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I got into an argument with this at school. She was of the opinion that Twilight was better than Harry Potter. Her reasoning? Harry Potter's characters had too much personality, while Twilight's characters were blank and boring enough that she could put herself in their places. #LFHerF
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This is where we start castrating for the same of future generations….
Whilst I agree with your views on Twilight and Harry Potter, having a personal opinion/preference is NOT a fail. If that’s how she feels, then it’s a perfectly valid reason for preferring Twilight – she enjoys it more, and that’s none of anyone else’s business. Also, without saying what you think would be “better,” how exactly do you expect anyone sharing her views to “learn” from this? It would be like saying “I like red. My brother likes blue. Learn from his fail.” Where’s the fail if she’s happy with her choice and it doesn’t hurt anyone?
The only thing needed to be said.
Most people, when they claim A is better than B, don’t do it citing a reason that A is demonstrably worse.
You don’t get it- she didn’t say that Twilight’s characters being less detailed is “worse”, that’s just your interpretation because that’s not what you look for in a book.
What she looks for in a book is apparently less details about the characters (which is not an uncommon characteristic of a book, btw), so for her, Twilight was better for that reason. It’s quite probable that this is also the reason why OP didn’t like Twilight, but the opinion whether that aspect of the book is a good thing or a bad thing is subjective, and depends on the readers’ taste.
Have you read “The end of Mr. Y”? I read it, and I don’t remember anything about the characters, not a physical description or personality. Not even the main character. But the plot was awesome and it’s really a great book (and no, I didn’t pretend I was any of the characters).
The thing is : she was saying that having less personality makes it a better movie… not that it makes it more enjoyable to her.
If you look at it from an objective point, having less personality isn’t a good quality for a movie. As such, regardless of which you prefer, harry potter is a better movie as far as the characters are concerned.
I can be the same way as the “fail” person here (not as in “I like Twilight,” no…just no), but I like less detail when it comes to setting. Some authors go into way too much detail for settings and it takes me OUT of the story (the completely opposite intended effect). For me, simple is usually more elegant and beautiful than something that’s overdone.
So while I personally love to have well-defined characters that grow emotionally throughout a book, I can understand where she’s coming from.
Jane Austen is similar. I re-read “Sense and Sensibility” recently and found myself skimming entire pages of character description. I like the story itself, but when it comes to Austen, I typically like to watch the movie first so I know the story, and THEN read the book. IMO it’s much better when you can weave the characters’ personalities into interesting dialogue and the story itself rather than using entire pages to talk ABOUT them.
But your points are about writing style, not about character development. Writing too much about a character is not good, but that is a problem with the way the character is developped, not with the fact that the character develops.
Objectively, “this is girl, girl does stuff” isn’t as good as “here is [well defined character], character evolves into changed person!”. As such, OPs point stands (as long as fail girl was saying twilight is better, not just more enjoyable to her)
Sigh. She didn’t specifically say she preferred it- she directly said it was better. There’s a difference between personal preference and genuinely being a better novel.
She says it’s better because that’s her preferrence. How do you objectively decide one novel is better than another? There’s no quantitative way to say Harry Potter is better than Twilight or vise versa.
There’s no quantitative way to say that anything is better than anything, since goodness is not a quantity. One can, nevertheless, objectively say that some things are better than others; there are standards by which literature, like all art, can be judged. If there were no objective standards of art, then all art critics and film reviewers are thieves, swindlers, and snake-oil salesman, purporting to sell a product that cannot exist.
Art critics and film reviewers write their own personal opinions about the piece they’re reviewing, they don’t pretend it to be some universal objective truth. This is why one critique can write a piece is good and you’ll think it isn’t, and vice versa.
PapushiSun’s comment stands, saying that something is “better” is stating a personal opinion. You can disagree and think it’s “worse”, and it’s perfectly ok.
Sigh yourself – that’s the terminology that people tend to use in real life when they’re trying to win arguments. And OP might well have misquoted.
I agree about the misquoting thing, but we can’t just assume too much (for example, maybe there were talking about the best twilight movie vs the worst happy potter one?)
As for quality, there ARE some evaluation points. For example, it’s safe to say that romeo and juliet IS better than [insert book generally regarded as being bad].
General reference points as to what makes a story “good” are : plot, setting, characters, conflict and emotion. (don’t know if I covered all of them)
In OPs case, they were only looking at characters and a flat character is not regarded as a good character. Some people may prefer these characters, but, for a story, such a character is not better.
When you think about it, something being “better” is really public opinion… and opinion about characters is (generally) that more depth is better (well not TOO much).
Yes. It’s not a FACT that Romeo and Juliet is “better” than [bad book]. What is a FACT is that Romeo and Juliet is CONSIDERED better, by literary experts and/or popular opinion, than [bad book].
I wish I could think of a genuinely bad book to examplify… how about this :
“There once was a boy. He died. The End”
^ that story is not as good as Romeo and Juliet. That’s a FACT.
The reason being that the story has little to no plot, no character depth and no elements that make up a good story. There ARE elements that can be used to qualify a story, though they are sometimes hard to quantify.
The OP and the girl have agreed that the “character depth” element of Twilight is sub-par, which relates to it not being as good a story as Harry Potter, which has good character depth.
I know what you’re saying, and I agree that Romeo and Juliet/Harry Potter/whatever is a better story. But we still can’t say that it’s a FACT that one is superior to the other, much as we would like to. There may be someone, somewhere whose life is changed by the little story you wrote there
A fact is something that can be proven, and there is no way of proving that one story is better than the other. You can prove that one has more characters, or is longer, or has more sub-plots, but sadly you can’t prove that one is better.
The word “better” is the problem. If you want to quantify something as being “better”, you have to put reference points. Luckily, there ARE some reference points for the quality of a work of litterature, though they are a bit hazy.
What you’re considering as “better” is what you like more.
I’m considering “better” as meaning “fulfills the elements of a good story more”.
Of course, someone may like my short story very much and be very touched by it, but that doesn’t change the fact that my story does not fulfil any of the elements of a good story very well.
Saying “what you like better, you like better” is fine, but when trying to argue the quality of something, you have to look at it from an objective point of view.
The thing is that the elements of a good story are also a matter of opinion, even if the vast majority of people share that opinion on them. I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one, K
The fail is that it’s not a personal preference… she’s saying “the movie is better”, not “I enjoy the movie more”.
I guess it really depends on the wording used by the other girl, but if she WAS saying that Twilight was BETTER (as opposed to “more enjoyable”), then this is definately a fail.
It is, because “better” is objective. There isn’t one single definition for what makes a movie “good”, therefore when someone says they think one movie is better than another “better in my opinion” is implied.
I think that “King of California” and “Whatever Works” (both films starring Evan Rachel Wood) are much better than “The Day After Tomorrow” (one of the most ridiculous movies I’ve ever seen), but TDAT probably earned the production a lot more money. So is it better? The producer and studio and investors will probably say “yes”, artistically- I think not, others might disagree with me.
There’s no one right answer.
The same goes for the Twilight vs. HP discussion that OP mentioned in his post. For that girl, Twilight *is* better, because it better suits her needs. If those are the needs of the target audience, and HP’s audience has other needs (in this case- well defined characters), then each movie is “better” for its respective audience.
I’m not trying to defend Twilight (never watched it), but to make the point that in art, “better” is subjective.
That’s the problem here, we don’t know what she meant by “better”. The litteral meaning would be that it is “objectively better”, but she may have meant “more enjoyable”.
If we assume she meant “more enjoyable”, then no on can argue about that, since it’s personal opinion.
“better in my opinion”, on the other hand, says that “my opinion is that ____ is objectively better”… which is what she thinks and may not be true. As such, we can argue that point.
There ARE some points which make some art pieces better. If you compare a scribble I do on a sheet of paper to the mona lisa, the mona lisa will obviously be better. The reason being that it has more depth, emotion and effort put into it.
As for writing, “character depth” IS a point which affect the general “quality” of a book. If a books characters have good depth, it will generally be regarded as better. Some people may not like that in a book, but personal preference doesn’t matter.
Haha, actually I’ve heard that opinion as well. That the characters don’t have enough details so you can technically replace them with your own. Which is one of the reasons why it is popular, since everyone’s imagined characters are actually quite different…
That’s pretty typical in “romance” novels (for the heroine at least). Make her as bland as possible so anyone can “self-insert.”
Precisely, which is part of the reason they are called “trashy” and “guilty pleasures.”
So what you’re saying is the author isn’t responsible for the characters depth, the reader is. As such, having no depth does not make the story good, but the story becomes good after the reader inserts his own character.
So you’re saying that every reader is a better writer than Stephenie Meyer.
Yup. That’s about right
Well that wasn’t what I was trying to say… but… *everythingwentbetterthanexpected.jpg*
I’ve never read/seen any of the Twilight books/movies, but I must admit that the reasoning is interesting.
I did read HP, and I never saw myself as any of the characters but I could see myself physically at the places described because of how they were described. Back in the early 90′s, my family and I lived in France, and I went to a school out of the city, behind a forest, big lawn in the front, big staircase at the entrance, charismatic headmaster… Whenever I read HP I keep thinking how I wish the books had come out when I was still going to that school, I would have enjoyed picturing myself going to Hogwarts even more than I did reading the books in my 20′s.
So the Twilight series may still be lame (again- I have absolutely no idea), but I find the girl’s reasoning quite interesting (especially: note she didn’t make any reference to the actual plot, but went deeper to how the characters were described). Sounds like an elaborate thought for a teen, certainly more than just “I liked it better” or “the other one is lame”. If she based her opinion on reading the books and not the movies, it’s even cooler.
I’m a big HP fan, and I don’t intend to read/see Twilight, but OP- what you describe here is not a fail, just a disagreement on opinions, that’s all.
Okay, after reading that, I can see where you’re coming from. But it came off to me as ‘Hurr durr we learn too much about them and it’s too boring, THESE people are so blank I can pretend they’re ME!’
For me, though, I don’t read a book because I want to pretend *I* am running around wielding a sword. I want to read about the bad@ss wizard/knight/assassin/whathaveyou and what THEY are doing. Get away from it all for a while. I guess if you want to pretend you’re a book character it works for you, but when I would imagine my own variances of the story I’d just add in a character I’d created. That was a lot more fun than pretending I was there.
Basically, I’m boring. Why would I want to read about ME when I could be reading about someone completely awesome?
It’s not “read about me”, for the people who want to pretend they’re one of the characters it’s precisely that “get away from it all” that you’re talking about- while reading the book, they’re not the boring every day “them”, they’re this exciting character who has exciting things happen to him/her, exciting enough to have a book written about it.
For me, when I read a book, I like to visualize the “scene” I’m reading. I don’t like descriptions that are much too detailed (I still remember the first book I decided not to finish because I had to acknowledge that It was boring me), I like to get the “feel” from the text in general. For this reason I much preferred reading HP in English (3rd language for me) than the translation to my first language, because the translation just didn’t give the same feeling.
I don’t remember ever imagining myself as one of the characters, but I do remember the feeling of being physically there- for example, with the kids on the Hogwarts Express, seeing the scene I’m reading, or in the common room, etc. Like a camera, in a way.
If that girl gets the “get away from it all” feeling or the visualization of the story from pretending she’s one of the characters, I think it’s a valid argument even if it’s not how I read a book or how I decide if I think a book is good or not.
It made me wonder if writers think about that when writing a book/”designing” characters, or if it’s purely a matter of writing style, or a reflection of how they read books.
As far as book quality goes, I’d have to say going for the “blank slate” is just taking the easy way out saying “MAKE YOUR OWN CHARACTER”… as such, the story the author wrote is not a good one, but the story the reader reads might be, if they swap in an interesting character.
For it to be a good story from the authors side, they would have to make a character the reader can relate to, or just make a character who is interesting to “look at”. If the author wants the reader to put themselves in the characters shoes, they should make a character that the target audience of the book can relate to, without having to create their own character.
As a comparison, writing about the “blank slate” characters is like drawing a stick figure and telling the onlooker to imagine it looking like an actual person. How good the result looks is mostly due to what the onlooker imagines. As such, the drawing is not a very good one. As we can see by the popularity of stick figures online, it may still be interesting, but it’s not a good drawing.
Yeah. I’m not a fan of the blank slate MOST of the time. It’s laziness; it’s lack of imagination; it’s asking a reader to help you write your own story and form your own characters on your behalf. As the author, you are supposed to be the expert writer: why let every Tom, Dick and Harry change your story by inserting a character that might be wildly unsuitable? Whether you think you have or not, you have invented that character; as the author, you are imagining that person as he/she is and you just need to capture that person on paper.
Sometimes it has its uses of course, but I don’t think it fits here.
That’s not a fail. That’s the first reasonable answer I’ve ever heard to that argument.
Well the “tabula rasa” concept of blank characters is usually used as another “this is why it sucks” argument, but I guess some people do like it. It just doesn’t make for high-quality literature that is worth a lot of praise.
I would just laugh. HYSTERICALLY. Not because of any dislike of Twilight or disrespect of its quality (of which I have plenty, quite honestly, not to worry) but because this person is stupid enough to think that they quality of a literary piece comes from the LACK of character and nuance!
To me it sounded like she was saying that she could empathize with the “blank, boring” characters. That made me laugh. On the other hand, I’ve seen the “blank character” device used to great affect, but that’s when an author has used it appropriately (like when a character is supposed to be “beautiful” and too detailed a description would ruin it because not everybody would agree that the features described are “beautiful” -here the idea of beauty being more important than specifics). It doesn’t work when the character’s entire personality is missing!
LOTR > Both of those.
Academically, I agree with you, but LOTR is the only book I’ve read so far that can make an assault on castle walls by ten thousand Uruks seem insufferably boring.
^^*book series, but you know what I mean.
Well, Tolkien intended it to be one book. So you were right in a way.
At least the movies make the battle scenes entertaining, which is something I find is uncommon. I’m simply not entertained by watching people with swords fight each other; it needs witty dialogue or something to keep me interested. Like the sword fights in “The Princess Bride.” They did that well.
The book for Princess Bride is awesome too. Most of the scenes from the movie are word-for-word from the book, you just have more backstory to all the characters in the same witty humour.
NOW you’re talking my language!
Are you sure you’re old enough to be at this site?
Because if you found the Battle of Helm’s Deep boring, you’re a 12-year-old.
Actually, that is the precise reason why I never finished the 3rd book. Got about halfway through it before I finally said ‘f*** it’ and moved on to something else. In my defense, I did finish the first two books and a good deal through the third, but it was just going ON and ON and ON and ON and was just so incredibly boring I could not even describe it. You can not imagine how much of a disappointment that was to me when the first movie took 11-year-old me by storm.
I’ve really been thinking of picking them up again and giving them another shot, now that I’ve got 10 years of literary experience over 12-year-old me. Now that I’ve got a bit more than Redwall and Forgotten Realms under my belt.
Read theoatmeal (you know how to find things on the interweb, right?) on twilight, he totally nailed it.
Bella is an empty shell for insecure teenagers and creepy middle-aged women to project themselves into. Bella’s character is described with considerably less words than every single aspect of “Edward’s perfect face”.
This. And I love how he calls the main character “Pants.”
Is it this question similar to debating which tastes better, excrement or vomit?
troll alert
Personally I like excrement better. Vomit gets old quick
I’d have to go with vomit, just because excrement is filled with bad stuffs. If I’m not mistaken, eating feces can get you very very sick… not so much with Vomit. (well it’s obviously not particularly GOOD for you lol)
Hmm. Both of them are bad as they are substances rejected by the body. I would say vomit is probably more dangerous, though. Vomit is where the body has gone “Uh-oh! This is NOT good for me!” and rejected it before it’s even got very far in your digestive system. Excrement is stuff that’s been passed as OK before being digested. The body can be wrong, of course, but if it’s rejected it that early on, I would say warning bells ought to ring
If the excrement is explosive diarrhoea, obviously that’s different.
Why the heck are we having this conversation, anyway?!
Well, no, usually when you vomit, it’s because something is off with your body itself… or something activated your gag reflex.
You can eat something perfectly fine and then see something GROSS and vomit because of that. The vomit will be fine to eat… although the stomac bile IS an acid, so it’s not very good for your trachea, which, unlike your stomac, is not protected from acid that strong.
On the other hand, feces are stuff pushed out as “useless” along with many bacteria that do not belong at the start of your digestive system. Also, it was never mentioned that it was human feces and other species have different bacteria in their digestive tract which can be harmful to humans.
“The chance that harmful bacteria are present is greatly increased when the substance is feces.”
Read more: Will you die if you eat your own feces?
htt p://ww w.strangequestion s.co m/question/468/Will-you-die-if-you-eat-your-own-feces.html#ixzz1pxCOcgTy
Fair enough, that’s usually true. Usually. But for things that are REALLY REALLY harmful…if you were to eat poison, and if your body recognises it as harmful, you WILL vomit. You won’t even get to try the faeces, because you’ll be dead before it gets that far. So vomit is more likely than faeces to contain seriously deadly poison. Granted, that likelihood is still very, very tiny!
I know you’re right, but I like to play devil’s advocate.
Moral of the story: Don’t eat, I mean read, Twilight.
I don’t think poison often gets rejected… if it did, it wouldn’t be very effective. lol
I know, sometimes, people injest poison and notice it… at that point they make themselves vomit to expel it… but that is very rare.
Eating feces, on the other hand, has a much higher chance of making you sick or even killing you.
And I know what you mean
whenever there is an argument going and I’m neutral on the point, I usually like to take the underdogs’ side
Oh and I forgot my manners : I didn’t even answer your question.
“Why the heck are we having this conversation, anyway?!”
I don’t know… latent scatophilia maybe?
Or subconcious preperation for a severe lack of a source nourishment? Maybe our instincts are telling us the zombie apocalypse is coming!
Ha ha!
Maybe I was going by my own experience of when I managed to ingest something poisonous (don’t ask) and was throwing up for about 2 days solid. Argh, it was horrible. Also, I’ve been sick a few times after eating dodgy food. And alcohol. Your body sees alcohol as poison. Well, it is…
Of course Twilight is better than Harry Potter. The latter is for people without imagination who fear the unknown.
Yes, because massive plot/logic holes are so much better than well plotted, internally consistent world building and character creation. “Does my maladjusted, way too old for me boyfriend like me?” doesn’t really hold a candle to the well-designed Xanatos Gambit (of nigh Chronicles of Amber intricacy) of Dumbledore.
If I’m going to read trashy supernatural romances – at least give me the sex, violence, and supernatural politics of a Laurell Hamilton novel. (A guilty pleasure since junior high)
I used to LOVE Laurell Hamilton. My mom, my sister, and I all used to take turns reading the newest book. But eventually she practically turned them to porn (in my opinion) and the story line became lost and blurred.
Really? I find the opposite. I’ve found myself using my imagination a LOT when engaging with the rich and detailed world of Harry Potter; the snatches of the Twilight saga that I’ve read have required none. In fact, Stephenie Meyer seems to feel the need to spoon-feed her readers details that they will have already picked up. For example, she might say that a character is frowning and snapping at someone and then for some bizarre reason feel the need to explain to the reader that he’s angry; at other times, she will repeat information that she’s already told you a page or two back. BOTH sets of books are for people who are excited/fascinated by the unknown – magic and supernatural beings. And I say this not as someone who thinks everyone should choose one or the other – there is no reason why you shouldn’t like both – but as someone who appreciates good literature and the beauty of the English language when it is used PROPERLY.
That is completely wrong. Harry Potter teaches you to face your fears, not be afraid. You obviously need to get your head checked,
Shouldn’t you be frightening billy goats away from a bridge?
who cares?
My aunt argued with me that she didn’t like Harry Potter because she didn’t understand the character’s names, and that’s probably why Twilight is more popular. And I quote, “I don’t know what a ‘Dumbledore’ is, it’s too confusing.”
Well hell, there goes the Iliad—one so rarely meets people named Meleager, after all. And what if she meets someone named, you know, Amrita Malhotra, or something? I mean, what’s a Malhotra?
(Also, a dumbledore is a bumblebee.)
This reminds me of egoraptor’s awesome fantasy 7.
Okay, I’m gonna have to disbelieve this one. No one dumb enough to actually have this opinion would be able to articulate it. No one. Reasonable suspension of disbelief has been broken.
..well they aren’t wrong…