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stephbgI wasn't fit for anything today but more bulky teen vampire romance, so after another marathon session I've come to the end of the Twilight saga. And now I get it.
Twilight
New Moon
Eclipse
There's a happy ending. I think we all saw that coming. Bella as a vampire is infinitely preferable to Bella as a human; she aquires those special skills I was hanging out for. It's a bit overdone in places (describing her as a supermodel seems a little over the top and yet so very backwards for the cause of body image), but it's a fantasy, right? It feels nice.
She gets to be stronger than Edward, and faster, and protects him for once. Jacob gets to be more interesting, too. Hell, everybody does except Edward.
On the way, there's still some squeamishness in the writing. The Shag Of The Century was an astonishingly disappointing fade to black, and you can't argue with The Worst Pregnancy Ever. Bella takes yet more damage from Edward. She doesn't get to take the offensive, although it it finally revealed that there was something special about her even when she was human. Far too late for my taste, but there, nonetheless.
However, now I've got the whole thing under my belt I can hold the narrative in the palm of my hand and those thousands and thousands of pages are compressed into a simple story with a few wish-fulfillment highlights and a happy ending. And that's what people are going to remember once they've read the whole series.
Readers, particularly repeat (i.e. fan) readers are not going to absorb the details in the execution, the thousand dreadful steps along the way, the appalling character flaws and stupid actions. They'll skim the text at speed (oh lord, at what speed) to reach The Good Bits. The bad bits will be reinterpreted in a positive light.
So the loud subtext remains awful; the potential for corruption of our female youth remains. It may influence them subtly, and parents and guardians should be as aware as they were before of the potential for low self-esteem and unrealistic or unhealthy expectations in relationships.
But.
It's just a story in the end. Incomplete, it's a nightmare endless journey. Finished, it's easy to forget the bumps in the road.
It's OVER! YAY!
I wish she'd spelled her name correctly.
The reading pile
The apparently infamous fanfic
ETA: And multiple posts of awesomeness explaining just how mormon the whole thing is (much worse than I'd feared), starting here.
Twilight
New Moon
Eclipse
There's a happy ending. I think we all saw that coming. Bella as a vampire is infinitely preferable to Bella as a human; she aquires those special skills I was hanging out for. It's a bit overdone in places (describing her as a supermodel seems a little over the top and yet so very backwards for the cause of body image), but it's a fantasy, right? It feels nice.
She gets to be stronger than Edward, and faster, and protects him for once. Jacob gets to be more interesting, too. Hell, everybody does except Edward.
On the way, there's still some squeamishness in the writing. The Shag Of The Century was an astonishingly disappointing fade to black, and you can't argue with The Worst Pregnancy Ever. Bella takes yet more damage from Edward. She doesn't get to take the offensive, although it it finally revealed that there was something special about her even when she was human. Far too late for my taste, but there, nonetheless.
However, now I've got the whole thing under my belt I can hold the narrative in the palm of my hand and those thousands and thousands of pages are compressed into a simple story with a few wish-fulfillment highlights and a happy ending. And that's what people are going to remember once they've read the whole series.
Readers, particularly repeat (i.e. fan) readers are not going to absorb the details in the execution, the thousand dreadful steps along the way, the appalling character flaws and stupid actions. They'll skim the text at speed (oh lord, at what speed) to reach The Good Bits. The bad bits will be reinterpreted in a positive light.
So the loud subtext remains awful; the potential for corruption of our female youth remains. It may influence them subtly, and parents and guardians should be as aware as they were before of the potential for low self-esteem and unrealistic or unhealthy expectations in relationships.
But.
It's just a story in the end. Incomplete, it's a nightmare endless journey. Finished, it's easy to forget the bumps in the road.
It's OVER! YAY!
I wish she'd spelled her name correctly.
The reading pile
The apparently infamous fanfic
ETA: And multiple posts of awesomeness explaining just how mormon the whole thing is (much worse than I'd feared), starting here.
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no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 12:09 pm (UTC)I remain flabbergasted.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 12:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 12:20 pm (UTC)*applauds*
no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 11:44 pm (UTC)there was another that summarised the series, but I can't seem to find it