Your Number Was Up The First Time I Met You

30 days of twilight | day 07 | favorite book | new moon

So, Carlisle is in a miserable situation.

He was forcibly turned into a vampire under traumatic circumstances, and became a cannibalistic demon. Against all odds he discovered that he didn’t actually have to kill people: however, he was still lonely. Fast forwards a few lonely years, he found a BFF and homoerotic academic in Aro, and spent decades trying to persuade him to his diet. Failed. Decided to travel the world in search of likeminded - failed.

There’s no one.

Fast forwards to 1918, Carlisle has spent centuries trying to get someone, anyone, to understand this seemingly simple concept. Don’t eat people, please, it’s literally the only thing Carlisle asks. And he’s still asking too much.

We know how history then unfolded itself - Carlisle was going to let the Masens die, as countless patients had before, and then Elizabeth Masen said “nu uh, not my son he won’t!”, and that was the kick in the butt Carlisle needed to create his own companion. Converting others had failed, but maybe a brand new vampire who has never known anything different and who looks to Carlisle for guidance will follow the diet.

And it works. Edward follows Carlisle’s diet. A few years later Carlisle repeats the experiment, now he’s in a coven of three vampires who are actually doing the diet. What a world. I’m sure he was walking around in a daze for a solid portion of that time.

The coven grows, soon Carlisle has a whole squad of vegetarians, and even a cousin squad. (Although since the Denali sister went for the diet because they wanted to have sex with the same men multiple times, I can only picture Carlisle’s delight upon finding them quickly turning into a thousand yard stare.)

Anyway, Carlisle has what he always wanted, let there be happiness galore.

Unfortunately, none of the Cullens actually care about human life.

Off the top of my head:

Edward left Carlisle for years. This by itself is a dealbreaker, he had all the love and support he could ever ask for, and turned his back on it because he’d rather kill people. Killing rapists wasn’t even his first instinct, at first he killed homeless junkies, since no one would miss them. He only turned to rapists because junkies taste awful. He turned back not because he learned the error of his ways, but because life wasn’t fulfilling. He has learned nothing: when we meet him in 2005, he would have eaten Bella and the Biology class if it weren’t for Carlisle, contemplates killing all the Quileutes, and in Volterra he would have gone on a massacre, again if it wasn’t for Carlisle. This guy doesn’t care about human life, and he never becomes a better person. He abstains from human blood for Carlisle, to feel like less of a monster, and because it plays into his superiority complex.

Esme makes it very clear she’s fine with Bella’s untimely death. She’d let Bella die to satisfy Edward’s thirst, or to keep him in Forks. Her vote for Bella to live has nothing to do with Bella, and she later gives Edward implicit approval to eat her if he wants. It’s additionally damning that Edward isn’t at all surprised by her behavior. She does the diet for her family.

Rosalie used not wanting to move to a new place and start over as an argument in favor of killing Bella. She later places her bet that Bella will be eaten in the meadow. She adheres to the diet better than anyone in the family, but she doesn’t actually care for the individual human life, not even when it’s an innocent girl. Her main reason for following the diet is that she wants to be as close to being human as possible, and maneating demon is about as far from human as you can get.

Emmet’s response to Edward having a singer is “Treat yourself, bro!” and when Bella’s becoming a vampire, he makes a bet about how many people she’ll kill. He could not care less. He follows the diet for Rosalie’s sake.

Alice lives the way she does because her visions told her that she should live with the Cullens. She cares about Bella because Bella is her barbie, and she treats her like an accessory rather than a person. When push comes to shove she brings Bella to Volterra, knowing what the Volturi do to humans who know the secret. She never appears to care about humans for the sake of humans, at one point we see her try to help Jasper control his thirst: “It helps if you think of them as people!”

Jasper’s gift is essentially a shock collar that made a human diet unsustainable for him.

Bella chooses vampirism, knowing that there’s a chance she’ll kill people. When told of Jasper and Emmet’s newborn Bella body count bet, she is not at all concerned. And the thirst is never a problem for her, she doesn’t have to struggle to stay on the diet. She eats animals because she’s a Cullen, Cullens eat animals. Duh.

And then there’s the fact that Carlisle was the only one who voted in favor 

(I know this is a bit reductive, I do have far more to say on each of these, but I’m trying to be a succinct person)

They’re not doing the human diet for altruistic reasons.

This is the thing that makes Carlisle a tragic character to me.

Loneliness is his whole thing, and all he ever wanted in a companion someone who shared his ideals, who would value human life as he does. What he ends up with is the Cullens, who all believe they’re amazing people for not eating people and morally superior (they won’t say it aloud, but- well they’ll absolutely say it aloud. And they do.) to other vampires, but they don’t actually care at all.

We see it in Rosalie, Emmet, and Jasper deciding to kill Bella in Midnight Sun, we see it in- well, I just wrote a bunch of examples above. We see it again and again, these people care about human life up until the second it’s inconvenient for them to do so.

And all Carlisle can do is live in intense double think denial where his family is filled with wonderful people who care about humans so much, but he also has to make them go to their victim’s funerals in a desperate, and very telling, bid to make them understand that humans are people.

The whole point of the Cullens is that after centuries of loneliness Carlisle finally has a family of vampires who share his ideals, but when they don’t actually care-

Well.