Dildohead & Noodleshitter > Douchebag

            Many of the kids my age have started reading a series of books written by author Stephanie Meyer. The books, Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse, have become National bestsellers and have been hyped as the heir to Harry Potter and Anne Rice. The story is of a teenage girl called Bella who moves to the rainy Washington State town of Forks to live with her father. When she starts attending High School there, she is taken aback by the sudden amount of male attention, and even more so by the intense distaste one boy in her school seems to hold for her. This boy and his siblings fascinate Bella with their ethereal beauty, grace, and exclusion from the other students. After a couple of weeks, in which Bella obsesses over the strange encounter with the boy, named Edward, he comes back and is suddenly friendly. It is revealed to her that the boy’s family, the Cullens, are outsiders in Forks. After a strange accident where Bella miraculously survives by the impossible efforts of Edward (holding a truck over his head to stop it from crushing her) she digs deeper, obsessed with his strange nature. She discovers through an old family friend and member of the nearby Native American tribe that the legends are that the Cullens are vampires who do not eat humans. This turns out to be true. Edward and Bella fall in love and she becomes close to the family, yearning for immortality. Later on she is targeted by a rouge vampire and is almost killed after making an completely idiotic decision, but is saved. In the second book, Edward leaves her after a near-fatal accident on her birthday. She is left heartbroken, horrified, and catatonic and after months of total empty existance, is forced by her father to start talking to people and doing things again. She finds solace in her old family friend Jacob who told her the legends about the Cullens and decides to do as many risky and stupid things as she could to defy Edward’s request that she be careful and hear his voice in her head. Jacob later gets sucked into a strange group of kids who he formerly distrusted, but it is later revealed to Bella his sudden seclusion of her is because he has become a were-wolf and joined the pack of his tribe (ancestory thing) to protect Forks from a bloodthirsty vampire invading their territory. It is discovered that said vampire is Victoria, the mate of the vampire Edward killed and saved Bella from in the first book, and that she is targeting Bella for revenge. Victoria is chased off. After this Bella decides that she wants to take another stupid risk and jump off a high cliff into a lake like she saw the were-wolves doing. Problem? Storm. She nearly dies. Edward’s sister Alice (who can see visions of the future) has a vision of Bella jumping but does not see Jacob saving Bella. She comes back to Forks to see if Bella is still alive. Unfortunately, word gets to Edward that Bella did in fact kill herself. In agony, Edward goes off to find the Vampire Mafia living in Italy to provoke them into killing him. Alice and Bella then immediately embark on a rescue mission to Italy and save him. After this, Edward explains that he does indeed love Bella and wants to stay with her forever. However, Jacob’s pack and the Cullens are natural enemies, so Bella is caught between the two. The books ends with the Cullens deciding to make Bella a vampire on her graduation. In Eclipse, we find the couple leading up to the days of the graduation and Bella being torn between her werewolf best friend and vampire boyfriend and trying to figure out how to maintain relationships with both. Meanwhile, a slew of killings goes on in Seattle. Later on, someone invades Bella room and steal clothes and it becomes apparent that Victoria has returned again with an army of uber-powerful newborn vampires to catch Bella. The vampires and werewolves are forced to unite and stop them. It works. It ends with Bella agreeing finally to marry Edward and saying her good-byes to Jacob, who she discovers she also has feelings for, and running off with Edward. Edward promises to take care of her and Jacob runs off and becomes a wolf permanently. The End.

Alright, before people accuse me of being jealous or whatever, I might as well run through all the good things about the book. It's rich in detail regarding the emotions of the characters. It is well-written. The aspects and characteristics of the supernatural creatures in the book are creative and unique. The backstories of different characters are fascinating. There are spot-on allusions to other works. It is romantic. You feel a draw to the vampires similar to the one Bella feels in the book. The books are long but engaging.

Ok.

Now my issues.

Everything that is wrong, annoying, frustrating, and stupid about these books lie in the truly awful characters. It seems the roles they all play in the story are all grossly mismatched and thus it has become easy for me to despise many of them. Especially Bella and Edward.

I touched a nerve, didn't I?

Sorry, but beneath the fluffy romance, claims the author makes, and the fairytale aspects of the book, you will find that Bella is a colorless, stupid, pathetic, helpless, ridiculous, weak, dependant, insecure wimp and Edward is a controlling, tempermental, obsessive, sanctimonious, oblivious, inconsiderate, slightly misogynistic, manipulative  douchebag with

outdated ideals and his head firmly shoved up his ass.

It's true.

Trust me, I did not just instantly come to this conclusion. I've read each book more than once and reflected on them carefully. The thing was, despite the books being total page-turners, something truly troubled me about these books. I tried to figure out what it was.

It was the fact that this story very sneakily goes against everything I believe in and is hypocritical in the very manner I despise. It all boils down to the couple of the story.

I knew Bella annoyed me early on, but I could not understand why at first. It's that even before encountering the Cullens, Bella has absolutely no goals, ambitions, hopes, dreams, or interests in anything. Right off the bat all she does is talk about how miserable she is and describe her surroundings with an apathetic tone until she meets the Cullens. See: Colorless. Now I would not mind so much because this kind of first attitude in a protagonist prior to meeting their soulmate is a great potential set up for their significant other to enrich and add color to their humdrum lives.

This does not happen.

Instead, Bella fails me. She finds a dream and an interest, but it's Edward and becoming a vampire. Nothing else. He becomes the only thing that matters, which brings on the dependancy issues. When he breaks up with her, she goes catatonic for six months, then once she actually manages to start emoting again, it's only cry some more about Edward and push herself into the arms of Jacob and try and break her promise to Edward to keep safe in order to hear his voice in her head. Now, if she were to move on, that would be fine. She never does. She trusts one boy to fill the void in her all on her own. When Edward comes back, not only does she refuse his apology for shattering her mental and emotional health and welcome him back with happy open arms, she also threatens to sever ties with her father if he tries to keep Edward away and attempts to conceal the pain he caused her so as not to upset him.

This reminds me, very unsettlingly, of Catherine of Aragon who despite having her heart broken a thousand times by her husband, never protested or showed the slightest emotion about it.

Bella proceeds not only to threaten her relationship with Jacob (nice payback for helping her become human again) in order to stay with Edward, but she also commits to becoming a vampire by graduation. Once again disregarding any hopes or ambitions in life to spend the rest of eternity with him. Edward proceeds to bar Bella from seeing Jacob, but also watches her like a hawk and imprison her in his house when he leaves to hunt. For once, Bella manages to defy him by escaping for a day with Jacob, but when Edward returns, she greets him with no anger about his sick imprisonment, only happiness at seeing him and fear of him being mad at her for seeing Jacob. She makes out with him.

In all this, Edward annoys the shit out of me. He tries to control everything Bella does and tries to restrict her in her life even when he is not there. He even has the nerve to ask Bella to promise not to do anything risky after breaking her heart. When he comes back he is constantly telling her what to do, watching her, and being insanely possessive. He even tries to keep Bella from seeing Jacob, even going so far as to dismantle her car engine one night when she wants to drive to the reservation.

Another aspect of their relationship is the sex stuff. Bella wants to sleep with Edward, who refuses out of concern that he might lose control of his super-human strength and kill her. Every time he feels they are getting too intimate, he uses his strength to stop her. Her constantly supresses her and wards her off. The situation is sickeningly reminiscent of the medieval idea that all women are temptresses trying to steal the virtue of men and take control of everything. Edward even insists on resisting a one point to preserve their virtue until they are married.

 This is characteristic of their relationship. Almost everything these two do is together is dictated by him. Edward is also allowed to make outright demands without compromise and use his strength to control the situation. Whenever Bella gets anything it's either by making a huge compromise or with the help of Jacob. To top it all off, Edward has this annoying habit of lying keeping things from her in order to "protect" her. And yet, Bella always trusts him!

She submits to him repeatedly and never complains when he uses his vampiric abilities to overpower her. She fails to assert herself constantly, which is part of the reasonshe gets into those messes. It's sad.

Even outisde their relationship, Bella is annoying. First of all, she is helpless. OK, magnet for trouble is okay. Clumsy and uncoordinated is fine. But if you put them together in the same person, I'm annoyed. She is totally helpless.

And despite Meyer telling us Bella is mature and smart, Bella really seems to be anything but. She is constantly making idiotic decisions (cliff-diving in a storm alone; walks alone through a dark forest alone when there are rumors of giant beasts attacking people; walks off alone at night in a dark, unfamiliar town; changes course when trying to escape a vampire thirsting for her blood; and approaches a bunch of drunks in the same unfamiliar town while out with a friend. Her impulsive decisions often cost and endanger the ones who love her, and her actual maturity seems to lie solely in the fact that she cooks dinner and does the laundry for her father.

The cherry on top of all this is Bella's reasons for not wanting to marry Edward. Her reasoning being that she does not want to be "that girl" and "the backwards small town hick who marries right out of high school." Yet, she is impatient on giving up her entire life in order to become an immortal vampire to live her life with Edward. She rejects all ideas of college and a career. I'm sorry Bella... what was your point again?

I'm not saying being a housewife or devoting yourself to a dude means you're not a feminist. I just mean that Bella's whole point is stupid.

Edward, meanwhile, is absolutely ridiculous in his obsession with control and suppression, not just of Bella, but of himself. He holds Bella every night despite the painful thirst he feels for her blood. He refuses to have sex until he is guilt-tripped into doing after the girl marries him. And despite all this, he does not seem to have the testicles to punch a guy when he kisses his girl. His whole breakup with Bella was his attempt at making Bella feel what he thought she should. And even after his poor judgement gets both of them nearly killed, he still tries to take control of everything. It's strange that someone who can read minds has their head so far up his ass. It's funny he is willing to tell Bella he'd commit suicide if she died, but never stops to ask her how she would feel if he left her. He can't read her mind, so wouldn't he be curious? Apparently he did not bother to ask.

Now, all this could have been rectified by Jacob, but alas, no. Jacob, while being impulsive and kissing Bella without her permission, at least is compatible with her. Bella actually manages to maintain a personality around him, which is nice. Plus she has a backbone around him. But he's rejected for Edward, which is sad, because I really don't get what Edward and Bella are going to do together for the rest of eternity. All they ever did together was discuss monsters, avoid danger, whisper sweet nothings to each other and kiss. Whereas when Bella was with Jacob, they did... stuff, which is more than I can say for her times with Edward.

And yet, despite Jacob teasing her and sometimes saying hurtful things, he at least was loyal. Despite instantly becoming a werewolf, joining a pack who did not want him around Bella, and suddenly being burdened with the responsibility of protecting the entire region, Jacob still does not leave her. Edward is quite used to being a vampire, his family is supportive, and his responsibilities consist of staying out of the sun and not eating people. But he leaves her. Jacob never left Bella. Jacob let Bella make her own decisions and take risks. Nevertheless he is not rewarded.

Then there are minor characters and how they seem to taunt me. Rosalie, for instance, showing up with that profound backstory. It was intriguing and fascinating and so ready to explore. But then she just leaves. There seems no reason for this abrupt recounting of her life.

Another thing that annoyed me was that there seemed absolutely no reason for the supernatural characters. The werewolves and vampires could easily be the Sharks and the Jets. Edward could be the pper class boy who wants to whisk Bella away from the small town existance, Jacob the "bad" boy. It's ridiculous.

I have since come to the conclusion that Edward is the perfect rrepresentation of what these books are: glossy, gorgeaus, romantic and fascinating and at the same time outdated and a bad lover for teenage girls. 

I'm sure what I've just written will cause a lot of anger and hatred towards me by fans of the book. And I'm sure you will all claim I am jealous of Stephanie Meyer. I'm not. I just think her books are a bad representation of life and the characters are appalling.

The fact is, you can't blame jealousy for my feelings on this series, even if I was envious. The reason for this is simply that I am insanely jealous of:

Anne Rice, Kurt Vonnegut, Jane Austen, Alexander Dumas, Louise Rennison, Agatha Christie, Antonia Frasier, and Alison Weir.

I would never, ever, EVER call their characters or stories bad. That's why I am jealous of them. I would never criticize a person on such petty grounds.

People, just read those books again if you hate me, and consider what I've said. I don't care if you enjoy them. You should.

Just don't admire or emulate the people in them. They're fucking idiots.