What Was With the Vampires in "Twilight"? Quiz

Answer:

The idea for "Twilight" came to novelist Stephenie Meyer in a dream, picturing a woman talking with a vampire who sparkled in sunlight. Edward doesn't burn in the light; he shimmers like diamonds. In the famous (and relentlessly parodied) forest scene, Edward shows off most of his superpowers. He can run at super-speed and has enough strength to easily dent a car door.

In some ways, though, Edward's a normal, 104-year-old teenager. Rather than a hoard of treasures, Edward collects CDs. He likes the composer Debussy and plays piano with Bella during a montage. The only bats in "Twilight" are baseball bats - the vampires love going all-out in sport, and they wait for thunderstorms to cover up their deafening hits. Every hit looks like a home run, but not when the catchers can run across the outfield in seconds...

Even Bella's not above the vampire stereotyping. The first time she goes to the Cullens' house, she's surprised to find a post-modernistic house with an open floor plan. Edward notices her surprise. "You expected turrets, dungeons, and moats?" "No... not moats."

Edward and his "siblings" (they aren't related, but all were turned by Carlisle) consider themselves "vegetarian". They don't eat human food, but they try not to eat humans, instead subsisting on wildlife. However, Edward does confess that he's eaten people before. Apparently the smell of blood makes a vampire insatiably hungry. (Better hope their classmates don't get a nosebleed - that'd be hard to explain to a nurse.) As far as changes go, vampirism is "transmitted" through venom in the bites. We see a glimpse of Edward's transformation and Bella's near-transformation during the climax, and the change is apparently extremely painful.

Dracula's big weakness was his supernatural ties to the soil in which he was buried (meant as a subtle commentary on feudal lords). But in "Twilight", you can only be made a vampire while you're still living. The Cullen coven were all changed by Carlisle, a doctor who gives the dying the choice to live forever. The subtext, I think, is that few take the choice.

A few of the powers are specific to individual vampires in the series. The main villain, James, is said to have much more powerful senses than most vampires, and tracks Bella all the way to Arizona. Edward's sister Alice has mild clairvoyance, which also helps the group anticipate where James will be. And, while not a plot point in the first "Twilight", Edward can read anyone's mind - anyone except Bella's.

You can't beat the vampires in "Twilight" with wooden stakes, crucifixes, garlic, or by uninviting them to your party. As we see when the movie dispatches with James, there's one way to kill these vampires for good: you must chop them into pieces and burn them. Perhaps as an ironic touch, the movie's climax is in a room full of mirrors - a dance studio - where the vampire's reflections are part of the scene-setting.

In an early interview for the blog Cynsations, Stephenie Meyer admitted that she "was never one or goth or horror". Perhaps this defined her interpretation: "Mostly the monsters we have created to scare ourselves are entirely horror; zombies, swamp things, witches, werewolves, etc. ... Vampires, on the other hand, have a dual nature. Certainly they are frightening and deadly, but they are also alluring. They have attributes we envy, such as eternal youth. They are often attractive, rich, powerful, and educated. They sometimes wear tuxes and live in castles. The paradox there makes them hard to resist, at least as subjects for stories."