This is going to be tragic and twee at the same time, isn’t it?
Righto, after the blatant blasphemy and idolatry from Emmett, let’s move on to the melodramatic and oh so twaggic background of our twee Alice. I’m not going to lie, I hate Alice. Her powers make no sense, she is domineering and a bully but also nouveau riche trash. Her flagrant waste and utter lack of taste makes my skin crawl. Anyway, lets crack on and present Alice:
Wow, she looks very haughty and arrogant. I wonder if she has just got back from playing Barbie with Bella here or is just lording her haute couture on the peasants of Forks. So, she was changed in 1920 at the age of 19 (nice and young) by an unnamed vampire who haunted the local mental health hospital in Mississippi. Once again, Meyer likes to remind me that yes, her eye colour as a human was dark brown but are now gold. God, I know! We have her description of how tiny, lithe and delicate she is and that her hair is short from the mental health institution that she was sectioned in. I honestly do wonder why; I am going to assume to prevent lice but I’m wondering if Meyer means electric shock therapy. We shall hold our water dear readers on ECT for later.
Now we are onto special abilities. Meyer explains that her visions are entirely decision based and won’t see anything until that decision is firmly rooted into the mind of the individual to see the outcome. She also mentions that she can only see humans and vampires as they are the only species she has been. Hmm…. I have a few questions:
- How the fuck does Alice predict the weather? The weather is not a sentient being that decides it’s going to rain. It’s the damn weather.
- How does Alice predict the stock markets? It’s not one person behind a switchboard that decides that shares in Pokemon roller-skates are going to sky rocket in five years.
- How does Alice see Bella being either vamped or dead in the beginning of ‘Midnight Sun’? Edward was absolutely resolute that he would try to leave her be and ignore her when those visions surfaced.
- How does it work then that Alice saw Charlie visiting in ‘Breaking Dawn’ as Jacob (werewolf/shape-shifter) was involved in that decision?
- How did Alice not see Jane going rogue in Bree Tanner and making the active decision to visit Victoria and tell her to be more careful but to keep going with her plans?
- How did Alice think it would work to try and see visions by asking Jacob to sit in a corner and for Renesmee to be held by Bella? If they are there then they should switch off.
- How did Alice see the fucking Volturi vision in the first place in ‘Breaking Dawn’ as it heavily involved Renoodle and Jacob?
- Surely Alice should see half-vampire spawn as they are a mix of vampire and human?
- SERIOUSLY HOW DID SHE SEE THE VOLTURI COMING TO ATTACK THEM! JACOB AND RENAULT CLIO WERE THERE?!
I am sure there is plenty that I have missed but my God! This still has more holes than Swiss cheese. It is so obvious that Alice is there to give her precious Cullens the edge. The next section slaps me again, by stating that her degrees are in fashion and international business (business, yeah right) and how she can predict windfalls in the stock market. How? She would have to be watching thousands of people at a time to be able to predict that if it’s all decision based yet Alice complained to Edward in ‘Eclipse’ that as she was watching Bella, Charlie, the Volturi and Victoria that something may have slipped past as it was too much. THOUSANDS of people effect the stock market. Honestly, does she really think that it’s just one guy sitting there deciding what’s going to be hot this season? This is so stupid, but not just that. It’s theft. Insider trading is a serious and federal crime. So anytime Meyer likes to show us how old money and refined the Cullen’s are, just remember it’s stolen money. They are essentially Jordan Belfort from the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’.
Oh, I want to die, her hobbies are playing the stock market (I have discussed this enough) and designing as well buying clothes. We have never seen her design shit in this entire series so I don’t buy it and when it comes to buying clothes we never see if she has favourite era, designer or anything. All she cares about is money. All we ever hear is how expensive it is, that’s it! The Cullens all seem to wear is beige and more beige or those god awful outfits they wore to prom, fashionista she is not. Those who are unaware of the prom outfits, hold on to your hats as these are from Meyer herself:
BLERGH! I’m sorry but imagine this on someone who looks 14, is 4”10 and is corpse white at a high school prom in a poor logging town. No, I’m sorry but that is just tacky and aren’t schools in America notoriously sexist when it comes to women’s clothes? No way would she be allowed to wear that; she could slip a nip at any moment!
Again, fashionista my arse!
We get to hear about her porcshe and breakdown of what every Cullen means to her. I don’t care. Now onto her personal history. Now what I find funny is that Emmett’s family background was pretty basic except that he enjoyed shagging, fighting and had a large family. Here we get a load of nonsense of Alice’s father being a pearl dealer, seems a bit niche to me but is that meant to allude to her love of fashion?
I don’t know, nor care but Meyer feels the need to tell me all about his business. Hey, Meyer! How many siblings does Emmett have? Nope, nothing but we can all hear about pearl diving. Yay? So anyway, Alice has a sister who is 9 years younger than her and they are close but wait a minute……
No…………..
You aren’t………………
You are, aren’t you?
Alice had visions as a fucking human! What is this? Why? I thought vampires were science based? Meyer is honestly telling me that Alice was the real deal as a human? I would not have an issue with this if her vampires were magic based as that would be fine but they are meant to be science based. This is such bullshit. Anyway, she would have a feeling that something would happen but then describes her fully predicting someone coming over or knowing if it would rain. I don’t even know! This guide is tearing itself up and it’s only a few pages of a character profile.
We do have a strange interlude of Meyer saying she always knew Edward would have a sister named Alice and that she wishes she was real as she seems like a great friend. Alice is a bully and a racist for no reason as she had never met the wolves but instantly started calling them dogs and mongrels. Keep her for yourself.
Right, I’m getting confused. We now have Alice being shy about her premonitions as she would often get them wrong but felt most confident about the weather as that wasn’t a person making decisions. *Sobbing* You said that her visions were entirely decision based! It’s there, you just said it!
We then get some weird sadness that oh poor Alice wasn’t invited to birthday parties as she is clearly a witch or something. This should have been set hundreds of years before, people don’t think fucking witch in 1915. Especially as we are getting stupid shit of Alice warning a friend (I thought she had none) not to marry a man due to family history of the crazies so she decided that Alice put a curse on her. Again, this is 1915-20, not the 1700-1800s. We aren’t even in an area of the country with a strong voodoo heritage. This is just nonsense! Set it during the Salem Witch trials or have her be from Louisiana. It’s called research, do it otherwise you look stupid.
We then get how her cousin went to seek his fortune west in 1915 and died on the road but Alice warned his family so they think she jinxed him. The main gold rush to California ended in 1855, to reference Red Dead Redemption 2 again but those wild days were pretty much over by 1899. Civilisation was pretty much spread across the U.S. by 1915, this is the point of the game to show that those times were pretty much over and that the outlaw was a dying breed as bureaucracy was pretty much taking over. Does Meyer even understand her own countries history?
Arthur thinks you are a dumbarse. So apparently her family now think she is a witch and a changeling which again aren’t very common concepts in 1915. If she honestly wanted this environment then she should have changed the time period as it just doesn’t make sense here. You can’t twist history for your own needs.
Anyway, Alice has visions of her mother being murdered in the woods by a stranger. Question! I thought Alice didn’t have full fledged visions as a human? That seems pretty specific to me rather than a feeling that was just established. Ergh, whatever, her father comes home to find some terrified women and verbally bitch slaps Alice for being a Nervous Nelly. Alice’s mother slowly forgets about this mysterious stranger and stops packing heat when she leaves the house. Oh, I sense a tragic event is about to occur.
Alice then sees a man in a Model T (I love that Meyer felt the need to mention the car make for this murderous stalker, it’s like she can’t help herself) ram her mother of the road. Seriously, stop failing your guide. You said that she didn’t have visions but now she is having full fledged visions including the exact make of car? Anyway, Alice runs and finds her mother dead and her accident is declared accidental. Isn’t that convenient?
Also after the whole Persephone/Hades nonsense in ‘Midnight Sun’ I am really getting strong Cassandra vibes. Cassandra is the Trojan princess that was cursed by Apollo to see the accurate future but was doomed to never believed. She foresaw the fall of Troy but everyone just scoffed at her until they saw the city destroyed.
Well, it’s clearly the Dad who did it as he married a blonde (Meyer yet again forgot to add in the ‘e’ as conjugating verbs is for losers) yankee within six months and they are evil because ….. well….. blonde. This anti blonde attitude is just getting beyond ridiculous and well… bitter. It was bad in the books but this is just, I don’t know what this is. It’s just hair, Meyer. Seriously, its just hair. It doesn’t define a person. Also, another point and this is the right time to do it. Notice a theme here with all the Cullen women?
They are all abused by a man and have tragic backgrounds.
Esme: Abused by her husband, was beaten and almost completed suicide after her child died.
Rosalie: Gang-raped to death by her fiancé and friends.
Alice: Beloved mother murdered by her cold father who commits her to an institution.
Also, the men, even Edward included have very basic profiles (especially Emmett) where there is very little detail but the women have these long, abusive and tragic backgrounds.
Why do the women need these tragic backgrounds for their second life? I have a theory. Now go with me here as I’m going to delve into some deep cannon, mainly ‘Breaking Dawn’. In the fourth book we see how important it is for a woman to fire a child out of her crotch, they are the true mothers as they birthed them. Well, how many times have we seen Bella lauded that she was able to procreate, especially compared with the other women featured. The human teenagers don’t count as they disappear in chapter 3-4 of the last book, so our main women to focus on are the supernatural ones and none of them can have babies! We have no idea about Leah as Meyer never tells us if she can but this is a huge source of conflict for her. Essentially all the women in this are spayed, no babies for them. So, did Meyer have them have such tragic backgrounds to essentially make up for them not being able to experience the supposed greatest gift that womanhood can give? In a sense that it was better for them as otherwise they were stuck being abused, gang-raped or forced in an asylum so no babies for them anyway if they stayed as human? They ascended to the better existence but it was a must due to their backgrounds? It’s really weird as it feels like the women were turned to save them from their awful lives even if there was this misogynistic sacrifice of not having babies but the men don’t need that reasoning as they can make Reneezits all day long if they wished so they can have much easier backgrounds. Honestly, all this is pure speculation but it really feels odd and I do suspect it’s this strange thing of well Carlisle only turns people who would die anyway, so is vampirism a way of only saving those women who couldn’t have birthed anyway? Rosalie would’ve died due to her injuries, Esme tried to complete suicide and Alice was committed to an institution would’ve probably died. Like I said, I don’t know but it seems strange to me.
So anyway, Alice gets “feelings” that her Dad was shagging this woman way before her Mum died. So, what, does our “bright” heroine do? She goes to her Dad and say she thinks that maybe her mother’s death was probably not an accident.
Why are you so stupid? Of course, your Dad had something to do with the murder. Moron! Anyway, she has visions of her Dad hiring the same man to kill her so she escapes but her aunt tells her to shuv it off her porch. It’s so very tragic and sad. Alice manages to run/walk ten miles to the marshal’s office to report him but oh noes! Everyone is there to have her committed. I will say that Alice is an idiot as we have seen the tragic backstory of everyone in town thinking she was a witch so wasn’t invited to birthday parties, so why on earth trust these people?
Alice: Sir, I had visions of a man killing me!
Marshal: *Yawn* Ya’ll a changeling!
Mob: Kill the beast!!
Alice: But I saw it! Please believe me!
Marshal: *Yawn* Whatever, your Dad says you are a witch and weirdly enough we believe this shit but as burning witches is against state legislation we decided the asylum works well enough. *Sleeps*
Honestly, I get these vibes:
So, she has her head shaved for typhoid, whatever. However, part of me understands but hates that they bring up ECT or Electroconvulsive therapy. Granted, back in the day it was horrific but now it is a legitimate treatment that really does help people. I’m not going to sit and say how terrible ‘Twilight’ is for using ECT in this way as many stories set in this time period do. I just want to use this moment to say that ECT can be so helpful and as much as I understand the use in this context being negative but it does make the overall modern perception very negative and puts people off from the treatment when it can have huge benefits. No piece of wood to stop the screaming nowadays, it’s all general anaesthetic. Honestly, research it. It’s a legitimate treatment in mental health and sadly these stereotypes do hamper their use as so few are open to use it.
We then get a vampire who would murder poor mental health patients as they wouldn’t be missed but he liked Alice so would protect her. Ergh, I hate that. I work in mental health and it just makes me so sad and angry as these are such vulnerable people but we are meant to like this vampire as he helped Alice. Fuck him, these are people that could easily be autistic, depressed or learning disabilities but they are used as food. There is no emotion here, just yeah, he ate vulnerable and mentally ill people for food, whatevs. This is horrible! I wouldn’t mind if we were being shown a truly monstrous character who preyed on the most vulnerable of society and shown to detest him for it but oh, he liked Alice so it’s fine.
Alice then sees visions of James hunting for some reason and seeing no possible outcome the old vampire transforms Alice as she is just oh so special. Bite me! Actually, no, don’t! Fuck you! Oh, but he is so brave as he knew James would kill him but sacrificed himself for Alice. Isn’t he so noble? No!! Fuck you!! He preyed on innocent and mentally ill people just because they were easy. That’s horrible and I do not think what a lovely vampire he is because oh he saved that one as she was special.
We move on to her seeing Jasper and the sanitised mention of blatant murder as she practised the animal diet with “sporadic success”. Fucking great, another sanitised and swept under the rug murderer. Gee, I’m so happy! Alice met Jasper and because they were both special Sues they knew it was love so yeah……
I love though that we are told that Jasper only eats animals to appease Alice, this will be hilarious when we get to his profile. I swear Jasper only does it so Alice puts out.
Anyway, that’s the end of Alice! God, that was a depressing slog but we did it! We are slowly getting through this. Next up is Jasper and yeah……….