OK, I know you guys are thinking: "What?! How dare you! Bella and Edward's pag-ibig is the best and most romantic pag-ibig of all times!111Elevntyone!!!1" And then, you're going to say I'm just some guy who hasn't read the books. I'm not. I'm a teenage girl, and I have read all the books. Even Bree Tanner and that bit of Midnight Sun on Meyer's website.
I'll just discuss the reasons why it's not true love.
Physical Attraction
...And madami of it.
Picture this. Our great female lead is in an average high-school cafetaria, surrounded sa pamamagitan ng average, high school kids. It's noisy and loud, and she wishes she was some place else. Enter male lead. She gazes at him. Her puso pounds, her eyes melt, and her breath quickens. He's so gorgeous, so handsome, the pag-ibig child of Aphrodite and Apollo, the reincarnation of Adonis, a living, breathing form of Michangelo's David. This was it. Her salvation from the normal, boring people in that normal, boring school! He looks up, right at her, and her breath gets caught in her throat. Then, he gives her a ferocious, death glare.
*wipes the sparkles off keyboard.* There we have it people. The first meeting of Bella and Edward. The very first thing that captures her attention is his beauty. And she will continue to talk about his infinite beauty throughout the whole damn series. Seriously. She describes about his eyes, hair and body, so much and in such great detail that I want to wring her neck. There's only so many times where you can read "his golden orbs", "his amber eyes", "his pale, white body which resembled Michaelengo's David" before you totally loose it.
I know that physical attraction is what draws you to a person. I'm a girl. I've had my fair share of crushes, and they've all started with a hot guy. But the problem with Bella is that her initial attraction to Edward doesn't progress from physical attraction. To be in pag-ibig with someone, truly in love, means that you have to pag-ibig them for who they are inside. Maybe they can make you laugh, come up with the most ridiculous, yet fun things, share the same interests or you can have meaningful conversations with them. A marriage or a relationship just based on physical attraction isn't going to cut it. And even though she claims it isn't about his looks, it is. The only thing we ever hear about Edward from Bella is his looks. Which makes me wonder if he's a good-looking robot.
Conversations
And lack of it.
DO NOT get me started on that. No seriously. Their conversations are so mind-blowingly stupid, I don't even want to read them. The dialogue is like "Oh, I pag-ibig you, but I can't be with you because I want to drink your blood." It's fine if he brings it up now and again. But every damn conversation in the first three books leads back to his attraction to her blood, and how he's a danger to her. Honestly, if I were Bella, I would dump him. If I were me, I would become a vampire just to tear him into shreds and burn the pieces. Their conversations are never about books, or movies, or sport. If it's about any of the above, it always leads back to how perfect Edward is compared to Romeo, or how the pag-ibig between the two characters is no where as perfect as Bella and Edward's. Yeah right.
Here are some examples of their conversations, taken from the book:
Bella: "It seems like you're saying goodbye when you're saying something else."
Edward: "if leaving is the right thing to do, then I'll hurt myself to keep from hurting you, to keep you safe"
Only people who are just starting out will talk to each other like that. After a few years, they don't. But in Breaking Dawn, Edward still talks to Bella that way and it's incredibly sappy and disgusting.
Getting to know you, getting to know all about you...
He doesn't know her. At all. You guys may say it's because he can't read her mind. Think about it, none of us here can read minds. But somehow, we know the traits and characteristics of our friends, relatives and lovers. For Edward, he has to stalk her sleep (and hope she talks in her dreams), ask her direct tanong about her likes or dislikes, or read other people's thoughts about her. Why the hassle? Wouldn't it be better to talk to her NORMALLY, hang out with her, and really get to know her? Just because he knows her favourite colour, or animal, doesn't mean he knows EVERYTHING about her. It just means he's read her Facebook profile. There are many incidents which ipakita that Edward doesn't know Bella. He calls her "selfless" in Midnight Sun. Has he seen how she acts? She's the least selfless person I know. She'll do something, but whine about it the whole day. That's hardly selfless. He takes her to the prom, and she's CRYING. "Why is he doing this? Doesn't he know me?" Good question, Bella. He doesn't.
If he doesn't even know her, how can he claim to be in "twu wuv" with her?
Fighting
A couple usually fight and make up. In fact, fighting is NORMAL in any relationship, not just romantic relationship. Bella and Edward fight over stupid stuff like him changing her, marriage and so on. I think their arguments are largely pointless, and can be explained with a little logic. Which clearly is alien in these books. Seriously. Edward is the guy she wants to spend her whole life with. And she doesn't want to get married to him? In all honesty, I think it was an attempt to throw in some last minuto conflict.
Other than the marriage and the changing bit, Bella lets Edward off too easily. When they reunite in New Moon, it's "Oh, my heart, now that I've saved you from the throes of death, let us frolick in the fields of our love! Now, our pag-ibig has strengtenthed and is soaring to the heavens!" Which is all and well, and something Bella would say in normal circumstances. But they aren't reuniting under normal circumstances. Bella is back with him after he dumped her in the middle of the forest, broke her puso and caused her to be zombie Bella for FOUR whole months. Let's not forget that she tried to do reckless stunts just to hear the sound of his voice. Bella whines most of the time, but after Edward left her, it seems as if her whining is on full-blast replay. After ten over chapters of whining and moping about the hole in her broken heart, the one who caused it returns and she doesn't give him any shit for it? I don't buy it. Let me emphasize this. I. Do. Not. Buy. It.
A normal woman in that situation will rage. She'll scream, punch, hit and kick him with all she's got. Bella has the tendancy to over-dramatise things way out of proportion, ibingiay what she usually does, she will react that way-you know, raging and stuff. Even Hermione-who keeps her cool better than Bella and doesn't fall into pieces every time something goes wrong-was punching and hitting Ron when he came back after he left her and Harry to fend for themselves. It's a realistic reaction. Hermione's frustration shows that she cares deeply about Ron. She's angry that he left her to possible danger. The reaction of Bella? She falls into the arms of Edward and kisses him deeply. Cue the rainbows and flying unicorns.
Well, these are some of the points I came up with after pagbaba the books. Feel free to contribute/rebut in the comments :)
I'll just discuss the reasons why it's not true love.
Physical Attraction
...And madami of it.
Picture this. Our great female lead is in an average high-school cafetaria, surrounded sa pamamagitan ng average, high school kids. It's noisy and loud, and she wishes she was some place else. Enter male lead. She gazes at him. Her puso pounds, her eyes melt, and her breath quickens. He's so gorgeous, so handsome, the pag-ibig child of Aphrodite and Apollo, the reincarnation of Adonis, a living, breathing form of Michangelo's David. This was it. Her salvation from the normal, boring people in that normal, boring school! He looks up, right at her, and her breath gets caught in her throat. Then, he gives her a ferocious, death glare.
*wipes the sparkles off keyboard.* There we have it people. The first meeting of Bella and Edward. The very first thing that captures her attention is his beauty. And she will continue to talk about his infinite beauty throughout the whole damn series. Seriously. She describes about his eyes, hair and body, so much and in such great detail that I want to wring her neck. There's only so many times where you can read "his golden orbs", "his amber eyes", "his pale, white body which resembled Michaelengo's David" before you totally loose it.
I know that physical attraction is what draws you to a person. I'm a girl. I've had my fair share of crushes, and they've all started with a hot guy. But the problem with Bella is that her initial attraction to Edward doesn't progress from physical attraction. To be in pag-ibig with someone, truly in love, means that you have to pag-ibig them for who they are inside. Maybe they can make you laugh, come up with the most ridiculous, yet fun things, share the same interests or you can have meaningful conversations with them. A marriage or a relationship just based on physical attraction isn't going to cut it. And even though she claims it isn't about his looks, it is. The only thing we ever hear about Edward from Bella is his looks. Which makes me wonder if he's a good-looking robot.
Conversations
And lack of it.
DO NOT get me started on that. No seriously. Their conversations are so mind-blowingly stupid, I don't even want to read them. The dialogue is like "Oh, I pag-ibig you, but I can't be with you because I want to drink your blood." It's fine if he brings it up now and again. But every damn conversation in the first three books leads back to his attraction to her blood, and how he's a danger to her. Honestly, if I were Bella, I would dump him. If I were me, I would become a vampire just to tear him into shreds and burn the pieces. Their conversations are never about books, or movies, or sport. If it's about any of the above, it always leads back to how perfect Edward is compared to Romeo, or how the pag-ibig between the two characters is no where as perfect as Bella and Edward's. Yeah right.
Here are some examples of their conversations, taken from the book:
Bella: "It seems like you're saying goodbye when you're saying something else."
Edward: "if leaving is the right thing to do, then I'll hurt myself to keep from hurting you, to keep you safe"
Only people who are just starting out will talk to each other like that. After a few years, they don't. But in Breaking Dawn, Edward still talks to Bella that way and it's incredibly sappy and disgusting.
Getting to know you, getting to know all about you...
He doesn't know her. At all. You guys may say it's because he can't read her mind. Think about it, none of us here can read minds. But somehow, we know the traits and characteristics of our friends, relatives and lovers. For Edward, he has to stalk her sleep (and hope she talks in her dreams), ask her direct tanong about her likes or dislikes, or read other people's thoughts about her. Why the hassle? Wouldn't it be better to talk to her NORMALLY, hang out with her, and really get to know her? Just because he knows her favourite colour, or animal, doesn't mean he knows EVERYTHING about her. It just means he's read her Facebook profile. There are many incidents which ipakita that Edward doesn't know Bella. He calls her "selfless" in Midnight Sun. Has he seen how she acts? She's the least selfless person I know. She'll do something, but whine about it the whole day. That's hardly selfless. He takes her to the prom, and she's CRYING. "Why is he doing this? Doesn't he know me?" Good question, Bella. He doesn't.
If he doesn't even know her, how can he claim to be in "twu wuv" with her?
Fighting
A couple usually fight and make up. In fact, fighting is NORMAL in any relationship, not just romantic relationship. Bella and Edward fight over stupid stuff like him changing her, marriage and so on. I think their arguments are largely pointless, and can be explained with a little logic. Which clearly is alien in these books. Seriously. Edward is the guy she wants to spend her whole life with. And she doesn't want to get married to him? In all honesty, I think it was an attempt to throw in some last minuto conflict.
Other than the marriage and the changing bit, Bella lets Edward off too easily. When they reunite in New Moon, it's "Oh, my heart, now that I've saved you from the throes of death, let us frolick in the fields of our love! Now, our pag-ibig has strengtenthed and is soaring to the heavens!" Which is all and well, and something Bella would say in normal circumstances. But they aren't reuniting under normal circumstances. Bella is back with him after he dumped her in the middle of the forest, broke her puso and caused her to be zombie Bella for FOUR whole months. Let's not forget that she tried to do reckless stunts just to hear the sound of his voice. Bella whines most of the time, but after Edward left her, it seems as if her whining is on full-blast replay. After ten over chapters of whining and moping about the hole in her broken heart, the one who caused it returns and she doesn't give him any shit for it? I don't buy it. Let me emphasize this. I. Do. Not. Buy. It.
A normal woman in that situation will rage. She'll scream, punch, hit and kick him with all she's got. Bella has the tendancy to over-dramatise things way out of proportion, ibingiay what she usually does, she will react that way-you know, raging and stuff. Even Hermione-who keeps her cool better than Bella and doesn't fall into pieces every time something goes wrong-was punching and hitting Ron when he came back after he left her and Harry to fend for themselves. It's a realistic reaction. Hermione's frustration shows that she cares deeply about Ron. She's angry that he left her to possible danger. The reaction of Bella? She falls into the arms of Edward and kisses him deeply. Cue the rainbows and flying unicorns.
Well, these are some of the points I came up with after pagbaba the books. Feel free to contribute/rebut in the comments :)
