I got up at 6:30 to take the dog out in sleeting rain. She just wandered around sniffing the grass, watching the neighbors, and listening to the ice crack under her paws. So I froze my butt off for nothing. Whoop dee doo. Overall, not an eventful day at all.
A RANDOM RAMBLING FEATURING TWILIGHT: BECAUSE THIS NEVER GETS OLD
I read this hilarious post about Twilight exuding Mormon beliefs. I actually wrote a reply to defend that Twilight was not reflecting Mormonism. Not because I like Twilight (y'all should KNOW that by now) but because it was so ridiculous, I just could not resist. Literally COULD NOT resist. Also, I wanted to defend Robert Pattinson, because he apparently brought it up by saying:
“I think people make up all these Mormon references just so they can publish ‘Twilight’ articles in respectable publications like the New York Times. Even Stephenie said it doesn’t mean any of that. It is based on a dream.”
While we all know the iconic tale of how Mormon book lover Stephanie Meyer's wet dream brought upon us this accursed abomination, I think people are totally in the wrong to say that obviously a=b and Twilight=Mormon just because they could pull some obscure references out of their butts.
I picked the following articles and wrote the appropriate responses to completely rebuff everything they said. I'm shocked that Twilight fans did not bother defending their beloved tome. Here I am defending it for no other reason than it was too funny for words to read what these people wrote.
http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/flunkingsainthood/2010/07/yes-robert-pattinson-there-are-mormon-themes-in-twilight.html
MY RESPONSE
It appears that the author is terribly misinformed about vampires and Twilight in general, so before any more articles like this get out, let me point out a few things:
1. ALL vampires "live without death in a resurrected-like state". And especially in modern literature, vampires are now commonly described as "godlike" and "inhumanly beautiful." (see Vampire Diaries. Stefan and Damon: am I right?) In fact, the majority of teen lit sells every main hottie as "inhumanly beautiful". I guess that means every single guy in teen lit is Mormon now.
2. The angel bit? Really? That's reaching pretty far. Of course she doesn't see him as "any more glorious". Every teen girl thinks that of their boyfriend. Also, does that make zombies angels too? Cause by that description, they would be. Zombies are resurrected beings of flesh and bone. So are Draugr in Skyrim. Fus Ro Dah angels! Fus. Ro Dah. (thank God the draugr don't have wings...)
2.5: A sparkly stalker does not an angel make.
3. Marriages are sealed for eternity? That's pretty much a widespread belief, not exclusively Mormon. Heck, even hawks and eagles and a few other animals do it to. Are they Mormon too now? And every starry-eyed girl thinks they and their boyfriend's relationship will be eternal. Seriously. Go into any high school and look for the girl who gloms to her boyfriend like a barnacle. Ask her about her and her boyfriend's relationship.
4. Native Americans having Bible names... That's really not a Mormon thing either. Millions of Christians do it too. When whites colonized places, a lot of the peoples took on Biblical names or were given Biblical names. Sort of how Asians will sometimes take on Western names when visiting English speaking countries (especially if their name is hard to pronounce, as seen with Jackie Chan). Back then, Biblical names were the most popular to do since there was a large plethora to choose from, and the whites respected such names. Even Pocahontas took on the name Rebecca when she came to England. English names spread in popularity, and are still seen around multiple countries today. Names like Jacob and Rachel are likely to be found among Nat. Americans, rather than names like Mckenzie or Dustin, and unless the reservation is very traditional, they probably won't have as many traditional Nat. American names as you would expect.
4.5 Every single traditional leadership passed from father to son. EVERY SINGLE FREAKING ONE! If a son was not alive, then the next, closest living male relative. And saying "Well, it's a spiritual thing for the Quilletes" does not help your case. It's a fantasy/paranormal/supernatural/vampire/werewolf book. Of course something magical/spiritual/special has to be happening. Take the weird imprinting with a baby thing for example.
5. Making the decision to overcome the "natural man" is not a Mormon belief, it is a Christian one, a Buddhist one, etc. Every religion out there points out where there is good and evil. Typically, good stuff equals happy time in a happy afterlife (or perhaps pure enlightenment in Nirvana) while bad stuff equals sad time in hell or related afterworlds. It is every man's struggle to overcome the evil in EVERY religion, not just Mormon. I suppose I'm Mormon now since I'm trying to be good. Wow.
6. Agency is not a Mormon belief. It is an obvious path every human takes. We make choices every single day despite our circumstances. It's what made Dr. Ben Carson, a black ghetto born man, to become a highly respected pediatric neurosurgeon, instead of a criminal like the path most people born in ghettos choose. Sad but true. Or how about Stephen Hawking, who, rather than sink into depression and give up, developed technology that would power him through his illness so he could continue his work. Think about that. Just because Mormons put the concept of "life choices" on paper and gave it a fancy name like "Agency" does not mean they have copyrighted it.
In conclusion: please provide solid evidence that there are "Mormon beliefs in Twilight" rather than using references that are SO vague, I can connect them to anything. Until then: Twilight is not connected to Mormonism.
"Fans sit enraptured as Bella continues her quest to be part of an ideal LDS family that mates for eternity, has regular Family Home Evenings, and is headed up by a benevolent patriarch and a gentle homemaker."
Girl, that's everybody's American-pie dream. Stop copyrighting every good thing on this earth as Mormon. Soon, car washes, birthday cakes, puppies, and twirling noodles with your fork will become Mormon principles. Sherioushly. Just stahp. STAHP!
NEXT ARTICLE:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/24/mormon-influence-imagery_n_623487.html
Of course I had to pick the huffington post. That BS is full of great laughs xD
LOL: "It's possible that Meyer never set out to weave Mormon imagery into the 'Twilight' background. Yet intentional or otherwise, it's hard to ignore..."
Hard to ignore my pasty white butt, more like.
MY RESPONSE
- Avoiding alcohol and tobacco? Um... yes. I actually do that too. I swore that off long ago. For health reasons. For the longest time, I swore off tea and coffee too because I read about drinking that stuff affecting the adrenal gland and how you can burn it out. As I got older, I realized that it only happens if you drink copious amounts for long periods of time.
Eating less meat might be a reference to all the iron in her body making her lethargic, something she exudes spectacularly.
Just because you swear something off does NOT mean you are a Mormon. You could just be normal... or health conscious.
- Work ethic and traditional women roles? Holy crap! NOOOO! How dare she keep the house clean! Curse her! Her and all the orthodox Pentecostals and the Amish (protestant and mennonite) and the traditionalists and the Muslim and the... well, just about EVERYONE I guess... and curse me too while I'm at it for doing household chores and "traditional women roles". Maybe she likes to have clean dishes, or perhaps sewing up the holes in those socks will help keep her feet warm.
- Quick marriage and pregnancy? That's the most common trope of teen novels, especially those written by thirteen year old girls. Just look up the majority of fiction or fanfiction on Quizilla (wattpad's deformed second cousin). By the end of the book, they married their boyfriend and had twenty children in roughly the span of a year.
- Um, this has nothing to do with "Nat. Americans joining the Master Race" *cough*. This reminds me vaguely of the Talmud, a religious book of laws by Pre-Christian era Jews that said having sex with babies and marrying nine year olds was perfectly legit. (sick, sick crap)
- Naming Jacob "Black" has nothing to do with skin color. First: you just spent all this time talking about Nat. Americans and the connections to Twilight with that, now you're saying it's about the blacks, who are the cursed, evil race in Mormon belief (though they deny this adamantly even though their book says it's true multiple times). You can't go changing the racist tune like that, you can't. Either red or black. Pick one. Second: Have you ever looked at Indian last names? Moon, Bear, White, Hill, Reed, Green, BLACK (listed 84th most common Native American and Alaskan Indian name by the US census of the year 2000). http://names.mongabay.com/data/indians.html
Black is 84th. Aka: it's common. Plus it sounds more Indian than the first name on that list which was Smith. She could have easily named him Jacob White, which would probably make you start preaching white supremacy till the cows come home.
Now, a lot of people say that "Well, Stephenie Meyer is Mormon, so her beliefs leak into her work." Not really. I have some very, very strong beliefs about things, but you probably won't be seeing that in my work for the next twenty years at least. (filter definitely comes off at 72. YOLO.)
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