Did Twilight really suck that much?

[Skulltaker101]

Okay, let's go through the age-old motions.

-The characters are terrible and one-dimensional.
-It's spawned a fanbase that I truly despise.
-Vampire Diaries and True Blood were green-lit because of this new weird vampire fetish.
-And, as my learned colleagues on this forum have pointed out, VAMPIRES NEVER, NEVER SPARKLE.

 

[CrazyHatMan]

Yes, yes it did suck that bad.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

For me, it's because A: they totally screw with vampire lore (sparking in sunlight? SERIOUSLY?), and B: Bella Swan is a manipulative whore who tries to kill herself when she can't be with her creepy stalker boyfriend.

And the rabid fanbase does not help. At all. *SIGH* Goddamned Tweenies...

 

[Angry_squirrel]

What bothers me is that it's pretty much killed the whole vampire genre. I cannot remember finding a good book/film about vampires since Twilight was released, and while I'm sure there is one somewhere, it's hidden amoungst all the awful, awful Twilight copycat books.

Edit: This guy puts it better

Twilight was of course designed by a very religious woman who wanted to make a romance for kids that was low on naughty sex. It was indeed intended to be preteen/teen "clean" girl-porn.

This comic sums up my feelings quite well:

 

[Superbeast]

What annoys me most, is that a lot of readers *did* pick up on the abusive-boyfriend-means-he-loves-me plot/subtext. I'm on the BDSM scene, and there has been an influx of teenage girls (16 being the age of consent in my country, for reference, but they are mostly around the 18-mark in order to get into the fetish clubs) who want to be "beaten" so they can feel loved. People in the community realise that these girls have no idea what they are on about, have misconceptions about BDSM in general, and worse still - know that there are unscrupulous types out there. Which means that these girls are putting themselves into potentially dangerous situations as they have no idea what they are doing and what someone to treat them like Edward does Bella - after all, that is how true love works, right? Will they listen to any advice, either about BDSM or safety? No, because people are just prejudiced about the books as they will never be as popular as Bella/Edward...

One could argue that "I hate it because it is popular". Indeed I do - because Meyer makes a staggering amount of money from the books/films' popularity, and donates a significant portion of her income to the Mormon church, which in turn uses the money to fund anti-gay rights and anti-abortion movements within the United States.

That is aside from the domestic violence subtext itself (Oh, it's ok that he beat her black and blue, he loves her really!), the stalker nature, the Mormon and American-Conservative values it is trying to imprint, that women should be dependant on men, the general atrocious writing and characterisation, and what it has done to both vampire lore, and the prevalence of Twilight-related merchandise in any sort of alternative/Gothic/geek/book shop, and so on.

 

[Turigamot]

If you really read the book, or read books often, you would notice the terrible passive style of writing ("I was this, I was that"), the poorly developed, one-dimensional characters, the terrible plot, and the poison that is destroying vampires as they used to, and should still, be. Also, the sexually repressed nature of mormons shines through pretty well.

It's fucking bad on so many levels. If you want a good vampire story, read The Coldfire Trilogy by CS Friedman, or Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin, or fucking Dracula by Bram Stoker.

 

[jspheonix]

Yes.
Oh sorry more of an argument. I tried to be fair and read it. by the second chapter I had to put it down the whining of Bella was too much. As Stephen King put it "Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend."

 

[Padwolf]

I've read all the books, I hate them because they are badly written, the characters are just awful at times, I don't understand why we are meant to like Bella when she acts like such a ***** to many other characters in the book including her own father. Also, Bella is just silly, her heart stops apparently on every other page. Also Bella is supposed to be a teenager, in one chapter opening she is going out with friends, she says "It had been a while since I'd had a girls' night out and the estrogen rush was invigorating.", I don't hear many other teenage girls saying that.

She also acts depressed for pretty much no reason at all. She didn't have a real reason for moving to Forks in the first place. Nothing pleases this girl, in one chapter she woke up happy and said that she was going to squash down the happiness. Bella is the number one reason I hate those books. They just got worse as it went on. The last book was just awful, the ending was just awful, they all gathered together for a great war, only to have it end by them talking their problems out.

 

[oktalist]

Because it's popular. Or something.

More precisely, because of the sorts of people among whom it is popular. Twilight is hated because its fans are hated. The hate towards the fans came first.

 

[Curlythelock]

I've never read any of the books and never will, my girlfriend unfortunately dragged me along to see the first film with her and it was atrocious

 

[littlerudi08107]

I love how everyone who hates twilight keeps parroting the same 3 or 4 reasons as to why they hate it. Despite the fact that many of you refuse to read the books.

"HURRR DURR IT'S A SECRET MASTERBATORY FANTASY!!!"
"DERRRRR BELLA TRIED TO COMMIT SUICIDE. NICE MESSAGE STEPAHANIE!!!"
"THE FANS ARE SOO ANNOYING! FUCKING TEENY BOPPERS!!!"
"OMG U GAIZ! THEY RUINED VAMPIRES FOREVAAAA!!"

This one gets on my nerves in particular. I've never read the Twilight books but from what I've seen of the movies, being a Twilight vampire would be pretty sweet. You get all the Vampiric powers (super strength, super speed, enhanced hearing, etc) without any of the weaknesses. These Vampires actually get to walk out in the sun! and as opposed to bursting into flames they just sparkle. There is literally no downside to being a Twilight vampire! They're the most broken fictional characters ever created.

 

[BenTheWolf]

They're incredibly poorly written and largely just shout mormon propaganda repeatedly. The plot lines are nonsensical and the main chick is incredibly unlikeable. Other than that its no worse than the other trashy vampire novels that publishers seem to think are all teenagers want to read.

Here's a tip Mr Publisher - We don't.

 

[gruggins]

i don't think i can add anything that hasn't already been said.
so i will simply restate my worst complaints
1-it singlehadedly destroyed the modern perception of vampires
2-the charicters are 2-dimensional
3-vampires do not sparkle. ever.

stephanie meyer hasn't written a series about vampires. she's written a series about marvell heroes that drink blood.

 

[PH3NOmenon]

The books are average? Really? You need to read more books.

Forgetting the subject matter for a second, and merely looking at the writing: The books are terrible. Horribly paced, poorly worded. For example: every two-bit writer knows that if you have to have your characters literally say how they feel, you're doing something wrong.

So even if you were looking for an uninspired teen-aimed romance novel, Twilight would be a pretty bad choice.

In short: Yes, Twilight is terrible. If you thought these books were average, then I'm very glad for you. If you keep reading, you'll get your mind blow away by other books on a very regular basis.

 

[Jimmybobjr]

Ive Seen it
Ive Read it.

Yes. It Sucks.

 

[Ruenisa]

Nyeeeh. I only read the first two books. The first book was okay, at first I was hyped because my friends were saying it was REALLY good but my opinions about it kept of getting worse as I turned the pages. It was interesting because it was my first romance novel, BUT...

Bella has no personality, no character development and can only be described as a Mary Sue in my eyes. Practically every boy she meets is in love with her OR is trying to kill her because she's so darn 'important'. Edward is the same, but just plays the role as Bella's grim obsession. She screams and throws a tantrum at her dad, gets herself into a lot of relationship troubles and tries to commit suicide several times without regret or other any realistic emotions about it.

"Duuurh it's okay to upset everyone else who loves me because I'm in love with Mr. Sparklepants. What the hell is dependence?"

...And then my friend tells me about the last book and I don't even bother reading the third. Stiiill, I'm not saying that people who scream about their hate for twilight everywhere are not blowing it WAY OUT OF PROPORTION, though. (There are plenty of books with stories just as bad as this.) I mean, those people are just as annoying and brainless as those people who yell about their hate for Justin Beiber all day. I think PART of why people were going so crazy with hatred about it is because hating it was becoming a fashion statement. "Gee, I hate twilight! Twilight sucks! Going to search up twilight related things just to complain about it. Now I'm with the cool crowd."

Crap this is long. Sorry.

 

[Sudenak]

The book is mediocre. Stephanie's writing style is dull. She clearly picked up a good thesaurus to try and make it spicier, but ultimately it festers around average fanfic level. And that's just the writing style.

The characters are a colorful rainbow of unlikable. She writes Bella as a depressed kid that has no friends (despite going to Forks every single year up to this point no one knows her), but almost instantaneously she is the most popular kid in the universe. This could work if she had a likable personality...or any personality. She also doesn't have any rivals. It's just the occasional bit-part vampire that doesn't hate her so much as sees her as something to fuck around with in order to piss off whiny-douchebag-emo-ankle-biter Edward.

Edward is a creepy, unlikable stalker that goes with the theme of abusive controlling boyfriend in order to compliment Bella's weak-do-nothing theme. Stephanie wrote a book in his point of view where he is painted as the creepiest fucking asshole possible, and it's supposed to be endearing.

Jacob's probably the closest thing to likable, but he still has a tendency to beat up Bella. Stephanie's shitty writing comes into full swing when this entire Jacob-romance-subplot that is supposed to spawn an entire war of conflicted feelings falls flat on its ass from the get go. Fuzz-butt didn't stand a damn chance from the start; even when Bella hangs out with Jacob all she does is pine about fucking Edward.

Ultimately, beyond all of the shitty writing, shitty plot, and shitty characters...it's the overall image that makes me hate it. It's giving all of these pre-teen fuckwit women the idea that a man like Edward, a possessive stalker, is the ideal man. It's also giving the idea that women should just shut up and fly blindly into marriage without sex first, and should never try to do anything without a man around to do it for them. Even the heroic werewolf Indian wife (was she a second or third wife? doesn't matter) showed her bravery by stabbing and killing herself so her husband could use the distraction to his advantage. What the fuck?

It's just a shitty story that got tons of attention. There's nothing particularly eye-catching, new, or impressive about it. It's mediocre and is getting unwarranted attention. Our generation grew up to Harry Potter, this one gets Twilight. Think about that for a minute.