- The backstories of each member of the Cullen family are fascinating and add depth to the story. Twilight saga.
- Carlisle, the leader of the Cullens, had a traumatic history but ended up adopting a “vegetarian” lifestyle, becoming a vampire.
- The other members of the Cullens, including Edward, Rosalie, Emmett, Jasper and Alice, have a unique dark past that has shaped them into who they are.
Twilight the films have a rather controversial reputation. People either love them or hate them, and there are those who love to hate them. But, despite some unpleasant moments, there are a few good things to say about this saga. One of the most exciting parts Twilight Lore is the backstories of each member of the Cullen family and how they became vampires. It might seem pretty simple - they get bitten, they turn into vampires, they become professional baseball players, etc.
We all know BellaKristin Stewart) story. She went back to Forks, met EdwardRobert Pattison), fell completely in love with him and after only a few months of dating, practically begged him to convert her. She eventually got her wish after the traumatic birth of her and Edward’s daughter, and he bit her to save her life. What about the rest of the Cullens, including Edward, how did they become vampires? In the books, you can really immerse yourself in the story, whereas the movies only tell Rosalie’s backstory (Nicky Reed), Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) and Edward. But even they get deeper in the books and the stories are captivating. Let’s get into it.
Carlisle Cullen
The leader and founder of the Cullen clan - Carlisle (Peter Facinelli), born in 1640, making him the oldest of the Cullens. His father was a monster hunter who hunted witches, werewolves, and vampires. As his father grew older, Carlisle took control but was less likely to kill due to his strong sense of empathy and compassion for people. After discovering a clan of vampires living in the London sewers, Carlisle led a hunt for them, during which he was attacked and left bleeding in the street. Ashamed that he had become what he and his father were trying to rid the world of, he tried to kill himself in many ways. He, of course, did not succeed, and when the thirst for blood became unbearable, he eventually ate a herd of deer. This led him to realize that he could survive on animals rather than humans, thus adopting a “vegetarian” lifestyle that would become the basis of the Cullen clan.
However, it was not always easy for him to live like this, since he was once part of the Volturi, a powerful coven in Italy. He was drawn to their balanced and sophisticated lifestyle and stayed with them for two decades. All this time, the Volturi tried in vain to turn Carlisle to their “natural” source of food - human blood. However, Carlisle resisted, and after he left the clan, he spent the next few centuries perfecting his ability to resist the smell of human blood. This, as well as his compassion for people, allowed him to eventually become a doctor.
Edward Cullen
Edward was born in 1901 and became the next member of the Cullen clan. He, along with his mother and father, contracted the Spanish flu in 1918. His father died during the first wave of the illness, and his mother died later. Before leaving, she begged Carlisle to do his best to save Edward, saying “What others can’t do is what you must do for my Edward”, hinting that she knows he is a vampire. After Edward’s mother died and Edward himself got worse, Carlisle surreptitiously dragged him out of the hospital back to his home, where he sent him.
Shortly before he became a vampire, Edward separated from Carlisle and Esme (Elizabeth Reaser) and used his ability to read minds as fuel to find terrible people. One of his victims was Charles Evenson, Esme’s abusive ex-husband. He eventually returned to Carlisle and Esme, regretting his choice to feed on lesser humans. Esme and Carlisle soon became Edward’s parents, and the rest is history.
Esme Cullen
Esme was born in 1895 and is the head of the Cullen family, who married Carlisle. When she was 16 she fell out of a tree and broke her leg and was treated by none other than Dr. Carlisle Cullen. Nothing came of it, of course, and Carlisle left town shortly after he cured her. At the age of 22, in an attempt to please her parents, she married Charles Evenson, unfortunately learning that he was a mean and cruel man. He was eventually called up for World War I, but shortly after his return, Esme discovered she was pregnant and ran away so as not to raise her child in an abusive home. Unfortunately, her baby passed away just two days after birth due to a lung fever, and Esme, devastated by the loss, jumped off a cliff in an attempt to kill herself. By the time she was found, she was in such a bad condition that she was taken straight to the morgue. Carlisle, however, noticed that her heart was still beating weakly and recognized her as the girl he had treated years ago. Unable to simply let her die, Carlisle immediately turned her. Esme accepted her new life much more easily than Edward and immediately fell in love with Carlisle, marrying him soon after.
Rosalie Hale
As already mentioned, Rosalie’s backstory is set out in Eclipse, but in the novel for some reason it seems even darker. Rosalie was born in 1915 and was beautiful, earning many compliments and praise throughout her life. She eventually caught the attention of Royce King II (Jack Huston), the wealthy son of a bank owner. Because of Royce’s busy schedule at work, he and Rosalie had little time to get to know each other, and their relationship was based solely on attraction. However, they got engaged.
A week before the wedding, Rosalie was visiting a friend whom she envied because she had a baby. During this visit, her friend’s husband kissed her, which made Rosalie realize how devoid of love and passion her relationship with Royce had been. On her way home, she ran into her husband and his friends who were very drunk. Royce began showing off Rosalie’s beauty to his friends, leading to Royce and his friends viciously attacking Rosalie. She was left to die in the street, and the smell of her blood brought Carlisle to her. He turned her into a vampire with the intention of making her Edward’s girlfriend, but Edward immediately rejected the idea.
Rosalie sought revenge on those who had harmed her and taken her life, killing them one by one and leaving Royce for last. She wore a wedding dress when she came to kill him. Although, remarkably, she tried not to shed a single drop of male blood, as she knew she could not resist, and refused to take any part of them with her.
Emmet Cullen
Emmet (Kellan Lutz) storyline is rather short compared to the rest of the Cullen clan, but his addition to the family was entirely due to Rosalie. In 1935, Emmett was mauled by a bear. He was found by Rosalie, who carried him several miles home, where she begged Carlisle to convert him, as she did not trust herself to do so without killing him. He accepted his new life with ease, falling in love with Rosalie almost immediately, and the couple have been inseparable ever since (as the books and movies prove).
Jasper Hale
Jasper was born in 1844 and is the second oldest Cullen after Carlisle, but he did not join the Cullen family until many years later. Jasper joined the Confederate Army at the age of 17 and became the youngest major in Texas, being promoted just two years later. He was turned by a beautiful vampire named Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno), who recognized him as a soldier and forced him to join her newborn army in an attempt to reclaim her coven territory. Together, Jasper and Maria reclaimed her territory and then asserted their dominance over the others by creating an army of newborn vampires to do so. But Maria refused to leave any of the newborns after the first year of their transformation, as they were no longer so bloodthirsty and rabid, and so Jasper was assigned to kill them. Because he has the ability to feel emotions, he eventually abandoned this lifestyle, unable to bear killing other people when he could feel their pain and emotions.
However, starting a new life in the North didn’t help much either, given that he could still feel the emotions of his victims. He tried to eat less, but the thirst was unbearable, and in the end he had to find someone who could eat. That was until he met AliceAshley Green).
Alice Cullen
Alice was born in 1901 and had premonitions from an early age. She even imagined how her mother was being killed, and she begged her not to leave the house. Her mother believed her, but her father did not, and after several months of inactivity, her mother finally relaxed. However, she was killed soon after, just as Alice’s visions foretold. Her father soon remarried, and Alice had a vision of her father paying off her mother’s killer, revealing that it was her father who was behind her death. She tried to tell the city marshal about this, but her father beat her and said that she had lost her mind. He committed her to a psychiatric hospital, where she was eventually sent.
At the orphanage, she underwent electroshock therapy, which gave her amnesia, but brought her back to the happy and cheerful personality we know her character to be. She was befriended by a vampire who worked at the orphanage, who acted as a parent to her and helped protect her from painful and traumatic treatments. One day she had a vision of a ranger named James. (Cam Gigandet), villain of the first Twilight film and novel. He was after her and the only way to escape was to have her vampire friend convert her and thus demotivate James to hunt her down in order to feed on her. When she escaped, her friend distracted James, sacrificing himself in the process, but allowing Alice to escape.
Her first vision after the transformation was for Jasper to become her partner and the couple to join the Cullens. Knowing this, she began practicing a “vegetarian” lifestyle beforehand, waiting for Jasper to come into her life. They met in 1948 at a diner in Philadelphia. Alice explained her visions to Jasper, who never thought the Cullens’ lifestyle could exist. They soon joined the Cullen family, ending it once and for all.
Source: Collider
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