Alicorn comments on The ideas you're not ready to post - Less Wrong

24 Post author: JulianMorrison 19 April 2009 09:23PM

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Comment author: Alicorn 13 April 2011 09:39:39PM 1 point [-]

I think it's relevant here that vampires are not real.

Comment author: HonoreDB 13 April 2011 09:45:37PM 4 points [-]

Well, sure, but men who think women need to stay in the kitchen for their own good are. What makes Twilight sound bad is that it's recreating something that actually happens, and something that plenty of people think should happen more, in a context where it makes more sense.

Comment author: Alicorn 13 April 2011 09:48:11PM 3 points [-]

There are other female characters in the story. Alice can see enough to dance circles around the average opponent. Rosalie runs around doing things. Esme's kind of ineffectual, but then, her husband isn't made out to be great shakes in a fight either. Victoria spends two books as the main antagonist. Jane is scary as hell. And - I repeat - the minute Bella is not fragile, there is no more of the objectionable attitude.

Comment author: HonoreDB 13 April 2011 10:04:34PM 3 points [-]

That doesn't necessarily mean that the Edward/Bella dynamic wasn't written to appeal to patriarchal tendencies, and just arose naturally from the plot. I'm completely unequipped to argue about whether or not this was the case. But I'm pretty confident the reason people who haven't read the book think it sounds anti-feminist is that we assume that Stephenie Meyer started with the Edward-Bella relationship and built the characters and the world around it.