‘Twilight’s romance hasn’t aged well at all. What once seemed like an epic supernatural love story now looks very different from today’s perspective. Especially all those toxic behaviour that was framed as romantic at the time.
One of the clearest examples is Jacob Black. While we were once divided between Team Edward and Team Jacob, today we see how perfectly Jacob fits the toxic “nice guy” trope, and not even ironically.
Jacob’s Nice Guy Syndrome Starts With Entitlement
Jacob doesn’t start as an entirely unsympathetic character. In fact, the fact that he is a teenage boy experiencing his first crush, which gets complicated by the fact that she is dating someone he was taught to hate, pretty much makes his frustration and jealousy understandable.
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But as the story progresses, he just gets harder and harder to defend. Jacob stops behaving like a boy in unrequited love and starts behaving like a boy who believes he is owed a relationship. All of his actions come off as so transactional. Because he is warm, affectionate and protective, he really seems to believe he is better for Bella than Edward.
Even more telling is how he handles Bella’s rejection. Instead of accepting that Bella simply doesn’t want the relationship he is offering, Jacob’s blame goes toward Edward. Bella’s choice disappears in this equation. Afterwards, he seriously pities himself as though he has been personally wronged simply because she is choosing the “wrong” person according to him.
Jacob Wants Bella, Not What Bella Wants
Jacob’s sense of entitlement leads to some very toxic and dangerous behaviour when he actively starts interfering in Bella and Edward’s relationship. In ‘New Moon’, he answers Edward’s phone call and deliberately makes him believe that Bella is dead. Whatever his intention was, manipulating someone into thinking the person they love has died just to keep them away can never be justified.
The same uncomfortable pattern continues with Jacob in ‘Eclipse’. During the camping sequence, Jacob uses his body heat to keep Bella warm. Even then, he uses that exact moment to let Edward know why he is the so-called “better” choice for Bella.
But perhaps the most uncomfortable moment comes when, after hearing about Bella’s engagement, Jacob threatens to harm himself. Bella kisses him to stop him from getting himself in danger, and Jacob knows exactly why she does it. This was the clearest example of just how unimportant he thinks Bella’s discomfort and lack of choice are in front of what he thinks he is entitled to.
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Jacob Black Wasn’t The “Nice” Alternative Bella Needed
Probably the most unsettling part of Jacob and his “Nice Guy” syndrome is the way the movies actually frame him in the love triangle. Jacob is supposed to represent Edward’s opposite. If Edward is cold, then Jacob is hot; Edward is dead, then Jacob is alive; and if Edward is dangerous, then Jacob is supposed to be the safer choice.
Yet Jacob repeatedly proves that being “nice” and “normal” doesn’t automatically make him a healthy romantic partner. He never respects Bella’s rejection. His temper always leads him to have outburst where is either insulting or violent, or both. He repeatedly crosses all of Bella’s boundaries.
Jacob Black is a product of the romance genre, which once used to believe persistence is passion, jealousy is devotion and control is love. The problem isn’t that he “loves” Bella too much. It is that he truly believes that loving someone gives him a claim over them and their choices.
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