Designated Hero
A Designated Hero is a character in a story who, despite being presented as heroic, is actually a COMPLETE JERK at best and an arguable villain at worst. This is not the same as the deliberately morally ambiguous antihero. From the praise they receive from other characters and the narrative, it is plain that the audience is expected to like and root for the Designated Hero; instead, they have problems that can even inspire pity or, on very rare occasion, sympathy.
They are often mean people with no redeeming qualities aside from some petty superficial virtues, and they do not undergo appreciable character development. They're generally given a pass by the writers, freeing them from the consequences of their acts.
An extremely common plot associated with this character is their riding the coattails of a misunderstanding or undeserved reward until they finally feel guilty about it — and are allowed to keep it at the end anyway. In so-called 'guy movies', this is sometimes associated with an implausibly attractive woman inexplicably respecting that he came forward with this information and allowing it to wipe away all fault for what he originally did, despite the fact that most reasonable human beings would never want to see him again. But hey, he learned to be a nice guy, right? WORNG!!!
This is used to an insane degree in Twlight for example:
Edward and the Cullens are the good guys because...............well, they don't eat humans. They let their vampire buddies eat innocent humans, routinely show up the ordaniary humans, use their awesome powers for pure personal gain, and screw up the lives of many a werewolf to get their way, but they don't eat humans.
Edward Cullen is stalking, abusive, smug, pompous, arrogant, mass destructive psychopath who fantasizes about torturing his enemies on a regular basis. Does the idea of a man who stalks you, breaks into your house, watches you while you sleep without your knowledge, breaks your car to stop you from going to see your friends, threatens to destroy himself if you ever leave him, badly hurts you during a passonate moment, tries to force you to destroy your own offspring, wants to murder you all the time and drink your blood, abandons you to four months of hell knowing full well you're creepy obsessed and will go crazy, forces you to marry him against your wishes in order to have a child with him and become a vampire even though you're barely legal, carries on a dangerous relationship with you in full knowledge that if you so much as trip, you're almost-literal toast, and has destroyed quite a lot of people in the past sound at all romantic to you? Obviously Edward is not abusive physically to Bella, but that doesn’t mean that he’s not still abusive. That is, he is emotionally and mentally abusive. And the fact that he’s a vampire has nothing to do with it; Meyer is portraying a relationship between two people, and given the fact that Edward has a very human psyche it is not a reasonable argument to simply excuse his bad behavior by simply arguing, “he’s a vampire, so it doesn’t count."
If anything, Edward’s defining characteristic is in fact his jealousy. It is his jealousy (more than anything else) that instigates his abusive acts. He admits after the engine episode that the main reason for not wanting Bella to see Jacob was in fact his prejudice and jealousy, and that’s hardly the only instance of his jealousy.
The fact that Edward and Bella are supposed to share this incredible, transcendent relationship is undermined by the fact that rather than discuss his fears and uncertainties, Edward chooses to leave Bella at the beginning of New Moon. While it’s not a crime to end a relationship, the fact that Edward chose to do so in such a cruel and unusual manner instead of explaining his feelings and emotions on the subject is pretty abusive.
All the above points serve the idea that Edward’s prevailing character (served by his jealousy) is controlling. And I don’t care how ‘powerful’ and ‘omniscient’ and ‘old and wise’ Edward is, when you’re in a romantic relationship with someone one partner cannot be completely dominating and the other submissive. It simply isn’t healthy, particularly when it’s supposed to be this ‘great love of all the ages’ and representative of an equal partnership.
Let me just say this once to make it clear: intentions (good or bad) do not matter. It’s an instance of the classic phrase acta non verba, or “actions, not words.” It doesn’t matter if I tell you “I love you so much!” if I immediately follow that statement by trying to kill you. It doesn’t matter if I honestly DO love you and I STILL try to kill you; the action of attempted homicide still stands (and I’ll be charged with that) regardless of how I feel about it. If I kill someone and then say “I made a mistake” or “I loved him/her”, the fact that I feel bad about it in retrospect does not change the irreversible fact that I did, in fact, kill someone.
So if Edward removes the engine from Bella’s truck and then replaces it later, the fact that he replaces it later is irrelevant to the issue at hand; the fact that he performed the abusive act in the first place. I don’t care if he felt bad about it or changed his mind; he still performed the act to begin with.
If Edward only does anything "in order to protect Bella", it’s again an instance of the irrelevance of intentions. Simply put, he doesn’t have the right to upend another person’s life or to attempt to control what that person does, even if he cares about them. It is not my roommate’s place to lock me in our room to prevent me from going out and getting trashed, even if she thinks she’s doing it to “protect me” or “because she cares about me.” Likewise, it isn’t Edward’s right to decide who Bella sees, when she sees him, where she sees him, and for how long. Just because he decided NOT to kidnap Bella for the weekend a second time doesn’t make the fact that he kidnapped her for a weekend for the first time moot.
Basically, intentions don’t matter. Actions matter. Even if Edward changes his mind or feels bad about it, that doesn’t erase the fact that he performed the act in the first place. If he feels bad about it, it doesn’t mean that his character isn’t an abusive one; you don’t judge a character based on the person he is by the end of the novel (or series); rather, you judge them (and form an understanding of them) by incorporating EVERYTHING you learn about them throughout the series. So while Edward DOES change and DOES make different decisions, his good decisions don’t negate the bad ones. He performs an abusive act = he is abusive, even if he feels bad about it.
Everyone focuses on Bella as a weak-willed, codependent, anti-feminist twerp who is useless, helpless, and feels that she is nothing without a man, just as everyone focuses on how Edward is a stalking psychopath who climbs in her window at night and dictates how he feels she should behave and think. Both of these points are so prominent that they distract from other facets of their characters which are just as if not worse characteristics that should not be ignored. Mrs. Hyde pointed out that yes, Edward is a sicko who stalks Bella and wishes to own her because he’s crazy. But then she pointed out that even if you ignored that or tried to explain it away as most Twihards (including Meyer) do, he’s still an jerk. Edward Cullen is a rude jerk. There is nothing likeable about him. The only thing keeping Bella from realizing that Edward is controlling and possessive to an unhealthy extreme seems to be the fact that every time she sees him she is struck anew by how "GORGEOUS!!!" he is; no matter what kind of situation they're in Bella spends at least some small portion of every scene in which they are together reminding the audience of how mindbogglingly physically perfect he is. Bella's distracted and disarmed by his physical attractiveness even when he's done something that she admittedly does not approve of. It's not even as if she forgives his flaws or has rationalized them in her own mind, it's more like she's just so distracted by how pretty he is that she can't be bothered to notice anything else about him for more then a few seconds and then it's back to drooling over his perfect hair, skin, eyes, teeth, voice, breath, etc. One can't help but wonder how differently she would have felt about him had he been ugly or even just average looking. And I just pointed out that Bella is psychotic. She is insane, she is also a stalker, she is dangerously obsessive, and fantasizes about harming people she doesn’t like. She is just as crazy and bloodthirsty and emotionally-stunted as her paramour.
The biggest example is Bella who gives minimal thought to the innocent people being killed by vampires, unless it's someone she knows, of course. In New Moon, she seriously considers withholding what she knows about vampires from the werewolves because telling them anything would feel like betrayal to the Cullens even though she knows full well that the Cullens are in no danger from the wolves at all and that helping the wolves learn about the vampires will help them stop Victoria more quickly and thus keep more people from dying horribly. Bella decides that she wants to become a vampire nine days after knowing about their existence, and instantly drops all of her human ties. She not only condescends to her friends, but she jeers about her parents behind their backs. All interaction she has with them are for specific, selfish interests, like getting herself out of trouble, or seducing someone for information. Bella rarely thinks before she acts and usually just lets her emotions and selfish impulses guide her actions... and this ultimately leads her to an eternity of happiness with the man of her dreams and a perfect, adoring family, all of whom seem to care about nothing more than taking care of Bella and making her happy. So there you go girls, being rational, mature, and considerate of others is just for ugly chicks who can't get hot, rich boyfriends. Thanks to the bland narrative, Bella actually displays more signs of sociopathy than the stalking, abusive, smug, pompous, arrogant, mass-destructive psychopath who fantasizes about torturing his enemies on a regular basis known as Edward Cullen.
Even if Bella excuses Edward or Jacob's bad behavior, it doesn't mean that a) the readers should forget it or b) that the behavior isn't sexist. Who cares what Bella thinks? Meyer gives us ~1500 pages full of Bella's whiny rambling and TELLS us that it's not sexist or that it's not misogynistic, but what is SHOWN contradicts that.
In brief, even if it doesn't occur to Bella to say, "Hey! I want some gender equality!" or "Hey! I don't need some sparkly vampire to save me!" or "Charlie, cook your own food, you've been doing it yourself for fifteen years!", it doesn't mean that the sexism doesn't exist. In fact, the idea that "Bella doesn't mind" actually becomes an argument for the Anti-Twilight side--Meyer uses her main character to basically shout out from the rooftops that sexism isn't a big deal. Bella SHOULD mind, especially if she's supposed to be a strong, smart, independent female character.
It's the ACTIONS, not the intentions that matter. Bella does offer to cook and clean for Charlie, but again I say who cares what Bella thinks? Why couldn't she have offered to mow the lawn or fix the roof instead of pigeon-holing herself into the traditional female role? The part the matters is the fact that it's the female who performs the "female" duties as though it's expected of her. It's the subtext which tells the reader "this is what good, dutiful daughters do" that is the problem, NOT how Bella feels about it.
Let’s consider characters. There is a complete lack of character development in the book, thus removing the idea of character arc as part of plot. Bella does not change in any essential way from page 1 of the book to page 400 aside from meeting and “falling in love” with Edward. She is the same character. Meyer does not reveal that she becomes more or less trusting, more or less prone to anger, more or less kind, more or less world-wise, or any other possible changes for other characteristics. At the beginning of the book, she worries about her mother. At the end, the fact that she worries about her mother is the crux of the events-based “plot” that forms the dubious climax of the book.
Neither does Edward experience any great transformation as a character aside from his relationship with Bella. As a vampire, he is naturally unchanging, sort of preserved forever as a 17 year old boy, and Meyer does nothing to change this perception. He is presented as something of a loner, and that is the only characteristic to change simply by virtue of the love story. Aside from that, there IS no character to change in the first place; Edward, like Bella, is very much a blank slate on which the reader is intended to imprint themselves in order to live the story through Bella’s shoes and experience their personal vision of the “perfect man” with Edward as the vessel.
Meyer gives token “characteristics” to both characters (Bella is clumsy, Edward plays piano) but neither of these are true intrinsic traits which define the characters’ actions, wishes, and intentions. Rather, Meyer gives us traits which are focused outwardly rather than personal to each character, such as Edward’s jealousy over Bella’s friendship with Jacob. Given that he had no one to be jealous of in the past, this is not so much a character trait as it is an after-thought, a reactionary plot device to advance what little conflict there is in the series. Everything Edward focuses on and thinks about surrounds Bella; this is not a character which represents a three-dimensional person so much as the perfect (and non-existent) fantasy man. For this reason, Edward HAS no character of his own except for that which applies to Bella. Thus, the plot in terms of character arc is completely absent because there is nothing within Edward to change in the first place.
Do we EVER see her read anything else? Do she ever give cute little literary allusions? I read a lot and the books I’ve read constantly pop up in my conversations, in my analysis of any given situation, and they simply influence my life in general. Apparently not so in Bella’s case; for all her rumored book-lover’s habits, she never makes a single reference to, say, The Picture of Dorian Gray when describing Edward’s beauty or vampirism (which would have been interesting!), nor a “Wow, Jane freaks me out as much as Claudia did in Interview With the Vampire”, nor a “Is Harry Potter real, then?” when she finds out about Edward &co. being vampires. We never see her read a book outside of the ones mentioned, we never see her discuss books with Edward , and aside from “English class will be easy since I read all those books in my other class already”, she never shows any interest in her studies (and in fact doesn't even seem to grasp how college is important).
Okay, so Meyer says she likes to read. Where does she show this? Answer: nowhere.
Bella Swan was a horrible character in Twilight. Her obsessive behavior goes from irritating to frightening, her selfishness escalates to include her harming others, and her narrow focus is downright disturbing. However, it is important to note—this does not indicate a change in character. She was the exact same person in Twilight. Her key characteristics simply intensified. She is nothing but a static, useless character who learns nothing from her mistakes, refusing to even acknowledge that they are mistakes, and never, ever changes because apparently, Meyer believes she is perfect as is and can’t bear to change any part of her odious and now officially terrifying personality.
Bella Swan a manipulative, vain, clingy, codependent, obsessive person who thinks their perfect and are above the law. In Twilight, Bella often pretended that she wasn’t using people for her own benefit or stringing boys along because it makes her feel special and she loves the attention. That is not the case here—Bella pretty much outright states that she is using the people around her, and expresses absolutely no remorse for it, instead making it clear that she is justified in this behavior and becomes angry if anyone so much as objects to being treated in such a fashion by her. However, the main thing this novel demonstrated is that she is the perfect match to her psychotic boyfriend. Bella is a psychopath through and through. There are twenty main traits in the Dr. Hare psychopathic checklist. In this novel alone, Bella demonstrated the following:
•Glib and superficial charm: All the ways she charmed Jacob into doing whatever she wanted.
•Grandoise self-worth: Meyer’s repeated insisting that she has the faux-flaw of supposedly low self-esteem did not do enough to cover this up. Bella’s actions routinely displayed how she believed she was better than all of the paltry humans surrounding her, not to mention her firm belief that she is worthy of vampirism, something she worships above all else.
•Need for stimulation and proneness to boredom: Her constant clinging to Jacob and demanding he do things for her that would indulge her reckless behavior, and immediately becoming depressed and borderline tantrumy when he couldn’t be there to entertain her.
•Pathological lying: I don’t think a single chapter went by in this one where Bella didn’t repeatedly and blatantly lie to someone.
•Conning and manipulativeness: Her manipulation of first Jacob to use him to get to her ex-boyfriend and then her manipulation of the Cullens to force them to agree to turn her into a vampire.
•Lack of remorse or guilt: Bella never feels sorry for using Jacob or hurting her father or shutting her friends out of her life. She never even feels that she did anything wrong.
•Shallow effect: Bella very often faked her emotions even though she herself felt nothing.
•Callousness and lack of empathy: Bella’s lack of empathy for anyone who was not her was shocking and disturbing. She never bothered considering how anyone felt about anything she did, particularly towards Charlie, and outright stated several times that she didn’t understand emotion and had trouble faking it simply because she didn’t feel it. She also feels no empathy for people dying; until she believes Charlie is being threatened, she doesn’t care that people are out dying in the woods. She becomes angry at herself for being distressed at witnessing the mass murder of forty or fifty innocent civilians at the hands of the Volturi, and then completely forgets about it once they leave Italy. Finally, she brushes off all of Edward’s concerns and feelings on the matter of her soul because they stand in the way of what she wants; she does outright state that she just cannot see his side of it, and makes absolutely no effort to do so.
•Parasitic lifestyle: Bella has a very low-paying job, but expresses no intentions of going to college and getting a career of her own, instead using Charlie and, to some extent, Jacob, to support herself, and eventually intending to latch onto the Cullens for the same.
•Poor behavioral controls: Several times she expressed a desire to violently hurt someone, and in one case desired to kill someone simply because she felt they were denying her something that was rightfully hers.
•Promiscuous behavior: It is made clear in the novels that she cheats on others to get what she wants. Also, any time she is with Edward, she is attempting to take things further than he is comfortable with.
•Early behavioral problems: Seeing as she did much of this in Twilight as well, and recounted her tantrums and fits from when she was little, this is a yes.
•Lack of realistic, long-term goals: The only goal we have ever seen Bella set for herself is “become a vampire”. When that one temporarily falls through, she makes absolutely no goals for herself, even though she thinks that future is not going to happen.
•Impulsivity: Every single thing she did in this novel was done on impulse; she planned nothing out, from attempting to get herself raped and killed by four men and randomly deciding she is going to jump off a cliff without supervision or instruction. She had an inability to resist temptations, and never once considered the consequences of what she was doing.
•Irresponsibility: Bella’s irresponsibility relates to many of the above points—people ask very little of her, and she very often fails to do even that, shirking her duties in favor of things that she considers “fun” and that are often very hurtful to herself and/or others, such as gladly accepting Alice into her home and ignoring Charlie when he needs her most after the death of his best friend.
•Failure to accept responsibility for own actions: Bella refused to take responsibility for anything she did in this novel, from repeatedly trying to kill herself to hurting Jacob at the end. She always managed to find a way to handwave it as something other than it was or make it somebody else’s fault.
•Many short-term marital relationships: While Bella has never married, the root of this is “a lack of commitment to a long-term relationship reflected in inconsistent, undependable, and unreliable commitments in life”. Bella is routinely undependable in all of her relationships, only taking and never giving. Her so-called human friends are only considered her friends when she has no one else to turn to, but once she finds someone better, she shoves them out of her life and ignores them. It is the same with Jacob—Edward leaves her, so she quickly clings to him and showers him with false love and affection, but the moment Edward returns, she goes back to ignoring him like she did before.
•Juvenile delinquency: Bella has violated the law repeatedly since we met her in Twilight. She violated almost every law pertaining to owning and riding a motorcycle, she ran away from home twice (three times if you count the forest escapade), she continually invites Edward into her home despite the fact that Charlie has banned him from the house, she has aided and abetted grand theft auto, and the “Vegas” aside reveals that she gladly partakes in the scamming of casinos, stealing thousands of dollars from them for no reason whatsoever.
•Revocation of conditional release: Bella constantly violates the rules Charlie has laid down in their house, no matter what punishment he lays upon her.
•Criminal versatility: “A diversity of types of criminal offenses, regardless if the person has been arrested or convicted for them; taking great pride at getting away with crimes.” Bella has actually violated the law quite a bit since we saw her, and she expresses great pride in getting away with it. She is gleeful and thrilled with herself to be getting away with owning the motorcycles, which both violates the law and her own father’s edicts, she finds the Cullens’ ways of covering up their existence with various criminal behavior amusing, she plays the car theft they routinely indulge in for laughs, and is very proud of the fact that she circumvents her father’s edict that Edward Cullen only be allowed to see her during visiting hours by having him climb in her window every night, constantly talking about how his supernatural speed, hearing, and telepathy make it very easy for her to get away with it.
Edward and Bella's Relationship is basically unhealthy,unexpected, inevitable, messed up, derailing, sucking the lifeforce out of Bella and eventually killing her. Not to mention Edward and Bella's Relationship resemble more a drug addiction than love. There relationship only revloves around Physical attraction, drama, jealousy and co-dependence.
Incase you're wondering respect, trust, mutual interests or open communication are are the foundations of a good relationship.
Lastly there's Bree Tanner. It's a lot harder to sympathize with Bree Tanner when she shows no remorse at all for committing multiple murders and seems under the impression that she is above laws as long as there is no one to hold her to them. There's also the matter of her and the love intrest Diego suffering from a severe case of being stupid to the point that they would probly eat highly fatal chemicales if they had the chance.
DO ANY OF THESE PEOPLE SOUND LIKE GOOD GUYS TO YOU!!!???
Designated Villian
A Main Villian is a common driving force behind conflict in stories, so it makes natural sense to write one in. But villainy requires villainous acts...so a villain who doesn't really perform those is a bit hard to swallow.
If one is written in anyway, the result is a character who is treated as a bad guy by the plot, despite never actually doing anything as to justify the amount of hate that they receive from the good guys. Any astute arguments and observations by this character are to be dismissed by the audience, because they are Obviously Evil, just as the Designated Hero is regarded as 'good' despite having no significant virtues.
In fact, this may only prove a character a Jerk, especially in regards to the protagonist. This isn't a case of a deliberately over-the-top villain, it's a personification of being an jerk for its own sake. That being said, there are cases where just being a jerk can qualify one for being the antagonist by itself.
This is used to an insane degree in Twlight, This happens a lot because there is no small part thanks to Meyer's tendency to tell, rather than show what's going on in the narrative.
For Example:
Technically, she's not a villain, but Leah is considered to be a bitter, shrewish harpy who is usually ignored and dumped on. Turns out, the reason she's bitter is because her fiance was essentially forced and brainwashed into loving her cousin and everyone blames her for being upset over this all while she has to listen to her former fiance's thoughts on his so called True Love for her cousin. Edward threatens to kick her over a river because she yells at Bella for stringing Jacob along. Add in the fact that she is one of the few characters who actively tries to better herself and move on after losing a significant other and her father dies after seeing her shape-shift, it's kind of hard to see why readers are supposed to dislike her.
Edward calls Mike Newton "vile" because...um...he's been shown as being nothing but nice? Bella's internal monologue and opinion of other people is often entirely at odds with what is going on around her, and every male except for Edward and Jacob is sadly demonized at some point.
Even people Bella allegedly gets along with act as Designated Villains if they're not vampires. Jessica, one of the first friends Bella made, is regularly considered to be a False Friend in Bella's own mental commentary; Jessica, who was nothing but nice to Bella when they first met, instantly and repeatedly forgave Bella blowing her off again and again for the first supernatural boy to waltz by, and generally appears to like Bella except during her blatantly insane phase in New Moon, despite Bella's ceaselessly condescending view of her. It never once occurs to Bella that any distance that develops between her and Jessica is due to Bella being a complete bloodsucking parasite (NO PUN INTENDED) that only acts friendly to Jessica when she wants something from her; Pluse Bella's first flirtations with deliberately endangering herself to hallucinate about Edward's voice also put Jessica in danger, and Bella is resentful and offended when Jessica starts keeping her distance for the rest of the book! Does any one else think bella has issues
In fact, nearly all of the human characters are demonized in this book. It is an over-arching theme of the books that humanity is flawed and weak, and must be cast off. Supernatural creatures, no matter how antagonistic they may be, are always described in positive terms, and Meyer elevates the vampires to God-like statuses, describing members of the Cullen family as 'young god' and 'avenging angel'. This is completly pointless
Rosaline is demonized despite being a Cullen....but that's because she's the only Cullen who dares to not love Bella (In my opinion rightfully), thus making her the Black Sheep of the Family.
Particularly jarring out of all of them is Bella's view on HER OWN FATHER. In every other series, this might be brushed aside because she'd be considered an Unreliable or it would be normal teenager behavior, but in this case, we are supposed to see Charlie as the mean old guy who grounds Bella and just doesn't understand how much she needs Edward. This is after Bella starting to distance him immediately after she started dating Edward, ran away from home because she 'broke up' with him, was stalked by him across states, was severely injured in very suspicious fashions, after which she immediately decided to get back to Edward's side, was abandoned by Edward in the woods, became catatonic and nearly destroyed herself, ran away from home AGAIN, to a different country, because Edward threatened to destroy himself in frot of her.
Charlie may as well have been called “lone voice of reason” in this one. It’s like he was providing a running commentary of everything sensible people keep screaming at the idiots in this book. He’s the one to point out that Bella is not the first person to go through a bad breakup. He’s the one to point out that her behavior is not healthy. He’s the one to point out that Edward is bad for her. He’s the one to point out that she’s hurting everyone around her. And for every single sensible thing he says, Bella—and therefore Meyer—routinely tells him in no uncertain terms that he is wrong and just doesn’t understand before proceeding to ignore him and all of his entreaties for her to stop. It’s like Meyer was using Charlie as a way to talk to all of the people who hate her books. All that resulted was the most sympathetic character yet, and the way he was treated was heartbreaking and made me hate Bella even more for having no appreciation for her father.
DO ANY OF THESE GUYS SOUND EVIL TO YOU!!!???
Fri Sep 14, 2012 8:37 pm
