The Mysterious Story of How Vampires Became More Human than Jocks in Much of Young Adult Literature

In just a few short days I’m going to have the privilege of giving a presentation on evolutions of the vampire in literature and film at a pop culture conference. In preparation for that presentation, I have read (and watched) a lot of vampire stories. Although many have had enjoyable and unexpected portrayals of vampires (and various fascinating takes on where vampires fit in a Christian or culturally relativist world), many have also had a few deeply unfortunate trends. Since my talk has nothing whatsoever to do with the role of athletes in vampire literature (and other young adult fantasy novels), I’m ranting out my feelings on the subject here instead.

So, here it goes: I am sick to death with the extent to which fantasy school stories are entirely dependent on stereotypes for their plots and characterization.

There is a huge subset of YA (young adult) fantasy literature, with and without vampires, that is basically the story of "I am a nerd. I am misunderstood. I am beautiful and intelligent and talented and socially facile and have magic powers and possibly an undead significant other, so clearly everyone just hates me because I'm too perfect. However, I never actually suffer any serious consequences for not being popular, because I still have 2.5 friends of assorted races and genders and anyway none of the people who dislike me are actually worth talking to. Plus, they'll all be proven wrong in the end anyway." A couple quick examples off the top of my head: Vladimir Tod. In the Forests of the Night. Ink Exchange. Vampire Academy. Bleed Like Me. Betrayals. Vampire Kisses. The Morganville Vampires. Sweetblood. City of Bones. Tithe. Demon in my View. The Silver Kiss. I Am Number Four. Blue Bloods.

ALL OF THEM portray high schools with supporting casts that are made up of some combination of The Dumb Jock (the idiot, the aggressor, the human incarnation of evil), The Queen Bee (the whore half of the virgin-whore dichotomy, the airhead, the giggling shallow embodiment of feminine = evil), The Weird Theater Kid (the kid who is actually weird, mind you, not like the protagonist), The Bully (the slightly different incarnation of The Dumb Jock who is often actually redeemed because he's just deeply ignorant and will eventually realize the error of his ways), The Mean Teacher (the one who hates the protagonist for no reason at all), The Nice Teacher (the one who loves the protagonist for no reason at all), The Tragic Goth (the girl who's beautiful, deep, probably skinny and pale while we're at it), The Loyal Sidekick (the guy who's slightly less good at everything than the protagonist and therefore exists solely to be his/her best friend), The Saint (the virgin half of the dichotomy), and The Swarm (the six or seven indistinguishable females with essentially the same attributes as the Queen Bee who exist only to worship her and put down the protagonist). And the plot basically revolves around what I often uncharitably assume is an excruciating revenge fantasy on the part of the bullied writer: the hero has conflicts with The Dumb Jock and/or The Queen Bee. The hero eventually reveals either superpowers or a boyfriend (depending on whether the protagonist is male or female, respectively) that makes the antagonist's eyes fall out with jealousy. The hero saves the life of the antagonist, leaving the antagonist either thanking the hero for his/her graciousness on bended knee or rejected by everyone else, who has swarmed over to go worship the hero instead.

And the thing is, from my limited sampling it actually seems to be a worse problem in teen fantasy/sci-fi than it does in other high school stories. There seems to be a chronic problem with stories like Vampire Diaries and Vampire Kisses where the vampire plot and the mundane plot are largely incompatible, barely interact except to give the protagonist a secret to lord over the antagonist(s), and one or the other fades completely to the background for most of the book. (The vamp plot disappears while the mundane plot comes to the fore more often than you'd think--Eighth Grade Bites, Sweetblood, and In the Forests of the Night all end up focusing so hard on the triumph of the nerd/goth over the jock/prep that they seem to forget that vampires exist in places.) The plot is driven by the assumption that OF COURSE the Dumb Jock is a terrible human being, OF COURSE the protagonist is Just Misunderstood, and OF COURSE anything nasty, judgmental, mean, or outright bullying that the protagonist says to the antagonist is entirely justified on the grounds that He Started It. There are probably lots of realistic fiction books that suffer from this same problem, but a) I’ve read a lot fewer of those, and b) I suspect that this kind of lazy characterization flies under the radar more when there are vampires or wizards there to distract people from just how awful the school story is, and c) I think this might even appeal to some publishers because vampire books are so often aimed at non-mainstream audiences.

First and foremost: this kind of thing is wrong because reinforcing stereotypes is wrong. Suggesting that an entire group of people is less intelligent, less complex, less human, or less deserving of love and happiness because of a single external attribute (such as quantity of makeup or presence of a letterman jacket) is wrong. Portraying entire groups of people as uniform and unappealing is wrong. All of that is obvious enough to hardly be worth writing down, but I feel the need to do so anyway after reading some of these books.

Where it crosses the line from driving me nuts to actually making me angry is that books have the power to influence behavior. (I’m in the process of writing my thesis on this effect.) These books portray genuinely awful beliefs and behaviors as acceptable, and I don’t want to know what those ideas are causing teens who read them to think. While it might be cool to suggest that unlikely heroes like The Weird Kid can save the world, that idea is no longer remotely radical anymore, and is now a cliche in and of itself. And often showing the “triumph” of the weird kid portrays really awful behavior as justified (name calling in I Am Number Four, slut shaming in Vampire Kisses, spreading malicious rumors in Vampire Academy, exposing others' secrets to harm them in Vladimir Tod) on the grounds that this is The Unpopular Kid (aka the stated hero) going up against The Popular Kid (aka the stated villain). And these books suggest that this behavior is okay. That revenge is a perfectly justifiable reason to be mean and nasty and say or do ugly things.

It also bears mentioning that the unpopular protagonist so often wins the contest on the antagonists' terms. It's often not the story of a character learning to love oneself or to value one's demographically appropriate 2.5 friends (The Wish by Gail Carson Levine is one awesome exception), it's the story of the protagonist's triumph through becoming more pretty, more beloved, better at football, better at bullying one's enemies, or more in control of the rumor mill than the antagonist.

The other thing is that this kind of writing can actually end up justifying a status quo in which kids are punished (with ostracism or mean rumors or being stuffed into lockers) for being "ugly" or "weird" or incorrectly dressed or socially unaware. Most of the social-outcast protagonists in these books are conventionally pretty, able to afford coordinated outfits, confident enough to express their uniquenesses, of average or below-average weight, in possession of above-average intelligence, socially aware, friendly, funny (more on that in a second), white, straight, fully abled, cis, American, and (with a couple notable exceptions) upper-middle class. I seriously question whether these books then accurately represent the dichotomy of the bullies vs. the bullied in real-world high schools. Unfortunately, it's usually the outsiders in a class who turn to bullying and frequently the insiders who are more or less nice, intelligent, mainstream, socially acceptable people.

Generally the most damning sin that marks the antagonists and gets punished time and again in these books is a lack of intelligence. And guess what? The kids who are apparently "clueless" or "dumb" in any given real life high school are often (although most certainly not always) a) from family environments that don't encourage them to focus on school, b) dealing with stuff that ranges from depression to autism that can get in the way of showing up to school every day bright-eyed and ready to learn, c) not coming from English-speaking households, or d) unable to afford (in the financial sense or the emotional resources sense) to devote time and energy to looking good, speaking well, and reading lots of books. Again, I'm massively oversimplifying it, but how about an awkward fringe vamp (or vamp lover) who is physically disabled? How about one that loves makeup? How about one who has terrible fashion sense but also excels at football?

Also, the fact that (shockingly) most high schools have more than two social groups means that as long as there is any kind of rivalry it's fairly easy to cast oneself as persecuted or an outsider even if that's not necessarily the only way to look at it. Which would then, according to these books, be sufficient justification to engage in a little social aggression of one's own. My group of friends in high school was composed entirely of socially awkward nerds, but that doesn't mean we would have had the right to start pushing people into snowbanks (Vampire Academy) or "outing" them as closet theater kids to punish them (Eighth Grade Bites) or deliberately trying to break up their romantic relationships to get even (Blue Bloods). People get picked on in high school for all kinds of awful reasons, and that doesn't mean that the correct solution should be more awfulness.

Meanwhile, there are lots of kids who are going through all kinds of hell in high school that is inflicted by their peers, and those kids often do not have a ton of great options when the administration can have limited power, their parents can't watch them 24 hours a day, and school counselors might not know what to do. Most of the time the persecution is real, not perceived, and most of the time the correct response to bullying is a form of limited ostracism or a form of external punishment acquired through telling adults about the situation, if there even is a correct response at all. That said, writing books that display a tiny shred of compassion for the popular kids or the aggressive kids or the preppy kids or the kids who like makeup and boys but don't fit in anyway wouldn't be the end of the world.

As Cates has said, it's always stretching the limits of believably to suggest that beautiful, intelligent, highly unique teenagers would ever not be well-liked by many people in their high school classes, because a combination of a smooth exterior and a confident interior is going to be one of the biggest forces driving one's upward social mobility in most teen social settings. Characters like Luna Lovegood of Harry Potter ("quirky" and therefore painfully socially awkward and punished for it) are relatively rare in YA fantasy literature compared to ones like the eponymous protagonist of Stargirl (good, unique, likable people who for some mysterious reason aren't liked at all), and half the protagonists I'm talking about are exactly Stargirl’s sort of smart, pretty, aggressively quirky teenager.

Circling back to the thing about the protagonist being "funny": you ever notice just how often that kind of humor is malicious? There are so often conflicts between the hero and the villain where the hero "wins" by mocking the villain more viciously than the villain mocked the hero. There's also a lot of behavior like that of Harry Potter’s Marauders (rebellion, whackiness, rule breaking, "having fun" at the expense of others, laughing at people rather than with them, letting pranks get to the point of bullying) on the part of these YA fantasy heroes that never gets called into question the way that the Marauders' behavior does. There's a world of difference between comedy that's based on irony or self-deprecation (most of what we see from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and comedy that's based on mean-spirited mockery (Pride and Prejudice, to use my favorite love-to-hate example, for all its lack of vampires), and YA vampire books only too often rely on the latter type for their lighter moments. But the meanness tends to go without criticism as long as it's directed at the (unintelligent, sex-seeking, fashion-conscious) Lydia Bennets of the world.

A couple vampire books that I actually think get their portrayals of high school right: Twilight shows the Cullens as ostracized because they genuinely act weird (lurking in little groups, staring at people, never eating at lunch) and also has a complex miasma of shifting social groups rather than the "in" crowd and the "out" crowd, also taking the time to mention that "the best friend" (Jessica) is fairly surface-obsessed and that the quasi-antagonist of the class (Lauren) is a scared insecure kid who doesn't want to lose her popularity. Vampire Diaries (for all its many other flaws) also shows a high school with dozens of shifting cliques and protagonists who have social popularity, portraying a conventional bully in Tyler but rapidly making him more complex and sympathetic by rooting his aggression in his family struggles. Buffy the Vampire Slayer shows that Buffy's tendency to skip class and show up to dates with grave dirt in her hair gets in the way of her popularity, but also that most of the kids in her class are (gasp) decent human beings who take notice that she's their "class protector" and like her anyway. Percy Jackson deliberately sets up and then knocks down those stereotypes by having the shallow, popular, jock antagonist (SPOILERS) reveal hidden depths and then die to save the world... and then portrays the protagonist becoming the shallow, athletic top of the food chain in the sequel series.

And then, of course, there’s Animorphs, K.A. Applegate's story about a princess who becomes a fierce and terrible warrior, a criminal who acts as the heart and soul of his friend group, an athlete who plans out a strategy to save the world, a brain who becomes a Hollywood star, and a basket case who ends up joining the U.S. government. (Not sure where Ax fits in the Breakfast Club metaphor, but he also definitely starts out the shallow militarist who becomes a tough but adaptable diplomat.) Rachel and Jake, their school’s Queen Bee and Dumb Jock, respectively, are just two more sympathetic members of the team of heroes that saves the world in Animorphs. Almost like boys who enjoy sports and girls who enjoy buying clothes are real human beings capable of complex emotions or something.

I’m not asking writers to stop focusing their YA fantasy stories on the fringes of the high school social structure. I’m asking for more stories that portray even the popular kids with complexity, with compassion, and (at least occasionally) with brains. I'm asking for an end to the idea that social tit-for-tat is all okay as long as it's an outsider who is the aggressor. I’m asking for heroes that are socially clueless, or less intelligent than average, or not clear-skinned and slender and pale. There are too many stories out there right now that are downright cruel to huge subsets of teenagers, and I want stories that recognize the humanity of even those teenagers who happen to play on sports teams or enjoy going on dates.

- Bug

30 Things I Learned From Buffy the Vampire Slayer...And 30 Things I Learned From Twilight

Note: I originally wrote this piece (and posted it to facebook) when I was 18. I was going to modify it and post it here, but after reading it over I decided to post it as I originally wrote it. Even though some of the writing makes me wince, I think it's an interesting window into the mindset of a teenager who had watched Buffy and read Twilight. I first saw Buffy when I was 13, and I finished it when I was 17. I read all four Twilight books when I was 18. Here, completely unedited (*wince*) is a teenage girl's perspective on Buffy and Twilight. 

Right. So I read all four Twilight books. I even enjoyed them, more or less. And mostly I think they're harmless, if shallow. But recently I started re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I remembered what a real heroine is supposed to look and act like. I know I'm going to tick some people off, but...well, it's me. You should be expecting it. If you disagree with any/all of the points on either list, I challenge to come up with a negative list for Buffy and a positive one for Twilight. Go for it. Just remember: Buffy would slay Edward Cullen in two seconds, after she told him how stupid his hair looked.

What I Learned From Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

1. It’s possible to be functional AND fashionable.

2. You can’t control whom you fall in love with, but you can control whether or not you let that love consume you.

3. Friends and family should be the two most important things in your world, and often they’re the same people.

4. Nothing is set in stone.

5. Never use the phrase ‘you can’t do X, you haven’t got the balls.’ You will inevitably have your balls sliced, diced, and julienned by a very pissed off Slayer.

6. Girls can kick ass, and guys can cook, clean, and talk about their feelings.

7. There is definitely such an entity as too much of a good thing.

8. Respect your parents and the lessons they taught you—even if that means knocking them out and locking them in a closet. 

9. Lies will always come back to haunt you. Sometimes literally.

10. Whenever you think you’ve run out of choices, there’s always another option. Always.

11. Humans can be monstrous, and monsters can be humane.

12. Never judge on appearance. This can get you killed.

13. Wear the right shoes.

14. When you hear creepy music playing, it’s not a good idea to walk towards it.

15. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

16. Know the rules, so you know how to break them.

17. You really, really don’t want to know what your parents were like when they were your age.

18. The hardest part of being in this world is living in it. Still, it’s better than the alternative.

19. Come up with some snappy lines about your adversary’s hair and fashion choices. When your life is in danger you can throw these quips at them and confound them so you can escape or regroup.

20. Don’t mess with lesbians. They WILL kick your ass.

21. There’s no such thing as good or bad voices, so sing no matter how silly you think you sound.

22. It is possible for a girl—or guy—to fall in love with people of both genders. It’s not wrong, and she wasn’t lying to herself the entire time. It’s called bisexuality. Look it up.

23. Don’t be afraid to speak up when someone’s hurting you—otherwise people you love might end up getting hurt too.

24. There is a huge difference between martyrdom and suicide. And it isn’t press coverage.

25. It’s always the quiet ones. Always.

26. Don’t trust doctors. Or anyone who calls his or herself ‘doctor’. In fact, if you see someone coming down the street who looks like they might be a doctor, it’s probably best to run the other way.

27. That being said, basic emergency response skills can come in handy.

28. Being a superhero is not as easy or glamorous as the Wonder Twins made it look.

29. Sometimes it works to play by the rules, and sometimes you need to grab the chessboard and throw it on the floor.

30. People deserve to be treated with respect regardless of age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or fashion choices.

  

What I Learned From Twilight:

1. It’s noble to do something that makes you miserable to help another person, even when the other person doesn’t want you to.

2. You won’t be happy unless you’re ‘mated for life.’

3. Sex before marriage is a big no-no

4. Let the menfolk do the fishin’ and huntin,’ and the womenfolk do the cookin’ and the cleanin.’

5. If a woman is outgoing, opinionated, and unafraid to stand up for herself, she’s a cold-hearted bitch.

6. Don’t spend time worrying needlessly about the evil vampires coming to kill you. A Deux ex Machina will descend from the sky in a cloud of fluffy bunnies and save the day at the last minute.

7. When a guy kidnaps you, keeps you hostage in his house, and forbids you seeing your friends it isn’t a clear indicator of emotional abuse. He just wants what’s best for you.

8. There’s no such thing as being overprotective. He’s the guy, he knows best.

9. It is possible to have hours and hours of conversation about nothing except how beautiful you and your boyfriend are.

10. When a guy tells you he’s been hanging out in your room watching you, the proper response is to smile and feel all gooey inside.

11. Romeo and Juliet are good role models.

12. When someone you love dies, you, too, should die. There’s no point in living anyways.

13. Once you fall for a guy, nothing is more important than him. Nothing. Not your family, not your friends, and certainly not your personal safety and self-respect.

14. You should totally reassure him that’s it’s okay when he hurts you.

15. Women are obsessed with babies. They all want them.

16. Calling all your friends and family together and asking them to die to save one person’s life isn’t selfish, it’s…strategic.

17. There’s no such thing as platonic love—the only true love is the love a man feels for a woman. Hmm, that means no homosexuals either.

18. You should become so attached to a guy you sink into a state of catatonia when he leaves you, because, as has already been pointed out, he is THE ONLY ONE THAT MATTERS.

19. Men like to do things like practice medicine, fight in the army, and hunt wild animals. Women like to do things like draw, pick out nice outfits for everyone, and obsess over babies.

20. If there’s one woman doing a job usually reserved for men, she should be treated like an outsider and regarded as a freak. It builds character. Really.

21. Love at first sight isn’t only possible, it’s inevitable. Getting to know a person doesn’t matter at all.

22. It’s okay to string two men (or women) along and tell them you love them both, as long as they understand you don’t want to hurt them.

23. “I fell down the stairs” is always a good excuse. It works in all sorts of situations.

24. When a boy tells you he doesn’t love you, he’s lying. Keep waiting, he’ll come back. I promise.

25. A girl can do anything she wants to do—as long as her boyfriend approves.

26. Keep secrets. Lots of secrets. In fact, make your entire life a lie. This won’t hurt anyone and will make you a better person.

27. If a guy forces you to do something you don’t want to do, don’t tell your parents. They’ll probably just laugh and side with the guy.

28. Don’t try to stop the evil, murderous government. Just worry about saving your boy/girlfriend. I’m sure those innocent men, women, and children will be fine.

29. If you feel different, alone, unique, and isolated from your peers, it’s because you really are that special. It has nothing to do with the fact that you’re a teenager.

30. It’s much better to get married and murdered at 18 than to spend a few years exploring the world and discovering who you are. After all, nothing matters more than outward beauty. Inward beauty is meaningless.

Bottom line: Buffy saved the world by creating an army of super-powered girls and kicking some demon a**. Bella saved…well, some people, by….making a big bubble. Who are you going to pick as your role model? 

The Werewolf De-Fanged: How Stephenie Meyer Did the Loup-Garou a Greater Disservice Than She Ever Did the Vampire

It seems as though these days every Anne Rice fan or eyeliner-wearing semi-punk can talk your ear off about how Stephenie Meyer effectively de-fanged vampires through her works, reducing them from the once monstrous forms that they used to inhabit as soul-destroying murderous creatures of the night to harmless tortured souls that only want a place in the world where they can sparkle in peace.  Although I definitely agree with the people that think vampires should be evil and although I mourn the loss of the vampire-as-a-villain in much of modern literature, I also think that the Cullens are just the last step in an extremely long process that has been gradually de-fanging the vampire since the days of John Polidori and has included everyone from Anne Rice to Joss Whedon. 

However, I don’t particularly care about vampires, to tell the truth.  They don’t interest me nearly as much as that other archetypal denizen of modern horror movies that has survived in the collective human consciousness since prehistoric times: the werewolf.  Werewolves are, in their own way, infinitely more terrifying than even vampires.  They are perfectly ordinary human beings that attend town meetings, go to mass once a week, say hello to their neighbors, and every so often stalk through the night raping and murdering their neighbors.  They are the monsters that don’t just look like ordinary people, but actually are ordinary people—most of the time.  Then, whether because of the uncontrollable pull of the moon or because of their conscious spell-work, they take on other forms—and they lose themselves completely as they satisfy their most base and ugly of desires.  Not only could that nice man next door secretly be a bloodthirsty killer, but that mysterious animal that tears out the guts of your livestock and children could be the nice man next door.  And you’ll never find out unless you shoot him or expose him to silver.

 It’s a little-known fact, but vampires are actually based on werewolves.  The legends that provided the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula were of creatures that operated only at night, that resisted holy objects and consciously chose to do evil, that had unusually shaped hands and nails, that changed forms under the light of the moon but were weakened by the presence of sunlight, and that had special relationships with animals commonly associated with Satanism, including bats and canines.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Dracula is a werewolf.  Well, he’s technically a hybrid of vampire legends and werewolf ones, with a healthy dose of good old nasty humanity thrown in there.  (Guess that makes him Renesmee Cullen and Jacob Black’s love child, then.)  But the point remains: the werewolf is a very specific, very terrifying archetype in human culture, and it is never ever going away.  Today, we just call the werewolves of old serial killers (or just Freddy Krueger) and the things we call werewolves have, shall we say, devolved somewhat from their original incarnations. 

That said, I have many and various problems with Stephenie Meyer’s portrayal of the loup-garou.  I really, truly wish she had not de-fanged these monsters even more so than vampires, and that she had not done it so very effectively.  Of course she has the artistic license to write whatever the heck she feels like, and the popularity to have whatever the heck she feels like read by millions of people (including yours truly), but I am deeply bothered by the extent to which she is unfaithful to my all-time favorite monster legend.  As James Marsters, the (talented, sexy) Bela Lugosi of our generation, said, “If you’re going to write about that metaphorical monster, keep it true to its original purpose as a metaphor.”  As previously stated, werewolves were created as a way for people to explain serial killers.  And now Stephenie Meyer has them as perfectly ordinary teenage boys that occasionally are a little harrier than most people.  Rather than portraying them as monsters in human form, or, more accurately, humans who take on monstrous forms as an external symbol of the depravity within, Meyer chooses to make her werewolves protectors of the small, valiant ancient warriors that have been gifted with an additional set of abilities so that they can protect the innocent unknowing humans from the inhuman threat in animal forms as well as human ones.  By her definition, the Quilute aren’t werewolves; they’re Animorphs.

Wolves have long held conflicting sets of symbolism in human mythology.  On one hand they’re feared and hated as the scourge of livestock and even occasionally the killers of children, but on the other they’re respected for their strong family structures and incomprehensible endurance.  They are mothering, nurturing murderers, that will literally allow themselves to be killed to save their young but are also capable of acts of brutality and even cannibalism that the human mind shies away from contemplating.  In short, wolves are an excellent metaphor for human beings.  And when a human being gives into the animal side so completely that all conscious thought or moral reasoning is lost under the passionate need to satisfy one’s carnal needs… Then a werewolf is born.  It’s just a person that, quite simply, has all the nasty intelligence of a human being and all the power and self-motivation of an animal.  That description doesn’t even come close to applying to the Quilute. 

At least Meyer’s vampires are still distinctly animalistic: even the good ones must struggle against the instinctive desire to kill people, and even the good ones occasionally give in.  They may sparkle, they may brood, they may even have cute baby vampires that they then start wars over, but they are still, on some level, less than human.  Their natural way of life is to depend on murder for existence, and just because the plucky band of main characters decides to follow an alternative lifestyle, that doesn’t mean that the vampire community as a whole has anything to contribute to society.  They are still monsters, they are still scary, they are still the very last thing that you want to hear going bump in the night. 

Not so the werewolves.  They aren’t animalistic, they don’t struggle against base instincts or even seem to have any base instincts at all, and they never lose control in any way more dramatic than the occasional wrestling match or involuntary kiss, and they are as disgusted by the idea of killing people as any human being would be.  In short, they are just perfectly normal people that have an extra ability or two.  Not animalistic people, not monsters, not even semi-horror figures.  Just good citizens doing their best to keep the leech population down.  Just your friendly neighborhood wolf-men.  Sad to say, but these are not werewolves. 

Actually, it came as a huge relief to me when Meyer herself acknowledged that her werewolves, in short, aren’t.  There’s a brief moment near the end of Breaking Dawn when the contrast between these benevolent protectors and the night-creeping killers of old Europe is finally noted, and the end conclusion is that these are just your harmless everyday skin-walkers.  Never mind that skin-walkers were evil Native American shamans that were pretty much no better than your average werewolf…  But the damage had already long been done by that point.  No one actually remembers that the werewolves of Twilight aren’t technically werewolves.  After four books’ worth of referring to them as werewolves, a single throwaway line about their actual classification isn’t going to change anything.  People think of werewolves as your typical struggling young men (and one young woman) going through life with one extra blessing.  Lycanthropy sounds terribly romantic the way that Meyer portrays it: no sickness, no problems, an automatic group of people that will always have your back, super speed, super strength, exactly as much aging as you want to have.  Frequent exposure to semi-naked teenage boys.  That’s not quite how lycanthropy is supposed to be.

By all rights, the werewolves that exist in the Twilight-verse should be terrifying monsters.  It is even possible for them to be terrifying monsters and human characters at the same time—countless examples of how this can be done stretch all the way back to The Wolf Man—but they are sadly lacking.  In light of the legends that led to the creation of the modern werewolf, and the interpretation of werewolves that has retained dominance for as long as humans have been telling stories, Edward has every right to be terrified at the thought of Bella hanging around with a whole pack of these creatures.  The werewolves in most stories are at best humans cursed with a terrible monstrous nature, and at worst the most depraved creatures that have ever existed, shamans that change themselves into animals with the explicit intention of destroying lives.  However, ironically, Edward actually has nothing to fear from the Quilute, who are werewolves in name only; they have nothing of the werewolf nature in any of their actions.  In short, Meyers has de-fanged werewolves as well. 

To give credit where it is due, the destruction of the werewolf as we know it has been a long process that has involved everyone from Anne Rice to J.K. Rowling, but Meyer was unquestionably the straw that broke the hypothetical camel.  Rowling’s werewolves may be just ordinary people struggling to make it in a world that hates them for who they are and are respectable citizens with “furry little problems” twenty-seven days of every twenty-eight, but they are unquestionably monsters that extra twenty-eighth day.  Mild-mannered Professor Lupin attempts to eat his best friend and three of his students just because they’re there, under the influence of his inner animal.  Laid-back Bill Weasley is described as tense and temperamental after being bitten.  Fenrir Greyback seems to have given in to that animal side entirely; no one can deny that a man that goes around attacking young children for the hell of it is a monster of the highest order. 

Annette Curtis Klause may have put one of the nails in the werewolf’s coffin by being one of the first people to write a successful book about werewolves that are human no matter what shape they hold—Blood and Chocolate is a novel about a girl who is really just a normal person except she occasionally runs around in animal form under the full moon—but her werewolves are nonetheless definitely animalistic.  They literally fight each other to the death to determine who will lead their packs, and they are organized about the same way as real wolves in the wild, with a strict pecking order that is occasionally enforced with physical violence.  Patricia Briggs also writes about werewolves that are conscious even when transformed, but hers are humans that fight constantly against animal instincts and occasionally even then lose control of themselves.  Much like Meyer’s vampires, Briggs’s werewolves are continually fighting against the possibility of becoming rapists or murderers, and many of them give in. 

However, the werewolves of Twilight don’t have this struggle.  They do not have to work for their humanity, and they do not follow the strict structuring of a pack; Jacob goes into open rebellion against his alpha and the worst consequence is that he loses touch with a few friends along the way.  Most legends have werewolf packs killing interlopers without hesitation.  Meyer’s werewolves have something that her vampires don’t: humanity.  While this is not necessarily a weakness in most characters and is in fact a strength, it deprives her characters that should by all rights be monstrous of the ability to be anything but normal people.  Jacob even explicitly states at one point in Eclipse that he considers himself to be more human than Edward, and in fact he is.  Jacob, like the rest of Meyer’s werewolves, doesn’t even retain the semblance of inhumanity.  He may occasionally lose his temper, but he does not have the mind of a werewolf, only occasionally the body of one.  Edward and Bella have infinitely more to fear from vampires and werewolves in Meyer’s universe, because for all that they may sparkle, the vampires are still in some ways monstrous.  The werewolves can’t even claim that dubious honor. 

 The monsters that haunt the dark places of the human psyche come out in various ways, and this particular form has been one of the most lasting, and the most terrifying.  Lycanthropy has been used as a metaphor for serial murder, for social ostracization, for local paranoia, for humanity’s conflicting nature, for the fear of the unknown, and even for AIDS. Stephenie Meyer has every right to use it as a metaphor for teenage angst.  I just wish that she hadn’t. 

It Was Kind Of Inevitable

So, aside from the introduction, I thought I'd start us off with the (inevitable) Twilight post. I'm sure Buggy will post her own thoughts about Twilight one of these days, but I thought I'd take the plunge first. Fair warning: there will be both SPOILERS and some fairly heavy criticism in this post. (Also: spoilers for The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, and Blue Bloods.) That being said, I'm not writing this to bash Twilight. First of all, it's been done, second of all, I have better things to do with my time, and third of all, if I hated Twilight so much that I couldn't think of a single positive thing to say about it, then I wouldn't have bothered finishing the first book, let alone the other three. But my feelings about Twilight do fall more in the 'negative' column than the 'positive,' so buckle up, strap on your helmets, and leave now if the mocking of sparkly vampires bothers you.

Twilight: I only started reading Twilight because I was chaperoning a field trip to take a group of girls I tutor to see the movie, and, whenever possible, if it's a movie adapted from a book, I prefer to read before I see. After I recovered from temporary blindness due to Meyer's abuse of adjectives and adverbs, I found that I didn't totally hate the first few chapters of Twilight. My expectations, after all, were incredibly low--I'd already heard a lot of the bad things others had said about it, and I don't care for romance stories as a rule. I found Bella a bit wishy-washy and weak, and I couldn't understand why she kept saying she had no friends and guys didn't want to date someone like her when the entire school was practically kissing the soles of her feet, but whatever.

Anyways, I plowed through the first third of Twilight, thinking that while this wasn't really my cup of tea it wasn't bad for a beach read, until I reached The Meadow Scene. Anyone who's even remotely heard about Twilight knows what I'm talking about. It's supposed to be THE scene, the one that epitomizes everything about Bella and Edward and their relationship. If that's true, then based on that scene, here's what I conclude about Bella and Edward's relationship: it's dry, boring, emotionless, stilted, consisting only of them talking about how much they love each other, and never ending. Hmm. Seems pretty accurate. Guess people knew what they were talking about when they called it THE scene.

Seriously though. I read the first third of Twilight in under two hours, and it took me almost two days to get past The Meadow Scene because I kept putting the book down out of sheer boredom. Again, I don't do well with romance, so who am I to judge, but it seems to me that if you give away the character's big secret AND have them declare their undying love before you're even halfway through the book, then you're going to run out of things to talk about.

More stuff happened that I honestly can't remember, and then, thank god, Edward took Bella to meet his family, the Cullens. Now, here's why Twilight will never fall entirely into the negative column for me. I love the Cullens, especially Jasper and Rosalie. This is a sure way to get me at least interested in your story, if there's a group of individuals who care deeply about each other and look out for and protect each other even if they don't always get along. In otaku there's a term called nakama which basically describes this type of group, and like I said, I'm a sucker for it. Say what you want about Twilight, Meyer did a great job of portraying nakama, both with the Cullens and the wolf pack.

Right. Anyways, this is already far too long, and I still have three books to cover. Baseball scene: random, but loved it, because it's all the Cullens and because I love baseball. Scene after baseball scene: at this point I really started to dislike Edward, because of the way he bossed Bella around and basically manhandled her into the car. Yes, it was for her own safety, but it felt more like a parent ordering around a child than a boyfriend protecting his girlfriend. Then Bella walks out on her dad, which I didn't get--why'd she go home at all? Why not just run, if it's so urgent? And who's to say that James isn't going to go after Charlie anyways? Ugh. Whatever. Anyways, Phoenix, Bella being an idiot and running off on Jasper and Alice (which, how exactly did she get away? Even if she hid her decision from Alice as long as possible, she had to decide EVENTUALLY, and then they're freaking vampires with super speed and strength. What were they doing, counting roses?) Ballet studio scene, hospital scene ('I fell down the stairs?!' Really, Meyer? Really?) and I finish with the conclusions that it wasn't as bad as I'd been expecting, but that I cannot stand Bella or Edward at all.

New Moon was boring. Seriously. There's the birthday party, then Edward takes off, then Bella spends the next FOREVER moping. She should have been committed--and I say that not to be flip, but in all earnest. If your boyfriend leaving destroys you THAT MUCH, you need some serious help. The first time I read New Moon I got so bored I skimmed through a whole bunch of stuff until Alice showed up, and when I did go back and read I found I hadn't missed much.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love Jacob. I think he's the best thing about Twilight. He's funny, smart, and respects Bella for who she is, which is a feat in and of itself. But I've never been a Team Jacob person--I can't stand Bella, remember? What do I care who she ends up with? But I still found most of the werewolf stuff boring--not because it was boring in and of itself, but because Bella was such a boring, mopey narrator. Then Alice and Bella went to Italy, got to Edward just in the nick of time (see? Edward and Bella deserve each other! They're both melodramatic and insane!) and ended up chilling with the (admittedly creepy, Meyers gets props) Volturi. And here's where I lost the last ounce of respect I had for Bella, Edward, and Alice.

Imagine, in Harry Potter, if Harry saw some Death Eaters torturing some muggles and not only walked away, but did nothing to try to rectify the situation. Imagine, in the Chronicles of Narnia, if the Pevensies said 'screw you' to the Narnians and just hopped back through the wardrobe. The whole point of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is Edmund's transformation from someone who doesn't give a crap about others to someone who is willing to sacrifice himself to save his family and his people. The whole reason Harry's the hero is because he wants to defeat evil and save the wizarding world. Meanwhile, Bella, Edward, and Alice, faced with what they KNOW is inevitable, horrible death for a group of innocent humans, WALK AWAY. And then don't try to do anything about it. I assumed that eventually the Volturi would get overthrown, but that's not what happens. Our group of supposed heroes sees murder about to occur and does nothing to stop it.

As you might have discerned, New Moon was my least favorite in the series, and seriously made me wonder why I was supposed to like these characters.

Eclipse: I'm not going to bother going into the whole abusive boyfriend angle, because as lots of people have pointed out, EDWARD IS AN ABUSIVE BOYFRIEND. But, at this point, I'd already decided to try and ignore Bella and Edward (difficult given that Bella's the narrator, but I do try) and focus on the other, more likable characters.

Which is why Eclipse is my favorite of all the books. Like I said, I liked Rosalie (she almost killed Edward! Yay!) and Jasper (despite his stupidity from the first book) from the get go. Rosalie, I suspect, is a symptom of my bad habit in which I latch onto the one character that everyone else seems to dislike. I don't mean to; in fact I'm shocked when after seeing or reading something I go online and find that everyone else hated my favorite character. But it just happens. Life is so hard sometimes.

Anyways, I loved loved loved Rosalie and especially Jasper's stories. Rosalie came off as the only strong female in the entire series until the appearance of Leah Clearwater, whom I also love. (Yeah, I knowz. Fandoms. I'z doin' them wrongz.) And for the first time, Meyer showed deliberate darkness and evil in her stories. I say deliberate because the Volturi, according to the Cullens, were sort of 'eh, we don't like those guys, but they're not that bad,' when in reality they're cold-blooded murderers. But anyways, when Meyer does include a hint of darkness and let some clouds into her sunshine-and-daisies world, that's when her writing is the strongest. Carlisle's story. The battle at the end of Eclipse, which I'll get to. Jane and Alec. Child vampires. And of course Rosalie and Jasper's stories. These are the parts that make her books readable to me, and they're too few and far between.

So, Jasper. Yeah, I love him--maybe because he actually has a reason to be dark and broody, instead of being faux dark and broody, like Edward. And his story was fantastic--tell me you wouldn't love to read a novel about clans of warring vampires in the post-Civil War south. It sounds like the kind of thing Anne Rice would excel at, and it's a shame Meyer didn't go into it in more detail. I also give Meyer props for making Jasper a Confederate instead of Union soldier, because one of the tropes that drives me nuts is acceptable targets. Acceptable targets are groups, people, or even countries that it's okay to vilify, because everyone knows they're all evil anyways. (Supposedly.) Depending on who you are and what you think, Nazis, Confederates, white men, Catholics, Muslims, Russians, and the Chinese can all count as acceptable targets. And it drives me bonkers. In every single one of those groups, you're talking about literally millions of people. Lumping them all under 'evil' is easy, but it's not fair. Now, if you're writing a book from the point of view of a Union soldier, of course the Confederates are going to be the villains. But that doesn't make every single Confederate evil. Anyways, I got way off track there, but I give Meyer props for showing that the Confederates were--gasp--individuals, and that they didn't all think or act the same.

Ehm. Moving on. Bella loses about a million more points for demanding that Edward stay with her, when theoretically she won't be in any danger, while his family is facing an army of vampires. Selfish idiot. But I do sort of love the tent scene, because for some reason I like most of the interaction between Edward and Jacob, when they're not being complete idiots, which is most of the time. Then the battle, which we don't get to see! I honestly think Meyer either dislikes or is unable to write action, because there is so little of it in her stories. Honestly. Imagine if we'd seen the Battle of Hogwarts from the POV of a sparrow sitting in the Whomping Willow. Then Seth (yay Seth! I love Seth!) and Edward fighting off Victoria. Jacob--broken bones (eww.) Bella and Edward--getting married. Ugh.

Breaking Dawn was weird. Now, to be fair: two things I really don't care for in books or TV shows are pregnancy and marriage. So Meyer already had the cards stacked against her when, at least in my book. Unless the marriage is A. part of a greater plot, like Bill and Fleur's, or B. interrupted by a screaming hoard of demons, like Mimi and Jack's in the Blue Bloods series, I. Do. Not. Like. Weddings. They're inevitably awkward, cliche, and so sugary you want to bang your head into the wall. So I basically ignored everything through the end of the honeymoon, except for that dream of Bella's about the vampires children, which aside from winning points for being creepy, made me scratch my head and say,  'HMM. I wonder if by any chance this book will include a plot about vampire children! Nah.'
Anyways, I basically ignored the whole wedding/honeymoon/oops I'm pregnant! But I started paying a lot more attention in the second section, because Jacob was narrating.

I loved Jacob's narration. He was so much more interesting and funny than Bella, and unlike in Bella's section, when I'd be told that Bella felt a certain way but got no evidence of it, with Jacob I could completely relate to his emotions. I liked his interactions with Rosalie, Seth, Leah, and Paul. I loved his quirky chapter titles. I loved reading a first person narrative that didn't think the sun shone out of Edward's ass. All of that was great--I even liked Jacob and Edward working together to save Bella, even though that whole sequence was gross--until literally the last sentence.

Imprinting is creepy. I'm sorry, there's no other word for it, and it kills me because I like the werewolves as a whole much better than the vampires as a whole (The werewolves don't eat people! They win. The end.) but imprinting is just so many levels of creepy it's not even funny. Bella and Edward were bad enough, but at least I knew that however bossy Edward might be, if Bella actually ordered him to leave he'd do it (probably.) And Bella fell in love with Edward as she got to know him--it didn't happen in two seconds. So yes. Thank you, Ms. Meyer. You have officially made me champion the stability and healthiness of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen's relationship, something I didn't even think was possible. God. Why? Just...why?

Anyways. We'll just pretend that never happened and move on. Bella as a vampire--yawn. And what a shock--she's the pwettiest mostest talented vampire everz! Who saw THAT coming? Bella as a mother--it's a good thing that child is half vampire and has a house full of people to look after her, because I wouldn't trust Bella to care for a potted plant, let alone an infant. Then they're happy, then they're not, then Alice and Jasper run for the hills, which was the one interesting point of characterization for both of them: say what you like, but if Alice knew for sure that she was going to fix the situation, or even come back to fight if she couldn't, then she wouldn't have bothered taking Jasper with her. It wasted too much time, and the Cullens really could have used him back at the house. Alice wanted to help, but if it all went south then she had at least saved herself and her mate. It doesn't make her seem like the best person, and that's why I find it more interesting.

Then random people start showing up, ready to sacrifice themselves for this kid, which make. no. sense. Yes, Bella and Edward and the Cullens and Jacob were ready to die for her, but they're her family. Other vampires ready to stand there and be killed for this kid? I get that she's special, but come on. One person dies (okay, eight, counting the Cullens minus Jasper and Alice plus Bella, Renesmee, and Jacob) versus thirty people die. It's a matter of math, people! And even granted that some of them didn't think the Volturi would kill them, what is motivating them to even take the chance?

Moving on--the battle that wasn't. What a disappointment. I don't know why I expected her to man up and actually write some action, but I hated the last fifth or so of this book. Boring and unrealistic and just ridiculous. Two things in particular deserve mention: Garrett's speech, because it was the only good part of this whole mess, and it was truly epic, and Edward calling Jacob his son, at which point I bang my head against the wall so hard it comes out the other side and startles my poor neighbors.

Anyways, so the Cullens live happily forever after, having lots of sex and...not much else. Yeah. Why the heck do none of those people go out and get jobs other than Carlilse? Every single one except Edward is legally an adult. They do not need to go to high school, which they seem to hate anyways. Go out and get jobs, you lazy bums! Do something with yourselves! Whatever.

One last thing: sparkling vampires. Forget the lameness for a second and think about it. Why do they avoid the sun? Because they sparkle, and that would show humans they're vampires. So take it one step further: why do they care that humans know they're vampires? They're super strong, super fast, have extremely good sense, and can't be harmed unless literally ripped to shreds and burned, which only another vampire can do to them. So...why are they hiding from humans again? It'd be like if we humans tried to hide our true identities from cows. Seriously. The only purpose the vast majority of vampires has for humans is to eat them. So why are you hiding? That's the problem with the whole sparkle aspect--not that it's lame, but that it's terrifying, because it makes the vampires omnipotent. If the Volturi or Maria and her army thought about it for two seconds, we'd all be toast. So, sparkling? Not a good idea, especially when taken to its inevitable conclusion. Which Meyer of course did not do.

So there you have it. More bad than good, but I didn't completely hate them, and when I bash them, I can do so legitimately instead of sticking up my nose and rolling my eyes and acting too good for something I haven't even tried. My seething anger is mad legit seething anger, man!

--Cates

In the Beginning

For more years than we'd like to count, my sister (Buggy) and I (Cates) have wasted far too many hours whining, raving, ranting, and screaming with joy over the various books, movies, TV shows, plays, and sketchy internet ads that we encounter. After a particularly trying week of disastrous dialogue, pointless plots, and cardboard characters, we decided we needed an outlet for our inner monologues and so made the highly questionable decision to unleash our minds into the world. Small children and pregnant women be warned.

What will (hopefully) follow will be our clever (hah,) and keen (as if,) observations about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--in fantasy, of course. In particular, we'll have lots of stuff about teen and children's literature and movies. What you need to know about us:

1. We love all things C.S Lewis, although we wish the man had fleshed out his writing a bit more. Also, anyone who thinks the purpose of The Chronicles of Narnia is to convert children (or anyone) to Christianity has either A. never read them, OR B. never read another fantasy novel.

2. Similar to item 1, anyone who thinks that the purpose of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials is to convert children to atheism has either A. never read them, OR B. never read another fantasy novel.

3. While we also love J.R.R Tolkien, we see Lord of the Rings et al as a brief peek into his inner mythology rather than cohesive, contained works like the Chronicles of Narnia.

4. J.K. Rowling is a frighteningly brilliant woman. If she is, as someone once said, "The dumb person's idea of what intelligence looks like," then we proudly stand with the dumb people.

5. While we have some serious problems with Stephenie Meyer's writing and storytelling, we have much more serious problems with the people who lambast and derail Twilight without ever having read it or seen it. One promise we will make right now: We will never criticize something we haven't read, seen, or heard.

6. According to us, Animorphs may have been the most brilliant children's series in the latter part of the 20th century. K.A Applegate is a for-the-most-part undiscovered genius.

7. Disney Pixar is fantastic, but its forerunner, the Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, is a genius.

If any of those statements resonates with you, or if you wildly disagree with everything we've written, then we think you'll enjoy this blog. Future movies, books, tv shows, etc. that will likely be covered in this blog include: Blue Bloods, Ouran High School Host Club, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Uglies, Death Note, House MD, Bones, Alice in Wonderland, Queen's Thief, Vampire Academy, Thursday Next, Toy Story, Tamora Pierce, Broadway, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as all the series and books mentioned above....and anything else that pops into our heads. Buggy has an affinity for bad anime and angsty teen novels, while I have an affinity for Disney Channel and reality TV, so those will undoubtedly make (horrifying) appearances too.

Fare thee well, fellow foragers of fiction.