Bella Swan Cullen

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Auctorita
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Post by Auctorita »

KaseyHeartEdward wrote: Sorry don't agree with you that much. but i do respect your opinion. And do understand where you might be coming from.

Hey look it might have not been the smartest move but seriously if you thought someone had your mom hostage. Would would take the time to say okay well lets think about this. And spend hours doing it. Heck i wouldn't if someone had someone i loved i would just go i would rather die then have my loved ones die.

And the Jacob thing there are times when humans just don't think clearly. heck i was beliving jacob for a second. until the kiss me crap. But honestyly when you are in a situation like that you are just going to react and may not hink things through it isn't a bad thing just means your normal.


And anyway you say all the things that happend are stupid and could be avoided. but it that happened there would be no story.
Of course there would be a story, these events only make up a small portion of the books. And anyways I was not implying that they were all stupid and could have been avoided I was stating that many of these events occurred because Bella is gullible and let's her emotions control her. That's how I saw it, but you didn't and that's fine.
holdingoutforjacob wrote:i wouldn't necessarily call bella gullible. at all. i would call her human and mortal.

i think bella always DOES try to do the right thing. and i think if someone is in danger, bella won't give herself a second thought in helping them. i think that makes her, in general, a selfless person, and i think that gives her the potential to be greatly selfless.

but she can be rather selfish and self centered when it comes to interactions and relationships with others.
I agree, Bella can be selfless, particularly in life/death situations. However, I just don't think how she goes through these situations makes her a strong person.
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Meteora
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Post by Meteora »

I myself don't think that Bella is strong (quite the opposite) and found her trip to the ballet studio to be based more on stupidity and giving in to her emotions than strength.
I think Bella being gullible is pretty much canon at this point--Edward even comments on it in Eclipse, though his explanation is that Bella herself is such a bad liar that she can't tell when anyone else is lying. However, the ballet studio is something I give her absolute absolution for. Yes, what she did was dumb, emotional, and poorly thought out, but in my opinion most people in a situation in which a loved one is in immediate danger do not think rationally. This is hardly exclusive to Bella, and while obviously it would have been easier to just tell Jasper and Alice, Bella truly believes that James has her mom. And she also believes that her mom's only chance is for her to trade her own life for her mother's. Bella even realizes, in the book, that her mom might die anyway, but believes that if she does nothing her mom will definitely die, so rationalizes that she has to take the chance. And she knows, for a fact, that if she tell Alice and Jasper that chance will be lost to her, because they will not let her go. Everyone who is not Bella is, quite frankly, willing to sacrifice Bella's mom's life to save Bella's, and she knows that, so I don't think Bella is wrong in thinking she is on her own side in that situation.

It's not all that dissimilar to kidnapping situations where people are told that if they tell the police, their loved one will be killed. Sure, the smart thing would be to tell the police anyway--but taking that chance on a loved one's life isn't that simple for most people. And in this case, James will know for certain if it is Bella who is coming and will know if she is alone or not, so she thinks her options are limited.

That being said, throughout the series Bella tries to sacrifice herself for others and often winds up making life more difficult for the people she is trying to help. She does need to get over whatever complex it is that drives her to think that her pain and suffering is a commodity to be apportioned for the well-being of others.
YourFavoriteAries
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Post by YourFavoriteAries »

I am jealous of Bella. VERY jealous. No it's not because she gets to have the "perfect" husband (and if you know me at all you know Mr. Edward is really not my desire) or the "perfect" daughter or the "perfect" family. I do NOT want to be Bella (oh please, please no...)

It's simply because...

She entered the town of Forks with an ok life. Guys were literally throwing themselves at her but she chose two of the finest, turned their worlds upside down, broke their hearts a few times, and STILL got to have her cake and eat it to in the end by EVERY stretch of the imagination.

So EXCUSE my resentment for Mrs. Swan Cullen.

Life sucks and then you live happily ever after.

Yeah, I should be so lucky.
:roll: :P
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Auctorita
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Post by Auctorita »

There is one thing that I noticed at the ballet studio part of Twilight. Bella goes into the other room to talk to James so that Jasper and Alice cannot hear the conversation. However, vampires are supposed to have super hearing so Alice and Jasper could have heard both sides of the conversation even in the other room. How is it that they remain oblivious to the entire conversation?

That being said, throughout the series Bella tries to sacrifice herself for others and often winds up making life more difficult for the people she is trying to help. She does need to get over whatever complex it is that drives her to think that her pain and suffering is a commodity to be apportioned for the well-being of others.
Perhaps she has a strong need to be the hero? It would explain most of her self sacrifices, since she often feels helpless for not being able to save her loved ones from supernatural creatures.
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Auctorita
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Post by Auctorita »

Literary Crusader wrote:I've never been able to really like Bella as a character. Her dual superiority and inferiority complexes, her martyr complex, her shallowness and melodramatic tendencies might have been interesting, but they're not really interesting character flaws - it's always passed off as something positive about 'deepness' or 'selflessness'. We're just told she's the best and everyone who doesn't like her sucks and is an awful person. So I can really say I strongly, strongly dislike Bella.
Wow. You've just summed up the main reason that I dislike Bella. :)
I would have found her character interesting if all those flaws were acknowledged as negative, but everyone in the book does the opposite.
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YourFavoriteAries
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Post by YourFavoriteAries »

Literary Crusader wrote:I've never been able to really like Bella as a character. Her dual superiority and inferiority complexes, her martyr complex, her shallowness and melodramatic tendencies might have been interesting, but they're not really interesting character flaws - it's always passed off as something positive about 'deepness' or 'selflessness'. We're just told she's the best and everyone who doesn't like her sucks and is an awful person. So I can really say I strongly, strongly dislike Bella.
Bella honestly was my least favorite character but in BD Caius took that prize.
I hate stupid villains.

But anyway, yeah those are most of the reasons I dislike her. It's just...I am completely unable to relate to her. I would NEVER react the same way she does in these situations with the exception of wanting to figure out what Edward was. Of course, I would have figured out he was a vamp WAY quicker then she did but that wasn't my point. The whole "Not being scared" thing, I understand that.

Everything else, I just don't get. I see WHY she does it but I don't know why.
:?

And she's got really annoying tendencies.
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Auctorita
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Post by Auctorita »

Her whole superiority complex never made any sense to me. I can understand why Edward has one, he has so many mental and physical advantages over humans but why does Bella feel so superior to her classmates? She is horribly unathletic, immature and not particularly smart. Besides, she barely knows her classmates (even with Angela and Mike she doesn't seem to know them well) and yet she still has this smug sense of superiority towards them.
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KaseyHeartEdward
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Post by KaseyHeartEdward »

Auctorita wrote:Her whole superiority complex never made any sense to me. I can understand why Edward has one, he has so many mental and physical advantages over humans but why does Bella feel so superior to her classmates? She is horribly unathletic, immature and not particularly smart. Besides, she barely knows her classmates (even with Angela and Mike she doesn't seem to know them well) and yet she still has this smug sense of superiority towards them.

When did she feel surpeior to them?

I remember her saying she didn't relate to people well. but she never thought she was better then them.
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*Bloodlust*
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Post by *Bloodlust* »

^^I'm also very curious about this "superiority complex". I don't think she has one. :?
YourFavoriteAries wrote:Of course, I would have figured out he was a vamp WAY quicker then she did but that wasn't my point. The whole "Not being scared" thing, I understand that.
This is a problem I have with Bella. We know she's of average intellegence, but she can be so SLOW sometimes! Yes with Edward being a vampire, but that's not so bad because he isn't your "traditional vampire"; she knew he was something. When Edward told her he didn't love[which I STILL don't believe he quite said], us as the readers didn't understand why he loved her, just like she didn't, but we KNEW why he was leaving! He told her. She didn't believe her, so he lied. There was a lot of pain involved, but Bella, c'mon!

For another, when she thought Jake and the other wolves were the ones attacking people....um Jake was pretty obvious without being flat out obvious that they weren't harming anyone PLUS she knew the boy! The fact that she could even think it was a possibilty he was part of a group killing people was a little frustrating. He told her Sam's crew were "protectors". Why would they kill people? Though...that whole scene was rather amusing.

Also, I think EVERYONE knew Bella was pregnant eons before Bella did. ALL the signs were there. OBVIOUS signs :roll: . She dreamt about it for goodness sake! I like Bella's character, I really do. But she's just not too quick on things that WE see as obvious signs and that gets a bit frustrating at times.
WARNING: EDWARD CULLEN IS NOT EFFECTIVE BIRTH CONTROL! E<3B
Lunna-san
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Re: Bella Swan Cullen

Post by Lunna-san »

KaseyHeartEdward wrote:
Auctorita wrote:Her whole superiority complex never made any sense to me. I can understand why Edward has one, he has so many mental and physical advantages over humans but why does Bella feel so superior to her classmates? She is horribly unathletic, immature and not particularly smart. Besides, she barely knows her classmates (even with Angela and Mike she doesn't seem to know them well) and yet she still has this smug sense of superiority towards them.

When did she feel surpeior to them?

I remember her saying she didn't relate to people well. but she never thought she was better then them.
Agree. For me, she's the outcast type. She doesn't fit anywhere. At least in human world. All her friends are supernatural. Have you guys noticed that.

About her actions. She really pissed me off in Eclipse, with the love triangle stuff. I actually never desliked her because of that. If she was perfect, the story would be kind of boring. People makes mistakes all the time. Especially on her age. And as most of people, she's selfless and selfish at the same time. It's her first and only boyfriend and her best friend. Of course she would messed up. But you only hurt people you truely love. However, she grew up a lot in BD.
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