Top Five Reasons Why Twilight Is Horrible

by CharlieBrand

Why do so many people hate the Twilight Saga? In this article we'll cover the top five reasons why so many people hate these books/movies.

With the final movie in the Twilight Saga due out later this year, we're counting down the top five reasons why Twilight is horrible. Twi-Hards be warned, we pull no punches when it comes to Stephanie Meyers' modern day Vamp Romance.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the Twilight series (a series of “Rom-action” books by Stephanie Meyers). While the books, and subsequent movies, have found commercial success among teens and young adults (mainly young women), these are still, in my humble opinion, some of the worst books ever written. In this article, I’ll give you the Top Five Reasons Why Twilight Is Horrible.

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5. Too Much “Re-Inventing the Wheel”

I’m all for putting an original spin on things, believe me, but within reason. When you look at other examples of Vamp Genera work, you find originality while still sticking to the basics of what makes a Vampire a Vampire. Be it a Vampire with a soul that tries to help the helpless (Angel), to a Vampire who longs to regain his mortality, and seeks to atone for his centuries of slaughter by working to protecting the innocent as a police officer (Forever Knight), they are still Vampires.

In Twilight, Meyers tried to redefine what being a Vampire means. Gone are the tortured, brooding figures that spend their time treading the fine line between darkness and light. The Cullen family from the Twilight series would fit right in on a prime time T.V. sitcom. Add in a couple corny jokes and a live studio audience, and you’ve got yourselves a hit. You could even set the whole thing in sunny California, since these Vampires don’t burst into flames in the sunlight… no, these Vampires sparkle.

4. Too Much Juice at the Bottom of the Ticket

Here’s a tip for all of you writers out there; if you are going to write a love triangle into your story, don’t make the odd man out a better character than the guy that gets the girl, without a damn good reason as to why the “lesser man” wins (No way Ilsa gets on the plane with Victor if he hadn’t been leading the underground resistance against the Nazis).

On paper, the characters of Edward and Jacob are too similar for a love triangle to be plausible. Having Bella (or any character, for that matter) choose between the two lovers, should say as much about her character as it does the two guys. In this case however, there really isn’t a choice to be made since the two are almost identical. Let’s face it, both are supernatural creatures, both are head-over-heals in love with Bella, and both are above average in the looks department.

3. The Books/Movies Have No Identity

Gone with the Wind may be set during the Civil War, but it’s a love story. Moby Dick may be set on the ocean, but it’s a tale of obsession and the human spirit. Twilight is a book about a girl who falls in love with a Vampire, and that’s it. Again, that’s fine to a certain extent, but you need to accept it for what it is, and write accordingly. Not every book has to be Wuthering Heights, or The Divine Comedy, there is actually a very large market for “fast food literature”, but let’s at least be honest about it.

Twilight is written for the least common denominator; it was designed to appeal to young girls, period. Any deeper meaning or underlying themes are in the minds of the readers. Meyers seemingly went to great lengths to avoid any subtext, whether by design or not, only she knows.

2.: Bella Is A Terrible Character

Having a female lead character start off as a weak, awkward, bumbling figure is a time honored staple of fiction; Buffy was a ditzy blonde Valley Girl, Hermione was a bucktoothed know-it-all, and Scarlet was just a simple girl from a Georgia plantation. Having awkward girls turn into kick-ass heroines as a story progresses is not only good story telling, it also gives girls role models to look up to. My daughter and her friends for instance, love to try and “out Hermione” each other by being the top student in their classes.

This formula gets shot all to hell however, when the character is just as weak and helpless at the end of the story as she is in the beginning. Even after her transformation into a Vampire, Bella is still just as awkward, and just as clueless as ever. When Edward leaves Bella for her own safety, what does Bella do? She curls up in the woods, and then spends the next few months in an almost catatonic state. Gloria Steinem would be so proud.

1: It's Told From The Wrong Point Of View

A Lot of the problems with Twilight could have fixed by simply writing the story from Edward’s point of view, instead of Bella’s. Edward is the lead character anyway. He has a wider development arc than any other character in the series (with Jacob being a close second). Almost no time is spent on Bella, and when she does talk about Bella it’s almost exclusively in a negative connotation (how plain looking she is, how clumsy she is, how lost she is without Edward).

Couldn't Resist

Had the story been told as Edward dealing with reconciling his love for a mortal with the restrictions of his life as a Vampire, the lead character would have at least had some credibility as a “hero”.  Even the love triangle between Edward/Bella/Jacob would have been better served by having Edward as the focus. There is no aspect of the story that would not have been better told by Edward, plain and simple.

 

Again, not every book needs to be a classic, but when such a horrible series of books garners the type of following that the Twilight Saga has, I just have to wonder why. If anything, it tells us that there is a desperate need for a female heroine. Not just a brainy sidekick, or eye candy for a male lead; a real, honest to goodness female bad-ass to fill the pop-culture void.     

Updated: 05/21/2012, CharlieBrand
 
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