Tuesday, December 1, 2009

The Twilight Saga, part 2

The Twilight Saga consists of four books, all with cosmothemed titles—Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. A fifth book, Midnight Sun, was planned and half-written, but then abandoned, presumably because Stephenie Meyer grew tired of swimming through gallons of Twilight revenue, Scrooge McDuck-style.

The S is for Stephenie.
Now, from here on in, I am going to be discussing various parts of the books, so a big Spoiler Alert to the very small percentage of people who have not yet read them, but who still have the desire to. (Which, in all honesty, probably amounts to nobody at this point, because I think everyone is pretty much firmly rooted in their camps, whether they be Team Edward, Team Jacob, or Team Does-Not-Live-My-Life-Vicariously-Through-A-Harlequin-Teen-Romance.)

Not Pictured: Team Sane
That last part is a good note to start on. One only has to open any of the books to any random page to see that the Twilight Saga's cup runneth over with sexual tension. From the moment when Edward and Bella meet to when he has to suck another vampire's venom out of her system (in an amazingly thinly-veiled analogy to sexual purity) to when she finally commits necrophilia—ignore it all you want, but that is what sleeping with someone who is dead is, regardless of how sexy his hair is—the books are full of raging libidos. However, since Stephenie Meyer knew her audience would be comprised primarily of screaming 14-year-olds (and 40-year-olds who scream like 14-year-olds, but more on that later), she toned down the tension and put it in teen-acceptable terms.

Stephenie Meyer, hard at work
The problem with doing so is many-fold, the most prevalent of which being this: when you tone down romance novel situations (i.e. "He grabbed her heaving bosoms, caressing her silky white skin.") to teen levels (i.e. "He touched me with his cold hands, sending a chill to my very core."), it still brings all those feelings that romance novels bring (you know what I am talking about), but now it introduces them to a whole new audience—an audience that already has a hard enough time figuring out what their hormones are telling them without the aid of what is essentially PG13 porn.

The original Twilight cover
At the core of the Twilight books exists a love triangle between Bella (a girl), Edward (a vampire), and Jacob (a werewolf, if you could not see that one coming). Actually, I guess it is more of a love V, because to my knowledge, Edward and Jacob never have feelings for one another. Although, who knows? That very well may be the subject of the Twilight Saga's next book, Midnight Sun Cowboy. It is no secret that Bella is in like with Edward, but when he leaves her (to save her, like in Moulin Rouge), she immediately throws herself into the waiting arms of Jacob—and by "immediately", I mean she throws herself off a cliff in hopes that Edward will save her before she splats at the bottom. You know, what every teenage girl should do if her boyfriend leaves her.

This one is free, Stephenie.
In the end, Bella ends up with Edward (surprise) and they get married. While the subject of "How can we grow old together when one of us is immortal?" bounces between them, it only truly comes to fruition after Bella becomes pregnant. Because the baby is half-human, half-vampire (like Blade), it has all sorts of powers, including super-strength—super-strength to super-kick her mom's spine in super-half during delivery. And if that was not enough, the baby also has the power of super-placenta, which eventually results in, as readers of my previous posts may remember me mentioning, Edward performing a cesarean section on Bella with his teeth! After the thorough trouncing that is childbirth, Bella has one foot in the grave. Edward has no choice but to turn her into a vampire to save her life. Precious, right? Oh wait, aside from the utter morbidity of that situation, did I mention that Jacob, Bella's former semi-beau, sees Bella's baby and immediately falls in love with it? And not the "oh, I love that baby" sort of love... the "oh, I love that baby" sort of love.

Hey cutie. Nice umbilical cord.
I think that shall be all for today, but do not fret. There is plenty more yet to come.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

oh man, you are funny.

Tiff said...

I love it Snacker...can't wait for installment #3! All it ever takes is talking about Twilight outloud (or writing outloud...or whatever) to realize how crazy stupid it really is!