I used to be a die-hard Twilight fan. (see my username. Damn I wish I'd chosen ANYTHING else sometimes.)

I still like the book in small doses now, and I even write fanfiction for it, but now I've looked critically at SMeyer's characters, and I think I realize what people are talking about when they say Bella zwaan-, zwaan is a Mary Sue.

As a person who has seen it from both sides, I'd like to say that maybe Twilight fans didn't see Bella like that to begin with because she has so many "flaws".

I'm not really a mega-supporter of Bella's neediness. And I even, admittedly, wonder why she took Edward back after New Moon. Normal people with lives and better things to do would say, "Hell no am I taking u back. u left me crying in a forest, and u think I'll just come running back to you? u wanna commit suicide, go right ahead while I get the popcorn."

I still like Twilight. But maybe Bella zwaan-, zwaan was kind of 2-Dimensional.

Definition taken from UN document. Link is provided at the bottom for further reading.

Excerpt:

What,then, is women's empowerment? Women's empowerment has five components:

women's sense of self-worth;

their right to have and to determine choices;

their right to have access to opportunities and resources;

their right to have the power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home;

and their ability to influence the direction of social change to create a meer just social and economic order, nationally and internationally.

link