A Brand New Kind Of 'T' Virus

So, Circuit City's gone out of business, I'm scrambling to find a job, and my pay and benefits are about to run out. So, what is this blog/rant going to be about?

Twilight.

Yes. Fucking. Twilight.

This godawful monstrosity of literature has finally pushed me over the edge. Allow me to explain what my thoughts have been on Twilight and guide you through how this built up and why I can no longer take the fandom and undeserved positive attention this book series is getting.

When I first saw the promos for the Twilight movie, I thought it looked really cool, and when I heard it was based on a book series, that immediately caught my interest. However, that didn't last long. A group of girls I role play with online were talking about the book series, and when I had told them it looked cool, they proceeded to show me summaries of the plot and blogs where people picked out certain parts of the story to examine, and I was completely and utterly horrified.

First of all, the main character, Bella Swan ('Beautiful Swan', oh TOTALLY a believable name!) is what we in the writing world call a Mary Sue. A Mary Sue is a character who is beautiful, popular, powerful, and all-around perfect, to the point where she is an unbelievable character and bends and breaks the laws of the universe set by the author themselves. The author of Twilight, Stephanie Meyer, has said herself that Bella was given very little personality and physical description so that the reader could place themselves in Bella's position and read the story as if they were Bella themselves. Self-insertion into a story and lack of personality are also two large symptoms of Mary Sueism, and in my personal opinion, it is a cheap way to get around giving your main character no development whatsoever.

Now, I have not read the books themselves, but I have heard several things about the plot which I would like to discuss so that you can see where I am coming from. Keep in mind while reading this that this is TEEN LITERATURE and that these stories are meant to be an influence on young girls.

To be fair, what is below are SPOILERS. Don't bitch at me if you read this and got spoiled.

• The Relationship between Bella and Edward is a huge problem in these books. From what I understand, Bella is extremely dependent upon Edward, so much so that in the second book I believe it is, she realizes that when she is in trouble, Edward will contact her telepathically. So she JUMPS. OFF. A. CLIFF for no other reason than to simply hear his voice. While this is obviously extremely destructive behavior, it is also important to point out that Edward himself is rather cold to Bella at times, and orders her around to stay put so she'll be safe and let him do what he wants, to which, like a good woman should, she immediately listens to, stripping her of all integrity as a woman.
  
  
• Vampires sparkling in sunlight is just unacceptable in my eyes. Now, I also have to play devil's advocate and point out that as an author, Meyer has the right to do whatever she pleases with her characters and story universe, and that most of her fan base will probably not care about this deviation, never minding that it goes against every single piece of vampiric literature ever written in history which that, up until now, always state that when a vampire goes into sunlight, they burn and die. Again, it is Meyer's prerogative to change this, but making a vampire sparkle in sunlight is not only just silly and nonsensical, it serves no story purpose whatsoever, other than reaffirming how damned pretty all her little bloodsuckers are.
  
  
• Edward knocks Bella up. Seriously. Vampires' bodies are dead, therefore they have no ability to procreate. Even Meyer makes it very clear that her vampires are dead creatures. Now again, she can change what she wants, so let's say that she legitimately says that they can indeed have children, and Edward has gotten Bella pregnant. Fine. However, the birth of said child is the problem. The baby is born TWO MONTHS after conception, and the child not 'born' per say, so much as it breaks Bella's hipbones and claws its way out of her stomach. No, I'm not kidding. In order to save her life, Edward turns her into a vampire. Now, remember how I mentioned above that he protects her like the fragile little useless woman she is? Well, apparently female vampires don't have this stigma, because once she is turned, she starts kicking everyone's asses and becomes one of the most powerful vampires in the entire story almost instantly. Again, unrealistic and completely unneeded. To add on to that, this werewolf guy who was head over heels for Bella (as is every other man in the story, another Mary Sue symptom) takes one look at her severely premature daughter and decides that they are soul mates, meant to be together forever (whether its just as friends or something more is your call, I don't want to imagine the latter), and so he marks the poor baby. To add on to this, said baby becomes the equivalent of a 3-4 year old child in just a few months, and is just as powerful, pretty, and perfect as her mommy. Just great.
  

I hope the above helps you see things from my perspective. As a writer, the above points make the story unbearable to read about and honestly make me nauseous. As I stated above, this is supposed to be something that young teen girls look up to. Not only is the entire concept of sleeping with a creepy stranger who breaks into your house to watch you sleep at night and having his children being a GOOD thing just sickening, but the state of Bella and Edward's relationship is unhealthy in every way, shape, and form.

Now, I don't read the books and I avoid them at all costs, so it really didn't effect me. Even working at Circuit City it didn't really bother me; we're closed already, and so I never had to deal with Twilight being released on DVD or anything like that. However, its spreading.

Everyone I know that reads these books gets horribly addicted to them. My mother's boyfriend's daughter started reading them, and then convinced my mother to do so. While on the phone with her today, she began talking about how much she loves Edward, and how she doesn't understand why I don't like the books. I simply said to her 'Mom, they sparkle in sunlight. Sunlight is supposed to make them burn and die!', to which she replied, and I am not exaggerating in any way, 'Well Edward said its just a myth, so I'm going to believe Edward!'

Oh, my god. My own MOTHER has been sucked in!

Now, besides also seeing Twilight paraphernalia everywhere I go, its branching out into other mediums. What finally got me to snap and write this whole post was this article:

Twilight Director Hardwicke Hints At Anime Version

...I'm sorry, what?

Well, I read it right the first time. Apparently, the Twilight movie's director Catherine Hardwicke inferred in one of the DVD extras that Japan was working on a Twilight anime series. The mere thought of them animating this absolutely horrid and unrealistic pile of horrible makes my stomach turn.

However, in a way, it makes sense. I mean, considering what you read above, what other medium is going to be able to capture the true essence of a child boring its way out of its mother's womb besides anime? Only the Japanese would be bold enough to even attempt such a thing.

Honestly though, I think that this Twilight phenomenon has just gone too far. I of course can do nothing to stop it. I can only hope that the teenagers who pick these books up are smart enough to resist the messages being sent to them via this story. With all of the media and parents blaming video games and anime and music for inspiring kids and teenagers to do stupid, reckless things, why is nobody concerned that some depressed 13 year old is going to jump off of her roof to try and hear her boyfriend's voice, or that an 11 or 12 year old might think it would be cool to have a child with a mysterious stranger? It sounds preposterous wording it that way, but let's face it, we've seen people do stupider things in the papers and on TV.

I'm also curious as to how certain things like the birthing scene will be portrayed in the movies to come, but I suppose we'll all find out eventually.