A New Form of Torture

Back in the Middle Ages, many religious figures firmly believed that self-torture was the key to enlightenment. So they starved themselves, beat themselves, wore incredibly ugly hairy itchy undershirts, and clawed at their skin till their clothes were soaked in blood. (Kids, do not try this at home, because it will not lead you to enlightenment. It will, however, make your parents lead you to a psychiatrist.)

Anyway, the point is, they were masters at self-torture. Boiling themselves in oil? Sure! Tying themselves to a large spiky wheel and rolling across Interstate 5 in heavy traffic? Bring it on!

But none of them – none of them – would have been able to stomach the Twilight Saga.

Now, most of you have probably read the Twilight Saga, or at least heard of it. For those of you who have just emerged from the ground after spending 17 years in a state of suspended larval animation and thus have no idea what it is, this is the basic plot: Cedric Diggory, the much-beloved Hufflepuff hunk, inexplicably rises from the grave to become a sparkly, undead, bloodsucking Greek God by the name of Edward Dullen – uh, I mean Cullen. Ed then meets Bella Swan, his soul mate, who has conveniently moved from Phoenix, Arizona, to Forks, Washington. Here I will interrupt myself to ask – who in their right mind would name a town “Forks”? Does Forks actually exist, or is it some strange imagining on the author’s part? Your intrepid writer shall now take a break from writing to unearth the truth.

(One Google Search Later –)

OH MY GOD! FORKS REALLY DOES EXIST! It’s in some place called Clallam County, and it’s named after the forks in a bunch of nearby rivers with unpronounceable names.

Okay, back to the “plot” of the Twilight Saga.

So Ed meets his soul mate, briefly debates whether he should eat her or date her, and finally decides on the latter (much to the reader’s disgust, who by now is fervently praying for Bella’s death.) Then, because the author suddenly realized that no actual plot had been introduced as of yet, James arrives. James is an evil, ugly vampire who wants nothing but to kill Bella. His reasons for doing so aren’t really disclosed, but my guess is that a fed-up reader bribed him into committing the act.

Anyway, Ed kills James and thus incurs the wrath of Victoria, who is supposedly the series’ main antagonist. In reality, she only appears at the end of Book 1 and midway through Book 3, where she gets killed by – guess who – Edward. Generally, book series end when the villain is dead. But not the Twilight Saga. Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. There just has to be a Book 4, Breaking Dawn, which has absolutely no connection with the rest of the books and features a complicated plot involving an Italian vampire-Godfather-wannabe named “Aro”, the meaning of which is “infertile ground.” I do not know the significance of this fact, but it’s funny.

Name meanings aside, though, Aro’s the best character yet – mostly because he’s completely off his rocker.

Moving on. Aro thinks that Bella’s baby – did I mention she gave birth? Aro thinks Bella’s baby is an “immortal child,” an incredibly cute yet incredibly lethal vampire baby.

Huh. Sounds like my brother.

Anyhow, creating an immortal child is punishable by death, so Aro marches over to Forks with his Army of Doom. However, the Cullens are prepared for this – they too have assembled their own army, and have come up with a brilliant plan: reason with Aro, and politely request him to spare their lives.

And guess what? It works!

Oh yeah, I forgot. There are a bunch of werewolves, except they aren’t the kind that morph at the full moon and eat everyone in sight. They’re a bunch of supernaturally good-looking, unrealistically muscular, immortal guys who have full control over their shapeshifting, and work to protect innocent humans from vampires. Go figure.

Anyway, there’s one werewolf, named Taylor Lautner, sorry, Jacob Black, who believes he’s fallen in love with Bella, except in Breaking Dawn it’s revealed that he’s really in love with Bella’s baby – which, considering the fact that he’s 16 and the baby’s half a day old, is just plain creepy. But that’s the Twilight Saga for you.

So now, dear readers, you must be wondering: why would I go through this? Why would I read the Twilight Saga if it’s so horrendously, mind-implodingly, cell-death-inducingly awful?

The answer can be summed up in five words: Because they told me to.

“They,” of course, being my numerous friends and acquaintances, who, after learning that I hadn’t read the Twilight Saga, subjected me to slow torture by fangirling until I gave in and picked the books up.

The moral of this story?

Dear readers, your friends may be lovely. They may be caring, compassionate, attentive. But the moment they pull out that small, black book with an apple on the cover, hightail it out of there.