Opinions on Twighlight series.

[ithink]

IMHO, this can be a way Satan can try and lure people to developing a curiosity in dark power and magic, which can obviously lead to other things, but I've decided to leave it up to my girls. They're strong enough in the church that I don't think they'll be affected in such a way as to cause them to begin exploring Satan's power and they know I am worried about them watching and reading the series and so far, they've only shown an interest in the story and romance. Guess we'll see how it plays out.

Col. this series and vampirism in general is not about the occult, it is about illicit sex. Sex sex sex. Any "good" vampire movie has serious sexual overtones, if not actually explicit. Do your own research and you will see it is so. To top it off, the occult has overt sexual themes and licentious sexual revelry and orgy practices also.

From wikipedia:

Empusa was the daughter of the goddess Hecate and was described as a demonic, bronze-footed creature. She feasted on blood by transforming into a young woman and seduced men as they slept before drinking their blood.

By the 1970s, vampires in films had diversified with works such as Count Yorga, Vampire (1970), an African Count in 1972's Blacula, a Nosferatu-like vampire in 1979's Salem's Lot, and a remake of Nosferatu itself, titled Nosferatu the Vampyre with Klaus Kinski the same year. Several films featured female, often lesbian, vampire antagonists such as Hammer Horror's The Vampire Lovers (1970) based on Carmilla, though the plotlines still revolved around a central evil vampire character.[152]

The continuing popularity of the vampire theme has been ascribed to a combination of two factors: the representation of sexuality and the perennial dread of mortality.

Modern vampirism is as has been said, an lesson on sex but on a stealth level, which makes it ever the more dangerous.

Guess we'll see how it plays out.

Well said, but you may have to wait 25 years before the fruits of watching and reading stuff like this shows itself, and the manifestation won't be occultic, but rather in perverted and warped sexuality.

[ithink]

The "darkness" used in a book (or film) is not inherently wrong. No one ever says The Lord of the Rings is "occultish" (and it's not, it's deeply Christian in fact). It depends on what it is teaching, not the symbols it uses.

I've no idea what the Twilight series teaches, however, as I've neither watched nor read (though no doubt will at some point). If they promote a bad message, or are gratuitous, then that's another mater.

I found out that Elder Holland had commented on the Potter series: "You are well aware of the Harry Potter books and movies by J. K. Rowling. One of the reasons the books are so popular, I think, is that they show children victorious in battle against dark forces. They give readers hope that, even in total darkness, there is that spark of light. Despite the powerful evil arrayed against them, they know they can defeat the darkness. But fundamental to the message of the Harry Potter books is the idea that children don’t—indeed, can’t—fight their battles alone. In fact, the one gift that saves Harry over and over again is the love of his mother, who died protecting him from evil. Without any question one of those best “defenses against the dark arts”—to use a phrase from the Harry Potter books—is close family ties. Parental love, family activity, gentle teaching, and respectful conversation—sweet time together—can help keep the generations close and build bonds that will never be broken."

Full speech: http://www.lightedcandlesociety.org/new ... 202006.htm

Pardon me while I puke. Elder Holland goes on a rant about the Potter books having such a good message in a speech about internet porn, yet ironically, the problem he is discussing has it's problematic roots in things like Potter and Twilight. From Potter to Twilight, it's such a short step if it can be called a step at all because both are about the occult, and the occult is totally mired in sex from start to finish. (Hit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire, and start scrolling! or google vampire images -- but I hope you have your filter set to moderate! and even then -- WOWSER!) I find it odd that all kinds of pastors and preachers correctly condemn Potter, while the twelve Apostles are apparently reading it -- and apparently enjoying it too. I must be old school, because I can't see Brigham Young or Spencer Kimball or Benson not just reading that trash, but teaching with it! Whatever happened to this:

"Remember the days of old, Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; Your elders, and they will tell you ..."

Now we have stooped to being a nation (and a people) fed and reared on fiction top to bottom, as Brigham lamented. I am sorry the fact that Rowling researched the occult extensively to write the Potter books has escaped Elder Holland. To fail to help others see this is to potentially play the pipes while the people dance on their own graves. It's time to wake up folks and start playing hardball while we live, before we come to our senses and find ourselves waking up in hell.

[minuet1]

Now we have stooped to being a nation (and a people) fed and reared on fiction top to bottom, as Brigham lamented.

Fiction is not all bad. President Hinckley gave Merrill Jensen the assignment to write "The Testaments: Of One Fold and One Shepherd" that the church shows in SLC. It is fiction, the characters are not real, are not Book of Mormon characters, etc. It is based on Book of Mormon events, but the story itself is fiction.

What were Christ's parables if not fiction? There is nothing wrong with fiction, as long as what we are reading does not detract from the gospel, truth, following the prophets, etc, or is the main source for our reading. I believe "The Work and the Glory" series has done much good, but is fiction. Should we not tell our children any bedtime stories like The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk...?

Personally, it would be a very boring world to me indeed if we could only read the scriptures or at the very least, only non-fiction. There would be no making up stories to tell my daughters as I put them to bed, no "feel good" Christmas stories, no "Mr. Kruger's Christmas" because they weren't telling a true story. The list goes on, but you get the idea.

Just be wise. What can I say more?

[Fiannan]

I heard that Micky Rorke will be soon caste in the role of Richard Kuklinski, the famous "Iceman" who killed over 200 people. I will bet that this will be rated R. However, I seriously doubt anyone will get inspired to become a disciple of Kuklinski. However, a fictional piece that leaves the audience hoping that Mr. Cullin goes all the way with his rather plain human object of affection could have an affect on not only teen girls, but their mothers as well when thier daughters do bring home a "perfect catch" -- is sex ever a way to capture the perfect husband?
I am a bit disurbed with the father image in the first movie. He is all talk and no action -- even though he's a cop. He is portrayed as always jumping to the wrong conclusion as well as showing the resolve of a wet noodle on a humid day in Hong Kong when his daughter packs her bags to leave.
Maybe it would be better for mothers to take their kids to "Dark Shadows" when it is released in a couple of years. At least Depp's character will not be some sissy that would make a Swedish man look masculine.

[kathyn]

In Elder Holland's defense, he wrote about Harry Potter when it first came out. It did give a lot of kids the desire to read and it was all about good and evil and the difference between the two and it was pretty innocent. It was pretty much a fairy tale. But the series did become darker. I'll bet that Elder Holland doesn't feel the same now.
And I agree that Twilight is really about sex.

[MasterOfNone]

Fiction uses symbols. You cannot say that because "magic" is used in fiction that it = real-life witchcraft. The gospel is replete with symbols (serpents, dragons, light and darkness). It is what a novel's message is about those things (and everything) that determines whether a book tends to good or evil, surely?

I remember an old Ensign article ("I have a question") on fantasy. Of course, this is not to be taken as doctrine, but it surely has a lot of common sense to it. Here's an excerpt:

One of the best ways to engage the imagination is to use symbols familiar to the imagination—unicorns and fairies, quests and fantastic experiences. These symbols have been around for a long time, and while they seem to have little application to real life, they actually have much to do with it. In many ways, they symbolize the struggle between good and evil and the challenges we all face as we journey toward maturity. For these reasons, I have found that fantasy literature, for the most part, is more optimistic and more explicitly moral than mainstream literature.

Full link: http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?v ... &hideNav=1

The Lord of the Rings is an example of a book that uses many symbols, like the Chronicles of Narnia, to promote and reflect gospel truths that both Tolkien and CS Lewis understood and believed.

Having said this, I am not trying to take away from the reality that most fantasy is used to promote bad things today (and it also has the potential to be the most immoral of literature as well as the most moral), but that is about how it is used. It is not inherent to the genre imho.

[ithink]

Fiction uses symbols. You cannot say that because "magic" is used in fiction that it = real-life witchcraft. The gospel is replete with symbols (serpents, dragons, light and darkness). It is what a novel's message is about those things (and everything) that determines whether a book tends to good or evil, surely?

I remember an old Ensign article ("I have a question") on fantasy. Of course, this is not to be taken as doctrine, but it surely has a lot of common sense to it. Here's an excerpt:

One of the best ways to engage the imagination is to use symbols familiar to the imagination—unicorns and fairies, quests and fantastic experiences. These symbols have been around for a long time, and while they seem to have little application to real life, they actually have much to do with it. In many ways, they symbolize the struggle between good and evil and the challenges we all face as we journey toward maturity. For these reasons, I have found that fantasy literature, for the most part, is more optimistic and more explicitly moral than mainstream literature.

Full link: http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?v ... &hideNav=1

The Lord of the Rings is an example of a book that uses many symbols, like the Chronicles of Narnia, to promote and reflect gospel truths that both Tolkien and CS Lewis understood and believed.

Having said this, I am not trying to take away from the reality that most fantasy is used to promote bad things today (and it also has the potential to be the most immoral of literature as well as the most moral), but that is about how it is used. It is not inherent to the genre imho.

I have nothing more against any work of fiction than I do against any other form or art whether it be music or whatever. In my view, this discussion is narrowed in on these trash novels Twilight and Potter, which is just fine for the stupid masses these days, but not for any student of the works of Tolkien or Lewis.

[Looking Forward]

I have never read them (nor have the desire to or have my own daughter read them) so I can't really get into any debate on them.

However,

I read this from another forum (which was recommended from this forum )

http://www.thesocialleader.com/wp-conte ... ocrats.pdf

this is written by OLIVER DEMILLE on OCTOBER 5, 2009.

Gave me food for thought about the twilight series, and one more reason not to read them.

I try to be selective on the books I allow in the house, and try to have ones that we can enjoy while learning something of value from them.

[oneClimbs]

What would you think of them if they were not written by a Mormon?

I have not read the books, I didn't know much about them. My sister was reading one out loud on a long drive one day. The book vividly describes how the male vampire (who drinks the blood of animals and not humans, but is still tempted by it) tries to resist the urge to drink the human girl's blood. Being a student of symbolism and allegorical storytelling, the need to resist drinking her blood is clearly a metaphor for sexual temptation. Most of the book seems to revolve around this bombardment of sexual tension between two teens. It's sexuality mixed with a vampire theme. I don't know why any LDS person would call that 'entertainment'.

My mother-in-law started reading the series and when she got to a part about the girl describing in detail how the vampire was turning her on, she stopped reading and equated it to soft pornography.

[2wet2burn]

What disturbs me the most is the reaction of self proclaimed good mormon women when you suggest that maybe the twilight series isn't that good. There is a rumour around here that the story line came to a mormon woman in a dream so it must be inspired. If you question that myth, watch out. One mother practically called me a book burner because I said I didn't want my 11 year old daughter to read the book when she wanted to lend it to her. A fellow employee at work said she could hardly stand the sexual tension in the book. I don't want my 11 year old anyway near sexual tension. She gets enough exposure on tv and at school. I am so concerned that 85% of our branch's youth (young men too) have read and loved the series.

I tried to explain to my kids that vampires and zombies are Satan's cheap ploy to confuse the true concepts of resurection. Who needs Christ and his atonement if you can find another way to live forever. Maybe I'm too over-protective.

[kathyn]

2wet2burn, you are not too overprotective. If more LDS were as protective as you, we could save our kids a lot of grief.

[Fiannan]

I want to be a bit fair to the author of the series here. I do not think she wrote this as a piece of LDS fiction. She wrote a book for the masses and the masses seem to like it -- to the point of obsession in my opinion but oh well. It is that obsession that does cause me to worry -- it is to the point of idolization with a lot of people.
Of course, I see nothing wrong with writing about vampires, werewolves, space aliens or whatever. I would not even have a problem with writing about murder. I just think we should analyze the message behind a particular work.

[Istand4truth]

Thanks for all of your comments. They have been very illuminating.

I think the dangers in these types of books is that young girls and kids read them and get obsessed with them. They spend their time on these things and aren't reading the good classics and the things that really edify and uplift. We only have so much time on this earth. We can't read every book or watch every movie ever made. We should spend our time wisely I think.

I try to give my nieces and nephews books that I used to love when I was little, but they don't seem to really like them. Of course, the books I read were fiction, but very realistic. I read The Saturday's series by Elizabeth Enright, The Little House on the Prairie series, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Anne of Green Gables, Betsy and Tacy etc.

Anything that is realistic and not fantasy just seems boring to kids these days. If it doesn't have dragons, vampires, wizards or witches it doesn't really keep their attention. Has anyone else noticed that?


I tend to rebel against any fad or craze. When Harry Potter first came out and it was all the rage I just couldn't see what the big deal was. Everyone around me was into it. Not really wanting to I tried reading the first one because everyone told me how wonderful it was. I got half way through and didn't really like it. I decided that I shouldn't pretend to like something just because everyone else does. I read the first Twilight book and half of the second. That's as far as I got. I think it just got ridiculous after that.

Now, whenever I hear about something popular or faddish I wonder if it's a grassroots craze or something imposed on us by design. I guess that's just my conspiratorial and suspicious nature. Anything that "everyone just loves" makes me very suspicious. I just don't like to get on a bandwagon because everyone else is on it.

[notjamesbond003.5]

A Pro LDS view, stating that no pre marital sex and marshaling earth bound tendencies ridding oneself of the natural man-2 ideas the author used when writing these books.

Publishing professionals call it a phenomenon. In 2008, Little, Brown sold 27.5 million copies of Stephenie Meyer’s four vampire novels; the Twilight movie grossed $191 million in domestic box office sales; and Meyer’s adult novel, The Host, sold an additional million copies. Publishers Weekly crowed, “A new queen has been crowned.” USA Today reported that Meyer was the bestselling author in the world for the year 2008, accounting for one in five of the books sold from Thanksgiving to Christmas.[ii]

That’s not bad for an author who, as the media incessantly reminds us, is little more than a “Mormon housewife.” It seems that nearly every major article about Meyer’s success has focused on this label, as though Mormon housewives constitute a group of whom little can be reasonably expected.

Time magazine called her “a Mormon housewife turned novelist,”[iii] while Entertainment Weekly trumpeted the fact that back in 2003, Meyer had been “a 29-year-old Mormon housewife” who was mystified by the rarefied world of New York publishing and was merely a member of a “cozy, supportive” women’s writing group before being plucked from obscurity by a New York agent.[iv] The Time profile, in fact, went out of its way to attest to Meyer’s literary inexperience: “Meyer had not written anything much before then. Her main creative outlets were scrapbooking and making elaborate Halloween costumes.”[v]

For the record, Meyer studied English literature at Brigham Young University, wrote some, and read widely before having her famous dream that birthed Edward Cullen, a Byronic but noble vampire. The media would prefer to have Meyer’s pre-Twilight world intellectually limited because it makes for a better story. To that end, they have revived the term “housewife” instead of using today’s far more common (and less provincial) phrase, “stay-at-home mom.” The persistence of the housewife image says a good deal less about contemporary Mormonism than it does about what Americans believe about Mormonism.

If the media cannot get the major facts of Meyer’s own story straight, it is not surprising that journalists have missed a good deal of the theological underpinnings of her work. When Mormon themes are mentioned at all, they are explicitly tied to sexual abstinence to the exclusion of all else. That is not to say that sexuality is not a hugely important element of Twilight, or indeed of all vampire fiction: vampirism is nearly always a literary stand-in for eroticism, and falling in love with a vampire is the pinnacle of forbidden fruit.[vi] But the media’s focus on the steamy but restrained sexuality of the Twilight series, equating “Mormonism” with the fact that Bella and Edward do not have intercourse until marriage, misses the richest connections between LDS theology and Meyer’s writing.

At least the Atlantic recognized this tendency and grieved it: in Caitlin Flanagan’s brilliant article about the Twilight saga’s commercial appeal, she noted that, although every reviewer had made mention of Meyer’s Mormonism, “none knows what to do with it, and certainly none can relate it to the novel.”[vii]

Meyer has publicly declared the Book of Mormon to be the book that has made the most significant impact on her life. A careful reading of her fiction attests to the reality of this statement; it is not just window dressing or pious platitude. Meyer’s theology is impressionistic and not systematic, and it is always embedded within story—very much like in the Book of Mormon itself—yet it is clearly discernible.

One of the most important theological aspects of the Twilight series is its emphasis on what the Book of Mormon would term overcoming the “natural man” (Mosiah 3:19). This phrase crops up throughout LDS scripture as a reflection on sin and redemption. To understand this term, we have to go back to the first parents, Adam and Eve. The specific transgression that resulted in their exile and the fall of humanity stemmed from the desire to become like God.

The Book of Mormon’s unique twist on traditional Judeo-Christian theology ties their proactive decision to partake of the forbidden fruit to their desire for procreation. The Book of Mormon also makes the audacious claim that the pair chose to give up mere immortality for the chance of eternal life in relationship—with God, each other, and future children. As a result of their choice, their life in the fallen world would be a struggle, and human nature would become something to transcend.

In Twilight, the problem of a carnal, sinful nature is embodied and symbolized by the figure of Edward. His sole purpose in life (well, death) is to feed on human blood, to be literally carnal and carnivorous. Edward, encouraged by his foster father, Carlisle, makes the decision to reject this way of life for a better, if more difficult, one. He makes this choice on a daily basis, and the temptation is always strong, especially when a new girl shows up at high school whose blood “sings” to him.[viii]

Mormonism teaches that the natural human stands in opposition to Christ. The natural person is selfish, whereas Christ is selfless; the natural person is carnal, whereas Christ is incarnational. In Mosiah 3:19, King Benjamin expresses it this way:

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.
In the Book of Mormon, the term “natural man” is not employed just to describe the wicked or the immoral but anyone prone to the human condition of alienation from God.[ix] It is a description of the absence of relationship, not a tidy pejorative statement about immorality. It is disarmingly universal.
In Twilight, Edward is able, through sheer willpower and a desire to do no harm, to subdue his monstrous nature and avoid preying on humans for many decades. But it is not until Bella comes into his life that he is transformed by love, and he makes efforts to become like the “children” he calls his senior high classmates.[x] Saying that he becomes submissive and meek is a stretch—in fact, his behavior is often mercurial and inscrutable—but what changes fundamentally for Edward is the new desire to live wholly for another.

As he tells Bella, “You are my life now.”[xi] In Twilight, Edward’s self-control goes a long way toward throwing off the natural man, but it is Bella, working as a kind of Christ figure, who becomes a vehicle of grace in Edward’s transformation. Her determination that he does indeed possess a soul goes a long way toward convincing him that he does. Her trust in his nobility in turn generates in him a new confidence that he is worthy of her trust, and that he can withstand unthinkable temptation.

Choice and accountability are crucial values here, not just for Edward and Bella, but for her friend Jacob as well. When Bella and Jacob get in a heated argument about Jacob’s werewolf nature, Bella spits the retort, “It’s not what you are, stupid, it’s what you do!”[xii] She is telling Jacob that he does not have to act on any natural inclinations a werewolf might have to destroy or to feed. He is free. In the Book of Mormon, right choices pave the way for receiving Christ’s Atonement, which is the “way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit” (2 Ne. 9:10; see also verse 19). Just as important for Meyer, love saves us from the monster within.

In the Book of Mormon, Alma teaches that mortality is a “probationary state” during which humankind strives to overcome its evil nature (Alma 42:10). But in Twilight, such testing happens in immortality as well, calling attention to a second major Mormon theme: the basic but subtle Mormon distinction between immortality and eternal life. The vampires in Twilight represent some of the less savory aspects of immortality. Not being mortal means not being subject to death, and in the case of Meyer’s vampires it also means certain enhancements in the form of superhuman strength and speed, acute hearing, or clairvoyance. But immortality, with all its perks, is not a gift to be envied. There is a loneliness and restlessness to the Cullen family. They are isolated from their kind by their decision to become the vampiric equivalent of vegetarians and are doomed to roam the earth as inconspicuously as possible, which precludes close relationships with humans.

There is a flatness, an eternal sameness, to this life, symbolized most prominently by the vampires’ inability to procreate. Carlisle and Esme cannot have children, and Rosalie knows that her greatest longing in life—to have a baby—will never come to pass. This reality causes her deep bitterness, especially when she sees Bella so ready to blithely throw away her precious human life and her ability to become a mother.

But in the final installment of the quadrilogy, Bella gets to have it all—motherhood of a unique child, superhuman strength and immortality, and a perfect soul mate in Edward—and she can enjoy these blessings for eternity. Here the series’ love story trips over something more substantial: a rumination on the social context of eternal life. In Mormonism, eternal life includes the promise of a resurrected, perfect body, which Bella receives when she gives her life to save her child.

Meyer is careful to show that Bella does not throw over her precious humanity merely to be with Edward or stay young forever; in a crisis, she gives herself up to save another, typifying Christ’s teaching that “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Bella then enters a post-resurrection world, and she brings her husband and daughter with her. Mormon beliefs about bodily resurrection do not differ markedly from those of orthodox Christianity; the distinctions are more a matter of degree.

Almost all Christians affirm the resurrection of the body, but few have speculated about what we might actually be doing with those bodies in the hereafter. Mormonism nourishes the idea that those bodies will be sources of strength and pleasure, of creation and procreation, of worship and marital sexual expression—all of which Bella experiences in her new state. Moreover, in Mormonism, resurrection occurs in the context of relationship, not aloneness. Bella enjoys her new body in the company of her immediate circle of Edward and Renesmee, but also in the bosom of her new family, the Cullens.

A third and final theme woven into Meyer’s fiction is her commitment to the theological principle of agency—a theme that is central to The Host, her adult novel. The Host has some funny Mormon trappings, which even my non-Mormon friends who have read the book picked up on. At one point Wanderer, the parasitic Soul who takes over Melanie’s human body, is adamant that she has “never refused a Calling,” and plenty of Latter-day Saints will recognize the archetypal frog-in-the-boiling-water analogy as an inside joke.[xiii] There is even an apocalyptic Mormon survivalist ethos in the characters of Jeb and Maggie, who eccentrically stockpile food and water and live separate from the power grid in the expectation that, someday, disaster will come.

But a deeper Mormon theology undergirds The Host, even more explicitly than in the Twilight saga. The character of Wanderer, who has experienced full lives on seven different planets, with many diverse hosts, provides a unique perspective on the contradictions of human life. On the one hand, she is appalled by the atrocities of humanity, especially war and torture, but she is also inexplicably drawn to the richness of human emotion. As Melanie’s mind competes more and more effectively with her own, Wanderer briefly contemplates skipping out on her Calling for an easier one, but she finds that other planets seem dull and unappealing after the complexity of human life, riddled with its many contradictions. “This place was truly the highest and the lowest of all worlds,” Wanderer reflects. It has “the most beautiful senses, the most exquisite emotions . . . the most malevolent desires, the darkest deeds. Perhaps it was meant to be so. Perhaps without the lows, the highs could not be reached.”[xiv]

In other words, “It must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11). Wanderer—who adopts the human name “Wanda” as she goes native—comes to realize that the harmonious existence she has always prized as a Soul is a fallacy masking a hidden dystopia. Because the Souls’ lifestyle offers no choice, no true freedom, the surface beauty of the Souls’ civilization—which has eliminated war, pain, and disease—begins to disintegrate. It is a mere illusion.

In contrast, the wild gorgeousness of humanity simply refuses to be snuffed out. Melanie’s tenacious self-assertion stands in for humankind’s refusal to accept anything less than all of it: the woolly mess of light and dark, good and evil, joy and despair. And in the end, it takes both Melanie’s passion and Wanda’s tranquil self-sacrifice to achieve the novel’s resolution. Opposition is the key, ironically, to harmony and justice.

Meyer’s use of the Mormon doctrine of agency is evidenced in the character of the Seeker, an ambitious and almost fanatical Soul who believes she is doing humans a great favor by giving them perfection, assurance, and safety in exchange for their spirits.

Any Latter-day Saint reader will recognize this ideology as Satan’s ill-fated plan to “save” every person by removing even the possibility that they could choose anything other than God. In the novel, the Seeker plays the Lucifer role in some fairly obvious ways: dressing in nothing but black, pursuing Wanderer at every turn, seeking opportunities for self-aggrandizement, relishing her role as the god of this world, and loathing humanity and its emotions. In the novel’s contempt for the Seeker, Meyer holds up human freedom as paramount, and any system that would deny that freedom, no matter how attractive it may seem on the surface, is deeply flawed.

On a personal note, I have mixed feelings about Meyer’s fiction. I find the theology intriguing and often beautiful and her plots wonderfully imaginative, but she is correct when she assesses herself as a storyteller more than a writer.[xv] More than with the technical problems in the writing, I find myself concerned about the retrogressive gender stereotypes in all of her novels, particularly the ineptitude of Bella. Although the novels repeatedly tell the reader that Bella is smart and strong, they repeatedly show her powerlessness. She passes out; she trips repeatedly; she is victimized three times in the first novel alone, only to be rescued by Edward.

Worse than Bella’s role as a damsel-in-distress is her disturbing tendency to blame herself for everything, expose herself to serious harm, take over all the homemaking chores for a father who seems incapable of the most rudimentary standards of self-care, and sacrifice everything for a man who is moody, unpredictable, and even borderline abusive. Many women readers will also be troubled by the extreme self-abasement of Wanda in The Host, particularly one scene where she mutilates her own flesh and another where she lies to protect the man who tried to murder her. These are themes I hope do not originate with Meyer’s Mormonism. But while they are cause for concern, they do not mar the creative spirit and theological matrix of Meyer’s work.

Jana Riess (who can be reached via email at [email protected]) received her PhD in American religious history and is the author or co-author of seven books, including Mormonism for Dummies (Wiley, 2005) and What Would Buffy Do? The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide (Wiley, 2004). She spent nine years as the Religion Book Review Editor for Publishers Weekly and is now an acquisitions editor at Westminster John Knox Press.
. Diane Roback, “Bestselling Children’s Books 2008: Meyer’s Deep Run,” Publishers Weekly, March 23, 2009, http://www.publishersweekly.com/article ... l?nid=3333.

[ii]. Bob Minzesheimer and Anthony DeBarros, “Sellers Basked in Stephenie Meyer’s ‘Twilight’ in 2008,” USA Today, January 16, 2009, http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news ... main_N.htm.

[iii]. Lev Grossman, “Stephenie Meyer: A New J.K. Rowling?” Time, April 24, 2008, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 38,00.html.

[iv]. Karen Valby, “Stephenie Meyer: Inside the ‘Twilight’ Saga,” Entertainment Weekly, July 18, 2008,http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20211938,00.html.

[v]. Grossman, “Stephenie Meyer.”

[vi]. This forbidden eroticism comes into play right in the beginning of vampire lore, with the nubile Lucy so willingly falling prey to Dracula’s advances, and stretches all the way to the girl-power heroine Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who falls for a vampire not once but twice. In the first instance, the sexual subtext becomes explicit when, after consummating his relationship with Buffy and experiencing a moment of perfect happiness, Angel loses his fragile soul and becomes the evil vampire Angelus. In Buffy, as in Twilight, sexual expression can lead to death and monstrous destruction.

[vii]. Caitlin Flanagan, “What Girls Want: A Series of Vampire Novels Illuminates the Complexities of Female Adolescent Desire,” The Atlantic, December 2008, http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/twilight-vampires. Flanagan also notes the fact that Meyer’s novels gently evoke the girlhood of a more innocent age, before MySpace, text messaging, and the celebutante vacuity of Gossip Girls.

[viii]. Stephenie Meyer, New Moon (New York: Little, Brown, 2006), 409.

[ix]. Rodney Turner, “The Great Conversion: Mosiah 1–6,” in Studies in Scripture: 1 Nephi to Alma 29, ed. Kent P. Jackson, 8 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987), 7:217.

[x]. Stephenie Meyer, Twilight (New York: Little, Brown, 2005), 269.

[xi]. Meyer, Twilight, 314.

[xii]. Meyer, New Moon, 307.

[xiii]. Stephenie Meyer, The Host (New York: Little, Brown, 2008), 248, 240–41.

[xiv]. Meyer, Host, 141.

[xv]. Grossman, “Stephenie Meyer.”

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[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

It's the old fly in the milkshake thing. Should we eat the mostly good shake with just a little fly pureed in it? No thanks, I'm not even going to debate how much fly is in the shake, I don't want it.

[Jason]

It's the old fly in the milkshake thing. Should we eat the mostly good shake with just a little fly pureed in it? No thanks, I'm not even going to debate how much fly is in the shake, I don't want it.

Amen!

Also the amount of fly puree goes up with each additional milkshake.

[Henmasher]

It's the old fly in the milkshake thing. Should we eat the mostly good shake with just a little fly pureed in it? No thanks, I'm not even going to debate how much fly is in the shake, I don't want it.

Amen!

Also the amount of fly puree goes up with each additional milkshake.

A complete Amen to all of this. What has got to be the most aggravating thing is these type of books replace the teachings of Christ and the Book of Mormon. Too bad everyone that read twilight doesn't show this much enthusiasm about temple work. These books are not appropriate and replace Christ. Think of the corelation between eternal life through blood and sacrifice. None of it is acceptable and justifying it is completely wrong. Oh and the very elect will be deceived. I would assume that would include approving books that contradict Christ and his teachings
Read the Book of Mormon and books that teach rather than this twilight crap. Oh it is upsetting to see so many deceived and embracing babylon and satans snares. If you can call it a snare when you go into it head first
How can any parent pray on this and feel good about it enough to expose their kids to it

[ithink]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film ... light.html

Vatican sinks teeth into vampire film Twilight
The Vatican has condemned The Twilight Saga: New Moon, a Hollywood teen film about vampires and werewolves, as “dangerous” and morally empty.

Interesting... here's the Catholic church condemning as 'immoral' and 'dangerous' a film created from a series of books started by a Mormon author. Talk about strange times.

Funny how the Catholics got it right. Not sure if we have yet.

If Meyer was in my ward and I was the bishop, I'd excommunicate her.

[e-eye]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film ... light.html

Vatican sinks teeth into vampire film Twilight
The Vatican has condemned The Twilight Saga: New Moon, a Hollywood teen film about vampires and werewolves, as “dangerous” and morally empty.

Interesting... here's the Catholic church condemning as 'immoral' and 'dangerous' a film created from a series of books started by a Mormon author. Talk about strange times.

Funny how the Catholics got it right. Not sure if we have yet.

If Meyer was in my ward and I was the bishop, I'd excommunicate her.

Excommunicate for twilight? Really? That's probably why you are not the bishop Col. I could see you X'ing half your ward if you could get your hands on them it would be pretty entertaining to watch until I got the boot.

I actually went and saw eclipse last week with the wife. I find this series lame but none the less, I do find it odd that it was the vampire "Edward" that has high morals and doesn't want to have pre-marital sex as he was "old fashioned". Anyway, I thought the movie was rather clean for a PG-13.

Okay did I just make a comment on Twilight? Shoot me now.

[pritchet1]

The link in LookingForward's comments above only got it half-right (pun intended). In my mind, Blood-sucking Aristocrats (BS-A) as vampires would be replaced with Blood-sucking Politicians (BS-P) as vampires. Oh, I also see now where "BS" would also be replaced with "bull-pucky".

And this thread is taking our minds off such things as Michele Obama's keynote address to the NAACP wherein she said the "Blacks" need to step it up a notch against the TEA Party - http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/naacp-te ... d=11144640.

Hey, she has the vampire teeth to do it too.

It also takes our minds off things like the over $4 million awarded to an illegal alien in Orange County, CA for child molestation who got beat up in jail - http://americangrandjury.org/illegal-al ... in-lawsuit

[Fiannan]

I was sititng with some real New Age types today and the topic of Alex jones, Info Wars, Obama Deception and Essoteric Agenda came up. Seems the new Agers really like Alex Jones.

Then the topic of Twilight came up. One guy hated it but a woman shot back that it was written by a Mormon housewife from Salt Lake. Of course the topic of sexual subplots came up but the woman who brought up Meyer seemed to like her. And the topic of the Church did come up -- as it must in millions of conversations worldwide. Look, she has a huge following and that transcends race, religion (Twilight is HUGE in Iraq since Imams declared it wholesome) and this can only help the Church.

Which one of the apostles is a big fan of Harry Potter? I read about it a while back but cannot remember.

I am not a big fan of a single adult group with fangs that plays baseball for recreation. Yet I challenge anyone who thinks she is a bad person to pick up a pen and start writing a book that they feel is better. I would love to see Meyer's accomplishments encourage LDS men and women worldwide to take a stab at writing. It is a perfect outlet for creativity.

[Quiet Cricket]

Twilight is a fantasy soap opera. Maybe okay for for mature readers, but I don't like that 12 year old girls are so into it. I see no problem with the fantasy side, it's the sexual feelings and relationship drama I don't like.

It's like Titanic, the girls love a love affair with a hero. They did an excellent job of that in Titanic, but I've always wondered, what ever happened to the girl's lifelong husband? As soon as she dies she goes right into the arms of the kid she had sex with that she had known for only a week. Not fair to the husband/father of 60 years. Major flaw. (rant)

[Quiet Cricket]

Oh and iThink, don't criticize Elder Holland. His comments are valid. I'm sure Brigham's comment on fiction needs to be read with temperance; there is a place for fiction, we just shouldn't be obsessed with things that are not real. There are plenty of Apostles/Prophets who have quoted fiction. All kinds of poetry, Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland, Christmas Carol, etc...

Sounds like you are more loyal to your hobby hatred of trendy books than to the Apostles of Jesus Christ. If not, you wouldn't have criticized Elder Holland for the world to witness.

[ithink]

Oh and iThink, don't criticize Elder Holland. His comments are valid. I'm sure Brigham's comment on fiction needs to be read with temperance; there is a place for fiction, we just shouldn't be obsessed with things that are not real. There are plenty of Apostles/Prophets who have quoted fiction. All kinds of poetry, Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland, Christmas Carol, etc...

Sounds like you are more loyal to your hobby hatred of trendy books than to the Apostles of Jesus Christ. If not, you wouldn't have criticized Elder Holland for the world to witness.

We have been given a key by which we can measure the words of anyone, and that includes any Apostle at any time. That key is the canon, and last time I checked it was 90 years since anything was added to that, which is a curiosity in it's own right. So if Anyone wants to like a book that was heavily researched in the occult to write, and that fits the youth of an extremely wicked mainstream world like a glove, then They may, but I reserve the right to stick with the principle as outlined in the scriptures, and to reject that garbage. And to put Rowling or Meyer in the same kitchen as Shakespeare and Dickens would be like spreading manure on a chocolate cake. There are plenty of classics to read rather than the trash that is conveniently being churned out by pre-hollywood scripts masked as books. And sir, my allegience is to the truth, and inasmuch as the Apostles, any of them, share the truth, then I am with them, but if they share their opinion or teach a lower road or compromise, then I am not, and my justification for that is as I said: the canon, specifically Jeremiah 35.

[Henmasher]

Oh and iThink, don't criticize Elder Holland. His comments are valid. I'm sure Brigham's comment on fiction needs to be read with temperance; there is a place for fiction, we just shouldn't be obsessed with things that are not real. There are plenty of Apostles/Prophets who have quoted fiction. All kinds of poetry, Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland, Christmas Carol, etc...

Sounds like you are more loyal to your hobby hatred of trendy books than to the Apostles of Jesus Christ. If not, you wouldn't have criticized Elder Holland for the world to witness.

We have been given a key by which we can measure the words of anyone, and that includes any Apostle at any time. That key is the canon, and last time I checked it was 90 years since anything was added to that, which is a curiosity in it's own right. So if Anyone wants to like a book that was heavily researched in the occult to write, and that fits the youth of an extremely wicked mainstream world like a glove, then They may, but I reserve the right to stick with the principle as outlined in the scriptures, and to reject that garbage. And to put Rowling or Meyer in the same kitchen as Shakespeare and Dickens would be like spreading manure on a chocolate cake. There are plenty of classics to read rather than the trash that is conveniently being churned out by pre-hollywood scripts masked as books. And sir, my allegience is to the truth, and inasmuch as the Apostles, any of them, share the truth, then I am with them, but if they share their opinion or teach a lower road or compromise, then I am not, and my justification for that is as I said: the canon, specifically Jeremiah 35.

Ditto
But where have I heard this before????

Excommunicate for twilight? Really? That's probably why you are not the bishop Col. I could see you X'ing half your ward if you could get your hands on them it would be pretty entertaining to watch until I got the boot.

Not half the ward but 5 of the 10 virgins
But everyone I know is reading it and loves it. Yeah well apparently the church has a problem with pornography but hey...maybe twilight is just a gateway drug so legitimize away Why is it so hard to see what leads to the greater problem. I have never seen the requirements of God diminish because the "church was doing it"