You gotta get lost to find yourself… and other life moments

Dear Twilighters and Twilosphy Majors-

So as most of you know I’m currently rereading New Moon (edit, now finished) and I’ve read a bunch of comments and talked to a lot of people who say ‘Oh I skip that one,” or “I don’t read the part where he leaves, it’s too sad.” And I got to thinking… You CAN’T skip that part or an entire portion of their story. The story of Bella and Edward HAS to have this pain, this strife, this separation to make it REAL. To make it last. You can’t go from zero to sixty in a couple chapters and expect a healthy relationship.

Let’s take this to a ‘real world’ scenario. It’s the same thing if you’re in a relationship with someone and it gets too physical too quick. There isn’t that history or trust that you’ve built to fall back on. It’s all based on the superficial.

Same with Bella and Edward, a lot of us think their relationship is rushed in Twilight and it kinda is. And they’re brought together, for the most part, based on the physical, he’s drawn to her scent in an animalistic way (read MS) not because she’s different or new or whatever we want to romanticize it as, it’s straight lust. And she’s drawn to him because he’s designed that way, he’s the predator. Everyone about him “draws her in.” Of course I’m not trying to downplay the other aspects of their relationship but on the surface this is how it began and that simply can’t sustain a relationship.

well, this sucks

From the time Edward leaves in New Moon and says goodbye (pg 72) to the first time Bella sees him in Italy (pg 451) (and he traces her lips in the dark, SWOON UC!) it takes 379 pages to get there! 379 pages out of 563 Bella spends WITHOUT Edward. There is simply NO other way around it. She HAD to go through the darkest part of her life (her new moon if you will) to figure out, ‘yea I could live without him,’  ‘I could be happy being with Jacob,’ or ‘I can be alright being by myself.’

Chapter 4
“Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me.”

Dear God! If that doesn’t speak to people, I don’t know what could. We’ve all been through back break ups, we’ve had someone close to us pass away, we’ve been dumped, we’ve been left, we’ve been by ourselves. But time still moves on. Painfully, yes. But can you ever grow or learn things about yourself or be reborn without the pain? Without time marching on?

If Edward hadn’t abandoned Bella (and yes, he does!), if she hadn’t gone through the pain of losing him, of feeling as if he was dead,  we couldn’t have an Eclipse or all the stuff that happens in Breaking Dawn. None of it would be supported or believable without the character development, the emotional development that Bella goes through in New Moon.

sniff sniff

I previously thought New Moon was a bit of a snooze, that it lacked the action that the other books have, especially Eclipse but I’ve come to realize I think the series needs New Moon to balance it out emotionally. We need to have Bella’s character fleshed out and this exposition is absolutely necessary.

If Eclipse is the action than New Moon is the heart.

This makes me beyond excited and anxious and nervous for the movie adaptation. Can KStew pull this off? From what we’ve seen of her she’s a bit of a wet blanket and flounders around in the Bella character throughout Twilight. Watching interviews of her and seeing her portray of Bella makes me think more and more that’s she’s just playing herself, she’s the KStew version of Bella and we all know how interesting THAT is. We shall see if she can pull off this level of emotional intensity.

Until next time, Class dismissed!
Me, (themoonisdown)

PS discussion topic: do you need a ‘watershed moment’ (an edward leaving/a death/a whatever) to force this kind of change or self discovery?

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