Daisho Con

Liquid86 wrote:

Kara kuro wrote:Can't we just sue both of them? Honestly I'm sure any number of teenage females has written a story about a boring, mary-sue character with the depth of plastic wrap who some how captures the attention of super-hot-man-boy-sexy-angst-drama-vampire man.

Ok, Seriously, Fell off my chair when i read that. Effing amazing Kara, Effing Amazing.

Well, glad I could make someone happy.

Will I get hurt for throwing my lot into this?..
I have good and bad opinions on the book.
First, the bad; It's got way too many fangirls for the quality of the writing. It's just.. eh. Seriously. I think it's got more fangirls than Naruto, which is like the face of anime in the US, lols.
If all of the Twilight fangirls became obsessed with Bleach or Naruto or (insert title of vampire anime/manga here) or Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy, you'd have one busy convention o_O;
The good, however; It's getting a lot more people to read books, enjoy the arts, etc. etc. instead of spending their time going to malls and spending money, or talking about makeup all day (which I personally abhor, I am sorry).
The way I see it, as unoriginal and badly written the story is, it really is a blessing to literacy. And if she ends up getting sued, it'll get even more popular.

My only problem is that Like Harry potter before it, while they get people to read, the fans only read that series. Convincing them to expand their reading is very difficult. For my little brother, getting him past Eragon(the first book he ever finished) was near impossible. Geetting them to the level where they can read and understand true masterpieces is an even bigger task.

LoriMina wrote:Will I get hurt for throwing my lot into this?..
I have good and bad opinions on the book.
First, the bad; It's got way too many fangirls for the quality of the writing. It's just.. eh. Seriously. I think it's got more fangirls than Naruto, which is like the face of anime in the US, lols.
If all of the Twilight fangirls became obsessed with Bleach or Naruto or (insert title of vampire anime/manga here) or Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy, you'd have one busy convention o_O;
The good, however; It's getting a lot more people to read books, enjoy the arts, etc. etc. instead of spending their time going to malls and spending money, or talking about makeup all day (which I personally abhor, I am sorry).
The way I see it, as unoriginal and badly written the story is, it really is a blessing to literacy. And if she ends up getting sued, it'll get even more popular.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I really don't see how the story is unoriginal or badly written?? It's a love story with a unique twist.... Also, why judge the book based on the number of fangirls? People do the same thing with Naruto...

Network crapped out on me forcing a double post.

You've heard my opinion before Wheelie.

The characters are bland, boring, and unlikeable. The love story has no reasonable basis, He looked at me funny, I love him. She smells so good, but I can't eat her so I'll love her and feel bad about it the whole time.(This irritates the crap out of me, it makes the character totally unlikeable, even without my dislike of kryptonian level things and Shiny Vampires.) Vampires that are the equivalent of superman, but sparkly and have extra X-men powers on top make for terrible stories in the same way Superman does. They are predictable and require the use of bad plot devices such as, "Oh crap my vulnerable human girlfriend is in danger I must save the day". The second book is godawful. There is nothing to set the series apart or interesting to a well read person. There are infinitely better vampire stories, love stories, Vampire love stories and books in general.

My favorite stories are the middlingly dark ones, Vampires fall handily right in the middle of that spectrum. I like a good love story, the kind where the characters have an actual relationship grow instead of just happening, the kind where it's a falling in love story not a We love each other so much and will for the rest of the story. Twilight took a formula I should have liked, and completely murdered it with amateur writing techniques. (The invincible vampires, the superficial romance(I'm sure it got better later, but a bad beginning kinda kills it, you have to judge a series by it's whole), the Mary Sue main character, etc.

Aminar wrote:You've heard my opinion before Wheelie.

The characters are bland, boring, and unlikeable. The love story has no reasonable basis, He looked at me funny, I love him. She smells so good, but I can't eat her so I'll love her and feel bad about it the whole time.(This irritates the crap out of me, it makes the character totally unlikeable, even without my dislike of kryptonian level things and Shiny Vampires.) Vampires that are the equivalent of superman, but sparkly and have extra X-men powers on top make for terrible stories in the same way Superman does. They are predictable and require the use of bad plot devices such as, "Oh crap my vulnerable human girlfriend is in danger I must save the day". The second book is godawful. There is nothing to set the series apart or interesting to a well read person. There are infinitely better vampire stories, love stories, Vampire love stories and books in general.

My favorite stories are the middlingly dark ones, Vampires fall handily right in the middle of that spectrum. I like a good love story, the kind where the characters have an actual relationship grow instead of just happening, the kind where it's a falling in love story not a We love each other so much and will for the rest of the story. Twilight took a formula I should have liked, and completely murdered it with amateur writing techniques. (The invincible vampires, the superficial romance(I'm sure it got better later, but a bad beginning kinda kills it, you have to judge a series by it's whole), the Mary Sue main character, etc.

Maybe we should start a twilight debate thread...? anyway:

I don't find the characters to be unlikable. You say there is no reasonable basis for the love story, but it is actually pretty simple and well spelled out? He can't read her thoughts (which is intriguing to him in itself) and she also has an intoxicating aura that is unique to him. She is infatuated with him due to...I dunno? The fact that he's a mysterious, intriguing, and ungodly good looking vampire?! What makes it a "unique" love story is the whole 'boy wants to eat girl' part of it. Pretty easy to see the basis right?

The vampires are like Superman? Considering that we've seen one killed already...I think that pretty much takes care of that argument.

The plot devices are fine, and typical of a LOVE STORY You say there are "infinitely better vampire stories" but you've already missed the point. It's not a vampire story, it's a love story. A love story with a unique twist. Anyone looking for something different is fooling themselves into disappointment.

You read the second book? Why would you bother if you really didn't like the series? Don't say curiosity either as that wouldn't apply to your argument. The fact that you chose to keep reading should tell you something right there. Either you're denying the intrigue of the books or you were part of the problem and kept reading something you didn't enjoy.

Lastly, I don't think Bella is a Mary Sue character...but that's merely a matter of opinion and perspective so I'll just leave it at that.

While I usually always agree with your reading opinions Aminar (and greatly respect them either way) I have to disagree with you on your points on this one. It sounds more like this just isn't a series for you. The series is nothing ground-breaking, but I thought Twilight was a good, solid novel and a pretty interesting love story.

On the reasons. Every reason you listed is very superficial. Neither one seems to care about the other's rather bland personality. As for Boy wants to eat girl, I find that to be a rather lacking twist, it just leads to making Edward angsty and therefor largely unlikeable.

Superman died too, and the vampires that are killed are killed by other superhuman entities. Getting hit by a car, running super fast, etc are all superman style things.

I said there are better Vampire Stories, better Love Stories, and Better Vampire Love stories.
Better Vampire Story: Anita Blake, much more interesting.
Better Love Story: I don't read much romance but War of the Flowers has a great love story without being romance.
Better Vampire Love Story: Spoilers The Dresden Files-it's a substory through the first 5-6 books, and a second one from the third book and ongoing.

The plot devices are typical of bad love stories. I just fail to enjoy stories where the main character is useless.

As for why I read the second book, I was bored and needed to read. Reading is therapeutic/meditative and Sam happened to have the first two books so I could borrow them.

Mary Sue might be the wrong word. I guess i would call it overly generic so random high school girls can believe themselves to be Bella.

Plagiarism is a tricky thing to pin down. Unless something's lifted word-for-word, you can pull the legal equivalent of "oops, my bad" and wiggle out of it. As far as I'm concerned, the only "original" idea in the Twilight series is that vampires sparkle. Vampires, for good or ill, are a rather widely-used metaphor for other things that, until very recently, one really couldn't write about freely. It could be argued that Ms. Meyer's treatment of the subject is merely a metaphor for teenagers' sexual abstinence, but I doubt it. I think she just wrote a purple, sparkly book about sparkly vampires.

*deep breath*

That being said, I'd like to thank Ms. Meyer for setting the feminist movement back about fifty or so years. If I ever have a teenage daughter, I'd like to think that she'd be smart enough to know that a possessive, manipulative man with stalker-like tendencies and the capacity to kill her at any second is not the sort she'd want for her boyfriend, much less to be wholly dependent on him. I find it incredibly disturbing that anyone would find that acceptable, and what's worse is that someone chose to glorify that and present it as desirable to young women.