For too long, their love was ridiculed and their gentleness dismissed — it’s time we recognize Bella Swan and Elena Gilbert as the quiet heroes they’ve always been.

For years, Bella Swan and Elena Gilbert have been the punchlines of pop culture critique, the eye-roll-inducing epitome of the “pick me” girl trope, mocked for their brooding glances and supernatural love triangles. They have been called weak, dependent, dull and worst of all — plain. The question on most audience members’ minds: Why would vampires, werewolves and ancient heroes risk life, limb and immortality for them? The answer is that Bella and Elena have attributes that we tend to overlook — kindness, loyalty, softness and sacrificial love.

Bella Swan is the reluctant protagonist of the Twilight series who moves to rainy Forks, Washington and somehow becomes the emotional nucleus of an age-old vampire family. The backlash against Bella has always felt a little personal, wth her being branded as spineless, lacking ambition, too obsessed with Edward, too willing to die for love. However, is this not exactly what we romanticize in every male hero ever? Romeo dies for love and is considered poetic. Harry Potter walks into the forest to meet death head-on to protect his loved ones and is called brave. Yet Bella, who is willing to turn her entire world upside down — literally giving up her humanity — is labelled pathetic?

Pathetic should be the last word used for Bella, who is incredibly brave. This kind of bravery does not involve wielding a sword or casting spells.It is the quiet, internal kind of bravery that means reshaping your entire existence for the sake of love, identity and belonging. Bella makes a difficult choice and endures pain, estrangement and even death for it. She is not the wide-eyed damsel we mock; she is the architect of her own fate, building a life that no one understands and few would be strong enough to follow through with.

Elena Gilbert is often described as the brunette martyr of The Vampire Diaries, as the girl who cannot stop sacrificing herself for others. People were quick to point out how often she put herself in danger, how many times she needed saving and how her choices left destruction in their wake. However, no one talks about how her choices were often driven by love and selflessness. The girl willingly drowned in a car to save Matt Donovan’s life. She lost her parents, her aunt and her brother, yet still had the heart to love again and again. Call it what you want, but that is not a weakness. That is resilience in its rawest form.

We talk about Elena like she was obsessed with male attention, as if being loved intensely by two immortal men invalidates her strength. What if the reason Damon and Stefan Salvatore fall so irrevocably for her is not just because of her pretty face or tragic past, but the way she anchors their centuries of guilt and chaos with grace? What if Elena represents a sense of hope they once thought to be extinct? Her kindness is not performative, and her empathy is not a survival strategy. She gives without demanding, forgives when it hurts and chooses to love even when it is easier to close off.

When people scoff and ask why these so-called ordinary girls inspire devotion from these mighty supernatural beings, the answer is deceptively simple: because they are good. Not performatively good, not morally pristine, but deeply, messily, earnestly good. In a media landscape that often rewards cold detachment and sharp wit (which, don’t get me wrong, have their place), Bella and Elena are punished for sincerity. For crying when it hurts and loving people fully. We have learned to treat vulnerability as a flaw, especially in women. We are told not to be too emotional, too caring, too dependent. Yet, when women like Bella and Elena lean into their emotions, take risks for love and let their empathy guide their actions, they are mocked and written off as pick-me girls.

The pick-me label has started to be thrown at any woman who shows softness or a desire for love. However, Bella and Elena were not competing for male validation. They did not weaponize their pain or insecurity to manipulate anyone. They were just unflinchingly themselves—flawed, insecure, longing and full of love. What makes them powerful is not that they were chosen, but that they chose, repeatedly, to care. To love despite how deeply it hurts.

There is an internalized double standard here at play. When stoic, emotionally closed-off male characters open up for a woman, we call it character development. When Bella or Elena open themselves to love and vulnerability, we call them desperate. We have come to mistake sarcasm for strength and cynicism for intellect. However, there is a quiet, stubborn kind of power in hope. In believing that love can be transformative, that it can be worth the chaos. Bella and Elena teach us that there is strength in softness, that being emotionally available does not mean you are not resilient.

Maybe the real discomfort people feel about Bella Swan and Elena Gilbert is not that they were loved so fiercely by others. Maybe it is that they themselves loved so fiercely. That they dared to be open in a world that rewards guardedness. That they chose messy, all-consuming love when the easier choice was emotional self-preservation. Maybe we mock them not because they are weak, but because they reflect a kind of courage that terrifies us—the courage to feel everything and choose to love anyway.

These characters are not perfect, and they should not be. However, their imperfection does not negate impact, and their stories remind us that heroism does not always roar. Sometimes, it looks like deciding to forgive, to stay, to hope, to believe that your heart, however battered, is still worth offering. 

That kind of heroism is anything but plain.