Perhaps it's her passivity that helps to make her an audience-blank-slate
Bella is not an audience-blank-slate. I know Meyer said she intended Bella to be an audience-blank-slate, but Meyer can't write, so whatever her intentions are, she is incapable of translating them to the page. Bella has a very clear and very definite personality. She instinctively lies before telling the truth even when there's no reason to lie; she's severely depressed; she intensely hates everything but a couple Cullens and the sun, especially herself; she is psychologically disconnected from her own bodily reactions; she is self-obsessed; she hates greenery and math and thinks reading Wuthering Heights is fun; she has a creepy father, a scatterbrained mother, and no one has ever taken care of her. Nor is Bella as passive as she's often accused of being. She gets her way in just about everything, and not by sitting around waiting for it to fall into her lap. She makes demands and she compromises.
I think presenting women of a warlike bent can be empowering.
Depends on what you mean by "war-like." That has negative connotations to me. But I never said showing women warriors was bad. I said that very often works that do that are actually presenting men with boobs and calling them women, and that they very often explicitly insult any woman who cannot or does not want to be a warrior, and look down on things like needlework.
Alice, Rosalie, and eventually Bella have some vampiric powers, but Rosalie's is beauty-based and Bella's is passive and defensive.
Alice is the most powerful Cullen, one of the most powerful vampires in the world, powerful enough for the Volturi to want to recruit her. They want Alice and don't particularly care about any of the other Cullens. Rosalie doesn't actually have any vampire power, but lots of vampires don't, including Emmett and Dr. Cullen. And I don't see why Bella's power should be discounted or looked down on because it's defensive. That makes no sense at all to me. It's like saying body armor is useless.
I think it would be more psychologically realistic to back away from the killer who claims he wants to eat you, unless the character is portrayed as the sort of person who writes letters to serial killers--and the text should give a clue that something's wrong with them.
This is a sexual and romantic fantasy, wherever and whenever it's set. While I would like Bella to struggle more against her love for Edward, because that would be more interesting and might actually give us some character growth, there would not be any point to the book if she just stayed away from him or if he was not a danger to her. There would be zero vampire romance novels if we said that people must always run away from those who pose a real danger to them. There would be a lot fewer romance novels, period. Perhaps this is a kink someone has to share to understand, but it is not something that should be condemned.
As for giving a clue that something's wrong with Bella -- well, Bella thinks everything's wrong with Bella. Loudly. Constantly. It's really, really, really annoying, and a large part of what makes this book such a slog.
no subject
Bella is not an audience-blank-slate. I know Meyer said she intended Bella to be an audience-blank-slate, but Meyer can't write, so whatever her intentions are, she is incapable of translating them to the page. Bella has a very clear and very definite personality. She instinctively lies before telling the truth even when there's no reason to lie; she's severely depressed; she intensely hates everything but a couple Cullens and the sun, especially herself; she is psychologically disconnected from her own bodily reactions; she is self-obsessed; she hates greenery and math and thinks reading Wuthering Heights is fun; she has a creepy father, a scatterbrained mother, and no one has ever taken care of her. Nor is Bella as passive as she's often accused of being. She gets her way in just about everything, and not by sitting around waiting for it to fall into her lap. She makes demands and she compromises.
I think presenting women of a warlike bent can be empowering.
Depends on what you mean by "war-like." That has negative connotations to me. But I never said showing women warriors was bad. I said that very often works that do that are actually presenting men with boobs and calling them women, and that they very often explicitly insult any woman who cannot or does not want to be a warrior, and look down on things like needlework.
Alice, Rosalie, and eventually Bella have some vampiric powers, but Rosalie's is beauty-based and Bella's is passive and defensive.
Alice is the most powerful Cullen, one of the most powerful vampires in the world, powerful enough for the Volturi to want to recruit her. They want Alice and don't particularly care about any of the other Cullens. Rosalie doesn't actually have any vampire power, but lots of vampires don't, including Emmett and Dr. Cullen. And I don't see why Bella's power should be discounted or looked down on because it's defensive. That makes no sense at all to me. It's like saying body armor is useless.
I think it would be more psychologically realistic to back away from the killer who claims he wants to eat you, unless the character is portrayed as the sort of person who writes letters to serial killers--and the text should give a clue that something's wrong with them.
This is a sexual and romantic fantasy, wherever and whenever it's set. While I would like Bella to struggle more against her love for Edward, because that would be more interesting and might actually give us some character growth, there would not be any point to the book if she just stayed away from him or if he was not a danger to her. There would be zero vampire romance novels if we said that people must always run away from those who pose a real danger to them. There would be a lot fewer romance novels, period. Perhaps this is a kink someone has to share to understand, but it is not something that should be condemned.
As for giving a clue that something's wrong with Bella -- well, Bella thinks everything's wrong with Bella. Loudly. Constantly. It's really, really, really annoying, and a large part of what makes this book such a slog.