i don't really understand how the cullens are all vegetarians. like, generally, humans do not want to murder. pretty solid rule about us as a species. there is an innate horror at the idea in the vast majority of us. the idea that almost ever single vampire ever got over that because of the pain of thirst is baffling to me.
like, is there something about turning that makes you unable to see humans as people? the lack of human memories certainly would help, but it's not like the memories are GONE. they would still remember, at least vaguely, the humans they loved. surely most of them would at least be self-loathing about their diet? what possibly flips that switch so conclusively in every single vampire?
there's carlisle. he's special. i understand he's the Special Boy and i have no complaints about that. but most of the cullens were part of the family by chance. why is rosalie a vegetarian? is it just that you'll end up going with what your sire says? jasper has his special, valid reasons, similar to edward's. alice has her paradoxical future knowledge. emmett... he's pretty fine with the occasional murder but why is he also strict? again, is it just because the vamps who taught him the world told him it was right?
a lot of the vampires we see in BD are decent people. they are capable of kindness and their own moral code. you can't convince me that rosalie, emmett, and even esme are just astronomically better people than everyone else, and see humanity as people instead of animals unlike everyone else. it doesn't really make sense <3 okay thanks for reading lol
I don't know that there's a real good explanation in canon. I think, ultimately, SM was always more interested in superheroes than she was in vampires, so the vampire stuff is kind of all over the place. She'll give you some really grim backstory that could be from a legit horror novel, but then she's also like "all these people-eating vampires are cute little families!" or "the ruthless newborn vampires just play video games all day!" and you're left scratching your head about what she's actually trying to say about vampires, or temptation, or desire, or murder, or anything. She's not a vampire fan! She's a people with superpowers fan who kind of stumbled into vampires.
So. Anyway. The way this all works in my head is that the intense newborn thirst sort of "evolved" as a way to 'break' most vampires. It's so intense and so strong that you (probably) can't resist it, and by the time you learn to control yourself, you've already murdered dozens of people. You can either a) rationalize this as 'well I'm not human anymore I guess this is how it is' or b) hate yourself forever. Most people end up going with option A. Some people fall in between, like your pre-Alice Jaspers, or your pre-Denali Eleazars and Carmens, who feel kind of bad about killing people but don't see any other way.
(Side note: for any of this to make sense, animals can't be an obvious solution. Vampires are supposed to be super geniuses but no one figured this out before Carlisle [or Tanya, the timeline is iffy on who came up with it first]? So again, in my head, it's that animal blood doesn't register as 'food' at all until you are legit starving. It's like if a human went for a hike in the woods and packed a lunch, very few things in the wild would read as 'food' unless you were a devoted forager. If a human were lost in the woods for days or weeks, suddenly you're contemplating eating ants or dandelions or that weird mushroom you found. So I think animals don't even smell like "food," they're tree bark to vampires. They're ants. You have to be taught you can eat them, or you have to be desperate.)
As you said, Carlisle is a special case. I'm fine with that! I really like it, actually! He was a breath of fresh air in my marathon vampire read because he was actually successful! He was designed in a lab to be able to resist that newborn thirst. Grew up with a father who told him everything was a sin, so he's already got that built-in self-denial. He has faith to inspire him. He's got Enhanced Compassion. And he knows what it's like to be the victim of a vampire! He was attacked; he wasn't seduced or charmed or chosen as a companion or something. He was bitten and left to die. All of this results in someone uniquely positioned to just be like 'NOPE!' to the whole eating people thing.
And I think you're right in that most of the Cullens are vegetarians because that's what they were taught. Even Alice "saw" it before she met them. Perhaps more people would choose it if they knew about it early in their vampire lives, but even so, it's eating insects and questionable berries and clover you found in the woods for the rest of eternity vs the yummy picnic lunch your friends are having. With Rosalie, the reason seems to be it's a way to have some control in her life as well as to keep her closer to humanity (many humans eat animals, after all). Emmett goes along with it for her. Esme is warm-hearted and would feel bad about killing people, but I think without Carlisle she'd have been like Carmen. She wouldn't starve herself in the woods like Carlisle did, she'd go with the flow and feel kinda bad and eventually be happy to learn there was another way.
And then there's Bella. Who is pro-vampire and thinks they are awesome and straight-up asks Edward and Carlisle both why they bother trying to be good. But then. Somehow. Is the most controlled newborn ever because she "braced herself" and was "mentally prepared." Carlisle's self-control felt earned; hell, even Rosalie's! Bella's felt too easy. It was boring. And I find it difficult to believe that someone with no hang-ups about being a vampire, someone who feels like their true self as a vampire, is ALSO really good at not doing the most natural vampire thing. But maybe that's just me.
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