Why I hate Twilight -creative title-

DISCLAIMER: I have salvaged this from the depths of my facebook notes. It is a horrible rant and needs fixing, but since I’m lazy, I will probably post this and will never return to it. Expect bitchiness and spiels about unrelated things and try to regard all the shit that I’m too lazy to delete as something that will add to the experience of reading angry pre-teen rants

<p>I have defined Twilight as: Twilight, noun: (1) a collection of adjectives and adverbs under the guise of a novel, (2) the magnum opus of the new misogynist movement, (3) glorified trash

Consider the Twilight phenomenon a good thing. The girls who say that they will never ever ever ever get another boyfriend because no one could ever ever ever ever live up to their preconceived ideas about the perfect man (cough, Edward) will probably never have children, thereby improving the gene pool. It’s almost like voluntary eugenics. (and you will notice that a good majority of my posts will have something to do with exterminating the people I don’t like in the name of genetic improvement)

Twilight irritates me on several levels. When I read it – oh yes, I should probably admit that I’ve read the book, which is more than many critics of the Twilight series can claim. So, when I read the book I read it because it had been highly recommended to me by a friend (who will remain unnamed), and what’s more, I even found the opening almost enjoyable.

Aha, I hear objections already – “Lynette, if you found it enjoyable then why do you hate it so much?” Sorry, I should have specified that finding a book enjoyable doesn’t necessarily mean that it should be considered on par with books that are far superior in terms of structure, development, characterisation and all those aspects of a book that make it good. So I read Twilight and found it entertaining enough. It was brilliantly soppy, which is a prerequisite for any mediocre chick-novel (and Twilight cannot, even by the most generous standards, be regarded as anything more than mediocre), and formulaic enough to be relatively feel-good. I could call it predictable because (for the most part) Twilight *was* disgustingly predictable, but sadly, the climatic twist of the novel wasn’t predicatable at all. In fact, it was plain random and out of the blue, and in all honesty, I would rather predictability over random plot devices thrown in because the author was too lazy to spin a good story. The ballet studio? What? That was random and pointless and Meyer offered no explanation for its inclusion, yet the story was written as though the trickery was something Bella should have seen all along. Yes. Because readers clearly beat themselves over the head and say, “URGH, why didn’t I see that coming? What a brilliantly conceived plot!” when they had no prior knowledge that any such place/event could have existed.

Aside from that, I say it serves her right and I wish she had died then and there. Better yet, a more satisfying ending would have included Edward sucking the blood and guts out of Bella and committing suicide out of grief. That might have been upsetting enough to be considered ‘bitter sweet’, but no, Meyer opted for the easier way out and has further continued to subject the unfortunate populace to MORE BOOKS and a movie based on these books. How I grieve for the degradation of literature. On that note, I’m bothered by the number of people who seem to think that Twilight epitomises all the qualities desired in marvellous literature. My dear elitist friend, Matt Vethecan, recently criticised me for reading Jane Austen, citing her ‘boring and predictable’ plots as reason enough to dismiss her novels as nothing more than trash. Alright, so he didn’t say the last bit, but for the sake of my own judgments of Twilight, I’ll leave it there. My counterargument justified Jane Austen’s elevated status in the world of literature – Jane Austen is not an author one would read if one were looking for a good plot. I’d be clutching at straws if I said that her very minimal plots were intentionally there to serve as a base for the more sophisticated dialogue between Austen’s characters, so I’ll settle on saying that, yes, her plots sucked, but her characters (while admittedly similar) were amusing and possessed a certain liveliness that books like Twilight do not. So, if Twilight has neither a good plot nor characters in possession of more than one dimension, where are its redeeming features? My very simple answer is that there are none. That people compare the Twilight books to the works by Dickens, Austen and many other notable authors disturbs me. Edward Cullen is a neurotic sociopath who displays nauseatingly sadistic tendencies throughout the book. His depressed girlfriend, Bella, is a self absorbed bitch who does nothing more than whine about how her friends at school don’t understand why her life is infinitely more woesome than theirs. I fail to comprehend why her darling friends don’t ditch her for someone less lofty and condescending – I for one wouldn’t suffer the presence of a high-maintenance sniveller who is in desperate need of some Prozac. Bella is too self-absorbed to be a desirable character in any context, much less a romantic one.

Other Things That I Hate About Twilight:

TWILIGHT’S DEPTH: TWILIGHT IS NOT DEEP. IT IS NOT PROFOUND. Yes, it is littered with allusions to other books, but they are… pathetic. DEPTH (nonexistent) Anyone who rants about the book’s ‘humour’ and ‘deep and evocative themes’ is full of bullshit. Harry Potter has more themes than Twilight and is much funnier. What’s also ironic is that the Harry Potter series doesn’t attempt to take itself seriously the way Twilight does. Twilight is filled with sloppily embedded references that just hit you in the face with their glaring lack of purpose – e.g. “The lion and the lamb”, which are animals with biblical significance. Meyer could at least try to make an effort at portraying her characters without resorting to her readers’ presuppositions about the traits that are characteristic of lions and lambs to shed light on the (nonexistent) personalities of Bella and Edward. Personality is not defined by the act of pulling facial expressions (Edward: *sneer*) or being clumsy (Bella: *accidentally falls into a blender*). The theme of CHOICE: The apple on the cover of Twilight is another example of Meyer’s pointless allusions to things that are irrelevant. The apple symbolises choice (a la Garden of Eden), except Twilight has nothing to do with choice (unless Meyer was referring to Edward having to choose between seducing Bella and ripping out her throat – and she may have been.) The real choice is whether or not I should read the other books in the series and risk dropping a few IQ points.

THE TITLE!!11!!!!1 Given all the other random references to irrelevant things, we should assume that the title also holds very strong significance to the overall novel. So what is Twilight? Twilight is a noun derived from some 15th C Germanic tongue. “Twi” is an archaic term for ‘two’ or ‘half’, so ‘twilight’ really means ‘half-light’, or the time of day just before/after sunset/dawn. It can also refer to a time of gentle or peaceful decline, e.g. the twilight of someone’s career/life/romance/etc. Hm, twi = two? Well, Bella + Edward = two. Meyer might try to trick you into thinking that Bella and Edward are so in love that they’re actually ‘one’ – don’t listen to her because she obviously sucks at maths. 1 + 1 = 2. Maybe the title is supposed to mean that Edward and Bella are so ‘totally and irrevocably in love’ with each other that their love manifests itself so strongly that they are like beacons of “LIGHT!” when together. Well, that interpretation of “twilight” doesn’t really work because Bella’s perpetual gloom and Edwards bloodlust make them both better candidates for ‘dark’ rather than ‘light’. Alternatively, ‘Twilight’ may be talking about Edward – perhaps he’s ‘half light’ in that he is, by nature, morally conflicted. No, that doesn’t work either, because Bella is the protagonist of the story, not Edward – although seeing as the book is written in the first person from Bella’s POV and all she ever does is talk about Edward, he may as well be the main character because aside from the fact that she’s a sappy bitch who cries over nothing and dearly lusts after Edward, I wouldn’t have a clue what Bella is like. That means that she’s not really the protagonist. Or it means that Meyer sucks. Yeah, go with the latter. It’s more accurate. And guess what?! It turns out that Meyer chose the title “Twilight” because she couldn’t think of anything else. “A Most Displeasing Narration on the Ridiculous and Facepalm-Inducing Experiences of a Certain Disgusting Cretin Known as Bella Swan and Her Equally Insipid Boyfriend Edward” would have been a more suitable title. Even “Lame Sparkling Vamipres” would have sufficed as a working title.

So. In two and a half pages the following facts have been established – 1.Twilight is shit 2.Meyer is dumb 3.Lynette has too much time on her hands