Reading Ashly Moore Sheldon’s article “Twilight Turns 20!” via Thriftbooks. Of course I have read the whole Twilight series (both English and Chinese editions), plus The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner and Stephenie Meyer’s other book The Host. I have also watched all six movies.
And here is something I wrote back in 2022, titled “Why the Twilight Series deserves another look: Anything that upsets Stephen King is worth a go”.
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Nothing against the “King of Horror”, but when Stephen King felt the need to clarify what vampires should be, you know there’s definitely something going on.
Stephenie Meyer is one of our best-known, bestselling authors. As of the writing of this article, her Twilight Series – Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn – have sold over 100 million copies in 37 languages, with film adaptations grossing over $3.4 billion worldwide.
Meyer’s success can be attributed to her capacity to revamp the vampire genre. Even in horror, True Love unites and conquers. Not only can vampires be “vegetarian”, but they are sweet, caring, baseball-loving everyday heroes capable and willing to fight and die for justice and the common good.
These triumphant “good vampires” surely ruffled some feathers. In 2010, DC Comics launched American Vampire, a comic book series featuring a new bloodline of vampires born in the Wild West of the late 19th century. Writing its first five issues, King famously argued:
“What should [vampires] be? Killers, honey. Stone killers that can’t get enough of that tasty Type-A. Bad boys and girls. Hunters. In other words, Midnight America. Red, white and blue, accent on the red. Those vamps got hijacked by a lot of soft-focus romance… In the end, though, it’s all about giving back the teeth that the current ‘sweetie-vamp’ craze has, by and large, stolen from the bloodsuckers. It’s about making them scary again.”
King clearly feels the need to uphold the traditional “evil vamp” canon that he inherited from Bram Stoker and made prominent in Salem’s Lot (1975). His works continue to feature bloodthirsty parasitic predators, although other artists have started exploring alternative vampiric realities (see John Ajide Lindqvist’s Let the Right One In [2004], Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive [2013] and Jay Kristoff’s The Empire of Vampire [2021], just to name a few).
With that said, even King could see the Twilight Series appeals to a new generation of audiences craving a safe passage in their entry into adulthood.
In Edward, they see a partner who loves and protects them, who understands and cares for their needs, and who nevertheless respects their private space.
In the Cullens, they see a family who accepts them unconditionally. In Jacob and his tribe, they see friendship reaching across all cultural and ethnic barriers.
And in Bella, they see any seemingly ordinary person can choose to lead an extraordinary life, their dreams and potentials fulfilled, and their courage and determination ultimately rewarded with unyielding love and trust.
As long as Hope remains in Pandora’s Box, vampires can use their teeth for better things.
(Day 67 #WarmWinterRead #WWR25 via @librarieschangelives)
Voices under the Sun 陽光下的聲音 