Eomer Speaks: Twilight, aka The Circle of Emotional Abuse

Hello wonderful readers! As you may remember from last week, I made a deal with Eomer to publish two of his comic critical essays on the blog, in exchange for playing Destiny 2 (I still think I got the raw end of that deal), and thus for the second Monday in a row, you get to have your Monday shaken up by my dear fifteen-year-old brother. I hope you enjoy--this essay made (and still makes) me laugh out loud. But as always, please understand that he's fifteen years old, and pardon any of his, um, fifteen-year-old-isms. Any opinions he expresses are his, not necessarily mine. See you on Friday!
-Sam

    Oh...you're back. That's very odd. Why do you expect something of me? It's as if you've been trained in some odd Freudian operation to expect little blurbs every Monday, written just for your satisfaction. How pathetic. 

    Oh well, I suppose I will feed you, my little baby birds. Open wide, because today's target of ridicule is Isabella Swan. Most of you will know her as Bella, from the Twilight franchise. Some of you may even be fans of this franchise. In that case, I hope you won't be offended when I tell you to crawl back into whatever hole you came from and never return. Oh, don't go on so, I'm only joking. I don't actually hope you won't be offended. For the uninitiated, aka innocent, the Twilight series of movies revolves around Bella, an overcooked spagghet of a girl who falls in lust with a vampire. I typo not, my friends. What Bella and Edward have can hardly be called love. It's an odd mixture of physical attraction, manipulation, and stupidity. In the second movie, she falls in lust with a werewolf, who doesn't like the vampire. What have we here, a neat little love triangle, proven to make theater audiences begin gnawing on each other in frustration. The plot of the third movie is basically Bella choosing the vampire over the werewolf, despite every other character, INCLUDING THE VAMPIRE, telling her it's a bad idea. Oh yeah, she also is pressuring Edward (the vampire) to make her into a vampire too, so they can be together forever. Try and keep up. 

    Now, I have not seen the fourth and fifth movies [Sam interjection: he has as of now, but not as of when this essay was written], so I must admit, I am operating under incomplete information. However, I am fully willing to eat my shirt with sauerkraut and mustard if the last two movies resolve the issues of the first three. It cannot be done. So, in this essay, I am to strategically deconstruct this franchise, its characters, and the plot in general. Does that seem to you like a tall order? Watch and learn. 

Case Studies In Revulsion: Isabella Swan

    The first issue with the series we should address is its main character. Please do not get me wrong here. I am supportive of MCs having issues. No issues = no conflict = no fun. What I object to is MCs being issues, i.e. a threat to the plot and a weight on the reader. That is also no fun. No one likes that one guy at the party who's always moaning about themselves, their problems, eating all the food, getting totally plastered, whatever. [Sam interjection: Please note I don't think Eomer has ever encountered the sort of party where one can get 'plastered'.] We want him out of here, and we want him out of here now. That is what issue characters are to the readers of a book. What can I say about Bella? She has no personality of her own. Wait, one thing. She likes classical music. Oh my. What a quirk. What a twist. Excuse me while I retract all my nasty comments about the series. Stephanie Meyer, I apologize. Oh, I do love sarcasm. Aside from her ardent love of Debussy, which is mentioned a total of two times in the first three movies, her personality is essentially determined by the guys she is currently falling for. She makes very few of her own decisions, and generally comes across as insipid. Even the word insipid sounds insipid. I hate insipid things. In fact, I don't even want to write insipid anymore, and I think I should sit down. 

    Aside from a *grunt* insipid main character, another of the major issues with this movie series is the love interests, Edward the vampire, and Jacob the werewolf.  I wholeheartedly despise both of these people with the fire of a thousand suns burning within me. [Sam interjection: Y'know, Edward is the worst but I'd be ok with Jacob if he didn't have anger issues.] Edward is the physical embodiment of a Kleenex, being pale, clammy, and generally something you don't want touching you. He often makes comments on how attractive Bella smells, and occasionally sparkles in the sunlight like a whiny emo disco ball. "Hold up," you say, "did you just say he sparkled in the sunlight rather than combusting like any self-respecting vampire should?" Patience, reader, all things shall come with time. Moving on to Jacob, the smell of testosterone on this man is stronger than the smell of garbage if you happened to be in the habit of stuffing garbage up your nose. He is the epitome of the aggressively manly guy and spends a significant amount of his screentime without a shirt on. Despite the fact that Bella makes it clear to him that she does not love him (not that she has that capacity in the first place), he persistently asserts that she does in fact love him, even though he is not her and does not know what she feels. These two...they are just insufferable, especially when they are put within five miles of each other, which provokes a macho staredown of massive proportions, which Bella must interrupt by placing herself between them and pressing on their pectorals. If you ever need to deal with vampires and werewolves in real life, it appears that you can make them do many things by pressing on their pecs. The more you know, I suppose. 

    Now, we reach the section where I object specifically to Stephanie Meyer's writing choices. I'm sorry, but vampires who sparkle rather than sucking the life out of people is like having terrorists who throw paper airplanes at children's sandcastles. It makes no sense. Meyer loves playing up the thrilling element of danger, the risk Bella runs by being in a relationship with a vampire. That's sort of undermined when he lights up like a kid with a lollipop when you shine a UV on him. Even the fact that he sparkles is unexplained and only shown once or twice because apparently Forks, Washington never sees the light of day. Did I mention they also filmed it in California? Because that's where you go for that 'Pacific Northwest' vibe, no?

    I'll try to pull it together a bit with this last point, but one of the things I just find so revolting about these movies is the amount of manipulation the characters enact upon each other. It's insane how many manners these people use to get what they want. Edward uses the promise of vampifying Bella to string her along in what he wants her to do. Bella uses physical intimacy to keep Jacob from leaving her when she has professed to him that she does not actually want to be in a relationship with him. Her words say no, her actions, yes. Her right hand doesn't know whatever the heck her left is up to, and neither of them have any idea about the lips. Meanwhile, Jacob also repeatedly declares that he's 'perfect for her' and promises Bella anything in order to get with her. IT'S THE CIRCLE OF EMOTIONAL ABUUUUUUUUUUUUUSE! AND IT MAKES ME PUUUUUUUUUKE! Good grief, these movies are a train wreck. 

    In conclusion, the Twilight saga stands out as possibly the most unfortunate, grating, and frustrating series of movies I have ever had the displeasure to view. Should you watch these? No, unless, like me, you have gathered a group of friends to joyfully mock it with you. Should you hunt down the actors who play Edward, Bella, and Jacob? No, certainly not. I don't think they were any more enthusiastic about these movies than I am, and I object to the characters they portray, not the people portraying them. Should you hunt down Stephanie Meyer? For legal reasons, I must say no, but... Perhaps the other two movies will change my mind. Perhaps not. But for now, I wish you a profitable time of day, may you be of use to be someday, and goodbye.