Unfortunately, no. No strife. No ills upon the gods of Olympus. (Oops spoiler)

The first time I bought it...it ticked me off. See, there's a (badly hidden) secret compartment. The game is IN THERE.

It took me 10 minutes to find it.

I have to figure out what to put in it...

But, I didn't really like game 2...it was very filler-like. The good part was seeing this big bad warrior fall apart, practically, when he saw his wife in a dream.


Sorry to the other MBers for the TJ. Not to Edward.

DD14 is an obsessed fan and she tells me that technically Edward is a vegetarian as are the other Cullens as they eat animals like bears and lions instead of people. This is the reason why Jasper keeps trying to eat Bella when ever she cuts herself - he's new to the vege game.

As far as the solemate, smell attraction, whimpering teenage angst rot in it...

Flick cant stand it either. I have read all four books, watched the movies, listened to way to much fan fic about the subject, well I agree with who ever said vampires should be like the lost boys, manly, and scary, not sparkly metrosexuals.

Oh, and I support Team Jacob, werewolves are yummier than vamps.

Ahhhhhhh......"The Lost Boys"........

I watched that soooooo many times with my girlfriends when I was my girls age (13 & 16)!!! We ALL had massive crushes on ALL of them and heck the were really BAD guys.

I read the books because DD16 asked me too. She had NEVER read a book of this size before, so I did. I rather enjoyed all of them but the final one. The movies though........ .....and it's all due to the acting and special effects.

It's a fictional story. Take it for what it is......

Not

DD21 is firmly TEAM JACOB.
The dude with the muscles.

I tried to read the first book to please my DD.
I am so far away from the intended
demographic that I might as well reside on Mars.

I think it is harmless junk entertainment.
And furthermore, I just think it is amusing that my 45 year old niece is firmly Team Edward ????

Exactly. Edward flat-out tells Bella that he wants to kill her *because* he's attracted to her - but as long as he loves her enough, he won't kill her.

So she'd better make sure he always loves her because otherwise he's going to kill her, and the implication is that it will be her fault. That's right out of the abuser script.


Sure. Another great message to send. You can cheat on your boyfriend/fiance/love of your life as long as you can convince said boyfriend that the other guy is "just a friend".

Both are terrible messages to send to women, especially to teenage girls who are just learning how to deal with boyfriends.

And I will tell you as the author of nine Historical Romance paperback novels that were in all the stores: Fiction is a powerful thing, and I don't know what the hell Stephanie Meyer was thinking when she put this stuff out there. Money is not a good enough reason to send destructive messages to your target audience just because it's what they *think* they want to hear (see above).

You could write stories about the joys of alcohol and heroin, too, about how you can "manage it" if you try hard enough, and it would also find an ecstatic audience.

To me, as a mom and as an author of Romance fiction, the *Twilight* series is no different. It's selling danger and destruction to an impressionable crowd, not as things to be avoided but as things you can manage and enjoy if you just try hard enough.

Terrible, terrible message. But obviously Meyer is crying all the way to the bank, so no problem there. Anything that makes this kind of money must be good. Another terrible message to send.

Good catch, Mulan, thanks! Of course you're totally right, we have a choice what we bring into our houses.

Mulan, I don't think anyone is saying the message in the film is good. I just think all this analyzing is overdoing it. We're analyzing what morals a movie about undead creatures that live off killing people are telling teenagers. I think if anyone expects a movie based on supernatural killing machines to not spread a bad message about relationships is fooling themself. Just because you dress it up as a romance does not take away from the base fact that the movie is about fictitious creatures that live off of killing human beings.

And while I understand as a parent that we need to guide and protect our children from negative messages, any teen that takes a movie like Twilight and think it applies how to have a real relationship is not getting what a good relationship looks like from their parents. And, yes, I know teens are impressionable; I work with hundreds of them yearly. However, in talking to them, they realize that these movies are just that-movies and fiction. They�re not taking the relationship Bella throws around as something that is how relationships work anymore than they think vampires exist in real life.

I mean the same can be said about any film fiction. Harry Potter teaches you that witch craft and practicing the occult can give you special powers and you can disect that movie so much further also. I remember when Harry Potter first came out. The churches were crying out to the parents not to let their kids watch these movies or we�d have a bunch of teenagers running around dabbling in Satanism.

Unless you�re going to limit your movie choices for your teens to movies based on C.S. Lewis works and strictly in the Christian genre, then you�re looking for trouble if you�re hoping that good relationship values will be demonstrated in film.

Kilted - You hit the nail on the head. All people, adults and children, need to realize that movies are there for entertainment purposes, not educational purposes. We are not meant to model our lives or our relationships after movies. If we did, young girls would be like Cinderella, Snow White, Briar Rose (Princess Aurora), etc etc etc and they would marry the man of their dreams after one dance, one song, one kiss.

What kind of marriages would THAT lead to, I ask you?

So how can it be any different for a movie like Twilight to show a teen's life in an entertaining way, that some teens can relate to (the idea of being in love with two completely different guys, struggling with a dad who doesn't understand, feeling like the world is out to get you, etc), but that doesn't mean that they are going to think that they should handle their lives like the characters in the movies do. That's just plain silly.

As for some of the other thread jackers... You know who you are... and I have to throw this out there....

Do I earn brownie points for being a D&Der? ;-)

Oh, c'mon guys - the creatures are not real, of course, but the massive emotional response that they *and their situation* provoke is 100% real. Have you not seen and listened to the girls (and women)who talk about this??

Here's what I know about fiction, especially fantasy and science fiction: It's never about what you think it's about. The monsters/spaceships/etc. are always stand-ins for something else.

These swooning girls aren't seeing undead supernatural killing machines because that's not really what the story is about. The vampires and werewolves are stand-ins for dreamy dangerous boyfriends who are super attractive *because* of the extreme danger they represent. That's what these girls are reacting to. And the huge popularity of the books and movies gives the audience permission to eat it up because anything this popular and makes this much money *must* be good - right?

I am as aware as anyone of what fiction can and cannot do, and I am telling you that this stuff is sending the worst kind of message to its target audience.


Well, duh - with a 50+% divorce rate and huge numbers of domestic violence incidents every day, how many kids ever had a good relationship modeled to them by their parents?


That's the old argument: "It's just fiction. It's just entertainment. Ignore the message." But this does not happen with something that has a real emotional kick for its target audience. If they could ignore the message, they wouldn't be reading/watching. The message IS the attraction.


You've got the *Harry Potter* message exactly backwards. In the films, nobody who does not already have the ability can do anything with magic no matter how much they try. The whole thing is a metaphor for all real children learning to control the powers they already have (of making decisions, of doing good or doing harm in their own real worlds) and using their own natural powers safely and wisely.


Oh, you can demonstrate poor relationship values all you want - I just don't want to see them passed off as fabulous, exciting and dreamy. And that's what this series does.

Please see my response above to this very cliched answer.


But that's not what happens in these films. Watch *Sleeping Beauty* again. Watch any of them again. Look again at what the prince always has to go through in order to prove himself worthy of the princess. For that matter, watch *Enchanted*, especially when it comes to "marrying the man of their dreams after one kiss, etc."


People in the real world do this all the time. It's actually rare in the classic stories. And as for the kind of marriages it leads to, all you have to do is read the SAA board.


Again - have you ever *listened* to any of the girls/women who think the relationships in Twilight - relationships with dangerous, threatening but physically attractive men - are absolutely wonderful and an ideal to strive for? And how they're so attracted because "yeah, he's bad but he would NEVER hurt ME!"

Ever been to a women's shelter and heard the victims of domestic violence there say *exactly the same stuff*?

*sigh*

*leaves to tear hair out of skull*

Mulan, I guess I'm just not seeing this as extremely as you. The same teenagers that are getting some relational value out of the movie is the same teenager that's going to go and start dabbling in witchcraft after watching Harry Potter. If they're not able to seperate entertainment from real life, then they're also not getting the message that because they don't ahve the gift, they cannot become proficient in the occultic arts. These are the same teens that were killing themselves when their character died in a game of Dungeons and Dragons (I knew a guy that did this). These are the same women that watch movies like Bridges of Madison County and are dispointed that their men are not romance figures like in the movies.

I�m in contact on a daily basis with hundreds of preteens and teenagers. The very vast majority of these teens are not getting some relationship learning based on these movies. Why? Because we have parents and family teaching and role modeling for them. I mean, look, we have movies like The Lost Boys which has vampires and there�s no nicety to these characters and girls and women were still swooning over these vampires.

There are groups out there that after watching Twilight have formed �wolf packs� in which they gather together and call upon their inner werewolf and wear tails and etc etc. When asked if they really believed they were werewolves and could shapeshift, they all thought that was a ridiculous question�of course not. But even if these teens thought they could turn into were wolves, do we suddenly blame the media and film a what they�re teaching our kids? Or do we as parents need to take responsibility for the example we�re setting for our kids?

These women in shelters and etc did not get to the place they because of watching a movie that had ebad relationships in it.

Mulan, yes, we can all dissect the movie into what this can mean and what that can mean and analyze the relationships of the characters with each other and what affect that will have. I can do the same with Avatar and how it�s a representation of the soldiers being the white man and the the Natives being the Native Americans and how we stole and took for them. Or that the movie is a knock against the US military and how it imposes it�s will on other nations. I had to do an 18 page research paper over Macbeth�once you start getting into the analysis of it all it loses its entertainment value.

Mulan, I'm going to beat this horse dead a little bit - only because I totally don't see these films the same way you do. Since I am currently being subjected to Snow White on repeat, thanks to my 4 year old, I'll start there.

Snow White - Prince hears Snow White singing by the well, and decides she is the love of his life. She disappears, and yes, he hunts her down, and finds her in a glass coffin, where he kisses her, she wakes, and he carries her off to his castle in the sky. They've NEVER spoken to each other.

Cinderella - She meets him at the ball, and doesn't even realize it's the prince. They dance, she never even tells him her name, and when she runs off because it's midnight, he's determined to marry her. After one night of dancing, and apparently no talking, because they don't even know who the other person is. Yes, he searches the country side looking for the girl who can wear the glass slipper, but do they POJA where they're going to live or if her family of mice can come along? Nope. They just get hitched.

Sleeping Beauty - Prince hears mystery girl singing in the forest. They dance, they sing, he asks her name and she refuses to give it to him, but after that one encounter he's decided to ditch the chic he's been engaged to since birth, and to instead marry the girl of his dreams he's seen only once and spoken to for all of 30 seconds. He goes to great lengths to locate her and fight his way through the thorns and past the dragon to go and awaken her with true love's first kiss. Wouldn't it be nice if the first man we ever saw, ever spoke to, and ever danced with turned out to be our true love who would save us from a fate worse than death?

I could go on, but I think I've made my point, and then some. These are fairy tales, not life lessons. Not suggestions on how to live and love and meet your future spouse.

Not to thread jack - but if I want to bring it back to Twilight... Part of the appeal is the forbidden aspect of the romance. Isn't that how ALL romance novels are, and all dramas? That's what makes it entertainment. We are not supposed to learn from entertainment, we are supposed to be entertained by it. We are supposed to learn from our parents, our church, our society. Every once in a while we need a release from the real world - enter the fictional world of movies, books, and games. We need the fantasy of these sources of entertainment so we can dream about what we WISH life could be like, where men are macho (any action flick) or romantic (any chic flick) or women are daring and sexy (many of both or either!).

Now back to Snow White - where it's "Hi Ho, Home from Work we Go!" time.... =)

NO NO NO.

It isn't.

Genre romance novels - the ones you find on the Romance shelves in the bookstores - are always, always, always about finding genuine love that lasts a lifetime. That's why they are a total fantasy for women and extremely popular with them, because it so seldom happens in real life.

"Forbidden love" is not the attraction. Promiscuous sex is not the attraction. Genuine love *with a man who loves only you and will never leave you* is the attraction.

Or I should say, that's the attraction for women. Too many guys would frankly rather be dead than commit to just one woman for life, and a lot of non-Romance stories end that way. (*Titanic*, anyone?) So, the only place that an awful lot of women can experience this in Genre Romance novels and films.

That's why Romance novels are so extensively ridiculed. What could be more stupid and outrageous and - say it with me - UNREALISTIC - than a man who loves one woman for a lifetime?

But there's nothing that women want more, and that's why Romance novels are well over 50% of the paperback market. I wrote nine of them and they were all in every Borders' and Barnes and Nobles, and I am well aware of what the real attraction is in Romance novels.

And By The Way: *The Bridges of Madison County* is NOT a Romance novel. You would never find it anywhere near the Romance shelves in the stores. It's not the story of one man and one woman who love each other (and only each other) for a lifetime; it's the story of a woman who cheats on her husband for a weekend with a guy who's just passing through. That is the farthest thing from a Romance novel and it's terribly sad that so many folks think it's an example of Romance. It's pretty much the polar opposite.

Okay, maybe Bridges was a bad example; I think I picked that one because it tends to be a favorte amongst a lot of women. It's strange that this topic would come up because two days ago there was a psychologist duo on the radio talking about how the romance genre is to women what porn is to men and how destructive the romance genre can be.

He and she took the stance that as porn sets up unrealistic expectations in a sex life so does romance set up unrealistic expectations on the affection and romance side and both porn and the romance genre lead to disapointments and therefore can both be dangerous to engage in.

I'll think about some of this stuff as I'm working on my novel set in the 16th century that has a romance aspect to it.

Yes but who is the man, who is the woman? They are both 'perfect' idealizations with almost no basis in reality. I've read a few romance novels. They hold up a ridiculous standard of what that 'love that lasts a life time' is - and really it all seems to hinge on electric sex. I see little difference between Romance Novels and Porn. They both set up outrageous expectations and false views of sex, love and relationships. It's just that one is favored by men and one by women.

I mean if we're comparing the two it really is finding the lesser evil.

Now, I think Twilght is utter trash. Bella is the exact opposite of what I'd want as a role model for my daughter. Her relationships with Edward and Jacob are sick - and yet I devoured the books. They were good, fun escapism.

My daughter wont read them until she is MUCH older and I can have the requisite conversation with her about the way adult relationships SHOULD be as opposed to the romanticized and outrageous way they are describe in Twilight.

I also plan to model appropriate husband/wife dynamics for her in my own marriage.

The abuse shelters aren't full because of books like Twilight. They're full because most of those women didn't have parents that modeled appropriate behavior to them.

And as far as fairy tales - what an even more ridiculous standard for children.

THIS:



is what we want to be teaching our kids?

This is the same argument people use for banning video games. I've played Grand Theft Auto 4. Will I let my daughter play it? No, not until she is MUCH older. Not until she knows the difference between reality and fantasy.

The problem isn't the entertainment. The problem is parents who abdicate their responsibility. Vilifying video games, movies, books - gets you nowhere.

okay, so I agree with the whole "romance novels are to women what porn is to men" on many levels.

I feel my expectations for my marriage and my love were warped by romance novels. I don't think it's unrealistic for a man to want ONLY me, but I do think it's unrealistic for everything to always be okie dokie and for the passion to burn so hot for ever and ever. Romance novels are all about HOW the boy gets the girl, and now how they stay together and keep making it work, year after year, with children, job loss, moving, money problems, etc etc etc.

I agree that the problem is children learning from entertainment sources rather than from their parents! And I'm not saying I'm perfect (as my daughter watches Snow White AGAIN....) but I'm trying to do better!

Oh, and here's my shot at the Princes' names....

Prince Eric
The Prince
Aladdin
Prince Charming
Prince Phillip
And The Beast, is the best I can do. I have no memory of what The Beast's princely name is....

LOL!

Okay, guys, I give up. You win.

Love and romance are just complete bullcrap and anyone who aspires to same is just sick and in need of help.

Romance novels featuring a man who loves only you are just emotional pornography and no one should think for a moment that such is thing is possible in real life.

Princesses are shallow wh*res who use their beauty to get what they want from men.

Princes are just lucky rich pimps with nothing to offer women except cash.

I am so sorry that none of you can see beyond the very shallowest level of what your fiction is telling you. There is so much more and you are entirely missing it. In all the "jokes" above about the Princesses, those descriptions existed only in the beginning. Ariel, in particular, learned that she was wrong to give up her voice.

But never mind. It's just brainless entertainment. It doesn't mean a bloody thing beyond what's on the surface. And if it's got anything to do with one man/one woman who genuinely love each other, it's just emotional porn for women who are too stupid to understand that such a thing never happens in real life.

That's okay. I've heard it all before. Nothing new here.

But you might want to keep this discussion in mind the next time you're in a major bookstore and walk past shelf after shelf of Romance novels and ask yourself why there's so damn much of it.

It's because it gives women what they find virtually impossible to find in real life: Genuine love with a man who loves only you.

The jokes and ridicule about that are just great. Please do keep them coming.

Okay Mulan,

I'm not yet willing to give this up, and I must admit now that I'm intrigued. I know that this will probably sound crappy, and I'm seriously not trying to be stank. I am honestly asking you... can you share with me some examples of some romance novels that you've read that support your theory? So many of the ones I've read are about very promiscuous men, who have slept with just about everybody in the world, who then suddenly find the one damsel in distress that they BAM! Suddenly fall madly in love with, and simply cannot do without.

I don't think that romance novels are misleading in the idea that we should strive to love one and only one person, but they are unrealistic, I feel, about how we find that person, and how that person changes everything they've been in the past to be who the heroine needs them to be, and how the passion stays burning so fiercely, as though every time is like the first time.

I also don't feel that all of these Disney movies are complete rubbish - as we continue with Snow White in the background... else I wouldn't let my daughters watch them. And I do feel that Disney has improved in the recent years in having a more clear moral and some more redeeming qualities in the characters.

As a final note - maybe I'm jaded about the concept of "genuine love with one person forever" because I don't feel this kind of love in my marriage. So it's easy for me to say that I don't feel that kind of thing *is* realistic. I WANT it to be, I want to feel that way about my marriage, and hence, why I'm here at MB.

Sorry for making you feel so frustrated - I thought we were all having a pretty good adult debate here. That's one of the nice things about this kind of environment.... the ability to voice one's OPINION and to have a discussion about it. There's no right and wrong here. Nobody's judging, nobody's going to win. We're just having a discussion and sharing our thoughts.