*Spoiler*
I think that is where Breaking Dawn went bad as well, Lyz, but not for the sex itself but rather how she wakes up bruised ‘but it’s ok’ and how that steps too closely to being battered.

As for the sex, it may have been a bit much – personally, I preferred the suffering romance that is always on the brink of consummation but never quite gets there. At least if you DO go there, give me more than feathers.

As for Lestat, I never found him particularly alluring. An asshole, yes but never attractive.

Also, the fourth book did badly once all the sex was added. Fans were outraged and critics panned it. It doesn’t fit the universe to have that much sex, or in a way, sex at all.

But I would have loved them to be more monstrous, this would helped sooooo much.

SPOILER: I’ve only read a few scenes from Breaking Dawn in a moment of sado-masochism. When Bella is turned, she can control her hunger. There is NOTHING horrific about a vampire that has got everything under control.

That’s certainly the perspective that Raymond Chandler and Alan Moore both expressed on film adaptations of their work (I really don’t know what Chandler’s attitude towards the adaptations of his work was though). Personally, I’d say that Twilight weakening the vampire myth is dependent on what it’s long-term effects are perceptions and portrayal of the Vampire. That seems a bit early to tell.

I will however, argue, that the power of Vampire mythos has already been weakened by overexposure and overuse in popular culture, particularly the romanticized outsider portrayal seen with Angel, Interview With a Vampire, etc. In that way Twilight’s really just the decadence of a particular approach to the Vampire mythos.

I’d say it does based on my experiences with comic fandom. An old marvel mini called RUINS in which much of Marvel’s character stable was subjected to grisly fates in a nightmarish world gone wrong put off a lot of people, even though it was clearly not part of the main Marvel universe and was meant to be a deadpan black comedy. (Admittedly it wasn’t that good at communicating the latter.) And much of it was due to people seeing childhood characters they grew up with getting mutilated. (An even more extreme example would be the collective howls of indignation when preview art for Grant Morrison’s then-upcoming X-Men run was unveiled; by the reactions alone you think he had entirely restaffed the team with depraved villains and made Xavier and pederast, but no it was simply because people did not like the particular line-up and costumes.)

I’m not sure if complaints about Twilight are exactly analogous to these examples (certainly the ones in this discussion are not as extreme as the latter example), though the basic psychological mechanism seems about the same. I’ve made similar complaints about pop-punk relative to classic punk in the past.

That’s not really what Twilight is about. Yes, it’s about desire but the only thing keeping the relationship from being consummated is the fact that Bella’s human and the reason Edward doesn’t want to turn her: he doesn’t want to take her soul. Spoiler – eventually there is sex. Lots of it.

MY biggest problem with Twilight. Even though we hate it, we still talk about it. And there I go again.

Just so everyone knows I have copied this conversation over to Row Three because I think it is very interesting and I would love to hear more people’s thoughts. Cause in effect saying that Twilight lessens Vampire Lore overall is the equivalent of saying that movie remakes lessen the original if they are not good and that adaptations of other works lessen the original if they adaptation is not as good. This also should mean then that if the adaptation is better that it should increase the value of the original source material.