Stephenie Meyer talks about Edward’s flaws

Many of you would disagree with Stephenie Meyer’s assessment that the dreamy Edward Cullen has any faults, but Steph says she believes he has flaws.  Here is what she said at the fan junket in June. Hear the audio of this discussion at Twifans:

TST: With your characters — do they run the show or do you run the show?
SM: This is something I’ve learned. People think you’re crazy when you tell the truth on this question. But, writers don’t think you’re crazy, because they understand. The characters run the show. Because once you create a character, it’s who they are. Sure, there are certain things they can’t do. Certain things they can’t say; it’s not in character. I had that problem with Edward a lot. In the beginning he was a really, a very strong character. New Moon came about because of his character. I did not want to write him going away, that was not very much fun, but if he hadn’t done that, how could he say he tried everything? He didn’t try everything to save her, if he hadn’t gone away. So that whole book revolved around his (Edward’s) iron nature that he had, that I could not get around. I could not just make him…he was so loathed to destroy her life. There was no way that he was gonna “okay, you’re right. We’ll just hang out.” He’s also such a know-it-all. Bella’s trying to tell him “look, this is something different than we think it is” and he’s “no, I know better….I’m a 110.” He’s kind-of a brat sometimes. It’s so funny when people think I have constructed (in a negative way) my idea of the perfect man and how flawless he is. No, he’s very flawed. I’m well aware of that. And he’s lived in this world where rules don’t apply to him. He does stuff that is over the line for a human person. But he is a vampire and can fool a lot of people. So going into someone’s room at night isn’t that bad, in comparison. And the rules don’t apply to him; he does all kinds of really shallow stuff. But I still like him.