Why Twilight is Disturbing (Just One Example)

I can't sum it up any better than one person did on LiveJournal. So here we go.

This is from Chapter 16 of Twilight.

A plot recap for those who need a brushing up.

Bella moved to Forks, met Edward, nearly got smushed, nearly got raped, declared herself in love with Edward, they went to school, they sat in a meadow and gazed into each other’s eyes, and then they went over to Edward’s house.

We are 340 pages, 81,100 words in. We’ve only got 170 pages left. I have seen exactly one hint that the events outlined in the prologue will be happening any time soon, and that was in the last chapter. I have seen zero hints as to what the hell the Bible quote at the beginning is supposed to mean. I’ve seen Bella hold an apple, which, while a literal translation of the book cover, does very little to tell me why she put it there. Was it to signify lunch?

Skip ahead a little in the chapter.

Bella asks if Edward has always been with Carlisle. He says not quite. Bella has to prompt him again, because he doesn’t seem to want to explain that answer.

Folks, it’s a large quote. But it needs to be here.

He sighed, seeming reluctant to answer. "Well, I had a typical bout of rebellious adolescence — about ten years after I was… born… created, whatever you want to call it. I wasn't sold on his life of abstinence, and I resented him for curbing my appetite. So I went off on my own for a time."

"Really?" I was intrigued, rather than frightened, as I perhaps should have been. He could tell. I vaguely realized that we were headed up the next flight of stairs, but I wasn't paying much attention to my surroundings.

"That doesn't repulse you?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I guess… it sounds reasonable."

He barked a laugh, more loudly than before. We were at the top of the stairs now, in another paneled hallway.

"From the time of my new birth," he murmured, "I had the advantage of knowing what everyone around me was thinking, both human and non-human alike. That's why it took me ten years to defy Carlisle — I could read his perfect sincerity, understand exactly why he lived the way he did.

"It took me only a few years to return to Carlisle and recommit to his vision. I thought I would be exempt from the… depression… that accompanies a conscience. Because I knew the thoughts of my prey, I could pass over the innocent and pursue only the evil. If I followed a murderer down a dark alley where he stalked a young girl — if I saved her, then surely I wasn't so terrible."

I shivered, imagining only too clearly what he described — the alley at night, the frightened girl, the dark man behind her. And Edward, Edward as he hunted, terrible and glorious as a young god, unstoppable. Would she have been grateful, that girl, or more frightened than before?

"But as time went on, I began to see the monster in my eyes. I couldn't escape the debt of so much human life taken, no matter how justified. And I went back to Carlisle and Esme. They welcomed me back like the prodigal. It was more than I deserved."

Edward Cullen, after ten years of living with Carlisle, got mad that he wasn’t letting him go out and kill and eat people. So he left for three or four years and just went off, killing people left and right, justifying it easily by saying he was only eating BAD people. After all, he can read their thoughts, so he can tell that they are pure evil and can never be redeemed and deserve to die. Besides, he’s saving innocent people. So it’s perfectly all right if he wants to eat the leftovers.

He didn’t accidentally start eating people and realize how great it was and have a fall from grace. He says it right there—he resented Carlisle for trying to teach him that killing people is wrong. RESENTED. RESENTED. Do you even know what that word means, Meyer? It means this: “ to feel or show displeasure or indignation at (a person, act, remark, etc.) from a sense of injury or insult.” Edward Cullen, who himself used to be a human being, got huffy with Carlisle because he didn’t want to eat animals. He wasn’t a human anymore, so now he should have the right to kill all he wants. They smell good, he wants to eat them, so he’s going to. This was not an accident, like when Emmett smelled a bacon person. This was deliberate. Edward deliberately flounced off and started murdering people. Because he wanted to. And he always wanted to, for the entire ten years he was with Carlisle before he left. From the moment he woke up as a vampire, he apparently wanted to go out and slaughter human beings.

Oh, but it’s justified—he was saving innocent people from being killed by bad men. No. He wasn’t. He can claim he was doing that by singling out only the bad guys, but what was he ultimately doing it for? Himself. He was killing these people for his own selfish reasons. On the same note, who gave him the power to decide who lives and who dies? The men he killed—oh, they were evil, he says. So that gives you the right to suck their blood and give them no chance at redemption? To act as judge, jury, and executioner? I have seen your power in action—you only read surface thoughts. What if you happened upon someone who was just down on his luck and was desperate? What if somebody was driven to stealing out of desperation to feed his family? What if you murdered someone who had a wife and daughter at home, and he was their only source of income? Going even more into the realms of what if, what if one of the men you killed would have realized he was in error, served his time, and went on to be a decent man? Those men you selfishly murdered were the sons of mothers, Edward. You can claim they were evil, but you don’t know them. All you read are surface thoughts—Midnight Sun proved that. You just hear random inner dialogue.

But it’s better. He didn’t just do this a few times before realizing it was wrong. He did it for “a few years”. He also had his flounce in 1928—that is not too long before the Great Depression hit. That means he was going around slaughtering people who were most assuredly driven to desperation, and slaughtering men who were most assuredly the only source of income for families in a time of serious need. While people were starving, he was eating like a king, heartlessly deciding who deserves to live and who deserves to die—who deserves to be his meal, all while claiming he was simply carrying out justice, while claiming he was doing it to save helpless women from evil people in alleyways.

Finally, there’s the part where he claims he realized the error of his ways and went back to Carlisle, and that he’s all remorseful for killing all those people (a number which, we find out later, is into the hundreds). Going back over what I said previously, he ostensibly saw that what he was doing was wrong—but never acknowledges that all of the people he was murdering could have done the same thing. He holds up to the end that it was justified, but that it was just too much. They still deserve to die, he just apparently has reached his bag limit. And that leads nicely into the fact that, dearest Edward, to your claims of remorse and reform, I say unto you,

BULLCRAP

You aren’t sorry, you psychotic murderer. Midnight Sun is proof enough. You stalked the PEOPLE, you caught them, you terrorized them, you hurt them, you tortured them, and you did it all for your own selfish amusement. Considering all you’d like to do to the Evil Rapists, you also were pretty damned inventive, using your gift to find all kinds of ways to hurt people.

And, on top of it all, you didn’t want to tell your girlfriend all of this not because you are ashamed or guilty over what you did, but simply because you were afraid she would think ill of you. You’ve been hiding it this whole time just to make sure she’d still think you were a perfect little saint, to make her feel safe, to make sure she keeps thinking that you have the strength to keep from murdering her.

YOU’RE. NOT. SORRY. YOU WANTED IT, YOU WENT OUT AND GOT IT, YOU LIKED IT, YOU STILL LIKE IT, YOU STILL WANT IT. YOU’RE A PSYCHOPATHIC, SELF-CENTERED, MURDERING KILLER.

Well, doesn’t that last point in Edward’s section lead nicely into the next one? Because you needn’t have worried about Bella thinking you sick for killing hundreds of men—she likes it just as much as you do.

Edward did not pull any punches—the only thing he kept from Bella was the implications that he indulged in some good old-fashioned cruel and unusual punishment before eating all of the men he killed—or at the very least, enjoys thinking about it. He made it more than clear that he thinks killing people is fun, delicious, and nutritious; he just quit because, well, people don’t think well of him when he does that. He just informed her that he deliberately, knowingly, willfully, and eagerly left Carlisle to indulge in something he’d apparently wanted to do for a very long time. He speaks very frankly of it, and even laughs during this “confession”. He sounds casual.

And what is her reaction? To be interested.

That’s right. She’s fascinated. She wants to hear all about it. There’s no fear, no appalled horror that he would go do this. Oh no. And she feels this keen interest before he says he was only killing Bad Guys. At that point, for all she knew, he’d been out eating babies. Not only does she express an interest and fascination with the fact that Edward went off for a few years and killed people, but when he asks how she feels about that, what is her response? I think I need to drive it home, so here it is again.

"I guess… it sounds reasonable."

It sounds reasonable. IT SOUNDS REASONABLE. Bella Swan thinks it is perfectly reasonable that Edward got huffy that Carlisle wouldn’t let him kill everyone he met and flounced off deliberately to go suck the life out of lots of people. REASONABLE. She doesn’t think it’s appalling, doesn’t think it’s a terrible choice, she doesn’t even think it was wrong. By saying it was reasonable, she thinks he was perfectly justified to go off and murder hundreds of people, and all of this is before she finds out he was killing only Bad Guys, so Edward actually seems to have more of a moral compass than she does—as far as Bella’s concerned, he’s justified in eating anything he wants, from the guilty to the innocent. That lady he was saving in the alleyway? Bella would not have cared if he’d have gone for her instead of the Bad Guy. Because it’s REASONABLE. To Bella, the world literally should be Edward’s menu. He shouldn’t restrict himself to Bad Guys, because we’re all just lousy humans, after all.

After she finds out he was limiting himself only to “evil” people (again, how would you know they were evil, Edward, when you can’t see very far into their minds?), her reaction is to fantasize about it. And how does she fantasize about it? By thinking of how beautiful and glorious Edward would be, coming down From On High like a Guardian Angel—nay, she doesn’t call him an angel, she calls him a god, to save the life of an innocent girl. From her flowery language, she describes him as literally a holy being, raining down his divine wrath upon a deserving victim, sucking out his life to sustain his own.

In other words, she doesn’t merely find his murderous tendencies reasonable. She thinks they are attractive. She thinks they are awe-inspiring. She didn’t describe him with her usual staple of an angel of destruction when she spun this little fantasy—she jumped right into god territory. She called him a god, meaning she applied the divine and ultimate authority to him, just as he himself apparently believes he has.

Of course, there is the third and final player in this little scenario. That would be Stephenie Meyer. She wrote it. Edward Cullen is her dream man, and Bella Swan is her self-insert. It has never been more apparent here.