Lur

TWILIGHT TALK! And much parenthesis.

Now, I have a hideous residual fondness for Twilight ('New Moon' and 'Eclipse' at least, which I oddly read before 'Twilight'. 'Breaking Dawn' doesn't exist in my world), because I read them in a horrible patch of my life where they basically kept me sane (the irony!), when I needed something utterly distracting and Bella's pain served to mask my own. But on re-read, they're a) nowhere near as good as my madness-addled brain remembered and b) pretty unpleasant in many ways.

Now, I'm not going to write a full on rant, enough other people have done that for me (google 'Twilight, abusive' and see what I mean). But there's a lot in those books that's pretty concerning given the young audience. And, of course, a lot that's just plain (if hilariously) bad. Edward's arms aren't just attractive, they're 'scintillating'. Excuse me while I giggle myself into a stupor for a moment.

OK, OK, I'm fine.

But let's consider the incredible horribleness of Bella, heroin (ahahah I made a pun) apparent and all-round supergirl. Kind of. She's weak, she's AMAZINGLY selfish, she has no respect for people who aren't gorgeous and/or sparkly and she's content to be a total doormat. And worse, she's offered something better and turns it down. Jeez.

Edward, sexy true love of perfection, is controlling, abusive (NO-ONE has the right to order their girlfriend kidnapped, even if they claim it IS for her own good. NOBODY. Or drag them to their car, for the same reasons), self-loathing and, given the amount of mood-swings he goes through, probably 'on something', if you know what I mean. His main redeeming quality is that he's very, VERY beautiful (to Bella. I don't see what's attractive about white-gray skin matched with AMBER hair and eyes but there you go). He's better than Bella in every way; stronger, smarter, knows better and never HESITATES to remind her of these things, even while claiming he isn't doing these things. He condescends to her (in 'Midnight Sun' he considers her a kitten who thinks she's a tiger) and controls her life.

Don't even start me on imprinting. True love, my nether regions. What hopes I had when Jacob proudly announced the virtues of just going out and falling in love with someone you get to know, who gets a choice in the relationship. Oh innocent me! No, he gets matched up, alright. With his ex's baby daughter. On which note, the implication was that he loved Bella only for her unfertilised egg...shouldn't he have fancied Edward for his (biologically impossible) sperm too then? I might have wanted to read THAT book. Hell, I might WRITE it. That would be worth it.

The denegration of humanity annoyed me, too, specifically since the target audience IS human. Nonetheless, every human is bitchy, ugly, stupid, nerdy or boring (including Bella). The girls, naturally, fare worst; even Angela, the 'good' friend, has very little personality or screen time compared to, say, Mike. Jessica is apparently a bad person for getting cross at being abandoned in a strange city while her friend runs off to be suicidal. But it's OK, since their friendship isn't worth cultivating anyway! Problem solved! Also compare Renee (flighty, childish) to Charlie (sensible, caring). BLAH.

In the meantime for the supernatural females, we have shallow non-persona Esme, shallow child-mad Rosalie and shallow Barbie Alice, stacked against randomly evil Victoria and Leah, who's a 'harpy' for daring to be upset about being dumped, having a parent die and suddenly being the ONLY GIRL to turn into a giant wolf thing. Oh, and Emily, who has no compunction about accepting her cousin's fiance's sudden advances. In fact, I hate the Emily/Sam pairing worst of ALL in the whole series. OK, Sam didn't have a choice. Emily DID. Would you honestly, TRULY date your closest, best friend's man, even if they begged? If they threatened suicide, this is more a cause for calling them out than giving in (see: abuse and lack of (particularly female) choice in imprinting). And if imprinting means you give the person whatever they want, if Emily had said, I don't want to be with you, you're with Leah, Sam should have been OK with that. He could have been like a big brother, or a friend, or something. But no. Then Leah is blamed. OK, perhaps she could have been nicer but she's had her whole life RUINED. When Bella's life is ruined, it's OK to mope and worry people. When it's Leah (or Rosalie), she's a 'harpy'.
And as an addendum, no matter what flimsy excuse you use about imprinting not being sexual until a certain age, imprinting on a child IS grooming. The pressure to marry that man when you're older would be appalling. Imagine if Claire finds a boy at school she quite likes and wants to go out with him. Would Quil threaten suicide? Attack the boy? Who knows? What if Quil doesn't like who Claire grows up to be?

I think 'Twilight' is easily the best book of the 4, because at least it doesn't suffer with all the dirty intricacies of the world. Edward isn't THAT bad; it's new to him, he doesn't know better. Bella is...bearable, if amazingly rude and selfish (if someone rolls out the welcome wagon in a new town for you, you're polite and happy, not depressed because they're so OMGOVERFRIENDLY).

The writing is bad, but that's really the least of the problems...

Anyway, all that adds up to why re-reading Twilight as a, shall we say, sane healthy person, was a bit of a depressing experience for me.