A Pair of Teal Deers

[rhaella]

I am alive! Okay, so I’ve been stuck on dial-up for the last two weeks, which sucks (mostly because I really wanted to stream Doctor Who episodes), got sick a week ago (am better now!), and spent way too much of the intervening time playing Oblivion, now that my brother actually has a computer that will run it

Comments

[judetwee]

I've been told the books only get worse from there. I could only make it to the part where Edward sparkled before my brain just shut off. What really bothered me about it is how strained the writing seemed, and how contrived the events were. She knows what she wants (if what she wants is the basic impression she gets from every novel she's ever read), but her execution is shit. Instead, she tells us what her characters are and what the story ought to be but fails to back it up with action.

Also, a hell of a lot of Mormon doctrine was put in there completely subconsciously.

The thing with the serious fanbase is that it's carried onward by the power of imagination and self-delusion. "I thought there would be more action in it!" say the ones who gave up on the series after Breaking Dawn. See, what they didn't realize is that because they didn't read the first three books properly, they deluded themselves into seeing action that wasn't there because SMeyer told them it was there (via the power of imaaaagination!) and then expected it in the fourth book. Which, like the other books, had no action, just suspenseful lovelorn stares (AHEM SORRY I MEAN EDWARD RAPING BELLA ON THEIR WEDDING NIGHT AND LEAVING BRUISES AND YOU DON'T EVEN GET TO SEE IT).

What were the readers doing if not reading Twilight properly? Probably subconsciously skimming to get to the parts where Edward is all intense at Bella.

[rhaella]

Contrived is a good way to put it. Even the way the characterizations worked... so bad. So flat. And then using all your secondary characters just to build up this idiotic, disturbing romance when you could have been doing so much more with them?

And HE RAPES HER? How... that doesn't surprise me. At all. Considering that he practically kidnapped her in the first book. =/ And then at the end refused her desires to be turned into a vampire, and thus have a more equal relationship. =/

[judetwee]

Well, he basically knocks her out on the marriage bed and has hot, hot sex with her unconscious body, leaving bruises everywhere and a bitten pillow (LAWL). Because, you know, his love for her is so incredibly intense.

...then she gets pregnant with a demon baby that breaks her ribs, spines, and makes her drink blood (as a human), then has to be chewed out by heroic Edward, and ages super fast and has awesome psychic powahs AND THEN JACOB IMPRINTS ON HER AND BECOMES HER ONE TRUE LOVE. And then Bella becomes a vampire, and maybe it was sort of cool but it cinched her Mary Sue status. Pretty sure the relationship is still not equal because the writer is a Mormon and equal relationships are just not possible.

CHECKLIST FOR ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP TRAITS
Total isolation...check. Bella is isolated by her new vampireness, and is taken into the Mormon family.
Threatening one partner with suicide if they should leave...check. Bella threatens Edward. At some point both of them attempt a tag team suicide across the world, but it fails.
Unequal power...check. Sexism, Bella is always the weakest, the ignorant, and the damsel in distress because she's a complete idiot (not that anyone in the book will admit that).
One partner does things that upset the other partner continuously (in the name of true love lawl what)...check.
Et cetera.

It's incredibly stupid and for some reason I'm absolutely not surprised by any of it, up to and including the complete lack of an epic battle. Though admittedly I am very surprised she decided to stick in her nightmare pregnancy fetish when the books are purportedly clean. Edward chewing a hole through Bella's uterus was pretty not clean, in my opinion.