Cherry Cheesepie... argh, you guys are as bad as Jelly's signature. xD
Sparkly vampires just sound silly, though D:
The idea of the vampires just becoming severely underpowered in the sun is far more sensible. Apparently, that's what happened in the original Dracula. Fabs did not read, but it makes sense. For our vegetarian vampires, this would make little difference, but it's better than sparkling.
And Meyer didn't invent the sparkly as a no-die-in-sun alternative, she put it there because it happened in a dream. :\ Which makes me far less forgiving.
I think I have been spending too much time around my headache of a sister and the Anti-Twilight fanclub that is the other forum I frequent.
Yes, the sparkling's lame, but I think maybe some people overreact to it. xD I've just seen some friends who, if you even mention twilight, they start screaming about sparkling. I mean, that isn't even mentioned often, it's not the sole reason to hate the series. xD
the sparkling was a bit annoying, and it did spawn a rather funny joke in reference to 'real vampires don't sparkle' (which is slightly idiotic because of the term 'real vampires'). But I agree on needing to have a better reason to hate the series. Like.... It being based entirely on the aspect of romance, which can lead to interesting things, but is rather limited and meaningless in some perspectives.
YES. God, I hate when people use the "real vampires don't sparkle" argument. D< I mean, sure, vampires are usually done in the same way, but a deviation from the norm is not the end of the world. God forbid someone be different though, I suppose.
Same with them trying to resist drinking human blood. It's not sacrilege, it's just different.
There are plenty of valid reasons not to like the series, but half of the rabid haters aren't even aware of them. >>
It's like, the tagline of all Twilight haters.
But if you have to mention why you think the series is ridiculous in one statement, that's probably the one I'd pick. Any other statements lead to a five page rant on the proper use of the word scintillating.
I don't care about the slight differences, its just too simple for me :/. I believe that is a good argument. I don't hate it (however fun it is to make fun of it), but i don't like it either.
The main problem I had was with Bella. I'm not exactly a feminist, but I wish Bella had a lot more backbone. I can appreciate the characters needing each other, it being a love story and all, but I think it was way over the top.
All in all, I liked the book series, I'm looking forward to the movie series, and I hope Stephenie gets over herself and publishes Midnight Sun someday.
Okay so this going to sound odd, but about three chapters into New Moon I hated Edward, at the beginning of Eclipse I hated Bella.
I still bought and read all of the books, minus Breaking Dawn which I did buy but haven't read.
I think Edward is extremely stuck on himself and tries to make himself look good and Bella just appears desperate and mean.
I can't read any of the books anymore or enjoy the movie.
Simply because of all the psychotic Edward fan girls.
I can't do anything without somebody talking about Robert, Kristen, Bella or Edward.
Girls on my bus gush about how hot Robert is, and how they wish Edward was their boyfriend.
Twilight psycho fans say that the series is the best vampire series out there.
News Flash:
Robert Pattinson is a drunk dirty English guy.
He's NOT really Edward.
Kristen Stewart isn't really Bella.
Twilight Series is JUST another vampire series, Anne Rice's is better (IN MY OPINION).
Edward is just a fictional character.
Vampires are NOT like how Stephanie describes them (I respect her choices in describing them).
Again with the "that's not how vampires really are" thing.
Vampires aren't real, they're fictional. Fiction is fake, so it can be whatever you want it to be. Not everyone wants to make them exactly like fifteen thousand writers before them have made them. God forbid.
The biggest problem I had with her vampires was not the sparkling (although sparkling vampires is a little lame though) but the fact that her vampires seemed to be nearly invincible. Short of completely ripping them apart and burning them, nothing could kill them and it was pretty impossible to even hurt them.
Invincible heroes are boring, IMO. She could have easily made them weaker in sunlight, weaker during the day, SOMETHING, to avoid falling into Gary Stu territory.
And also, Edward's constantly described as being cold and like marble...so he's like my bathroom floor?
All in all, Twilight was a fine premise but not executed well, and isn't that much different from any other vampire romance novel out there, so all this constant publicity confuses me.
I just felt the need to express the fact that this one line made me lol. A lot. Oh Rpattz... you will always be a hobo to me.
That being said, the whole "omg that's not how vampires are" argument... I can see both sides to that. Yes it is fiction and Smeyer has every right to make them into her own "thing". But at the same time she is working against a long line of traditional vampire folklore. There is definitely a mythos about them that has been established as being ~what they are~. She may have been better off not calling them vampires at all as the only similarity her version shares with the long since established description is the blood-sucking.
I said I respected her decision to make them sparkle or whatever she wanted them to do.
And maybe to YOU vampires aren't real.
Movies and books don't get them right, but there are cultists and different groups who under rituals and such are considered vampires.
So excuse me for having an opinion.
I wasn't dissing Stephanie for making them sparkle, I was JUST saying that's not how they are.
You crashing and mashing everyone's opinions is kind of destroying the point of the thread.
If people feel someone is just going to come around saying "UGH if she wanted it that way let her do it, God Forbid".
Well maybe someone else has an opinion and a right to state it.
You don't have a right to come crashing down on them for having one, God Forbid someone think differently than you.
Last edited by ` D a f t y `; 04-11-2009 at 01:30 AM..
If you respect her decision to do that, I don't see why you brought it up in the first place as a flaw of the series.
I'm talking about fictional vampires, not people who call themselves vampires.
No, it's not how they are traditionally. But she wasn't trying to make "traditional" vampires. If she was trying to follow tradition to a tee and make them just like all the classics but then had them sparkle, people would have a right to complain about it. But she went out of her way to change the "myths" about vampires and interpret them differently. They're not SUPPOSED to be traditional vampires. So saying that they're not traditional is an invalid point.
I never said you couldn't have an opinion differing from mine. And considering you just "crashed down" on me for having an opinion that is different from YOURS, you're being hypocritical.
I'm not the one stalking around in here and after anyone says anything about how Stephanie did her vampires says around the same thing.
I wasn't bashing you having an opinion, I just think you could do about it in a way that seems a bit less mean.
I was stating my opinion, not saying it was a flaw that her vampires were different, just saying that they were.
Vampires also aren't how this person and that person describes them, but this isn't about them so I didn't list every vampire book.
I just prefer how Anne Rice wrote her series better, not necessarily her vampires.
I'm not trying to start a fight or cause problems.
I just think that opinions are opinions, if people think sparkling vampires are hot, well good for them, if they think they're lame good for them too.
Books about vampires have been around forever, each one varies (at least a tiny bit) so none are the same.
Again, I wasn't dissing the books, I was just expressing my view points.
Which can include flaws or praises.
The biggest problem I had with her vampires was not the sparkling (although sparkling vampires is a little lame though) but the fact that her vampires seemed to be nearly invincible. Short of completely ripping them apart and burning them, nothing could kill them and it was pretty impossible to even hurt them.
Invincible heroes are boring, IMO. She could have easily made them weaker in sunlight, weaker during the day, SOMETHING, to avoid falling into Gary Stu territory.
And also, Edward's constantly described as being cold and like marble...so he's like my bathroom floor?
All in all, Twilight was a fine premise but not executed well, and isn't that much different from any other vampire romance novel out there, so all this constant publicity confuses me.
Totally agree. The sparkling is silly, but the vampires' strength is downright obnoxious.
Most vampires are powerful, but capable of being killed by a human if you're particularly clever. Or at least, that's what I picked up on from general vampire lore. Her vampires are invincible to EVERYTHING, and even during my initial reading of the book that drove me nuts. :\
I think the series was intended for teenage girls; if so, it succeeded magnificently. It would also explain why most of us outside that age group just aren't as ga-ga about it as they are. I know a lot of teenage guys read the books too; they're the ones walking around, scratching their heads with the "I-don't-get-it" expressions.
Sparkly skin doesn't do it for me, either real or imaginary.
Vampires falling in love with mortals is as old as vampire legends themselves. Its always some tortured immortal falling head over heels for some mere, clueless mortal. Then comes the choice; turn the mortal into a vampire or leave it be; ah, the angst. Eventually, the mortal is turned, miracles ensue, and they live happily ever after. Other than the sparkles, Stephenie Meyer's vampires aren't really new at all.
funny story: I made my sister angry with me when I was explaining this series to my brother and his girlfriend. I was explaining the whole SMeyer vampires vs. traditional vampires.. mostly in terms of how they differ from each other. (Disclaimer: I started the whole explanation with the "she is more than welcome to write what she will") And she got mad at me and stormed away. *shrug*
I had a friend of mine post an amazing twilight rant, thought you might want to hear that. Opinions and such are appreciated and expected, this isn't by me. All credits go to my friend (which i will not mention due to the fact that i don't know if he wants his name spread across the internet XD)
SPOILERX
NOTICE: BECAUSE OF MISUNDERSTANDINGS I WILL CLARIFY, I DON'T CARE IF YOU READ THE TWILIGHT SERIES OR NOT, NOR AM SAYING IT IS BAD. THIS NOTE HAS BEEN POSTED IN RESPONCE TO THOSE WHO ALLOW TWILIGHT TO OVERTAKE, DETERMINE COURSE FOR, AND CONTROL THEIR LIFE. THE FOLLOWING IS AN OPINIONATED REVIEW ON TWILIGHT AND MAY NOT RELFECT THE VIEWS OF THE POSTER.
Here's what had to be said about Twilight, and the rest of the series.
"...Twilight is the story of the so-called “average” new girl Bella Swan (Ha, ha, get it? Beautiful Swan?), who finds herself as the object of not one, not two, but a total of five boys’ romantic designs (because she’s so “plain”, see?). The most important of these is the mysterious, hilariously-Byronic Edward Cullen. Bella plays the pitiful damsel in distress a few times and after 200 pages of thinly written suspense, we learn that Edward is in fact a vampire. Never fear, though, because Bella’s “Adonis-like” admirer is no Nosferatu. Instead, he and his vampire family are so-called “vegetarian” vampires, feeding off of animals instead of humans and inexplicably attending high school (during lunch periods they buy trays of food and stare at each other so that Bella can conveniently get a glimpse of Edward from across the cafeteria). The first novel deals with Bella and Edward’s romance and is capped off by a hastily tacked-on plot designed to shove Bella into the damsel in distress role yet again so that her vampire lover can save her.
Okay, you’re saying. It’s a little cheesy. But why is that so bad?
First and foremost, the books present a female heroine who can hardly take a step without needing some boy to rescue her. In fact, the books represent sexist views in almost every way-from the fact that Bella gives up her ambitions and plans for college to get married to Edward, the fact that she is portrayed as a modern Eve, begging the noble, moral gentleman for sex while he desires to preserve their virtue, the fact that their relationship is dangerously unhealthy, and finally to the fact that nearly every single female character in the book is a hopelessly negative caricature.
The series does not improve with subsequent books, either. In New Moon, Bella enters a self-described “zombie” state when Edward leaves her. In fact, the author oh-so-cleverly inserts blank pages with the months’ names as a poorly conceived plot device for showing the depths of her heroine’s pain and also to avoid having to write the “hard stuff.” Bella turns near-suicidal; she purposely puts herself in harm’s way-going so far as to jump off a cliff-to hear her lover’s imagined voice in her head.
What does this say to readers, bearing in mind that the target audience is the tragically impressionable 12-17 year old girls? That they should fall apart at the seams for months if their boyfriend leaves them? That reckless self-endangerment is okay, so long as it’s to be close to your lover? What a lovely message to send to young women.
The sole bright spot of New Moon is the lovable Jacob Black, a member of the nearby La Push reservation and newly-turned werewolf. It is in Bella’s scenes with Jacob that readers see a glimpse of actual personality, and the burgeoning romance is certainly much more true to real-life teen romances than the lofty ideals of the star cross’d lovers Edward and Bella. But add another half-forgotten plot into the mix and Edward and Bella are reunited, with Jacob left by the wayside like a kicked puppy. Pun intended.
Eclipse. It is in this tome that Edward and Bella’s relationship takes a decidedly worse turn. Edward goes so far as to remove Bella’s engine from her car to prevent her from seeing her friend, Jacob, and even has his vampire ‘sister’ kidnap her from a weekend. Bella is a little peeved at this, sure, but she writes off Edward’s atrocious behavior with the terrifying “he’s just a little overprotective” and “he does it because he loves me”. Reader, I actually felt a little sick while reading this, despite these so-called good intentions (they’re always leading to hell, remember). Not only does Meyer give her two characters an obviously unhealthy-even abusive-relationship, but she romanticizes and idealizes it, and not only with Bella and Edward, but with Bella and Jacob as well.
Jacob, in fact, gets a bizarre personality transplant (lycanthropic dissociative identity disorder, maybe?) and turns into a real asshole in this book. He actually forcibly kisses Bella-twice-while ignoring her protests and actually threatens suicide should Bella refuse him. But not once does the thought of abuse, sexism, or inequality even occur to her main character! In fact, halfway through Jacob’s forced kiss (sexual assault, mind you) Bella actually decides that she’s in love with him. What is this??
I threw down my copy of Eclipse in disgust and I was ready to forget that the books existed until the Twilight-mania began anew in the lead-up to August 2nd’s release of Breaking Dawn. I can write this article just having read the first three, I told myself. In the end, though, partly due to morbid curiosity and partly a result of wildly irrational hope that somehow Meyer would redeem herself, I gave in.
I was wrong. In Breaking Dawn, Meyer gives us an honestly bewildering and at times horrifying close to the series. The several hundred pages are filled with sickly-sweet self-indulgence and a blatant dismissal of continuity and realism. In brief, Bella and Edward get horizontal at long last (but only after they’re married, of course-we can’t have the naughty temptress taking away Edward’s 107 year-old virginity) and Bella somehow gets pregnant. Please, Meyer says, never mind the fact that all the vampires’ body fluids are replaced with their ‘venom’ or that sperm dies after three days, much less a century. Even more fantastically, the vampire/human spawn grows at an alarming rate, so fast in fact that Bella feels it “nudging” her at approximately two weeks of gestation. Now, I’ve never been pregnant but I did take health class back in high school and I’m pretty sure that there’s something wrong with that picture.
I’ll spare you the details of the rest of this horror show. Trust me, the birthing scene is something I desperately wish I could un-see (after the loosely-called ‘baby’ breaks Bella’s pelvis, spine, and ribs from the inside, Edward ends up clawing his way to a surely-unsanitary vampire version of a Caesarian section using his teeth). I’m sorry. I had to share my pain. Bella becomes a super-special vampire with super-special powers and she wins the not-conflict of the not-climax. And don’t forget her nifty ability to go hunting in a forest in a cocktail dress and heels.
Thankfully, the ‘Twilight’ series is over. Not as great is the fact that millions of girls are reading this sexist tripe without a care in the world, obsessing over the “perfect” Edward Cullen and the “hot” Jacob Black, pretending to be Bella Swan and ignoring the unhealthiness of the relationship just as successfully as the character does. What happened that two hundred years after feminist hero Elizabeth Bennet is put down on the page, we get one of the most awful excuses for a female literary hero that I’ve ever seen?"
@ King of Bedlam:
I honestly agree with a lot that your friend had to say. Unfortunately, I'm not brave enough to speak up. The best I can do is make sure my own daughter knows that the way "Bella" handled things was, in my opinion, bordering on insane, much less unhealthy. I don't know how many times I found myself thinking "if a guy did that to me, I'd deck him" or something to that effect.
