And I'd like to thank everyone for reining in the violet rhetoric. I know it's an issue with a lot of strong feelings attached, so seeing people shaking hands and discussing it without rancor gives me hope for humanity.
EDIT: Oh, darn, are you leaving? That'll teach me to take so long to come up with a response.
Lillewyn
JUST TO CATCH YOUR ATTENTION: Read this or not, at least I’ll get this across: I DISAGREE
Thank you for making that clear. Actually, as of yet I have read every post on this thread, and I've personally replied to most of them.
Lillewyn
I’d like to point out that he left because he feared for Bella’s life, and that it was essentially Bella’s fault that she chose to spend her time with the Cullens as opposed to humans.
Lillewyn
I don’t care what Romeo and Juliet says: suicide is not romantic.
~
That would be your opinion.
I'm sorry, I just think it says more about my beloved's love for me that they'd be willing to live for me - to wake up each morning and remember me, and to have the strength to carry on and be happy without me - than if they'd be willing to die for me.
Dying is easy. Any fool can do it. Living is the hard bit.
And I think that if you read closely enough, you'll find that Shakespeare himself agreed with me. Look at the Monk's comment when he finds out that Romeo has forgotten Rosalind in favor of Juliet: "Truly, young men love with their eyes." R&J is not about True Love. It's about reckless teenage infatuation.
Yes, in the end that is an opinion. But it is not a blind opinion any more than "I think people will be happier if they eat less fast food" is.
Lillewyn
He didn’t actually say ‘Bella, all of your friends are shallow.’ He was only talking about Jessica, who is shallow, you can’t dispute that. And although that doesn’t make insulting her right, Edward’s words were actually: “I was listening to your words in Jessica’s mind… her mind isn’t very original, it was annoying to have to stoop to that.” He didn’t say shallow, he said not original, and it isn’t exactly an insult.
It was certainly intended an an insult. Hating to stoop to reading someone's mind because you don't find it interesting enough?
I would reference other comments with page numbers, but I put my copy of Twilight out on the curb during my most recent move. I apologize. Perhaps someone else here held onto theirs?
Lillewyn
She didn’t want him to die because SHE LOVED HIM. Not because she would feel guilty because he died, or didn’t want to be responsible. And she stays in the relationship after, again, because she loves him, not because she fears for his life.
Because he said he was sorry and now it will all be better, right?
Abuse victims often describe their feelings for their abusers as "love." They may truly believe that the love their abusers - they may even in actuality love their abusers.
However, it is intuitive, to say the least, that feelings of "love" intensify when one or both members of a couple is in physical danger. Hence war brides, young couples getting married right before one of them goes of to fight, and maybe to die.
So.
Edward: "I love you so much I'd kill myself if you died."
Bella: "No no no don't kill yourself, don't even think it, I love you I love you."
Reassuring both parties, make the danger go away.
Edward: *about to kill himself*
Bella: "No no no, don't do it, I'm here, don't feel guilty about me."
Edward: "I really love you, I'm not just feeling guilty."
Bella: "I love you too, don't ever leave me."
Relief that he's still alive, sudden reprieve from the feeling of being unwanted and unloved... its almost like Stockholm Syndrome, being suddenly released from the bondage of fear and feeling an intense self-identification with your releaser. Add on that rather dramatic "Knight in Sparkling Armor" gesture against the Volturi, and it would take a pretty strong mind to think half-rationally.
Lillewyn
And I want to point out that Edward only attempted to kill himself after he thought Bella had died. Bella knows this, and so, if she didn’t want to be in the relationship, she would also know she could leave without him killing himself.
And I'd like to point out that even if Bella is free to leave the relationship,she is not free to live her own life so long as she knows that her actions could endanger Edward's life as well. I will (again) use the analogy of a mountaineer. Mountaineering may involve some risks, and some passes may be dangerous. People still do it because the rewards of being out in nature, of challenging yourself, are great enough to outweigh, say, the one-in-two-hundred chance that you'll fall off a cliff and kill yourself. Yet a person who feels fine taking that risk on their own might not take it if they are pregnant or if they even have young children at home, because it's not just their own life they're risking.
Making your life dependent on another's in that way is an imposition that Edward has no right to make.
Lillewyn
Edward can’t read Bella’s mind. He didn’t understand Bella at the time (and not completely for a while, as is shown in New Moon) so there is no way, mind-reader or not, that he could have known what Bella would do.
It's called basic psychology. Even if he can't read
her mind, he should know enough about how humans in general act to get a feel for what Bella will feel. Him being put off by surprise at not being able to read her mind only excuses him for a a very short time period - unless of course, he's so dependent on reading peoples' minds that he's completely forgotten how to read body language and tone of voice and other cues as to what people are thinking.
And there's only one solution to that problem. Are you ready? This is radical.
Actually talk to Bella about something more in-depth than "What is your favorite/color/book/gemstone?" Like about what she actually wants to do with her life.
Angsting with her about being a sexy sparkling superpowered vampire in love does not count.
Ask me about the Nash example if you want more info on why leaving Bella without a trace was a Very Bad Idea.
Lillewyn
I’d also like to point out that it was Bella’s decision not to tell her father about the date. Edward would have rather her told than not, and I don’t see how her not telling her dad ‘served his means’. He wanted her to tell so that he would have more reason not to hurt her.
It separated Bella from her father, thus making her more dependent on Edward, and leaving her feeling like Edward understood her better than her father did, and it started off a pattern of stepping all over Charlie in order to make more space for Ed & Bells.
(On a tangentally related note, Charlie is "putty in Alice' capable hands?" This is not family values, people.)
Lillewyn
Um, no. Bella said that she didn’t know whether she should invite him, and he decided to do it. She did not say she didn’t want him to come. In fact, she wanted him to come very much (as is displayed in Breaking Dawn), but didn’t know whether it would hurt him to be invited.
1. But she didn't want Edward to invite him.
2. In response to bePeterPan's comment that it's Edward's way of showing that vampires are superior - I think it's even more simple than that. It's a way of showing that
Edward is superior. There was definitely some rivalry going on at the close of the tent scene in Eclipse (either that or sexual tension). When I finished the book, I thought it was pretty clear that the invitation was not Edward's way of reaching out to Jacob (remember, he could read Jacob's mind, so he should know this wasn't nice for Jacob) or trying to make Bella happy. It was his way of saying to Jacob "I win."
And that is
not OK.
3. Yes, Edward has the right to invite people to the wedding. No, he should not be inviting
Bella's friends.
Oh goodie, conclusions.
Lillewyn
~All of your points seem to hinge on your understanding of the story. And all of them can be proven wrong by someone else’s understanding of it.
Correct me if I'm not making sense, but my understanding was that an understanding cannot be proven wrong by another understanding. It can be challenged by another understanding, and attempts can be made to convince others that one's own understanding is the most accurate view of the world. But nothing can be
proven wrong except by rigorous scientific examination and strong logic. And usually, when we say "proven" we mean "there's enough evidence and/or logic in favour that the vast majority of people who care have been convinced."
So - I accumulate evidence and reason things through, you accumulate evidence and reason things through, and then we throw our arguments at each other until one of us is convinced or we get bored.
Lillewyn
~I wonder why Stephenie Meyer would make one of her characters abusive? If the person who created him didn’t intend for him to be abusive, then he’s not. Period.
OK. I'll go for the rough analogy here. I am trying to describe something to you, and I gesture violently. My hand connects violently with your face. "You hit me" you say. "I didn't intend to hit you, so clearly I didn't hit you." I say.
My logic: Good or Bad?
To use another, more subtle example: Tolkien, during WWII, writes a book with many striking similarities to the war. A literary analyst says "Hey, this book is a metaphor for WWII and the rise of America." Tolkien says "Are you crazy? I didn't put any WWII analogies in there!"
The literary world looks at it and says "Well, they're there. So deal with it."
Orson Scott Card (still the world's best Mormon writer, hands-down) described a similar experience in which an editor commented on how a story of his was a touching portrayal of a young man's insecurities about growing up. Scott Card had not intended the story to develop like that. He looked at his writing again and said "Well, gosh, she's right" and realized that he' been working that in subconsciously.
From example one, we see that it is possible to act in a certain way without intending to act in that way. From examples two and three, we see that even literary works that are very well-thought-out can have themes in them that the author did not intend to add wen writing them, because a mind is a funny thing.
Therefore, the Authorial Word of God fails.
Lillewyn
~While you do have some good points, a lot of them are very questionable.
I'm glad you find that some of my points are good, and I hope I've helped to further explain those that you found less sound.
Lillewyn
~You seem to have misinterpreted the whole meaning of the story.
To draw from my Literary Analysis class: If you see it in the text, and you can justify it using textual support, it's right.
However, I must point out that "meaning" and "moral" are not exactly the same thing. In my understanding, a "meaning" is what the piece has to say about life. A "moral" is a suggestion that the reader act in a certain way in order to live a better life - hence, if you act properly, you have "good morals."
Lillewyn
~You must have been very deeply scarred by whatever bad relationship you were in to make a whole argument about this, and to genuinely think that the point of Twilight was for Edward to be abusive.
And I think we've buried this one pretty well.
3nodding 
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