Another Bite At The Apple

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(Warning: This article contains spoilers.)

On October 5, 2015, Stephenie Meyer published a tenth-anniversary special edition of her debut novel Twilight, with a twist: a gender-switched, 400-plus page rewrite. Bella and Edward are renamed Beau and Edythe. The new story, titled Life or Death: Twilight Reimagined, appears at the back of the new edition of Twilight. The idea, according to the author, came partly as a response to critics who have referred to the Twilight Saga as misogynist and/or promoting abusive relationships.

“People have complained about [the protagonist] being a typical damsel in distress,” writes Meyer in the foreword (Foreword, p. 4). “My answer to that has always been that Bella is a human in distress, surrounded on all sides by (…) superheroes and supervillains. I’ve always maintained that it would make no difference if the human were male and the vampire female.”

But does it make a difference? How much of the story has changed, and what does that say about the gender dynamics of this multi-million-dollar YA franchise?

Meyer writes: “5% of the changes I made are because Beau is a boy.” The more serious differences, however, are in the other characters’ interactions with the male Swan. They are less tolerant of Beau showing weakness, for one. While Bella’s physical fragility is “endearing” to boys (T ch. 3 p. 6), Beau’s classmates make fun of him when he faints at the sight of blood (LD ch. 6 p. 2). On the other hand, Beau is credited with a lot more agency in the area of romance; when Edythe drives him to school, his male friends assume he seduced her and praise him for it: “Dang, son, who knew you had that kind of game?” (LD ch. 10 p. 28).

Edythe herself is less controlling towards Beau than Edward is towards Bella. Compare these scenes, set shortly after the fainting episode:

““Where are you going?” she asked, surprised. Her little hand had a fistful of my jacket.” Followed by an exchange of banter that ends with Beau accepting Edythe’s ride home (LD ch. 5 p. 87).

““Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, outraged. He was gripping a fistful of my jacket in one hand.” Followed by Edward physically dragging Bella to his car even though she asks him to let go. (T ch. 5 p. 53)

The greatest change of all is the ending. Beau is, again, more active than Bella in the confrontation with the story’s villain: he smashes the camera meant to record his death (LD ch. 22 p. 58). Then, Edythe has to transform Beau into a vampire to save his life after he was bitten by the hunter (LD ch. 24 p. 14). This not only completes the story in one book instead of four, but removes almost all the plot elements to which the critics have most objected:

Firstly, there is the question of consent. Even though Bella makes it clear throughout the series that she wants to become a vampire, during the transformation itself, she is dying (quite horrifically) in childbirth and has no say in the matter (BD p. 376). Edythe makes a point of asking Beau’s permission before she bites him (LD ch. 24 p. 14).

Secondly, since Beau and Edythe become physically equal much faster, it doesn’t occur to her to abandon him for his own good and send him into a depression (NM p. 84-93).

Thirdly, since Beau never needs to rely on Julie Black – Jacob Black’s counterpart – for comfort during such a depression, the entire painful love triangle that drives Eclipse and New Moon is neatly avoided.

Fourthly, since there is no hybrid baby Renesmee, there is also no adult werewolf “imprinting” on her as his destined mate, as it happens in Breaking Dawn (BD p. 360). The entire disturbing concept of imprinting is never mentioned, which to me was a great relief. In New Moon, when one woman refuses a werewolf who has imprinted on her, he transforms in a rage and claws her face. His remorse is so extreme – suicide threats included - that she marries him anyway, even though he has scarred her for life (NM p. 345). Reading that episode with the genders switched would have been beyond bizarre.

Personally, I found Life or Death a real improvement over the original Twilight Saga. I especially enjoyed the scene in which Edythe charges in to rescue Beau from a gang of criminals, then treats him to dinner: “Try not to get caught up in antiquated gender roles,” she tells him (LD ch. 8 p. 86). That line, however, is deeply ironic in ways Meyer herself doesn’t even seem to realize. Antiquated gender roles are the backbone of this series. Reverse them, and the story changes noticeably, as proved by Life and Death.

The fact that Meyer gives more power to a male protagonist than to a female one is regrettable, but not surprising, to anyone who has read the Twilight Saga as often as I have. What surprises me is that she seems so unaware of this. In an interview in The Guardian, she explicitly calls herself a feminist: “I love women (…), they make so much more sense to me than men, and I feel like the world is a better place when women are in charge. So that kind of by default makes me a feminist.”

I do not doubt that she believes what she is saying, and that she does her best to write accordingly. As a stand-alone novel, Life or Death lives up to that claim; so does Meyer’s science fiction novel The Host, in which the central relationship is the friendship between two female personalities sharing a body. Meyer has a long way to go, however, before she can live down such images as Emily’s scars, Renesmee’s engagement, or Bella’s bruises on the day after her wedding. 

Self-awareness is important for a writer as popular as Meyer, in an age where everything she says will be picked up by millions of readers. Though she is not responsible for her audiences opinions, she is, to a certain extent, responsible for the content of her stories. When the gap between preaching and practice becomes this obvious, it may be time to rethink your career.

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Sources:

Cochrane, Kira. “Stephenie Meyer on Twilight, feminism and true love.” The Guardian. Monday 11 March 2013. Web. Monday 19 Oct. 2015.

Meyer, Stephenie. Breaking Dawn. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008.

Meyer, Stephenie. Eclipse. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2007.

Meyer, Stephenie. New Moon. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2006.

Meyer, Stephenie. Twilight/Life or Death: Twilight Reimagined – Tenth Anniversary Special Edition. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2015. Kobo e-book.