isitwrongtolovetoomuch

It isn’t often these days that I am struck so soundly and confident in an observation. A clarity of such.

During a recent viewing of the movies, and I will restrict these comment to the movies themselves. As we can all agree, a different interpretation is always made when comparing the source material to the restricted nature of film adaptations. Which was presented quite well.

Rather than watch, as we all have, the series from the moment the innocent deer lifts its startled and metaphoric eyes from the still calm stream, I reversed it. Instead viewing the epic in reverse.

Yes, I started from the end and worked my way back to the beginning. Along the journey I discovered an entirely new perspective into what I discovered was not an ever growing love story. I witnessed, what I believe, to be quite the opposite. A decent into seduction and corrupted love itself.

Edward admits, everything about him is designed to pull someone in. Everything. She was helpless in her human state. Certainly Bella smelled delightful. All the vampires admit it and in a way, drives the secondary story along the entire twisting lane of the epic tale.

What you observe in reverse is in fact true love, but not the half veiled one forced into the viewers mind.

It has been discussed endlessly that Bella made the wrong choice. Jacob her better match. It is obvious from the beginning and I don’t think anyone could seriously doubt it. A side issue in the movies, until you observe his role in them working backwards.

Another movie or two is almost required to finish this series up and I am surprised that it hasn’t been done. This story is long from over. In succeeding joining Edward, Bella sealed her fate and while searching for true love…..in the end….found the polar opposite.

Bella and Edward could no sooner have a long and happy life together than a pair of randomly arranged marriage couples could. They have nothing in common but lust. A deadly sin whose punishment is burning in fire. And they will burn, slowly, until there is nothing left but smoke.

A love based not on feeling but of scent and desire. Good for a time, but sooner or later someone who smells better to Edward will come along and he will use the same worn excuse to go to her that he has used for a hundred years. There is no feeling sorry for poor Bella. She chose. She chose to become like him. She will move on to blood she is drawn to and the cycle will repeat itself and in a few hundred years she will be sitting in a room wiping the blood off her chin and wondering “Edward who?”.

That is the end result of a corrupted love.

Her choice for happiness from the beginning, and only confirmed by watching in reverse, was Jacob. Someone who loved her not because she “smelled good”. For all we know Bella didn’t smell all that good in the first place. Jacob didn’t care how dirty she was, how she smelled after running around the woods all day, or any of her faults for that matter. He just loved Bella.

I can just image her riding atop of him in wolf-form through the moss covered dim woods. Joyfully laughing together as they bound as one through fallen trees and over pristine streams. Certainly a sort of saddle would be required as gripping the neck fur as thigh strength alone just wouldn’t be enough to safely ride.

Can anyone doubt for a second that it would be Jacob out in the woods picking Bella’s favorite wildflower? Up before dawn forging freezing rivers, walking miles over impossible terrain to get just one. Just because he knew she liked them, and for the soft smile she would offer as she saw them laid gently at the top of her breakfast tray. A priceless reward worth twice the effort.

Would anyone question his total devotion to her and any children they conceived - or his willingness to sacrifice his own happiness for her? That is love. That is enduring.

Watching Bella’s spiral downward into an abomination and mockery of love, as we understand it, is a heartbreaking thing to watch. Even more so in reverse. I don’t recommend it to those unable to process a deep sadness.

Having been married for over 40 years now to the same woman, I know next to nothing about them. My combined knowledge of the fair sex barely able to fill a small pamphlet. They are a glorious mystery to me. I can tell you with certainty though that a woman needs those wildflowers. She needs them more than her very life itself any material thing an ageless vampire would rip from the neck of his latest victim and may cart home after a night of feeding.

It isn’t often that we are left with such a horrible ending to what, at it’s core, is a love story. Not a love story of fulfilled love, however. A love story of what might have been. A love story of promise never realized and in fact love lost.

SM has written a masterpiece. She has shown us what love is, by clearly showing so starkly what it isn’t. What it could never be.