Why is Bella from Twilight considered such a poor protagonist?

I, for one, liked the books. They're not my "Oh Emm Gee! like favorite book eva!" but they were fun.

I never got the Bella bashing. I totally agree with Tourist..Meyer needed a teenage every-girl....and from what I remember of being a teenage girl, there was lots of moaning, and complaining, and thinking about boys. I thought I was a gawky, ugly duckling even when boys were asking me out, and I don't think I was in the minority. I complained, I blew everything out of proportion, and I was annoying. I think Meyer painted a normal teenage girl as best as a thirty-something mom can. She must have worked for many others, too, because the woman has cornered the teenage market.

Was Bella a Joan of Arc for the Justin Bieber Generation? No. If she had just gone through the book kicking butt, and being all-around awesome, not only would she be unbelievable, she would have made for a really flat book. She was simply a vessel for teenage girls to fit themselves into ("Bella is just like me! I'm an uncoordinated, shy, and out-of-place girl, too!"). If nothing else, Bella provides teenage girls with an outlet when their lives are not where they want them to be, and isn't that what good writing should be? An escape? When did every character have to be strong, deep, and thought-provoking? Read the books, if you like Bella, have fun...if not, why the hell are you shopping in the YA section anyways?

 

Yes, that's exactly what we've been saying. That's why she's not a good character. Glad you understand us.

 

So any character that resembles you enough that you're able to insert yourself into their story is a bad character? I didn't say she was empty of all qualities, nor did I say that she was bland. I simply meant that she would resonate with her particular age group enough that any girl could be Bella. I thought she was a decent character. As the main character, she engaged me, and kept me interested in her story. Judging by the book sales, I'm not alone. She was no Elizabeth Bennet, as far as memorable romantic heroines go, but she was still a good character.

 

But it sounds like you're not saying that Bella resembles any specific individual. Instead, you seem to be saying that she resembles the majority of women in a particular age group. That is, I think, likely to be a bad character, because you can't achieve that universal similarity without stripping out most individual personality characteristics. A really good writer should be able to install you in the mind of someone quite different from you, rather than creating a hollowed-out AnyPerson shell.

That's not to say that it's not possible to enjoy stepping into a wish-fulfillment character shell, but creating that shell is something quite different from creating a full character.

ChickenFreak

 

Of course not. Any character that is an empty vessel for teenage (and even middle-age) wish fulfillment is a bad character, though. You may not have said that Bella was empty of all qualities or that she was bland- you didn't have to. It goes without saying.

 

Perhaps, I'm not running on the many cups of coffee as well as I think I am.

I'm saying, she is a completely run-of-the-mill teenage girl, but thrown into unusual circumstances, and yes, that can make a good character. Many, many, many books are written with everyday characters thrown into unusual circumstances, and 'voila!' interesting character. Bella develops throughout the series, especially in the last book. You can't write a character off because they have commonplace attributes (if Meyer had made Bella a purple-haired, extremely intelligent, nudist, it wouldn't have automatically meant she was a worthwhile character). She obviously doesn't have 'universal similarity' or else everybody on here would be touting her as the next Bilbo. She's clumsy, sometimes selfish, angsty to the point of emo, she's not the valedictorian, she lets her emotions take the wheel too often...I think she's fairly rounded.

I guess a good question would be...what precisely does she lack for you? What traits are missing that you look for in an intriguing lead?

By the way, I am enjoying the difference in opinions so don't take my early morning ramblings as an attempt to bait..I'm genuinely curious as to why Bella particularly works for some but is abhorrent to others. It has seemed to me lately that 'Twilight' is the poster child for what is cool to hate now...kind of like 'Titanic' was in its day. I, for one, may not like what's popular but I have to respect the creator's ability to resonate on such a grand scale.

 

I suppose I don't believe in run-of-the-mill characters, or people. I'd ask questions similar to the ones that I asked in the thread that I think parallels this one: What are Bella's favorite books? What does she do on Sunday nights? What's her sense of humor like? What's the dirty joke that makes her laugh in spite of herself? What's the sentimental story that makes her cry in spite of herself?

I don't demand that she have purple hair or a katana, but I do demand that any significant character have distinctive characteristics, and I don't feel that a character that a large population of readers can insert themselves into is likely to have those characteristics. I'm not arguing specifically about Bella - I'd like to expand the argument to wish-fulfillment "shell" characters in general. But that would require another thread, because this one's firmly stated as being about Bella. (Actually, I guess we could shift to the parallel thread that I just mentioned, huh?)

ChickenFreak

 

Yeah, this one hangs precariously near the edge. It's hard to argue one specific character when it's really a broader question, but we've managed to argue despite it so far

I think I used a poor choice of words when I labeled her as "simply a vessel". That implied that I thought she was empty without the reader inserting themselves into her character.

See, having read all four of the books, I could answer your specific questions about her (She's a huge Jane Austen, and Emily Bronte fan. She's a homebody on Sun. nights, unless she's with Edward. She has more of a sarcastic sense of humor. Here I have to plead ignorance..I don't remember a dirty joke, but she's not really a dirty joke kinda gal. She has plenty of sentimental memories of growing up with her mom. Respectively.) There are very few middle-of-the-road feelings about her in particular...you either love her, or you hate her.

I however, don't think I'd label her as a "wish fulfillment" shell...I've wanted to be plenty of characters throughout my reading life, it doesn't mean that my enjoyment of them, or my imagining myself in their world, was "wish fulfillment", and as Cogito mentioned, I don't see Bella as Meyers wish fulfillment device. Every boy (and some girls) wanted to be Luke Skywalker growing up... he was normal (whiny, naive, inept, etc..) but he was still a fantastic character.

 

Let me start of by saying that I read all of the books in high school and did enjoy them at the time.

I didn't quite find Bella (the character) frustrating until the second book. During the first book, I thought that Meyer almost had the outline of a character with the potential for development. She gave her subtle personality traits (however annoying they may have seemed, they were still personality traits.) But then suddenly Meyer scrapped this in the second book in favour of a soap-esque, angsty love triangle thingy. I'm sure there's an argument to be made that Bella developed slowly across the books (and I don't entirely disagree) but I think that the focus was forced onto the romance that the characters were neglected. Instead of changing slowly over time and in response to the events (which would certainly have psychological effects on anyone in these situations) I thought that Bella was just injected with small amounts of emotional steroids.
Eg. She would go from stubborn to super stubborn to super super stubborn. Then she would go from heart-broken to super heart-broken to super super heartbroken. Then she'd be confused, then super confused then super super confused.

I'm just not sure if that's good character development. As someone mentioned above, being stubborn is not a surrogate for having a strong will or even a strong value system. And that's lacking too. A value system. In a book dealing with this sort of subject matter, having one character not want to have premarital sex is not my idea of a strong value system.

Finally, the POV shifts in the books were jarring and didn't do anything to develop Bella or any other character. Instead it simply fragmented a story and I felt like the readers were being coerced into seeing Jacob's POV when it wasn't important to the plot.

Having said this, I haven't returned to the books in quite a few years and my YA exposure has grown since then. In retrospect, I find Bella to be annoying (and it doesn't help that that strange cyborg of an actress is now indented in my head) but I found in the books a guilty pleasure that I needed for myself at the time.

 

I read all the books some time ago and really enjoyed them, however on reflection now and after trying to read them again i just got irritated and put them down.

I also just want to point out that in the film eclipse yes Bella did cut her self just as the first wife did, but in the book she never actually got round to cutting herself there was no need Edward had already defeted Victoria before she was able to make the cut on her arm.

My problem with Bella is she never seems to grow as a character she stays the same. Even in the last book, when Alice leaves the secret message she goes off on her own trying to save everyone on her own and then magically she manages to have all the power she needs to protect everyone that she love it was to predictable.

The only twist in the story that took me by suprise was the pregnancy.

Also the way that she spoke was really not believeable. "About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was part of him — and I didn’t know how potent that part might be — that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him." no teenager talks like that.

However no matter how bad i think the writting is now it didnt stop me from loving the books and the falling into the love story so all in all very well done really.

 

I've read all the books, so my thoughts, some of which have been covered:

She never changes. This makes the second and third books a struggle - almost unreadable - and it's only the major change (a physical one) that makes the fourth redeemable. It's hard to put into the words for me, but I think that actually might be the key point - she's mundane. She just seemed to be a stereotypical, melodramatic, teenage girl head over heels with her first crush. And this doesn't change. The first book I highly enjoyed despite the sheer teeny-love story aspect, it was a girl who seemed to have true feelings for this dangerous creature, and slowly learns what he is, but accepts him for it. By books two and three, she's still that same melodramatic character. There's no growth, no sense of accomplishment, and I stopped caring about her. There's only so much "I love Edward, my heart beats only for him, the world won't let us be" that you can take. Without detracting too much, because I'd recommend the first one for light reading or a romance/vampire novel, don't wast your time with the others. I tried to avoid spoilers, hence the generality of the post. Moreover, just came to me, she's very predictable. Bella just seems to take the most typical, self-sacrificing path for Edward every time. I was never in suspense, nor surprised, nor shocked.

As a final note, I felt the first film was a very, very good adaptation. The music made it, and the overcast, oppressive atmosphere was something the books highly lacked. Both the film and novel would have stood out as much better works for me if they had been stand alone. Alas, as it is, Bella will now always be tainted in my opinion by her actions in the later books.

 

I think the biggest problem with Bella is that she's very generic. It's not really that she's a Mary Sue (by strictest definition as has been pointed out) and she does have character traits (even if many people don't like them). But there isn't much to set her apart from an archetype. She's such a normal teenage girl that she almost seems replaceable. If it weren't for (deus ex machina) special blood, you could seemingly replace her with any teenage girl and the story would have happened in exactly the same way. I think the most unusual decision she makes is not calling the police when Edward starts showing up in her bedroom. Other than that most of her actions feel very standard to me.

I don't think I'm explaining this well. The words that come to mind when I think of Bella are basic, standard, and generic. I don't feel like she makes interesting, unusual decisions or looks at the world in any kind of unique way. She's a generic nice girl. Damsels in distress usually are.

So instead of focussing on how much your character is like Bella, I would just focus on getting to know your character. Understand their point of view and let that color the story. By the end of your story I should be able to come up with hypothetical problems and have a strong idea of how your protagonist would respond, because I should understand what her thought process/values/world view is like and how they shape her decisions. I know it gets mentioned a lot, but I think the A Song of Ice Fire series does a great job of showing that each character has a very unique thought process. Littlefinger and Lord Varrys do not see the world in the same way, even if they play similar roles in the story. Even if a character like Jon Snow fits into an archetypal mold, he has a world view that is his alone and that colors his reactions and decisions. You could not replace him with an actual archetype and have the same story. I feel Bella could be replaced by any generic, nice, pretty girl who has tasty blood and doesn't lock her windows. Even the self-sacrificing nature is standard fare for fantasy heroines.

 

Nah, man Bella is a total Mary Sue, all definitions, all counts. She is also most definitely an author insertion. Meyer isn't the first religious person with naughty fantasies.

I find the entire Twilight completely banal and awfully unreadable, but it's not written for my age group so, I don't slag it off. I respect Meyer's success with it.

I think Bella is a fantastic character in as much as being a protagonist of a very successful series of novels. Who likes Twilight, will like Bella too.

 

I'm sorry, but you really need to support this assertion. And if you say all definitions, please identify them, and support each, instead of using a fuzzy perjorative label like Mary Sue,

That goes for everyone. Please do not use the term Mary Sue in this thread. It is not an argument, it is nothing but name calling.

If this thread degenerates any further into emotion-based slurs, I will shut it down, however belatedly.

 

I read the first book of Twilight because I was writing in a similar genre.
I thought Bella's voice was engaging. But the problem I had with her does seem to lie along this Mary Sue argument, which I don't absolutely understand and am not arguing either way, that Bella's situation was like a vicarious fantasy. In fact, I felt like I was re-living high school and actually enjoying it--which was enticing for me.

But the problem for me was that Bella seemed to contradict her environment and her own personality. And I wasn't confident that Meyers intended these contradictions.
Like, Bella is a teenage girl--but she seems so picky and critical that one would think she would carry that attitude to love interests, and yet she was so easily devoted to Edward. It didn't make sense to me.
Plus, Bella was a loner, she did seem depressed, and she rarely said anything very interesting to everyone--yet she was immensely popular. Now I was a clinically depressed loner in high school, but amazingly people didn't flock to me because of it.
So, this was the big problem I had with Bella--her critical nature didn't extend, whatsoever, to Edward (it just kind of evaporated around him). And her situation within the social environment of her high school was unbelievable.

Twilight engaged me enough to read the first book and watch some of the movies on rental, but if I had read it as a teenager I probably would have gobbled up the whole series.

And I think it would be a good idea for the OP to read some of Twilight if they're worried about their character resembling Bella.