Werewolves: The New Vampires?

[Wingman]

Actually, I am still waiting for Stephenie to come up with a valid reason as to why a vampire would sparkle. Evolutionly speaking... that is...

I suppose it might have something to do with their diamond-hard skin or whatnot. Though, if their skin was a crystalline structure, it wouldn't be smooth but rather more like sharkhide or sandpaper...which would have made several elements of the book far more hilariously disturbing than they already were. Well, that's my guess anyways. Probably thinking too far into the issue.

[alphanubilus]

Actually, I am still waiting for Stephenie to come up with a valid reason as to why a vampire would sparkle. Evolutionly speaking... that is...

I suppose it might have something to do with their diamond-hard skin or whatnot. Though, if their skin was a crystalline structure, it wouldn't be smooth but rather more like sharkhide or sandpaper...which would have made several elements of the book far more hilariously disturbing than they already were. Well, that's my guess anyways. Probably thinking too far into the issue.

Actually I think it is more of the sad fact that she didn't think enough about it.

[Terastas]

VAMPIRES...SHOULDN'T...SPARKLE! They shouldnt be nice, they should KILL people!

Vampires can be anything anyone wants them to be.

We've had threads about this before, and I recall the consensus being that, while artists are entitled to stretch the definitions every now and then, it can reach a point where it no longer makes sense to refer to it by the original term.

I forget who, but I remember somebody saying that, while it would be acceptable (humor me here) to draw or write about talking, walking anthropomorphic cacti that love to converse and drink coffee, it wouldn't be acceptable to label them "zombies."

But I'm going to attribute the sparkly effects to Stephanie Meyer deliberately trying to make vampires appeal to lovestruck tweens as opposed to an abuse of creative license. She was trying to make vampires as appealing to her readers as possible, and to do that, she gave them a million perks but negated almost all of their weaknesses.

I'm willing to bet that she thought the "diamond skin" idea would be great because it would make her vampires tough and pretty to look at and didn't give it any more thought than that. She has Bella do nothing for chapter after chapter except muse over how beautiful Edward is, but it never occurs to her to think that his diamond skin quite literally makes him a hard-a**.

Keep in mind that she wrote the series for people who are still so young and stupid they actually believe Robert Pattinson is a vampire and occasionally show up at his scheduled appearances hoping to get bitten. Twilight is to young girls what Transformers: ROTF was to male adults: neither audience attended either movie with any intention whatsoever of following the plot. The girls were only there to see Edward sparkle just the same way the guys were only at the other movie to see things blow up.

[sugarpoultry]

VAMPIRES...SHOULDN'T...SPARKLE! They shouldnt be nice, they should KILL people!

Vampires can be anything anyone wants them to be.

We've had threads about this before, and I recall the consensus being that, while artists are entitled to stretch the definitions every now and then, it can reach a point where it no longer makes sense to refer to it by the original term.

Yeah but they do everything else that a vampire can do, they crave blood, they are mostly violent and evil (aside from the Cullens), and they still avoid the sunlight. No whether it be sparkles, bursting into flames, or illness, it's still a basic vampire definition right there.

I forget who, but I remember somebody saying that, while it would be acceptable (humor me here) to draw or write about talking, walking anthropomorphic cacti that love to converse and drink coffee, it wouldn't be acceptable to label them "zombies."

Well duh, that is nowhere near even close. Horrible comparison.

But I'm going to attribute the sparkly effects to Stephanie Meyer deliberately trying to make vampires appeal to lovestruck tweens as opposed to an abuse of creative license. She was trying to make vampires as appealing to her readers as possible, and to do that, she gave them a million perks but negated almost all of their weaknesses.

I'm willing to bet that she thought the "diamond skin" idea would be great because it would make her vampires tough and pretty to look at and didn't give it any more thought than that. She has Bella do nothing for chapter after chapter except muse over how beautiful Edward is, but it never occurs to her to think that his diamond skin quite literally makes him a hard-a**.

As said before, she's basing this off a dream, and she admits in interviews she didn't know how vampires were or are, and wanted to create her own version of them, which is what most artists or writers or what have you have done in the past. What she did was no different.

Keep in mind that she wrote the series for people who are still so young and stupid they actually believe Robert Pattinson is a vampire and occasionally show up at his scheduled appearances hoping to get bitten. Twilight is to young girls what Transformers: ROTF was to male adults: neither audience attended either movie with any intention whatsoever of following the plot. The girls were only there to see Edward sparkle just the same way the guys were only at the other movie to see things blow up.

How could she write a novel for an audience she didn't know would even like it? And she didn't know at the time she wrote it that Rob would be playing the part.

And again, don't judge the series off the fans. No one should. If you have a beef with the fans, keep it separate from your opinions of the book. Otherwise you are just making yourself look like a... well, I can't think of a word right now, but respectfully, you look like a dingus.

[Silent Hunter]

The problem with Twilight vampires is that they lack any real weakness and therefore, this makes them boring. I am not saying the weakness has to be stricly the same standard vamprie one but Twilight vampires feel as if they have no counter to their strengths. Sparkling? Don't make me laugh.

This means that while Twilight vampires are vampires, they are vampires in the way that a Wolfman is a werewolf. They fit the defination yet something is wrong with them that degrades their quality and makes them...almost well not what they are meant to be.

On top of that, upon hearing that only the Cullen's are good, I am dissapointed greatly. I'd like to see more shades of grey with vampires beyond either Stunted Lover, Charisma Machine or Fangy Monster.

Also the problem with the sparkle thing is she did what most writers or artists do: She tries to explain it. Its like hyperdrive in Sci Fi. Its never going to make sense so the more you make it noticeable or try and explain it, the more it sounds stupid and less of a story device.

And again, don't judge the series off the fans. No one should.

Twilight has so many problems that you could do a good case on its low quality without bringing in its fanbase. Pretty much the same with Eragon and to some low extent, Harry Potter. Fans may not dicate the real quallity of the book but they do not endear the book with thier actions. In fact, the fanbase fits the book. Twilight is a trashy Mormon Teen Romance novel(trashy in quality and Mormon in the type of love story etc) and therefore you get trashy teens. I know that may sound harsh but it's simple genre and what a demographic likes.

I hope I've not offended anyne.

[sugarpoultry]

The problem with Twilight vampires is that they lack any real weakness and therefore, this makes them boring. I am not saying the weakness has to be stricly the same standard vamprie one but Twilight vampires feel as if they have no counter to their strengths. Sparkling? Don't make me laugh.

This means that while Twilight vampires are vampires, they are vampires in the way that a Wolfman is a werewolf. They fit the defination yet something is wrong with them that degrades their quality and makes them...almost well not what they are meant to be.

On top of that, upon hearing that only the Cullen's are good, I am dissapointed greatly. I'd like to see more shades of grey with vampires beyond either Stunted Lover, Charisma Machine or Fangy Monster.

Also the problem with the sparkle thing is she did what most writers or artists do: She tries to explain it. Its like hyperdrive in Sci Fi. Its never going to make sense so the more you make it noticeable or try and explain it, the more it sounds stupid and less of a story device.

And again, don't judge the series off the fans. No one should.

Twilight has so many problems that you could do a good case on its low quality without bringing in its fanbase. Pretty much the same with Eragon and to some low extent, Harry Potter. Fans may not dicate the real quallity of the book but they do not endear the book with thier actions. In fact, the fanbase fits the book. Twilight is a trashy Mormon Teen Romance novel(trashy in quality and Mormon in the type of love story etc) and therefore you get trashy teens. I know that may sound harsh but it's simple genre and what a demographic likes.

I hope I've not offended anyne.

Um, I am Mormon, so that was offensive. At least she kept it clean and didn't show a full blown sex scene like many werewolf and vampire novels people consider 'better' than Twilight. If people have wet dreams from reading Twilight that is THEIR dirty minds, not the novels fault. I'm even married and I never once felt a rise out of any of the parts of the books. If some teen masturbates while reading it, they are the trashy teen with the sick mind. And her novels are NOTHING compared to other teenage books, so don't even compare... you are just so blindly bias because you didn't enjoy the book. Well don't attack Mormons because you didn't like it!
Just because Stephanie is a Mormon doesn't mean ANYTHING! That is a horrible comparison and you should be ashamed of yourself for saying that. I hope you at least show some maturity and admit you are wrong and apologize.

What you said was not fair. I could easily come in and say Anne Rice is Catholic and writes elaborate sex scenes in detail in her books, so that means all Catholics and people who read the books are sex-addicted fiends with no morals. Right? WRONG. So stop profiling people.

On a side note, sure the book isn't perfect, the writing isn't super amazing, and the fans are annoying, I think we can all agree on that, but don't tear it down because of your hate. Obviously its an entertaining enough to please the masses, but it doesn't make them stupid for liking or reading it, and it CERTAINLY doesn't make us trashy...

[Aki]

A Vampire, in the traditional sense, is an undead creature that drinks blood. By that definition, it's very easy to attach a morality to the creature, and very difficult to remove the "horror" from said creature.

Not particularly. A vampire doesn't need to kill someone when they drink blood. In fact, those sorts of vampires are pretty ridiculous because unless they feed only periodically (rather than once-a-night) they'd quickly either deplete their food supply or be found out and summarily dusted, the latter of which is innumerably more likely.

Granted, someone who runs around stealing a couple pints of blood from people each night is hardly a paragon of lawfulness, but he can still be a nice/good guy. Hell, a vampire could easily even try to be a Superhero-With-Fangs.

I'm sure that when you're undead, pulling a Punisher is pretty easy. More than half your organs aren't even important anymore, after all. Getting shot up isn't much of a problem.

[Terastas]

Dude, you just missed the point completely. To be honest, this is the only part of what you wrote that I think justifies a response:

How could she write a novel for an audience she didn't know would even like it? And she didn't know at the time she wrote it that Rob would be playing the part.

And again, don't judge the series off the fans. No one should. If you have a beef with the fans, keep it separate from your opinions of the book. Otherwise you are just making yourself look like a... well, I can't think of a word right now, but respectfully, you look like a dingus.

She didn't know he would be playing him. The fans aren't in love with Robert Pattinson -- they're in love with Edward Cullen. These are people that still do not understand the concept of fiction or acting.

The fans differ from everyone else because they are the ones that actually like Twilight. And yes, you absolutely can tell a lot about a book or a movie based on the general demographics of the people who are seeing it.

Harry Potter = mostly little kids and their parents = must be a fairly safe but fun experience.
Lord of the Rings = mostly geeks and theater enthusiasts = must be pretty deep in depth and character.
Twilight = emo tweens and heartthrobs only = must be pretty crappy.

Stephanie Meyer was absolutely targeting the young and egotistical "Dawson's Creek" crowd with those books. Why else would she have put a 100-year-old vampire at a freakin' high school in a coastal northern boonie town (note: Dawson's Creek = Massachusetts, Twilight = Washington State: different coastline, but essentially the same effect). Meyer was absolutely writing this book for stupid young girls who would insert themselves into the role of Bella Swan, this dumb high school girl who inexplicably has the entire world revolving around her, and dream about hot steamy vampires and werewolves fighting over their fickle affection.

Only problem is that she completely neglected to insert anything into the Twilight series that would appeal to anyone else. Harry Potter also had a target audience, but J.K. Rowling attracted a much wider audience by providing a protagonist that you could feel some attachment to even if you couldn't relate with him, provided so much depth to her world of Hogwarts that it seemed believable no matter how off the whack it was, and ultimately maintained her readership by recognizing that protagonist (and her audience) was getting older with every book and began to treat them as such (look at the difference in these two trailers: Harry goes from "I'm a what?" to "Fight back you coward! Fight back!").

Bella Swan, on the other hand, is eternally sixteen. She undergoes absolutely no evolution as a character, but how could she when she never had a personality to begin with?

Spill.com called it pretty well for me. Usually when people complain about a movie adaptation, it's that content had to be left out so it would fit into a two-hour time frame. . . So how much depth could there have been to a book if the movie includes filler scenes to stretch it out?

[Silent Hunter]

Oh Sugar you completely missed the point. For a start let me clarify something for you. When I said "trashy Mormon romance novel", I did not mean that Mormon's or story based around the Mormon love story sub genre is trashy or bad. You can have beautifully written stories of that genre. On top of that when I say Twilight is trashy I don't mean sexually. I mean its hack writing, poorly written and not a good read.

Characters go under no evolution and on top of that, even the writing is not good to read. You can argue that this is personal taste or opinion yet opinions are founded upon more things than just preference. It's just not my preference that I find Twilight as as series as bad, I have evidence to back it up. I wont go into this though as we would never agree and this would derail the thread.

Um, I am Mormon, so that was offensive. At least she kept it clean and didn't show a full blown sex scene like many werewolf and vampire novels people consider 'better' than Twilight.

If people have wet dreams from reading Twilight that is THEIR dirty minds, not the novels fault. I'm even married and I never once felt a rise out of any of the parts of the books. If some teen masturbates while reading it, they are the trashy teen with the sick mind. And her novels are NOTHING compared to other teenage books, so don't even compare.

What you said was not fair. I could easily come in and say Anne Rice is Catholic and writes elaborate sex scenes in detail in her books, so that means all Catholics and people who read the books are sex-addicted fiends with no morals. Right? WRONG. So stop profiling people.

For a start, as I said, you have totally misunderstood me. Trashy does not always mean sexually cheap and I did not even mean that Mormon's were trashy besides that.

Now I would of just left this alone but the fact is that you asked me to apolagise over what you thought I said. Fair enough but then you go and make these sweeping statements that frankly I find highly offensive and immature myself. For a start just becasue something is not clean does not mean its a bad story or its degraded as a result. Some of the most beautiful writing's and art have been quite mature. There are a lot of cases of people doing mature themes badly yet that does not mean mature themes are bad. Clean does not mean better all the time I am afraid.

On top of that if teens are getting wet dreams or wanking off to the books characters, though it is somewhat sad in my mind (there are plenty of lovely real people out there to do that with), it does not make them sick minded at all. Many teens read Twilight and it is perfectly natural for them to do such things. In fact in some cases it's healthy too. Sexual repression is a bad thing.

Finally just because someone is sex addicted does not mean they have no morals. That is madness. Sure addiction to one thing is not healthy and balance is needed yet it does not take away their morals.

Now we can agree that we misunderstood each other and we can agree to disagree on whether we think the book is good or not but I would like an apolagy for those comments I highlighted above please. No biggie but I would be very happy if you showed that you are sorry.

[sugarpoultry]

Now I would of just left this alone but the fact is that you asked me to apolagise over what you thought I said. Fair enough but then you go and make these sweeping statements that frankly I find highly offensive and immature myself. For a start just becasue something is not clean does not mean its a bad story or its degraded as a result. Some of the most beautiful writing's and art have been quite mature. There are a lot of cases of people doing mature themes badly yet that does not mean mature themes are bad. Clean does not mean better all the time I am afraid.

Sorry I misunderstood you, but I do not agree with your statements. It is all a matter of personal taste.

Sexual repression is a bad thing.

Again, I disagree.

Finally just because someone is sex addicted does not mean they have no morals. That is madness. Sure addiction to one thing is not healthy and balance is needed yet it does not take away their morals.

I said that because I misunderstood your original meaning, so I take it back. However, mentioning the Mormons at all was clearly unacceptable and wasn't needed on your part. A person's religions has NOTHING to do with it...