Twilight: Just No
By Matt Steege
Twilight is, to put it simply, bad. I won’t be talking about my issues with materials, about how vampires “glitter” or how it lacks all the elements of a good story. I will talk about how she uses those materials. Some people enjoy Twilight very much, and there is nothing wrong with liking a book. However, there are many reasons that I find Twilight lacking. Foremost among these is the behavior of the vampire Edward. Anyone who has read and enjoyed Twilight is either an Edward fan or a Jacob fan. Vampire or werewolf, these people stand by their choices. Edward is the one who bothers me the most. He is dangerous. I don’t mean because he’s a vampire, though that is a bit of an issue. I mean that, were he a real, normal person, he would probably be considered a stalker. He literally sneaks into his “love” Bella’s room at night to watch her sleep! I put the word “love” in quotations because I find it to be more slavish devotion on Bella’s part than an emotional bond between the two of them. Bella is willing to sacrifice everything for Edward. The only thing in her life that matters to her appears to be Edward, and she’s only seventeen at the start of the series! She is under heavy influence from hormones, and seems incapable of making good decisions. The path she is on is one to self-destruction. However, in all honesty, she has little personality to lose. She is a hollow shell for teenage girls to project themselves onto. You’ll also notice that Edward is never really described in his appearance. He, too, is an empty character for girls to project their dream man onto. I can’t even say that their personalities are in-depth enough to have flaws. Perfection is an awful trait in a character. It’s unrealistic and, more important in this type of writing, boring. To be fair, perhaps this wasn’t an attempt at a “put-yourself-in-her-shoes” story. Perhaps Stephanie Meyer’s writing just isn’t, well, good enough to depict things clearly. Her constant, whining repetitions in Bella’s voice of “he’s so gorgeous” reiterate the fact that Meyer some problems with adjectives.
Surely though, it must have some redeeming qualities to become such a sensation! After all, so many people like it, it has to be pretty good. However, I think I can rather easily explain a good deal of its fame with two words: Harry Potter. Once the Harry Potter series was done, a void was left. “What will we read now?” cried teens. “What will we sell now?” cried advertisers. There was nothing left! It must be remembered, though, that nature abhors a vacuum. So the gap was filled. Twilight had gone from being “that book on the shelves near Harry Potter no one cares about” to being the greatest love story since “Romeo and Juliet” in next to no time at all.
The most dangerous thing about this book, however, is how many people look at Bella and Edward as “the ideal relationship.” So happy, so perfect, so unbelievably misogynistic I want to scream. Bella lets Edward into her house, gives up everything for him, and trusts him not to take advantage of her in her emotionally weakened state? In reality, you can’t trust the first person you see, think is gorgeous, and “fall in love with.” Bella also seems physically incapable of doing anything herself. After all, Edward can do it for her. In the end, this book is the most depressing and sexist book I’ve ever read. Stephanie Meyer: taking a leap back to the year 1800! I can only hope the next great sensation is better than this one.
