Stephenie Meyer once explained what Bella Swan’s flaws are, but she only made the whole story of the Twilight series worse – here’s why.
The Twilight novels and movies have been the subject of countless analyzes and criticism due to the story and its main characters, particularly Bella, who Stephenie Meyer has tried to justify for years but only makes everything worse – here’s what happened. Back in 2005, Stephenie Meyer shared her unique vision of a world with vampires and werewolves in the novel Twilight, the first entry in a series of four novels that centers on the problematic romance between mortal Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen. Throughout the Twilight series, Edward and Bella overcame a variety of obstacles, most notably a vampire coven known as the Volturi and a pack of werewolves, among those Bella’s best friend, Jacob Black.
The Twilight novels were a big success and quickly built a solid fanbase around the world, but they also drew a lot of backlash and criticism, which continues to this day. Still, that didn’t stop their transition to the big screen, with The Twilight Saga released between 2008 and 2012, with the final novel, Breaking Dawn, split into two movies. With the Twilight Saga came more fans but also more criticism, and as much as Stephenie Meyer has tried to justify certain decisions, she only makes it all worse.
Such is the case of Bella Swan (played by Kristen Stewart in the Twilight movies), who serves as the readers’ guide as the stories are told through her point of view. Bella has been pointed out as a bad role model and there’s an endless debate on whether or not she can be considered a feminist character, as her actions and decisions are always based around and related to Edward, while others argue that she was free of making her own decisions about her life. Of course, Stephenie Meyer has jumped to the defense of her characters and the events in the Twilight series over the years, but most of her explanations have only made it all worse, such as when she explained what Bella’s “tragic flaw” is.
On her official website, Stephenie Meyer answered what the characters’ biggest mistakes are (specifically in Eclipse but they apply to the Twilight Saga as a whole), and Bella’s highlight all her problems and actually make everything worse. Meyer explained that her flaw is her “lack of self-knowledge”, seen in how she pursued a friendship with Jacob (as seen in New Moon), and if she had realized the strong feelings involved she wouldn’t have gone for it. Meyer added that “you don’t give up on your friends when you fall in love” but “you do give up your other romantic interests”, and if Bella had had a better understanding of herself, she “could have saved everyone a lot of heartbreak”, but this happens when you try to do the right thing, though it can be debated if she truly did the right thing by leaving her family and friends behind in order to become a vampire and stay by Edward’s side forever.
If Bella’s “tragic flaw” was her lack of self-knowledge, that was a good reason and motivation to give her character development, but the Bella readers and viewers meet in Twilight is pretty much the same at the end of Breaking Dawn, only now a vampire and a mother. Bella went through a lot in the Twilight series, and all those experiences should have made her “understand herself better” and thus take better decisions – even if she was always meant to become a vampire and marry Edward, everything that came before that could have been handled a lot better through some much-needed character development. Surely, Bella’s flaws as well as those of the rest of the main characters in Twilight can’t be changed, unless Meyer plans to tell what happened after Breaking Dawn, but until then, her attempts to justify her narrative decisions only hurt the story even more.
