Vampires: a modern trend of idolisation

I‘ve just had a long chit-chat with my friend about our infatuation on vampires, and how the teenagers and young adult nowadays are dying to be bitten by century-old vampires Edward Cullen, Damon or Stefan Salvatore. Almost instantly, vampire books and movies became a new trend as the perspective towards vampires changed. The fictional creature vampires are no longer described as horrific but rather as mysterious, god-like, alluring beings. The writer behind this phenomenon is Stephenie Meyer, who was successful in transforming the image of vampire in her novels the Twilight Saga.












While being the first in describing vampires as sparkling and hard as marble, Twilight was not the first novel which illustrates modern depiction of vampires. At least two authors L.J Stine (Vampire Diaries) and Charlaine Harris (True Blood) had had their novels published long before Stephenie Meyer did, but Twilight got the most acknowledgments worldwide. The predecessors were later read - in my opinion - as the impact of the Twilight Hype, when people can’t get enough of Twilight and alternatively read other books in similar genre (or run to Twilight fanfics *grin..grin*). I was one of those people (yep, I did read fanfics), and now having watched two seasons of True Blood and half-season of Vampire Diaries, I was wondering what has made Twilight outshine the other two, any why the world is in Twilight fever but never in Vampire Diaries or True Blood fevers.

The three vampire stories: Twilight, True Blood and Vampire Diaries share similar theme of star-crossed love triangle, all of which described the leading roles as male vampires who are gorgeous and irresistible, who fell irrevocably and inexplicably in love with a human girl. I have to say that in comparison, Twilight has a rather simple plotline. The problems always revolve around vampire Edward and human Bella with little development on other characters (except werewolf Jacob who became Bella’s temporary love interest). This is probably because the author wrote it in first person’s point of view (Bella’s most of the time) and so being omniscient is quite unfeasible. However when it comes to the film-series and movies, both Vampire Diaries (being only in half-season and progressing) and True Blood (2nd season, so far) are a lot more interesting in some extent: the stories and the characters seem to be layered, each of which is revealed as a twist as the stories go.

So, while her plotline is relatively flat, Stephanie Meyer’s biggest success is perhaps in presenting the characters of Edward and Bella. This is proven significantly by the universal popularity of both Edward and Bella (and other characters as well), compared to the recognition of Stevan Salvatore and Elena Gilbert (Vampire Diaries), or Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood), whose characters were not renowned before the films were aired.

In one of her blog post The Hype of Twilight Saga, my Twilight-buddy Aini gave a scrupulous enlightenment on Edward and Bella. I do agree with her that Bella represents a big percentage of women around the world: plain, an outcast; and Edward is prince in shining armor, sweeping Bella from her dull life and promising an unconditional love for eternity. Edward is described as a flawless guy, besides his lacking of vampiric traits (no fangs, no monster face): out-of-this-worldly handsome, forever young, smart, rich, and committed only to one girl, Bella. The character Edward Cullen alone is described as if the author literally and intentionally shouted the traits of a perfect guy, and it echoed around the world. Hhm, how many women have lost their mind because of Edward Cullen?