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Alice Cullen (née Mary Alice Brandon) is a fictional character in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. Alice appears in the book's Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn – along with mentions in Meyer’s novella The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner and the 2020 novel Midnight Sun, which reiterates the original book through her adoptive brother, Edward Cullen's eyes; her character also appears in the five film adaptations 2008-2012. She has a close relationship with her brother Edward as they both understand the burden of having vampiric abilities, Alice is a precognition vampire which allows her to have visions of the future, whereas Edward is a telepathic vampire. Alice becomes a close friend of her sister-in-law Bella Swan after seeing visions of her future with Edward and her becoming one of the Cullens.

Concept and Creation

Though Alice is not the main character, Meyer’s creation of Alice happened extremely fast; up to the point that her character was already completely formed at first glance. As soon as she created the character of Edward, Meyer knew that “he must have a sister named Alice”,^[1] this is most likely due to the fact that they were both born in 1901 and that they grow to have a strong sibling bond, portrayed in the first book of the series. Meyer is said to have a personal connection to her creation of the character, saying how Alice is the one thing to make her sad in the books because she “wanted her to be real so much”.^[2]

Background

Alice was born in 1901 in Biloxi, Mississippi to a wealthy family. Her father was a jeweller and pearl trader; he would buy pearls from people on the coast and sell them inland for a more upscaled profit, her mother was a traditional housewife that cared for Alice and her younger sister Cynthia. From a young age, Alice would have premonitions that were weak and not as nearly strong as they are in her vampiric life. Her early visions would be amusing to her family as she would predict the weather change or if any guests were going to pay visits, but as she grew older, she became more hesitant to share this ability. The townspeople started calling her a ‘witch’ and ‘changeling’ as she would see more serious visions, such as her cousin dying in an accident on the road, which would evidently come true.^[3]

Later, Alice would see a vision of her mother getting murdered by a mysterious man in the woods, her mother listened to her, boarding the house for protection. Her father's return would cause chaos as he was furious with Alice’s hysteria and demanded that his family return to the normal routine. Alice’s mother would take precautions when leaving the house, carrying a pistol with her—though she would begin to forget. Alice’s visions would become much clearer when she would see her mother’s death again and runs to find her, but she was too late, her father demanded she stay quiet as her protests caused suspicions. Mr Brandon married six months later, and Alice was still suspicious as she believed her mother's murder may have been planned. She confronted her father with this idea and the same night she had another vision of her father giving the man who killed her mother money and him standing over her with a knife. With this, Alice went to the town’s marshal, but her father was already there declaring Alice mentally insane.^[4]

Alice was then sent to a mental asylum where she has her head shaved and received electroshock therapy, leading to her getting amnesia.^[5] The therapy made her natural personality come back as she had forgotten the events from her life before. Within the asylum, there was a vampire groundskeeper who formed attachments to Alice, keeping her away from the electroshock therapy and working with her to see if she still had visions. Then Alice had a vision of James—the same James that began tracking Bella in the first novel—and she told the groundskeeper and he planned to escape with her; Alice knew that they would not escape in time without James finding them. With this information, the groundkeeper bit Alice, changing her and sacrificing himself by delaying James’ path to Alice.

As a vampire, Alice’s visions were heightened and she could see her own future. Her first clear vision was meeting vampire Jasper Whitlock, who would later become her mate, but she saw that he was not ready to meet Alice, so she waited. During this time, she practised living a ‘vegetarian’ lifestyle as she could see herself and Jasper living with the Cullens later on. Alice and Jasper finally met at a diner in Philadelphia, and with his ability to feel the emotions of other people, he quickly learnt to reciprocate to feelings Alice was conveying. When they joined the Cullens, Alice formed her bond with her brother Edward as she learnt that they feel the same way about having to live with constant visions of the future.

Appearances

Twilight

In Twilight, Alice is described to have a “willowy, graceful frame”^[6] with an attractive high soprano voice, and how she is the only really supportive one in the family towards Edward. Bella finds out the basis of Alice’s visions and Edward tells her that Alice cannot remember her backstory and that it’s a mystery to all of them. Chapter 15: The Cullens, is the full introduction of the family, though Alice had briefly met Bella at Forks High School. Alice welcomes Bella with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, telling her “You do smell nice, I never noticed before”^[7], Alice treats Bella like a part of the family already as she implies she has seen visions of them becoming close friends. The characterisation of her movement is repeated whenever she is noted in the novel, when Alice and Jasper come to invite Edward and Bella to a baseball game, she is described to be “dancing” instead of walking. During the baseball game in Chapter 17, she is shown to be an integral part of the family as she is able to warn them all of the future but when James, Victoria and Laurent come earlier than her vision anticipates, she becomes upset that she didn’t see them earlier.

As James begins to track down Bella because of her scent, Alice always sides with Bella and will take her away from Forks herself to protect her from James. Alice and Jasper drive Bella down to Phoenix to her mother's house and Bella and Alice’s friendship develops further as she cares for Bella by telling her to sleep longer and to eat more. When they arrive at Phoenix, Alice gives in to Bella and reveals how a person becomes a vampire, which Edward didn't want Bella to know but because the girls have become so close, Alice feels comfortable enough to tell Bella. With Alice’s visions constantly changing, she somehow doesn't see that when Bella’s ‘mother’ is on the phone, it’s actually James tricking her - which in terms of her powers, doesn't make sense. Though Meyer said that this was a plot hole, Alice realises that Bella is going to meet James as she sees a vision but doesn't tell them what about it.

When Bella escapes from the airport from them, she goes to meet James at her old ballet studio (which Alice saw in her vision), where he then tells Bella all about Alice’s human life. He says that Alice was the only victim to escape him and how she smelt better than Bella, as he does all this he is recording on a camcorder. When the others find Bella, they rip James apart and burn the pieces – they had to create a crime scene in which Alice had fun faking, though she ends up watching the tape James recorded and finds out about her human life. When Bella is in the hospital recovering from the injuries James caused, her mother Renée tells Bella that she didn't know she had such good friends as Alice. Fast forward to the epilogue, Alice does Bella’s hair and makeup for the prom, acting as the sister Bella never had.

New Moon

In New Moon, Alice seems to be an integral part of the story, though this is a novel that shines a light on Bella and Jacob’s story. The story begins with Bella’s 18th birthday and Alice gives Bella a gift, along with an idea for a party that she will organise. Alice does go overboard with the decorations, but Bella does recognise that this is just Alice expressing her love for her and not trying to make her uncomfortable as she doesn't like to celebrate herself. Though Bella gives herself a papercut by opening one of the gifts which makes Jasper go into this frenzy for Bella’s blood; his outbreak causes Edward to push Bella back and she cuts her arm on broken glass, bleeding more. As Carlisle is stitching her up, she notices Alice cannot hold her breath any longer (this allows them to be near human blood) and she slips out of the room. Due to Jasper’s outbreak, the Cullens leave Forks and Bella is all alone.

Alice returns in Chapter 17: Visitor, due to her seeing a vision of Bella jumping off a cliff to commit suicide, though in reality, she was recreationally cliff jumping. She tells Bella that she didn't see her get pulled out from the water, Bella then tells Alice that Jacob pulled her out. From this point, Alice learns that her visions are subjective as Jacob is a werewolf, but it seems like Alice cares more about Bella than any of the other Cullens as she came on her own and didn't tell any of them. Alice promises Bella that she will stay and lets Bella’s dad Charlie confide in her as he tells her how badly Bella is coping without Edward. When she finds this out, she becomes glum as she wishes the best for Bella and hates to see her upset because she knows how important she is to Edward and vice versa. Alice does tell Bella that she went to visit her grave and researched her family history, resulting in her finding she has a living relative still in Biloxi. Later she sees a vision of Edward going to the Volturi in Italy and planning to commit suicide too because Rosalie told him Bella is dead, she then convinces Bella to go to Italy with her to save Edward.

The plane journey to Italy is a big stepping stone for Alice and Bella’s friendship as Alice has a lot of dialogue in these chapters, Alice tells Bella the whole story of the Volturi but whispers the whole story in her ear to avoid eavesdropping. For the whole journey, Alice continues to have visions and as they get closer to Italy, Bella becomes more anxious and tells Alice that she wants her to change her; Alice debates changing her but decides not to. As they reach Italy, Alice steals a bright yellow Porsche Turbo and speeds to get to Volterra. Bella asks why people are dressed up in red and Alice tells her about St. Marcus Day which is the perfect setting for Edward to expose himself to the public as the holiday is celebrating the extinction of vampires in Volterra. Alice bribes the police to let her through the crowds of people, but she ultimately tells Bella she must go find Edward herself as she is at risk.

After Bella reunites with Edward, the Volturi call them in and they have to travel through tunnels to get there, Bella must jump down and Alice said that she will catch her, being a sense of security for her. The Volturi leaders Aro, Marcus and Caius are introduced to Bella, they realise that Bella is immune to their powers and ask the three of them to join them. When they decline, they say that because Bella is still human, they either have to kill her or change her as she knows too much – Edward struggles with what to say but Alice steps in and lets Aro read her mind, he sees that Bella will be a vampire one day and that she will change her herself. With this information, the Volturi let them go but remind them that they don’t give second chances. When they return to Forks, Alice again is a sense of security for Bella just because of how broken she was when Edward left, and she becomes fixed on the idea that Alice will change her. Edward tries to change Bella’s mind and stay human for a longer time, but she goes to the Cullen’s house and demands they vote on her becoming a vampire. Alice votes yes as she already sees Bella as her sister but tells her she cannot change her herself as she states she is not ready; all the other Cullens vote yes apart from Rosalie and Edward.

Eclipse

In Eclipse, Alice is not fully mentioned until Chapter 6 where readers learn that Edward is trying to keep Bella away from Jacob, he begins to bribe Alice with a Porsche (like the one she stole in New Moon) to ‘kidnap’ Bella to keep her away from Jacob. Alice is excited that she can spend some time with Bella, including giving her a pedicure. After the weekend being ‘imprisoned’ at the Cullen's house, outside of school she sees Jacob and quickly jumps on the back without giving Alice time to react.

Chapter 12: Time, Alice is desperate to throw a graduation party and reminds Bella that this is only a week away, subtly reminding her that her transformation into a vampire is only a week away too. At this time, an unknown vampire breaks into Bella’s house and steals one of her favourite shirts, Alice does not see this as this vampire is unknown and cannot pin down who it was. Edward believes this is the Volturi coming to attack his family, Whilst Bella thinks they are coming for her. They begin training for a fight and Jasper leads this as he has experience with fighting vampires before, he tells Bella about how he met Alice for the first time and how they met the Cullens. Believing a vampire army is coming to attack, Alice is still certain she still wants to throw a party and in chapter 16: Epoch, she does. Alice turns the Cullen house into a nightclub and gives Bella an outfit to wear as the vampire stole her favourite clothes, Alice vows to protect Bella and she follows her lead the whole night. Alice is described to be “purring”^[8] as her party will be one that no one will forget. As Jacob and Bella are talking, she notices Alice having a vision, she walks over to Bella and “puts her arm around”^[9] Bella’s “waist”^[10], she says that a vampire army is coming to Forks, and this isn’t the Volturi. Jacob says that the werewolves have a right to know as this is about Bella, Alice agrees with Jacob that the Vampires and Werewolves should join alliances for this fight as they believe they have a better chance of defeating them.

As they prepare for the battle, Alice is different from all the others as Bella sees that Alice is extremely fast and continues to protect Bella by telling her that she cannot join them because it is too dangerous for her to be there. Whenever Edward goes hunting, Alice is always watching her and is constantly around her. Charlie notices this and invites Alice to spend the night at their house when the Cullens go ‘hiking’ without her. Though Bella goes to Alice’s which she thinks is another slumber party, Alice surprises her with an evening with Edward all alone, which would be the evening he proposes to her. Alice sees this happening and guilt trips Bella into letting her plan the whole wedding as they planned to marry in Vegas without anybody. Bella agrees to this, and Alice designs her wedding dress for her, she then asks Alice to be her only bridesmaid.

Breaking Dawn

In Breaking Dawn, book 1, (Bella’s perspective) Alice is helping Charlie do his last suit fitting and making sure Bella’s dress fits perfectly as she designed it herself. On the wedding day, Alice is getting Bella ready for the ceremony and Bella doesn’t know where she is going for her honeymoon, but Alice slips up and tells her she is getting a plane. Bella becomes weary as she remembers that Alice packed her clothes too. In Chapter 7 after Bella and Edward consummate their marriage, Alice calls them as she gets a vision of Bella with a bump.

Book 2, is from Jacob’s perspective and in Chapter 14, Alice tells Jacob she cannot see the future of the fetus and due to Bella’s attachment, her future becomes blurry too. Alice says that Jacob being there makes her completely blind. She slightly compares them together and Jacob becomes angry with her as he declares he is different to those bloodsuckers. Chapter 16, Alice calls Carlisle as Bella goes into ‘labour’, as Rosalie begins to cut Bella’s stomach, her killer instincts kick in and Alice must drag her out to room.

Book 3, is back to Bella’s perspective and in chapter 19, her transformation is happening as Edward had to inject his venom into her. Alice comes in and marvels over Bella’s beauty but becomes upset when they decide to keep Renesmee away from Bella as she has human blood in her. After Bella gains consciousness, she must hunt, but before this Alice wants her to look at herself in the mirror and see how beautiful she is; she also has dressed Bella in a tight dress with small silly stilettos. In chapter 23, around three days after Bella changed into a vampire, they celebrate her 19th birthday, Alice gives her a key and so does Edward (she knows this gift is a new car) but Alice’s key leads her to a small stone cottage. Alice tells her that Esme renovated it for her and Edward and leaves them for a bit of privacy.

Later, Alice has a vision of Jacob telling Charlie that Bella had to transform in a way to save her life, he also shows him his werewolf form. Charlie comes to see Bella and Alice is the one that makes Bella look human by putting brown colour contacts in to hide her bright red irises. When they are hunting, Bella spots their cousin from Denali, Irina, and as she looks horrified at the sight of Renesmee, Alice tries to look at her future, but the picture is hazy. The Cullens are preparing to go on a trip to Italy as Bella has to prove her immortality to the Volturi, Alice sees a vision of them coming to Forks on the first fall of snow. Instead of helping them prepare, Alice and Jasper leave without saying anything, when they do not return, the Cullens worry. The werewolf pack gives them a note that Alice had left for Bella on a ripped page from a book, which Bella finds in her cottage. She finds that Alice had left instructions for Bella to carry out, she has to meet with a man called Jason Jenks and burn the book. In Chapter 31, Bella’s mind flashes to an image of Alice and Edward wearing black hoods and she questions if Alice left to guard her thoughts from Aro’s mind. When she goes to meet Jason Jenks, she realises that Alice sent her to receive forged documents for Jacob and Renesmee to go to Rio, and notices that she told Bella to keep this to herself as if Edward found out, Aro would read his thoughts. Bella gets a backpack from Alice’s room which has a large sum of money in it, she writes letters for Alice in hopes that one day she will reunite Bella with her daughter. Chapter 36 is the ‘fight’ between the Cullens and the Volturi, they ask about the mortality of the child as Irina reported them of creating an immortal child. Some of them believe Renesmee is human whilst Caius in particular believes they tricked them. As tensions rise between them, Alice returns with three other vampires, who happen to be hybrids – the same as Renesmee, the Volturi let them go as they have proof hybrids and vampires can live in peace together and Alice and Jasper return to their family.

Characterisation

Personality

Alice is said to have an ENFJ personality type, meaning that she is bubbly, warm, sociable and diplomatic,^[11] this personality comes from her past of electroshock therapy where she forgot all the horror memories from her previous life and was given her original personality back. She differs from her adoptive siblings as she cannot remember anything from her human life and the others are grateful that she cannot remember her past due to the abuse she faced. Alice is one of the first people to accept Bella into the family and is shown to really care for her, most likely due to the fact she can see her relationship with Bella progress, unlike all her other family members.

Like all her other family members, Alice has attended high school and college multiple times. She is said to have degrees in fashion design and international businesses^[12] – her interests in fashion are included in the book as she designs Bella’s wedding dress in Breaking Dawn and gives Bella some of her own clothes, she also stocked her wardrobe for her. Alice also likes to play around with the stock market and invest in certain businesses as she can see visions of which businesses will be successful. She also has an interest in cars, she is fond of her yellow Porsche 911 Turbo which Edward gifted her.

Physical Appearance

Book Appearance

Within the book, Alice is around 4'10" with short spikey black hair. The reason for her short hair is that when she got changed her hair was growing back after getting it shaved off for electroshock therapy. Her human eye colour was originally a dark brown and when she changed to a vampire her eyes became a gold colour for when she drinks animal blood and a black colour for when they need to feed.

Film Appearance

The film portrays Alice slightly differently, the actress that plays her is around 5'5" and the wig she wore was a dark brown colour. Her hairstyle also changes throughout the films, as they progress her hair gets even shorter and appears more styled, in Breaking Dawn part 1 and part 2 her hair is more fitted to her head and is not spikey as the book states.

Vampiric Abilities

Having a small and artistic composure, she is a very agile character. She can perform "leaps and jumps around and over her opponents, distracting them and then easily defeating them"^[13] which puts her aside from the rest of the vampire coven, but they all share similar aspects of extreme strength and super speed. Alice is also able to draw her visions as they are happening which gives others an insight into what her ability looks like.

Though as can see visions of the future, these are subjective. Her visions are only extremely clear when a human (or vampire) has decided to act upon something and the decision has been made. For example, her vision of Edward going to the Volturi to commit suicide was certain as he wasn't going to change his mind—but when James, Victoria and Laurent appear at the baseball scene, she knew that they were coming but not at the time they approached them as they decided to join the Cullens game after hearing them play. Apart from the fact that Alice's visions are not always correct as the future can constantly change, a major limitation to her power is that she cannot see the visions of the Quileute shape-shifters and vampire/human hybrids. This is shown when Alice believes Bella committed suicide by jumping off the cliff as she did not see Jacob Black pull her out of the water, again she could not see Bella's future when she is pregnant as she was carrying a hybrid; she then couldn't see Renesmee's future either.

Film Portryal

Ashley Greene Khoury portrays Alice Cullen in the film adaptation of The Twilight Saga, though author Stephenie Meyer had other plans for the portrayal of her character. Her dream Alice was Rachael Leigh Cook, though by the time the first film came out in 2008—Cook was around 29 years old, which is too old to portray a 19-year-old vampire. But directors often steer away from the author's dream cast and try to cast others to do the novel justice.

Casting

Catherine Hardwicke directed the first film and had an idea of what her own ‘perfect Alice’ would look like. She wanted a lot of diversity in the Cullen family, she said that “I wanted her to be Japanese!”^[14] but said that Meyer couldn’t fathom the idea of the Cullens being diverse and that she wrote them having “pale glistening skin” instead of a diverse cast. Hardwicke was involved in the casting and deciding who she felt was right to play these characters and was said to be very hands-on with this process. During the audition process for Alice, Ashley said that they focussed on a lot of action, they made her jump off a tree which is seen in the scene where Edward introduces Bella to his family. She also had to pitch the baseball, as seen in the infamous baseball scene—Ashley said that this was a very long process. During the casting audition, Ashley revealed that all girls auditioning read for the part of Bella, but Hardwicke and casting directors Tricia Wood and Lisa Zagoria saw a different outlook for her and decided to cast her as Alice instead;^[15] in this decision she felt confident in this choice.

Reception of Character

Fans of The Twilight Saga, either solely being a fan of the book or film series, find a place for Alice in their heart. Ashley Greene Khoury said that the reaction to Alice was positive and she says she "was lucky"^[16] in the response as her cost stars such as Robert Pattinson received backlash for being cast. She also states that Alice is such a loveable character which made the all-around reception of her character positive.

Team Alice and the Twilight Renaissance

The Twilight Renaissance happened in 2020 as Stephenie Meyer released the long-awaited novel Midnight Sun which re-tells the story of Twilight in the eyes of Edward Cullen, which ignited the Twilight fandom as fans got to re-read the story but from a different viewpoint and understanding of it. This

During the production and release of The Twilight Saga, many fans decided if they were either 'Team Edward' or 'Team Jacob' - taking on the role of Bella and choosing their own partner. But with the twilight renaissance that happened, many people were stating that they were 'Team Alice' instead. Ashley responded to the new wave of people that are 'Team Alice' - especially Gen-Z, said that "I guess one thing that has changed is a lot of people have said that Alice was their gay awakening"^[17], this gives a wholly different reception for Alice, from being just the extremely loveable character that fans wish they had a friend like her, to fans shipping Alice and Bella together instead of Edward or Jacob.

Even though there is a lot of newfound love for the character, people who have been reading or re-reading the books have found that Alice's character is not how they originally remember her. People on Redditt have come together as a collective and said that they thought her character was manipulative towards Bella as she can use her abilities to get her way with Bella as she is still a naïve teenager. People back their point up with the fact that Alice will just tell Bella that something will happen to perhaps keep Bella happy - for example, when Bella didn't want any birthday gifts and hated the idea of people celebrating her, Alice told her that she would love the gift anyways because she had seen it. People have taken Alice's visions in a different light and thought that she was just 'lying' to get her way. Though this idea has not been confirmed by Meyer herself and is just a fan-made conspiracy.

The Mary Alice Brandon File

Due to the fascination with Alice's backstory, people have made a short film that plays out her human life before meeting the Cullens as The Twilight Saga did not feature this. This could be due to the fact that Alice never told her backstory herself in the novels, other people told it for her - when the other Cullens had their human life told, it was from them, Rosalie's being told in Eclipse is the most prominent. This short film shows the entirety of her human life up until she meets the groundkeeper who changes her into a vampire.

Paloma Kwiatkowski portrays Mary Alice Brandon in this 2015 short film made by The Storytellers^[18]

Notes

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External Links

• Alice Cullen, Twilight Lexicon [1]
• Myers-Briggs® Personality Types Of Twilight Characters [2]
• 'Twilight' director Catherine Hardwicke says she wanted a more diverse cast [3]
• Catherine Hardwicke, The Twilight Effect with Ashley Greene and Melanie Howe [4]
• 'Twilight' star Ashley Greene says that newer fans tell her that Alice Cullen 'was their gay awakening'[5]
• The Storytellers New Voices Of The Twilight Saga: The Mary Alice Brandon File [6]