Why I Can't Hate Twilight
ETA: Okay, THREE out of my four friends hate twilight. Gee, that just made my day. [/sarc]
Just got back from the movie, by the way. Some parts were much creepier than in the book, like the whole "I watch you sleep" and "I AM DESIGNED TO KILLLLL" and whatnot. *sigh* Anyway, essay..
A lot of my friends reading this hate Twilight. I would know, as one of them is part of twilight_sucks, another has a running snark going on the first book, and I only have two other LJ friends. This means half of my friends here hate Twilight, which relatively speaking is a lot.
By all standards, I should hate Twilight too. The writing is pretentious; the characters are one-dimensional; they’re all too perfect; the plot is anti-feministic; so on, so on, so on.
But I don’t.
I cannot understand exactly why. I have a vague idea, though. It’s something like this. Read the following passage from Twilight:
“And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…,” he [Edward] murmured. I looked away, hiding my eyes as I thrilled to the word.
“What a stupid lamb,” I sighed.
“What a sick, masochistic lion.”
(page 274, USA paperback)
Now, guardians_songanddarth_gojira probably just read that and thought “how ironic! Bella IS stupid! Edward IS sick! And they’re all so lovey-dovey!”
But I read (present tense) that and go, “Awwwww.”
For some reason, no matter what elements I know I should hate, no matter how silly certain plot ideas are are, and especially no matter how much my suspension of disbelief is harmed by sparkles, I still just melt where Twilight is concerned. Why? I really have no idea. It reminds me of the plot point in New Moon when Bella heard Edward’s voice in her head when she did incredibly reckless/stupid things, and much later in the book when she was reunited with him she came to the conclusion that it had something to do with Edward’s love for her (and vice versa) transcending time and distance and stuff like that.
Likewise, reading Twilight is an incredibly reckless/stupid thing, especially plot points like those above. But the Bella/Edward transcends it somehow and I love it anyway.
Awwww.
(Certain aforementioned Twihaters probably just facepalmed.)