meow85 said:

What behavior are you speaking of? I find it romantic that he can't be without her. I also love the fact that his "family" was so quick to protect her. I guess I am just a sappy girl.

You either like these books or you don't. I would never force anyone to read them, and I normally just ignore Twilight bashers...to each their own.

MoniGram said:

The dude is a stalker. He can't be without her, he follows her around, he watches her sleep...

meow85 said:

Like I have said...everyone has a right to think what they want about these books, I am and will not try and convince others to like them or read them. As much as I enjoy these books, I also remember that they are just that...books!!!

MoniGram said:

But what's romantic about it? Everyone I know who digs the Twilight series is going nuts over this vampire character and the love story involved.

I know I'm the last person who should be questioning anyone's taste on fantasy lovers. Hell, I think the Joker is hot. I'm all for unpleasant characters in fiction. I prefer them, actually. But I don't go around calling creepy or criminal behaviour romantic and daydreaming about the psychos I read about.

meow85 said:

I think it's the devotion he shows Bella, the fact that he knows he should stay away from her, but loves her so much he can't. Even when he tried to stay away, he couldn't. If vampires were real, their relationship seems a bit odd, they shouldn't be together, but they look past those things and still love each other. I also love the fact that his family took her in as one of their own, no questions, no judgements, loved Bella for who she was, not what they thought she should be. Even if it seems that Edward is stalker like, I think we need to remember in the book he had to protect her, because well for one she was an accident waiting to happen, at all times it seemed. And in the books she had some pissed off vampires wanting to kill her.

Like I said...these books aren't for everyone...and I think people are starting to dissect them to much. Just take the book for what it is, and stop trying to find other meanings behind them.

meow85 said:

I think it's the devotion he shows Bella, the fact that he knows he should stay away from her, but loves her so much he can't. Even when he tried to stay away, he couldn't. If vampires were real, their relationship seems a bit odd, they shouldn't be together, but they look past those things and still love each other. I also love the fact that his family took her in as one of their own, no questions, no judgements, loved Bella for who she was, not what they thought she should be. Even if it seems that Edward is stalker like, I think we need to remember in the book he had to protect her, because well for one she was an accident waiting to happen, at all times it seemed. And in the books she had some pissed off vampires wanting to kill her.

Like I said...these books aren't for everyone...and I think people are starting to dissect them to much. Just take the book for what it is, and stop trying to find other meanings behind them.

MoniGram said:

I'm not looking to find any deep meanings in them. I'm just taking what I see at face value, and what I see turns my stomach.

Sorry, I don't get it.

meow85 said:

What exactly turns your stomach? Have you read the books?

MoniGram said:

I only got as far as the first one and halfway through the second in the series, and I saw the movie. It's not particularly well written in terms of either plot, pacing, characterization, or style, the lead female is an archaic helpless damsel, and the central love story is pure misogyny wrapped in an abstinence warning tale disguised as fantasy.

Worse than that, it buggers the hell out of vampire mythology. (really, they sparkle!?)

So, I'm sorry. But I just don't get it. To each their own.

Nobody?

I HATE the Twilight books, but, sadly, my wife LOVES them. We've had this conversation, and here's what I can discern...

* The appeal is the same as that of Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story... two individuals, ostensibly star-crossed, yet fairly awkward in their own social circles, find completion in the thing/person that most threatens their destruction.

* For the two primary demographics -- teen girls and women between 35-45 -- boys/men are dangerous, insensitive, uncultured, immensely hurtful. To find that one exception is exhilarating.

* The obsession between the two main characters is mutual... and because its fiction, Meyers gets away with characterizing it not as pathology, but "adoration." Aside from wanting to be with a (super)natural predator in the first place, Bella dreams about Edward, researches his lineage, can't speak when he disappears, barely wants to live when he's gone. Plus she's described as quite vampiric already. Edward, in turn, is quite humanlike, and he's willing to break every vampire rule under the sun (or moon) to be with her. When he thinks she's dead, he tries to kill himself, he saves her life repeatedly, he abstains from human blood, blah blah blah... AND lest Bella be called the antifeminist archetype, let's recall what feminists most basically champion: women's self determination. Bella just happens to be determined to get her man... and she does.

* Beneath all of this crap, there's an interesting statement about chastity. Bella wants to sleep with Edward (and be changed... itself simply a metaphor for losing one's innocence) right from the beginning; but he, because he's the perfect male, insists on refraining from both... until they're married. They are both virgins and married when they first have sex, and that sex produces a child, so its not simply "gratuitous." Moreover, Edward changes Bella, ironically, only to save her "life" in a certain fatal situation.

...So here you have forbidden fruit, me and you against the world, finding the unicorn, and some strange statement about virtue all rolled into one. It's the perfect storm.

The vamp shtick is simply an afterthought, icing on the cake... because vamps are "cool." So there's no concern about the vampire genre's conventions by either the author or the readers. This story could just as well be set in a briar patch.
[Edited 8/26/09 17:37pm]

meow85 said:

I swear, I thought I was the only person on the Planet that did not like this crap! We should form a What the Hell is up with this club.

wouldn't it be fun if meyers decided to give the old archetype/cliche a real tweak and make edward be struck by a tiny fragment of meteorite, thus contracting an off-planet, mutant alien virus that changes his DNA in such a fashion that his skin becomes oddly porous. when he embraces bella passionately, to both their horror they merge! literally and in the flesh! suddenly they have one fierce body between them and two heads going on. that way, they will never, ever have to leave each other's side. and they lived happily ever after~!

XxAxX said:

And one half of that body sparkles. And the head on that side keeps trying to bite the other half.

meow85 said:

and they'd be together for ever

XxAxX said:

Because they're in luuuurve. Or it's Fate. Or God's Will. Or whatever the excuse du jour for romanticizing creepy and dangerous stalker male behaviour is.



At least on Buffy when Spike started stalking the title character it wasn't portrayed as a good thing, (though the writers clearly intended you to feel sympathy for him) and ol' Buff was more likely to hand his ass to him on a plate than go all moony-eyed over the vamp. As it should be.


Sorry, Meyers fanclub. I neither identify with a pathetic and helpless piece of meat, nor do I think being stalked by a (literal!) predator, not matter how schmexy, is romantic. I guess the appeal is just lost on me.






Mods, feel free to lock it up. I had it explained and it's still leaving me befuddled.
[Edited 8/29/09 10:57am]

XxAxX said:

And one half of that body sparkles. And the head on that side keeps trying to bite the other half.

meow85 said:

to be fair, even though i was a huge buffy fan, that whole spike/buffy thing got really, really creepy there for a while imo. portrait of a very unhealthy *relationship* i have no idea what whedon was getting at, or why, throwing those two together like that i never really liked that particular buffy plot twist, come to think of it.