Twilight is based in the small town of Forks, which is only about four hours and fifteen minutes from Granite. This bestselling novel was released in 2005 and became an even bigger smashing hit when it debuted as a movie in 2008. The plot of the first movie/book follows young protagonist Bella Swan as she meets and falls for a mysterious boy at her school named Edward Cullen, who turns out to be a vampire. She then discovers his whole family are vampires with the help of her friend Jacob Black, who turns out to be a werewolf (which are the number one enemy of vampires). It is revealed that all of the members of Edward’s family have special abilities with Edward’s being the ability to read minds. However, Bella’s is the only mind he can’t read, and it is revealed that this is how Edward’s obsession with her started.
The pair begin dating and she learns the history between the vampires and werewolves, specifically the Quileute tribe (Jacob’s tribe). Now we jump into the real reason I’m here: the terrible love triangle of the Twilight Saga. It is here in this part of the book that we really begin to see the clear feelings Jacob has for Bella, and of course because he can read minds, Edward discovers this too. This back and forth will stay with them for all of the remaining books/movies. This causes quite a rift between the three due to the very obvious love triangle being set up. My main issue with this is how one sided the romance is between Jacob and Bella. It is painfully obvious she loves him more like a brother or best friend, and he is like fifteen in the time of the first novel while she is almost eighteen, so the age gap there is awkward.
Anywhere on the internet you will see memes of “Team Edward” this and “Team Jacob” that. Personally I’m team, “they all need therapy.” Ignoring the fact that Bella is literally in love with a dead man, he is also over 100 years old. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean Jacob is a ‘better option.’ If anything he’s worse in some ways. He’s relentless with his affection toward Bella, even after her clear rejection of him. Edward on the other hand sucks at communication which can be just as bad. But the main problem I have with Team Jacob people is they seem to miss a main component of the story: In the final book of the series, it is revealed that Edward can somehow produce children, and Bella gets pregnant on their honeymoon. Now you’d think that this would be the final icing on the cake for Jacob and he’d back off for good, but no. He’s even more attracted to Bella during this time and when it’s finally revealed why, I just about died.
The reason Jacob had been so infatuated with Bella is because he imprinted on her daughter. In this cinematic universe, imprinting happens when a member of the Quileute tribe falls in love with their “mate.” Ew. This is literally a child we’re talking about. Jacob tries to explain that because of her daughter’s young age, he’ll be more like a brother and protector until she’s ready for more… what the actual flip guys, that’s so not okay. So this is where my main confusion comes in – how can people be Team Jacob if he admits it was literally never even Bella he was attracted to, but her unborn baby? Take what I say with a grain of salt of course, but in my opinion this was the absolute weirdest plot choice the author could have made. Also to note, Jacob is only about 16-17 at this time. Quite the age gap with him and Bella’s daughter Renesmee.
