Twilight is Secretly Horrifying

Twilight has always fascinated me. I first heard of it from my cousins, who were quite taken with the books and, having read Harry Potter after watching them madly consume those books, I thought why not? The first book struck me as overly melodramatic and verbose. I chuckled at what felt like the overuse of the word 'chagrin' but it was cute enough. There were moments where I thought they'd actually explore the problems with a vampire/human relationship and the conflict of Bella wanting to be turned while Edward didn't, kind of intrigued me. So, I picked up the second book and read that too and that's when all the problems became glaringly obvious to me. I didn't continue past that point. I didn't like the messages being pushed, I didn't like the wasted potential of good stories being sidelined for boring explanations of locations or how hot or bitchy someone was. I didn't like the "my life is over if I don't have a boy" narrative. Mostly, I was mad at the ignoring of any actual plot.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think it's fine if you like these books and the movies are comedic gems. I'm not here to shame anyone for their tastes in these books nor do I put any stock into the pedestrian criticisms thrown Meyer's way about Bella being a Mary Sue or that these books suck because of sparkly vampires or the fact that it's a romance, or even that it's Buffy fanfiction. It's not, it's Roswell fanfiction and I will fight you on this. Those criticisms are trite and garbage however, there are many, many great and thoughtful criticisms that can be laid on this series. I outlined a few of my misgivings above but as far as what you can read into the text, there are extremely troublesome race allegories (most of the vampires are super pale white while all of the werewolves are Indigenous Peoples), the insensitivity of using a real tribe while not doing much research on any of their beliefs, the harmful birth your baby at all cost (including your own life) message, and worst of all, child grooming. Those are all valid and horrifying in and of themselves but I'm not here to talk about any of that either.

I put down New Moon in a rage because it was so long and so boring but the worst part was that just when I thought it was getting good, it fizzled out. The best scenes in the book are where Bella flees to Italy to save Edward from outing himself and therefore being put to death by this creepy vampire cult that has only been alluded to before, called The Volturi. Now, the really strange thing is that these books are heavily influenced by Meyer's religious beliefs, intentionally or unintentionally but I really do think she fumbled the ball on the Volturi. She built them up as this ancient entity that keeps order in the vampire world, the way she describes them, they don't feel like royalty, so much as high ranking church officials. This is made even more explicit in the fact that they are based out of Italy, specifically within the Vatican. I think this is actually a pretty neat concept but I never gave it much thought past that.

Fast forward a few years and I was bored so I started watching the movies. To keep a long diatribe short, I thought they were hilarious, especially the first one. No one looks like they're taking it seriously and Anna Kendrick is a queen as always, even in her very sparse runtime throughout the movies. I finally got to the end, which I did know was coming and I just laughed at the ridiculousness of ending a quadrilogy that had the gall to refer to itself as a "saga" with a dream fight sequence and no consequences. Again, I didn't give it much thought past, well that was dumb and convenient. It wasn't until I started watching Dominic Noble's Lost in Adaptation series where he eventually goes through the Twilight books and movies that I really started to think about it again. He went over how horrific the New Moon sequence is, how much it actually sets up the Vulturi as the big bad, even though the books and movies waste a bunch of time on the red haired vampire seeking revenge for her lover killed in the first book/movie, and how much worse the ending is as a result.

Here is a quote about the ordeal, really the whole part of New Moon set in Italy, is some of the best (it accounts for a mere sliver of the book though) but, to keep it short, here are two excerpts:

The rest of them, maybe forty or more, filed in after the couple - New Moon, Chapter 21, page 482

This refers to the amount of tourists being led into the giant room with the Volturi. Picture this, forty people at least but we're told it could be more. Now check this out:

Edward set a pace that had me running to keep up. But we still couldn't get through the ornate door at the end of the hallway before the screaming started. - New Moon, Chapter 21, page 484

Bella and Edward just heard over forty people be slaughtered and just ran away to chill for two full books before confronting the Volturi again. Forty people that day, who knows how many people before and after this point in the story. So many innocent lives being slaughtered at the hands of their highest order of vampires, the ones in charge of "keeping vampires in check" are somehow getting away with murder, possibly daily, of groups of people. And, do you want to know what happens at the end of Breaking Dawn? They just let them go again. They don't engage them in battle, they don't try to end the tyranny unleashed by their own highest ranking officials. Nope, they got what they wanted, they are happy. Screw the little people being victimized by your own institution.

Do you see what I'm getting at here? Essentially, the Cullens are allowing their "church" to murder and abuse innocent people because it doesn't affect them personally. They are safe, they are promised "Heaven" (eternal life), and feel good about themselves because they aren't THOSE religious people. They're the good ones who don't "eat meat" (read drink people's blood). So, just because they only drink animal blood, we're supposed to be happy that they get their happy, perfect life, living in luxury, while their higher ups commit mass murder on the regular. The Cullens are shit and that is nightmarishly horrific that a book series ended with the most evil people getting away scot-free simply because they won't hurt the protagonists anymore.

Honestly, the whole thing would tick me off more if I wasn't so amused by the fact that Stephenie Meyer inadvertently wrote in an allegory that casts high up religious officials in a negative light and also lets them get away with everything and didn't even notice what she'd done because she was so worried about giving her main characters the perfect, most happy ending. The message being "I got mine, screw everyone else." I mean, to be fair, it's not like religious leaders covering up for each other is unrealistic, so points to her for the realism!

So, yes, the secretly horrifying thing about Twilight is that while the Cullens are living their happy life with their weird commune family and their daughter promised to her mother's friend, every day people like you are being devoured after being led like oysters by the Walrus and the Carpenter to be shucked and devoured. Merry Christmas!