After finishing Veronica Roth's Divergent, my best friend, Erika, and I started
talking and comparing various young adult heroines, and it really got me
thinking. Let’s compare the literary
heroines Hermione Granger (The Harry Potter Series), Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games Trilogy), Tris Prior (Divergent) and Clary Fray (The Mortal Instruments) to Bella Swan (The Twilight Saga) – and in this case I use the
term “heroine” loosely.
Honestly, I’ve never thought Bella Swan was a
good role model for girls, but it wasn't until recently, after reading some other young adult series, that I am coming to find just how bad a role model she really is! This is not the kind of "heroine" you want your young daughter to emulate. Yes, I admit I read (and enjoyed) the Twilight Saga, but as fluff - something light you read between serious books. Besides, I am not an impressionable young girl; I am old enough and smart enough to take it all with a grain of salt and not put Bella Swan on a pedestal. Is Twilight the best series I’ve ever
read? Absolutely not! Is it my favourite young adult series? Heck no!
Bella and Edward aren’t even my favourite characters – Alice and Jasper
are (their story would have made a much
better romance than Twilight). If we’re
being honest, Twilight is not brilliantly written, the characters don’t have much depth
and the “epic” conclusion is just a lot of tension leading up to a fight that
never happens; but I digress - This is not about the merits of Twilight, but of Bella Swan.
My biggest issue with Bella, however, is the whole I’ll-die-if-he-leaves-me-complex. Seriously.
I get that you love the guy, but jeez woman, no man is your be all and
end all! Hermione loves Ron, Clary loves
Jace, Tris loves Tobias, Katniss loves Peeta (maybe even more than you love
your precious Edward) – but when something happens to pull them apart, these
girls toughen up and keep on fighting!
They don’t let themselves deteriorate into a comatose state and they don’t
let their depression keep them from living.
Also, may I point out that Bella is the only one of these
heroines determined to have sex, and the Twilight Saga is (to the best of my
knowledge) the only one of the series containing sexual content of this nature (There is none of that to be found in Harry Potter or The Hunger Games; I am not completely
up to date on the Mortal Instruments or the Divergent series just yet, so I don’t know how that progresses). While the other heroines are obviously attracted to their men and kissing is not uncommon, Bella keeps trying to jump Edward’s bones to
the point that he literally has to fight her off, and actually exhaust her in
other ways so that she won’t have the energy to try to seduce him! This girl literally only has sex on the brain for quite some time (Granted, she’s married when they actually get
that far and Meyer gets some credit for at least not promoting premarital sex, but that’s not my point). 
Let's compare Bella and Edward's romance with Hermione and Ron's. It takes seven years of building trust and friendship before Ron and Hermione actually kiss. True, at this point they are roughly the same age as Bella and Edward when they first kiss (not counting his vampire years) and it is natural for teenagers to kiss, but while Ron and Hermione get to know each other first it doesn't take Edward and Bella very long to start locking lips, does it? I much prefer Rowling's approach in portraying her characters building a strong foundation on friendship before becoming romantic (even though they were very clearly in love from The Goblet of Fire onwards). Bella and Edward waste no time in getting physical, and for impressionable young girls reading these stories, Hermione's character is a much better role model in this regard (as well as others). |
| Ron and Hermione's romance vs Edward and Bella's romance |
Hermione teaches young girls that education is important and that being smart is okay even if it makes you a social outcast, but that being a good person and a good friend is even more important. She also proves that you can love a guy without being more than friends, and that you don't need to be in a relationship to be complete. Clary teaches young girls that it is
important to embrace who you are even if it scares you. Tris teaches young girls that it is okay to
embrace your destiny even if others don’t understand, and that you don’t have to
hurt others to get to the top. Katniss teaches
young girls that people have an obligation to stand up for the weak, that
protecting others is more important than self-preservation and that
independence and self-sufficiency is more important than romance. Bella teaches young girls that you can’t be
someone without a man and that you need a man to be happy.
Hermione Granger is smart, brave and humble. Katniss Everdeen is a protector of the weak. Clary Fray is fearless. Tris Prior is dauntless. So we’ve got the girl who helped defeat the
dark lord and bring order to the wizarding world, the girl who started the
rebellion to empower the oppressed, the girl who embraces her shadowhunter roots and kicks some demon
butt, the girl who thwarted a hostile takeover and restored mental freedom… and the girl
who got pregnant.
Literary heroines… I know which ones I would like for my niece to
look up to.
(Hint: not Bella)
 |
| Correction: Harry's life would have been very SHORT if Hermione didn't read |
I completely agree. I mean I haven't read the Twilight saga but i've seen the first movie and hated it with a passion. I've read the other books with the heroines and I think one more you should add would have to be Annabeth Chase from the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" and "Heroes of Olympus" series. She, like Hermione, shows young girls that it is important to be intelligent and not to dumb yourself down for boys.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Bella is weak and helpless compared to Hermione and Katniss. But I must say that Bella isn't exactly supposed to be a BAMF chic. Twilight is more of a romance novel. All the books listed are Action and Adventure types of novels. But Bella Swan is still the most pathetic person i have ever seen a movie about. I think that teenagers should stop obsessing over Twilight and read real literature. Twilight isn't literature it's pathetic
ReplyDeleteBella sucks. Twilight is awful. This is a great article. Hermione, Katniss and Tris (I haven't read Mortal Instruments sry) are girls that inspired me and changed my life. Bella is someone who annoyed me
ReplyDeleteExactly! Bella is a whiny, spineless, immature teenager whose only goal in life is to become a vampire.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this completely. Admittedly, I liked the first book of Twilight but I feel the series as a whole would have been ten times better if Bella had actual depth in her character or something interesting. Comparing to another vampire series, The Vampire Diaries is awesome!! Mainly because of a BETTER main character, much more depth and twists in the storyline and strong, actual friendships.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Bella is a completely terrible heroine and role model no questions asked. However, I do have to point out a few things about Hermione as you were mainly comparing Bella to her:
ReplyDelete-When Ron rejected her romantically in HBP, she did some truly awful things like sending the attacking canaries which really shouldn't be overlooked even though I like her a lot.
-Hermione's first love interest if we take what Ginny said as true is not the person she ended up marrying, but rather Viktor Krum.
-I also find it pretty hard to believe that Hermione and Ron's first kiss is at the end of DH. They spent almost the latter half of HBP alone and all of DH together and they haven't even had one kiss? However it doesn't change the fact they had a very solid friendship before exploring romance.
-My impression is that in the wizarding world people generally marry pretty young so I don't think Hermione married much later than Bella did so that's not really a problem by itself with Twilight, especially when you compare it with something like 50 shades.
I dislike twilight, because of the whole plot! It's about a girl who has to choose between an undead pedophile (Edward) and an improper werewolf, (who gets the hots for Bella's daughter) Bella chooses the undead pedophile.
ReplyDeleteAlso, THERE IS NOT FIGHT. Stephanie did not make a fight scene because it would kill off some of the main characters. That's not a good reason!J.K made a fight to help the story, and yes, some of my favorite characters die, but it helps the story progress. Nobody dies in twilight (except if you count Bella'a transformation into a vampire)