Most debates about the depiction of consent in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga, which turns 20 this month, focus on the age gap between Bella Swan and Edward Cullen. For the uninitiated, Edward is an undead vampire who has been frozen at age 17 for 87 years, and falls in love with 17-year-old human schoolgirl Bella.
However, I want to discuss another question – whether Bella can consent to becoming a vampire (a transformation she begs Edward for throughout the series, and is finally granted in the final novel) at all. Philosopher L.A. Paul calls such decisions “transformative experiences” – choices you can’t fully evaluate beforehand because they will permanently change who you are.
The challenge of the choice to become a vampire or not, an example Paul uses in her book, Transformative Experience (2014), is two-part, according to her transformative experience framework. First, you can’t give the experience of becoming a vampire a personal value because you have no comparable experience (such as changing species). This makes it impossible for you to choose rationally as you would in other choices, by, for example, visualising what it might be like or making a pros and cons list.
