Repetition and novelty in Twilight and its fan fictions
Letters of Opinionarchetypes / Beauty-and-the-Beast / Dracula / Fifty Shades of Grey / Frankenstein / genre critique / mythology / Transcendence / tropes / Twilight / vampires12 Comments
The idea for this essay started with a question: what is it about Twilight and its derivations, especially Fifty Shades of Grey and Transcendence, that allow these variations to represent “fresh” and “new” in the retelling? I’m not interested in whether these books are good or bad, nor am I concerned with their relative value and benefit/detriment to readers. I’m just interested in the possibility that the very familiarity of the tropes and archetypes might provide a foundation that puts a spotlight on the points of differentiation and adaptation, and this is an exploratory essay, not a polished work with clear conclusions. Also, please expect spoilers.
It should come as no surprise that Bill Condon, who directed the two-part film version of Twilight: Breaking Dawn, is now working on a live-action version of Beauty and the Beast. Condon likens Part 1 to Bride of Frankenstein, and from the first book in Meyer’s series, Edward’s references to himself as a “monster” makes the connections to both horror and romance, to Frankenstein, Dracula, and Beauty and the Beast (from the 18th C version on). Edward’s “making” by Carlisle, his attempt to live on his own, his ultimate return to Carlisle and Esme and their unconventional but nonetheless functional family structure, and his heartbreaking love for Bella (“La Belle,” aka Beauty) — the echoes back to Beaumont, Shelley, Stoker, et al. are clear.
Both Fifty Shades and Transcendence utilize these literary connections, as well, especially the Beauty and the Beast fairytale. All three stories offer superficially similar “beauties” and superficially different “beasts,” even though they all demonstrate a controlling nature, opacity to the heroine’s understanding, and the mission of guiding the young heroine with long brown hair into a disorienting but potentially satisfying new reality (a common romantic trajectory).
Twilight, Fifty Shades, and Transcendence: Superficial Differences
On the surface, the three books seem pretty different. In Twlight, a high school girl goes to live with her father in a small Washington town, feeling awkward and isolated, especially after discovering the beautiful Edward Cullen. Despite Bella’s belief that she is just an ordinary girl, Edward the vampire is hopelessly attracted to Bella, and though he tries to keep his distance, the two quickly become romantic friends, not sexually involved but clearly romantically bonded. One of the biggest conflicts in the first book is fueled by Edward’s fear that he will not be able to resist Bella’s blood with his ‘monstrous’ vampirism, while Bella ultimately wants to be turned so that she will be able to stay with Edward forever.
Edward’s character is re-written as a young and eccentric Washington billionaire in Fifty Shades, while Bella is aged a few years into an awkwardly innocent college student Ana who falls for Christian, who is immediately attracted to Ana but is afraid that he will not be able to resist ruining her innocence with his ‘monstrous’ need for sexual control and punishment of his partner. Ana, like Bella, is a virgin who has never been in love with a man before, although Bella is a slightly more ambivalent about Christian, choosing to leave him at the end of the first book.
In Transcendence, Ehd is living in what appears to be a prehistoric period, having lost his tribe years ago, hungry and lonely and hoping to catch a meal when a young woman wearing strange clothing falls into his hunting pit. Despite the fact that he has no idea where she came from or who she is, he is immediately recognizes her as his “mate.” Unlike the other two books, Transcendence is told completely from Ehd’s point of view, although he cannot communicate verbally with Beh due to what the author tells us is the absence of Broca’s Area in his brain. Consequently, Ehd must guess at a lot of what Beh is doing, and the focus of the story from his perspective is on him protecting her from danger, getting her to acquiesce to have his babies, and on their family life and ultimate survival.
Bella, Ana, and Beh: “Beauty”
One of the first obvious similarities between the three heroines is that they all are somewhat pale with long brown hair that attracts the hero. Edward tells Bella that “the perfume of your skin, your breath, your hair” made it impossible for him to stay away from her. Christian vacillates between gently pushing Ana’s hair back and holding roughly on to it while they have sex, and he also makes specific demands that she put her hair up when he wants to have sex with her. Among the very first things that Ehd notices about Beh when she falls into the pit he had dug to catch game is the “shining brown hair that flows over her shoulders and down her back.” One of the ways he wins her over later in the book is by carving a comb so she can tend to her hair, something she had been trying to do with a twig.
Of the three heroines, Bella has the broadest community of family and friends; both of her parents are portrayed in some detail, and she develops a friendship with werewolf Jacob, who serves as romantic competition for Bella’s affection when Edward temporarily removes himself from Bella’s life. We see Bella interact with her classmates, at least at the beginning of the series, although she tends to ignore her friend Jessica as she and Edward become more serious. Beh is the most isolated heroine; because Ehd narrates the story, we literally know nothing of where she came from and who her family is until the very end of the story, and beyond these silences, Beh is, for much of the story, completely alone with Ehd. Ana is somewhere in the middle; she has a roommate who serves as the means by which she meets Christian, and at least one male friend who, like Jacob in Twilight, provides some romantic competition for Christian, but as the book moves forward, Ana becomes increasingly immersed in Christian’s life and routines, and less identified with her college friends and “home” community. She is also the oldest of the heroines, which theoretically gives her more individual mobility, although she does not always engage its benefits.
Edward, Christian, and Ehd: “The Beast”
Of the three heroes, Edward and Christian are the most superficially similar, in that they both possess a power that makes their influence in the heroine’s life extreme and dangerous. Edward’s vampirism makes him literally non-human, and given the fact that Fifty Shades was written as Twilight fan fiction and minimally edited for publication, Twlight’s invocation of Dracula and Frankenstein, among other fiction that crosses into the horror genre, is implicated in the construction of Christian’s own “monstrous” propensity to hurt women during sex (note: I am not referring to Christian’s sexual behavior as BDSM because it is not accurately represented as such. In fact, Christian himself admits that his behavior is a coping mechanism related to his own childhood trauma, p. 315). Christian’s power comes from the magnestism of his economic and business success, and while he does not quite sparkle, as Edward does, like Edward, his own power can make him dangerous to women, including and especially Ana:
Christian sets me on my feet on the wooden floor. I don’t have time to examine my surroundings – my eyes can’t leave him. I am mesmerized… watching him like one would watch a rare and dangerous predator, waiting for him to strike. His breathing is harsh but then he’s just carried me across the lawn and up a flight of stairs. Gray eyes blaze with anger, need, and pure unadulterated lust (p. 253).
In fact, Christian often uses the language of danger to justify the control he seeks to exercise over her life. When he has her car sold out from under her, in order to buy her a new one, he tells her, “’Anastasia, that Beetle of yours is old and frankly dangerous. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you. . . ‘”(p. 190).
Both Christian and Edward attempt to exercise a significant amount of control over the heroines, and both do so with barely suppressed anger. When Bella is almost attacked by a group of men, Edward, who has been watching her, races to rescue her, ordering her into his car with a “furious voice”:
But I felt utterly safe and, for the moment, totally unconcerned about where we were going. I stared at his face in profound relief, relief that went beyond my sudden deliverance. I studied his flawless features in the limited light, waiting for my breath to return to normal, until it occurred to me that his expression was murderously angry (p. 162).
Both Christian and Edward stalk their heroines. Edward stands guard in Bella’s room at night while she sleeps (unbeknownst to her at first), while Christian has a habit of breaking into Ana’s apartment and trying to manage various aspects of her life. Both exert an almost hypnotic control over the heroines. As Bella puts it: “Because when I thought of him, of his voice, his hypnotic eyes, the magnetic force of his personality, I wanted nothing more than to be with him right now (p. 139). Ana often refers to herself as “mesmerized” by Christian, as if under an influence beyond her control. Bella describes her relationship with Edward in similar terms.
Similarly, both heroes feel unworthy of their power and the heroines’ love is both desirable and impossible to them. “’I am no good for you’” (p. 368), Christian tells Ana, while Edward responds to Bella’s desire to be with him forever by asking her: “’Is that what you dream about? Being a monster?’” (p. 500). In Twilight, one of the central conflicts centers on the question of how a vampire and a human girl can have a human-type romantic relationship, while in Fifty Shades that conflict is structured around how Christian and Ana can be together when Christian cannot seem to control his desire to punish her sexually. In Twilight, the stakes of the relationship are more problematic on the physical level (will Bella be turned, and if so, what does that mean), while in Fifty Shades, the stakes are more emotional (how can Christian have a healthy intimate emotional relationship).
On the surface, Transcendence seems a departure, in part because Ehd is the narrator, and thus the filter through which we get the story. While Beh is the most underdeveloped heroine of the beauties, Ehd may be the most developed character, in large part because he is the primary and single storyteller, save for the very end of the story, when the reason for Beh’s existence in Ehd’s prehistoric world is revealed. Also, because Ehd is a caveman, he has the most superficial similarity to a “beast,” which, given the linguistic complexity of his thoughts (more on this later) and his growing feelings of affection for Beh and their children, is at least partially subverted. I say partially because Ehd’s characterization evokes the stereotype of the noble savage, a romanticized image of the man who, outside civilization, shows himself to be more humane than the so-called “civilized” person. The stereotype primarily functions to both Other the noble savage character and criticize (usually) white, Christian cultural values. In other words, it is primarily a product of the white imagination, a simplistic symbol that often lacks human complexity in order to do its work of criticizing “civilization.”
In Transcendence, Ehd’s nobility is communicated in part through the sophistication of his own narration. For example:
There is nothing— nothing in my entire existence— that compares to waking up with my mate curled tightly against my chest. Though I had not realized it at the time, the loneliness had weighed heavily on me during my time of isolation, and now I’m beginning to wonder if I would have survived much longer on my own. I could hunt and protect myself, but the lack of companionship had been slowly destroying my will to live.
Before Beh, I hadn’t thought about the loneliness in such a way. Maybe I just ignored how I felt when I would lie awake and look out into the darkness of my cave, listening to nothing except the crackling of the fire and the wind outside. I only remember feeling empty inside.
Now that Beh is beside me, like she has been for the first part of the spring season, I feel warm and full (p. 85).
When she gives birth for the first time, Ehd knows he needs to “deliver the placenta,” and when he wants to make a knife, he refers to the process as “flint knapping.” The modernity of his language reflects a logical break, both temporally and linguistically, although it gives his character the sophistication that the absence of Broca’s Area could suggest is absent, as well.
Although Ehd’s caveman characterization superficially distinguishes him from both Edward and Christian, he shares their controlling tendencies. Like Christian, Ehd is sexually fixated on Beh. In fact, his first thought of her is that she will make a good mate and mother of his child. As he takes her from the pit and brings her back to his cave,
I take her wrist in my grasp and start walking toward the cliff walls and my home. As she had in the pit, she begins to struggle and grab at my hand and arm. She tries to back away from me, her arm extended as she turns and tries to escape through the use of brute force.
It’s… cute. . . .
She is so beautiful— her smooth hair and her deep eyes and her creamy, pale skin. I don’t like the noises she makes, but she looks to be able enough, even if she is small. I briefly wonder if she is fertile and if she would bear a child who looks like me.
I like this idea.
A lot.
Finally, after all this time alone, I have a mate (p. 11).
Indeed, the word “baby” occurs in the book a hundred times, and most of those references occur before the two even have sex. Unlike Christian and Edward, Ehd appears to spend much of the novel winning Beh over, which makes sense given the fact that she has clearly landed in his space through some sort of time travel. Also, the fact that we only ever get her perspective through his narration, and he cannot render, let alone translate most of her words, the reader’s sympathies are necessarily pushed toward Ehd, because his mind is the only route into the story.
Similarly, by having him narrate, he becomes familiar much more quickly to the reader than he does to Beh, which functions to secure the reader’s faith in his good intentions, even when Beh cannot. Simultaneously, the strategy almost erases Beh as a character, because her familiarity is inferred through the fact that we know she is likely a contemporary young woman, perhaps even a teenager still, whose likely terror is actually amusing to Ehd, because he has no intention of harming her, at least not within his own conception of the term.
Bringing Together the Old and the New
Despite the seemingly significant differences between Transcendence and the other two stories, there is a deep similarity among the works, namely that they are all investigating the question of how two individuals from drastically different circumstances and perspectives can live happily and in love. The Beauty and the Beast archetype drives all of the stories, although each one refigures the nature of the “beast,” and constructs beauty as both a taming force and a figure who must, to some degree, be tamed by the hero. Ana becomes the sexual submissive Christian believes he needs, while Beh becomes the sexual mate who bears Ehd’s children and becomes attached enough to him that when her father inexplicably arrives in the prehistoric world (in a classic deux ex machina), Beh chooses not leave with him. Bella must accept her own human nature while helping Edward to see himself as humane, even if he is not human (in yet another version of the noble savage myth).
Although Transcendence does this most obviously, all three texts bestow the most character complexity on the heroes, which also follows the fairy tale structure, and if we go back to Shelley’s Frankenstein and the book’s articulated concerns around how science would affect the family and even God (who has the ability and the right to create life?), those questions are definitely echoed in Twilight (especially when Bella gets pregnant in the last book), and while they are not as obvious in the other two stories, if you replace “science” with “society,” the dilemma is not so different. In both Fifty Shades and Transcendence, there is some anxiety around how either gender roles or markers of ‘civilized’ society affect the relationship between men and women. And in Transcendence, there is a point where modern medicine intervenes to save Ehd and Beh’s daughter, not intrusively, but in a way that actually saves the perpetuates their cave family (and, for the reader, the fantasy of this improbable and, for the most part, logically unsubstantiated time travel story).
Without question, all three stories make use of popular genre Romance tropes, from the Beauty and the Beast archetype to the billionaire hero, the brooding damaged hero, the innocent ingénue heroine, time travel, lust at first sight, the nature of everlasting happiness (via the vampire myth), and opposites attract, among others. However, each version of what is, in the end, a pretty similar mythos, highlights a different aspect or builds out a new part or restructures certain aspects of the characterization to ask the same kinds of questions in different ways.
Where Twilight uses the vampire to ask questions about immortality and the nature of humanity, Transcendence (notice the title and its thematic link to Twilight) drastically limits the human experience of its protagonists and forces them to prioritize some of the most basic and mundane human functions and experiences. And yet the way in which Ehd and Beh die together, entwined in their cave, seemingly satisfied despite the pretty limited experiences of their world, there is an intimation of immortality that is emphasized in the book’s final scene, where we see these figures presented in a museum, where they continue to exist.
And like Transcendence, Fifty Shades is largely focused on the hero’s sexual desire for the heroine, but where Ehd and Beh live a somewhat simple life that is complicated by all of the communication and time-difference problems, Ana and Christian have much more complex lives through which they struggle with some pretty basic problems around how to manage the distribution of emotional power within their relationship. There is both a great deal of obvious overlap that may make the differences even more distinctive and affecting to the reader. Still, what deserves more consideration is at what level these differences are being registered — at the level of the writing and/or voice, at the level of the reader’s emotional response, or at the level of the storyline and characterization (tropes and motifs).
Even for those who have not read all three books, the tropes, myths, and archetypes at work in these stories are not unique to these stories – in fact, I’d argue that they are among the best known and used in the genre, and therefore likely to groove right into the unconscious expectations readers have when they encounter a certain story type. And because these grooves are worn by so many versions of the same story, it might be that even the smallest divergence can trigger a reader’s attention in a way that signals something “fresh” and “new” and different. And depending on how any given reader has interacted with text, which stories signal “new” to the reader will be different. That these books all are explicitly connected helps elucidate common themes and distinctions, while also raising the question of how the mainstreaming of fan fiction is helping to shape authorial interests, reader expectations, and genre trends.
Thanks for a thoughtful essay. For once, I’ve actually read all three books under discussion, so I was able to appreciate all of your comments. As an aside: While I’m not generally one for companion books, I’d like to read Transcendence from Beth’s point of view.
That’s a fascinating question, and one I’d love to see explored more. Since I’ve only read the first book of the Twilight saga, and neither the Fifty Shades trilogy nor Transcendence, I can’t answer it, but I would love to hear what people think.
As to the question of novelty, I think setting is also a consideration, particularly the setting of Transcendence. Again, I have not read it, but we don’t come across romance set in prehistoric times very often.
With regard to the level of writing / voice, I remember that in one of our discussions of Fifty Shades of Grey, Evangeline Holland mentioned that she found the use of first person POV refreshing. It’s hard to remember now, but before Fifty was published, there were far fewer romances written in first person.
I’ve only read FSOG, but I believe its novelty, so to speak, is that it blew up regular romance conflicts, sexual content, and character archetypes x100. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both Twilight and FSOG attracted female readers from their teens to much older–aren’t they essentially “women’s fiction”?
As much as romance touts itself as being “by women, for women” it functions differently than WF. And YA has long been female journey-centric (even the popularity of male authors like John Green are driven by female readers). Twilight and the fanfic/P2P community it inspired very much matches the resurgence of WF that seems to come around every few decades–wouldn’t early romance classics be more WF if they were first published today?
@Janine: Yep. It’s because I read Gothic romance before I discovered the actual romance genre, so FSOG was a throwback to those books.
Because of this, I thoroughly disagree with the assertions that Ana is a mere placeholder for readers. As much as FSOG is about taming Christian Grey, it’s equally about Ana’s growing awareness of herself as a woman, of her sexuality, and being in a relationship.
@Kareni: Thank you for pointing out that Beh’s “real” name is actually Elizabeth which we do not find out until the very end. The more I think about it, the more I am struck by how Transcendence almost erases her identity, and her name is a strong indicator of that.
@Janine: I assume FSOG was written in first person because Twilight was (remember that the characters’ names in the original fan fiction were Edward and Bella). But it does have very interesting implications for the series.
@Evangeline Holland: Although I only treat the first FSOG and Twilight books here, I think it’s easy to argue that across both series, Ana is clearly the best developed heroine and has a more dynamic character arc; in fact, she is probably the best developed character among all the books and protagonists. IMO that becomes much more evident in the second and third FSOG books, as compared to the second, third, and fourth Twilight books. And when you read both series in contrast to Transcendence, you get a pretty close facsimile of a placeholder heroine in Beh.
On placeholder heroines: I think that was Bella’s role in Twilight (I can’t speak to subsequent books in the series). She was portrayed not only as very ordinary, but also bland, and I remember reading opinions about that (I can no longer where) which stated that her blandness, her inoffensiveness and lack of distinction at anything, made it easier for readers (teenage girls especially) to put themselves in her place as they read. That is not to say that Bella’s role wasn’t important, but Edward was the character who stood out, while she blended into the background.
@Janine: This is really something to think about, because of all the heroines, Bella is probably the most embedded in a community. Which should make her the most filled out as a character. But Ana is probably the most complex, in part because she really struggles with her own sense of identity, whereas Bella seems to struggle most with the men in her life (and I may not be doing justice to the later books – it’s been a while since I read them). And yet Ana is also much more isolated, which is more in line with romance conventions, but can also make the heroines either flat or solipsistic. And yet, as you say, Bella’s “inoffensiveness” is pretty consistent, especially when one of her most distinctive and dynamic characteristics seems to be her hair, which is so distinctive and it marks the other books, as well. It would be interesting to delve deeper into the comparison between Bella and Ana on this point.
I’ve read all three books and really appreciate your insights into them, and wish I had more to add to the discussion! You touched on a lot of the things that pushed me away from each of them, and I definitely agree that the woman in each case is erased — intentionally, at times, by taking their arguments as meaningless, their desires as meaningless, and the man “knowing better” — which is a big part of why I couldn’t buy into the romance. Even told from a woman’s POV in two of them, it isn’t about her.
I once saw a documentary that went around and asked people to describe characters from the Star Wars trilogy (and the subsequent/prequel trilogy) without using the character’s name, job, or equipment. For the first trilogy, everyone — right down to the droids and the wookiee who don’t have speaking roles — is easy for strangers on the street to describe and attribute characteristics to.
For the second? There’s a lot of “er” and “umm” going on. I think Jar-Jar is the only one who gets any kind of distinction from the others as “ANNOYING” and “slapstick”.
That’s how I feel about the women in these three books. If you asked me to describe them without using their names or the movies they’re in, or their jobs, or possessions… it’s… bland. Awkward? Clumsiness is the only one that really comes to mind for the first two as we’re TOLD over and over how clumsy the heroine is, but… eh. Kinda pretty. Mostly useless and clueless. No ambitions or actual desires of their own (or are immediately supplanted by the man’s). Milksop?
It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with these books, but they’re definitely not what I look for when it comes to Romance, same as Star Wars Episodes I-III are not what I look for when it comes to Sci-Fi/Adventure/Action/A movie I can enjoy.
@Lindsay: Thank you so much for your comment – it’s given me a lot to think about! You know, the standard argument for these types of heroines is that they’re placeholders for the reader. And that may be true. I definitely think that in the case of Transcendence, the reader is being encouraged to connect and sympathize with the hero in ways that the heroine likely would not, given the circumstances of her being there. Which maybe doesn’t make her a placeholder as much as a character whose blurring out allows, encourages, or even forces the reader to engage with the hero differently. Which, I know, can be interpreted as the reader falling for someone unhealthy, but maybe it’s more that the reader can engage with both characters in different ways.
For example, Ana stands out to me in the way she struggles to manage both her feelings for Christian and her own power in the relationship (later, especially). Not a lot stands out about her except that, and so when I read the books, I engage with her in terms of the power struggle between her and Christian. Other readers may connect to her differently, or connect to Christian differently. In Transcendence, Beh’s erasure seems to increase Ehd’s control of both the narrative and of her, so I actually ended up feeling very distant from him, paying attention to how I felt the narrative was actually sacrificing Beh to make Ehd seem sympathetic with all his baby-putting talk. I remember being struck by how amused he was when she fought him the first time he tried to carry her back to his cave. Here this poor girl has just fallen from who knows where, we see her through the eyes of a narrator who cannot communicate with language, but he tells the reader very clearly and articulately that he’s aroused by this girl’s struggling and her attempts to escape. Emotionally it shut me off from the narrative, and intellectually it made me pay attention to how the text was using Beh to supplement Ehd’s characterization. Given the great reviews for the book, clearly other readers engaged with the characters much differently.
And maybe this is part of why these types of books are popular. Maybe it’s not just that the heroines are bland and therefore don’t serve as competition for the reader’s interest in the hero, but that the fact that they’re not fully formed or developed or filled out creates more options for the reader to engage the text as a whole, from testing out the heroine’s place to being able to see the hero in more distinct relief (and not necessarily in a romantic way). Interesting.
Transcendence was Twilight fanfic? My mind is kind of blown.
@Shayna: Yup: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13413862-transcendence
@Janet:
Oooh, thank you for YOUR comments! I’ll admit I’ve been mulling over this post for a couple of days and seeing what fell out of my head when I shook it, but your description of how you interact (interface?) with Ana versus Beh really resonated with me.
I think a big part of my “not getting” some of these books is that I don’t read them the same way/for the same reason that some folks are — I don’t do self-implantation in Romance books (I actually do in other genres, which is why I had such a lightbulb moment over this). I’ve always felt like people were describing this great dog, this awesome dog, they LOVE this dog, and I’m like I LIKE DOGS TOO but when I get there it’s a goat. And goats are awesome but absolutely not what I expected nor really what I wanted to deal with (and sometimes I will inspect them thoroughly, and yes, upon finishing, it was indeed a goat). So these books might be goats to me where other people are definitely getting dogs.
I definitely like the thought that some characters (and I’m going to say both heroes and heroines in this case — what else do we really know about Edward, say, beyond his phylum (vampire) and that he thinks Bella smells really tasty? Not a lot. Part of this is from Bella finding him so opaque and unfathomable and her narrative being the one we’re getting, but I wonder if some of it isn’t to let readers fill in the blanks of their ideal hero as well. I’ll admit in books, until I get an actual description of a character (and often afterwards, too) I will have someone COMPLETELY different in my head and it’ll briefly jar me out (for example, Lawrence Fishburne is Master Z in the Shadowlands and nobody can ever convince me otherwise).
I think for Transcendence, half of me was disappointed there was no Beh narrative because I LOVE stranger-in-a-strange-land tropes, and the other half of me is the Girl Guide and Boy Scout who was grumpy she didn’t even know how to poncho. I think having Ehd’s narration for all of it both took away any issues of… not necessarily consent, but his genuine caring for her being in question, rendering him safe while at the same time letting the story go on. I find some books I really enjoy (I’ve been on a Grace Burrowes rip) do narrative flips at specific points to make sure the reader’s on the same page, or at least reassured, that the hero isn’t MEANING to be creepy/scary/etc. Of course, whether or not I buy into it is going to depend on how much I’ve connected with the characters. For ME, I connect with them through their… characterization, obviously, but also through their thoughts and words and actions. I want to know them as people more than I want to replace them with my ideal people, and I think that might be one of the reasons why these books are pretty much guaranteed misses for me. I don’t know if that’s a condition of coming in so late to Romance or not — if I self-insert in SF/Fantasy, which was my bread and butter growing up, I might have done the same with Romance as well. To this day there are some authors I cannot read without putting the books down partway and writing my own self-insert versions, and I’m mildly embarrassed about that!
I’m all over the place so here is another thought,
Major spoilers for Transcendence:
I was able to go along mildly uncomfortable and somewhat annoyed at the book but did finish it, but the last chapter did me in — not because of plot or time travel mechanics or whatever (I’m okay with unanswered questions sometimes) but with Beh’s age. I’d been picturing a late-20s woman, and that one fact COMPLETELY changed my entire feelings about the entire book and went from “eh, not really my thing, but I get why it’s so different in interesting ways” to “NOPE FOREVER”. So I guess details can be… not-so-tiny after all, if they will throw out my entire feelings for a book and replace it with a big NOPE stamped on it. Some small detail for other people (I’m imagining lawyers for a lot of readers here) is likely enough to do the same for other people, hence the placeholder-ness. The most inoffensive character’s the one who is a cardboard cut-out, maybe?
This is not true in real life, btw — we made cardboard standees of some people in our office (because reasons), and while they are agreeable and don’t interrupt in meetings, they’re also really creepy and hover over you like Edward over Bella’s bedside. Watching. Never blinking. Not even breathing.
@Lindsay: The end of Transcendence is so interesting, isn’t it? The narrative was disintegrating in terms of actual logic by that point (WHY did she not leave with her father? What is that thing he shows up in, and IF her intention is not to have the old world changed, why have the medical kit and the digital photo frame?), and that last section did not resolve all of the issues. But one important thing it does, I think, is remind the reader that the story is derived from Twilight. And I think that’s important not only because of the way it positions the narrative relative to Bella and Edward’s relationship, but also because it demonstrates the rewriting of Bella as both Beth and Beh.
The reader first meets Beh, but Beth has to come first, in order to appear as Beh. So the backwards flow of the narrative overtly points to the revision of the heroine to serve the hero’s narrative. Beth only exists outside Ehd’s narrative, which I think raises some interesting questions about how both Twilight and its other fictional derivatives (fan fiction or not) construct both the protagonists and their relationship.
For example, Twilight begins with Bella’s story and then lets her feelings for Edward kind of overwhelm the narrative. Transcendence starts with Ehd’s story and keeps Beth/Beh distanced from the reader until the end of the text, at which point we realize that we both do and do not know her. How does that then circle back to the beginning of the text, and to an earlier point in the line of inspiration (with Twilight)? Like how much of Beh’s character is the reader supposed to import from Twilight?
As you note, if you don’t know how old Beh is, in fact, that last section can be really disruptive to the reading experience. And if you do, if you’re “in” on the conversation between Transcendence and Twilight, maybe Beth/Bella’s absence, or at least remoteness, is necessary to tell Ehd’s story. But that cuts two ways, because her character can be filled in via Twilight, or blurred out so that she is no longer such an integral part of the Twilight narrative. Which may not make her so much a placeholder as a function of Ehd’s story.