*Warning: Twilight and The Summer I Turned Pretty spoilers ahead*
An easily hateable female lead. An emotionally unavailable love interest who is slightly older than her. A best friend who has golden retriever energy and *happens* to be in love with the female lead. Am I talking about Belly, Conrad, and Jeremiah? Or Bella, Edward, and Jacob?
It’s funny to see how much these two sagas have in common, well except for the immortal creatures and visible sparkles with sunlight. Let’s start with Belly and Bella (even their names are similar!), the reasons for all this chaotic teenage romance.
As the saga starts, we think we’ll like the female leads. Both are a little awkward and with questionable common sense, but not necessarily hateable at first. However, as the story develops, we realize that they have a main character complex and are constantly victimizing themselves. Their entire lives revolve around men and a need for male approval, and when their significant others walk away (for all of 5 minutes, figuratively speaking), they go into a deep hole which makes us question their common sense even more. Even though, compared to Belly, Bella took it to another level, Belly still shuts out her entire circle instead of relying on a support system to get her through rough times. So I guess in a way, they did the same thing when their partners hurt them. Belly and Bella both went to their best friend when their partner left and ended up encouraging a romantic relationship with Jeremiah and Jacob, only to run back to their “first love” whenever they get the chance. But at what cost?
Ah, to be Team Conrad and Team Edward, what a way to live. Emotionally unavailable, slightly obsessive, mysterious, gloomy, and so very loveable characters. It’s all in the details, am I right ladies? The gasp that left my mouth when Conrad gave Belly his sweater in the car when she said she wasn’t cold but needed it, I was flabbergasted. It was the same feeling I had when I first heard Bella’s lullaby, composed by Edward. I love how these two characters know every little detail there is to know about their significant others, even if it can be a little intoxicating at times, especially with Edward. I’ve been told that Team Conrad girls are Team Edward girls, who are also Team Damon and Team Jess girls, and in some cases are “I-can-fix-him” girls, but I like to believe that last part isn’t true.
Jeremiah and Jacob are pretty much the same person (both J names? kind of questionable, if you ask me) with the same golden retriever energy. Actually, in a way Jacob kind of is a golden retriever – who hunts vampires. Same thing, right? Anyway, they both are the lovable best friend, the obvious right choice, and the hopeless romantics who can’t seem to get enough of the slightly insufferable female leads. Now, I haven’t read the TSITP books, so I’m not sure how Jeremiah’s character and love triangle turns out, but my prediction is that Belly will end up with Conrad (just like Bella ended up with Edward) and Jeremiah will heal his friendship with Belly and find his one true love, just like Jacob with Bella and her daughter (?) Renesmee.
However similar these characters may be, authors Jenny Han and Stephenie Meyer did a wonderful job of creating the stories and fictional worlds we know and love. Without them, our lives would be scarce of swoon-worthy male leads that make us sigh at the thought of a love like theirs. Also, we wouldn’t have these fun debates on which team is better and who deserves the happy ending, which in my opinion, make some very interesting conversations.
It’s exciting to see how this love triangle trope has lived on and how many generations of girls have their versions of it. I’m having a lot of fun with all these comparisons, especially because my interest in Twilight came from a young age and now I’m seeing my younger sister grow into loving these cheesy romances as much as I do. I can only hope she makes the right choice between Edward and Jacob – I mean, Conrad and Jeremiah; I can’t even tell the difference anymore.