Harry Potter vs Twilight Article: Bella's flaws and Twilight's plots

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posted by slushie

People keep on saying that Bella has no flaws. What about being clumsy? They also say that she's codependent, and she's anti-feminist. Aren't those flaws?

I just don't get why people say that Bella has no flaws, yet at the same time, they point out her flaws.

Also, they say that the Twilight libri have no plot. Please tell me why they have no plot.

Twilight: Bella meets Edward. They fall in Amore and Bella meets the parents. James smells Bella and wants to kill her. Edward eventually kills Bella and reverses the vampire transformation.

New Moon: Edward leaves Bella. Jacob is apparently a werewolf. Bella cliff dives and Jacob saves her. Rosalie informs Edward of Alice's vision: Bella committing suicide. Edward almost gets himself killed da the Volturi. Bella saves Edward.

Eclipse: Victoria is out for revenge and creates a whole war between the Cullens and Lupi vs. the newborn army. Victoria, Riley and the Newborn army are all killed.

Breaking Dawn-Book 1: Edward and Bella's wedding eventually leads to their honeymoon on Isle Esme. Bella starts recitazione strangely. What is going on? Bella is pregnant!

Breaking Dawn-Book 2: Jacob finds out that Bella is pregnant. Sam's pack wants to destroy the baby. Jacob, Seth, and Leah distance themselves from the pack, creating their own pack. All of a sudden, Bella's water broke. Bella gives birth to the baby, but will she survive? Edward changes her into a vampire. Jacob falls in Amore with Renesmee Carlie Cullen.

Breaking Dawn-Book 3: The Volturi finds out about the "immortal child!" The Volturi comes over, and the Cullens have gathered an army. The Volturi back off like cowards, and all is well that ends well.

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Harmony97 If we knew whether you were Twilight or HP it might help us explain it...

cassie-1-2-3 Why would it matter? The question would be the same.

Lumos_Maxima When people say that Twilight doesn't have a plot I kind of agree with them. Sure, it does have an actual plot but it's terrible. No offence to any twilight fans. Bella meets Edward and BOOM instant love. A random vampire tries to kill her and instead of just finding another random off the street to drink he spends ages trying to lure her to him. Edward kills the bad guy and happily ever after. To me, the plot was boring and uncreative. I've read heaps of books about vampires and the supernatural and they're a million times better with a good plot and relate able characters but most of the people that I know haven't even heard of them. I honestly don't know why twilight is so big and worthy of becoming a movie.

Lumos_Maxima Breaking Dawn-Book 3: The Volturi finds out about the "immortal child!" The Volturi comes over, and the Cullens have gathered an army. The Volturi back off like cowards, and all is well that ends well. --- Sorry, I just wanted to point out something. Don't hate me but... Vampires were scared of the Volturi. The vampires in the Volturi had powers that could rip the Cullens in half and not only did they have that but they had hundreds of vampires to fight along side them. The Cullens' army wasn't very big and they didn't have the strongest powers (both vampire powers and strength) so I don't see why the Volturi would back off other than SMeyer couldn't think of snything better. I was waiting for a big fight scene but the Volturi just backed off like the cowards that they were.

cassie-1-2-3 Again, not liking something doesn't make in nonexistent. If you payed attention to the fact that James was a tracker, you'd realize that he COULDN'T just go find another random person. He had to have her. That's his undeniable instinct. It's worth of becoming a movie because of the large fan base. None of the Volturi had "ripping" powers... And I don't think there were hundreds of them. I know there were a lot more than usual, but not hundreds. The Cullen army was pretty close to just as large as the Voltiri (I think you're forgetting that the wolves were there too). None of the Volturi members knew all the powers of all the vampires in the Cullen army. They didn't know how strong they were. The didn't know every single vampire there. The only vampires who was aware of everyone's powers was Eleazar, Edward (Through Eleazar's thoughts), and Aro (after Bella allowed his to read Edward's thoughts), which happened after they hesitated. It's something they weren't expecting, so they hesitated. They're not evil people, so there's nothing wrong with them wanting to know what was going on before they did their duty.

ClaireVoyant i'm not an expert in literature, but i'm quite an avid reader. i don't know about flaw, but i do sense some mary sue-ness from bella. and is it just me or there is something wrong about the way she react to certain circumtances? when you feel like there is someone watching you sleep, you should call your father for safety check not worrying if you drool/look bad. (i've read only the first book and watch the first movie btw) and family SHOULD've matter more for her. how could you just choose anyone (even if that;s someone you love) over your family that easy? she got a very great father IMO why can't she at least feel remorse. if she have to face indecision first even if eventually she choose Ed at least i could accept that. sometimes her reaction is/are shallow. she want to become vampire as soon as possible because she don't want to look older than edward? why does it matter how you look?! if you are vampire,you'll live a secluded life, there will be no one to judge you or tho show your boy friend off at. and isn't the fact that he LOVES you is the only thing that matter the most? if anyone could explain this/counterargument this, i'm alright with it.

cassie-1-2-3 Since you haven't really read the books, you're quite unaware of the remorse she felt over leaving her family. She did have her doubt and indescision. There was also a part in Eclipse where she explained to Edward why she wanted to change. He was shocked to hear that he was only partial to her entire reasoning. She didn't know Edward was watching her sleep. She thought she was dreaming. I don't know why she would call for Charlie to check her dreams for her.

ClaireVoyant i borrow the first book from my friend, who quite like that book. she didn't buy the next book unfortunately. and the price is a little too much for my pocket. here it's seems only the first book(and movie):/ that's really popular. i didn't hear much about new moon/eclipse/BD. huh..? i mean check out her window just in case it's not dream or something. that is my reaction when i first read the book. i didn't hate the book. it's just i don't understand some part of it. (and yeah, still trying to get my hand on it. i don't like reading online) ah actually there are a lot of thing i found either awkward or funny especially after i read the english vertion... to sum it up my reaction more or less a lot like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGVUFrzoUto

ronald_weasley in my opinion a flawed character is one that has flaws in their personality. physical flaws are generally not the type of flaws one would give to a character. im not saying the characters should look and move perfectly but we judge and relate to a character based on personailty and if the character has no personality flaws then they are a mary sue. as for the anti-feminist flaws, then i would say that they are not exactly flaws since bella was never openly labelled an anti-feminist. this is some thing the readers inferrred. and the "flaw" of her being codependant is not exactly a proper flaw. in literiture i beleive that there ought to be charater flaws that help to develop the characters. bella's so-called flaws do none of that. they just put her in dangerous situations and an opening for edward or jacob to save her. as for the plot, i beleive that when people say the twilight books have no plot, they mean that the books have a plot that's very simple and predictable. i agree the books do have a plot. however, that plot is soo over-used and cliche that it makes it seem non-existant.

cassie-1-2-3 How does Bella being codependant not have anything to do with her personality?

pokerface22 plot Also called storyline. the plan, scheme, or main story of a literary of a drama Definition #2 defines a book plot. Twilight is a story. You all can argue about what a plot should contain, but a plot is the main storyline. Slushie told us about the plots in each book. Flaw 1. a feature that mars the perfection of something; defect; fault: beauty without flaw; the flaws in our plan. Bella is ugly (contradicting to her own name), she is anti-feminist, co-dependent, clumsy, etc.

luv_warriorcatz I wouldn't say that she was ugly...

cassie-1-2-3 Do you mean you think Kristen is ugly?

luv_warriorcatz Who me? I just said I don't.

cassie-1-2-3 No, not you.

ronald_weasley the thing is that she's not entirely co-dependant. when she's living with Charlie she states that living with charlie is like living alone (i don't remember the exact words). this shows that she is in fact not co-dependant. in my opinion she's only dependant on Edward and that is simply beccause of her "obssesion" with him. her being dependant on edward is not a flaw becasue it is something that helps her get her way. what i mean by this is that in new moon she needed edward so he came back. her "flaw" has no real consequence for her. any problems she faces because of her dependance are solved and she ends up living happily ever after

cassie-1-2-3 Just like any other character. As long as they're reasonably happy, and don't end up dead, their flaws apparently don't matter. Harry ended up with a nice job and a family. I'm sure he was happy in the end too. Does that mean none of her flaws were real flaws? The same with Ginny, Ron, and Hermione. They all ended up happy. That seems to be all people are saying.

ronald_weasley it's true they ended up happy but their happiness was dulled by the death of loved ones. the consequences they faced left a permenant mark on them and most of them were irreversible they got over their griefs yes but that's just realistic bella's grief for edward was pretty much her only grief and she got a perfect "happy ever after" ending

cassie-1-2-3 There's also the grief of eventually losing her family. That's something Bella thought about all throughout the series.

ronald_weasley that's true however, that greif was caused by a descision. not the result of flaw when harry loses sirius it was his mistake. a mistake he made because of his need "to play the hero" so to speak. and that was one of harry's biggest flaws and it put him in many unpleasent situations

pokerface22 No, Kristen Stewart is beautiful, but in the BOOKS Bella says she is plain. I think she also questions Edward's love for her because she didn't look pretty like Tanya.

bri-marie Bella's biggest flaw is her dependency on Edward, which put her (and others) in unpleasant situations. Many of which were based on a decision... That was pretty much the entirety of New Moon.

luv_warriorcatz wish Ms. Meyer would put more emphasis on that

cassie-1-2-3 Wasn't there a whole lot of emphasis on Bella's dependency? It was emphasized enough to where a lot of people noticed it.

luv_warriorcatz I wish Meyer put more feeling in it, though. Like, make a moment where Bella truly felt shame for not doing anything useful. I'm not talking about her "clumsyness." I know she dedicated a story (the La Push story) entirely for Bella's dependency thing but I just wasn't feeling it.