TWILIGHT -- What Do the Vampire Guy and the Werewolf Guy See in Bella?

[indranee]

Oh, and only fanboys will say Kristen Stewart isn't pretty. IMO, she's turning out to be a stunner as she gets older:

http://www.zimbio.com/photos/Kristen...ow/OmoliJzaOZo

[the G-man]

FalTorPan wrote:

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Recently I watched the second and third TWILIGHT movies. (My wife wanted to watch them, since she'd read all of the books. A couple years ago, we watched the first TWILIGHT movie for the same reason.)

I didn't care for any of the movies. The biggest mystery to me is why vampire guy and werewolf guy are both so smitten with Bella. Whenever she isn't begging to be changed, she's moping around as if it's all she can do not to jump off of a bridge.

What am I missing?

Identifiability.

I've never seen any of the movies or read any of the books but from what I've been exposed to in pop culture the story is clearly designed as fantasy fulfillment for lonely young women who want to dream about how relatively plain girls are pursued by mysterious handsome strangers after being ignored by all the normal boys in school.

The author wants the reader to identify with the lead character so she displays the traits of most shy teenaged girls: quiet, sometimes moody and worried about being unattractive.

[Greg Cox]

the G-man wrote:

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Identifiability.

I've never seen any of the movies or read any of the books but from what I've been exposed to in pop culture the story is clearly designed as fantasy fulfillment for lonely young women who want to dream about how relatively plain girls are pursued by mysterious handsome strangers after being ignored by all the normal boys in school.
.

Except that, at least in the first book, the normal boys are all crushing on Bella, too.

They just don't get much screen time in the movies, where Bella's human friends tend to get upstaged by all the vampires and werewolves.

[indranee]

the G-man wrote:

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Identifiability.

I've never seen any of the movies or read any of the books but from what I've been exposed to in pop culture the story is clearly designed as fantasy fulfillment for lonely young women who want to dream about how relatively plain girls are pursued by mysterious handsome strangers after being ignored by all the normal boys in school.

The author wants the reader to identify with the lead character so she displays the traits of most shy teenaged girls: quiet, sometimes moody and worried about being unattractive.

Yep. Bella is a classic Mary Sue character. Or the proverbial Mills and Boon/Harlequin heroine.

[indranee]

Greg Cox wrote:

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Except that, at least in the first book, the normal boys are all crushing on Bella, too.

They just don't get much screen time in the movies, where Bella's human friends tend to get upstaged by all the vampires and werewolves.

Yeah, in the real world, Bella would have probably gone with Mike.

[Myasishchev]

Lapis Exilis wrote:

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Now to be fair, Twilight functions on a very old idea of what romantic love is. When the concept of romantic love first came to be in the West it was around 1150. Prior to that there was lust and there was love of your fellow man, but there was no such thing as romantic love. It was invented by the troubadours and it was a very specific concept.

No romantic love prior to 1150? Paris and Helen?

(Btw, I agree that the James Bond franchise, as a whole, is basically retarded.)

[MNM]

indranee wrote:

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Oh, and only fanboys will say Kristen Stewart isn't pretty. IMO, she's turning out to be a stunner as she gets older:

http://www.zimbio.com/photos/Kristen...ow/OmoliJzaOZo

I dont see a stunner in those pictures.

No sane person would say she is ugly, she is a nice enough looking girl. But there is a difference between nice enough looking and pretty, and Kirsten Stewart isnt pretty.

[Myasishchev]

She weighs in at ~110 pounds and under 25. She's virtually auto-pretty, unless you're using "pretty" as a synonym for "beautiful," on which tastes may differ, whereas I tend to use it as a synonym for "would deliberately seek sexual congress with." Is that what "nice enough looking" means?

We must define our terms!

[Trekker4747]

Pretty :
1. pleasing or attractive to the eye, as by delicacy or gracefulness: a pretty face.
2. (of things, places, etc.) pleasing to the eye, esp. without grandeur.

According to dictionary.com.

I'd say Kristen Stewart is "pretty." She's pleasing to the eye, she's not obese and she's not unattractive. Is she gorgeous? Beautiful? No. But she has that "potential" when she gets older. She's pretty, which on my personal scale is one notch over "cute."

[Scout101]

She's alright, but not to the point where every male in a 30 mile radius should be fighting over her. Looking at just those few pictures, though, it highlights the biggest problem: Kristen appears to have a personality, and looks kinda fun. Bella doesn't appear to have much of a personality at all, unless 'boring, wet blanket' is something people go for...?

[Myasishchev]

Wassail Drunk wrote:

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According to dictionary.com.

I'd say Kristen Stewart is "pretty." She's pleasing to the eye, she's not obese and she's not unattractive. Is she gorgeous? Beautiful? No. But she has that "potential" when she gets older. She's pretty, which on my personal scale is one notch over "cute."

I actually have the argument with my girlfriend all the time over whether "pretty"/"handsome" in contexts such as the one here really means "potentially sexually arousing."

I say otherwise it's a pretty damned meaningless compliment. Cats, sonnets, and Mondrians are "pretty," but being considered aesthetically pleasing as a small fuzzy mammal, a collection of words, or some well-places squares strikes me as rather empty.

[Trekker4747]

Scout101 wrote:

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She's alright, but not to the point where every male in a 30 mile radius should be fighting over her. Looking at just those few pictures, though, it highlights the biggest problem: Kristen appears to have a personality, and looks kinda fun. Bella doesn't appear to have much of a personality at all, unless 'boring, wet blanket' is something people go for...?

Well, teenage boys aren't much known for their interest in things like "personality" usually they get as far as "has boobs" and it all ends there.

I think the most "unattractive" parts of Kristen is her lack of color to her skin (she almost looks like a vampire herself already) which can look good on some women but not her. And she's a bit on the "scrawny waif" side. But that could just be her body type.

Still, I wouldn't kick her out of bed but I'd likely have trouble divorcing her from the "personality" she has as Bella and would feel guilty about doing anything treating her much like how Mal treated Saffron. Man, it'd be like fucking a lost, dumb, puppy.