Life is full of tough decisions, but for most Twilight fans, Edward versus Jacob was not one of them. It was pretty obvious from the start that Bella was going to end up with Edward; in fact, the love triangle between the tortured vampire, the passionate werewolf and the preternaturally bland teenager didn’t even develop until New Moon (Book two), and was moot by the end of Eclipse (Book three). Nonetheless, Summit Entertainment got a lot of mileage out the film franchise’s rival “teams,†which their marketing team boiled down to its essence: a preference for abs (Taylor Lautner) or eyes (Robert Pattinson).
Now, as the Twilight Saga comes to a close with Breaking Dawn, Part 2, Jacob advocates have been hung out to dry — their champion destined to find his soul mate not in Bella, but in her creepy half-vampire baby, Renesmee. Wondering how morale was holding up on Team Jacob these days, we tracked down the woman behind Obsidian Rapture, one of the few Jacob-centric fan sites that hasn’t fallen into neglect over the past two years. Niya, a 28-year-old New Yorker working in human resources, considers herself a “closet Twilighter†— but was more than happy to defend her choice to Vulture.
Why did you decide to start a Jacob website?  Â
I started the site because I was visiting a lot of Twilight communities, and there was so much anger towards Jacob from people who were all about Edward. I felt like he was misunderstood. And I absolutely love Jacob, and I just couldn’t understand why anybody would choose Edward over him. [Laughs] I was so upset! And a lot of the sites I was on were about Taylor Lautner; they weren’t about Jacob. So I just created the site because I wanted a safe haven for Jacob lovers to go to, and not feel like they were being condemned.
You felt like Jacob was the underdog. (Underwolf?)
Exactly. He gets the short end of the stick all the time! I never really understood why [people on the internet] hated him so much. And they would compare him to Edward constantly. They’d call him immature; I’m like, he’s 16! Edward is 100-years-old!
The character doesn’t actually do much in the first book or movie. At what point did he make an impression on you?
I think it was at the very end of Twilight, you know, he crashes the prom. And it’s a very small scene, but he was so funny, and I was like, oh, this kid is great; I wish I could see more of him. But it really was the second book that kind of opened my eyes to his character and made me really love him. And really hate Bella. [Laughs]
It’s hilarious how many people love the Twilight books but cannot stand Bella.
And it’s horrible, because most of it’s in her point of view.
So around the second book you started getting annoyed with Bella. Tell me how you were feeling about halfway through the series.
I think my hatred for Bella was so strong at that point, that I didn’t want her to be with Jacob. I was like, you go be with Edward, the two of you are needy, you guys need each other. Just leave Jacob alone, and he’ll find somebody else who will appreciate him! [Laughs] You know, I was annoyed that she didn’t choose him, but at the same time, I was like, he is so much better off without you.
Did you ever think that Bella wasn’t going to end up with Edward?
I thought in the second book there would be a possibility; but by the end of the book, it was obvious that it really wasn’t. She was gonna go back with Edward, there was gonna be drama again — yeah.
So my feeling about the love triangle was that it was sort of created by Summit, because I don’t feel like in the books you ever get the sense she’s gonna go off with Jacob. So how did you feel about the Team Edward/Team Jacob T-shirts and whatnot?
Oh god. There was a part of me that really wanted one. But I think they definitely blew it completely out of proportion; people had blankets, they had T-shirts, they had hats. I had a Jacob wallet, and after the first time I pulled it out and tried to get money, I was like, yeah, I’m not using this wallet anymore. It’s embarrassing. Although — some of the T-shirts were really cute. But I was like, I’m not wearing that.
Not even to bed?
[Laughs] No. Well, maybe.
So by the time you got to Breaking Dawn and you found out what is actually going to happen in Jacob’s love life — how did you feel about him imprinting on Renesmee?
Oh god. I am on the fence. There’s a part of me that is happy, because then he’ll get over his feelings for Bella. But then there’s a part that’s like, thinking about seven years in the future when she’s an adult, and they have to have that conversation about how her mother and her boyfriend met — it’s gonna be awkward. And I know the imprint thing is not sexual, that it’s a brother-sister relationship in the beginning, but just the fact that she’s a kid … It’s one of those topics that no one wants to talk about.
I noticed that there’s a lot of fan fiction about Bella seven years in the future, realizing that she made a terrible mistake by not choosing Jacob. Do you think Bella would realistically ever reconsider Edward?
Mmm, I don’t think so. No, I don’t think she would do that, just because of Renesmee. I think she knew when she chose Edward, that was her final decision. It’s always been Edward.
What’s your opinion of Edward?
Where do I start? You know, in the first book I loved him. I did. I was Team Edward, though I didn’t really know there were teams at that point. But as the series went on, it got really ridiculous for me. He’s very stuck in his own misery. I also think he’s a bit of a coward; you know, he left Bella [at the beginning of New Moon] and gave her a really ridiculous reason for leaving. He didn’t stay there and face it, and if you had to get involved with a human, you might as well work out all the issues you have with it, you know what I mean? And then he comes back and immediately tries to take over her life: She can’t see Jacob, she can’t go to the Reservation, she can’t do anything, because he’s trying to protect her. If Edward really wanted to protect her, he shouldn’t have started the relationship in the first place. He wants to be with her, but he could hurt her because she’s human, but at the same time [he] doesn’t want her to become a vampire. You can’t have both, Edward! And then in the fourth book, he got to the point where he wanted to keep Bella so much that he was willing to share her with Jacob. It got ridiculous. I was like Edward, you need to get your balls back from Bella. He was so whiny, I couldn’t take it.
Now that the series is over, if you had a chance to chat with Stephenie Meyer, would you ask her for anything you didn’t get?
I would just thank her for creating the character Jacob, and for creating a great series to get lost in. I’m kind of relieved that it’s over, though; it’s four years of obsession, and I just need to let go of it now.