st_aurafina (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
st_aurafina) wrote2008-09-04 11:07 am
st_aurafina) wrote2008-09-04 11:07 am
Happy shiny vampires
So, I read Twilight. My sister is into it, and I want to support her fannish interests, and also I was just curious.
Okay, so I knew some of the grotesqueries - that Edward sparkles, that Bella's hair smells like strawberries, that Edward's love is kind of stalker-y. Yeah. All that.
I didn't know he eats mountain lions.
I didn't know he gave her a piggy-back ride through the forest at vampire super-speed.
I didn't know that he and his siblings loaded up trays of food in the school cafe, then threw the food away, just to fit in.
It's totally indulgent wish-fulfillment, and I can see why it's so incredibly popular. And if I were a teenager again, I'd totally buy into Bella's story and defend these books furiously.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lilacsigil pointed out other totally indulgent series we've both read and had similar reactions to - the Belgariad, the Vanyel books - and she's right; I wouldn't enjoy those books now the way I did when I first stumbled onto them. Every time Bella was the perfect teenage girl, whom all the boys wanted to date, for whom school was easy, when she knew what dress suited which girl for the dance, I twitched a little, but it did fit the kind of story SM was telling. I do think it was creepy that refusing food, or denying the need to eat was included in this list of perfect attributes, as though it were unladylike to have an appetite.
The Edward/Bella relationship, it's kind of kinky, isn't it? All that restraint and control and denial. It's got a lot of the cues of a good bodice ripper, with very little actual bodice ripping. I knew there was a lot of stalker-like behavior, but I didn't realise the extent of it - he says he could accidentally crush her skull? He loves her because she smells the most delicious? It was creepier than I expected. Combine that with the way Edward struggled to understand Bella's physical needs, like eating and sleeping, and I very much had the feeling he saw her as a kind of hamster. No ordinary hamster, mind you. Filigree Siberian hamster, this one.
On the other other hand, I did like the way SM built her vampires up as a very different species - beyond the House Sparkly-Poo and the colour-changing eyes, they were frightening and very definitely non-human. I love the idea of vampirism transmitted by venom. As soon as there was more than one vampire on the scene, the story picked up, and I was reading for the plot rather than the lulz. I like the Cullens - what a strange cult within a cult. And once we had vampires to compare with the Cullens, there was a great contrast between them and the 'normal' vampires as predators. After reading further than I should have in Laurel K Hamilton's Anita Blake series, I was dreading the appearance of vampire society, but now I'm looking forward to knowing more.
But I still feel bad for the mountain lions.
Okay, so I knew some of the grotesqueries - that Edward sparkles, that Bella's hair smells like strawberries, that Edward's love is kind of stalker-y. Yeah. All that.
I didn't know he eats mountain lions.
I didn't know he gave her a piggy-back ride through the forest at vampire super-speed.
I didn't know that he and his siblings loaded up trays of food in the school cafe, then threw the food away, just to fit in.
It's totally indulgent wish-fulfillment, and I can see why it's so incredibly popular. And if I were a teenager again, I'd totally buy into Bella's story and defend these books furiously.
lilacsigil pointed out other totally indulgent series we've both read and had similar reactions to - the Belgariad, the Vanyel books - and she's right; I wouldn't enjoy those books now the way I did when I first stumbled onto them. Every time Bella was the perfect teenage girl, whom all the boys wanted to date, for whom school was easy, when she knew what dress suited which girl for the dance, I twitched a little, but it did fit the kind of story SM was telling. I do think it was creepy that refusing food, or denying the need to eat was included in this list of perfect attributes, as though it were unladylike to have an appetite. The Edward/Bella relationship, it's kind of kinky, isn't it? All that restraint and control and denial. It's got a lot of the cues of a good bodice ripper, with very little actual bodice ripping. I knew there was a lot of stalker-like behavior, but I didn't realise the extent of it - he says he could accidentally crush her skull? He loves her because she smells the most delicious? It was creepier than I expected. Combine that with the way Edward struggled to understand Bella's physical needs, like eating and sleeping, and I very much had the feeling he saw her as a kind of hamster. No ordinary hamster, mind you. Filigree Siberian hamster, this one.
On the other other hand, I did like the way SM built her vampires up as a very different species - beyond the House Sparkly-Poo and the colour-changing eyes, they were frightening and very definitely non-human. I love the idea of vampirism transmitted by venom. As soon as there was more than one vampire on the scene, the story picked up, and I was reading for the plot rather than the lulz. I like the Cullens - what a strange cult within a cult. And once we had vampires to compare with the Cullens, there was a great contrast between them and the 'normal' vampires as predators. After reading further than I should have in Laurel K Hamilton's Anita Blake series, I was dreading the appearance of vampire society, but now I'm looking forward to knowing more.
But I still feel bad for the mountain lions.