I hope this is the right thread to post this on. Between Explorations and Ambivalences, I'm a little confused.
I’ve been lurking. I admit it. Sorry.... I should have come on and posted long ago.
In both Explorations and Ambilivances, you all have been discussing some incredibly deep concepts. On the side, December and I have also been discussing them (what IS it about this story that has two otherwise normal middle-aged women discussing the nuances of it five freaking years after it was published?!?!?)
Anyway, on both threads you have been discussing the spiritual aspects of the series. For a year now, I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to convince December that Nessie was indeed important to Stephenie’s story. Nessie wasn’t some wish made up out of Stephenie’s hormones or a twisted plot device. She was intended from the beginning. For Edward.
Caveat: just because she was intended from the beginning doesn’t make Nessie a good idea, just and intended one. In fact, Stephenie ended up creating a plethora of shaky mythology to cover up the impossibility of it all. However, I don’t think Nessie was a mistake. She is there for an important reason.
So, why all the religious inference? Why did a DOG tell the most important part of the story so that we completely lost our final glimpses of the Edward and human Bella we loved? (Why, yes, I am a bit bitter about that. Can you tell?) And, why the baby?
The religious inference isn’t as present in Twilight as it is in the other books. I don’t believe it was as present in FD either. When SM wrote the original story (as December pointed out) it was a love story between a girl and a vampire. Their love culminates in Bella becoming a vampire and giving Edward “life” through a child. That was the wonderful sacrifice and the child was the gift. Jacob was not a part of that story. He came in later, when Renesme was older.
As you have all noted, a few things changed when she expanded the story. That’s why we don’t discuss the eternal questions of the first book much, they weren’t intended to be there.
Also, I agree with everything you all said about Jacob and choice and religion. Jacob came to give Bella an honest choice and to show just how deep her love is for Edward. Jacob is Stephenie’s voice of moral dissent from Bella’s choice. (LOVE that one Corona). We see Bella’s death and Edward’s unbearable torture through his eyes as a plot device. THAT is my hang up with the story. I wanted those weeks with Bella.
And all that happened (as you have discussed) because Stephenie began to 1) understand that when you play with dead people, it’s not just about love any more, and 2) have moral issues she hadn’t yet worked out about what was happening. To add to the mix, her characters changed and deepened and her story did as well. Once she wrote New Moon. the story became riddled with spiritual references.
Everyone in the story except Jacob needed to be “redeemed” in a way. She couldn’t show the agonizing choice of becoming a vampire without giving Bella a good alternative in the form of Jacob. The vampires, especially Edward, viewed themselves as “good” but damned. They were lost in a half-life, frozen and unchanging -- dead. Even Bella was “lost” as a human and needed to find a way to come to terms with her own life. She no longer could discuss the love without discussing eternity, and for a religious person, that is a big, big issue--probably bigger than she wanted it to be. The love story became so much more than that. Which is why we are here.
I said, a very long time ago, that Stephenie viewed the baby, and Bella’s constant struggle to show her love to Edward, as a redemptive gift -- to Edward.
Everything was for Edward.
December wrote me a note that put my thoughts in a much clearer path. She has the most wonderful way of doing that. I want to share it here.
December wrote:Ok, so I just got it. What the whole damn NM/EC sequence is for. All that futile agonizing and negotiating and choosing, before fate steps in and preempts the whole issue.
It's nothing to do with what Stephenie or Bella needs. It's entirely for Edward.
Because Edward is the one person whose HEA isn't assured by the events of FD. In fact, we know from NM (as Stephenie interprets it in her FAQ) that Edward is so horrified by the realization that if Bella were dying he'd be unable to stop himself saving her (and damning her soul) that this thought drives him to leave her. From which we can assume that he'd have a pretty hard time living with himself after the events of FD.
Bella doesn't need to know that she would have chosen to give everything up for Edward. She'll be happy if fate makes her a vampire because (as we know) it's the right choice for her.
It's Edward who needs to know that. The balanced structure of those two middle books makes it seem as though the point of NM is settling Edward's doubts and the point of EC is settling Bella's (after raising them). But they're both actually about laying to rest every last lingering scruple Edward might later have about what he's done to Bella. By dangling before Bella the perfect human life she could have had without Edward -- offering her as ideal a human lover as she could ever hope to meet even if she waited years and years -- EC presents Edward with the final proof that becoming a vampire with him really is Bella's HEA. So he doesn't have to spend eternity beating himself up for not having tried harder to get her to leave him before (one way or another) loving him killed her.
Isn’t that beautiful? I loved how she put it.
I can only add that the baby is here for that reason as well. Yes, December, I understand she’s not a viable plot device and she is forced on us rather than adding to the flow of the story. But she is just as much a part of the religion of Twilight and the salvation of Edward as any of it. The baby, the great gift that was to be given from the beginning, stayed in the story because she is important to the story Stephenie was trying to tell.
But not for Bella. Yes, I believe it is Stephenie’s way of letting Bella earn her eternity. She deserved it because she was worthy of it. But all her suffering, all the pain and all the unbearable angst wasn’t for Bella to make her choice. She’d done that, over and over again.
Nessie is for Edward.
I’m sorry you didn’t get the bite and all the romance that entails, but the bite meant a lifetime of guilt and doubt for Edward. Now, Edward is free and “redeemed” and no longer fears that he killed a soul to have a sexual partner. Nessie is not only the means, but the proof.
As we have said, Stephenie needed to give Bella her reward but have her do it without “sin.” Voila, death by baby. She makes Bella’s choice not about love but about saving another, and in doing so SHE OFFERS EDWARD REDEMPTION AS WELL. Edward didn’t kill Bella, he saved her and the innocent life of his child through his immeasurable anguish and sacrifice. No foul, no sin.
Nessie is proof that Edward is now redeemed, that vampires are not dead and damned, and that life eternal is now possible in more than one way. She is the gift that all children are intended to be--our heritage, our mark, and our way to continue to live after we die. Nessie can have children and Bella and Edward will live again through them as well. The story is complete for Bella and Edward, not just because they are in love, but because they are in love and
redeemed.