Rosalie Hale from Twilight gets a bad rap for being icy, snobbish and vain. But Rosalie is perhaps one of the most intriguing characters in the entire franchise. Rosalie has a lot of nuance in her character design; she doesn’t hate Bella as fans have often assumed. She simply fails to understand why Bella would choose an undead life over mortality and that’s because Rosalie craved a normal, human family life.
But as the series progressed, fans began to identify with Rosalie’s resilience and her strength of mind and took note of her past trauma. But even hardcore Twilight fans don’t know everything about her and these are just a few things only book fans will know about Rosalie.
She Lived Through The Great Depression Of The ‘20s
One of the biggest disservices the Twilight films did for the series is to omit the most significant aspects of their storylines from their cinematic narrative. For instance, fans who have just watched the movies have very little idea about Rosalie’s past.
Rosalie was born in the early 1900s in New York and was a child when the Great Depression happened. Her family was very wealthy and her father worked at a bank, which is why they didn’t struggle during the Depression.
Her Parents Were Social Climbers
Rosalie’s parents were very well-placed socially but they wanted more. Rosalie was quite famous for her beauty and sense of style, and Rosalie’s parents, specifically her mother, wanted to use her to get to a better social standing.
One day, Rosalie's mum asked her to dress up to deliver her father’s lunch to his job so that the bank owner’s son, who was an eligible bachelor called Royce King II, would take notice of her, so she could get Rosalie married to one of the wealthiest American families.
She Was Already Questioning Her Relationship Before She Was Raped
A week before the wedding, Rosalie visited her good friend Vera who had just had a baby boy. When Vera's husband kissed her, Rosalie observed how warm and loving their relationship was and that made her realize that her relationship with the wealthy Royce was quite shallow and was probably guided by appearances and not real connection or love.
She was on her way home and was mulling over her engagement when she came across her drunk fiancé and his friends who eventually gang-raped and left her in the street to die.
She Was Furious When Edward Rejected Her As A Mate
After Carlisle turned Rosalie he told Edward that he had done so in hopes that they could become partners. Edward was angry as he did not want this and wasn’t attracted to Rosalie in any way. Rosalie in fact woke up as a vampire to the voices of the two Cullens arguing in the other room.
Rosalie had a sense of superiority since she was always praised by everyone for her looks and the fact that she was rejected by someone was an insult to her sense of pride and she didn’t cope well.
She Didn’t Always Regret Her Vampiric Life
Rosalie was famously wary of her life as a vampire and in fact, didn’t want Bella to turn into a vampire because she didn’t wish her fate on anyone else. “I don't mean that I have an aversion to you as a sister. It's just that… this is not the life I would have chosen for myself. I wish there had been someone there to vote no for me,” she tells Bella.
But she didn’t always feel this way. The first time she looked into the mirror after her transition into a vampire she was quite happy with how she looked because her transformation had heightened her beauty and she enjoyed her heightened abilities as well.
She Eventually Started Craving Normality
As a human Rosalie had always wanted to stand out, to be noticed, and even admits to how obsessed with the attention she was. "Admiration was like air to me, Bella. I was silly and shallow, but I was content,” she tells Bella. But after a few years, she starts to crave normal aspects of a family and gets tired of being noticed everywhere she went. It’s no secret that she wanted a family and always envisioned a complacent old fashioned life for herself and Emmett, although she knew that wasn’t possible.
Nikki Reed who played Rosalie also admitted to this in an interview, “Rosalie really just wanted to be normal; that's what she's always wanted. Even when she was normal, she didn't want to be as beautiful as she was. She didn't want to stand out as much as she does. She just wanted to be like an average young woman who got married and had a family,” she said.
She bonded Quickly With Esme
Esme was already a part of the Cullens coven when Rosalie joined in because Esme was turned in 1921 and Rosalie was turned almost a decade later. Rosalie was 18 when she transitioned, Esme was 26 and since she was a bit older Esme had maternal instincts towards her.
Esme was quick to welcome Rosalie into the family and the women bonded because they both were abused by their human partners (her husband Charles was violent and Esme’s family urged her to keep quiet about the abuse).
Rosalie and Jasper Are Strikingly Similar Looking
The reason why Rosalie and Jasper could pose as fraternal twins was because they looked really similar and had the same facial features. Rosalie was almost 6 feet tall and Jasper was 6’3 and they both had honey-blond hair. They also had tall, lean frames which gave them similar body types.
They posed as foster kids who were adopted by the Cullens wherever they moved. But Rosalie has superior self-control than Jasper when it came to bloodlust, but that was because Jasper was turned more recently.
Rosalie Had An Amazing Roster Of Talents
Only hardcore Twilight fans would know how skillful Rosalie really is; she used her time as a vampire to get several degrees in electrical engineering, business, and astrophysics. Rosalie had even studied medicine to help Carlisle with his work as a medical practitioner and can also play the piano.
She’s also a keen automobile enthusiast and enjoys enhancing cars in her spare time, and has picked up quite a lot of mechanical skills. In fact, she’s the most machine-savvy Cullen in her family.
She Lets Go Of Her Antagonism Towards Jacob After Renee Is Born
The reason Jacob and Rosalie were at loggerheads during Bella’s pregnancy was that Jacob assumed Rosalie cared more about the unborn child than she did for Bella. This wasn’t true, Rosalie was Bella’s biggest ally during this time because she knew exactly how important this was to her.
While Jacob made a lot of ‘dumb blond’ jokes about Rosalie, she derided him with quips about his werewolf nature. But after Renesmee was born both Rosalie and Jacob came together to protect her, Jacob more so, because he imprinted on her.