Merging Names, Merging Faces in Urban Fantasy

Ever since Brangelina society has taken on the most irritating habit of combining names to represent couples.  What does this irritation have to do with urban fantasy you wonder?  Well, this trend has become quite popular in urban fantasy as well.

I give you:

Ian Somerhalder (Damon)

+

Nina Dobrev (Elena)

=

Delena

and

Taylor Lautner (Jacob)

+

Kristen Stewart (Bella)

=

Jabella

And

Nina Dobrev (Elena)

+

Paul Wesley (Stefan)

=

Stelena

And

Enter to Win The Twilight Breaking Dawn Celebration Package

Hello everyone, it's time for another exciting giveaway.  As you all know, Breaking Dawn part 1 hits theaters Nov 18, and so we thought in celebration, this months giveaway would be a Twilight extravaganza.  This is your opportunity to win:

Yep, a Robert Pattinson watch, a Breaking Dawn 2012 calender, and a Breaking Dawn tote (note: the third image, is the image on the tote bag).  This everything a twi fan needs to celebrate the release of Breaking Dawn Part 1.

To enter, you must be a resident of Canada or the U.S.

Wednesday Reboot: Twilight Eclipse

Well, Twi fans, the moment is almost here.  What better way to get ready for Friday's big debut of The Breaking Dawn Saga Part 1, than to recap Eclipse. The movie begins with Riley Biers being chased through the city by a very determined Victoria and quickly changes to Edward and Bella in a field on a beautiful sunny day. 

Though Bella is trying to study for an English final, Edward does his best to distract her, only stopping to ask her to marry him.  Bella quickly counters with "change me", and he agrees to change her if she agrees to marry him, calling it a compromise.  He tells her that where he comes from that is how people say I love you, and she counters with, "where I come from, at my age it says I just got knocked up." She follows that up by telling him that 2 out 3 marriages end in divorce, but ever quick on hes feet Edwards says, "I think you'll find the vampire/human divorce rate to be much lower."

This exchange is the first in the series, in which Bella is clearly thinking clearly.  She is absolutely write, marriage at that age is a recipe for disaster and her parents are living proof of this, the pressure that Edward continually puts her is just another example of his desire to control her.

When Bella returns home, Charlie tells her that he wants her to get some separation from Edward but in typical teenage fashion, she responds with, "he's in my life."  In a great compromise room, he agrees to end her grounding if she spends some time with her other friends, specifically Jacob, who is really hurting now. "I remember when that was you. When you needed a friend, Jake was there." 

After calling and getting now answer, Bella decides to go and visit him, only discover that Edward has purposefully disabled her truck.  "Bella, you have to understand, you're safety is everything to me." She tells him, "Jacob is not going to hurt me", but Edward responds with, "not intentionally, but the wolves have no control." She tells him that she has until graduation to Jacob but he responds with "I'm sorry" and faces forward.  So much for the spunky in control Bella.  This man has limited her movement and now seeks to control who she is friends with and how she does not see this as classic abusive behaviour and end the relationship right there is beyond me.  I suppose in Twilight world, abuse is okay as long as he says that he loves you.

Wednesday Reboot: Twilight New Moon

 

Of all three of the Twilight movies to date, New Moon is easily the most angst filled and the least tolerable.  The film begins on Bella Swan's 18th birthday.  She is upset that she is now older than Edward was at the age that he died because all she can envision is a future in which he stays young and beautiful and she ages. I don't think it was intentional but the idea of old as worthless and undesirable is ageist.  This model privileges youth or at least the appearance of youth at all costs.

At her birthday party, Bella cuts her finger causing Jasper to go into a blood lust. In order to protect her, Edward has to push Bella across the room to keep Jasper away from her, in the process hurting her even more.  When he drops her off that night, clearly the relationship between them is strained.  The next day at school, none of the Cullens are in attendance.  When Bella arrives home that afternoon, Edward is waiting for her.  He tells her that the Cullens are leaving and that she cannot go with them, and thus begins hours of Bella moping.

Even if we take into consideration that when the Cullens left that not only did Bella lose Edward, she lost Alice her friend her reaction was over drawn and ridiculous. Outside of her relationship, Bella has no reason for living, she is completely dependent upon Edward and this is not love, despite being constructed as such.  Bella goes into an extreme depression and then has nightmares in the middle of the night and awakens screaming.  Charlie her father is clearly worried and threatens to send her to live with her mother, if she does not start to come out of it.

Bella goes for a ride on a motorcycle with a shady character and she imagines Edward.  This sets her off on a path to endanger herself as much as possible for the chance to see Edward.  Bella appropriates bikes from the trash, and talks Jacob Black into fixing them up for her.  In the processes, they become very good friends, and so when he stops seeing her after he transitions to a wolf, she is hurt yet again. This tells us that Bella is absolutely incapable of being alone and being happy. Because Bella is already a blank slate, this makes her pain unrelatable and sets up a dependency state as necessary for a woman to be happy.

Robert Pattinson on Breaking Dawn’s Birth Scene and Being Seduced by Kristen Stewart

Wednesday Reboot: Twilight

 

On November 18th, Breaking Dawn will be released and the Fangs for the Fantasy crew thought it might be a good idea to review the series as a refresher.  This is actually a difficult undertaking, because so much has already been written about this series, but we will attempt to make it as fresh as possible.

For those who are unfamiliar with Twilight, I will simply say that it involves Bella Swan moving from Arizona to Forks, where she meets and falls in love with Edward Cullen.  Edward is a vampire, but he differs from other of his kind, because he survives solely on the blood of animals. The movie is largely based around their romance.

The Twilight juggernaut is aimed solely at a YA market, but it has managed to capture the imagination of adults. Bella Swan is written to be virtually a blank character, with the sole purpose of being easily identifiable, so that anyone reading the story or watching the movie, can picture themselves in her role. Unfortunately, this decision also means that she is easy to manipulate.  Edward tells her that she is like his "own personal brand of heroin" and that he has never thirsted so much for a humans blood, yet her response is that she is not afraid.  Bella continues with this position, even when he tells her that he is a monster and a murderer. 

Who doesn't run screaming at that kind of admission?  To be clear, we all have skeletons, but the idea that murder is just one of those things that is excusable, because we are dealing with a supernatural being is ridiculous.  Where are Bella's survival instincts? Instead of worrying that she could be in danger, when she meets Edward's family, she is more concerned that they won't like her.  Bella is so blank, that she might as well be as supernatural as Edward because she hardly reads as human.

Edward is that creepy stalker guy that most women want to avoid.  Charlie's behaviour towards him is almost threatening at times, but it really is cliche. Come on, cleaning his gun before meeting his daughters boyfriend.  Edward has given Charlie no reason to distrust him, and it reads more like Charlie is protecting his daughter from predatory teenage hormones. Yep, gotta keep the family vagina pure. This of course distracts from the point that Edward really and truly is dangerous. He stares at Bella like he wants to consume her continually, and he sneaks into her bedroom at night to watch her sleep.  None of this is romantic, and in fact falls into the category of needing a restraining order.  Edward is obsessed, rather than in love, and I think this point is ignored in much of this series.

Catherine Hardwicke, who directed this film, attempted to match the source material as much as possible.  This means that if you were already familiar with the book before seeing the movie, the film offered the viewer nothing new at all. It felt as though she didn't want to take risks with the story. I understand that at the time Twilight the movie was made, that the story already had a slew of fans, but that certainly does not mean that the source material was perfect - in fact, it was far from perfect. Hardwicke lost the opportunity to infuse Bella with a personality, and reduce Edward's creepy stalking behaviour.