I was recently in a Mormon cemetery, and many gravestones read “family is forever”. All I could think of is how horrifying a concept that is for an abused child.
And if you knew actual twilight lore. Jacob was never meant to be a main character. He was supposed to be a background character that told bella about what the cullens were. Her editor and publishers loved him so much they convinced smeyer to give him a bigger role
I feel like Bella DID have to follow the rules to get her happy ending. The relationship never progresses until Edward says it does. She can’t be turned unless she agrees to marry him, at 18 years old. She can’t have sex until after they’re married. Then, after they do have sex, he refuses to do it again, despite her wanting it. Then there’s the very obvious anti-abortion stuff, which was the only choice she ever made on her own, and even then Edward came around. Bella never really had any agency (besides killing herself for her man’s child), only the illusion of it. Also, adult men “imprinting” on toddlers is… well.
I agree! Stating that Bella got all the good things women usually don't get being a Mormon without the hardships is not true. She did get pregnant, she did have a traumatic pregnancy and birth. In the end she DID do what women are supposed to and even died for it: give birth.
I will give you a little hint. Women like men who take the initiative. Part of what makes guys like Edward or that 50 shades guy are attractive to women is they take the initiative everytime and make all the decisions as a result. Thats all there is to it it isn't as deep as you been told.
@@donaldhysa4836 As a man, your percieved insight into women's desires is useless and not valid. Thanks for trying, though, weirdo. Women are not a monolith, just as men aren't either. We are all shaped by our material conditions. And some of us are lesbians
@@noellethomas2589 Women are not a monolith but if a woman writes a female character that wants children its because she thinks women are only valuable as mothers great logic xD
No you didn't lol. There was a lot of misinformation in this video. I'm a practicing Mormon woman, and this really isn't what our church is like at all
@@estherhinds6314gurl i'm not even from usa but even i know it's a fcked up cult from the news of crimes of your members, wish you healing from that brainwash
It always kind of irked me that a lot of people who have read/watched Twilight leave out Mormonism while analyzing it. It's such a massively important part of Twilight and Stephanie Meyers' writing. Like once you know it's there, it explains a whole lot of things that keep making people go "Why is that like that? That's so strange"
no one told me there was a reason to think about mormonism when analyzing twilight until today, but it's made everything make so much more sense. My middle school southern baptist indoctrinated ass thought the purity culture in the books was just normal lmao
Me and my online friends all watched the first 3 movies in Twilight while doing a drinking game...and my god was it chaotic because we all knew about the Mormon aspect and we all learned a lot of...interesting things...like soaking...do not look it up if you don't want to know Mormon mating rituals...
Ugh, the mormonism makes so much sense now. Especially with the part where women basically become baby making machines and how she wrote Jacob to say awful things about Leah's infertility in Breaking Dawn
Or how about Bella, who never wanted children, never even thought of having them, gets pregnant and has a magical baby to fufill all of her desires (even her unknown ones).
@@donaldhysa4836 some people know very early that they want a child one day in their life. It doesn't mean they want it a seventeen but they know they want one. Bella literally never said she would like to have one one day or that she was sad to lose this opportunity by becoming a vampire, it was never something important to her but since women can only be accomplished through motherhood for Smeyer, Bella ended up having a child.
@@donaldhysa4836 sir it was stated that Bella was 17 and then 18 when she married Edward and then had a child with him. I don't know where you are getting the age of 16. Some people just know they want babies, some people don't. In Bella's case she at most seemed undecided or neutral. That was the point.
I mean...she was a virgin until sex, she had a baby even though it was going to kill her immediately after getting married. Also the husband she chose was is a super rich, super powerful, and all knowing (centuries of education plus the ability to read minds) man. At no point was she ever immoral or unpure. She even miraculously reframed from ever harming a human as a newborn vampire. The moment she met Edward as a 17yo she gave up on any plans of her own for her life and entirely dedicated herself to being his wife and bearing his child. I'd say it is quite the stretch to consider this a feminist work. It's as feminist and rebellious as a nun flashing her ankle for the pool boy.
It's a stretch to say it isn't. Bella had no intention of having a child before or even after marrying edward. She didn't "give up" mortality to bear his children. The opposite in fact at their honeymoon bella was essentially telling edward she wanted to stay human for a couple more years and attend college. She only had renesmee(who she thought was gonna be ej)because she wanted another edward. Which is pro choice. A woman ability to choose what she wants to do with her life and body
I agree to the most part, but what I like about their love story is that they were both virgins, at least in the books (I did not watch the movies). I could understand people calling their waiting untill marriage sexist if Edward was a man with a history, but this is not the case.
Also her name "Isabella" means "God is my Oath" and she keeps correcting people saying "just Bella" (Bella just means "beautiful"). Another way to take her power back by taking ownership of her own name. Jacob's name means "usurper" while "Edward" means "protector" or "guardian" or "prosperous". Also Bella's mom, Renee, her name means "born again" which is funny cause she divorced Charlie and his name means "free man" :)) Bella's daughter, Renesmee then is "born again esteemed", because Renee = born again, and Esme is an English first name, derived from the Old French verb esmer, "to esteem", thus signifying "esteemed". And I am willing to bet the author thought a lot about picking the names. (Alice = noble, Rosalie = Rose, Emmett = Universal)
@@fionafiona1146 I think characters having well thought out names is quite subtle and adds to the story. As is, it adds to our understanding of smeyer's conceptual vision for her story.
I completely disagree that it's a rejection of Mormonism. It's rather the epitome of the mental gymnastics Mormons go through to stay. Meyer is still Mormon. Bella still chooses Edward even after learning how fucked up his world is and acknowledging what she's giving up. She still chooses a life that will ultimately lead her to being a soulless and worldworn husk of a person like the Volturi. She doesn't ever question it, her motives, or the health of her relationship with Edward. She gaslights herself into actually believing that she was simply jumping off a literal cliff to hear Edward's voice instead of intentionally unaliving herself. Meyer knows how fucked up her culture is, but she refuses to fully deconstruct it. That isn't rejection, it's conscious complicity.
Oh boy. Why are we always so hated, and so very misunderstood? I'm a Mormon woman, and I have to tell you that this video is full of misinformation about my religion. Probably because the creator left the church, and has some bitterness about it due to misunderstanding. Most prominently wrong about this video is the perception of women in my church. We are not viewed as baby making machines whose only purpose is to reproduce and support our husbands who will become gods. That's the opposite of the truth! Women in the church are incredibly empowered. We are viewed as leaders with equal rights and responsibilities as men, no matter our relationship status. On top of that, we make covenants with God in which He promises that we will become rulers and goddesses ourselves - not just the men. Don't take a TH-camr as your source of information for an entire culture, research yourself before believing everything you hear
@Esther Hinds I don't need to take a TH-camr's word for it. I'm a Mormon woman. I've been endowed, I served a mission, I've worked for the church, and I'm a church historian, so... I'm at least as good an authority as you on this.
I love this one tumblr poster that writes analysis on twilight, except instead of from a romantic perspective, it’s from an almost tragic perspective. The perspective of Bella completely not seeing the signs of how she’s doomed herself to a life like the volturi. It’s so different from the Normal “twilight = bad” schlocky in that it actively engages with the text on its own term. While most reviews make fun of twilight in a “this was made for teen girls and therefore is bad” type of way, while other critique it from outside lenses like class or race, it’s fascinating to see someone talk about Twilight from an in-universe lens, and then lean into its ideas, themes, and characters more than Myer herself does. And like, the main idea is that Twilight is a series that ends right before the tragedy occurs. We see Bella at her happiest and most ignorant, confident in her chosen “forever family,” right before she has to spend an eternity as a soulless husk. Myer never goes there-the story ostensibly ends happily. But this tumblr poster’s reading feels so true to the way the characters have been set up. Of course Bella would portray the end of Twilight as a happy one-she was a naive child who had no clue what she was getting into. But there’s no avoiding how horrifying this forever family is.
And yet, if it’s a rejection of it, then why are so many female characters obsessed with babies? Rosalie desperately wants one, Esme lost the plot in her prevamp days because of one (and then got a whole brood of ‘kids’), the Denali bunch were persecuted because of one, the werewolves are all bonded to a life partner that will maximise the chance of passing on the wolfy genes, Leah is gutted cos she doesn’t thin she’ll ever have one…and then Bella goes and magically gets knocked up as well. And Jessica comments the only reason why someone straight out of school would get hitched is because the girl’s up the duff. Did I miss any? To me that sounds remarkably like wholly supporting Mormonism.
Sm is still practicing mormon, being critical of some elements of a culture while still being a part of it. Twilight isn't a rejection of Mormonism, it's the fantasy of a women raised in a specific oppressive world view. Even if it was wholly rejecting Mormonism people dont always reexamine every idea they grew up with when they leave their relgion or even realise where they got that idea to begin with, they may hold on to some values they were raised with because of how ingrained they are. as an ex mormon I remember hating some of the rules and cultural ideas but I still believed in god the way I was taught to and didn't properly reexamine ideas that were more central to the religion because of how deeply I was indoctrinated. also the wider cultural additude surrounding women and procreation goes beyond Mormonism the wider culture is still largly patriarchal and dominated by other culturally Christian ideas . Writing tropes rooted in sexism dont feel like wholly supporting Mormonism to me because Mormonism doesnt begin and end with "all women love babies and their lives revolve around them" one could reject Mormonism entirely and still belive that, one could disbelieve that, could be a women who doesn't want children and still be Mormon.
Yeah, I also do not think the books were a rejection of Mormonism. I didn’t think there was good evidence to suggest that, because in the end, she still goes with the Mormon man. Unless the author has also left the faith, I don’t see how her books could possibly be viewed as a rejection of it.
There's nothing wrong with some people wanting to have babies. You could[ theoretically] absolutely reject Mormonism and still want to have kids. 🙃 🤷♀️🤷♀️ I don't know if I believe Twilight was or wasn't rejecting Mormonism, personally, but this was an interesting hypothesis / thought-exercise, and it was interesting to examine it through different lenses than typical.
And women who don’t want babies are thought to be mentally ill. A friend wanted a tubal ligation in her 20s because she did not want children. The men in charge and their female enablers wouldn’t give her what she wanted because they considered her to be “abnormal” and “mentally ill”. She had to run a gauntlet of a half dozen shrinks and other indignities to finally get one. The two big points they were obsessed with were “what if she changes her mind?” And “what if one day she married a man who wanted kids?” As if she had no agency and no say in what she chose to do with her life and her body. The whole ordeal was disgusting, especially when men who want a vasectomy can get one on demand, no questions asked. Not all women want children, and they are totally mentally healthy to not want kids. As it turned out, this friend is a toxic narcissist, so her choice was a good one for her and prevented several child from growing up damaged by a narcissist mother (narcissism is not considered a mental illness, mostly because it is a prized trait in men). I’m with my man for 48 years. We were neutral about having children-if it happened it happened or not. We ended up not, and we are fine with it. We weren’t rich and didn’t have insurance, so we couldn’t afford fertility testing for either of us. Whose fault was it? No one ever blames the man, ever. My husband’s sister was obsessed with having children to complement her Walt Disney World Ester Lauder Jebus and his father loves me lifestyle. She put a lot of people through hell to “fulfill herself”, eventually adopting two utterly wonderful daughters that she treated like crap, including wanting to permanently institutionalize them when they turned 12 because they were no longer “convenient” for her lifestyle as it evolved and less controllable. She is a narcissist and psychopath. I’ve witnessed what she did to those girls, including padlocking one in her bedroom because she had food in her room that was ruining her chances at having a model perfect body. A freaking *padlock”! Oh, but she masquerades as this perfect woman of religion with a savior complex a mile wide, which she used to have a kinky sexual affair in front of the girls yet claimed that her husband was “violent” to her. She’s so sick that she manipulated her paramour/husband into having vacations in places she had had with her ex, then emailed pictures to her ex of those vacations. She is a con artist too. The only reason the girls turned out well was because of their awesome dad and not being biologically related to their mother. Motherhood isn’t for everyone nor should it be….
Subbed! On the set of the Twilight movies, Meyer bullied the female director horrifically. Why? Because she wanted to cast more minorities - like making Alice asian. She would only allow a minority if they were cast a villain. As an avid reader, the toxic relationships in Twilight have permeated the entire YA book market - damage that is still lingering nearly 2 decades after its initial release. You'll see series after series with relationships that mirror the abusive one Twilight glamorized. Stalking and harming someone is apparently fine as long as you don't do premarital sex, apparently. Describing an Native American person as "red" isn't something I was aware of before - yet it makes this book look much worse.
@@tamarleahh.2150 Very true. Especially in extremely subtly ways, buried under a lot of glamorized fluff that just glosses right over it. Twilight just didn't do a good job of burying it under anything else[ unlike most things did], and yet still tried and called it as if it had.
well, I don't want to defend Stephanie Meyer but a lot of native people have a redish brown skin and I say that as a native descendant. I am mixed in the paler side, with a yellowish tone but I know many native descendants with darker skin and a redish tone. I see nothing wrong in the description, but it can be insulting when you use it to bully someone o call them red-skinned or something like that. i just never saw that in her books.
And making a character that's a quirky manic pixie dream girl Asian, isn't a stereotype in itself?? The director wanted to cast what was essentially early 2000s diversity and yall was eating it up
I love it when TH-cam decides to drop a video essay in my lap about a super specific topic I’ve been DYING to know more about! This is so good!!! I can’t wait to see what this channel does next!
I had a friend for a few years who was a self-described “very bad Mormon” who almost never went to church except for holidays because she worked weekends and because she was in her mid-twenties and single and didn’t want to deal with constant attempts to set her up with the young men in her church. I seem to remember her mentioning in conversation that she had found out that Stephanie Meyer was Mormon as well and finding it funny. Unrelatedly, neither of us cared for Twilight, but we both bought some hand-crafted wooden quails from the art gallery we worked at together and named them after Twilight characters for some reason. Bella and Renesmee still live on my bookshelf. I hope Jacob and Edward are still happy together with my friend wherever she is now!
Stephanie Maher has no idea what she actually wrote. The whole plot with "imprinting" is terrifying and implies sexual attraction in the future. Attraction directed at the child. Bella Swan is doomed. She has no idea who vampires are or what vampirism means. Edward is crazy and he never liked Bella's personality. Renesmee has no idea what it means to be human and live in human society. Most likely, she will be a freak among both vampires and people. The Cullen family will soon fall apart. They have very little time for their daily pretense of being human. If Renesmee joins the Cullens in high school, it will make things worse and make them even stranger than they already were. After the "decisive battle" at the end of the story, the world of Twilight becomes a very dark place for the Volturi and for the young womans. Most likely, other vampires will want a hybrid child and will rape women for this. The Volturi will not be able to enforce their secrecy laws, they will have more work. In addition, Bella's incredibly powerful gift (she trained for several days and protected her "army" from the gifts of the Volturi, which had never been literally the case before in their entire history) changed everything.
i didnt even thought about the hybrids becoming mainstream, like there was one hybrid hidden fro everyone, but now that the Volturi know they exist they could try to make more, they will find them useful
@@maca76 The Volturi would not create hybrids, as this would worsen the bad treatment of them among other vampires. This would force Haro to pimp his subordinates with food. Remember that hybrids before the Court were something unheard of. All vampires in human history (except the Cullens and Denali) drink human blood. I don't think it occurred to most vampires to have sex with their food.
@@Julia13jd the Volturi arent treated badly by other vampires, they were respected and feared. Even after BD they are the most powerful group, if anything they lost a little of respect by not punishing the Cullen even when they moved to do it, so other vampires that dont like them may think theyre less powerful and try to rebel. So a powerful weapon as hybrids (who also can pass unnoticed by Alice visions, which were the only thing that saved te Cullens) is something they would want to get for themselves. Obviously before BD hybrids werent well known by vampires, but now they are, and the Volturi arent ones to stop at the moral implications of having kids with your food if that means they get more power. We've seen they already get women interested on vampires working for them and being eaten after sometime, having kids with them would not be difficult and they domt care abojt those women health, so birth wouldnt be that difficult either
@@maca76 1. The Volturi are disgraced throughout the vampire world because of Bella's gift. Before her, no one had been able to stop Jane and Alec, block Aro's gift. 2. Hybrids are not strong at all. They are humane, half (approximately) weaker than vampires, they need food more often than vampires, they need sleep and rest. The gift of a hybrid can be strong or interesting, but physically a hybrid is weaker. I don't think it's worth it. 3. No problem creating a hybrid? For real? Go back to Twilight and remember Bella's torment during her pregnancy. Understand that the rest of the hybrids in the world, like Nahuel, are the result of rape and a painful, horrific death. 4. A vampire will need serious efforts not to kill a person, to keep him near for a long time, to rape him in such a way that the woman survives, to support the woman throughout the terrible pregnancy, and then watch as the newborn child tears his mother's stomach and drinks her blood. Decentially, no problem, yes
@@Julia13jd 1 Bella is still the only vampire able to stop the Volturis gifts, the Cullens are protected by her and Alice, but the random groups around the globe arent, possibly they dont even know theres a vampire able to fight the Volturi, they are still the largest most powerful group of vampires 2 Hybrids can survive with no food or no blood, feeding them is not harder than feeding a group of vampires. They grow quick and they dont show the impulsivity of newborns, they can also mix better with humans and be used as sort of spies as not every vampire will recognize them immediatly and still are quite strong. It doesnt matter that they are more powerful, just that the Volturi find them useful in any way. And how much until they discover Alice cant see them in her visions? 3 Do you think the Volturi care that the women are in pain? Bella pregnancy was hard because first they didnt understand the fetus wanted blood and because the people around her were worried for her well being. Rape and death were completely considered in my argument because the Volturi dont care at all about those things. 4 Again the Volturi live in a mayor city, have lived among humans for hundreds of years, they work with humans constantly as tour guides, secretaries, lawyerd, etc. They can resist the smell enough to get some women pregnant and if they arent killing every person around them, its enough to keep them alive for like the months it takes to complete the pregnancy
I mean, in the same story where Stephanie "challenges" Mormonism's narrative, we also get a pro life message with Bella putting her life on the line to protect her future daughter and said future daughter, ends up with Jacob who's old enough to be her father. Oh and their "romance" starts the moment she comes out of the womb 😤
Honestly Bella's situation seems much more pro-choice than pro-life to me. After Bella discovers that she has a life-threatening pregnancy, her newlywed husband seeks for abortion options from the most qualified man on earth: his vampire doctor dad. Bella chooses not to pursue an abortion, instead keeping the pregnancy and enlisting her new sister-in-law as a bodyguard in her weakened state. That's Bella's choice. Pro-choice ideology, at its core, does not push women to get abortions. Instead, it respects a woman's choice and authority over her body's reproduction. Bella's choice to keep her pregnancy was risky, but it was hers. I think that if the characters never brought up the option of abortion and just hunkered down for her dangerous pregnancy then that would be a pro life message. That being said, I detest Jacob's interactions with Bella's daughter and wish that was never, ever included. The idea of love at first sight with a baby is disgusting, to put it mildly.
It seems to me that this novel isn't straying very far away from religious dogma. I don't dispute that for a mormon it might seem very far away from doctrine but from a non-mormon perspective there's not much difference.
And Bella was extremely selfish. She didn’t care that she would die and her husband would follow. I would have respected her character if she pleads With the other Cullens to make sure Edward won’t go to the Volturi if she passes. The didn’t care that the treaty gets broken, as long as she can give birth to Rafiki then screw anyone else.
When I was a teen and read how Renesmee and Jacob are "in love" I thought it was just weird, but now as an adult I'm internally screaming at it. Like WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK was going on inside Smeyer's head when she was like "you know what would be heartwarming? A guy literally seeing this baby be born, be kind of a fatherly/brotherly figure to her as she's growing and then when she's old enough they're going to bang." 🤢
Hm... The more I hear about mormonism the more I want to build my own religion. Couldn't be so hard. I wrote a Pen and Paper campaign. Sounded similar.
The fact that SM wrote into the series a half vampire half human baby is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read. She was so determined to have Bella pop out a baby.
Taking Twilight as a saga, I'm pretty sure it's more like a conversion story than a refutation. The missionaries are very well educated on their faith, so they're equipped to handle whatever arguments put forth by difficult converts like Bella in the same metaphor. Eventually she conforms to Edward's desires while getting her "happy ending" - meaning that yes she did "convert."
Edward nor his family never once wanted bella to become a vampire. She was one pushing for that the most throughout the story. It's the complete opposite really. Edward conforms to bella becoming a vampire after spending the whole saga trying to prevent her from doing so
One objection I’d like to point out about the comparison between Edward and Jacob is that Edward too does have a big loving family. They may be ice-cold to the touch, but every single one of the Cullens has a good heart, and looks out for one another. And the way they welcome Bella in with open arms once she and Edward become an item is truly heartwarming. Even Rosalie, as bitter and route as she is, still does mean well at the core. Honestly, the only reason I am team Edward is because with him I get the whole Cullen family; they are my idea of the perfect family.
In contrast, Jacob's family is also big, but there's lots of internal rife and fighting, and mating bonds make people cheaters. That, and the werewolves are treated as if they're super violent and ready to blow up any second. This has something to do with Meyer's bias towards white ppl but it also contrasts Edwards family 😭
@@ettaetta439 As a big twihard who loves the wolf pack dearly I have to disagree with what you said. If you ever read midnight sun or even the partial draft many years ago you would know that bella is a completely unreliable narrator and that the cullens are a mess. There's infighting, edward hates rosalie, only tolerates jasper, finds alice annoying, jasper in turn envys the cullens, rosalie can't stand edward even carlisle to some extent, emmett find no problem with killing humans once in a while. Half of the family even wanted to kill bella after edward exposed himself even esme silently agreeing. They don't really care about human life and only do it to not disappoint carlisle or because of some personal limitations. While the wolves do have their issues, mostly because of external factors, they are really good people at the end of the day and care for and protect each other, even when bella sided with the cullens they still hung out with her even inviting her to their private council meetings. You cannot hold the wolves to a fault, when the cullens are the exact same
@@leahscontemporary I agree--the difference is Stephanie Meyer doesn't. The wolf pack is portrayed like a painful toxic relationship and they all treat each other terribly. There's so much horror in terms of how the women are treated and the amount of brut ality within their fights is always a bad thing that Bella is terrified at. The entire structure of pack society is considered to be a foreign, kind of messed up thing in the book. The Cullen family is portrayed as loving and kind, even if a few relationships in it are wrong. In the last book Bella even got to form her own bonds with the family that showed how much they loved each other, underneath all the spite. The Cullen family had lots of problems, but Stephanie Meyer wanted them to be a good family regardless of those problems. So despite the fact that they're just as toxic, it's not seen that way by the fanbase/haters.
@Leah’s Contemporary I have read all of Midnight Sun. And while I can’t deny certain points of your comment, I would like to argue that even though Edward finds Alice annoying, he still does love her incredibly much; what siblings don’t find each other annoying every now and then. And Rosalie and Edward may have a harsh relationship, but they never say they flat out hate each other. Not to mention that after Bella has proven she’s no threat to the Cullens’ secret, and when Edward introduces her to his family, he hears in most of their thoughts how warmly they think of her for being so brave to be around them knowing what they are. Esme even mentions how much she adores her and has been wanting to meet her since she brightened Edward’s world. I’m not disputing anything against the Wolfpack, and I know their burdens and do feel for them. But I’m still team Cullen all the way.
I didn’t realise how many Mormon texts and beliefs Stephanie Meyer included in Twilight. You really ate this video essays can’t wait to see the reactions
I never hear the Mormon aspect of this discussed from someone with real life experience growing up w the faith so bless this video for existing, what an interesting perspective!
Great video! As a twilight fan who was raised Mormon this very much covers some interesting territory, and we can’t forget the long khaki skirt that Bella wears that is an object of LUST for Edward LMAO
Ever since I saw a portrait of Joseph Smith and how uncanny it was to Carlisle's character, I was fully hooked on this topic!!! I have driven all of my loved ones crazy with my thoughts on this, so thank you for posting😭
um i haven't seen twilight but I was raised mormon and Joseph Smith was a convicted con man before he even made up mormonism, he was hooking up with and marrying off a bunch of preteen girls, so much so that his own followers tied him to a tree and nearly castrated him but instead tarred and feathered him, he directed his cult to burn down offices of newspapers that criticized him, and he was drunk when he was shot and killed when imprisoned for trying to create a state theocracy. were you saying they look alike or their characters were similar? cuz if any of the characters in Twilight acted like Joseph Smith they would be a pretty evil character.
he looks EXACTLY the same and the family idolises him to the point of him being god like or living without sin and setting an example, that makes sm sense
That was a very interesting analysis! We don't see a lot of people talking about how Meyer being Mormon has influenced her writing, and I think you nailed it on your video, going from what inspired her to what the story symbolized when it came to her views about the religion. The story always struck me as a fantasy - creating a protagonist that's just like you and having them have everything they want in life, including a diabetes-inducing happy ending. It makes much more sense seeing it from the point of view of someone who grew up being taught the same things as Meyer. Thank you for sharing!
this was so great! I didn't know much about Mormons, but I've been saying for years that Twilight feels like a religious conversion story in which humans are non-believers and the other types of vampires are no-good believers (they drink from humans), and the Volturi seem very clear catholic people, while the vegetarian vampires are like the legit believers, the only ones who live properly. I loved your analysis and insights! This was a very easy 'hit the bell button' for me.
I've been waiting for this video since I found out that SM is mormon. I was always so confused with how that fits into the messaging of the books considering Bella is so unconcerned about her soul.
Really good video essay. I was completely surprised when i saw you had so few subscribers I had to fix that. I'm an atheist so maybe its my perspective, but the more I hear about Mormonism the crazier it sounds. I feel bad for anyone trapped in that cult.
thanks for this video! first of all, I finally understood what mormonism is about and second - it was really interesting take and even thought I knew about the connection between Twilight and mormonism I was afraid that knowing how exactly this story is based on it would make me disappointent, but you saved the day, I still can enjoy it, yay!
Actually, this isn't what Mormonism is about. A few of the points in this video are correct (like that we believe in eternal life... Actually that might have been the only correct point), but in general this wasn't a good explanation of the religion. I am Mormon, and it's actually very different than as explained in the video
Thank you for the video! Very good :) Did you notice the Mormon overtones in the new Ring of Power show? One of the show runners and main writers is Mormon and it explained a lot about what imagery they used.
Thank you for this video! I loved having some insight on the Mormon church in relation to Twilight. Now I have better understanding as to why SM wrote the vampires with virtually no downsides. That’s an argument I never knew how to put into context, and now I know lol If vampirism’s physicality can be traced like this to the Mormon’s Plan, then why would SM write any negatives about it.
They may not have downsides but I'd argue that they do have natural enemies. The Quileute shapeshifters and the Children the moon to be exact. Humans are treated as mere cattle by the vampires throughout the story
This is a fantastically made video, I hope there are many more to come! What a wonderful channel :) p.s. I love that you used the CES letter as your reference.
I find it extremely odd that you can look at the movie Twilight and be bombarded with Mormon symbolism. To most of us it just looks like a vampire love story. I think what you're seeing is more a revelation of your strong ties to Mormonism and how very much it still fills every aspect of your thinking, rather than any real link between a vampire love story and the Mormon religion.
Interesting video! I used to teach World Religions in college, and whenever students would ask me about Mormonism, I'd tell them the Twilight saga is Mormonism in sparkly vampire format! I'm not sure I'd agree with you that SM is subverting Mormon theology, though. But I haven't read the books since they first came out. I'm also not sure that Jacob represents the devil. Years ago I read another Mormon commentator who connected Jacob and the Quileute clan to the role of Native Americans in Mormonism.
This was an interesting recommendation in my TH-cam feed... I was the target demographic when Twilight came out, and as a member of the church I understand and appreciate the lens of this analysis. There is so much of the church culture in these stories. Good and bad. I would hesitate to say that she is actively subverting the religion though. I think she is just writing about her experience. I don't know where you grew up, nor what the church culture was like, so I don't presume to contradict the way you feel about your time in the religion. My experience is very different than what you described. Yes, sexual purity and chastity is important, but in my house (fourth of six kids) it was equally important for the men and women. My sexuality was not gatekept by a man, I am not even sure how that would work. Growing up I was never told that I was destined to be a babymaker, but rather young women, and young men were taught that family was the most important aspect of life. "No success can compensate for failure in the home" - is oft quoted. And now, as a business owner and mother of four, I agree. I love building my business, I love working with my clients, but the thing I love most is raising my kids. And yeah we believe in eternal family and continued creation, but the idea that women just disappear and don't do anything is laughed at in the discussions I have. Like, there is so little that is actually orthodoxy in the church about what happens in eternity that it feels a little disingenuous to say "oh yeah Mormon women think they'll just be making babies forever" So yeah, I don't think SM is railing against the church when she makes Bella horny or says forget my soul. I think she's just writing different experiences she's had in her life. Solid video though and a very interesting listen!
wait can we talk about how edward basically didn't want the baby until he heard its thoughts in the womb and changed his mind? Smeyer really threw a half ass heartbeat bill argument into an already very pro-life story lmao
great video essay, I related a lot of what you said about this, i also grew up in the Mormón Church, not anymore in the Church but growing up i was such a fan of Twilight, this could have blow my mind at 12 year old, love your video
I was so excited to see the title of this video, because I rarely see these three things discussed together! I'm not the target demographic for Twilight, so I became aware of the gist of the story around 2008-ish. The Mormon themes were immediately obvious, and I actually appreciate the books as the first mainstream Mormon fairy tale. A sort of "Saturday's Warrior" for the Gentiles. I'm not going to praise nor bash Meyers' writing quality. Yeah, the books were a tough slog for me. But I'm not a teenage girl anymore. My generation swooned over "Flowers in the Attic." Is that any better? The terrible prose, the melodrama, the creepy shit (in FITA, the brother and sister are fucking, which makes Edward watching Bella sleep seem pretty tame). We're quick to bash on the tacky media enjoyed by girls, while holding up the tacky media enjoyed by boys as some kind of high art. I totally agree with you that Meyers was working through her Mormon heritage in writing the series. However, I don't think Bella represents the Molly Mormon nor the Jezebel: Bella is the Perfect Investigator. Edward isn't the Joseph Smith stand-in either; Carlyle is. (The actor cast as Carlyle in the films even looks like the more flattering depictions of Smith.) The War of Words at the end, culminating in the victory of free will? So, our Perfect Investigator decides early on that she wants to become one of them and join their Eternal Family. But there are a few things she's not willing to give up. Her sexuality, for one. For a series supposedly so prudish, Bella is horny and unashamed of it throughout the entire series. There's no male gaze here: Bella wants it. (Edward, still trapped in the belief that sex will lick her cupcake/he will end up nomming on her, is not idealized by our POV character.) Somewhere around Book 3, she gets fed up with Edward's imperiousness and demands that her priesthood-leader-to-be knock it the hell off with filling out college applications on her behalf and making her life plans for her without her consent. When he pushes the issue of forbidding her to see her friends, she hops in her truck and goes to see her friends. I sense some ambivalence from Meyers about priesthood authority and the patriarchal order in there..... "The Hunger Games" is often characterized as "Twilight for Smart Girls." Katniss is the Girl Boss to Bella's clumsy, boy-crazy, judgmental-internal-monologue. But let's break that down: Which one knows what she wants and zealously pursues it? Which one is rarely able to make a choice and her ultimate fate is decided by forces beyond her control? Both books include a love triangle, but Bella actually has to CHOOSE between two suitors that (we're supposed to accept) are equally compelling. Katniss never has to choose. She just winds up by default with the guy who doesn't turn out to be a douchebag. And the best part? The most influential Mormon on the wider culture in the last 20 years.....is a woman! I don't want to ignore that there is some really racist shit in the novels and in how Meyers approached writing them. She never spoke to any member of the Quileute Tribe before ham-fistedly mangling their oral history to serve her narrative purposes. Obviously that has parallels in Mormon history and doctrine as well. It's irrelevant whether she was exploring or critiquing that aspect of her heritage. She handled that part really badly.
Damn, now I wish I knew more about Mormonism so I could understand the comparisons in this comment. (Even though I’ve never read or seen anything from Twilight outside of video essays like this.)
@@emmakane6848 Every major set piece in the Twilight novels has a parallel within Mormonism. For example, Mormons believe that, before we were born, our spirits lived in the "pre-mortal existence." We chose to come to Earth in bodies to be tested, and we can be with our families in the highest degree of glory (i.e., heaven) only by undergoing a special marriage ceremony in a Mormon temple called the "sealing ordinance." The sealing, as well as Mormon baptism, are required to get into the highest level of heaven, but these rituals can only be performed on Earth, so there's a loophole: The ordinances can be performed by proxy for dead people, which is why Mormons are so fond of genealogy. They aim to posthumously baptize and seal everyone who has ever lived. Twilight is a classic example of a non-doctrinal genre of Mormon fiction known as "pre-mortal romance": Two souls fall in love in the pre-existence and then promise to find each other once they get to Earth. Because they're immortals, the Cullens are literally an "eternal family." The whole "imprinting" thing that caused millions of readers to wonder WTF Meyers was smoking (falling in love with a BABY?!?) is an extension of pre-mortal romance. Jacob and Renesmee were in love before they were even born, you see. They're fated for each other. (Again, pre-mortal romance is not doctrinal, but it's an inevitable extension of the doctrine.) Mormons also believe that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers, both sons of Elohim (God the Father). Jesus and Lucifer each proposed a plan of salvation for humanity. In Lucifer's plan, everyone would simply be forced to believe and to be a good person and go to heaven. In Jesus' plan, each person would have free will---to choose whether or not to believe and be good. Elohim favored Jesus' plan, leading to a great "War in Heaven"---but not a war with weapons and killing, but a war of words, where they each tried to persuade all the other spirits to join their side. The parallel to the end of Breaking Dawn is obvious. (This part was altered significantly in the film, presumably because that scene was boring AF to read and would have been even more boring to watch.) There's more---a lot more---but that's enough to see how Meyers was wrestling with her Mormon heritage in writing the Twilight series. Another perfect example: It's commonly taught to young Mormons (particularly girls) that if they aren't sexually chaste, they will be akin to a licked cupcake/chewed-up gum/brownies mixed with poop, etc. These are ACTUAL object lessons used in Church youth meetings. They'll pass around a cupcake and have everybody lick on it....until pretty soon nobody wants to lick the cupcake because that's disgusting. Lesson: Sex will ruin you so no one else will ever want you. Edward doesn't want to ruin Bella (i.e., he doesn't want to have sex with her for fear of losing control and accidentally eating her for supper), but Bella never sees it that way. She's horny for Edward throughout the entire series---and she has no shame about that. For a Mormon woman of Meyers' generation, that is RADICAL. And I've barely even scratched the surface. There are dozens more examples like this. Rosalie is another. She's the only vampire who doesn't want Bella to join them. Because Rosalie was never given a choice about being made a vampire, so she wants Bella to "have the choice I never had." Children who are raised Mormon are typically baptized at age 8, at which point they make lifelong covenants to God. Later in life, they may question whether they ever had a true choice at such a young age, or were even capable of making such consequential promises before they were old enough to have learned the multiplication tables. I interpret Rosalie as the part of Meyers who's asking herself whether she still embraces her faith. If she had the choice NOW, would she still make the same decision? Especially if she embraces her sexuality without shame and doesn't want to be bossed around by her priesthood leader. Again, for a Mormon woman, those are unspeakable questions to even be asking. In its full Mormon context (which was the only reason I read Twilight at all), Meyers is much more daring, more inquisitive, and more feminist than a non-Mormon reading of the series can possibly give her credit for.
i was always very preplexed as to why the chaste stephanie meyer chose the unholy vampire to write about and not something like an angel...the immortality thing just really explained a lot right now thank you
This person is literally an ex-Mormon, so you still haven't gotten one. I'm a Mormon and my family hates this franchise. It's super toxic and doesn't align with our beliefs. I think it's worth mentioning Meyer is a Mormon in Utah which is different from Mormons around the world. Utah Mormon culture is the weirdo "20 and not married?!?", "my kids wear pioneer outfits for modesty", and general cringe that other Mormons around the world (and I do mean the entire world) reject. It's even been called out by our leaders. Unfortunately, that culture is the only aspect of Mormonism that ever gets any reference in media. There are members in almost every country in the world and like any other religious group, we're chill normal people with a few odd ducks. And as a Mormon, I can tell you the men and women dynamic depicted here is extremely incorrect. I won't go on a full rant here, but one big flaw with this depiction is ignoring the existence of the Relief Society - the largest women's organization in the world - which is the women's version of the priesthood organization.
As someone who was never a Mormon ( but had a lot of Mormon friends, therefore researched it in college), I remember reading the series and told my husband “I bet the author is Mormon!” I could see it
This is such an interesting perspective, I know way too much about twilight and almost nothing about mormonism so I really appreciate you explaining how they connect! The only thing is I don’t think Jacob was a temptation. Bella saw him as a brother and used him to cope with Edward leaving. The only time she spoke of a future with Jacob was in New Moon where she said she could see herself marrying him not because she wanted to, but because she just wanted to keep him in her life. She spoke of marriage with him like something she’d sacrifice in order to keep him around because Edward’s absence was too painful for her when she wasn’t with Jacob. In Eclipse when Jacob kissed her she punched him, and the only time she kissed him was to convince him not to leave. She’s never been tempted by Jacob in a romantic or sexual way, so I don’t quite see how that comparison lines up
I don't know how old you are, but a disadvantage of waiting for sex after marriage is that you have no way of knowing if you and your fiance are sexually compatible if it's not even a subject of discussion until after you've already tied the knot. What if one of you is asexual and has no interest in sex while the other one wants it all the time? What if one of you has kinks you would like to indulge in and the other is freaked out by that? You also have no idea what you're doing the first time you have sex with another person because while the desire for sex is instinctual for most, the actual act is a learned skill that takes practice and newlyweds who've never had sex before risk being disappointed by insanely high expectations, and especially so when both partners go into a relationship with unspoken but different expectations. One person's dirty talk could be incredibly insulting to another, but this mismatch of expectations, preferences, boundaries, and limits can be completely avoided if a couple is able to discuss these things with each other as part of the getting to know you process well before they reach the point of being legally bound together. To summarize all that, it's not NECESSARILY that waiting for sex until marriage is a bad thing in and of itself, but waiting for sex until marriage also tends to mean that sex isn't discussed at the level it needs to be to determine partner compatibility, and THAT is what's bad about it. It's much easier to break up with a boyfriend/girlfriend than to divorce a spouse.
This is a good analysis, but I disagree with your conclusion. Bella always had to do what Edward wanted and could never have anthing she wants on her own, and in fact never bothers to want anything else besides being with a man. That is totally what Mormonism wants of women. She has no particular will or interests of her own, and she has to follow the rules to be immortal. In fact I don't see any diverengce. The fact that Bella doesn't care about her soul just puts her more under the care of Edward, who clearly knows better. And I don't see her exploring her sexuality at all.
Just want to say that this video is really well done. I'm not sure if this is your first time making a TH-cam video or just the first video on this channel, but good job. You got my sub and I can't wait to see what you post next
honestly clicker bc the title was funny but the video was actually well done and made good points!! I’ve been wondering if rosalie is some kind of weird stance on women who can’t conceive bc the concentration on her never being able to have kids w Emmett was always very meh to me
As a teenager watching the films I found it manipulative of Edward when he wouldn’t turn her until they were married and he wouldn’t have sex with her until she was married and if I remember rightly wouldn’t turn her until they were married, and it wasn’t like he didn’t want to have sex with her, so it felt more like a tactic, also he kept saying over and over they couldn’t be together but was jealous and possessive when it came to Jacob. It was like he was saying you can be with me but only under these conditions and following my rules, baring in mind he is a lot lot older the power dynamic is off too. To me what SM might have wanted to come off as chivalrous just felt creepy, and just my personal opinion but I think a couple should live together, have sex, have an education/adventures and live a little and not be a teenager before committing to one person, getting married and completely changing your life irrevocably by becoming a vampire, having children ect. Bella was so young, her brain hadn’t fully developed and she hadn’t had other life experiences to compare it to. If Edward really cared about her they should have set boundaries and made plans together I.e date for a few years with Bella studying abroad for a while ect. It just felt like to get what she thought she wanted which could not be undone and she had nothing to compare it to or time to think she had to submit to Edwards ‘rules’. Anyway just my thoughts, could be wrong. Hope everyone is having a good start to the new year. Stay safe, happy and healthy, have lots of fun, let’s try to be kind to one another and live a life full of love. Xxx
Let me tell you all a story about when I was 13-16... I dated a Mormon. After about 6-8 months, he had decided that I was to be his wife, that I was to have kids with him. At 14. And I. BOUGHT. IT! I ALMOST RAN AWAY FROM HOME TO BE WITH HIM!!! Christ, I'm so glad I gained half a mind to NOT DO ANY OF THIS
As I Mormon, I promise we're not all as crazy as your ex lol! We have more common sense then that, in fact most of us don't even date until 16 years old 😂
@estherhinds6314 Oh trust me, I wasn't trying to disparage all members of the CLDS; I do still have friends who are of the church, and they are some of the kindest individuals ever. My ex did have some problems that were no doubt influenced by the old doctrine, but I am well aware that he was an isolated incident
This was interesting. I'd have to look into more statements by Meyers before I was convinced, but it's a nice interpretation. Mormonism and feminism have a fraught history. Once upon a time, they were considered progressive when it came to women's rights, so much so that Utah was vital to women's suffrage. Unfortunately, that changed over time, and by the 60s, church leaders were telling women to vote against feminist propositions without even reading them.
I don't think she wrote Twilight intentionally for it to fit into her believes. But literature is yet another form of art at the end of the day. And art can never escape the influence of its creator's personal believes. In a way, arts can expose the artists' best hidden thoughts and desires without them even realizing it.
What an incredibly interesting analysis of Twilight. Thank you for your perspective as someone involved in Mormonism. I wonder if the aspects of Twilight that could be considered antithetical to Mormonism could reflect some sort of denial or defense against those negative aspects of Mormonism that you mentioned. Given that Bella is a self-insert of Stephanie Meyer herself and that the later is still an active member of the church, it sounds to me like she's saying, "I see myself as an imperfect woman who has agency over my life, and I choose Mormonism," thus making the argument that Mormonism can be for everyone, not just the pure. There's also the fact that in the end, Bella -- the "imperfect" one -- ends up getting saved by the symbolically Mormon Edward, which I interpret as Mormonism saving Bella and giving her her happy ending. I'm curious as to you thoughts on this, since my experience with Mormonism is minimal.
I’ve been dying for someone to do a dive into the parallels between Twilight and Mormonism, but discussion about religion esp Mormonism is forbidden in the Twilight fb groups. Thank you for this video! :)
Nobody talking about the fact that Meyer wrote the Edward, the ideal perfect husband, being a white man while the one who tries to make Bella deviate from her path, who puts her into dangerous situations, who falls in love with the protagonist infant daughter and literally turns into an animal, is a brown skinned (or as Meyer likes to say, "red") native american. Like what the fuck. Who thought this was a good idea.
As a "mormon" I just want to say that there are a few things that you said that can be badly interpreted and this is due to that most mormon learn what their families and the leaders of the place that you attend teach, the "real" parts of religion is learned by reading by yourself the books and studying the actual leaders. Also I have the lucky to born in a family who wasn't all about religion and as I grew up I realize that according to the "prophets" you should stay in a middle ground, yous should search by yourself about the things that they teach you but you should also listen and try. I also wanted to say that I feel sad to see so many comments about their bad experience with "mormonism" and wanted to say that I don't think every religion is bad.... there are a lot of religions that their own followers are the ones who transform things that can help some people into "either you do what we said or your going to hell" and when you hear what their actual leaders said is not the same that some other are teaching or preaching. With that being said, I just hope that all the ways that you and other people in the comments are using to let out your bad experiences or wounds towards the church doesn't be to say that every person who follows that religion is bad. The video was still interesting tho, u should definitely keep analyzing more things in your channel!
I grew up in a very Mormon area and, to this day, have several Mormon friends and family members. The LDS church has some extremely odd beliefs and I do not agree with them. I, however, was raised Catholic and still am today. I reject the idea that religion as a whole constrains feminism. I certainly think the Mormon church has some very skewed beliefs regarding the role of women, but I have never felt that from Catholicism. Just my little soapbox because I get tired of people generalizing all religion as bad. I have never read twilight and have only seen the movies maybe once, so I can’t comment on how accurate I think this analysis is.
As an active Latter Day Saint I think this is an interesting take. A couple things I think is interesting are 1.) you think women are only for making babies. And that women will not be goddesses but instead be baby making slaves. I’m not sure who the f taught you that but okay. 2.) you do not have to be a Mormon to go to byu. They don’t even ask. 3.) it’s an interesting take for sure. I’ll be honest, I think any ties to Mormonism beneath surface level is a stretch. 4.) imo Jacob would be the “righteous choice”. His family already likes her. She keeps her humanity. His family isn’t tempted to kill her and drink her blood at every second. He is constantly warm, comforting, protective, and fun. Edward is a vampire, which in vampire lore, they made a deal with the devil, either directly or indirectly. Vampires are cold, and in many cases heartless. Vampires embody almost everything that involves evil in many theologies. Vampires have permanently lost their souls.
No, because my stepgrandmother who was super mormon, was in the same ward as Stephanie Meyer. Ward is a church group. And when I was 12, growing up in the mormon church, my stepgrandmother only wanted part of my life to make sure I was the still on the path of the church, as the rest of my cousins didn't want any part of the church. She said "I was the only one who could be saved." When I turned 18 and inevitably left the church, she and my grandfather were already divorced at that point. But she messaged me over Facebook and had the audacity to tell me I was on the wrong path! She didn't know anything about my life. Just goes to show how healthy the Mormon church is to families, which they claim to prioritize so much. Oh yeah, she even told my dad he was a bad father bc his kids left the church.
as an old wise twihard veteran i really thought i know everything and nothing can surprise me i've heard about twilight's mormon theory before and it made total sense but u, oh my, u girl just opened the whole another dimension with that essay!!
Nah that can be explain in the narrative. Bella is described even by herself to having little fashion sense. And It's stated in the first chapter that when she came to Forks her and her mom had to pool resources for the Washington weather
I’m not Mormon but I know a lot of the basics. So I did see some of the Mormon ties to Twilight when I watched it. You pointed out way more that I missed.
As a Mormon, it's actually really inaccurate. She's very much skewed our beliefs to either springboard off of to a very wild conclusion or purposely ignored things that counter her "Mormon church is women-hating" idea like women holding leadership positions in the church with the Relief Society - which is the largest women's organization in the world that is patterned after the Priesthood organization -, Primary, and Young Women's organizations all lead by women at every level of the church's structure. RS & YW in particular have programs encouraging self-reliance and education so women in the church are NOT the Stepford Wives who live exclusively for their husbands. It kind of makes sense that she missed the Relief Society part since it's the women's organization and she left the church at 18 so she would've only just been going, but yeah. She's basing this of Utah Culture Mormonism which is very very different from actual doctrine. It's very weird that her argument hinges on this idea that Mormons are somehow nefarious for encouraging motherhood and family as though nearly every other religion in the world doesn't? And as though literal biology doesn't exist for the continuation of our species? Atheists encourage motherhood too and often also choose to be stay at home moms because mothers have a strong bond with their kids. It's weird that she's framing that as some patriarchal plot instead of basic biology. But even in that, she once again purposely ignores the actual church doctrine given on how, yes, motherhood is beautiful and divine, but women are also encouraged to be well-educated, hard-working, and there's definite flexibility with each family situation on how the roles of the household and no one is lesser or frowned upon if they don't/can't get married, have kids, etc... I'm the breadwinner in my marriage and my husband and I don't have kids. It's completely fine. We aren't sub-members. I've even been in multiple leadership callings. So, once again, the doctrine and actual beliefs of members is not extreme. Some of the Utah Culture is, for sure. This person just unfortunately conflates the two.
BYU isn't exclusively Mormon, I've known plenty of Muslim and Catholics that went there, they do have to have their ecclesiastical leader sign off on the application and have to go to their respective "church" each week, but you don't have to be Mormon to go there. The thing is, with everything going on right now, most of the non-mormon people that I know that went there almost refuse to say that they went there, hahahhahahahahahahhahahaahhaah, like if they could take it off their CV for jobs they would, lol
In the “only men can preform miracles” it would be kinda funny if meyers took it further and made only male vampires venomous, which she amended with half-vampires
I was big on the Twilight books and the first two movies as a kid. I've never understood the rampant hate although I understand that there is plenty in the books that we would no longer endorse as adults. With that being said this is the best analysis of Twilight I've ever seen. (not a Mormon)
My head canon is that Edward and Bella either slowly starve to death as the sun’s luminosity destroys all life on Earth a billion years in the future, or they are engulfed in a fiery death as the Sun enters its red giant phase. 🍿
im probably late to this game but i think you comments are missing the point. If it were up to Edward she never would have been turned in the first place. She goes to his house and forces the vote. Then he comes up with a compromise, i.e., if you marry me then yeah. Those who are affected by the LDS church (namely the creator of this video and meyer herself) see Bella as someone who had a choice. Im not saying she did or didnt because theres a lot of nuance in this topic, but if the creator, someone who genuinely sees the parallels as an individual who grew up in a similar environment that meyer did, says that they can see this as a rejection of the mormon faith, then maybe they know what they're talking about. I wouldn't know because I'm not mormon. I personally appreciate the opportunity to hear about their thoughts!
In all the research of the saga for my own rewrite of the series I never really pieced together how connected it is to Mormonism. Holy Christ this is sort of creepy.
Mormans believe what?! Ehh. What?! That book of Mormon must be wild to actively contradict the rest of the Bible and still have so many followers. Wild. Anyway, good analysis! I appreciate it.
I was recently in a Mormon cemetery, and many gravestones read “family is forever”. All I could think of is how horrifying a concept that is for an abused child.
It is horrible to think you can never get rid off them. My parents are narcissistic.
That’s such a weird thought to have after visiting a cemetery
@@Jessica-og4iqI think it’s a common thought if you were abused as a child. I used to wonder about this too
The fact that she based Bella off of herself to a dot really makes the fact that her brothers name is Jacob so much weirder
he wasnt meant to be a love interest in the beginning
And if you knew actual twilight lore. Jacob was never meant to be a main character. He was supposed to be a background character that told bella about what the cullens were. Her editor and publishers loved him so much they convinced smeyer to give him a bigger role
@@leahscontemporary I get this very much and it makes it way less creepy I can see how an idea for a character can change over time
@@leahscontemporary you forget: in his first scene, Bella flirted with Jacob in the beach trip.
Damn that adds a whole new angle to the temptation symbolism now doesn't it
I feel like Bella DID have to follow the rules to get her happy ending. The relationship never progresses until Edward says it does. She can’t be turned unless she agrees to marry him, at 18 years old. She can’t have sex until after they’re married. Then, after they do have sex, he refuses to do it again, despite her wanting it. Then there’s the very obvious anti-abortion stuff, which was the only choice she ever made on her own, and even then Edward came around. Bella never really had any agency (besides killing herself for her man’s child), only the illusion of it. Also, adult men “imprinting” on toddlers is… well.
I agree! Stating that Bella got all the good things women usually don't get being a Mormon without the hardships is not true. She did get pregnant, she did have a traumatic pregnancy and birth. In the end she DID do what women are supposed to and even died for it: give birth.
@@too.annoyed And being one of the very few to do it, since she was not supposed to have it (because vampires) lmao
I will give you a little hint. Women like men who take the initiative. Part of what makes guys like Edward or that 50 shades guy are attractive to women is they take the initiative everytime and make all the decisions as a result. Thats all there is to it it isn't as deep as you been told.
@@donaldhysa4836 As a man, your percieved insight into women's desires is useless and not valid. Thanks for trying, though, weirdo. Women are not a monolith, just as men aren't either. We are all shaped by our material conditions. And some of us are lesbians
@@noellethomas2589 Women are not a monolith but if a woman writes a female character that wants children its because she thinks women are only valuable as mothers great logic xD
i just learned more about mormonism than i ever have in a 10 minute video about twilight
ha no you didnt
No you didn't lol. There was a lot of misinformation in this video. I'm a practicing Mormon woman, and this really isn't what our church is like at all
@@estherhinds6314gurl i'm not even from usa but even i know it's a fcked up cult from the news of crimes of your members, wish you healing from that brainwash
@@estherhinds6314 that retort is worthless if you don't follow with examples.
It always kind of irked me that a lot of people who have read/watched Twilight leave out Mormonism while analyzing it. It's such a massively important part of Twilight and Stephanie Meyers' writing. Like once you know it's there, it explains a whole lot of things that keep making people go "Why is that like that? That's so strange"
no one told me there was a reason to think about mormonism when analyzing twilight until today, but it's made everything make so much more sense. My middle school southern baptist indoctrinated ass thought the purity culture in the books was just normal lmao
Me and my online friends all watched the first 3 movies in Twilight while doing a drinking game...and my god was it chaotic because we all knew about the Mormon aspect and we all learned a lot of...interesting things...like soaking...do not look it up if you don't want to know Mormon mating rituals...
Ugh, the mormonism makes so much sense now. Especially with the part where women basically become baby making machines and how she wrote Jacob to say awful things about Leah's infertility in Breaking Dawn
Or how about Bella, who never wanted children, never even thought of having them, gets pregnant and has a magical baby to fufill all of her desires (even her unknown ones).
@@Melissa-sx9vh Who wants to have a child at 17? You are thinking way too much into this
@@donaldhysa4836 some people know very early that they want a child one day in their life. It doesn't mean they want it a seventeen but they know they want one. Bella literally never said she would like to have one one day or that she was sad to lose this opportunity by becoming a vampire, it was never something important to her but since women can only be accomplished through motherhood for Smeyer, Bella ended up having a child.
@@Melissa-sx9vh Yes. Some people. But must people can't exactly make that kind of decision at 16.
@@donaldhysa4836 sir it was stated that Bella was 17 and then 18 when she married Edward and then had a child with him. I don't know where you are getting the age of 16. Some people just know they want babies, some people don't. In Bella's case she at most seemed undecided or neutral. That was the point.
I mean...she was a virgin until sex, she had a baby even though it was going to kill her immediately after getting married. Also the husband she chose was is a super rich, super powerful, and all knowing (centuries of education plus the ability to read minds) man.
At no point was she ever immoral or unpure. She even miraculously reframed from ever harming a human as a newborn vampire. The moment she met Edward as a 17yo she gave up on any plans of her own for her life and entirely dedicated herself to being his wife and bearing his child.
I'd say it is quite the stretch to consider this a feminist work. It's as feminist and rebellious as a nun flashing her ankle for the pool boy.
It's a stretch to say it isn't. Bella had no intention of having a child before or even after marrying edward. She didn't "give up" mortality to bear his children. The opposite in fact at their honeymoon bella was essentially telling edward she wanted to stay human for a couple more years and attend college. She only had renesmee(who she thought was gonna be ej)because she wanted another edward. Which is pro choice. A woman ability to choose what she wants to do with her life and body
I agree to the most part, but what I like about their love story is that they were both virgins, at least in the books (I did not watch the movies). I could understand people calling their waiting untill marriage sexist if Edward was a man with a history, but this is not the case.
@@zwischenburkaundbikini2418 I wasn't saying it was sexist, I was saying it isn't feminist.
@@EF-wy3di why is it anti feminist to wait untill marriage?
@@zwischenburkaundbikini2418 non feminist doesn't equate to anti feminist.
Also her name "Isabella" means "God is my Oath" and she keeps correcting people saying "just Bella" (Bella just means "beautiful"). Another way to take her power back by taking ownership of her own name. Jacob's name means "usurper" while "Edward" means "protector" or "guardian" or "prosperous". Also Bella's mom, Renee, her name means "born again" which is funny cause she divorced Charlie and his name means "free man" :)) Bella's daughter, Renesmee then is "born again esteemed", because Renee = born again, and Esme is an English first name, derived from the Old French verb esmer, "to esteem", thus signifying "esteemed". And I am willing to bet the author thought a lot about picking the names. (Alice = noble, Rosalie = Rose, Emmett = Universal)
The frnech Verb is "estimer"
You’re telling me Esme is not short for “Esmeralda”?
@@PegasusAnarchy it could be ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's quite on the nose
@@fionafiona1146 I think characters having well thought out names is quite subtle and adds to the story. As is, it adds to our understanding of smeyer's conceptual vision for her story.
I completely disagree that it's a rejection of Mormonism. It's rather the epitome of the mental gymnastics Mormons go through to stay. Meyer is still Mormon. Bella still chooses Edward even after learning how fucked up his world is and acknowledging what she's giving up. She still chooses a life that will ultimately lead her to being a soulless and worldworn husk of a person like the Volturi. She doesn't ever question it, her motives, or the health of her relationship with Edward. She gaslights herself into actually believing that she was simply jumping off a literal cliff to hear Edward's voice instead of intentionally unaliving herself. Meyer knows how fucked up her culture is, but she refuses to fully deconstruct it. That isn't rejection, it's conscious complicity.
I'd say Bella never really comes to learn how "fucked up" his world really is. She went throughout the whole saga with rose colored glasses.
@@leahscontemporary yup
Oh boy. Why are we always so hated, and so very misunderstood? I'm a Mormon woman, and I have to tell you that this video is full of misinformation about my religion. Probably because the creator left the church, and has some bitterness about it due to misunderstanding. Most prominently wrong about this video is the perception of women in my church. We are not viewed as baby making machines whose only purpose is to reproduce and support our husbands who will become gods. That's the opposite of the truth! Women in the church are incredibly empowered. We are viewed as leaders with equal rights and responsibilities as men, no matter our relationship status. On top of that, we make covenants with God in which He promises that we will become rulers and goddesses ourselves - not just the men. Don't take a TH-camr as your source of information for an entire culture, research yourself before believing everything you hear
@Esther Hinds I don't need to take a TH-camr's word for it. I'm a Mormon woman. I've been endowed, I served a mission, I've worked for the church, and I'm a church historian, so... I'm at least as good an authority as you on this.
I love this one tumblr poster that writes analysis on twilight, except instead of from a romantic perspective, it’s from an almost tragic perspective. The perspective of Bella completely not seeing the signs of how she’s doomed herself to a life like the volturi. It’s so different from the Normal “twilight = bad” schlocky in that it actively engages with the text on its own term.
While most reviews make fun of twilight in a “this was made for teen girls and therefore is bad” type of way, while other critique it from outside lenses like class or race, it’s fascinating to see someone talk about Twilight from an in-universe lens, and then lean into its ideas, themes, and characters more than Myer herself does.
And like, the main idea is that Twilight is a series that ends right before the tragedy occurs. We see Bella at her happiest and most ignorant, confident in her chosen “forever family,” right before she has to spend an eternity as a soulless husk. Myer never goes there-the story ostensibly ends happily. But this tumblr poster’s reading feels so true to the way the characters have been set up. Of course Bella would portray the end of Twilight as a happy one-she was a naive child who had no clue what she was getting into. But there’s no avoiding how horrifying this forever family is.
And yet, if it’s a rejection of it, then why are so many female characters obsessed with babies? Rosalie desperately wants one, Esme lost the plot in her prevamp days because of one (and then got a whole brood of ‘kids’), the Denali bunch were persecuted because of one, the werewolves are all bonded to a life partner that will maximise the chance of passing on the wolfy genes, Leah is gutted cos she doesn’t thin she’ll ever have one…and then Bella goes and magically gets knocked up as well. And Jessica comments the only reason why someone straight out of school would get hitched is because the girl’s up the duff. Did I miss any?
To me that sounds remarkably like wholly supporting Mormonism.
Sm is still practicing mormon, being critical of some elements of a culture while still being a part of it.
Twilight isn't a rejection of Mormonism, it's the fantasy of a women raised in a specific oppressive world view. Even if it was wholly rejecting Mormonism people dont always reexamine every idea they grew up with when they leave their relgion or even realise where they got that idea to begin with, they may hold on to some values they were raised with because of how ingrained they are. as an ex mormon I remember hating some of the rules and cultural ideas but I still believed in god the way I was taught to and didn't properly reexamine ideas that were more central to the religion because of how deeply I was indoctrinated. also the wider cultural additude surrounding women and procreation goes beyond Mormonism the wider culture is still largly patriarchal and dominated by other culturally Christian ideas . Writing tropes rooted in sexism dont feel like wholly supporting Mormonism to me because Mormonism doesnt begin and end with "all women love babies and their lives revolve around them" one could reject Mormonism entirely and still belive that, one could disbelieve that, could be a women who doesn't want children and still be Mormon.
Yeah, I also do not think the books were a rejection of Mormonism. I didn’t think there was good evidence to suggest that, because in the end, she still goes with the Mormon man.
Unless the author has also left the faith, I don’t see how her books could possibly be viewed as a rejection of it.
Because its true to life. Believe it or not, many women still deseperately want babies.
There's nothing wrong with some people wanting to have babies. You could[ theoretically] absolutely reject Mormonism and still want to have kids. 🙃 🤷♀️🤷♀️
I don't know if I believe Twilight was or wasn't rejecting Mormonism, personally, but this was an interesting hypothesis / thought-exercise, and it was interesting to examine it through different lenses than typical.
And women who don’t want babies are thought to be mentally ill. A friend wanted a tubal ligation in her 20s because she did not want children. The men in charge and their female enablers wouldn’t give her what she wanted because they considered her to be “abnormal” and “mentally ill”. She had to run a gauntlet of a half dozen shrinks and other indignities to finally get one. The two big points they were obsessed with were “what if she changes her mind?” And “what if one day she married a man who wanted kids?” As if she had no agency and no say in what she chose to do with her life and her body. The whole ordeal was disgusting, especially when men who want a vasectomy can get one on demand, no questions asked.
Not all women want children, and they are totally mentally healthy to not want kids.
As it turned out, this friend is a toxic narcissist, so her choice was a good one for her and prevented several child from growing up damaged by a narcissist mother (narcissism is not considered a mental illness, mostly because it is a prized trait in men).
I’m with my man for 48 years. We were neutral about having children-if it happened it happened or not. We ended up not, and we are fine with it. We weren’t rich and didn’t have insurance, so we couldn’t afford fertility testing for either of us. Whose fault was it? No one ever blames the man, ever.
My husband’s sister was obsessed with having children to complement her Walt Disney World Ester Lauder Jebus and his father loves me lifestyle. She put a lot of people through hell to “fulfill herself”, eventually adopting two utterly wonderful daughters that she treated like crap, including wanting to permanently institutionalize them when they turned 12 because they were no longer “convenient” for her lifestyle as it evolved and less controllable. She is a narcissist and psychopath. I’ve witnessed what she did to those girls, including padlocking one in her bedroom because she had food in her room that was ruining her chances at having a model perfect body. A freaking *padlock”! Oh, but she masquerades as this perfect woman of religion with a savior complex a mile wide, which she used to have a kinky sexual affair in front of the girls yet claimed that her husband was “violent” to her. She’s so sick that she manipulated her paramour/husband into having vacations in places she had had with her ex, then emailed pictures to her ex of those vacations. She is a con artist too. The only reason the girls turned out well was because of their awesome dad and not being biologically related to their mother.
Motherhood isn’t for everyone nor should it be….
Subbed! On the set of the Twilight movies, Meyer bullied the female director horrifically. Why? Because she wanted to cast more minorities - like making Alice asian. She would only allow a minority if they were cast a villain. As an avid reader, the toxic relationships in Twilight have permeated the entire YA book market - damage that is still lingering nearly 2 decades after its initial release. You'll see series after series with relationships that mirror the abusive one Twilight glamorized. Stalking and harming someone is apparently fine as long as you don't do premarital sex, apparently. Describing an Native American person as "red" isn't something I was aware of before - yet it makes this book look much worse.
I disagree about the toxic relationships. That's been in media for a long time before twilight.
@@tamarleahh.2150 Very true. Especially in extremely subtly ways, buried under a lot of glamorized fluff that just glosses right over it. Twilight just didn't do a good job of burying it under anything else[ unlike most things did], and yet still tried and called it as if it had.
I would like to know more about the stuff that happened behind the scenes o:
well, I don't want to defend Stephanie Meyer but a lot of native people have a redish brown skin and I say that as a native descendant. I am mixed in the paler side, with a yellowish tone but I know many native descendants with darker skin and a redish tone. I see nothing wrong in the description, but it can be insulting when you use it to bully someone o call them red-skinned or something like that. i just never saw that in her books.
And making a character that's a quirky manic pixie dream girl Asian, isn't a stereotype in itself?? The director wanted to cast what was essentially early 2000s diversity and yall was eating it up
I love it when TH-cam decides to drop a video essay in my lap about a super specific topic I’ve been DYING to know more about! This is so good!!! I can’t wait to see what this channel does next!
I had a friend for a few years who was a self-described “very bad Mormon” who almost never went to church except for holidays because she worked weekends and because she was in her mid-twenties and single and didn’t want to deal with constant attempts to set her up with the young men in her church. I seem to remember her mentioning in conversation that she had found out that Stephanie Meyer was Mormon as well and finding it funny.
Unrelatedly, neither of us cared for Twilight, but we both bought some hand-crafted wooden quails from the art gallery we worked at together and named them after Twilight characters for some reason. Bella and Renesmee still live on my bookshelf. I hope Jacob and Edward are still happy together with my friend wherever she is now!
Stephanie Maher has no idea what she actually wrote.
The whole plot with "imprinting" is terrifying and implies sexual attraction in the future. Attraction directed at the child. Bella Swan is doomed. She has no idea who vampires are or what vampirism means. Edward is crazy and he never liked Bella's personality. Renesmee has no idea what it means to be human and live in human society. Most likely, she will be a freak among both vampires and people.
The Cullen family will soon fall apart. They have very little time for their daily pretense of being human. If Renesmee joins the Cullens in high school, it will make things worse and make them even stranger than they already were.
After the "decisive battle" at the end of the story, the world of Twilight becomes a very dark place for the Volturi and for the young womans. Most likely, other vampires will want a hybrid child and will rape women for this. The Volturi will not be able to enforce their secrecy laws, they will have more work.
In addition, Bella's incredibly powerful gift (she trained for several days and protected her "army" from the gifts of the Volturi, which had never been literally the case before in their entire history) changed everything.
i didnt even thought about the hybrids becoming mainstream, like there was one hybrid hidden fro everyone, but now that the Volturi know they exist they could try to make more, they will find them useful
@@maca76 The Volturi would not create hybrids, as this would worsen the bad treatment of them among other vampires. This would force Haro to pimp his subordinates with food. Remember that hybrids before the Court were something unheard of. All vampires in human history (except the Cullens and Denali) drink human blood. I don't think it occurred to most vampires to have sex with their food.
@@Julia13jd the Volturi arent treated badly by other vampires, they were respected and feared. Even after BD they are the most powerful group, if anything they lost a little of respect by not punishing the Cullen even when they moved to do it, so other vampires that dont like them may think theyre less powerful and try to rebel. So a powerful weapon as hybrids (who also can pass unnoticed by Alice visions, which were the only thing that saved te Cullens) is something they would want to get for themselves. Obviously before BD hybrids werent well known by vampires, but now they are, and the Volturi arent ones to stop at the moral implications of having kids with your food if that means they get more power. We've seen they already get women interested on vampires working for them and being eaten after sometime, having kids with them would not be difficult and they domt care abojt those women health, so birth wouldnt be that difficult either
@@maca76 1. The Volturi are disgraced throughout the vampire world because of Bella's gift. Before her, no one had been able to stop Jane and Alec, block Aro's gift.
2. Hybrids are not strong at all. They are humane, half (approximately) weaker than vampires, they need food more often than vampires, they need sleep and rest. The gift of a hybrid can be strong or interesting, but physically a hybrid is weaker. I don't think it's worth it.
3. No problem creating a hybrid? For real? Go back to Twilight and remember Bella's torment during her pregnancy. Understand that the rest of the hybrids in the world, like Nahuel, are the result of rape and a painful, horrific death.
4. A vampire will need serious efforts not to kill a person, to keep him near for a long time, to rape him in such a way that the woman survives, to support the woman throughout the terrible pregnancy, and then watch as the newborn child tears his mother's stomach and drinks her blood. Decentially, no problem, yes
@@Julia13jd 1 Bella is still the only vampire able to stop the Volturis gifts, the Cullens are protected by her and Alice, but the random groups around the globe arent, possibly they dont even know theres a vampire able to fight the Volturi, they are still the largest most powerful group of vampires
2 Hybrids can survive with no food or no blood, feeding them is not harder than feeding a group of vampires. They grow quick and they dont show the impulsivity of newborns, they can also mix better with humans and be used as sort of spies as not every vampire will recognize them immediatly and still are quite strong. It doesnt matter that they are more powerful, just that the Volturi find them useful in any way. And how much until they discover Alice cant see them in her visions?
3 Do you think the Volturi care that the women are in pain? Bella pregnancy was hard because first they didnt understand the fetus wanted blood and because the people around her were worried for her well being. Rape and death were completely considered in my argument because the Volturi dont care at all about those things.
4 Again the Volturi live in a mayor city, have lived among humans for hundreds of years, they work with humans constantly as tour guides, secretaries, lawyerd, etc. They can resist the smell enough to get some women pregnant and if they arent killing every person around them, its enough to keep them alive for like the months it takes to complete the pregnancy
I mean, in the same story where Stephanie "challenges" Mormonism's narrative, we also get a pro life message with Bella putting her life on the line to protect her future daughter and said future daughter, ends up with Jacob who's old enough to be her father. Oh and their "romance" starts the moment she comes out of the womb 😤
Honestly Bella's situation seems much more pro-choice than pro-life to me. After Bella discovers that she has a life-threatening pregnancy, her newlywed husband seeks for abortion options from the most qualified man on earth: his vampire doctor dad. Bella chooses not to pursue an abortion, instead keeping the pregnancy and enlisting her new sister-in-law as a bodyguard in her weakened state. That's Bella's choice. Pro-choice ideology, at its core, does not push women to get abortions. Instead, it respects a woman's choice and authority over her body's reproduction. Bella's choice to keep her pregnancy was risky, but it was hers. I think that if the characters never brought up the option of abortion and just hunkered down for her dangerous pregnancy then that would be a pro life message.
That being said, I detest Jacob's interactions with Bella's daughter and wish that was never, ever included. The idea of love at first sight with a baby is disgusting, to put it mildly.
It seems to me that this novel isn't straying very far away from religious dogma. I don't dispute that for a mormon it might seem very far away from doctrine but from a non-mormon perspective there's not much difference.
And Bella was extremely selfish. She didn’t care that she would die and her husband would follow. I would have respected her character if she pleads
With the other Cullens to make sure Edward won’t go to the Volturi if she passes. The didn’t care that the treaty gets broken, as long as she can give birth to Rafiki then screw anyone else.
@@Emma-yg2uf Rafiki 😭😂 you broke my humor 😂😂😂😂
When I was a teen and read how Renesmee and Jacob are "in love" I thought it was just weird, but now as an adult I'm internally screaming at it. Like WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK was going on inside Smeyer's head when she was like "you know what would be heartwarming? A guy literally seeing this baby be born, be kind of a fatherly/brotherly figure to her as she's growing and then when she's old enough they're going to bang." 🤢
Hm... The more I hear about mormonism the more I want to build my own religion. Couldn't be so hard. I wrote a Pen and Paper campaign. Sounded similar.
Well, L. Ron Hubbard was a science fiction author and the "lore" of Scientology definitely sounds like something a sci fi writer would come up with.
My "religion" would center
around cats. 🐈🐈🐈🐈☺️
@@Ciara1594 Ouh, that's nice. Can I be in a leading position and pet the cats all day long?
The fact that SM wrote into the series a half vampire half human baby is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read. She was so determined to have Bella pop out a baby.
Haven't you heard of Dhampirs. Which is in literally most vampire stories
And yet SM is the one whose books made bank. Dollar bills say otherwise. Critics are so cynical and jealous.
@@leahscontemporary Meyer made this supposed damphir a joke tbh. Especially with it's creepy doll in the movie before it was replaced by a cg baby.
@@caseyhstuver of course we're jealous. If we had the ineptitude to make shit into gold we'd do it in a heartbeat.
Taking Twilight as a saga, I'm pretty sure it's more like a conversion story than a refutation. The missionaries are very well educated on their faith, so they're equipped to handle whatever arguments put forth by difficult converts like Bella in the same metaphor. Eventually she conforms to Edward's desires while getting her "happy ending" - meaning that yes she did "convert."
Edward nor his family never once wanted bella to become a vampire. She was one pushing for that the most throughout the story. It's the complete opposite really. Edward conforms to bella becoming a vampire after spending the whole saga trying to prevent her from doing so
One objection I’d like to point out about the comparison between Edward and Jacob is that Edward too does have a big loving family. They may be ice-cold to the touch, but every single one of the Cullens has a good heart, and looks out for one another. And the way they welcome Bella in with open arms once she and Edward become an item is truly heartwarming. Even Rosalie, as bitter and route as she is, still does mean well at the core. Honestly, the only reason I am team Edward is because with him I get the whole Cullen family; they are my idea of the perfect family.
That’s a good point!!
In contrast, Jacob's family is also big, but there's lots of internal rife and fighting, and mating bonds make people cheaters. That, and the werewolves are treated as if they're super violent and ready to blow up any second. This has something to do with Meyer's bias towards white ppl but it also contrasts Edwards family 😭
@@ettaetta439 As a big twihard who loves the wolf pack dearly I have to disagree with what you said. If you ever read midnight sun or even the partial draft many years ago you would know that bella is a completely unreliable narrator and that the cullens are a mess. There's infighting, edward hates rosalie, only tolerates jasper, finds alice annoying, jasper in turn envys the cullens, rosalie can't stand edward even carlisle to some extent, emmett find no problem with killing humans once in a while. Half of the family even wanted to kill bella after edward exposed himself even esme silently agreeing. They don't really care about human life and only do it to not disappoint carlisle or because of some personal limitations. While the wolves do have their issues, mostly because of external factors, they are really good people at the end of the day and care for and protect each other, even when bella sided with the cullens they still hung out with her even inviting her to their private council meetings. You cannot hold the wolves to a fault, when the cullens are the exact same
@@leahscontemporary I agree--the difference is Stephanie Meyer doesn't. The wolf pack is portrayed like a painful toxic relationship and they all treat each other terribly. There's so much horror in terms of how the women are treated and the amount of brut ality within their fights is always a bad thing that Bella is terrified at. The entire structure of pack society is considered to be a foreign, kind of messed up thing in the book.
The Cullen family is portrayed as loving and kind, even if a few relationships in it are wrong. In the last book Bella even got to form her own bonds with the family that showed how much they loved each other, underneath all the spite. The Cullen family had lots of problems, but Stephanie Meyer wanted them to be a good family regardless of those problems. So despite the fact that they're just as toxic, it's not seen that way by the fanbase/haters.
@Leah’s Contemporary I have read all of Midnight Sun. And while I can’t deny certain points of your comment, I would like to argue that even though Edward finds Alice annoying, he still does love her incredibly much; what siblings don’t find each other annoying every now and then. And Rosalie and Edward may have a harsh relationship, but they never say they flat out hate each other. Not to mention that after Bella has proven she’s no threat to the Cullens’ secret, and when Edward introduces her to his family, he hears in most of their thoughts how warmly they think of her for being so brave to be around them knowing what they are. Esme even mentions how much she adores her and has been wanting to meet her since she brightened Edward’s world. I’m not disputing anything against the Wolfpack, and I know their burdens and do feel for them. But I’m still team Cullen all the way.
I didn’t realise how many Mormon texts and beliefs Stephanie Meyer included in Twilight. You really ate this video essays can’t wait to see the reactions
Bruh there are people who genuinely believe people who criticize the series are jealous. I'm like yeah??? Why wouldn't we be! But we know better.
My intuition always told me this was very Mormon like. And I grew up in Utah as a Momo! I never knew Stephanie was Momo! This is so gross.
One of my friends dad dated the author of Twilight. He'd bring it up every time I hung out at my friend's house. Growing up Mormon is so strange.
Omg what did he say she was like personally?
@@leahscontemporary apparently she was really genuine and nice just really mormon 🤷♀️ nothing too juicey lol
I never hear the Mormon aspect of this discussed from someone with real life experience growing up w the faith so bless this video for existing, what an interesting perspective!
Great video! As a twilight fan who was raised Mormon this very much covers some interesting territory, and we can’t forget the long khaki skirt that Bella wears that is an object of LUST for Edward LMAO
Ever since I saw a portrait of Joseph Smith and how uncanny it was to Carlisle's character, I was fully hooked on this topic!!! I have driven all of my loved ones crazy with my thoughts on this, so thank you for posting😭
um i haven't seen twilight but I was raised mormon and Joseph Smith was a convicted con man before he even made up mormonism, he was hooking up with and marrying off a bunch of preteen girls, so much so that his own followers tied him to a tree and nearly castrated him but instead tarred and feathered him, he directed his cult to burn down offices of newspapers that criticized him, and he was drunk when he was shot and killed when imprisoned for trying to create a state theocracy. were you saying they look alike or their characters were similar? cuz if any of the characters in Twilight acted like Joseph Smith they would be a pretty evil character.
I'm sure she wrote Carlisle's whole character after Joseph Smith. The other Cullens do treat Carlisle like some holy icon.
Oh daaaaaaaaaammmmnnnnnnnnn 😂
he looks EXACTLY the same and the family idolises him to the point of him being god like or living without sin and setting an example, that makes sm sense
Didn’t Joseph smith’s family turn on him though?
That was a very interesting analysis! We don't see a lot of people talking about how Meyer being Mormon has influenced her writing, and I think you nailed it on your video, going from what inspired her to what the story symbolized when it came to her views about the religion. The story always struck me as a fantasy - creating a protagonist that's just like you and having them have everything they want in life, including a diabetes-inducing happy ending. It makes much more sense seeing it from the point of view of someone who grew up being taught the same things as Meyer. Thank you for sharing!
when I found out about stephenie being a mormon I immediately ran to tell my mom and she yelled "oh my god! that makes so much sense!!!" lmao
I always wondered why my mormon parents were so into twilight now it all makes sense
What the fuck that's wild.
Lol my Mormon parents hate Twilight, they think it's trash lol. As do my friends
Dude, I was NOT prepared to see this video title as I was scrolling the home page. I've never been more confused, or interested by a TH-cam title.
this was so great! I didn't know much about Mormons, but I've been saying for years that Twilight feels like a religious conversion story in which humans are non-believers and the other types of vampires are no-good believers (they drink from humans), and the Volturi seem very clear catholic people, while the vegetarian vampires are like the legit believers, the only ones who live properly.
I loved your analysis and insights! This was a very easy 'hit the bell button' for me.
I've been waiting for this video since I found out that SM is mormon. I was always so confused with how that fits into the messaging of the books considering Bella is so unconcerned about her soul.
I never understood why Bella didn't drink coffee
Really good video essay. I was completely surprised when i saw you had so few subscribers I had to fix that. I'm an atheist so maybe its my perspective, but the more I hear about Mormonism the crazier it sounds. I feel bad for anyone trapped in that cult.
thanks for this video!
first of all, I finally understood what mormonism is about
and second - it was really interesting take and even thought I knew about the connection between Twilight and mormonism I was afraid that knowing how exactly this story is based on it would make me disappointent, but you saved the day, I still can enjoy it, yay!
Actually, this isn't what Mormonism is about. A few of the points in this video are correct (like that we believe in eternal life... Actually that might have been the only correct point), but in general this wasn't a good explanation of the religion. I am Mormon, and it's actually very different than as explained in the video
Thank you for the video! Very good :) Did you notice the Mormon overtones in the new Ring of Power show? One of the show runners and main writers is Mormon and it explained a lot about what imagery they used.
Thank you for this video! I loved having some insight on the Mormon church in relation to Twilight. Now I have better understanding as to why SM wrote the vampires with virtually no downsides.
That’s an argument I never knew how to put into context, and now I know lol
If vampirism’s physicality can be traced like this to the Mormon’s Plan, then why would SM write any negatives about it.
They may not have downsides but I'd argue that they do have natural enemies. The Quileute shapeshifters and the Children the moon to be exact. Humans are treated as mere cattle by the vampires throughout the story
This is a fantastically made video, I hope there are many more to come! What a wonderful channel :) p.s. I love that you used the CES letter as your reference.
This has got to be the best Twilight vid I've seen yet (and I've seen so many 😭😭😭). Seriously great job I can't wait to see what else you will do!
Thank you!!!
I find it extremely odd that you can look at the movie Twilight and be bombarded with Mormon symbolism. To most of us it just looks like a vampire love story.
I think what you're seeing is more a revelation of your strong ties to Mormonism and how very much it still fills every aspect of your thinking, rather than any real link between a vampire love story and the Mormon religion.
Interesting video! I used to teach World Religions in college, and whenever students would ask me about Mormonism, I'd tell them the Twilight saga is Mormonism in sparkly vampire format! I'm not sure I'd agree with you that SM is subverting Mormon theology, though. But I haven't read the books since they first came out. I'm also not sure that Jacob represents the devil. Years ago I read another Mormon commentator who connected Jacob and the Quileute clan to the role of Native Americans in Mormonism.
This was so intriguing so interesting and honestly profound bravo please make a part 2 ❤
This was an interesting recommendation in my TH-cam feed...
I was the target demographic when Twilight came out, and as a member of the church I understand and appreciate the lens of this analysis. There is so much of the church culture in these stories. Good and bad.
I would hesitate to say that she is actively subverting the religion though. I think she is just writing about her experience.
I don't know where you grew up, nor what the church culture was like, so I don't presume to contradict the way you feel about your time in the religion.
My experience is very different than what you described. Yes, sexual purity and chastity is important, but in my house (fourth of six kids) it was equally important for the men and women. My sexuality was not gatekept by a man, I am not even sure how that would work.
Growing up I was never told that I was destined to be a babymaker, but rather young women, and young men were taught that family was the most important aspect of life. "No success can compensate for failure in the home" - is oft quoted. And now, as a business owner and mother of four, I agree. I love building my business, I love working with my clients, but the thing I love most is raising my kids. And yeah we believe in eternal family and continued creation, but the idea that women just disappear and don't do anything is laughed at in the discussions I have. Like, there is so little that is actually orthodoxy in the church about what happens in eternity that it feels a little disingenuous to say "oh yeah Mormon women think they'll just be making babies forever"
So yeah, I don't think SM is railing against the church when she makes Bella horny or says forget my soul. I think she's just writing different experiences she's had in her life.
Solid video though and a very interesting listen!
That makes the Volturi akin to the Roman Catholic Church...
wait can we talk about how edward basically didn't want the baby until he heard its thoughts in the womb and changed his mind? Smeyer really threw a half ass heartbeat bill argument into an already very pro-life story lmao
As a black person who knows the lore…I get it.
Yea.... black people and mormom theology.... yikes
Great analysis! I can't believe this is your only video, I would love to see more.
great video essay, I related a lot of what you said about this, i also grew up in the Mormón Church, not anymore in the Church but growing up i was such a fan of Twilight, this could have blow my mind at 12 year old, love your video
I was sad to see this is your only video I wanted to binge content from you ;-; please keep it up this was very interesting and well made ♥
I was so excited to see the title of this video, because I rarely see these three things discussed together! I'm not the target demographic for Twilight, so I became aware of the gist of the story around 2008-ish. The Mormon themes were immediately obvious, and I actually appreciate the books as the first mainstream Mormon fairy tale. A sort of "Saturday's Warrior" for the Gentiles.
I'm not going to praise nor bash Meyers' writing quality. Yeah, the books were a tough slog for me. But I'm not a teenage girl anymore. My generation swooned over "Flowers in the Attic." Is that any better? The terrible prose, the melodrama, the creepy shit (in FITA, the brother and sister are fucking, which makes Edward watching Bella sleep seem pretty tame). We're quick to bash on the tacky media enjoyed by girls, while holding up the tacky media enjoyed by boys as some kind of high art.
I totally agree with you that Meyers was working through her Mormon heritage in writing the series. However, I don't think Bella represents the Molly Mormon nor the Jezebel: Bella is the Perfect Investigator.
Edward isn't the Joseph Smith stand-in either; Carlyle is. (The actor cast as Carlyle in the films even looks like the more flattering depictions of Smith.) The War of Words at the end, culminating in the victory of free will?
So, our Perfect Investigator decides early on that she wants to become one of them and join their Eternal Family. But there are a few things she's not willing to give up. Her sexuality, for one. For a series supposedly so prudish, Bella is horny and unashamed of it throughout the entire series. There's no male gaze here: Bella wants it. (Edward, still trapped in the belief that sex will lick her cupcake/he will end up nomming on her, is not idealized by our POV character.)
Somewhere around Book 3, she gets fed up with Edward's imperiousness and demands that her priesthood-leader-to-be knock it the hell off with filling out college applications on her behalf and making her life plans for her without her consent. When he pushes the issue of forbidding her to see her friends, she hops in her truck and goes to see her friends. I sense some ambivalence from Meyers about priesthood authority and the patriarchal order in there.....
"The Hunger Games" is often characterized as "Twilight for Smart Girls." Katniss is the Girl Boss to Bella's clumsy, boy-crazy, judgmental-internal-monologue. But let's break that down:
Which one knows what she wants and zealously pursues it? Which one is rarely able to make a choice and her ultimate fate is decided by forces beyond her control?
Both books include a love triangle, but Bella actually has to CHOOSE between two suitors that (we're supposed to accept) are equally compelling. Katniss never has to choose. She just winds up by default with the guy who doesn't turn out to be a douchebag.
And the best part? The most influential Mormon on the wider culture in the last 20 years.....is a woman!
I don't want to ignore that there is some really racist shit in the novels and in how Meyers approached writing them. She never spoke to any member of the Quileute Tribe before ham-fistedly mangling their oral history to serve her narrative purposes. Obviously that has parallels in Mormon history and doctrine as well. It's irrelevant whether she was exploring or critiquing that aspect of her heritage. She handled that part really badly.
Damn, now I wish I knew more about Mormonism so I could understand the comparisons in this comment. (Even though I’ve never read or seen anything from Twilight outside of video essays like this.)
@@emmakane6848 Every major set piece in the Twilight novels has a parallel within Mormonism.
For example, Mormons believe that, before we were born, our spirits lived in the "pre-mortal existence." We chose to come to Earth in bodies to be tested, and we can be with our families in the highest degree of glory (i.e., heaven) only by undergoing a special marriage ceremony in a Mormon temple called the "sealing ordinance."
The sealing, as well as Mormon baptism, are required to get into the highest level of heaven, but these rituals can only be performed on Earth, so there's a loophole: The ordinances can be performed by proxy for dead people, which is why Mormons are so fond of genealogy. They aim to posthumously baptize and seal everyone who has ever lived.
Twilight is a classic example of a non-doctrinal genre of Mormon fiction known as "pre-mortal romance": Two souls fall in love in the pre-existence and then promise to find each other once they get to Earth.
Because they're immortals, the Cullens are literally an "eternal family." The whole "imprinting" thing that caused millions of readers to wonder WTF Meyers was smoking (falling in love with a BABY?!?) is an extension of pre-mortal romance. Jacob and Renesmee were in love before they were even born, you see. They're fated for each other. (Again, pre-mortal romance is not doctrinal, but it's an inevitable extension of the doctrine.)
Mormons also believe that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers, both sons of Elohim (God the Father). Jesus and Lucifer each proposed a plan of salvation for humanity. In Lucifer's plan, everyone would simply be forced to believe and to be a good person and go to heaven. In Jesus' plan, each person would have free will---to choose whether or not to believe and be good.
Elohim favored Jesus' plan, leading to a great "War in Heaven"---but not a war with weapons and killing, but a war of words, where they each tried to persuade all the other spirits to join their side. The parallel to the end of Breaking Dawn is obvious. (This part was altered significantly in the film, presumably because that scene was boring AF to read and would have been even more boring to watch.)
There's more---a lot more---but that's enough to see how Meyers was wrestling with her Mormon heritage in writing the Twilight series.
Another perfect example: It's commonly taught to young Mormons (particularly girls) that if they aren't sexually chaste, they will be akin to a licked cupcake/chewed-up gum/brownies mixed with poop, etc. These are ACTUAL object lessons used in Church youth meetings. They'll pass around a cupcake and have everybody lick on it....until pretty soon nobody wants to lick the cupcake because that's disgusting.
Lesson: Sex will ruin you so no one else will ever want you.
Edward doesn't want to ruin Bella (i.e., he doesn't want to have sex with her for fear of losing control and accidentally eating her for supper), but Bella never sees it that way. She's horny for Edward throughout the entire series---and she has no shame about that. For a Mormon woman of Meyers' generation, that is RADICAL.
And I've barely even scratched the surface. There are dozens more examples like this.
Rosalie is another. She's the only vampire who doesn't want Bella to join them. Because Rosalie was never given a choice about being made a vampire, so she wants Bella to "have the choice I never had."
Children who are raised Mormon are typically baptized at age 8, at which point they make lifelong covenants to God. Later in life, they may question whether they ever had a true choice at such a young age, or were even capable of making such consequential promises before they were old enough to have learned the multiplication tables.
I interpret Rosalie as the part of Meyers who's asking herself whether she still embraces her faith. If she had the choice NOW, would she still make the same decision? Especially if she embraces her sexuality without shame and doesn't want to be bossed around by her priesthood leader.
Again, for a Mormon woman, those are unspeakable questions to even be asking.
In its full Mormon context (which was the only reason I read Twilight at all), Meyers is much more daring, more inquisitive, and more feminist than a non-Mormon reading of the series can possibly give her credit for.
i was always very preplexed as to why the chaste stephanie meyer chose the unholy vampire to write about and not something like an angel...the immortality thing just really explained a lot right now thank you
Because as she always stated. Twilight was a dream she had that she writen down
Ty! I've always wanted to hear a Mormon's perspective on the series. Waiting for part 2!
This person is literally an ex-Mormon, so you still haven't gotten one. I'm a Mormon and my family hates this franchise. It's super toxic and doesn't align with our beliefs. I think it's worth mentioning Meyer is a Mormon in Utah which is different from Mormons around the world. Utah Mormon culture is the weirdo "20 and not married?!?", "my kids wear pioneer outfits for modesty", and general cringe that other Mormons around the world (and I do mean the entire world) reject. It's even been called out by our leaders. Unfortunately, that culture is the only aspect of Mormonism that ever gets any reference in media.
There are members in almost every country in the world and like any other religious group, we're chill normal people with a few odd ducks. And as a Mormon, I can tell you the men and women dynamic depicted here is extremely incorrect. I won't go on a full rant here, but one big flaw with this depiction is ignoring the existence of the Relief Society - the largest women's organization in the world - which is the women's version of the priesthood organization.
As someone who was never a Mormon ( but had a lot of Mormon friends, therefore researched it in college), I remember reading the series and told my husband “I bet the author is Mormon!” I could see it
This is such an interesting perspective, I know way too much about twilight and almost nothing about mormonism so I really appreciate you explaining how they connect! The only thing is I don’t think Jacob was a temptation. Bella saw him as a brother and used him to cope with Edward leaving. The only time she spoke of a future with Jacob was in New Moon where she said she could see herself marrying him not because she wanted to, but because she just wanted to keep him in her life. She spoke of marriage with him like something she’d sacrifice in order to keep him around because Edward’s absence was too painful for her when she wasn’t with Jacob. In Eclipse when Jacob kissed her she punched him, and the only time she kissed him was to convince him not to leave. She’s never been tempted by Jacob in a romantic or sexual way, so I don’t quite see how that comparison lines up
What the crap is wrong with waiting until marriage? I was incredibly horrified when I learned that people had sex before.
I don't know how old you are, but a disadvantage of waiting for sex after marriage is that you have no way of knowing if you and your fiance are sexually compatible if it's not even a subject of discussion until after you've already tied the knot. What if one of you is asexual and has no interest in sex while the other one wants it all the time? What if one of you has kinks you would like to indulge in and the other is freaked out by that? You also have no idea what you're doing the first time you have sex with another person because while the desire for sex is instinctual for most, the actual act is a learned skill that takes practice and newlyweds who've never had sex before risk being disappointed by insanely high expectations, and especially so when both partners go into a relationship with unspoken but different expectations. One person's dirty talk could be incredibly insulting to another, but this mismatch of expectations, preferences, boundaries, and limits can be completely avoided if a couple is able to discuss these things with each other as part of the getting to know you process well before they reach the point of being legally bound together.
To summarize all that, it's not NECESSARILY that waiting for sex until marriage is a bad thing in and of itself, but waiting for sex until marriage also tends to mean that sex isn't discussed at the level it needs to be to determine partner compatibility, and THAT is what's bad about it. It's much easier to break up with a boyfriend/girlfriend than to divorce a spouse.
Great video essay. I used to live in Salt Lake City (never was a Mormon though) and this was very insightful and interesting. Subscribed!
OMG I never knew or thought about this, let alone knew that Stephanie Meyer was a Mormon. Thanks for an amazing video essay❤❤
Thank you so much!
I feel so happy seeing people talk about how creepy Twilight really is.
This is a good analysis, but I disagree with your conclusion. Bella always had to do what Edward wanted and could never have anthing she wants on her own, and in fact never bothers to want anything else besides being with a man. That is totally what Mormonism wants of women. She has no particular will or interests of her own, and she has to follow the rules to be immortal. In fact I don't see any diverengce. The fact that Bella doesn't care about her soul just puts her more under the care of Edward, who clearly knows better. And I don't see her exploring her sexuality at all.
This was a fantastic video! I see this is a new channel? I subbed and hope you get to make more. Thank you for making and sharing!
Just want to say that this video is really well done. I'm not sure if this is your first time making a TH-cam video or just the first video on this channel, but good job. You got my sub and I can't wait to see what you post next
honestly clicker bc the title was funny but the video was actually well done and made good points!! I’ve been wondering if rosalie is some kind of weird stance on women who can’t conceive bc the concentration on her never being able to have kids w Emmett was always very meh to me
As a teenager watching the films I found it manipulative of Edward when he wouldn’t turn her until they were married and he wouldn’t have sex with her until she was married and if I remember rightly wouldn’t turn her until they were married, and it wasn’t like he didn’t want to have sex with her, so it felt more like a tactic, also he kept saying over and over they couldn’t be together but was jealous and possessive when it came to Jacob. It was like he was saying you can be with me but only under these conditions and following my rules, baring in mind he is a lot lot older the power dynamic is off too. To me what SM might have wanted to come off as chivalrous just felt creepy, and just my personal opinion but I think a couple should live together, have sex, have an education/adventures and live a little and not be a teenager before committing to one person, getting married and completely changing your life irrevocably by becoming a vampire, having children ect. Bella was so young, her brain hadn’t fully developed and she hadn’t had other life experiences to compare it to. If Edward really cared about her they should have set boundaries and made plans together I.e date for a few years with Bella studying abroad for a while ect. It just felt like to get what she thought she wanted which could not be undone and she had nothing to compare it to or time to think she had to submit to Edwards ‘rules’. Anyway just my thoughts, could be wrong. Hope everyone is having a good start to the new year. Stay safe, happy and healthy, have lots of fun, let’s try to be kind to one another and live a life full of love. Xxx
Let me tell you all a story about when I was 13-16...
I dated a Mormon. After about 6-8 months, he had decided that I was to be his wife, that I was to have kids with him. At 14. And I. BOUGHT. IT!
I ALMOST RAN AWAY FROM HOME TO BE WITH HIM!!!
Christ, I'm so glad I gained half a mind to NOT DO ANY OF THIS
As I Mormon, I promise we're not all as crazy as your ex lol! We have more common sense then that, in fact most of us don't even date until 16 years old 😂
@estherhinds6314
Oh trust me, I wasn't trying to disparage all members of the CLDS; I do still have friends who are of the church, and they are some of the kindest individuals ever. My ex did have some problems that were no doubt influenced by the old doctrine, but I am well aware that he was an isolated incident
@@umbria_666 oh that's good! Funny story, I'm glad to hear your explanation though 😅
AMAZING video is all I can say, since every other thought I could have is already being discussed in the comments (and I love it!)
This makes so much sense I never realised there were so many similarities :0
Your analysis skills are phenomenal. Your voice too is extremely soothing. Eagerly waiting for a new video
This was interesting. I'd have to look into more statements by Meyers before I was convinced, but it's a nice interpretation.
Mormonism and feminism have a fraught history. Once upon a time, they were considered progressive when it came to women's rights, so much so that Utah was vital to women's suffrage. Unfortunately, that changed over time, and by the 60s, church leaders were telling women to vote against feminist propositions without even reading them.
I don't think she wrote Twilight intentionally for it to fit into her believes. But literature is yet another form of art at the end of the day. And art can never escape the influence of its creator's personal believes.
In a way, arts can expose the artists' best hidden thoughts and desires without them even realizing it.
you're wrong. she literally said that their relationship was about the importance of abstinence. she is intentional with this aspect of her writing.
That outer darkness visual at 2:56 is the coolest thing in this video! Let's all go RIGHT NOW! It'll be a vacation!
Part of me wanted this to be even longer. I was into this.
This is genuinely interesting, i would never think this of twilight, like i'm pretty mind-blown and it all makes sense. Great vid!
What an incredibly interesting analysis of Twilight. Thank you for your perspective as someone involved in Mormonism.
I wonder if the aspects of Twilight that could be considered antithetical to Mormonism could reflect some sort of denial or defense against those negative aspects of Mormonism that you mentioned. Given that Bella is a self-insert of Stephanie Meyer herself and that the later is still an active member of the church, it sounds to me like she's saying, "I see myself as an imperfect woman who has agency over my life, and I choose Mormonism," thus making the argument that Mormonism can be for everyone, not just the pure. There's also the fact that in the end, Bella -- the "imperfect" one -- ends up getting saved by the symbolically Mormon Edward, which I interpret as Mormonism saving Bella and giving her her happy ending. I'm curious as to you thoughts on this, since my experience with Mormonism is minimal.
I’ve been dying for someone to do a dive into the parallels between Twilight and Mormonism, but discussion about religion esp Mormonism is forbidden in the Twilight fb groups. Thank you for this video! :)
Nobody talking about the fact that Meyer wrote the Edward, the ideal perfect husband, being a white man while the one who tries to make Bella deviate from her path, who puts her into dangerous situations, who falls in love with the protagonist infant daughter and literally turns into an animal, is a brown skinned (or as Meyer likes to say, "red") native american. Like what the fuck. Who thought this was a good idea.
As a "mormon" I just want to say that there are a few things that you said that can be badly interpreted and this is due to that most mormon learn what their families and the leaders of the place that you attend teach, the "real" parts of religion is learned by reading by yourself the books and studying the actual leaders. Also I have the lucky to born in a family who wasn't all about religion and as I grew up I realize that according to the "prophets" you should stay in a middle ground, yous should search by yourself about the things that they teach you but you should also listen and try.
I also wanted to say that I feel sad to see so many comments about their bad experience with "mormonism" and wanted to say that I don't think every religion is bad.... there are a lot of religions that their own followers are the ones who transform things that can help some people into "either you do what we said or your going to hell" and when you hear what their actual leaders said is not the same that some other are teaching or preaching.
With that being said, I just hope that all the ways that you and other people in the comments are using to let out your bad experiences or wounds towards the church doesn't be to say that every person who follows that religion is bad.
The video was still interesting tho, u should definitely keep analyzing more things in your channel!
I agree. I have had some traumatic experiences with wolf church leaders but just used the church's doctrine against them lol
I grew up in a very Mormon area and, to this day, have several Mormon friends and family members. The LDS church has some extremely odd beliefs and I do not agree with them. I, however, was raised Catholic and still am today. I reject the idea that religion as a whole constrains feminism. I certainly think the Mormon church has some very skewed beliefs regarding the role of women, but I have never felt that from Catholicism.
Just my little soapbox because I get tired of people generalizing all religion as bad. I have never read twilight and have only seen the movies maybe once, so I can’t comment on how accurate I think this analysis is.
Great video! Thanks for tying in some of the lesser-known facts of Mormonism
As an active Latter Day Saint I think this is an interesting take.
A couple things I think is interesting are
1.) you think women are only for making babies. And that women will not be goddesses but instead be baby making slaves. I’m not sure who the f taught you that but okay.
2.) you do not have to be a Mormon to go to byu. They don’t even ask.
3.) it’s an interesting take for sure. I’ll be honest, I think any ties to Mormonism beneath surface level is a stretch.
4.) imo Jacob would be the “righteous choice”. His family already likes her. She keeps her humanity. His family isn’t tempted to kill her and drink her blood at every second. He is constantly warm, comforting, protective, and fun.
Edward is a vampire, which in vampire lore, they made a deal with the devil, either directly or indirectly. Vampires are cold, and in many cases heartless. Vampires embody almost everything that involves evil in many theologies. Vampires have permanently lost their souls.
Very informative video and I LOVE your editting- I was cracking up. Way to cover this topic!
Really cool! Can't wait to hear more from you :)
Thank you!!
I always thought Carlisle looked like Joseph Smith. If you’re reading this, congratulations. Now you can’t unsee it.
I can tell Mormonism isn't true bc I definitely would've become a devil henchmen yet here I am
No, because my stepgrandmother who was super mormon, was in the same ward as Stephanie Meyer. Ward is a church group. And when I was 12, growing up in the mormon church, my stepgrandmother only wanted part of my life to make sure I was the still on the path of the church, as the rest of my cousins didn't want any part of the church. She said "I was the only one who could be saved." When I turned 18 and inevitably left the church, she and my grandfather were already divorced at that point. But she messaged me over Facebook and had the audacity to tell me I was on the wrong path! She didn't know anything about my life. Just goes to show how healthy the Mormon church is to families, which they claim to prioritize so much. Oh yeah, she even told my dad he was a bad father bc his kids left the church.
as an old wise twihard veteran i really thought i know everything and nothing can surprise me
i've heard about twilight's mormon theory before and it made total sense
but u, oh my, u girl just opened the whole another dimension with that essay!!
Loved it! You should make a video about the fashion in twilight and how it relates to maybe modest mormon fashion? that could be interesting
Ohh that's interesting, I'm only noticing it now but it really does show through.
Well it is cold in Washington state, that's why they're covered up
@@tamarleahh.2150 the kakhi skirt begs to differ
Nah that can be explain in the narrative. Bella is described even by herself to having little fashion sense. And It's stated in the first chapter that when she came to Forks her and her mom had to pool resources for the Washington weather
It all makes sense now, this why my crazy mormon aunts love the book series
I’m not Mormon but I know a lot of the basics. So I did see some of the Mormon ties to Twilight when I watched it. You pointed out way more that I missed.
excellent video!! I wasn't aware of those aspects of Mormon theology, cool (and concerning) to learn!
As a Mormon, it's actually really inaccurate. She's very much skewed our beliefs to either springboard off of to a very wild conclusion or purposely ignored things that counter her "Mormon church is women-hating" idea like women holding leadership positions in the church with the Relief Society - which is the largest women's organization in the world that is patterned after the Priesthood organization -, Primary, and Young Women's organizations all lead by women at every level of the church's structure. RS & YW in particular have programs encouraging self-reliance and education so women in the church are NOT the Stepford Wives who live exclusively for their husbands.
It kind of makes sense that she missed the Relief Society part since it's the women's organization and she left the church at 18 so she would've only just been going, but yeah. She's basing this of Utah Culture Mormonism which is very very different from actual doctrine.
It's very weird that her argument hinges on this idea that Mormons are somehow nefarious for encouraging motherhood and family as though nearly every other religion in the world doesn't? And as though literal biology doesn't exist for the continuation of our species? Atheists encourage motherhood too and often also choose to be stay at home moms because mothers have a strong bond with their kids. It's weird that she's framing that as some patriarchal plot instead of basic biology.
But even in that, she once again purposely ignores the actual church doctrine given on how, yes, motherhood is beautiful and divine, but women are also encouraged to be well-educated, hard-working, and there's definite flexibility with each family situation on how the roles of the household and no one is lesser or frowned upon if they don't/can't get married, have kids, etc... I'm the breadwinner in my marriage and my husband and I don't have kids. It's completely fine. We aren't sub-members. I've even been in multiple leadership callings. So, once again, the doctrine and actual beliefs of members is not extreme. Some of the Utah Culture is, for sure. This person just unfortunately conflates the two.
BYU isn't exclusively Mormon, I've known plenty of Muslim and Catholics that went there, they do have to have their ecclesiastical leader sign off on the application and have to go to their respective "church" each week, but you don't have to be Mormon to go there. The thing is, with everything going on right now, most of the non-mormon people that I know that went there almost refuse to say that they went there, hahahhahahahahahahhahahaahhaah, like if they could take it off their CV for jobs they would, lol
I really love your video style! I'm looking forward to watching more in the future! You just earned yourself a new subscriber :D
In the “only men can preform miracles” it would be kinda funny if meyers took it further and made only male vampires venomous, which she amended with half-vampires
Or if she decided that only male vampires had "gifts"
@@Melissa-sx9vh we’re taking this deeper 😈
I was big on the Twilight books and the first two movies as a kid. I've never understood the rampant hate although I understand that there is plenty in the books that we would no longer endorse as adults. With that being said this is the best analysis of Twilight I've ever seen. (not a Mormon)
I have never seen or read twilight, and I am not and have never been a Mormon. This was fascinating lol
Oh wow! Now I understand why a young Mormon mother wanted to go to the premier of the first “Twilight “movie
this was so informative, thank you
My head canon is that Edward and Bella either slowly starve to death as the sun’s luminosity destroys all life on Earth a billion years in the future, or they are engulfed in a fiery death as the Sun enters its red giant phase. 🍿
As a fellow exmormon I disagree that Twilight is a rejection of mormonism.
I just always thought she came from a horribly abusive family system, but that is pretty common in mormonism.
im probably late to this game but i think you comments are missing the point. If it were up to Edward she never would have been turned in the first place. She goes to his house and forces the vote. Then he comes up with a compromise, i.e., if you marry me then yeah. Those who are affected by the LDS church (namely the creator of this video and meyer herself) see Bella as someone who had a choice. Im not saying she did or didnt because theres a lot of nuance in this topic, but if the creator, someone who genuinely sees the parallels as an individual who grew up in a similar environment that meyer did, says that they can see this as a rejection of the mormon faith, then maybe they know what they're talking about. I wouldn't know because I'm not mormon. I personally appreciate the opportunity to hear about their thoughts!
In all the research of the saga for my own rewrite of the series I never really pieced together how connected it is to Mormonism. Holy Christ this is sort of creepy.
Mormans believe what?! Ehh. What?! That book of Mormon must be wild to actively contradict the rest of the Bible and still have so many followers. Wild. Anyway, good analysis! I appreciate it.