I've seen an argument that Edward's self-esteem (which is no better than Bella's, we just don't know that yet) improves once he sees that Bella can be a vampire without also being a monster.
I don't believe that's what Meyer is going for, though. She doesn't seem to perceive anything to fix. Each of her protagonists thinks s/he is dirt and the other one is divine; it's romantic, in Meyer's view.
(I do think Edward's constant put-downs are meant to be okay because he doesn't grasp why anyone would give a fig for the opinion of something as worthless as him, but that really doesn't work with the mind-reading, and I don't believe Meyer would change anything about the way Edward acts toward Bella if he was able to read her mind. It wouldn't occur to her that that should logically follow, because she doesn't understand cause and effect at that level of abstraction.)
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winterfish
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Date: 2012-10-17 02:48 pm (UTC)I don't believe that's what Meyer is going for, though. She doesn't seem to perceive anything to fix. Each of her protagonists thinks s/he is dirt and the other one is divine; it's romantic, in Meyer's view.
(I do think Edward's constant put-downs are meant to be okay because he doesn't grasp why anyone would give a fig for the opinion of something as worthless as him, but that really doesn't work with the mind-reading, and I don't believe Meyer would change anything about the way Edward acts toward Bella if he was able to read her mind. It wouldn't occur to her that that should logically follow, because she doesn't understand cause and effect at that level of abstraction.)