The Sadness of Edward in MS

[scoundrel]

Remember how it frustrates Bella in the early chapters of Twilight that Edward is so reticent about touching and being touched? One of the sad revelations in MS is the discovery of how Edward also longs to touch Bella and be touched by her, but dares not allow it. He is in constant fear of rejection because he has a social handicap, one he himself never knew about until he fell in love with Bella. He's dead and she's alive; that's quite a handicap in any relationship. By touching him, she will receive sensory inputs, specifically that he's stone cold. Had she recoiled from him, as he confidently expected her to do, the pain would have been torture to him; all the worse because he is convinced that she should recoil from him, and that he should be glad for her sake if she does.

[Shimmerskin]

Remember how it frustrates Bella in the early chapters of Twilight that Edward is so reticent about touching and being touched? One of the sad revelations in MS is the discovery of how Edward also longs to touch Bella and be touched by her, but dares not allow it. He is in constant fear of rejection because he has a social handicap, one he himself never knew about until he fell in love with Bella. He's dead and she's alive; that's quite a handicap in any relationship. By touching him, she will receive sensory inputs, specifically that he's stone cold. Had she recoiled from him, as he confidently expected her to do, the pain would have been torture to him; all the worse because he is convinced that she should recoil from him, and that he should be glad for her sake if she does.

I don't think it's any accident that the first time he expressly reaches out his hand to touch her, it is done outside in the cold where anyone's hand is expected to be chilled. Under those circumstances, he could have every expectation that his touch might feel as normal as Mike Newton's.

[scoundrel]

I don't think it's any accident that the first time he expressly reaches out his hand to touch her, it is done outside in the cold where anyone's hand is expected to be chilled. Under those circumstances, he could have every expectation that his touch might feel as normal as Mike Newton's.

Bella's reaction to that touch is vivid and powerful.

His skin was icy as ever, but the trail his fingers left on my skin was alarmingly warm-like I’d been burned, but didn’t feel the pain of it yet.

The warmth is coming from her own metabolism. She has longed for that moment, his first carress, and it comes upon her unawares. It flags an indication of Bella's passions which Edward cannot see; he is take by surprise by the fervour with which she returns his first kiss; we are not.

In Twilight, we can see clearly enough that Edward considers his relationship with Bella to be transgressive. For example, when Edward is taking Bella to watch the ballgame:

"I love you. It's no excuse for what I'm doing but it's still true."

The "otherness" of Edward (and of Bella, who is not from any standard production line), is a vital plot element here. It manifests itself physically in his cold metabolism, making it hard for him to touch and be physically close to Bella; as the saga progresses, we find that as the secret ceases to be the problem, love will find a way, even to the extent of Edward wrapping Bella in her duvet like a burrito, so she won't get cold and he can still hold her in his arms as she sleeps like a baby.

But Midnight Sun gives us insight into Edward's inner voice; quite a sobering insight and reinforcing the message that only love is more powerful than death. He is an angel of death who has renounced. He was cast by fate to play a part he doesn't want to play, and he recognises in himself an evil disposition, an urge to predatory behaviour, which he is always suppressing. It takes Bella, his most natural prey of all, to see and know this, and recognise not that he is made to be a monster, but that he is engaged in a noble, chivalrous and magnificent struggle against fate. He is like one of the Greek mortals in legend, punished by the Gods but snarling his defiance.

But when he sees and scents Bella, Edward believes it's all over; he has regressed. Then, when he connects with Bella emotionally, he thinks he's done worse; he has beguiled her. He has supernatural powers designed to lure and entrap the human prey.

I'm the world's best predator, aren't I? Everything about me invites you in; my voice, my face, even my smell. As if I need any of that!
~Twilight Chapter 13

As well as the physical attributes of strength and speed, Edward has blandishments which no human girl can resist.

So I think Edward thinks he is cheating. He has seen something he wants (Bella) and is using every dirty trick in the vampire book to ensnare her to his will. He is controlling her mind and making her want him. He really feels, and this compounds the torture from his point of view, that she is his victim, more terribly his victim than if he merely drank her blood and got it over with. That would merely kill her; what he's doing instead is to tempt her down a path to becoming like him, one of the damned, merely because he has feeling for her. He's doing it by foul means, using his vampire glamour as a lure and, pied-piper-like, leading her into oblivion. Yet what he feels for her is the real thing; he'd protect her from anything, and does, but there's nothing more dangerous to her in the world than he is.

I’m just going to do what I want now, and let the chips fall where they may.
~Twilight/Midnight Sun Chapter 5.

The only plea he can enter in mitigation is that he feels for her every single thing he's tempting her to feel for him. Though he is beguiling her, he is not deceiving her on the core issue; in order to ask for her love, he is extending his own love sincerely.

He could have saved himself a lot of aggravation. Bella saw him in the canteen in Chapter One, long before he lifted a finger or said a word to her, and the female target radar locked on. Actually, as we have seen, her own emotions are riotously powerful and they come 100% from her. He thinks he chose her and that he played dirty to get her. We know that she is the one who chose him, she got him on the hook, and she reeled him in slowly and patiently like a very difficult salmon. She's her daddy's girl.