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How Twilight works

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Pants... I like that name. *gigglesnort*
posted een jaar geleden.
 
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sunny
-Grace- said:
Ooh, I'd love to argue with the person who wrote this >:D So I'm going to try, despite the fact that they'll probably never see it to respond.

"First off, the author creates a main character which is an empty shell. Her appearance isn't described in detail; that way, any female can slip into it and easily fantasize about being this person. I read 400 pages of that book and barely had any idea of what the main character looked like; as far as I was concerned she was a giant Lego brick."

I don't understand the significance of this at all D; Why is it bad for people to be able to project themselves onto the character? The author writes this as though it is an inherently negative thing without explaining why they think that way!

"Appearance aside, her personality is portrayed as insecure, fumbling, and awkward - a combination anyone who ever went through puberty can relate to. By creating this "empty shell," the character becomes less of a person and more of something a female reader can put on and wear."

That's not really true. I'm definitely not the only Twilight fan who, unlike Bella, has excellent self-esteem. I'm sure there are plenty of people who can identify with her self-consciousness, but the author shouldn't really claim that being able to relate to that is a part of why people enjoy Twilight :)

"Because I forgot her name (I think it was Barbara or Brando or something like that), I'm going to refer to her as "Pants" from here on out."

I should be above mentioning this, but it's just so sad! The author DOES know her name. Twilight is incredibly popular, even many people who don't read it know that the main character's name is Bella. This person has read it, and would most likely have done a bit of research before/while writing their article, which indicates that they are pretending not to know her name for affect. People who can argue shouldn't need to use tricks like this to reiterate their points! It discredits the article, which is a shame because the author can obviously argue perfectly well.

"So after a few chapters of listening to Pants whine about high school, sucking at volleyball, and being the center of attention, the second major character is introduced. Imagine everything women want in a man, then exaggerate it by ten thousand - and you've got Edward Cullen. The level of detail that the author goes into while describing Edward's appearance is remarkable. At one point while reading I started counting the number of times the author used the expression "Edward's perfect face," and it was far into the double digits. The author excruciatingly details his muscular pecs, clothing, hair, eye color - even his goddamn breath (I'm not joking).

Edward intensely listens to everything Pants has to say, even if she's bitching about she had diarrhea on Christmas or her preferred method for cutting a sandwich in half. As far as the reader is concerned, Edward cares about nothing in the world more than Pants. What the author has done is created a perfect male figure - a pale Greek statue which the reader can worship and in turn be worshipped by."

This is true, but I don't understand the negative implication D: If this article were part of an NCEA exam, it would get an "achieved".
Achieved = describe.
Merit = describe + EXPLAIN
Excellence = describe + explain + discuss.
Going beyond describe into "explain" is crucial if you want people to understand the point you're trying to get accross. I'd love the author to explain why Edward's character is a bad thing :)

"So what about men that like Twilight?
If you're male and you like Twilight, you're gay. I don't mean that in the derogatory sense, I mean it in the "you want to put your testicles against another man's testicles while gripping handfuls of chesthair" kind of way."

I assume the relevance of this is to imply that romantic interest in Edward on the part of the reader is the only reason to enjoy the series, and so any male who enjoys the series is romanticaly interested in Edward. Not entirely true, I've met plenty of people (myself included) who aren't interested in any of the Twilight characters that way!

"Beyond that, it's just a romance novel with the occasional vampire teen drama bullshit peppered here and there. It doesn't really break any new ground in the realm of vampire fiction, other than portraying vampires as a family of uncomfortable retards who prance around the woods eating deer and bunny rabbits. There's lots of nervous lip-biting, tender kisses between Pants and Edward, and lengthy descriptions of every feature of Edward's body. Pants is a static character who never really progresses beyond being an insecure vampire fangirl who obsesses over Edward. Whether her character grows beyond that is unknown to me, I'd stopped reading by then and shifted my attention to an electric butt-massaging chair in Sky Mall."

An opinion stated as fact. I'll say no more than that :)
posted een jaar geleden.