Twilight - Love it, or Hate it?

[Joran]

Can I park somewhere in the middle, with my apathy banner on the ground, reading books I like. Does anyone else want to join me? We have shade and we don't judge you based on what you read.

Anyone?

My only experience was the movie. The makeup was awful. All the vampires reminded me of the early days of glam rock, just because they were slathered with pale makeup. Not sure why Robert Pattinson became some sort of sex symbol, he kind of bored me.

It wasn't a terrible movie though, just very conventional.

[JackTheTripper]

Twilight was bad. Parts of it were... Mindblowingly awful. Half of it's own fandom hates the last book in the series, or so TVTropes says, even. It had some good parts, though. For example... Whichever book was mostly without Edward was sorta tolerable to me.

The series DID get me back into actually reading books, which helped me. However, once I got into reading again, almost everything I got my hands on instantly, from the first few pages, crushed Twilight. Only Hydrogen Steel came off as more dull than Twilight to me.

Now, the way I see it, Twilight offers the barest glimpse of good writing. Don't ask me where, it's been a long time since I touched the books (the ending of the last book stopped me from liking them anymore, and prompted me to find something better), but there were some good moments. Unfortunately, I remember that they were buried in mountains of crud, like tiny islands in a pitch-black sea of bad writing.

So... Hate it, though it gets the barest glimmer of appreciation from me for drawing me in, repulsing me away, and therefore prompting me to find better literature again.

PS: Thanks for ruining Jacob, Myers. Only halfway decent character in the series, and you made him into a pedophile jerk. WOnderful.

[Moonshadow]

On the topic of women on dating sites who put "Looking for my Edward Cullen" that makes me *facepalm* epically. Its disturbing on many levels. They're just... attracted to mr Marty Stu and his perfect appearance, and its like they have barely even read the books, and seen all the abusive actions he does.


It fills me with despair that some many people are taken in by this madness.


Also, funny thing about Eragon, if you take a synopsis of the first book, and then compare it to Star Wars: A New Hope, well.... see for yourselves.

[The Tygre]

ok i have to agree the only reason twilight gets a bigger audience than eragon is becuase it attracks female teens becuase of edward, (he's fit)
and it does attrack males becuase of the fact well there all vampires
and they have a little half vampire half human baby

Ok, let's look at the half-vampire men like:



Now let's look at the common ground for genders:



And here is the ravenous hell-beast from Twilight:



Now, something's off here about this last one. He just doesn't seem to fit in with the other two somehow...

[Finn Solomon]

The human body is made up of billions of individual atoms. If the word HATE was stamped on every single one of them, it would not express one-billionth of a percentage of the loathing I feel for this series.

(Bonus points for guessing the reference!)

[Turcano]

Twilight did destroy vampires though, and that is unforgivable.

Not exactly. Vampires took a savage beating from Anne Rice, and then another one from White Wolf. Meyer just delivered the coup de grace.

Also, for those unfamiliar with it yet, there's Sparkledammerung. Long story short: the Cullen family is an allegory for Mormonism (and Meyers apparently really wants to bone a sparkly Joseph Smith).

[HPsauce]

vampires are cool and all but the film twilight i have to admit makes a mockery
of them skin made of diamonds vampires as good guys they are dark creatures not cuddly toys for goodness sake.

[HPsauce]

Ok, let's look at the half-vampire men like:



Now let's look at the common ground for genders:



And here is the ravenous hell-beast from Twilight:



Now, something's off here about this last one. He just doesn't seem to fit in with the other two somehow...

ok i get your point but it's only what my mate told me ages ago because she has read all the books and is a twilight finatic

[doliest]

ok i get your point but it's only what my mate told me ages ago because she has read all the books and is a twilight finatic

HPsauce, you really do need to improve your grammar. It's a general rule of thumb that if you consistently fail to capitalize at the start of your sentences then you really aren't worth talking to, atleast in my book.

As for Twilight what annoys me is people comparing it to Eragon which is bad but substantially less creepy than Twilight.

[HPsauce]

Whats wrong with my grammer and it is worth talking to me even if i don't think about these things when i'm typing.

Anyway, Eragon is better than Twilight then yes or has someone got a counter arguement

[doliest]

Whats wrong with my grammer and it is worth talking to me even if i don't think about these things when i'm typing.

Anyway, Eragon is better than Twilight then yes or has someone got a counter arguement

Generally speaking, poor grammar tends to make reading something an eyestrain.

[HPsauce]

Ok, it is kind of hard for me to concentrate on my grammar, thanks for the advice dude.

[The_Snark]

Whats wrong with my grammer and it is worth talking to me even if i don't think about these things when i'm typing.

Anyway, Eragon is better than Twilight then yes or has someone got a counter arguement

What's wrong with my grammar? And it is worth talking to me, even if I don't think about these things when I'm typing.

Anyway, Eragon is better than Twilight then, yes? Or has someone got a counter argument?

Doliest could have put it a bit more tactfully, but grammar does affect how people think of you on the Internet. Without tone of voice and body language, good grammar (and emoticons, I guess) are about all you've got to help get your mood across.

Nobody really expects perfect grammar, because the English language has a lot of nitpicky rules about exactly where to put commas, but just making sure all the right words are capitalized takes only a few seconds, and it can really make a difference in the impression people get of you.

Anyway, on topic: Haven't read the books, don't plan to; even if I hadn't heard so much about them from friends (who either hate them, or enjoy them as a guilty pleasure while acknowledging they're not well written), romance and vampires have never interested me much, and the combination less so. The more extreme fans are rather baffling. Happily, like the rest of Twilight they remain something I've had contact with only through reading about them on the Internet.

[doliest]

Ok, it is kind of hard for me to concentrate on my grammar, thanks for the advice dude.

Wasn't intending to offend, just pointing out that good grammar makes people more willing to respond to your comments.

[Turcano]

Anyway, Eragon is better than Twilight then yes or has someone got a counter arguement

Twilight's just creepy and messed-up in the head, while the Inheritance Trilogy potential never-ending Jordan-a-thon Cycle is almost like a parody of The Sword of Truth. To give the arguably most infamous example, Paolini has the good guy run down an unarmed enemy soldier and strangle him while he begs for mercy. The good guy. I'm dead freaking serious.

[HPsauce]

You know dude, your alright.
Anyway, twilight good points and bad points:
1) Vampires
2) Diamond skin
3) No blood and gore
4) Good Vampires

[Verruckt]

<insert .gif of Edward Norton as The Narrator punching himself in the face over and over and over again here>

It wasn't when my girlfriend at the time took me to see the movie that this things started to tick me off. Nor was it when the series took a monster, Nosferatu, already having taken a savage beating by being turned into a bisexual french scientologist by that other woman, and made it into something slightly more frightening than a well mannered beanybaby with teeth.

It wasn't when they sparkled, nor was it when the vitriol spilled into my beloved Chans (which is a bit like kerosene spilling into an already raging oil field inferno, but it was noticeable). Nay it was not even when the jacket of The Host proclaimed that Meyers was a "Modern day combination of Stephen King and Isaac Asimov" (please god, if such an author exists do tell me, perhaps Stephenson, but surely not Meyers).

No, it was when I looked at the teaming throng of tweens and their mothers lining up for an early evening showing of the movie and I realised what exactly this series is telling people.

Young impressionable girls are getting a relationship archetype that is founded on manipulation, emotional control, stalking, violence and abuse. The books essentially outline this as a good thing. To me that is utterly unacceptable. It's irritating that a no talent author has been made into the Crystal Dragon Mecha Jesus of the writing world because she knows how to pluck on the vulnerable strings of her readership, but that's all it really is, irritating.

What is infuriating is the fact that the characters and scenarios that she presents are imprinting themselves in the minds of impressionable young readers and conditioning them to accept emotional abuse. HOW THE **** IS THAT OKAY?

Harry Potter had witchcraft, good writing, and compelling characters and it gets burned at the stake in some circles. Twilight on the other hand promotes codependency and spousal abuse and mothers buy their daughters T-Shirts with lovely quotes like "Your blood is my own personal Heroin" plastered across the back, am I the only one who sees a problem here? The characters these people are Idolizing are a young girl with some major self esteem issues in need of counseling and a guy who one would more often find as a feature on the 8 O'clock news "Suspect shot dead when attempting to flee from police after being questioned in connection to several local disappearances and his collection of little girl's shoes. None mourned his passing."

/2 a.m. rant.

But seriously though, it's just a bad book series that teaches some ****ed morals to young kids. Hell, I read Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Animorphs and Dungeons and Dragons manuals in Junior High and that's not entirely responsible for the cynical misanthropic transhumanist I am today right?

edit: and while I'm in my image folder hunting for that .gif, have this handy recognition aid:

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[HPsauce]

That is so true, you rock dude.
Lets punch him in the face.:):):):):):):):):):):):)
I'M CRAZY DUDE!!!

[Verruckt]

That is so true, you rock dude.
Lets punch him in the face.:):):):):):):):):):):):)
I'M CRAZY DUDE!!!

No more mountain dew for you.

[Anteros]

There is a lot of irrational hatred for this series on this board, mostly from people who haven't even read the books.

Let me start of by saying, by no means is this series good. In fact, it's pretty mediocre. However, it does not deserve the hate it gets.

It's written in a style I found very similar to what you'd find in the Harry Potter novels. It's not going to win any awards, but it is clear and concise. This makes sense as the series appeals primarily to a younger crowd.

Secondly, the fact that the vampires "sparkle" in the sun evokes a great deal of nerd-rage. I understand that you want your vampires to be dark and edgy, but you need to understand that dark and edgy isn't very appealing in a romance novel targetted at young girls. I do agree that it's somewhat silly, but honestly it only comes up once or twice within the books, and it's hardly the first attempt by an author to add their own flavor to the vampire mythos.

Third, vampires in these books are not "good guys." It's true that there are a handful of good vampires, but the vast majority of the vampire population in these books are soulless monsters. A minority of good vampires among an society of evil is hardly a new or inventive idea, and getting upset over it is particularly silly.

The books do have some severe problems, (I'm not even going to touch the vampire baby plot, or the "stalking is romantic" thing..) but I rarely see anyone take issue with the actual problems of the series. More often it's just people calling it "an insult to literature" or making fun of "glittery vampires!"

In short, please actually read literature before you critique it.

[Lord Loss]

Sorry Guys, but it's just not a compelling storyline. The people are TOO Perfect. i already don't like the theme. THEY PUT BACK THE CREATION OF HARRY POTTER6 A YEAR TO BUILD THIS... yeah, It's not my favorite movie.

[H. Zee]

Looky here. At about 3:17 onwards.

My respect for Robert Pattinson just increased tenfold, and the look on the interviewer's face is hilarious. Even the guy who plays Edward hates these books!

[HPsauce]

No more mountain dew for you.

I suppose so, but it's so nice (yummy) Moutain dew

[revolver kobold]

For Verruckt,

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Verruckt pretty much sums up my feelings about the movie. I haven't read the books, and only watched the film as it was all they were showing on a flight I was on. Badly filmed, badly scripted, badly acted, and just plain old boring.

[Drascin]

I actually started indifferent to Twilight. I could read by fragments posted in the web that it was really, really bad, yeah, but so are many things. So, you know, whatever. Another piece of badly written stuff. Not like everything I read is the pinnacle of literature.

But then, one of my friends read it, and liked it. And so, I could hear a lot more details, doused in the amount of fan-gushing I myself reserve only for SHnY, and even then, only in the company of fellow fans. I have even read bits of it, in the interest of fairness. So, now... yeah, I can see why people hate it. I mean, the whole thing is almost offensive (he's a bastard and a stalker and a creep, but everything's forgiven 'cause he's pretty! Yeah, not seeing how risking thirteen year olds believing that line of reasoning could be a problem, no siree *facepalm*. How the girls themselves don't take any issue with it is beyond my understanding), the characters are Horrible with a capital H, and, as a more minor point, the stylistic choices for the creatures are just plain weird.

So, yeah. I don't really bother with the energy expenditure needed to truly hate a work of fiction, but Twilight is certainly something I dislike.

[Yarram]

I read romance sometimes when I'm bored, and I borrowed Twilight from a friend because I was bored on a bus so we swapped books...
I got about half-way, then I just had to put it down. Vampires just don't sparkle... It really peeves me when authors try and find a way to let Vampires go into the sun in the first place, but being so beautiful that it hurts is not a character weakness.

[Narmoth]

Back in ye olde days, a vampire was a creepy old (at maybe not in appearance) man, that sneaked into young girls rooms, or charmed them, and then, ehm sucked their blood, or did something else, which all the bloodsucking is an euphemism for (there's no way in heck for me to spell that word right)
Morale of the story: don't let creepy men that claim to be something they're not get to you, and before marriage, suck your virgin ehm, nevermind. Childrens forum and all that.
Anyway. Back from my 2 min break. My point being, that just like werewolves, the vampire was a seducer to stay away from. Warning spelled in blood to all the young girls.
Characterizing feature: evil, virgin-attacking undead monster that needs to kill humans to survive (by drinking their blood)

That's what characterized the original vampire.
Now, what characterize the twilight version?
First thought:

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he bl..dy sparkles!

I read romance sometimes when I'm bored, and I borrowed Twilight from a friend because I was bored on a bus so we swapped books...
I got about half-way, then I just had to put it down. Vampires just don't sparkle... It really peeves me when authors try and find a way to let Vampires go into the sun in the first place, but being so beautiful that it hurts is not a character weakness.

I read a comic that solved that quite nice (sorry, don't remember the name)
They had the vampire cover their skin completely in bandages or something, making them look quite creepy and out of place in daylight

[Shademan]

short answer: HATE!
long answer: HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE!

stole that from yatzee

[Nameless]

I love. Why? Because it’s SO easy to make fun of how bad it is. If you took away Twilight, you would be taking away all my fun.

[The Dark Fiddler]

I like the first three books. Almost oxymoronically, I also like to make fun of them. The last book was crap, more crap, and probably a bit of extra crap roasted in cheap crap on the side. The movies suck. Period. The best part about them is we get a few good flashes making fun of it on newgrounds.com. Seriously, there's a few good ones there.

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