Anyway, seeing as I haven't been active lately, I decided to post this nice little link to a petition entitled, as you may have guessed, "Legitimate Concerns About Breaking Dawn", a.k.a. Breaking Dawn Failed. You don't have to sign it; just have a look for yourself.
I think it brings up a lot of good points.
Originally intended for the eyes of Stephenie Meyer, the letter was instead sent to Seth, her brother. He censors everything and doesn't let any criticism get to her, so Stephenie probably hasn't even heard of the whole Stephen King brouhaha (which you know I love to talk about), which boiled over ages ago. So of course, Seth didn't forward the petition to her. He did reply to the author, Heather Faust. Here is the exchange of emails between them.
Taken from: snowcone666 on DeviantArt, "Stephenie Meyer Sucks Part 2"
http://snowcone666.deviantart.com/art/Stephenie-Meyer-Sucks-Part-2-121062520
Quote:
Seth,
I completely understand that you are not the whipping boy for Stephenie Meyer, but she has given us no address to reach her directly, so sadly, I have few choices- and one of them was to send this to you.
My name is Heather Faust, and I have written a letter to Stephenie and to Little, Brown. As suggested by a number of others on message boards, I posted this letter as a "petition." Today we reached a thousand signatures. (It has only been live for a few days.) We will continue to leave it live and see how it grows.
I feel that it is well written and respectful, and I would hope that you would take a few minutes to read it. If it gets through to Stephenie, well, I'd be thrilled. We are not looking to hurt her, we aren't looking for her to rewrite it... We just want our opinions acknowledged, and we'd like to no longer be referred to as a "vocal minority." We'd also love it if she'd be able to answer our concerns with more than just "it's fiction," "I'm not a biology major" or other brush offs. We don't, of course expect that at all. But just a simple "Yes, I hear you, I'm sorry that you were disappointed" would be enough for us.
Anyway, sorry that you are in the middle of all of this. That must suck for you.
Thanks for your time
I completely understand that you are not the whipping boy for Stephenie Meyer, but she has given us no address to reach her directly, so sadly, I have few choices- and one of them was to send this to you.
My name is Heather Faust, and I have written a letter to Stephenie and to Little, Brown. As suggested by a number of others on message boards, I posted this letter as a "petition." Today we reached a thousand signatures. (It has only been live for a few days.) We will continue to leave it live and see how it grows.
I feel that it is well written and respectful, and I would hope that you would take a few minutes to read it. If it gets through to Stephenie, well, I'd be thrilled. We are not looking to hurt her, we aren't looking for her to rewrite it... We just want our opinions acknowledged, and we'd like to no longer be referred to as a "vocal minority." We'd also love it if she'd be able to answer our concerns with more than just "it's fiction," "I'm not a biology major" or other brush offs. We don't, of course expect that at all. But just a simple "Yes, I hear you, I'm sorry that you were disappointed" would be enough for us.
Anyway, sorry that you are in the middle of all of this. That must suck for you.
Thanks for your time
Seth's reply:
Quote:
Heather,
First, let me assure you that I will not forward this email to Stephenie. You say that you are not looking to hurt her, but it would be ignorant to believe that criticism of any kind does not hurt the person to whom it is directed. I didn't even forward any of the 35 emails that I received today telling me (or Stephenie) how much they loved Breaking Dawn, how the series changes their lives, etc.
There are a few other reasons why I would not forward the link to this "petition." (By the way, you have heard that online petitions never generate results, right?). I disagree that it is "well written." Besides the grammar mistakes (which are not hard to overlook), you address the letter to Stephenie, but by the end of the first paragraph you refer to "Meyer" in the third person. I am not sure if you are speaking to her or not. Also, the "signatures" (which are completely invalid) are not just names, but a discussion board. I went to one page and found three people defending Breaking Dawn and saying things like "I am surrounded by self absorbed teenagers or adults that think they can write better books and never do!"
And, although I got very bored and wasn't able to read the entire "petition," I want to try to answer a few of your main points (although I'm sure that Stephenie's answers would be a lot better than mine):
#1 and #2: At the end of Eclipse, Alice specifically says that nobody has ever made the conscious decision to become a vampire, and so none of them had any idea how Bella would handle the entire process.
#3 and #4 (and everything else in your : These books are fiction. They are filled with FICTIONAL characters that Stephenie made up all by herself. In an attempt to keep the books clean and not make young girls think about things that they don't need to think about, no other book mentioned anything about reproductive systems. They are Stephenie's characters, she can decide anything that she wants.
And finally, Heather, your letter is not respectful at all. It is libelous in many instances. I would be embarrassed to say such things about someone who I have never met.
First, let me assure you that I will not forward this email to Stephenie. You say that you are not looking to hurt her, but it would be ignorant to believe that criticism of any kind does not hurt the person to whom it is directed. I didn't even forward any of the 35 emails that I received today telling me (or Stephenie) how much they loved Breaking Dawn, how the series changes their lives, etc.
There are a few other reasons why I would not forward the link to this "petition." (By the way, you have heard that online petitions never generate results, right?). I disagree that it is "well written." Besides the grammar mistakes (which are not hard to overlook), you address the letter to Stephenie, but by the end of the first paragraph you refer to "Meyer" in the third person. I am not sure if you are speaking to her or not. Also, the "signatures" (which are completely invalid) are not just names, but a discussion board. I went to one page and found three people defending Breaking Dawn and saying things like "I am surrounded by self absorbed teenagers or adults that think they can write better books and never do!"
And, although I got very bored and wasn't able to read the entire "petition," I want to try to answer a few of your main points (although I'm sure that Stephenie's answers would be a lot better than mine):
#1 and #2: At the end of Eclipse, Alice specifically says that nobody has ever made the conscious decision to become a vampire, and so none of them had any idea how Bella would handle the entire process.
#3 and #4 (and everything else in your : These books are fiction. They are filled with FICTIONAL characters that Stephenie made up all by herself. In an attempt to keep the books clean and not make young girls think about things that they don't need to think about, no other book mentioned anything about reproductive systems. They are Stephenie's characters, she can decide anything that she wants.
And finally, Heather, your letter is not respectful at all. It is libelous in many instances. I would be embarrassed to say such things about someone who I have never met.
Make of that what you will.
Link: http://www.petitiononline.com/BDFailed/petition.html
Oh, and while I'm at it, you might as well check out Dan Bergstein from SparkNotes if you haven't already heard of him. Here's a link to Part 1 of his magnum opus, Blogging Twilight.
http://community.sparknotes.com/index.php/2009/05/06/the-twilight-experience/
