The Twilight series might have supernatural creatures like vampires and werewolves, but at its core, it’s a romance story. The relationship between Bella Swan and Edward Cullen is what everything is all about even if there are action scenes in there, too.
While some fans love the relationship between Bella and Edward, it’s clear that the relationship has its flaws. Even die-hard shippers can often admit there are some things about this couple that just don’t make sense at all.
The fact that Edward was so enamored with her from the start
Twilight is a romance, and it does have a lot of the tropes of the genre. But, with that said, there are many romance tropes that are just nonsensical and don’t often happen in real life. The intensity with which Edward starts to fall in love with Bella is strange given how many other women he met in his life but was never interested in.
The only explanation is that her blood was particularly intoxicating to him, but this makes the relationship seem mostly physical.
That Bella was willing to give up everyone else for Edward
The relationship between Bella and Edward definitely has some troubling and unhealthy power dynamics.
While Edward’s obsession with Bella doesn’t make a lot of sense, Bella’s obsession with Edward is explained in the story by the fact that vampires are compelling and beautiful to attract their prey. So, while Bella is weak to this fact, it’s still disturbing that she was so willing to give up her family for him.
That they get married so young
Bella wants to become a vampire as quickly as possible so that she and Edward will be the same age for eternity. Her obsession with age is a bit over the top, but it’s even more ridiculous that Edward insists that she marries him first.
The fact that they get married in such a short time after knowing one another is rather intense. There’s no real reason they couldn’t have waited.
Edward spent so much time trying to get her to leave him
Edward is a character who has a lot of self-loathing. He believes that he is damned because he’s a vampire, and so he doesn’t want Bella to become one. While this might make sense given his warped sense of self, the amount of time he spent trying to convince her to not be with him and to not become a vampire was just annoying.
While his motivations were to protect Bella and to save her soul, he probably should have just never dated her in the first place if he was so concerned.
That Bella sort of fell in love with Jacob, too
After Edward leaves Bella in New Moon, she is really depressed to a very concerning degree. She finds some happiness and comfort with Jacob, and while she never feels as strongly about him as he does about her, there is a part of her that is interested in him romantically.
The idea that they were only into one another was because Bella would eventually have Renesmee might be the official explanation, but it’s kind of a ridiculous one.
They are both supposedly great in bed
While Bella doesn’t have particularly strong feelings about waiting until marriage, Edward is more old-fashioned in this way. Given that he’s decades-old and was born in a very different time period, this makes some sense.
He wants to wait until marriage, so their wedding night is the first time for both of them. But, somehow, they are both seemingly good in bed and have an amazing time, and truthfully, this just isn’t very realistic.
They don’t actually seem to have much in common
One major problem with a lot of romance stories is that there’s never much detail given as to what the two characters have in common. Everything seems to be based on physical attraction, and while this makes some sense, most relationships need more than that to continue.
It’s hard to imagine Bella and Edward just hanging out together, and neither one of them have really strong interests or personalities. So, perhaps, this is why they get along as they are both kind of boring.
The fact they had a kid together
Bella never really seems to want to have children, but this isn’t really a big concern between them as they don’t think it would be possible anyway.
The entire Renesmee pregnancy is really out there even for a fantasy novel, and the explanation given about the conception is hard to understand. It makes no sense that it could have happened.
Bella didn’t find Edward’s stalking behavior creepy
There are times when Edward’s behavior toward Bella is rather problematic. Things like watching her while she sleeps(while she doesn’t know it) and following her around are presented as romantic instead of creepy. Bella never really has a problem with any of these behaviors.
She doesn’t set many boundaries with Edward, and the even worse thing is that when she does, he sometimes crosses them.
That Bella is never scared of Edward’s physical strength
It’s not weird that Bella would find Edward attractive as he and other vampires are supposed to be much more beautiful than your average person. However, there are also things about vampires that are off-putting.
One of the scariest is that they are so strong and fast and able to kill a human easily. Bella really would have been unable to defend herself, but she never feels concerned. While Edward was careful, there was always the chance he could have accidentally hurt her.
