I may annoy a few people if I bring up a future point again and again and again. But it's such a pivotal one that it can't be ignored.
A love story is a tale about two characters who meet, form a bond that grows into a dynamic of love, and the rest of the story is about how that relationship is tested.
That last sentence, is the best summary that I can think of for why a life story either succeeds or fails. The first thing you need to have a love story or any kind of story for that matter, is a protagonist. In the case of the love story, two protagonists or a protagonist and his love interest.
Here's some basic examples from popular media:
Miroku and Sango from Inuyasha, Ron and Hermoine from Harry Potter, Master Chief and Cortana from Halo (it's weird), Pazu and Sheeta from Castle in the Sky, Any Bioware hero and the love interest of their choice, Cloud and Tifa from Final Fantasy VII, Aragorn and Arwen from Lord of the Rings, Cyclops and Jean Grey from X-Men, Linus and Charlie Brown's sister from Peanuts, Han Solo and Leia, Mario and Peach, Link and Zelda, Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese, Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson, Scarlet and Rhett from Gone with the Wind, Simon and Nia from Gurren Lagann, Heero Yuy and Relena from Gundam Wing, Katniss and Peeta from the Hunger Games, Edward Elric and Winry Rockbell from Fullmetal Alchemist, Roger Smith and Dorothy from Big O, Hitomi and Van from Escaflowne, Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon, James Martin and Nonnie Parry from the Posiedon Adventure, and Romeo and Juliet from...the play named after them.
If anyone can think of another pair then feel free to mention them.
Generally these characters are people who may have never met before, but they can also have met at a previous occasion before the story began. They could've have been childhood friends who meeting for the first time in years as older people or they do have a connection, but it has stayed cool and inactive for some reason. Whatever the reason, the story will bring up a situation that will bring these two into close and/or consistent contact for a long period of time.
They share they're plights with each other, trust each other with things about their past that might still haunt them, and eventually come to rely on each other. This constitutes the building of a bond that overtime becomes attraction and then grows further into love, at least most of the time.
I'll get into that last sentence in my next part, but the point remains that for a love story to work, you need to have two characters, two fleshed out and fully written three-dimensional characters that we can follow and grow attached to. These characters need to meet, to butt heads and get dizzy, then lean on each other to get their dizzy selves out the door without falling. Generally, even if your love story isn't all that emmy-worthy, if you can at least get readers to care about your characters as characters, then you're doing something right.
So with everything that I just pointed out to you, I ask a simple question...
Why should we care about Bella or Edward?
I am not convinced that they are characters, at least the kind that we should be rooting for. These two are presented as the main lovers of Twilight, but is their bond something that we could call...love? What do we even know about these two aside from their physical traits, what they look like, or what they can do?
I don't to bring up the Redlettermedia challenge again to be able say that these two are so poorly written that cardboard cutout characters are more believable than them.
But wait...there is something that we can see about either of their personalities, and that is their actions. See, actions tend to speak louder than words and really show what a person has on the inside. So...I guess we can gauge some kind of personality from their actions and I may have to take back what I said earlier.
So let's start with Bella: Meets a vampire and wants him to turn her into one; Never gives any reason beyond his looks for why she loves Edward; Cuts herself and throws herself off cliffs just so she can see him when he leaves; leads on a decent werewolf boy and then dumps him when Edward comes back; kisses the werewolf boy after getting engaged to Edward; stops talking to her friends after getting with Edward and then gets pissed when they stop talking to her; Never gives a damn or is bothered about the vampire-werewolf war that starts because of her; Constantly manipulates the werewolf to get what she wants because he still likes her; gets married right out of highschool at the age of 18 when she hasn't known edward for more than a year; didn't use protection on the honeymoon and is stunned when she ends up pregnant (there's a reason, but it's a poorly explained one and she still should have done something if she didn't want a kid anyway); lies to her father and bitches him out when he's rightfully worried for her; Never does anything for herself and always has Edward or the werewolf boy (Jacob was his name I think) do everything for her and carry her everywhere; Is an admitted author avatar for Stephenie Meyer; Is unreasonably okay with having her newborn baby imprinted onto Jacob and...admittingly, I may have missed something, but I'm sure that I have enough to gauge her character.
Bella is a selfish, uncaring, pretentious, manipulative, self-centered, idiotic, clingy, shallow, desperate, and considering my Top 12 bitches who need a slap list, this woman is almost up there with the white bitch from Rosewood. If that was Stephanie Meyer's intention...to create a tragic, flawed woman who would serve as the catalyst for a depressing tale...well, she still screwed up.
Instead, Bella is supposed to represent the every day, average, American teenage girl. In some ways...in some very scary ways, Bella is spot on for the worst of them while leaving out the vast majority of probably flawed and imperfect, but still decent and intelligent girls to rot in the dust. Not only that, but this story celebrates this as a means to gaining a happily ever after! It's so removed from reality that it doesn't make sense. Even the biggest gold-diggers out there wouldn't act as...stupid as this woman did.
Now for Edward, maybe he'll come off as a better character? After all, he does save Bella most of the time and doesn't rip out her throat like most vampires would. Maybe there is something under that pretty boy face.
Let's find out: Is madly attracted to Bella's blood despite being a veggie vampire; considers killing her and twenty other students to remove witnesses; Sneaks into her bedroom on multiple occasions; Leaves her for no reason and says that he doesn't love her; Still sneaks into Bella's bedroom despite being banned by a perfectly reasonable father; Is perfectly cool with his fiance having feelings for Jacob and even kissing him; decides to marry her even though they've barely known each other for a year and she's just turning 18 while he's close to being a hundred; On their honeymoon, he breaks her body in multiple places during intercourse; is stunned when his fiancee is pregnant despite the fact that they did the nasty without protection; attempts to force Bella into having an abortion; threatens to disown her if she doesn't because she's being "selfish"; Is perfectly cool with Jacob being around even though he still clearly has feelings for Bella; Is perfectly cool with having his newborn baby imprinted onto Jacob; and I could go on, but I think we have enough.
Edward is...an overprotective, creepy, controlling, cold, harsh, bitter, selfish, border-line abusive, emo, whiny, tortured for no reason, manipulative stalker! Half of the stuff that I just read off could easily be attributed to evil characters who like to get a kick out of the pain of their victims! This guy sounds like he'd be the perfect sadistic second-in command to a reasonable overlord.
Here, he's presented as every woman's wet dream. He sparkles in daylight instead of burning like he should; he's a pretty boy; he has a nice body that he doesn't have to work for; he's strong and fast; he can read your mind whether you want him to or not; and he's rich enough to have his own resort on an island off of Rio de Janiaro. Even the author has admitted to being willing to walk out on her family if he were to show up at her doorstep.
So I'll break it down for you. These two characters are supposed to be the people that we care about. But in truth, they're so horribly presented and unbelievable that it takes you out of whatever story that they're trying to tell. Especially since, the tone for the story that these two characters are in is so wrong! You can't have a happy, love story where two people meet and eventually marry with two characters that have traits that would never fly in real life!
And that is the first link that breaks any believability in this love story. If we can't build a connection with these characters, then we don't care about them getting together or what they might do! Without your characters, there is no bond; without the bond, you have no love story; without your love story, there is no story since the overall story is centered around the love story! This is the most basic reason why Twilight fails as both a story and a love story!
I could stop here since the chain's already broken...but I'm only getting started my friends!
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