Was it supposed to be humorous or humbling?

[KarmaSc0rpi0n]

So Lauren Mallory, a character who solely exists in the series to be hated and thus make Bella seem like a better person. Some people love her for this fact (she's one of the few who openly hates Bella). I wouldn't exactly call her a foil because she effects absolutely nothing in terms of Bella, she's simply there for us to hate.

But anyways I was recently reading some recaps of New Moon and it came to my attention (or recollection) that she cut her hair due to a modeling scam. She lost a lot of money and god knows what was in those now missing pictures, but I got the feeling that Meyer wrote that in for us the readers to laugh at her for being that stupid which I found very disconcerting considering this is essentially a teenaged girl who got taken advantage of.

Now my question is do you think this was written in for us the readers to feel bad for her and thus make her more likable? Or do you think she intended for us to find it humorous and further depreciate her character?

As I said before, I think it was intended to be humorous mainly because her character stays static after this event. She's no better or worse than before, nothing about this experience humbles her leading me to believe that we're supposed to think of her as the exact same bitch she was before, but now we have something we can make fun of her for. So with that in mind we were supposed to find something humorous in a teenaged girl getting taken advantage of, which I clearly don't, but this really doesn't bode well for Meyer's character overall when you consider it in relation to how the book treats Edward's behavior toward Bella.

What are your thoughts? Was it on purpose or did this theme(??) pop up accidentally without her knowledge (which seems to happen a lot)?

[maja]

Haven't read this book in four years, so I can't remember if Lauren ever showed up more throughout the story other than that particular scene. Highly doubt it. But if Meyer were trying to make Lauren a more "likable" character, then I would have expected Meyer's to include Lauren more in the story and not just mention that fleeting fact. Actually, it seems almost mocking in a way, to mention Lauren only to bring up her modeling scam and never resurface her. She was just dropped like that.

[KarmaSc0rpi0n]

Maxi wrote: "Haven't read this book in four years, so I can't remember if Lauren ever showed up more throughout the story other than that particular scene. Highly doubt it. But if Meyer were trying to make Laur..."

Yeah Meyer hasn't really shown she's great a portraying decent human behavior with characters that are supposed to be decent (hence the wolves attitudes toward Leah), and this just kinda furthered that. I think Lauren drops of in the series at the graduation party (don't quote me on that, it's been years as well and I haven't gotten that far in recaps, anyway I think the whole graduating class was invited, so logically she should have been there) and your right it seems like something to mock her for which begs the question: Were there not better more appropriate ways to mock this character? I mean surely there were better incidents to put in than mocking a teenaged girl for getting taken advantage of by some creep (an assumption, but else would you call this guy) pretending to be a modeling agent. And were there not better ways of showing this incident without making it seem like she was the one to blame because this guy's part in it is pretty much glossed over in favor of making her seem like an idiot.