About: Twilight
Twilight is a “love” story about Gary and Mary Sue Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. Bella has decided to move to Forks, a cold, overcast town in Washington State that she doesn’t want to live in. Immediately, Bella becomes the most popular girl in school and everyone but Edward’s family either loves her or is insanely jealous of her.
Edward is a vampire, and the hottest guy in school. Immediately, he feels protective of her from a distance, but up close wants to eat her. Edward can also read thoughts, except Bella’s for some reason, and even though he should logically be so used to reading people’s thoughts to find out what they are feeling, he is incredibly good at reading body language to find out what Bella is feeling.
Then, Bella has to sit next to him in Biology (big surprise) and her self esteem deflates as she begins to think he doesn’t like her, even though his behavior is actually due to the fact that he’s fantasizing about eating her.
Long story short: after having one biology class together, Bella and Edward are madly in love and he begins sneaking into her room to watch her sleep through her window, which he oiled to get through quietly. This book became a hit after about two years and has three sequels and was going to have an AU story from Edward’s point of view, which is how I know that he fantasized about killing her, oiled her window, and got an erection because she said his name. Now, Twilight and its first sequel have become major motion pictures, a fancy word for “movie.”
Let's take a moment to close our eyes and imagine that they picked actors who A) actually looked like the canon characters, and B) don't look as though they’ve been beaten in the face with an ugly stick. If they actually got someone as hot as Edward Cullen was supposed to be, and everyone actually looked the way they were supposed to, that movie still would have been really, really, bad. Do you know why? because Twilight was the uncreative fantasy of a middle aged woman who writes at the level of a twelve year old fanfic author.
The only difference is that there weren’t fifty people a week telling her chapter by chapter that Isabella Swan is one of the many, many proud unmentionables they plague well-intended web sites like fanfiction.net: a Mary Sue. Mary Sues are characters who usually lack depth, personality, or reasonable flaws, usually because the author wants to use their characters as a proxy to fulfill their wishes. I've, created them, you've created them, and Stephanie Meyer poisoned the vampire genre with them.
And before you say, 'oh, you're just one of those sparkle-hating twibashers!' I'm not. I don't particularly care if the vampires 'sparkle' (not how they described it in the book) I just don't like walking into a book store to see 'VAMPIRES' everywhere, pick up a book, and discover yet another 'Vampire falls in love with school girl and angsts about it' book. It gets tiring.
Every guy Bella meets is hot for her, yet she insists she isn't that pretty. (3points) She has no personality flaws ('Oh, but she's clumsy!!') and she has a completely unhealthy need for her controlling, over-protective boyfriend. She admits this, and acknowledges that her 'love' for Edward is more like an infatuative addiction, yet she goes with him over the caring, nice Native American boy who can protect her at the same time as letting her out of the house. You all complain when people call Edward 'borderline abusive,' but do any of you actually know what it means? He was going to force her to have an abortion. If that's not abuse, what is?
But you know what? It doesn't matter if you think I 'just hate Twilight,' because test scores, don't lie. If you're good at math, you don't fail the exam do you? In fact, sometimes you're bad at Earth Science, but pass the exam with a flat hundred. But if you're good in the subject, you will pass the test. So let me explain to you why I'm ranting about test scores(exams start this Friday) A Litmus test uses a point system, the higher the score the more of (insert test topic here) you are. In an ADHD litmus test, the more points you get, the more likely you have ADHD; in a Mary Sue Litmus test, the more points your character gets, the more of a Mary Sue you get. I myself ran Bella through the Universal Mary Sue litmus test, and she scored a 55.
She failed the Mary Sue Litmus Test. End of Story. What is so hard to grasp on this? Seriously.
· Bella Swan checked positive for the following questions:
· Did you base your character's looks on your own? (4pts. Bella Swan and Stephanie Meyer both have heart shaped faces, brown hair, and dark eyes)
· Does anyone fight or squabble over your character because of his/her looks? (4pts)
· Is anyone (including you) jealous of your character's good looks? (1pt Jessica)
· Do other characters frequently tell your character how sexy or beautiful he/she is?(2pts)
· Does your character modestly deny it every time or refuses to believe that he/she is attractive?(3pts)
· Do you usepoetic and/or creative terms to describe your character?(1pt “Ivory Skin”)
· Does your character have a particularly attractive scent that doesn't come from their perfume or shampoo? (1pt)
· Is your character impervious to any of thenormal limitations and/or weaknesses of his/her species? (5pts Edward can read everyone’s mind but Bella’s)
· Is your character some other kind ofcool humanoid with powers/abilities beyond human ability? (2pts in the last book, she is a vampire)
· Does your character become a genetically, scientifically, cybernetically, or magically altered/enhanced being, possibly with new powers?(5pts she gets turned into a vampire)
· Is he/she happier this way? (see above 2pts)
· AreThe Rules of the universe bent or broken for your character? (1pt: Vampires can’t have babies, but then Bella gets pregnant by one, “Newborn vampires are supposed to be completely out of control and hungry, but Bella isn’t.”)
· Does your character share your favorite types of movies, music, clothes, etc? (1pt Bella Swan and Stephanie Meyer both very much like Muse and Linkin Park.)
· Does your character pick up new skills unusually fast during the course of the story? (1pt. Bella finds herself immediately able to control her actions around humans without effort.)
· Like,insanely fast? ( 2 more Again, no effort.)
· Are other characters extremely impressed or astonished at your character's skills and/or virtues? (1pt they are all very impressed at Bella’s ability to avoid eating people.)
· Does your charactermodestly dismiss or deflect well-earned compliments? (1pt She consistently refuses to believe she’s pretty.)
· Does your character have any other relatively unique special powers/abilities that come in handy? (1pt the ability to block telepathy and create a barrier of “no mind powers” around people)
· Does your character succeed at virtually everything he/she tries? (1pt Biology, schoolwork, avoiding eating people, etc.)
· Is anyone envious of your character's talents and/or abilities? (2pts Jasper is jealous because Bella effortlessly controls herself around humans.)
· Alternatively, do your character's parents/guardians let him/her do whatever he/she wants and never really get in the way or ask too many questions? (2pts Charlie, who has no personality whatsoever, doesn’t do anything to keep Bella in line except the cliché fatherly “you aren’t having sex, are you?” behavior.)
· Is your character extremely popular or renowned where he/she comes from or frequents? (3pts EVERYONE loves her, except for like three people.)
· Does a major villain have apersonal fixation/obsession with your character? (3pts Victoria)
· Do you (author) feel insulted, attacked, or defensive when someone does not like your character? (5pts Stephanie Meyer has been known to be like this.)
· Does your character have markedly more romance in his/her life than any other regular character? (IE, he/she gets all the girls/guys - AKAKirk Syndrome.) (6pts Every guy she meets that isn’t a romantically involved vampire or werewolf or way to old for her wants to screw her.)
· Are most (if not all) characters who don't like your character merely mean, spiteful, and/or jealous of him/her? (3pts Jessica)
Meyer, Stephanie. Midnight Sun. Manuscript. technically unpublished: unpublished, 2008. PDF.