Twilight: A Review

[agentrosecotton]

This was originally posted on my Facebook, but I figured I should share it with you folks too. If you're a Twilight fan, read with caution. It's kind of, well, mean.

Warnings: strong language, excess sarcasm, one or two mentions of TEH SECKS.

Comments

[ramblin_rosie]

She wouldn't have a Willie or a Sam (no sir!)

It's a sad comment on the state of young adult fiction that concerned parents would get excited about this mess because the main characters aren't having sex, completely overlooking the fact that Edward is an emotionally abusive stalker. But then, there's no accounting for taste--this travesty, about which one scholar commented that the 'Sue's fate was "governed by her center of gravity," was hugely popular for a century or so.

[agentrosecotton]

Yes! I'm actually writing a sort of diatribe, if you will, about that. Well, it's more about the moral comparison between Harry Potter and Twilight, and how many parents oppose Harry Potter because of the magical component and yet condone Twilight because there is nothing so obviously evil about it, while in fact the morals in Potter are far superior and the main character is an infinitely better role model.

There is, in fact, no accounting for taste, and having good taste is more often a curse than a blessing.

[hoppytoad79]

There are grown women who luuuuuuuuuuve Twilight and Eddiekins. They call themselves Twimoms and, as far as I can tell, are actually serious to some degree in sighing about how their husbands are not as great as Eddiekins. Women. Mothers, even. Lusting after a seventeen-year-old. I do not care if he's been dead since early last century, his mindset was frozen at seventeen so he's seventeen. You don't try a retarded woman of thirty with the mindset of a ten-year-old as an adult if she commits a crime, so...yeah. He's seventeen. Get over the pedophilia, ladies

[agentrosecotton]

The Twimoms thing makes me sad. Do they not realise how immature and stupid that exposes them to be? Personally, if my significant other were more like Edward, I'd probably file a restraining order.

I've read New Moon. It was hideous. Especially the endless harping on about how she will never be able to live without him and how she would rather die than be apart from him, but she cannot commit suicide because it would break the hearts of everyone around her who is so desperately fond of her, despite the fact that she doesn't have a single redeeming quality. And yet she still repeatedly engages in extremely dangerous activities, hoping against hope that she will die by accident and then won't be able to be blamed for her suicide. How terribly borderline. There's a good example for your adolescent girls. "If he leaves you, you'll never love again! Why not jump off a cliff?"

...RENESME?! Oh. My. Fucking. God. The Suvianism just gets worse and worse. -_-

[hoppytoad79]

If my SO turned out to be like Edward, I would file a restraining order--and then move very, very, very far away, using nothing but cash so as to leave as little of a trail as possible.

[agentrosecotton]

My best friend's SO turned out to be like Edward Cullen.

She's never really recovered. Maybe that's why this book makes me so angry.

[hoppytoad79]

I hate it when I remember things I meant to say but forgot before. Anyway, she's also written a sci-fi novel called The Host and has a novel involving mermaids/sirens (I forget which term she uses, but she treats the two as interchangable) and a female main character called Froggy.

Come on over to Twilight Sucks, if you're so inclined.

[windcedar]

Yup. I *hope* Twilight's, um, more disturbing messages about appropriate romantic behaviour (among other things) don't have that much of an effect on fans; I do think even if many girls consider Edward the perfect boyfriend, they'd freak out if they actually had a boyfriend act like that in RL. Unfortunately, Twilight probably does have more impact on some teenagers' worldviews than one would like.

Have you seen the Buffy/Edward remix? If not, you must! :)

[agentrosecotton]

Well, I hope that teenagers are not as foolish as I remember being. But I know how impressionable I was at that age, and how much of my personal morality I unconsciously lifted from the books I was reading. Fortunately, I was hooked on phonics Tolkien at the time. I can only imagine if I'd had something as twisted as Meyer's work to influence me.

Yes! It is amazing.

[windcedar]

Yeah, I remember being pretty foolish in some ways, and I got influenced a fair bit by books too. But - I think the behaviour patterns that someone might find romantically transgressive on the page will tend to strike the same person as creepy and scary in real life, because there isn't that safety net of "it's just fiction". Obviously this won't be true of everyone, and some teens may be getting a warped idea of the standards they ought to apply to their *non-creepy* romantic partners, but at the same time, I don't think they'd be too thrilled if they were presented with a genuine Edwardlike creep.

Plus, maybe enough of them are reading enough other stuff that Twilight's influence is...tempered? There are certainly plenty of vampirey novels out there these days that have totally kick-ass heroines.

[agentrosecotton]

One can only hope. I tend to be a bit pessimistic about the foolishness of the human race.

On the other hand, genuine Edward-like creeps usually don't appear that creepy. They tend to be extremely charming and good at hiding their creepiness...at first. And then it devolves.

[kippurbird]

Bella: You're a vampire, right?
Edward: [stony silence]
Bella: I love you!
Edward: [stony silence]
Bella: I love you!
Edward: [stony silence]
Bella: I love you!
Edward: Stay away from me before I eat you. And not in the fun way.
Bella: ...I love you!
Edward: [sigh]

You forgot:

Edward: I should stay away from you so I don't eat you but I'm not. Instead I'm going to hang around and make threats about how I'm going to kill you.
Bella: I love you!

One of the things that irked me the most about this book, narrative wise, was we didn't get to see the big battle because Bella Dear Passed out.