The problem with Isabella Swan

First warning: this is a really long post.
Second warning: this post reveals plot details about the twilight series, so don't read this if you want to read the series and be surprised.

I have to give Stephanie Meyer credit. She knows how to write a best seller. End chapters with a cliff hanger. Find a timeless myth and juxtapose it with modern middle class America. Give characters gut-wrenching choices, and delve into their personal agony as they try to decide what to sacrifice. Stay in the moment with all five senses and don't pull away from that unless absolutely necessary. Carry the reader through sub-climaxes and denumuas at just the right tempo, so their anxiety and relief for the characters don't start to feel stale before moving onto the next crisis or resolution.

She does all these things right. So why does her main character drive me absolutely crazy?

Isabella Swan is a human teenager who falls in love with a vampire, and is sort of adopted into the vampire family and social circles. She also is very good friends with a werewolf who has fallen in love with her.

I love the universe Stephanie Meyer created. And every character in that universe is great except for one. It took a self-help book for teenagers to clarify why I can't stand Bella Swan.

I read the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teenagers. And Isabella Swan is a highly INeffective teenager.

Her boyfriend, Edward, is a highly effective vampire. Jacob, her friend, is a highly effective werewolf. Even Isabella's parents are reasonably effective. But the main character, the one you're supposed to relate to, is like a candle in the wind. She has a personality of a lap dog.

Perhaps Stephanie Meyer thought that by making the main character out of rubber, the vampires and werewolves would seem like steel in comparison. I'm not really sure what her motive was. But I do feel manipulated as a reader. Because the books were written in first person, you automatically click into association mode with the main character. It's almost like if the book were written in third person limited, you would realize just how horribly unlikable and pitiful Isabella Swan was, and wonder why everybody was competing for her love and attention.

But I still read all four books, and within a week (thank you Michael for allowing me that decadent indulgence). That's how good everything besides Isabella Swan was.

The Seven Habits book talks about paradigms. Basically, your paradigm is what your universe revolves around, what you use as a north star. Seven Habits explains that if you base your happiness on success or relationships with other people, you set yourself up for misery because people and achievement will fail at some point and leave you high and dry. You flunk math or your best friend stabs you in the back, and if your sense of self is based on being a good student or having a best friend, then your universe turns upside down.

It is better to make principles your north star and stick to those. Honesty, kindness, hard work, etc. Principles won't change, and don't depend on a reaction or outcome to make them right. And being a person of principles makes you powerful because you are not easily influenced by people or circumstances in your life. Basically, if you take action based on your conscience, you can be a force to be reckoned with.

Guess what? Isabella Swan does not check in with her conscience. She reacts to the moment without regard for the consequences of her actions. She does not have a set of principles she follows. The center of her universe is her boyfriend, Edward, so everything she does is based on that relationship, that and what she feels like at the moment. Renee, her mom, noticed that Bella acted like an orbiting moon around Edward, following him where ever he went. She can't live without him, which is obvious from her choices in the second book. And according to the famous psychiatrist Scott M. Peck, if you say "I love him, I can't live without him," then that isn't love. That is co-dependence.

She is weak. And the funny thing is she knows it. Bella says she is tired of being Lois Lane to his Superman. She wants to be Superman, too. She thinks it is all about being immortal with super human ability, that becoming a vampire will balance their relationship so they can be equals.

My really big beef is that Stephanie Meyer makes it about the physical transformation, too. All the other vampires are betting that Bella will completely go out of control when she becomes a vampire, because she is so reactive and instinctual as a human. But guess what?! Somehow, through some mystical magical process, Bella becomes the most conscientious, controlled, principled vampire to date. It's a miracle!

I was so relieved to finally have a main character that I liked that I didn't even notice at first. But after a while I started to feel cheated. The rest of the human race gains character by hard work and discipline, but Bella Swan gets turned into a vampire, and wham! She suddenly has a very impressive set of principles.

And not only principles, but also inner strength. Like she was a waste of space as a human, but as a vampire, she values herself suddenly and sees herself as worthwhile.

If her self-depreciating behavior didn't bug you, I'm surprised. She hated positive attention, like the parties and make-overs Alice insisted on. She hated gifts, because that meant she was worth other peoples effort. She preferred the door mat persona, and got upset when anyone sacrificed or took risks on her behalf. She really thought she was worthless.

Seven Habits also talks about making deposits in your personal bank account. Every time you listen to your conscience and make a carefully thought out choice based on what you believe is right, you value yourself a little more. And every time you do what you feel like at the moment without considering your values, you value yourself a little less.

Guess what? Since Bella doesn't listen to her conscience, she has a zero balance in her personal bank account.

And guess what else? The moment she becomes a vampire, she "magically" starts valuing herself and her stake in the universe. It is easy to see she starts to see herself as worth something, and stops complaining about attention given to her. It probably has something to do with the fact that Bella finally starts using her conscience and principles. It is just pitiful that Stephanie Meyer can't get a human girl to love herself without giving her super human powers and a need to drink blood. I'm just saying.

The series really is to die for. Just ignore Isabella Swan and savor the amazing Jacob and Edward. Why they vie for Bella's love is beyond me.