anonymous for this one, please! 🙏
i remember hearing about that most people when reading new moon skip the 'werewolf parts' and just jump right in to when alice returns but personally it's so painful to read. Because right until bella saw carlisle's car, she was so close to letting go of her unhealthy coping methods, considered the possibility of moving on/healing, and even entertained that she needed to grow up (which honestly is more in line with the 'coming of age' element in most YA)
That first line? That's learning to grow up and and finally realize that your actions are affecting people and you need to stop. That second line was Bella learning to heal and move on. it was such a moment of growth that i was actually in tears reading it. But then once the car showed up, bella came across like someone slipping back to their withdrawal stage, and then with alice the entire thing came off like a relapse (ex: her hyperventilating to smell alice's scent as much as possible, being so terrified/anxious when alice leaves even for a while). And then all that 'growth' went out the window: she's terrified of aging/maturing, she's making demands to charlie so he can allow edward in the house while being painfully unaware WHY charlie doesn't trust edward. And I'm just.. Girl, maybe you do need to wait those five years edward offered you because this is immature, even for you. smh
(also don't know if this is a hot take, but it's very protagonist-centric for bella to be allowed at the quileute council meeting later in eclipse and easily accepted by the tribe there. sure, you can probably excuse the first one with jacob being the one to invite her and because he's the elder's son there's some kind of exemption, sure. but imo she shouldn't have 'been treated like someone who belonged' especially when she was so willing to ditch them the moment the cullens returned, and after she got cold and antagonistic to jacob once she got even a shred of them showing up (which ngl, reminds me of the same rudeness she had towards billy.) there should have been tension in the air with inviting the girl 'who runs with vampires' into their tribe's secrets, but we can't have that with our protagonist.... 🙄)
Oh definitely! This is part of the overall problem, I think, of going back and writing two more books between Twilight and Forever/Breaking Dawn.
The Bella story with Jacob was pulling SM in a different direction. She never intended for Jacob to be such a major character or such an important person in Bella's life. Edward was never supposed to leave. The story, as originally written, was supposed to go straight from Twilight to wedding/baby/vampirism in Forever Dawn.
But the publishers wanted more stories set in high school, so SM went back and wrote NM and Eclipse, and I really do think the Jacob thread got away from her. The combo of Twilight + Forever Dawn was Vampire Fairytale. It was Power Fantasy. Folks on the Lexicon who read FD said it was "pure sugar" and there was no conflict.
I think as SM was writing the story, she started really thinking about the stuff you'd give up if you became a vampire, she thought about being frozen as a teenager and not growing up. She wrote about Jacob and the more down-to-earth human growing pains of teenagers and it came into conflict with her fairytale fated romance thesis. But she was set on the Forever/Breaking Dawn ending. Bella had to become a vampire and love it; Renesmee had to exist.
So all that development of the less fantastical connection between Bella and Jacob (whether you see it as romance or friendly or familial or whatever) had to be pushed aside and forced back into the Forever/Breaking Dawn box. She forces it into the supernatural 'fated romance' thesis by saying that connection was only ever about Renesmee and the future imprint.
I think, I really do think, all the Jacob/Bella stuff, the idea that there's value in imperfect humanity (and maybe that imperfection is BETTER actually) ended up fueling the writing of The Host. Because in that, the supernatural/alien souls with all their wisdom and forced perfection are the enemy, whereas in Twilight, the forced perfection of the vampires is the ideal, it's Bella's dream and reward.
And yes, her getting to be "one of the family" with the Quileutes does feel very weird. I mean maaaaaybe her history with them through Charlie could explain it up until the point where she's clearly chosen the vampires. The girl is siding with the enemy why is she welcomed at their events? You can maaaaybe handwave it of them being desperate to make her see the truth blah blah blah but yeah it does just feel like "Well she's the protagonist, of course she's accepted and welcomed" because people who don't like her/welcome her (Lauren, Rosalie, Leah) are 'bad' for that. It's part of the fantasy to be welcomed and accepted, even if you are planning on turning into a people-eating monster.
