TWILIGHT: What Makes It Tick?

The movie took $70 million at the box office on its debut weekend and the
Twilight series sold 40 million copies worldwide to a market that is not limited only to teenage girls and their moms. This fact is a compelling reason to waste some more time (much time has been wasted watching it) to look more closely at the ingredients that create this magic: infatuation/attraction, danger, struggle, and youth.

Attraction

True, the vampire-mortal love story is the absolute metaphor for forbidden love. If you’re in an extramarital, interfaith, May-December, intercultural/interracial affair, you may be able to relate to either Bella or Edward. But what if you’re a regular kind of person whose object of affection has no supernatural skills like Edward or falls in love under normal circumstances, are you less likely to appreciate the story? No, not
necessarily. After all, the act of “falling” itself is the same for all of us whatever demographic we belong to. When you “fall,” you don’t get to choose like one chooses a pair of shoes or book, at least consciously. It just happens. One day, he’s just like everybody else (not interesting), and then the next day, he stands out and seems (oh!) so right. His virtues are magnified, his flaws are put aside. Your brain plays with crazy levels of adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin. (Researchers found that lovers’ serotonin level decrease so much it’s the closest thing to having
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). Your eyes are like Edward’s--they don’t change color, but the pupils super dilate. Your skin could be as pale, most probably due to lack of sleep and an exaggerated self-consciousness.

You will have needs that were not there before: proximity, visibility, accessibility, and the ability to communicate (verbally or through the mind). You will also acquire special powers: heightened awareness (including peripheral vision), homing/tracking ability (ala GPS), and, to some degree, sixth sense. However, you will NOT be able to read his mind. The real reason why Edward cannot read Bella’s mind is that no author would dare to write a love story where a lover can read the mind of another. It’s as ridiculous as a game of chess between two mind readers. Remember, it’s the second guessing and the suspense that run the mill of falling or being in love.

Danger

While Edward the vampire and other possibly dangerous lovers may actually be a physical and emotional threat, the danger from a regular guy can’t be underestimated. To be in danger, you don’t have to be Bella whose life may end anytime Edward decides to give in to his thirst for blood. You don’t have to be Edward whose dark secret may be exposed by Bella. By simply allowing yourself to fall, you put yourself in danger of being rejected (the chance of which is impossible to calculate because there is no formula), taken advantage of, or worse, being publicly ridiculed.  

Struggle

Some people, like Bella, give in to their feelings fearlessly. Others, however, have inner conflict between maintaining their previous indifferent state and their current reactive state. Edward’s inner struggle with the monster and the human in him is the perfect metaphor for the struggle with love. Come to think of it, love, like a light that passes through a prism, is a mixture of emotions (human and sublime): anger, desire, despair, anticipation, fear, disappointment, joy, awe, etc. Who wants to take this emotional rollercoaster ride? An eternity of indifference seems like a better option.

Youth

What could be a more suitable setting for a vampire-mortal love story than adolescence? It’s much easier to understand recklessness and innocence in this context. For adult readers, the story is a trip down memory lane, to a time when one can afford to be careless and impervious to what others (and one’s instinct of self-preservation) would say. Edward’s character and predicament, however, is a reminder of the present. You do not give in to feelings too easily without painstakingly considering all the possible consequences. Love, in adulthood, is an exercise in self-control and self-evaluation. In the end, when you finally give in or take the plunge (figuratively diving into the fountain of youth), you do it with your eyes open, and, if possible, never sleeping like Edward.

In summary, you don’t read and re-read the book or watch the movie more than once because you like vampires or love stories or vampire love stories. The story strikes you not only because of the mystery and magic wrapped around it; it moves you because of the too familiar feelings it describes/depicts, you have them, and, damn it, you’re only human and yours is just an ordinary tale.