discussion on Twilight (and Eragon)

I'll admit, I'm a fan of the Edward character type: the mysterious man who's obsessed with you, but wants to keep you away because he's afraid of hurting you. If that's not a sexual metaphor, I don't know what is. You see it in most bodice-rippers...usually in the guise of a Scotsman.

My issue with Edward is that he IS perfect. His only "flaw" is that he wants to kill Bella, and even that is portrayed as alluring and mysterious, something for Bella to challenge instead of a real fear and very dangerous reality. I mean, the aftermath of their wedding night alone suggests that Bella is in fact Wonder Woman, and has the physical strength to bear Superman's children before she's turned. Edward mentions that he's worried about hurting her, but he still goes and breaks the headboard.

If he acknowledged that he had anger and jealousy issues, if he knew he was controlling, and was trying to fight that part of himself, I would have found him compelling instead of just wistfully mysterious. (It might also help if he didn't sparkle like Tinker Bell )

None of the characters really changed that all either. In the end, Edward was still a controlling, sparkling freak, and Bella was still hopeless and pathetic. There was no change in any of the characters during the course of the series.

As I've said before I like Twilight but I think, that in the last two books it was not really for young girls. Why? Because Bella is over-obssesed in having sex with him, like too needy. But I think there were interesting parts in the story, one of the best books being New Moon, and well, no intention to offend all those team Edward fans here, but I think that the most realistic character is Jacob. A normal teenager, with problems who suddenly turns out to be a werewolve.
And Bella, can someone be as clumsy as her? can someone trip over herself and fall down in bunch of broken glasses?

A friend of mine once fell in the hallway, slid down the wall on her descent, and managed to close six open lockers in the process to land on our backpacks. It was pretty spectacular. So yes, I think that level of clumsy is possible.

Lucinda wrote:

Jack-a-Lynn wrote:I'd like to do that idea right someday...

But that's the problem: *any* vampire romance to hit the market from now until--well, at least a year or two after the last movie is made--will be compared to Twilight. You'd need to have it fit a certain *formula*, you know? Like, a fangirl could pick it up and be like, "Oooh, a vampire romance~! Squee! Oh...wait. How can I relate to this main character? She's getting in trouble due to her *own flaws*, and her boyfriend isn't perfect..."

But the catch is, I don't write for the tween girl demographic. I'd want to do the idea as an adult story, where things are scary and very dangerous. A vampire/mortal romance should be tragic for the same reason it's alluring: it's forbidden, can never be, and will have disastrous consequences. ...Or maybe that's my sense of the macabre speaking.

(Also, if you enjoy totally irreverant humor, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFSn5rs70Rc It's more a spoof on the movie than the book, but it's just so fantastically funny!)

My opinion on Eragon:
I didn't read it. Sorry about that. The fact is, I started it at eight, and then I lost the book, so I never really read it. Sorry 'bout that.

About Twilight, you may find my rants about it throughout a couple of forums. But about the romance...
I will compare it to another 'the vampires are good, man' book, i.e the Darren Shan Saga.
In Darren Shan, the eponymous hero falls in love with a local girl and breaks off after he and his mentor kill off a- well, lets just say they leave. A couple of books later, he comes back, gets enrolled in a high school, and his old girlfriend is now twenty-six and his English teacher while he is still fifteen.
Not even here is the romance creepy. Edward is a power freak; I would probably call Charlie and the wolves on him if I were Bella, for stalking me.
Bella is so obsessed with him, I keep remembering a webcomic that illustrates this (its modified for Twilight...)
Bella: Thank you for saving me from yet another evil vampire, Eddie-kins. In return, here is my most precious possession. [hands him a ring]
Alice: That's right, Edward! For the humans, its a marriage proposal!
Bella: Forever and ever and ever and evaaaaaaar...
Edward: [drops the ring and runs as fast as he can]

Yo everyone!

wookielover17 wrote:I thought the plot was amazing

Interesting, Wookie, even most of the people who I know who love Twilight don't comment on the effectiveness of the plot. But allow me to ask you, what was so amazing in the plot? Twists and turns didn't exist, and it was predictable and cliched. I just struggle to understand what made it so good in your opinion.

wookielover17 wrote:That the characters were amazing!!!

Actually, to be perfectly honest, I found them rather dry and cliched. Each of them was one-dimensional: perfect or nothing more than a stereotype. I respect that you and a whole bunch of Twilight fans (two of my sisters included) found them amazing, but was that not merely because they filled your ideals rather than your idea of the reality

I like the fact that she made a perfect guy with a mysterious kind of look. I like the way how she like took the average love story and twisted it in a way that vampires and werewolves and all that are included.

Personally, I thought that JK Rowling did this far better in Harry Potter with Lupin and Tonks. Her characters were believable and the romance was only a subplot, an addition to the far more epic story of good vs. evil that she dealt with.

I don't know why like people don't like it but that's there opinion and I can't change it.

I can't tell you why other people don't like it, but my reasons are that there is no complex story line, and what little there is is predictable. There's way to much kissy-kissy stuff that just doesn't quite cut it for me. The characters are developed to very little extent. But mostly it was the first-person narration that I felt Meyer mishandled completely that put me off it. She kept on describing the wrong things with the same words, and it got monotonous and completely non-believable. I understand that many people don't agree with me, and I respect you for it, but those are my reasons for disliking it.

Now Eragon: As a reviewer of the movie said, "I liked this much better when it was called Star Wars." Yes, the story was unoriginal, the characters shallow, and the dialogue about as realistic as a pink fluffy unicorn wearing a tutu. That said, I do think that it is a fairly good kids fantasy read. When children are too young to pick up on writing style and character depth, all they look for is the story. Who cares if Star Wars had done the story already? I watch the Star Wars DVDs over and over sometimes. *star wars freak* Eragon's story is by no means as epic as Star Wars is, but many kids enjoy it, and you shouldn't take that away from them.

Okay, those are my feelings

Have a great one!

But allow me to ask you, what was so amazing in the plot?

Well the whole thing about a vampire in love with a human. Him afraid to kill her but can't keep away. The whole torn between two amazing guys and those two guys just happen to be natural born enemies, I just love it!!! I found that in the plot great and it kept me reading!!!

I hope I make sense her, Master_Yoda. (Oh and just so you know I watch the Star Wars DVD's over and over too!!! I just like don't get tired of them)

Well the whole thing about a vampire in love with a human. Him afraid to kill her but can't keep away. The whole torn between two amazing guys and those two guys just happen to be natural born enemies,

This isn't the plot. This is the concept, the idea of the story: A man is in love with the woman he can't have out of fear of hurting her in some way. The woman must choose between two equally worthy men who love her.
That could describe more than one book. It describes quite a few Laurel K. Hamilton books, actually. (A vampire series I like even less than Twilight...it's literally ludicrous!) It describes some Jane Austen, most romantic comedies, even some Shakespeare, and pretty much all romance novels. It's a very basic idea.

The plot is what happens, the action: (from Wikipedia...sorry for the length)

"Isabella "Bella" Swan moves from sunny Phoenix, Arizona to rainy Forks, Washington to live with her father, Charlie, while her mother, Renée, travels with her new husband, Phil Dwyer, a minor league baseball player. Bella attracts much attention at her new school and is quickly befriended by several students. Much to her dismay, several boys compete for shy Bella's attention.

When Bella is seated next to Edward Cullen in class on her first day of school, Edward seems utterly repulsed by her. He disappears for a few days, but warms up to Bella upon his return; their newfound relationship reaches a climax when Bella is nearly run over by a fellow classmate's van in the school parking lot. Seemingly defying the laws of physics, Edward saves her life when he instantaneously appears next to her and stops the van with his bare hands.

Bella becomes hellbent on figuring out how Edward saved her life, and constantly pesters him with questions. After tricking a family friend, Jacob Black, into telling her local tribal legends, Bella concludes that Edward and his family are vampires who drink animal blood rather than human. Edward confesses that he initially avoided Bella because the scent of her blood was so desirable to him. Over time, Edward and Bella fall in love.

Their relationship is thrown into chaos when another vampire coven sweeps into Forks. James, a tracker vampire who is intrigued by the Cullens' relationship with a human, wants to hunt Bella for sport. The Cullens attempt to distract the tracker by splitting up Bella and Edward, and Bella is sent to hide in a hotel in Phoenix. There, Bella receives a phone call from James, who claims he is holding her mother captive. When Bella surrenders herself, James attacks her, but Edward, along with the other Cullens, rescues Bella and destroys James. Once they realize that James has bitten Bella's hand, Edward sucks the venom from her system before it can spread and transform her into a vampire, and she is then sent to a hospital. Upon returning to Forks, Bella and Edward attend their school prom and Bella expresses her desire to become a vampire, which Edward refuses."

That was the plot. What about all that action, what was it about S. Meyer's writing style that kept you so interested? Was anything in the plot a total surprise to you? Was there a moment of "whoa! I never would have seen that coming!" on the level of "Luke, I am your father!" ?

Oh, also:

The name Renesmee.
I was searching around on Babynames.com, a website that I use for fun to look up the meanings of the names of my characters, my friends and family, other book characters. As a joke, I searched Renesmee. Renesmee is a name on Babynames.com. People are naming their children this.

How weird is that? And why didn't Meyer ever stop to think, "Hmm, maybe the name Renesmee Carlie Cullen is stupid!"

Can I just also say that 'vampire romance is not original'? Just a thought... Darren Shan... At least he has one black character in his Saga.

Truly, there is only one vampire novel I've ever read, and probably the only one I'd ever want to read is Bram Stoker's Dracula. Nothing that has come out since is any good compared to the original bad-man himself.

Eragon and co....I actually like those books, not because they're good by any stretch of the imagination, but because I find them hilarious and great snark fodder. (And Murtagh is damn hot, I'd rather take a Murtagh over an Edward any day!). And you can't fault Paolini for being an enthusiastic and deeply devoted to his writing, which is more than anyone can say for Smeyer (who seems to be in it more for the fame and attention than anything).

Twilight...ugh. Others have covered what I find so unappealing and dangerous about those books, especially their impact on teenage girls. (It's worse for me because I actually live in Arizona...and know classmates whose parents are acquaintances of Smeyer's! Ugh). I read all four and I can't remember why, because they were just that bad. For one thing, I kept fruitlessly searching for a plot. And by the middle of the first book, all I wanted to do was murder Edward.

Twilight actually inspired me to write a vampire story of my own as a sort of "take that" to it...but I canned it for a while because I realized it was ending up too similar to Twilight anyway. Later I've been coming back to it and approaching it from a new angle--making the vampire the bad guy. IMHO Twilight would be much better if Edward was the big bad, because he pretty much already acts like it. And Twilight would be wonderful if it actually was a self-aware commentary on abusive relationships, instead of indirectly encouraging them.

(who seems to be in it more for the fame and attention than anything).

I wouldn't say that's entirely true, as she apparently only wrote Twilight "for herself" (how it made it into the publisher's hands I will never know...) but I have to admit that she seems to have a pretty big ego. I've looked at several of her interviews on her website, and this is what stood out to me most:
From stepheniemeyer.com, about New Moon, where Edward leaves Bella.

I had to answer the question for Bella. What does Bella Swan do when true love leaves her? Not just true love, but Edward Cullen! None of those other heroines lost an Edward (Romeo was a hothead, Willoughby was a scoundrel, Tristan had loyalty issues, Heathcliff was pure evil, Rhett had a mean streak and cheated with hookers, and sweet Gilbert was much more of a Jacob than an Edward). So what happens when True Love in the form of Edward Cullen leaves Bella?

Oh, no she didn't. When I read that, (at the risk of sounding cliche) I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. Seriously, she dissed Rhett Butler. Rhett. Butler. Because he wasn't a perfect vampire man? Hearing that broke my heart more than any "true love" leaving poor Bella Sue.

One of the problems I had with it was not being able to sit down at a table without hearing some discussion about Twilight. It was annoying.
And also, it was quite scary when everyone said that he was so perfect, I pointed out that he WATCHES HER WHILE SHE SLEEPS FOR A MONTH and everyone sighed and said "I know. Isn't it cute."
And technically, it's paedophilia.
And if everyone thinks that an obsessive, mind-reading, really damn annoying control freak vampire is cute. I worry for their future realationships.

But, I gotta say this. I will be going to watch New Moon.
A) To see if there is any more sparkling or obvious contact lenses in eyes (lol) .
B) To see a little bit of Taylor Lautener xD.

Oh, by the way. Funniest Twilight and New Moon spoofs I've seen - check out eviliguanaproductions on youtube!

Eragon - Agreed with everything said above, but I'm going to read the last book because I have never not finished a series of books in my life and I refuse to let some crappy writing stop me.

"Rhett had a mean streak"?! I don't know who this character is, but she's dissing him on the basis of his "mean streak", when her own Tru Lurvey is a stalking, emotionally abusive creeper who doesn't want Bella to have other friends? That's rich!

And speaking of pedophilia, no one has yet brought up the uber-creepy plot device of Jacob being Reneeeeeesme's "fated tru lurve and protector from all that is unsparkly". Having the hots for an unborn child? Now that is not only gross and weird, it's out of character for the poor guy! He's got what I call Murtagh Syndrome: decent character trapped in a bad book.

I'll go see New Moon, as well. Mostly because the "evil" vampires seem to act like real vampires, and that pleases me. And also for the comdedic value, which I'm sure will be very high.

But since we've been discussing all the problems Twilight has, I pose this question: what would make a good vampire story?