Ranting about Twilight

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I sometimes start a post with "I've been thinking about  ____ recently", and may recall that I feel like that is pretty self important of me, like you know, I just sit around thinking about philosophical concepts, or politics, when in fact I spend most of my day playing computer games and then have to scramble for something to write about at the last minute before bed. Today I am going to say it again, but no one will think I am being arrogant or whatever.

I've been thinking about the Twilight Saga recently.

Let that sink in a bit.

Yeah.

First thing, I hate the Twilight series in all its forms, from books to movies, yes I have seen and read them all, no I cannot fully explain why, but there is literally no redeeming qualities in these stories, the main characters are dumb as hell, the relationships described are pretty much the most unhealthy thing possible, I mean, in the second book or something Edward literally breaks Bella's car so she can't see a friend he disapproves of, and we are supposed to think this is romantic? And the story itself is just dull, there is hardly any real conflict up until the last couple books, and it is resolved literally without our heroes having to lift a finger, saved by a supporting character who had a couple chapters, total, in the whole series about her.
The villains are just cartoonishly evil and strange, actually one of the saving graces of the movies when they show up because the actors clearly give not a single fuck about what they are doing and just go balls out with the scenery chewing. The only interesting characters are the supporting cast, like some of the Cullen family, Bella's dad, and a couple of the werewolves who don't get a lot of time.
Also the dude who gets left out of the love triangle gets to be paired up with a literal newborn, and somehow an editor read that and didn't ask Stephanie Meyer what the hell is wrong with her.

The bigger issue I have with it, is that it could have actually been an interesting story, there are hints of a neat mythology there in the background, and characters who are really quite interesting get tossed in once in a while, the problem is that the writer seems to think that her main characters and their stupid fucking "love" story are the most interesting thing in this world she created with hundreds of years old vampires, werewolves, and so on. She put no effort into making them likeable or interesting, or even dynamic, they don't drive the plot, in fact they all do their best to make sure the plot doesn't happen, it takes all the supporting cast working together to give the main characters everything they want, and they get it, and they pay nothing, and learn nothing, when they end they are the same as they started, except one is now the bestest vampire ever, and has a baby who will probably be even bester, but no worries about having to actually adapt to being a mom, she ages super fast and can take care of herself in like a month or two, so don't worry about character growth there.

And another thing! The (good) vampires all bemoan their condition, like it is a horrible curse they must endure, this is pretty much the most cliche piece of characterization you can have, give someone super powers and have them act like it is a huge burden, let's run it down: Super strength, like strong enough to throw cars and shatter stone with a punch, super speed, we are talking Flash levels of speed here, faster than the unaided human eye can follow and fast enough to run across oceans, enhanced senses, all of them much better than anything any animal has in the natural world, functional immortality, unless killed, they will not die, and they are pretty damn hard to kill for anyone that isn't a vampire, also the chance at another random literal superpower like seeing the future or mind control.
And the tradeoff? Well they sparkle in the sunlight, so that is inconvenient, can't have kids... except under extremely contrived and fantastically stupid circumstances, gotta drink blood, but it can totes be from animals so you don't have to murder folks if you don't want to, and that is about it. So why is this a curse again? The one rational thing Bella does in all the books is, once she learns about vampires, demand to become one herself, the other characters treat this as some sort of shock, but who wouldn't want all that? Fuck man I'd jump at it in a heartbeat! Who wouldn't?

You see it a lot in fantasy an sci-fi, poorly written examples anyway, the main character finds out he is a wizard and immediately bemoans his fate for some damn reason, or in the far future, a man critically injured is brought back from the brink of death using advanced bionic replacements that give him or her abilities far beyond those of most people, and then proceeds to spend the entire rest of the story moaning about how "I didn't ask for this".

I get the blessing and a curse thing people are going for, but the problem is they don't actually bother to make it a curse, you know who has powers that are a curse? Bruce Banner, he becomes almost entirely unstoppable as the Hulk, but the curse is he is almost entirely unstoppable, dumber than a rock, and angrier than a teenage boy whose parents made him stop listening to Nickelback to take out the garbage.(I don't actually know what teenage boys listen to these days as a form of rebellion)
Rand al'Thor from the Wheel of Time series has a curse, he is a magic user who will literally go insane and turn evil if he uses his, extremely awesome, powers to much, but if he doesn't then that very same evil might destroy the world.
Edward Cullen? He has to avoid sunlight and jump on a deer or something once a month, cry me a river, wear a wide brimmed hat for gods sake.