5 Reasons the Bella Swan YA Heroine Exists
We’re all familiar with the stock standard Bella Swan type YA heroine. They all tend to share the same traits, their biggest one being a complete lack of any real personality – like a walking, talking mirror for the reader to reflect themselves in. No hobbies or friends except for those absolutely vital to the plot. Most of all they see themselves as a mouth-breathing super-freak to whom nobody could be attracted. Basically, if they ever met self-esteem they’d run screaming from it. Yet they will have multiple suitors in the book, and the full attention/rampant douchery of the hottest guy in school/vampire camp/witch club/ever. Mostly, of course, he will occupy her entire life and consume all her thoughts. She will gladly die for him and proves it multiple times by trying it out often to see if she can make it eventually stick. Actually, she’s so wholesomely sacrificial she’s been known to sacrifice herself for a soggy breadstick on occasion. Of course, with little-to-no effort on her part she is the most beautiful/talented/super-specially powerful person around and everyone loves her. And if they don’t then they’re evil/wrong/jealous bitches. We all know this meek, homogeneously nice gutter of juvenile characterizations, and have probably suffered through reading her in all her clumsy (pro tip: she’s always clumsy) glory at least once.
But often in our haste to retch and bleach the memory of Bella Swan and her ilk from our brains, do we ever ask why they exist? Why they are so horribly prevalent like a plague just waiting to infect everything we read? Well, I am here with all the answer and once again ready to ride in and save the day. Read on to find out why you’ve been so often subjected to the literary version of oozing genital sores rubbed in cayenne pepper.
1. Illuminati
Nothing could be clearer. If there’s a conspiracy afoot then certainly these guys are involved. But why? Why get their nefarious claws into us this way? The answer is right in front of us and couldn’t be any clearer.
Notice anything familiar? Any similarities?
The symbol of the Illuminati is an eye with hands. Bella Swan has an eye and at least TWO hands. Also notice how both the Illuminati eye, and Bella’s eyes are cold, dead, completely emotionless and utterly lacking in humanity? Think that’s a coincidence? Well how about this – in the books there are 7 vampires – seven is a very important number in numerology because it ate nine. Now when you add the number of characters in Edward + Carlisle + Jasper + Emmett you get 26. Now add all the letters from Bella + Alice + Rose + Esme = 18. 26-18=8. 8-1 is 7. Also 1 X 7= 7.
You just can’t argue with that.
Numerlogy is at work organizing the universe and you are at its capricious whims. Luckily the Illuminati is always there to take advantage of the numerology whims that you are too capricious to appreciate.
2. Aliens
Everyone knows aliens have been watching us, kidnapping us, probing us in unmentionable places, toying with us to see how we tick. These YA heroines are just another way for aliens to observe us. To test if they can fully integrate yet. Have they got the subtleties of human emotions and interactions down? At least if they prove so, they can finally begin their long awaited secret invasion into the Earth for the purpose of breeding with us, because we’re sexy bitches. Who wouldn’t want to make alien babies with me?
Errr… No, thanks. I’m into chicks.
3. Those fat cats on wall street
They bleed pennies when you cut them and a fifty dollar bill is a great way to light their illegal $1000 cigars. They’re the fat cats on wall street and they’ve figured out that this teen genre makes money. So they’ve ordered a hundred billion Bella Swan replicas written throughout YA and are sitting back in their mansions laughing as they drink wine infused with smelted gold and pay someone $1000 per hour to pick their nose of boogas. Twilight sold, fifty shades sold, surely, they think, it’s as easy as remodelling the formula again and again every time they want to buy a new island.
4. The Government
The Man. The big guy. You know what he wants! To control you.
If you’re a girl than the government wants to tell you what to wear, how to be, who to like, what to like. Of course the government would want to foster a sense of easy self-sacrifice and total slavish devotion! The government wants nothing more than for you to be absorbed by, and willing to die for your man. THE Man. Not just any man, but an omnipotent, powerful, man who will watch you (whether you like it or not) and stalk you to always keep you safe, control you from making any mistake that you may come to regret.
The Man knows how important it is to get the girls while they’re young. In high school, when their hormones and the mystical girlie emotions (the ones boys would never succumb to – because, you know… man brain) are in full swing.
The eventual benefit is an army of mindless, infatuated super-soldiers ready to win at all cost for love. It’s ingenious. Those evil bastards.
5. Teenagers
Maybe, and this is a theory, that a lot of teenagers just gravitate towards this characterization. I was talking to my 15 year old cousin the other day, and other than mocking her for being 15 (I mean, seriously, who’s 15? That age SUCKS) I also mocked her for her taste in books. Mainly Fallen, Twilight, et al. And I thought about how my intelligent, thoughtful, unique and free-spirit cousin could like such trash. After all, she’s not a cookie-cutter tween. She’s awkward, funny, old-school and completely one of a kind! And I realized, maybe I was being a bit of a prick. Sure, I’m an adult with a well-established identity who finds the whole Mary Sue ordeal ridiculous and pointless. But for her, it’s fun, wonderful, and a great opportunity to try on different skins, learn romance that she isn’t experiencing physically herself, live a life she doesn’t have and defeat villains she’ll never have to worry about. It’s an escape from a school full of bullies, a freedom from a world of restrictions and fun that doesn’t come with a price tag on their life.
Maybe it’s not always the best influence. But a lot of teens seem to know that – because teens are generally savvy with these things. Like many adults know that Romances are for escapism and aren’t at all based on reality. And maybe it’s fun to mock the Mary Sue, Bella Swan type YA heroine – I mean, I enjoy doing so on various occasions. But maybe it also negates the needs and wants of those this genre particularly targets and serves. Those still looking for their own identity, and happy for a personality-free drone through which they can navigate their own fantasies, wants and desires.
Kat Kennedy
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