Twilight Saga

  • Thread starter Thread starter LoveGod102
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
LoveGod102 said:
Depends. Can you see past the surface, to realize that all the selfishness of them both means it is not true love?
Yes, you’re right that they do risk their lives for each other. However… love doesn’t mean “I’ll do anything for you, even die, but at the expense of damaging my relationship with my father, and my friendships with people besides you and your family.” Love doesn’t hurt the people around us. Love doesn’t use other people to make us feel better. Scripture tells us that “love does not insist on it’s own way.” Bella absolutely insists that she be with Edward, despite knowing that it puts her life in serious danger, and that if Edward were to slip up and kill her, it would cause him serious emotional pain. If she really loved him, she would have stayed away from him, to avoid this very valid risk. Love doesn’t disrespect our parents. Bella won’t listen to her father, who doesn’t want her dating Edward. She threatens to move out if he doesn’t let her date Edward, and she means it.
If Edward really loved Bella, he would have stayed away from her. Yes, I know he did try to stay away from her at first, but then he gives in to selfishness and stops avoiding her and starts dating her. He himself ADMITS that he is being selfish, yet he doesn’t seem to care. This is him insisting on his own way, while claiming to love her. This contradicts Scripture’s definition of love.
Love doesn’t refuse to respect other’s beliefs. “Love is not arrogant or rude,” as Scripture says. Love doesn’t manipulate people into doing what they belief to be a grave evil. This is what Bella does. She manipulates him into agreeing to make her a vampire, even though she knows that he believes it to be a grave evil. This is strong evidence that they are not in love. If she loved him, she would have respected him, and encouraged him to do what he believed was right. If he loved her, then he would have stuck to what his conscience said, no matter what Bella said or did.

If can see and acknowledge all this to be the case, rather than thinking that they are in love, than it might be fine. If it’s tempting you to believe the lie that love is nothing more than emotion, and that it is compatible with selfishness, than watching it is a bad idea.
Click to expand...
Granted, it has an obsessive quality, much like Romeo & Juliet did. However, there is also something about this movie that has captured people’s interest.

I think it has a lot to do with Edward’s character. Well, he doesn’t force her into a sexual relationship, like many men today. Secondly, he’s nice, a gentleman, a rare quality, as well. I think women today are hungry for that, that they wish they knew a guy like that, or had a husband like that.

Men could take a lesson from Edward, his attentiveness. So many men take women for granted. Edward doesn’t. He’s kind. He protects her. He has a lot of nice qualities, inspite of his flaws.
 
Also, they are both willing to give their lives for each other. Bella actually does. She offers her life for Edward in one scene, and it is a pivitol moment. It is underscored that she, a human, is willing to give her life for Edward, a lowly “soul less” vampire.
 
ClearWater said:
I’ve seen both “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights”, still prefer “Twilight”. If I were to have to do without “Twilight”, replace it only with those 2 movies, it wouldn’t be enough to sustain me through my life, I don’t think. I realize movies aren’t supposed to be means as sustenance. Most people already have emotional support. To those who don’t have any, some kind fantasy is not only a viable option but often absolutely necessary.

That’s a shame about the post that said to exclude anyone who liked “Twilight” as a potential marriage partner, or to “red flag” it, because that movie was incredibly popular. You’d be excluding much of America, and the world!

I don’t know. I think it’s okay for even a married woman, once in a while, to watch a romance, realizing this is not real, that it’s just an escape from problems, that the problems will return the second the movie’s over!

I think this helps a lot of women actually cope better with their husbands, boyfriends, etc., because it gives them a fantasy, although brief, from reality, which, for some people, can be quite harsh.
Click to expand...
I couldn’t find anything to satisfy me for quite a while after reading the series. It’s just so addictive and obsessive. Really, I think you just need time to let go of it. What did it for me was listening to it so many times I saw through all the lies and I got sick of it.
I read Romeo and Juliet after, which helped a little because the story is similar. That one can be dangerous too though, if you can’t look past the surface of it. I think Shakespeare intended it as a way of showing “Look what can happen when you settle for lust instead of love.” But the world’s view of love has become so distorted that many people view as a love story. But seeing as that was likely Shakespeare’s intention, it is much easier for me to see past the surface and find the moral of the story, which is “Don’t settle for lust, and don’t assume that you are in love with someone just because you have very strong feelings for him/her.”
 
Shakepeare did say that the starcrossed lovers ended their parents’ hatred with their love, though.
 
Romeo & Juliet is different, since they really existed. “Twilight” is pure fantasy, though.
 
I think the Twilight series is pretty terrible, literary wise. But I’m not sure it can be said that it sends a morally bad message unless you just obsessive over it.
 
I don’t know about literacy worth, but it was a powerful story. I thought it also had a pro-life message and an abstinence message, personally!

Bella could have tried to abort her child. It was, literally, killing her! It was breaking her bones! She would have rather died than desert that unborn baby!
 
I think we should keep an open mind on this.

Bear in mind that I’ve never read all the books - though I have had to instruct myself at second hand after catching more than one student reading them in class. 🙂

There are good and bad points about the series, but this is true of most secular fiction (and for that matter, of religious fiction that encourages an unhealthy interest in demonology, conspiracy theories, and degenerate eschatology.)

On the bright side, themes such as love, friendship, self-sacrifice, and even the pro-life cause (!!) are covered.

On the downside, vampires and werewolves aren’t exactly the best of heroes (but then again, neither are priests / preachers who would make the Saints weep…), the prose is pretty awful (again, I don’t know if it got better later in the series), the plotting and logic are fairly thin, and the characters are flat.

As a work of literature, I can think of several better things to read. But one man’s meat is another man’s poison: if you derive comfort or edification from Twilight (or from Harry Potter, or from Narnia, or from the Teletubbies), then stick to them. If they are an occasion of sin to you, avoid them.

And I’d still give them a cautious green light in preference to the Left Behind books (or Catholic imitations thereof.) 🙂
 
ClearWater said:
Granted, it has an obsessive quality, much like Romeo & Juliet did. However, there is also something about this movie that has captured people’s interest.

I think it has a lot to do with Edward’s character. Well, he doesn’t force her into a sexual relationship, like many men today. Secondly, he’s nice, a gentleman, a rare quality, as well. I think women today are hungry for that, that they wish they knew a guy like that, or had a husband like that.

Men could take a lesson from Edward, his attentiveness. So many men take women for granted. Edward doesn’t. He’s kind. He protects her. He has a lot of nice qualities, inspite of his flaws.
Click to expand...
I think you should stop watching it. I would say similar things to what your saying now right after I read the first few times.
Just because Edward doesn’t do some of today’s evil’s doesn’t make a him a gentleman. Evil comes in many shapes and sizes, and it disguises itself as good. Satan is the father and lies, and he loves for us to think evil is good.
Edward is not a gentleman. What gentleman puts the woman he supposedly loves in serious danger of murder, at his own hand? What gentleman puts himself in such a near occasion of sin? Sure he’s nice and attentive at times, but that is not love. Being a “nice” guy isn’t enough. He protects her from everyone but himself. The good he does in protecting her does not cancel out the wrongdoing of needlessly putting her is danger of himself.
Rather than taking her for granted, he idolizes her, as she idolizes him. Love is not idolatrous. He thinks that the reason he wasn’t happy all those years, was because he hadn’t yet met her. Did it never occur to him that it could be the guilt from murdering hundreds of people that made him unhappy?
Bella derives her value and self-esteem from Edward. She thinks that she is unworthy of him and he thinks the same of her. Love doesn’t use the one who is loved as a way of making yourself feel more valued. That isn’t love, it’s lust.

The movie has captured people’s interest because it SEEMS romantic, and it SEEMS like selfless love. The world doesn’t know what true love is, so when they see a book and movie that SEEMS endlessly romantic, and SEEMS like a loving relationship, along with a good plot-line, then it appeals to them. But just because people like it, doesn’t mean they should like it, or that we should read it.
 
ClearWater said:
That’s a shame about the post that said to exclude anyone who liked “Twilight” as a potential marriage partner, or to “red flag” it, because that movie was incredibly popular. You’d be excluding much of America, and the world!
Click to expand...
I am the one who said that, I stand by what I said. Twilight is emotional pornography which is just as bad as visual pornography. See below.
ClearWater said:
I don’t know. I think it’s okay for even a married woman, once in a while, to watch a romance, realizing this is not real, that it’s just an escape from problems, that the problems will return the second the movie’s over!

I think this helps a lot of women actually cope better with their husbands, boyfriends, etc., because it gives them a fantasy, although brief, from reality, which, for some people, can be quite harsh.
Click to expand...
Going to rephrase the above from the other side. Just maybe you’ll see what I mean.
REPHRASED:
I don’t know. I think it’s okay for even a married man, once in a while, to watch a pornographic video, realizing this is not real, that it’s just an escape from problems, that the problems will return the second the video’s over!

I think this helps a lot of men actually cope better with their wives, girlfriends, etc., because it gives them a fantasy, although brief, from reality, which, for some people, can be quite harsh.
Click to expand...
The rephrased version is rightly condemned as supporting a grave sin. As it should be. But on the level of fantasy that appeals to women vs the level of fantasy that appeals to men, it really is no different from the emotional pornography symbolized by Twilight and most, if not all of the romance genre. Just because the protagonists mostly remain clothed doesn’t make it better, let alone okay. Hence such emotional pornography is also a sin as far as I’m concerned.

I deal in reality, I have to be in this world, but I don’t have to be of it. I’m really disappointed that so many Catholic women think Twilight is perfectly okay or further that they think it’s okay for their highly impressionable daughters to read/watch.
 
RPRPsych said:
I think we should keep an open mind on this.

Bear in mind that I’ve never read all the books - though I have had to instruct myself at second hand after catching more than one student reading them in class. 🙂

There are good and bad points about the series, but this is true of most secular fiction (and for that matter, of religious fiction that encourages an unhealthy interest in demonology, conspiracy theories, and degenerate eschatology.)

On the bright side, themes such as love, friendship, self-sacrifice, and even the pro-life cause (!!) are covered.

On the downside, vampires and werewolves aren’t exactly the best of heroes (but then again, neither are priests / preachers who would make the Saints weep…), the prose is pretty awful (again, I don’t know if it got better later in the series), the plotting and logic are fairly thin, and the characters are flat.

As a work of literature, I can think of several better things to read. But one man’s meat is another man’s poison: if you derive comfort or edification from Twilight (or from Harry Potter, or from Narnia, or from the Teletubbies), then stick to them. If they are an occasion of sin to you, avoid them.

And I’d still give them a cautious green light in preference to the Left Behind books (or Catholic imitations thereof.) 🙂
Click to expand...
Haha, oh man. I have never heard anyone say “Degenerate Eschatology” before. ha, that one made me chuckle pretty good. 👍
 
I don’t know. My sister’s favorite movie is “Jane Eyre”, and I think she’s a nice person.
 
Zzyzx_Road said:
I am the one who said that, I stand by what I said. Twilight is emotional pornography which is just as bad as visual pornography. See below.
Click to expand...
No. You have no authority to declare anything like that. It is really absurd to even compare the two.
 
ClearWater said:
I don’t know about literacy worth, but it was a powerful story. I thought it also had a pro-life message and an abstinence message, personally!

Bella could have tried to abort her child. It was, literally, killing her! It was breaking her bones! She would have rather died than desert that unborn baby!
Click to expand...
I agree with you about that part being pro-life. I did like that part. That part of her character is admirable and selfless.
However, just because it has a good message mixed into all the bad ones doesn’t mean that it’s a true love story or that it’s a good idea to keep watching it.
 
The scenes I like, even replay, though some will get angry that I do this…are generally when Edward is protecting Bella.
 
I like how he protects her from the van, especially. That’s probably my favorite scene of the entire series. I also like where Bella gives her life for Edward.
 
It’s possible to find books or movies today with no mixed messages, I guess. It’d just be a little difficult. You’d almost need a religious movie, put out by the Church, to do that.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top