would have been her natural true love, her fate, and Edward was something more - supernatural.
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selle
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen #3

Post by selle »

Well I didn't say it was the only reason he is in love with her. :) But it makes sense to me, as much as perfectly natural way of they falling in love with each other because Edward was gone.
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen #3

Post by Dovrebanen »

Wow..I haven't been here in months.
First of all, Selle, never feel like you're interrupting :) Just jump into the discussion. Welcome to the Lex, btw!

I agree that it was natural for Bella to love Jacob after what he did for her. But I don't see is as natural that she would love both guys even remotely equally, and definitely not to the point where she could go either way. And I don't think she did either. She always knew that choosing Jacob would be settling for a life with her friend, whom she might in time learn to love romantically. So I agree,that her fears were mainly about hurting Jacob's feelings, because she knew that she knew that she wouldn't choose him. She did realize that she loved him, but not as much as she loved Edward. And of course she was scared because she was giving up her humanity. Jacob was the path that a human life might have taken her.
My point: Yes, I think she loved both Edward and Jacob. But that there was never any chance that she would choose Jacob, because she was not tied to him like she was to Edward, and she didn't love him as much. That's what I mean when I say you can't love to people at the same time, because I think you can't be that much in love with two people that you can really pick either one.
selle wrote:And she was scared for Gods sake. She was everything but confident, and Edward left her once... Logical? Let me see the girl in this world, who after breakup with words "You don't belong with me." "I don't want you to come." won't be afraid and scared. And if we add her viewing Edward as a god, and her as a clumsy, average, non - selfconfident girl... :)
Yes, but I think that Edward has proven thoroughly that he would never leave her again, and that he would never forgive himself for doing that. So I don't think Bella was scared that she might loose Edward again. She knew that she had his love.
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holdingoutforjacob
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen #3

Post by holdingoutforjacob »

I mostly agree with you, except with a few distinctions.

I think SM said, somewhere, that Bella was IN love with Jacob by mid-New Moon. Probably the point where she's considering settling for Jacob. Consider how strong the emotion pulling her away from moving on, tying her to Edward was. IMO, for her to even consider Jake she had to really, truly be in love with him.

It's easier to understand what SM says she was going for if you don't get stuck on how much she loves them, but how she loves them. I think she loves Edward and Jacob with equal force and equal depth, it's just that she loves them differently.
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen #3

Post by Edwards Ragazza »

holdingoutforjacob wrote:This thread has been dead for weeks, so you're not interrupting anything!! :D

I agree that it's absolutely completely natural that Bella would fall for Jake. It's almost a pattern for her. She looses her reason for existence, and Jake becomes her new one. We could debate all day about whether or not that in itself is healthy, but it is what happened, and it's only natural that she would have very strong deep feelings for him.

I tend to disagree with the theory of Jake only being in love with or loving Bella because she was going to be Renesmee's mom, mainly because I'm fully on the side of the theory that Jake would have been her natural true love, her fate, and Edward was something more - supernatural.

My feelings on this Bella's love for Jacob and Edward where both natural. Neither one of them held a spell to capture her heart. Saying Edwards was supernatural is it because he was a vampire? Jacob's a shapeshifter. Does Jacob have a beating heart yes however he was just as much as supernatural as Edward. Since we are humans none of us can shape shift or stop aging for awhile like Jake could. That is not natural.

I do agree with you that Jake only loved Bella because she was going to be Renesmee's mom. We both know that is not true. I do believe though there is a path we all take in life. Jake was not suppose to be with Bella. Here is why. Even if Jacob was with her for cliff diving and Alice didn't see that happen. Edward admitted he was going to come back. He couldn't handle it much longer being away from Bella. Making that unavoidable Bella and Edward would reunite. Their paths would lead like it did in Breaking Dawn. Jacob would be with Renesmee.
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