Maria

Maria is a Mexican vampire, the creator of Jasper Hale, and the leader of the Mexican Coven: an army of newborn vampires.

Biography
Maria was born somewhere in Mexico in the early 1800s, and changed into a vampire at the age of 19. Maria was part of a coven in Monterrey, Mexico. A battle with another coven destroyed her mate, along with two other vampires who were her parents for all intent and purposes, leaving her defeated and alone. She joined forces with Lucy and Nettie to help her get vengeance.

While looking for humans to transform for her newborn army during the Civil War, Maria found Jasper Whitlock, a major in the Confederate army. Using the the idea pioneered by Benito, she used the army to fight for territory in the Southern vampire wars and trained her soldiers harder than anyone had bothered to do before.

After Jasper's transformation, she soon found him very useful in training, disciplining, and leading the other newborns. Using his supernatural talent to control emotions, he made the newborns cooperate with one another. With Jasper, Nettie and Lucy, Maria's army began working together better and their army began winning back the territories she had previously lost as well as other Mexican territories belonging to other vampire clans. However, soon she became greedy and sought to extend her control further. Jasper, who she had placed as her second-in-command, was very close her, and thought of her as a god-like figure.

Jasper was often rewarded by Maria, especially for helping her defeat Nettie and Lucy when they rebelled. In the film they are portrayed as being romantically involved, with Jasper believing that she had truly loved him. He later discovered that Maria never felt that way towards him and only used him as her "puppet". She never treated him as an equal and never forgot about her deceased mate.

One night, Maria ordered Jasper to kill all of the newborns who showed no potential to remain in her coven. It made Jasper sick and depressed to do this. She became aware of Jasper's depression and became paranoid he would turn on her. So she made plans with other newborns to plot against him, promising them Jasper's position. Jasper recognized this, and did the same with other newborns. But before either of them could execute each other, Peter, a vampire whom Jasper had let escape years with another newborn named Charlotte before, returned and took him to the North for a more peaceful life.

Maria eventually forgave Jasper for his defection, and considers herself to be on good terms with him. She continues to zealously defend her territories in Mexico against interlopers.

In the Midnight Sun draft Edward mentions that Maria once sought the Cullens out when they were in Calgary, prompting them to move again; Jasper politely told her to keep her distance in the future. Jasper also asked Peter and Charlotte to tell Maria that he wishes her well, should they meet her again.

Physical description
In Eclipse, Maria is described as a tiny brunette with a soft and musical voice with a tendency to be sharp. In the movies, she has black hair. Furthermore, while she is only mentioned in the book, she actually appears in the movie.

The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide describes her as "short and small-toned", being 5'1" tall, with black hair and a slight olive tone to her pale skin, denoting a darker skin pigmentation in her human life and is of Mexican descent.

Personality
Maria is described by Jasper for being "smart and careful" in expanding her territories, recruiting newborns for her army and remaining in the dark from human population to avoid the Volturi's attention. Knowing that she cannot keep newborns after their first year was almost up, she would order Jasper to dispose of them and then recruit new ones.

She is also manipulative, able to make Jasper willingly serve her before he left her army to find a more peaceful life with Alice and the Cullen family. Though Maria is manipulative and cold, she is not unfeeling - she grew fond of Jasper, which he also knew from his power to sense her feelings.

Jasper Whitlock
"I hope you survive. You may be of great use to me."

- Maria on Jasper

Maria is the creator of Jasper Hale. While helping her fight, win and recruit more newborn vampires into her coven, Jasper grew fond of Maria, while she only pretended to return his feelings. She had another mate that was killed before she met Jasper, and never moved on.

Maria found him useful in controlling and disposing of the newborn vampires of her army. When he allowed Peter and Charlotte to escape, her feelings changed and they both began to make strategy to destroy one another, but then Peter snuck back to take Jasper away from the army. Sometime after he left her, she came to forgive him for his decision and considers herself on good terms with Jasper after he joined the more peaceful Olympic Coven, though she has agreed to keep her distance in the future.

Film portrayal
Catalina Sandino Moreno portrays Maria in the film Eclipse.

Appearances

 * Eclipse (mentioned only)
 * Eclipse film
 * Midnight Sun (mentioned only)