twilight sideblog 4 suffering

why do you hate edward cullen?

because he’s an old bitch who regularly sneaks into a seventeen year old’s bedroom at night?

(anon i hope this isn’t an ironic question because here’s my genuine take: i don’t hate him so much as im disappointed by him. i just think he’s a terrible person written into a boring character, which i blame on sm*yer’s romanticized execution and the fact that he belongs in the wrong genre. i have no problems enjoying or at least understanding characters who are terrible people. and objectively... he has warped morals, he’s an old creep with obsessive and racist tendencies, and he’s a pretentious and judgmental hypocrite who criticizes other people for literally the same shit he does himself. his only saving grace besides his family is that he’s somewhat self-aware of all of this. genuinely there are moments in midnight sun where he is just so ridiculous and dramatic that he becomes unironically hilarious and compelling.

however anything interesting about him is stripped away because the narrative doesn’t agree with his actual character. he is flattened into a Teen Romance Hero, which is really just a placeholder broody white guy to swoon over. the fact that he ultimately bears little to no actual ramifications from any of his wrongdoings or faults aside from his own ceaseless self-hating flagellation is truly so boring. and if anyone makes a valid criticism, they’re either Terrible like rosalie or Misguided like jacob.

it’s kind of funny that sm*yer thought she was doing something with the comparisons to gothic romance lit. like heathcliff is a similarly insufferable and terrible person but he’s compelling because emily bronte doesn’t try to sell you any illusions about who he truly is. edward at heart isn’t Teen Romance Hero No. 13663; he’s a 100 something year old killer stuck in a teenager’s body along with all of the dysfunction, existential despair, trauma and early 1900s ideologies that entails. his series and his author don’t seem to fully get that he’s the unreliable narrator of an edgar allan poe story not a ya leading man)