I AM BORED

i hate twilight. i know this is unprecedented and obviously a suprise since i never discuss my opinions on twilight (fnar) but i feel like getting it off my chest a bit.

the four book series has reached critical acclaim with a majority audience of females aged born to dead. most non-fans of the books approach fans with a tentative fear and loathing. rarely before has a fantasy novel created such a divisive social context; stephenie meyer has unwittingly unleashed upon us an interesting dichotomy: the fan versus the anti-fan. speaking personally as an anti-fan, it is easy to call my views biased, because they are. of course they are. remaining objective when it comes to literature is nay impossible, and if i am honest, i don't like fantasy or romance novels. a combination of the two makes my brain feel like a bag of wet mice. however i realised that overall, twilight's themes are what are the most subliminally threatening. the plot arrives nearly four hundred pages in like a drunk friend at a party, the peculiar and not partically correct use of adjectives ('his scintillating arms' being one of them), the lack of explanation for phenomena in the book due to meyer's inability to be either well-versed in scientific theory (she's a mormon, duh) or write as an omniscient guide explaining things the characters themselves may not necessarily know if even just for explanation's sake. no, the thing that frightens me most about twilight is the underlying theme of abuse/dominance in the romantic relationship between bella and edward. barf.
- at this point, i would like to disclaim: i have read twilight from front to back. the first book anyway. my opinions are valid -
when bella and edward first meet, he is practically unable to mask his contempt for her. she however immediately gets the swoon of all swoons for him. she wants a man who finds her repulsive? oh yeah. that's not indicative of serious self-loathing or lack of self-worth at all. then, after something like a few days, edward realises that, silly him! he was just confusing deep-seated hatred with all-consuming love again! they get together, bler bler bler, many disgusting descriptive paragraphs ensue, and bella is eventually pretty much determined to be a vampire. worrying enough as it is that bella seems to withdraw from her friends and mute herself to follow edward blindly and keep his secret, she also wants him to literally take away her humanity (i very nearly swore there, but for the integrity of my point to remain, i shan't.) isn't that a dangerous idea? girls my age, older, and younger all seem to think it's a love story. it's not. it's a passive aggressive nigh-terrifying encounter with obsessive love. edward's behaviour includes watching bella sleep, stalking her and controlling who she can talk to. in real life, that kind of behaviour is sex offender material, not boyfriend material. not only that, but he berates her for physically desiring him. scary abstinence punishment much? bella follows him like an idiot while he occasionally casts her a backwards glance to make sure she's still his property and she adores him. teaching young girls that twilight has a happy ending is teaching them that sacrificing your happiness and control over your own life in order to please an abusive lover. it's dangerous! 'As I had just that once before, I smelled his cool breath in my face. Sweet, delicious, the scent made my mouth water' does that sound like something a normal person should be saying? hell nah.
stephenie meyer herself has admitted that twilight is one of her fantasies. not surprising at all, seeing that bella has a photo-fit description that matches meyer to a t. meyer's mormonism is a common topic, seeing as mormonism is a very male-dominated religion in which polygamy is acceptable. it seems that the lack of female empowerment in mormonism has trickled through the twilight series. bella's an idiot, if i'm quite frank. when her boyfriend leaves her, she throws herself off a cliff to try and make him love her again. that's really not the kind of thing that should be classed as ok.
by the way, even if edward was the lovesick one and bella was the distant one, i would have the same opinion. relationships should not have a leader and a follower. it doesn't matter which gender follows which role, it's equally as unhealthy. i'm not being super-feminist and saying WOMEN SHOULDN'T FOLLOW MEN, i'm saying that relationships like the one in this book are dangerous and very bad for people.
bella is an odd character, situated half-way between the perfect girl next door type, and a mystical fairy or something. i don't know, i didn't read it too closely sometimes. she's always on about how clumsy she is, because it's her one foible. and no-one in the book is allowed to be perfect, an adonis, a god, jesus incarnate in sparkly skin himself other than edward cullen. it's pretty obvious in the writing that lots of people want bella. in the first book alone, there's five boys who actively adore her. but noooo, she only wants what's bad for her. does that sound like a repressed mormon girl, or does that sound like a repressed mormon girl. edward himself is pretty dumb. he contradicts himself constantly, not to mention is a total creeper because he's about a century older than bella. he keeps telling her to stay away from him, and then sneaking in her room and watching her sleep. er, what? evidently they're made for each other because they're both stupid as planks. it also irritates me that edward goes on multiple times about how much he wants to chow down on bella's blood and she doesn't find this remotely creepy. he acts like she's wearing bacon perfume or something and goes I WANT TO EAT YOU and she swoons. evidently a deficiency of self-preservation is in this season.
can't be bothered to make rational arguments. statistics time!
number of times bella remarks on edward's beauty: 165
average amount of pages between uses of the word 'chagrin': 29.3
number of times bella comments on the beauty of edward's breath: 4
number of creepy werewolves who fall in love with newborn babies: 1
number of times bella references her clumsiness: 22
number of times bella says she isn't good enough for edward: 6
number of times edward tells bella she's unnatural: 5
number of times bella says 'holy crow!': 2
number of pages in book: 498
number of pages in which bella is a doofus: 498



i'm really tired now, so i'll leave you with this one gem:
'His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn't sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal'
at the risk of sounding childish... PAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA. i rest my case.