(*deep deep sigh and a drag on a cigarette*) (*blows out a cloud of disclaimers that i saw a post i didn't like & wrote this in a rush w/out inserting sources & also i'm gonna talk very explicitly abt racism & indigenous genocide in the americas. also assault and misogyny)
okay jacob black assaults bella swan. multiple times on-page. HOWEVER. i just don't think you can separate that from the fact that it's a direct result of stephenie meyer's racism!!!! especially when you're doing fan analysis that is allegedly acknowledging that racism!!!!!
and believe me, this is not in any way trying to minimize what jacob does. i do not "blame" anyone for disliking the character or the ship (fandom aint activism), or feeling unable to engage with that part of the text. i literally abandoned one of my jacob/bella fics bc i had a personal experience too close and couldn't write in the post-eclipse timeline anymore!!!! i get it!!!!!!!
BUT.
the man OR CHILD. AS IN THIS CASE. of color assaulting the white woman is an old, old trope in fiction--brown bodies are oversexualized, abused as sites for white women to indulge fantasies of their own fragility, & assault is written into the narratives to allow white women to indulge those fantasies w/out ruining their status as "pure."
also, this fiction trope CANNOT be separated from the real-life weaponization of white women's "virtue" to justify murdering men & children of color. the alleged threat of rape of white women was one of the load-bearing justifications of the genocide of indigenous peoples in north america, of course ignoring the constant, well-documented rape, murder, and horrific abuse of indigenous women by white settlers. (fun fact: indigenous women in the usa today are one of the only groups significantly more likely to be assaulted by men not of their own racial identity.)
so like--jacob black, an indigenous teenager, assaulting white bella swan, CANNOT be taken out of this context!!! there is a reason that this is the choice meyer made!!!!! the kiss between jacob and bella did not have to be assault, ESPECIALLY given all her commentary about bella actually loving jacob & jacob's motivation for doing this being to save bella's life.
also i can't relitigate jacob's character in new moon vs. eclipse, but--there's a real argument that what happens is because stephenie is trying to make him more of her own image of a romantic hero, which is based in classical european literature--BUT THAT'S ALSO INEXTRICABLE FROM RACISM! her touchpoint for eclipse is fucking wuthering heights!
jacob black is a character in a book & every aspect of that character was influenced by its author's racism. so. if you are going to be writing posts about how other characters in the twilight saga shouldn't be racist toward the wolf pack (good post! i agree!)...you should maybe think twice about saying that instead of hating him for the racism they should hate jacob because of him assaulting bella. because that's. you know. also the racism. u can headcanon the assault not happening. that's allowed. thumbs up emoji
