Victoria

"And the woman, Victoria, don't underestimate her."

- Laurent's warning.

Victoria was a nomadic vampire member of James' coven. She was his mate and started a vendetta against Bella Swan in revenge for James' death by Edward and the Cullens. To this end, she spearheaded several plots to end Bella's life, including creating a newborn army in Seattle, with the express purpose of killing her and destroying the Olympic Coven. However, at the conclusion of the newborn crisis in Seattle, Victoria's life of violence and malice was ended by Edward in the battle with the newborn army.

Early life
"Victoria had always seemed like a force of nature to me - like a hurricane moving toward the coast in a straight line-unavoidable, implacable, but predictable. Maybe it was wrong to limit her that way. She had to be capable of adaptation."

- Bella on Victoria

Victoria was born in London, England in the 1550s. Her mother was a scullery maid and her father was the master of the house. She was the second illegitimate child, after her sister, Anne. Victoria and Anne worked hard as servants from early childhood. Anne was quite pretty, with mahogany hair and a cream and rose complexion, and though the green-eyed, bright red-haired, and freckled Victoria had nice features as well, she was considered "witchy." The sisters eventually got jobs together, Anne as a lady's maid, and Victoria as a kitchen grudge. The master of the house mistreated them; he was not a kind man, quick to beat a servant for any perceived fault--and lecherous as well. Both sisters grew adept at disappearing whenever possible. With her shockingly bright hair, it was more difficult for Victoria to avoid notice than most, and she received extra beatings simply for being visible.

Though their jobs kept them fed, the two sisters fled the house when Victoria was twelve years old. They worked for a local pimp, on the condition that they would receive free lodging with the other working girls. The situation was worse for Anne and nearly as bad for Victoria as the house they'd run from, but it was better than the streets of London. One night, Anne went out to find a client--but she never returned. So Victoria had to learn to survive on her own, perfecting her evasion of pursuers. A few years later, her sister returned as a vampire and changed her into one as well, and introduced her to her creator, Hilda, as well as two other vampires, Mary and Heidi. Victoria led a happy life with them. They were joined by Noela not long before the Volturi came and claimed that they had drawn too much attention from society and executed Hilda for the crime. Heidi was immediately taken in by the Volturi, under the influence of Chelsea's power. Victoria sensed that they were about to be slaughtered whether they surrendered or not and shouted at the others to run. They all ran in different directions, but only Victoria survived. She lost her only sister that day. Since then, she had avoided all vampires.

While in London, she became the target of the tracker James, and she tried to avoid him for years. Eventually, he felt intrigued by her evasive skills and no longer wished to harm her. His change of decision allowed Victoria to lower her guard and let him catch up to her. In James, she found someone who was honest in his intentions and confident in his abilities. She was also attracted to his tracking skills, which was like a mirror of her own. Eventually, she fell in love with his self-assurance. It felt safe to her, stable in an odd way. While she was happier with James, her life was neither peaceful or easy. The way he liked to live constantly put her into situations that, on her own, she would have avoided. While chasing Mary Alice Brandon's scent to an asylum, Victoria made James hesitate for a short second when they crossed another vampire's scent.

As James grew more ambitious in his games, she became more cautious. She suggested teaming up with other useful vampires for the sake of numbers. Laurent joined their coven during one of these experiments, who was also attracted to James's powers.

Twilight
"I'm the one with the wicked curve ball."

- Victoria.

The coven heard rumors about large vampire groups claiming areas in the Pacific Northwest, and James was so intrigued that he decided to check them out. Victoria wanted to find more backup, but James did not want to waste time.

After coming across the Cullen family in Twilight, Victoria assisted James in finding information about Bella. His failed attempt to kill Bella cost him his life. Victoria, however, managed to escape to Seattle.

By losing her mate, she felt vulnerable and paranoid, and created a companion for her own safety, choosing a young human man, Riley Biers. She made sure that he was totally loyal to her, and was surprised at how readily he believed she had changed him out of love. Then she made more vampires, feeling that if she could surround herself with allies, she would be safe. At the same time, she hid herself from these new allies, aside from Riley. She was extremely paranoid for a time, setting up layers of protection for herself. She was loosely copying what she'd seen with the Volturi guard, but waiting for her newborns to be old enough to train. In the meantime, she had Riley control them with carefully constructed lies - most notably, the myth that vampires were destroyed by the sun.

In the Twilight movie, she, James and Laurent feast on the people in Washington State, including one of Charlie Swan's close friends, Waylon Forge. She is also seen dressed in a prom dress with make-up on, spying on Bella and Edward as they dance to prom music at the end of the movie.

New Moon
In the first 6 months after James's death, Victoria created 15 newborns - and killed roughly 4 humans to every one that survived as a vampire. One of the first was Diego; one of the last - of this period - was Raoul. Fred was also created during this period. About half of this first wave did not survive during Victoria's absence.

Her gift forewarned her when Edward was hunting her, just as it had with James. She left Riley behind to mind the other newborns she'd created. Passing through Texas, she ran up against a territorial coven with a small force of newborns. The encounter inspired her to use her newborns as an army to exact revenge on Edward by killing Bella. When she was sure she'd thrown Edward off her trail, she headed back to Seattle.

She tracked Laurent down in Alaska and, feigning friendship, she gleaned all information he'd learned about the Cullens from the Denalis. She asked him to do her a favor: visit the Cullens and see if they were all still with Bella. It was a win-win for Victoria; if Edward was back in Forks, she assumed he would kill Laurent when he saw the connection to Victoria in his head. If not, Laurent would bring back news of the girl's location and how many protected her.

Meanwhile, she created more newborns, leaving them under Riley's care, in case she ended up having to go through the full coven to get to Bella. After thinking carefully about Alice and her gift, Victoria put Riley in charge of making all the decisions about the newborns' movements. She made no plans to use them for anything concrete and thought about them as little as possible.

Laurent called Victoria once to report that the Cullen house was empty and he would look around to see if Bella had gone with them. She heard nothing more from Laurent and went to investigate, and discovered the werewolves. This was an unforeseen problem. James had tracked a werewolf once, for the challenge of it. He'd been successful, as usual. But the wolves were supposed to be nearly extinct, not traveling in large packs. Nor should they be able to maintain their wolf forms in the daylight. This was worrying, but secondary to the fact that Victoria had crossed a fresh trail left by Bella. The Cullens were gone, and all she had to do was get past the wolves to kill her.

No matter how hard she tried, the werewolves always found her and her survival instincts got the better of herself. However, with the Cullens absent, she was patient. Then one night, she caught Alice's scent and knew her hopes for an easy kill were over. It did not take long before all the Cullens returned.

In the movie, Victoria finds Bella in the water and attempts to make a move on her, but Jacob drags Bella out before she could try.

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner
"Of course, it wasn't weird that we could sympathize each other when it came to'' her."

- Bree on Victoria.

In the Eclipse novella, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, Riley and the newborns became her first priority. She created more and more of them, until Seattle was nearly overrun, but had managed to evade Alice's vision by hiding in the shadows and letting Riley select the members.

The Volturi came to Victoria and Riley one night and gave her a five-day limit to fulfill her army's purpose, which explains why they made a decision to attack the Cullens when they did. Moments after the encounter, Diego told Riley about what he had discovered about sunlight's effects on vampires. Riley had hoped that Victoria would spare him, but meeting the Volturi made her paranoid and she wanted to move as fast as possible and then escape. By tormenting Diego to death, she extracted all information out of him and forced Riley to either side with her or against her. Riley reluctantly sided with her and helped kill Diego, much to his dismay.

Knowing that she could completely trust him now, she ordered him to prepare the army to attack the Cullens.

Eclipse
In Eclipse, Victoria continued making feints into the area around Forks, gathering information and hoping that the Cullens would believe these fruitless attacks were all that she had up her sleeve.

She later sent Riley to get an article of Bella's clothing, her red blouse, to give her scent to the other newborns and get them into action, while testing the blind spots in Alice's vision at the same time.

Bella managed to figure out her plan and gave Alice a connection to the army and Victoria. Eventually, while her army was fighting with the Cullens and wolves, she and Riley came across Edward, Bella, and Seth. She attempted to escape while Seth battled Riley, drawing away her object of distraction, but Edward taunted her relationship to James, angering her to make her resist her survival instincts. She fought Edward while Riley battled Seth. After Seth killed Riley, Victoria tried to escape again, but Edward caught her and ripped her head off. Victoria and Riley's remains were then burned, and her newborn army was defeated by the other Cullens and the Uley pack.

Physical appearance
"Her orange hair was brighter than I'd remembered, more like a flame. There was no wind here, but the fire around her face seemed to shimmer slightly, as if it were alive."

- Bella on Victoria's hair

Victoria was described as having long, curly, brilliant orange hair that was usually described as looking like fire with the usual blood red eyes of a vampire. She had green eyes as a human. She possessed a terrible beauty and had a soft, high soprano of a voice that contrasted with her fierce looks. She moves at a feline pace with perfect, lethal steps, as of her agility. When Bella heard Victoria speak for the first time in Eclipse, she described her voice as 'belonging to blond curls and pink bubblegum', and can pass for a helpless girl to lure a target.

Personality and traits
Victoria was shown to have a mysterious but elegant personality. She could best be described as calculating, however she was frequently bloodthirsty, whether it was when she was dying to kill Bella for her delicious blood on the baseball field in Twilight or when she was stalking Bella for revenge in New Moon and Eclipse. She is also marked as one of the most persistent and ruthless characters in the series. Like most archetypal vampires and femme fatales, she is seductively charming and rather vain. As seen in Eclipse, Victoria is shown to be very manipulative and is willing to use others in order to achieve her own goals. Victoria lied to and manipulated Riley in order to get revenge on Bella and the Cullens, though she felt that Riley was nothing more than a pawn to her. In The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, she was also petulant and spoiled, but at the same time overly cautious to the point of paranoia and vindictive.

Despite all this, she was also paranoid and intimidated by enemies, and would do anything to survive.

Powers and abilities
Victoria was a very capable fighter, and Bella describes her as "lethal", since even Edward, who could read her mind and was an equal fighter to Jasper, couldn't finish her immediately. They danced for a thrilling while, woven in a deadly blur. However, her ability was based more on her gift of self-preservation than on fighting skills; according to Stephenie Meyer, "her feet were dragged to safe spots and places".

Self-preservation
"It's what you do, isn't it? It's why James kept you around. Useful, if you like to play deadly games. A partner with an uncanny instinct for escaping."

- Edward taunting Victoria

Victoria's special ability was self-preservation, which is how she was able to escape being killed by the Quileute wolves and the Cullens in New Moon and Eclipse. This ability was carried over because, as a human, she was a servant mistreated by her abusive masters. She had to learn to hide from her masters for long periods of time. Also, when she ran away by herself, she was excellent at sneaking into houses, stealing food, and sleeping somewhere safe without any person or animal knowing. Edward identified her ability as self-preservation, which was the instinctive need to do what is necessary to stay alive. This ability worked by instinctively knowing when her life was in danger, how to evade an enemy's attack and where to run in order to survive. It was however undetermined whether this could be classified as a shield. Because of this ability, she became a prominent threat to Bella and the Cullens, as it was impossible to catch her.

In Eclipse, Edward angered Victoria enough to make her resist her survival instincts, but that brought her to her death when Edward ripped her body apart and burnt the pieces.

Relationships
Victoria had an older sister named Anne, and once belonged to a coven of six vampires. She was in a coven with her mate, James, and Laurent; and later, leader of the Seattle newborn army. Riley Biers was a pawn she had created to deceive him with devotion.

James
Victoria met James on a hunt. He noticed her scent and immediately decided to hunt her down. He kept on her trail for months. However, she kept on evading him when he got close to her. Interested, James decided not to kill her, feeling that, when playing deadly games, it is always good to have a partner who can escape. He did not know that, because he didn't want to hurt her, her gift didn't work as effectively. She eventually met him in a clearing that had a lot of escape routes, just in case. When they met, he proposed that they team up. She warily accepted and they joined each other.

Victoria quickly began to fall in love with James. She loved his ruthless personality and vicious nature. He found her to be a passionate lover who would be by his side though any situation.

Victoria proved to be a vital part of James' coven. In any situation that he was having trouble getting out of, she would help him escape. Also, she was the one who said that they needed more than just the two of them in their coven. That is why they often had more vampires in their coven. However, it was generally just the two of them.

When they entered the Forks area, they immediately picked up the scent of the Cullens. They met in the field as James was getting the lay of the land. Victoria wanted to add more vampires to their coven. However, James said that Laurent would be enough. She faithfully followed James in the hunt for Bella. She searched for information on Bella's life and told James that Bella's mother lived in Phoenix.

When James was killed, Victoria was a wreck. For the first time in centuries, she felt vulnerable. Due to this, she created Riley and the other newborns to befriend her. However, once she learned about newborn armies, she decided to avenge James, even though he probably wouldn't have gone as far.

Laurent
Laurent was a member of James's Coven, but when James and Victoria went to hunt down Bella, he told the Cullens that he was sick of James's games. After, he went and lived with the Denali Coven and soon Irina became his mate. Victoria sought him out. She did this for a few reasons. Mainly, she was still angry with his betrayal and wanted to send him straight to the Cullens if they were still around. Or, if Edward wasn't there, she would find out that the Cullens left and would make an easy kill for Bella.

She asked him to go back to Forks to see if Bella was still under the Cullens' protection. He called her once to tell her that the Cullens' house smelt as if it hadn't been entered in a while. As Laurent was passing through Forks in New Moon, he found Bella in Edward's meadow and was about to kill her but was destroyed by Jacob Black and four other werewolves.

Riley Biers
"He's the liar, Riley. I told you about their mind tricks. You know I love only you."

- Victora lying to Riley.

Riley Biers was a vampire who Victoria created to protect herself from the Cullens. He seemed strong and smart, so she felt that he would be the perfect tool. She lied to him and said that she had been watching him for awhile and had fallen in love with him. He immediately returned those affections, though they were only real for him.

She left him in charge of the newborns when she created them, feeling that Alice would not know to look for his decisions. This proved useful when she had him steal things with Bella's scent on them to see if they could get past Alice. Victoria had Riley trained the newborns to fight the Cullens. During the fight, they went in search of Edward. She caught his scent and thought that he would be anywhere Bella was. This proved correct and the fight began. Riley fought Seth while Victoria fought Edward. Edward tried to convince Riley that Victoria didn't love him. However, he believed that Victoria did love him and fought. He lost the fight to Seth and cried out to Victoria for help, but she didn't even glance his way when he died.

Film portrayal
To prepare for her role of Victoria in the Twilight film, Rachelle Lefevre watched lion attacks on YouTube and acted like a cat for a day to get used to acting feline. During her audition, she jumped on a chair and hissed at director Catherine Hardwicke, assuring her of her scary cat abilities. She also wrote a letter to Hardwicke about how she bonded and had a relation to Victoria. As in the novel, Victoria was portrayed as fierce and beautiful, but while in the book she didn't speak, in the movie she had a few lines and at the end during Bella's prom she appeared to be planning a way to get revenge for her mate, James. Lefevre reprised her role as Victoria in New Moon, but was replaced with Bryce Dallas Howard in Eclipse. In the films, Victoria was given the last name "Sutherland".

Appearances

 * Twilight
 * Twilight film
 * New Moon
 * New Moon film
 * Eclipse
 * Eclipse film
 * The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner
 * Breaking Dawn (mentioned)

Trivia

 * In the books, Victoria's first appears in Twilight, and first speaks in Eclipse. Again, she does not speak in New Moon.
 * Bella states she was expecting Victoria's voice to be more feline-like, instead of being almost little-girlish which makes a contrast with her fierce beauty.
 * In a deleted scene from New Moon, she is seen in a car talking to a woman about her mate James.