Oh, Twilight.

All of the hipsters love to make memes about Twilight. I just wonder if anybody really appreciates the true problem with it. I think the modern generations have grown bored with long gazes and insistent lip-biting. They've finally understood that they don't need to rely on their feeble infatuations to give their bleak, misunderstood lives meaning.

Oh wait, no they haven't. They're still helplessly obsessed with it and perfectly reasonable women are falling all over themselves to be a part of the Vampire magic. I had a conversation with a 23 year old married WASP about this. She's an intelligent girl. When I made a passing disparaging remark about the whole shebang, she looked at me in surprise.

"Bella's in love with Edward though."

"So? That doesn't mean her entire character has to revolve around his involvement in the plot. She's a two-dimensional character with no substance whatsoever."

"But she's in love with Edward."

Then she blinked at me. It suddenly made me realize the same thing I realize every time I'm in a room full of people, make a negative comment about Bon Jovi and get reamed because there's always AT LEAST one Bon Jovi fan in any room at any given time. It reminds us cynical "hipster" types that the processed alternative mediocrity really does sell.

But I digress.

The problem with Twilight is Bella Swan. The love story itself is whatever. There are a jillion like it. Two people who shouldn't be in love are. It's dangerous and risky. One really wants to eat the other one. It's riddled with problems and tragedy. Congratulations, you have 75% of all marriages in the world. Throw in a Vampire and a werewolf and you have 75% of European marriages. (I really don't even know what that means?) What's up, Beauty and the Beast?

The main character's a two-dimensional character. I tried to remember what she was like in the few chapters we had her before Edward glittered into her life. Honestly, all that comes to mind is a pale-skinned Arizonian girl with divorced parents. That describes one of my friends and she's a hell of a lot more interesting than Swan. But WHY is she more interesting than Swan?

Take Hermione Granger. Why was Hermione voted one of the strongest characters in fiction ever? Hermione is strong in the real sense, of course. She saves everybody's ASS on a chapterly basis. Ron and Harry wouldn't have been able to get past the first problem in the first book without her help. But she's also strong in a literary way. She has interests, desires, ideals, causes and objectives that exist OUTSIDE of her relationship with Ron Weasley. She loves Ron, sure. But the real objective is far more important. She has to fight evil.

"But Twilight is a romance. That's its thing."

No, man. No. Romance can have interesting characters. Romance writers often have the toughest job of all. They have to sell you a relationship. They also have to sell you the characters. A really good romance has a couple of awesome characters in it that are well-rounded and clear. Ever read "English Patient"? Take a gander at Kip and Hana. That's a romance.
Bella Swan is a two-dimensional character created as kiddie crack to adolescent girls so they could see themselves in the role of a vampire's lover. That's all she is.

It's the difference between something nutritious and something that's garbage. A blueberry is a work of art, created to nourish us and prevent us from dying. A Big Mac is created to pleasure our unsophisticated tastebuds. It has no nutritional value and actually aids in perpetuating the indulgent instant gratification that has become an integral part of America's mentality.

Sounds like Twilight. Bella Swan isn't good for us. She teaches us that it's all right to rely on an infatuation, become wrapped up in lust and dive headfirst into an indulgent, romantic relationship with no desire to seek the depth in life. Not to stand shoulder to shoulder and fight the world together, but to gaze into each other's eyes and lose focus of everthing else around us. She teaches us not to fight, but to lay dormant until we're given our drug of choice, in her case a Vampire. That's problematic.

Worst of all? She's a bad character. The writing of her character is poor. Meyer will probably sell more books than I ever will. She's a successful, published authoress, and I'm a locksmith with a dream. I get that. I appreciate and respect it. I'm Steampunk, so I admire the ability to ensnare millions of teenage girls with an old-timey, old-fashioned guy with poetic diction and a lust for the girl next door. I'm totally going to capitalize on that. My issue though, is with our ingenue. She's a co-dependent character. If you compare her to any other female literary figure you can come up with off the top of your head, it's pretty staggering how she fades into the background. All we know or care about with her is her relationship with Cullen.