Bella Swan

Bella's mother, Renée, has remarried a baseball player named Phil, and Bella decides to go live with her dad. Charlie buys her an old pickup from Billy Black, his friend from the Quileute reservation at La Push, and Bella reconnects with Billy's son, Jacob, whom she knew as a kid. At school she sits next to Edward Cullen in biology, and he seems disgusted by her.

In the parking lot, a skidding van nearly hits her, and Edward appears out of nowhere and stops it with his hand. He won't explain. On the beach at La Push, Jacob tells her a tribal legend about the Cold Ones and says the Cullens aren't allowed on the reservation. After Edward saves her from a group of men in Port Angeles, Bella does some research and reaches a conclusion: he's a vampire. Edward confirms it. His family only drinks animal blood, but Bella's scent is irresistible to him.

Bella meets the Cullens: Dr. Carlisle, Esme and the kids, Alice, Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie. She joins them for a baseball game in a thunderstorm, where three nomad vampires show up: James, Victoria and Laurent. James, a tracker, decides to hunt Bella for sport.

The Cullens take her to Phoenix and try to throw James off, but he calls saying he has her mother. Bella goes alone to the old ballet studio where she used to dance. It's a trap. James attacks her and bites her wrist. The Cullens arrive and kill James, and Edward sucks out the venom so she won't turn. At prom, Bella asks Edward to change her, and he refuses. Outside, Victoria is watching.

On her 18th birthday, at the Cullens' house, Bella cuts her finger on wrapping paper and Jasper lunges at her. Edward decides she's in danger around them. Days later he breaks up with her in the woods, and the whole family leaves Forks. Bella spends months sunk in grief, with nightmares that frighten Charlie.

She finds that when she does something reckless, she sees an image of Edward. She starts fixing up motorcycles with Jacob and spending time with him, until Jacob pulls away and joins Sam Uley's group. In the meadow she used to visit with Edward, Laurent shows up to kill her, and a pack of giant wolves tears him apart. Bella learns the wolves are Jacob and his friends.

She jumps off a cliff into the sea, and Jacob pulls her out. Alice sees it in a vision and Edward concludes Bella is dead. He goes to Italy to ask the Volturi to end him. Bella and Alice race to Volterra, and Bella stops him from stepping into the sunlight in the square. The Volturi only let her go because Alice shows Aro that Bella will become a vampire. Back in Forks, the Cullens vote in favor of turning her. Edward sets one condition: marry him first.

Victoria builds an army of newborn vampires in Seattle to get her revenge. Edward proposes and Bella hesitates. Jacob declares his love and kisses her against her will; she punches him and hurts her hand. The Cullens and the wolves team up against the army, and Jasper teaches them how to fight newborns.

The night before the battle, Bella accepts Edward's proposal and gets his mother's ring. She hides with Edward in the mountains, and on a freezing night it's Jacob who keeps her warm in the tent. When Jacob finds out about the engagement, he threatens to throw himself into the fight, and Bella kisses him. Edward kills Victoria, but Jacob is badly hurt. Bella visits him and tells him she has chosen Edward. At the end, in the meadow, she explains she feels more like herself in Edward's world.

Bella and Edward get married. Jacob shows up at the reception and is furious when she tells him she wants her honeymoon while she's still human. The couple travels to Isle Esme, off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. Two weeks later, Bella finds out she's pregnant, and the baby is growing far too fast.

Edward wants to end the pregnancy. Bella refuses and asks Rosalie to protect her. Weak and gaunt, she only improves once she starts drinking human blood. During the birth her heart stops. Edward injects his venom into her heart, and Bella delivers a baby girl, Renesmee. Days later she opens her eyes. They're red.

Bella wakes up a vampire, strong and fast, and learns to hunt. When she finds out Jacob has imprinted on Renesmee, she goes after him. Charlie realizes Bella has changed but agrees not to ask for details. Irina, a vampire, sees Renesmee growing and mistakes her for an immortal child, which is forbidden. She reports the Cullens to the Volturi.

The Cullens gather vampires from around the world as witnesses. Bella discovers she has a mental shield, the same one that kept Edward from reading her mind, and learns to stretch it to protect others. When the Volturi arrive, Alice shows Aro a vision of the battle to come, with deaths on both sides, and brings Nahuel, a half-vampire from South America, as proof that Renesmee is no threat. The Volturi leave. In the meadow, Bella lowers her shield and lets Edward see her memories.

Stephenie Meyer came up with Bella from a dream about an ordinary girl talking with a vampire in a meadow. She named her Isabella because it was the name she'd been saving for a daughter. Meyer kept Bella's description vague so readers could put themselves in her place. In 2015, Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined retold the story with the genders swapped, turning Bella into Beau Swan. Director Catherine Hardwicke became a fan of Kristen Stewart in Into the Wild and gave her an informal screen test on the set of Adventureland.