Twilight: How Each Cullen Family Member Became a Vampire

The Twilight series centers on human girl Bella Swan getting to know vampire Edward Cullen and his vampire “family.” Unlike in other vampire franchises, this group poses as an actual family, with a “father” (who did, in fact, sire many of the others), a “mother” and “children.” Similar to some vampire stories, the Cullen family carries baggage related to their pasts and/or the circumstances of their turning, and that’s often an important part of their characters. Let’s take a look at these characters’ histories and how they intertwine.

Carlisle Cullen Is the Oldest of the Olympic Coven

Carlisle (Peter Facinelli) is the oldest vampire in the Cullen family (or the Olympic Coven, as the Twilight wiki calls them) and the sire of several of the others. He was born in London in the 1640s, the son of an Anglican pastor and a mother who died in childbirth. He was exposed to anti-vampire rhetoric by his father and other pastors, as these religious figures hunted werewolves, witches and vampires. Carlisle eventually took over as the leader of the hunts, and it was during one that he was attacked and turned by a vampire. He hid himself during the transformation (a process that takes multiple days in the Twilight universe), and then, ashamed and frightened, he tried to kill himself, to no avail. Eventually, he gave in and fed on deer, deciding that drinking animal blood was preferable to drinking human blood.

Carlisle spent the next centuries studying and then becoming a doctor, patronizing the arts and tangling with the Volturi, the vampire clan that dominated Europe and eventually became the lawmakers of vampire society. He met a young Esme when he treated her, but he actually turned Edward first; he later turned Esme, Rosalie and Emmett and adopted Alice and Jasper. He encouraged them to live as “vegetarian” vampires as he did, and it became a defining factor of the family.

Edward Cullen Received a Second Chance at Life by Carlisle

Known for his good looks and being reserved, Edward (Robert Pattinson) was born Edward Anthony Masen, Jr., in 1901. His father was a lawyer, giving Edward a privileged life but remaining emotionally distant due to his career and nature. Edward was instead very close to his mother, Elizabeth, and was a skilled student and gifted pianist.

In 1918, Edward’s father died in the first wave of Spanish Influenza, and he and his mother contracted the disease later. Elizabeth begged Carlisle, who was an attending doctor, to do whatever it took to save Edward, and after she herself died, Carlisle turned Edward into a vampire. The two soon developed a father-son relationship much stronger than the one Edward had with his biological father, and — save a brief stint drinking the blood of criminals and abusers in the 20s and 30s — Edward was a model “vegetarian” vampire.

Esme Cullen’s Story Began With Tragedy

Esme (Elizabeth Reaser) was born Esme Anne Platt in 1875. She lived with her parents on a farm outside of Columbus, Ohio, and had a pleasant childhood, during which she sometimes got into trouble. When she was 16, she broke her leg, and she was treated by visiting doctor Carlisle; this left an impression on both of them. She wanted to become a teacher, but her parents wanted her to stay in the area and marry, so when she was 22, she wedded Charles Evenson.

He turned out to be abusive, but she was encouraged not to speak out about it; after he got her pregnant, she fled multiple times to protect the child from Charles’ abusive ways. She gave birth, but the child died of lung fever only two days later, and in her grief, she attempted suicide. She was brought to the morgue when she wasn’t entirely dead, and it was there she was found and turned by Carlisle, who still remembered her from years ago. When she awoke, she accepted this new development, and she eventually fell in love with and married Carlisle, serving as a mother to Edward, then the other Cullen children.

Rosalie Hale Used Her New Powers for Revenge

Rosalie (Nikki Reed) was born to a banker and his wife in 1915. They lived in Rochester, New York, and maintained their wealth and privilege even during the Great Depression. Rosalie was praised for her beauty and became fairly materialistic as a result; she lived in a society where falling in love and marrying would be her greatest achievement. She met and became engaged to handsome bank owner Royce King but soon realized their relationship was shallow and not really based on love.

It was 1933 when a drunken Royce and his friends gang-raped Rosalie and left her for dead. Carlisle was drawn to the scent of her blood and soon turned her, hoping that she could be to Edward what Esme was to him, but Edward wasn’t interested in Rosalie in any romantic way, which added to Rosalie’s angst. She eventually went after Royce and his friends, torturing and killing them without spilling their blood, then resigned herself to joining the Cullen family.

Emmett Cullen Was Saved by Love at First Sight

Emmett (Kellan Lutz) was born Emmett McCarty in 1915 to a Scottish-Irish family in Tennessee. He was carefree and cheerful, and he enjoyed a hedonistic life of womanizing, drinking and gambling while also providing for his family both by finding game for them to eat and working on the railroad. In 1935, he was attacked by a bear in the woods, and Rosalie came across him. She then carried him over a hundred miles to Carlisle because she feared that if she tried to turn him, she’d kill him instead, and she trusted that Carlisle could manage it. When Emmett woke as a vampire, he was pleased that he’d get to spend eternity with Rosalie, who he saw as an angel. He and Edward also left a large sum of money for the McCarty family to make up for the loss of their son.

Alice Cullen Was a Rarity Among Vampires

How Alice (Ashley Greene) becomes a vampire is one of the most intriguing origin stories because of the missing details in the movies, but the books tell all. Alice was born Mary Alice Brandon in 1901. She lived in Biloxi, Mississippi with her parents and sister, and unlike other characters with extra powers, she had psychic visions even as a human. She didn’t share this information with many people, but it happened enough that people started to see her as a witch or some other supernatural being.

Alice eventually predicted her mother’s murder, but her father publicly insisted it was an accident and ultimately married a new woman that Alice eventually became convinced was partly responsible for her mother’s death. Eventually, her father had her committed to an insane asylum, where she underwent electroshock therapy that gave her amnesia. She came under the protection of a vampire who worked there. In order to protect her from being attacked by James, that vampire turned her. Her memory was again erased, but she had psychic visions of her future with Jasper and the Cullens that sustained her until they met.

Jasper Hale Turned During a Hostile Time in America

Little is known about the man born Jasper Whitlock (Jackson Rathbone) in his early years until he opens up later in the Twilight books and movies. By age 17, he had talked his way into the Confederate Army, and he soon became the youngest major they had. He was turned in Texas by a vampire named Maria, who wanted him to help her build a vampire army to regain her territory. They lived for a time with other vampires named Lucy and Nettie before they tried to rise up against Maria and were killed. He developed the ability to sense and influence others’ emotions as a vampire, which made it difficult for him to feed on humans.

After living for a while with two vampires named Peter and Charlotte, Jasper met Alice in 1948, after which she told him about the possibility of living on animal blood. They joined the Cullens two years later, and Jasper started posing as Rosalie’s brother, sometimes her twin, and using her surname.