Years after the Twilight movie franchise kicked off a vampire frenzy, questions about the 100-year-old teenager Edward Cullen are still puzzling.
The Twilight Saga movies, based on Stephenie Meyer’s novels, made a huge impact when they hit theaters – turning vampires from spooky to sparkly overnight in the pop culture imagination, and enthralling audiences worldwide. Despite commercial success, Twilight also drew widespread criticism over what many saw as a clichéd script, plus the romanticizing of controlling relationships and self-destructive behavior. The movies also left audiences with questions and gaps, with characters sometimes making puzzling decisions or having abilities that weren’t fully explained.
Starring Kristen Stewart as human Bella Swan, Robert Pattinson as “vegetarian” vampire Edward Cullen, and Taylor Lautner as werewolf Jacob, Twilight gave its own take on the mythical creatures. The series provided plenty of its own lore over the course of five films, based on Meyer’s four young adult volumes. However, as former dedicated tweens now prepare to dust off their Team Edward or Team Jacob shirts ahead of the Twilight franchise’s upcoming TV show, there are still several questions – and downright weird moments – hovering over the supernatural romance flicks.
7 Is Edward Actually A Teen Dad?
In the first Twilight movie, Edward is 104 years old – so it’s safe to say that by the time the two-part finale Breaking Dawn rolls around, he’s more suited to being a great-grandfather than a first-time dad. From another perspective, though, Edward is only 17 years old, making him technically a teenage father when Bella gives birth to their daughter. Edward does admit to Bella early on that he has been stuck at 17 for “a while.” The fact that he’s apparently a good match for a fellow teen, and fairly happy to attend school, implies his mind and his maturity level have remained frozen since he was turned into a vampire.
Bella, for her part, likely wouldn’t be interested in a centenarian who really does think and act like it. Edward’s ambiguous age, however, does put an intriguing spin on the couple bringing up a daughter. While it’s hardly as though their speed-aging CGI nightmare of a child Renesmee could have a completely conventional childhood anyway, Edward’s age is still arguably one of the most confusing things about the franchise.
6 If Edward Can’t Read Bella’s Mind, Why Can Jasper Change Her Mood?
The fact that mind-reader Edward can’t get at Bella’s thoughts is one of the things that first draws him to her in the first Twilight movie (along with her extra-gourmet blood). It’s not until Breaking Dawn – Part 2 that the reason becomes clear; Bella is a “shield” and can defend herself against mental attacks and powers. Edward’s “brother” Jasper Hale (Jackson Rathbone), though, appears to have missed the memo. In New Moon, Bella tells him “No fair with the mood control thing” when he influences her emotions to make her less anxious about her birthday, which calls her mental shield into question in retrospect.
5 Why Do The Cullens, Super-Rich Immortals, Spend All Their Time At A High School?
Apart from “parents” Carlisle and Esme, the Cullens all attend Forks’ local school when Bella meets them in Twilight. As Bella points out, it’s “kind of miserable repeating high school over and over” for ageless beings who could do anything with their time. It does seem pointless to become powerful, immortal, and in the Cullens’ case incredibly rich, only to spend a large chunk of time relearning trigonometry and writing essays. Edward’s explanation is “the younger we start out in a new place, the longer we can stay there,” since vampires don’t age. However, perhaps going completely off-grid, or even opting for home-schooling, are better options.
4 Why Is Leah The Only Female Werewolf?
Leah Clearwater is Twilight’s lone female werewolf in a pack of men. Emotional upheaval is linked to the pack’s transformation and, while it has less detail than the Twilight novels, the Eclipse movie does show how Leah was impacted when the man she loved imprinted on another woman. The tribe members’ shapeshifting ability is also triggered by the presence of vampires. In either case, though, the movies don’t explain why Leah is the only woman affected. One uncomfortable Leah fan theory suggests that she had to become a werewolf so that she could imprint on Renesmee if she’d been a boy, but there is no hard proof for this on screen.
3 How Could The Cullens Not Know Vampires Can Get Humans Pregnant?
When Bella gets pregnant in Breaking Dawn – Part 1, she likely echoes some viewers’ thoughts when she asks Edward: “Can this happen?” Neither Edward nor his family seems sure of the answer. The Twilight books author Stephenie Meyer wrote on her website that vampires’ venomous fluids can “carry genetic information and are capable of bonding with a human ovum,” but why Edward is initially blindsided by this remains somewhat of a mystery. The Cullens are an intellectual group of people with a lot of time on their hands. It would seem reasonable for them to have studied a bit of their own vampire biology between the endless graduations.
2 Isn’t Being A Doctor A Risky Job Choice For Carlisle?
Carlisle’s medical role itself is also a somewhat odd path to take, considering his family is keen to fly under the radar among humans. The Twilight movies show that Edward’s “father” is particularly compassionate, turning people into vampires to save them, and introducing his family to the concept of “vegetarianism”, i.e. not killing humans. Nevertheless, the Cullen patriarch certainly picked a career involving a lot of blood. Even if Carlisle himself would never be tempted by a patient in a bad way, other Cullens – namely Jasper – are much worse around blood, making it risky for them to visit him at work.
1 Why Did Edward Decide To Die Via Exposing His Skin?
In New Moon, Edward decides to get the villainous Volturi to kill him because he thinks Bella is dead. Aside from being pointless and reckless, his plan is odd for a couple of reasons. Edward thinks Bella died largely because Alice had a vision of her jumping off a cliff, but The Twilight Saga makes it clear Alice’s visions can change, and, after all, Bella survived the jump. Edward’s plan is to expose his sparkling skin, and thus his undead status, to bait the Volturi into executing him. However, on spotting a sparkling stranger, most people would be more likely to assume that they’d had a glitter-based mishap than to jump straight to deducing that vampires are real.
