The Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer

[silverchris9]

I read three chapters of twilight on a whim because it was sitting in my bathroom. It's horrendous. Like, incredibly, superhumanly bad. And yet it makes perfect sense as a novel book collection of words inanely strung together for teenage girls and their unsatisfied middle-aged mothers. Because it's the "bad boy" fantasy writ large. It's this guy who has the capacity to do her significant harm (i.e., kill her), the profound and quasi-sexual desire to do her significant harm (because her blood is sweet or something gross like that), but won't do her any harm because "he loves her." This is the kind of bullshit some women want to believe, sort of like, "the force of my love is going to tame my jerk of a boyfriend." And it's like, nope, your jerk of a boyfriend will continue to be a jerk, and the sex will continue to be good until he starts liking it a little bit rougher than you. Which actually happens in the book. Hmm... basically it's a fantasia on idealized "dark" masculine figures, which contains some vague masochistic elements and is attracted to aggression (and sexual "need" metaphorized into Edward's "need" for her perfect-for-him blood) in sexuality. Interestingly enough, Edward probably is an ISTj, or at least, is meant to be an ISTj, which, yes, would lead me to believe that Stephanie Meyers in all likelihood portrays Bella as ENFj.

[Satan]

silverchris.. let girls dream.. you can't break everyone's hopes and dreams and shit and expect for them to be unhappy cos you are

disillusionment is a negative thing remember.

[ashlesha]

no way!?!
what people? who would know?
aaaaarrrggghhh
................


gdammt, that just...made me so friggin...agitated....i seriously want to scream at her
throttle her
knock some frickin sense into her
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhh

WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK WHEN SHE IS EATING THEM COS SHE IS A BLOODCRAZED VAMPIRE???

[Satan]

WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK WHEN SHE IS EATING THEM COS SHE IS A BLOODCRAZED VAMPIRE???

i woudln't expect soemone to think much while they were being eaten :/

[ashlesha]

anyway, i like twilight. :redface:

[anndelise]

i woudln't expect soemone to think much while they were being eaten :/

dinner:
"I KNEW I should have showered before dinner"
"I wonder if I taste good"

afterdinner Bella:
"oh, do I have a blood mustache?...silly me"
"was that as good for you as it was for me?"
"you're just jealous that my fangs are bigger than yours, hmph"

[Simon Ssmall]

I hate Twilight the movie, the book I couldnt read either although I hoped it would be more interesting. It wasnt. For me it was one of the most horrendous things to read or watch.

[marooned]

This topic is interesting to me suddenly. I read the first book and rather couldn't stand the idea of reading the rest of them as they're just so over-the-top and gag worthy, so I don't know if I'll get to the books to address my new sudden interest but I guess I kind of doubt it. Anyway it was my recent watching of New Moon that has created this new found interest in this series.

It's interesting to me how there seems to be so much cultural idealization of the Edward/Bella relationship, as I sort of got the impression from New Moon (the movie) that this may not exactly be the point. I'm starting to see the overall story as more and more of a tragedy (I mean I saw it as that before but I was more sympathetic before) where Bella's attachment to Edward is something that is slowly killing her and I know that in the end she is going to die/become a vampire herself. She does this with little regard for her own life and although she doesn't know if she has a "soul" or how this all plays in, she is all too eager to throw hers away and squander away her entire life. What's more I think she realizes (or this was my impression from the movie) to some extent what she is doing--it's just that she can't stop... she is stuck going down this path and she can't turn back.

I think that Jacob's character is generally right in trying to stop her from being with Edward... and that he is trying to save her, while Edward is trying to destroy her (even though he doesn't want to destroy her he can't resist and as said before she's so far along that she can't detach herself, so it seems doomed). Despite there being love in the relationship, it just damages Bella as it goes on (the events she witnesses and experiences due to her association with Edward traumatize her and they are not things you just get over--for instance seeing all those people led in to be slaughtered by the Volturi and having to listen to them screaming, not to mention the times her own life or Edward's are in danger). Bella doesn't think well of herself and the association with the Cullens seems to help make this worse (she apologizes for bleeding to Jacob because she has learned it isn't okay to bleed when you're injured since something bad always happens next... she feels as though she is nothing and that aging as normal humans do is bad... it seems to damage her sense of self-worth).

In a way she has already chosen to die and in her world she isn't really living... Edward seems to be the only thing that really means something to her and that's why she can't turn back. Anyway it just seems to be a story about her gradual destruction and decline and in the end the relationship will kill her. This doesn't really seem incredibly romantic (though it is darkly romantic) to me, but more about the paths people get sucked further and further down because something self-destructive inside them can't stop... and one way to do this is to lose oneself entirely in a relationship with someone else, for them to complete you because you feel hollow and dead alone (only with the added element of that person being a vampire, who literally will finish you off at the point you finally hit something like rock bottom). It's love that kills softly, and then I wonder if it can be love when it destroys. But I guess it's both. I just find the paradox interesting because I think that Edward really does love Bella... but how can you say you love someone when you're selfishly helping them destroy themselves because you don't want to live without them (but of course such feelings will always be tainted with selfishness).

I also find it interesting how Bella seems to be surrounded by "monsters" who are oh-so-interested in protecting her (I mean Jacob isn't a "monster" per se, but of course there's Sam's fiance with her badly scarred face from when werewolf Sam "lost it" and got mad at her... and conceivably Jacob could do the same).

Anyway I think that this element is interesting. I just don't know to what extent it is intended.

[jessica129]

I hate Twilight the movie, the book I couldnt read either although I hoped it would be more interesting. It wasnt. For me it was one of the most horrendous things to read or watch.

lol yeah. Everyone kept telling me the books were 'omg, SOO much better' than the movie so I picked one up and nope, it was like reading the works of a 15 year old.

[ashlesha]

In a way she has already chosen to die and in her world she isn't really living... Edward seems to be the only thing that really means something to her and that's why she can't turn back. Anyway it just seems to be a story about her gradual destruction and decline and in the end the relationship will kill her. This doesn't really seem incredibly romantic (though it is darkly romantic) to me, but more about the paths people get sucked further and further down because something self-destructive inside them can't stop... and one way to do this is to lose oneself entirely in a relationship with someone else, for them to complete you because you feel hollow and dead alone (only with the added element of that person being a vampire, who literally will finish you off at the point you finally hit something like rock bottom). It's love that kills softly, and then I wonder if it can be love when it destroys. But I guess it's both. I just find the paradox interesting because I think that Edward really does love Bella... but how can you say you love someone when you're selfishly helping them destroy themselves because you don't want to live without them (but of course such feelings will always be tainted with selfishness).

[youfloweryourfeast]

I would say Edward as LSE is weird. He seems to portray some mysterious/dark person as some kind of ni vauling type. I think Edward is EIE-Ni and Bella could be like Ni- ha. She doesn't really seem to have any goofy/sense of humour for the delta..If he is more strong in se maybe LSI and Bella is EIE..Typically LSI fmo don't come off as very awkward and are very good with their body movements. For a type like LSE they have less value on se and fe, and tend to come off as more random, and their voices are not as monotone.