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MisterSmeargle wrote:

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I think you're all missing the point.

Criticising is both emotionally healthy and intellectually stimulating. The ability to perceive flaws and the ability to feel hatred are two important characteristics of an emotionally healthy individual. Also, in many developed countries, being able to criticise literature is an important part of one's education.

What really makes this opinion silly is the subtext, however. "If you don't like it, GET OVER IT!" "all the tweens get all riled up over some ugly pale freak so im just trying to get them all to shush"

You know what this sounds like to me?

"Don't express your opinion because I don't like the way you are expressing it."

Let's simplify that.

"Don't utilise your human rights because I don't like the way in which you are using them."

Let's simplify that even further.

"Don't utilise your human rights because I say so."

Notable other people to have held this position include Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Colonel Gedaffi, Augusto Pinochet, Fulgencio Batista, Oliver Cromwell, Pol Pot, Robert Mugabe, Kim Jong-il, Maximilien Robespierre, General Franco, Joseph McCarthy and Slobodan Milošević.

Hazza, Nog, everyone has the right to an opinion and the right to express that opinion in any medium allowed by the law. No one has to GET OVER their opinion because you don't like it. It is you who has to GET OVER the fact that you have no more right to tell someone to keep their hatred of Twilight to themselves than they have to tell you to keep your love for it to yourself and vice versa. You're both being hypocrites. No one is forcing you to acknowledge each other's opinions. Hazza, you didn't have to read this thread, Nog, you didn't have to read Hazza's sig or any of her fanfictions. If you don't like someone's opinion, by all means tell them so and give your reasons but don't tell them not to express their opinion because it bothers you.

On that note, Twilight is quite possibly the worst piece of published fiction to have been published in the last ten years, if not the worst piece of published fiction ever. Stephenie Meyers has it all; flat characters with all the emotional depth of spoon, a writing style so awkwardly stylised that it belongs with the worst fanfictions on the Internet, convoluted and nonsensical but, at the same time, extremely predictable and boring plots, a deeply flawed understanding of the concept of love, Mary Sues left, right and centre, not to mention the possible permanent damage she has done to the popular perception of vampires. Twilight's popularity is easily its worst trait; it doesn't deserve a single bit of it. Not only because it has stolen the spotlight from much better, more deserving writers who have written much better, more deserving books and gotten far, far less exposure but because of its popularity, Twilight will negatively influence future writers for years to come, degenerating the overall quality of future literature.

The movies have also had a negative impact; the movies' casts are being perceived as competent actors.

I read them for the purpose of finding out whether the series had any merits; it didn't. The Twilight Saga is tripe of the highest degree and a stain on the proud tradition of fantasy novels. Since reading them, I have never picked one of them up again, instead returning to real fantasy; The Chronicles of Narnia, The Redemption of Althalus, Artemis Fowl, Septimus Heap, The Demonata, The Saga of Darren Shan, Discworld, American Gods, The Wardstone Chronicles, Dragon Rider, Harry Potter, Deltora Quest and, of course, The Edge Chronicles. Books that deal with their fantasy creatures without making the protagonists nigh-indestructible, super-strong, super-fast and removing their defining weakness. Books that tackle and debate moral dilemmas instead of presenting a morally idiotic opinion as fact. Books with a clear understanding that an emotionally numb, mind-reading, blood-sucking vampire who has extreme lust for your blood breaking into your house and watching you while you are asleep is not a sign of love.

In other words, good books.