#popular misconceptions

#1 - Bella is portrayed as a weak-willed female who does everything she is told without question or comment.

When you want to attack the Twilight books as being bad, there are three usual avenues.

Sparkly vampires.

Domestically Abusive Edward.

Bella being an appalling female character that young girls will view as a role model.

This misconception deals with the third of these - the idea that Bella is not a suitable role model for girls and young women, because she is just so pathetic, weak, submissive and docile that she never stands up for herself.

Personally, I think it is an extension of the "Domestically Abusive Edward" misconception - on the principle that if Edward can dominate and control her so easily, Bella can't be much of a girl because she lets him.

But there will be a slew of other posts in regard to Edward and the megaton of misunderstandings about him - this is all about Isabella Marie Swan.

We first encounter her leaving Phoenix to go live in Forks because her mother has remarried. Bella isn't moving because her mother is kicking her out. She is moving because she wants to free her mother from the burden of looking after her, so that Renee can go on the road with Phil (her new husband and minor-league baseball player).

In order to do this, Bella is moving to a town she hates. She spent a few holidays there as a child, then pitched a fit and - since then - her father (Charlie) has come to Phoenix for holidays, because Bella dislikes Forks so much.

Yet now she is willingly moving to her childhood home so that her mother can enjoy her life and spend time with her husband. And it is purely her idea. She is sacrificing (at least some of) her happiness to let her mother be happy.

She arrives in Forks, gets treated like a shiny new toy for a little while. Because Forks is a small town and everyone knows everyone, a new person arriving to live with the town Sheriff is news and everyone knows who she is. She puts up with the attention for a while, which includes a number of the boys at school asking her for dates, to the prom and to other dances. She accepts none of this invites, because she has no desire to go with them.

Then she sees, then meets, Edward Cullen. Whether it is because he is mysterious, or because he is not bouncing around her like a rapacious puppy (unlike the rest of the boys at school), he piques her interest and she tries to find out more about him.

Despite his attempts to push her away, she doesn't give up. And after he saves her life (in somewhat mysterious and unbelievable circumstances) she only becomes more interested in him and tries to learn more about him. She doesn't listen when he says "go away", when he says "it's better not to be friends" and when he says "Seriously - don't". She ignores him, eventually learns his secret and convinces him that they should be a couple and that they belong together.

This, to me, does not scream weak-willed, submissive or docile. To me it suggests she is strong minded, tenacious and willing to go after what she wants.

Even when she is fully exposed to the danger of the world she is now in  - when they encounter James' coven - she still insists on doing things her way. She accepts she must leave, but she forces Edward and his family to take her home first so that she can protect her father. Just to repeat - SHE forces EDWARD to do her bidding.

And from there, she willingly gives herself up to James to save her mother (albeit somewhat pointlessly since her mother wasn't in danger. But I am arguing that she is strong willed, independent and makes her own way in the world, not that she is all that good at strategy and planning)

Then, at the end of Book 1, after she has been bitten, tortured and nearly killed by a psychotic vampire, she defies her mother and she defies Edward by insisting she return to Forks and continue her life with Edward. SHE makes the choice - the choice is not made for her.

Here, I have to admit, Book 2 is not her finest hour. But even in the somewhat dubious events of "New Moon" there is still more than enough evidence to show that not only is she her own woman and that she is no one's puppet, the one time she gives in and does something against her better nature, it turns out badly.

Alice holds a birthday party for her. Bella doesn't want this party - she objects to it strongly an emphatically - but she eventually gives in. And for this, she nearly gets eaten. She gets a paper cut, Jasper loses it, Edward - in attempting to protect her - pushes her onto a glass bowl (not the brightest thing he had ever done, but to be fair he was confronted by a vampire who wanted to eat his girlfriend so there is a chance he panicked a little) and then the entire family leaves town, leaving Bella all alone.

And this is where her less than perfect side emerges - the three blank pages where she does nothing but act as a zombie when Edward leaves are somewhat bad. However even that can be mitigated by the fact the love of her life has left and is never coming back, and she truly, honestly believes that he doesn't love her and she is alone in the world. Under those circumstances, I think giving her a little leeway is not something beyond reason. Plus if she were the perfect character, how boring would be be?

After the blank pages, she gets some of her spirit back (after being threatened by her father with deportation to Florida) and insists on staying where she is (once again - not giving in to demands) and starts to behave more like her old self. She starts to take "risks" (approaching a group of strangers on the street, learning to ride a motorbike, jumping off a cliff) to hear Edward's voice (again - slightly dubious behaviour) but then - when she learns that Edward is going to die - she once again becomes the girl she has always been.

Edward left her, told her he didn't love her and pretty much kicked her out of his life. (And yes - this makes Edward sound bad, but I will deal with this in another post). Yet the moment she realises he is in danger, she defies her father, she defies Jacob, she defies everyone and sets about going to his rescue.

Now this would be impressive if she was going to go to Alaska and defy the Denali coven. But Bella - a mortal human with no special skills - goes, of her own free will, to the heart of Vampiredom on Earth. She walks, without any hesitation, into Volterra - the home of the vampire government (The Volturi). Vampires who can - quite literally - eat her alive without anyone stopping them.

She saves Edward and - in a somewhat impressive display of nerves - stands up to Aro, Caius and Jane, despite being a mere mortal. She gets Aro stop Jane torturing Edward and takes the torture on herself, despite not knowing whether or not her "screwy mind" would stop her (Bella) suffering as Edward does.

They return home, and then rather than sit and listen and give in to Edward's instructions that she remain human (because becoming a vampire would cost her her soul) she goes to his family and forces them to accept her.

By this point we are halfway through the saga, and it is almost undeniable that the idea that Bella is a submissive little girl who does nothing but what she is told had been blown out of the water. She has, repeatedly, struck out on her own - making people bow to her will, making her own decisions and shaping the world to her own design.

But, just in case you think that once she gets her beloved Edward back she turns into a snivelling little girl who couldn't use her brain to cross the road (or think up a decent metaphor!), I will deal with the latter half of The Saga.

Edward and Bella are reunited, and - for some legitimate reasons - Edward doesn't want her going to La Push (the reservation where Jacob and the rest of The Pack live). Bella is not happy about this, and tries to sneak out (which is thwarted due to Alice) and then succeeds. She decides she wants to go to La Push, so she goes. Then - when it becomes apparent that Victoria has returned to kill her - she convinces Edward that she would, in fact, be safer in La Push than anywhere else. Once again, she bends the world to her will, and gets her way.

She and Edward have one major disagreement - he wants to marry her, and she really doesn't want to get married. Not just to him, but to anyone. Especially at the age of eighteen, because she is pretty sure everyone will think she is pregnant and HAS to get married, which is not the image she wants to project to her family, her friends and especially her father who owns a shotgun and is the local Chief of Police and already hates Edward.

The disagreement continues for most of the book, and it has to be said eventually Bella gives in, but only after extracting some concessions from Edward. So while she does agree to his demand, she makes him give in to her demands as well. She also gets him to agree to sit out the coming fight, and to go with her to the camp-site they have set up for her safety (because while she is a strong-willed young woman, she is not a stupid young woman and she grasps the concept that an army of newborn vampires is not something she should be anywhere near).

Her final (major) act in Eclipse is to cut her arm open. Which sounds dumb, but Edward (the immortal, powerful vampire) is getting his ass kicked and Seth (the mortal but powerful werewolf) is apparently down and out. Bella uses her blood as a distraction to save the lives of her friends, because she is the only one who can. It is a fairly stunning act of bravery, given the two attackers want her head more than anything else, yet it takes very little time for her to decide to do it. She puts herself at risk to save her friends - not for the first time.

But even that action pales in comparison to the glory that she is in Breaking Dawn.

To fully outline the strength of character she displays would take as much text as I have written already, so I will summarise instead :-

She demands sex on their honeymoon, despite the fact Edward is somewhat unwilling. She convinces him that she is happy, that she loves him and that she wants him, even though he believes (with a tiny bit of justification) that he might hurt her.

She keeps her child. EVERYONE she knows (with only one exception) wants her to abort the child (in some way) and yet she stands up to every single one of them and refuses to give in.

She survives the pregnancy (relatively speaking) and lives long enough to see her daughter born.

She doesn't attack and kill Charlie (her father) despite being less than a few weeks old.

She doesn’t attack and kill her daughter, despite being less than a few hours old when they first meet.

And then, in what has to be her shining moment, she stands up to The Volturi, almost single handedly. Yes, the wolves and the Cullen witnesses cause the Volturi to stop, but it is Bella, and Bella alone, who eventually wins the battle. This girl - who a large part of the "anti-fandom" (for want of a better phrase - the people who either haven't read the books and are just listening to hear-say, or have read them and dislike them) write off as a weak-willed, pathetic excuse for a young woman - faces down the most powerful, most dangerous army of darkness ever assembled (in the context of the stories) on her own.

To me - that doesn't scream shrinking-violet, weak-willed or pathetic. To me, that screams heroine.

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Bella Swan is the kind of girl I would like my fictional daughter to grow up to be. Strong, independent, ready to fight her own corner, ready to be a woman in a man's world (and a human in a vampire world) and ready to stand up for what is right, even in the face of bloody, horrible and scary death.

How anyone can't like her is utterly beyond me.

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