1 post tagged “lord of the rings”

    I’ve recently become aware of and been reading Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga.  As a high school English teacher, a pop culture addict, and a fan of all things vampire, it’s almost inexcusable that I’ve only become aware of these novels in the past few months.  Maybe I’ve been living under a rock for the last three years, or maybe last summer’s release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows consumed all my brain space.  Nevertheless, to say I am “obsessed” with Twilight would be much too passive a term to describe the amount of thought I have put in to these novels in the past few weeks.
    One of the issues I find central to the upcoming fourth novel and the series as a whole (as well as deliciously interesting to contemplate) is the morality of vampires.  Do Stephenie Meyer’s vampires possess souls?  Is redemption possible for them?  Carlisle, father figure of the Cullen coven, has hope.  When protagonist Bella asks why he abstains from drinking human blood like the rest of his kind, he responds, “I’m hoping that there is still a point to this life, even for us.  It’s a long shot, I’ll admit . . . By all accounts, we’re damned regardless.  But I hope, maybe foolishly, that we’ll get some measure of credit for trying” (New Moon 36-37).  Bella agrees, but the love of her life does not.   Carlisle says, “Edward’s with me up to a point.  God and heaven exist . . . and so does hell.  But he doesn’t believe there is an afterlife for our kind . . . you see, he thinks we’ve lost our souls” (New Moon 37).  The idea of whether vampires have souls and thus can be redeemed in some sort of afterlife is central to Meyer’s novels.  It fuels Edward’s extreme self-loathing and self-sacrifice and drives him to insecurity in his relationship with Bella, and it’s the point on which Bella’s possible transformation into a vampire pivots.
    So, what is a soul?  The most fitting definition for Meyers’ novels seems to be “the spiritual part of humans regarded in its moral aspect, or as believed to survive death and be subject to happiness or misery in a life to come” (www.dictionary.com).  How is one redeemed?  Redemption, in this context is defined as “deliverance from sin; salvation; atonement for guilt” (www.dictionary.com).  These are weighty questions that philosophers and theologians have debated for ages.  I’m sure every belief system on the planet has a different answer, but I’m going to choose to consider these questions instead through the lens of some of my favorite books, movies, and television shows.
    It’s a generally accepted fact that vampires are evil.  However, the vampires we see on the page and on the screen always seem to be that strange combination of dangerous and alluring that blurs the line just a little between good and evil.  Consider, for example, the original literary vampire: Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  He’s definitely evil . . . but also extremely civilized and pretty darn compelling.  Modern day presentations of vampires tend to blur the line even more.  Angel and Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel, Mick St. John from that (thankfully) short-lived series Moonlight, and now Stephenie Meyers Cullen family: all these are vampires that have unquestionably committed horrible crimes in the past but who now strive to make up for them by doing good, and this makes us question what really constitutes good and evil.  By what standard should these characters be judged in terms of redemption?  Should they be judged by what they are?  By what they have done in the past?  By the degree to which they try to make up for their pasts with present good deeds?
    Stephenie Meyer questions whether it’s fair to judge a mythical, superhuman character like a vampire by human standards of morality at all.  In a personal correspondence published on The Twilight Lexicon, Meyer responds to an online debate about why the Cullens are able to live a seemingly charmed life in the face of all the misery they’ve caused in the past.  Shouldn’t they be walking around in rags repenting for the times they’ve slipped from their “vegeterian” diet?  Meyer addresses the fact that vampires are predators at the top of the food chain: they “see humans as beef or poultry . . . And it’s a hard viewpoint to resist—after all, vampires are physically and mentally superior to the nth degree. Their life spans measure in centuries and millenniums. Human lives are so short—sort of like fruit flies that only live a day in comparison. Humans die so easily, too, in their sleep, from tripping, from a tiny heart glitch, from a virus, from getting bumped a little too hard by a car. It’s sort of hard for an average vampire to take them seriously. They’re going to die soon anyway, right?" She questions whether it's wrong for them to see themselves this way in relation to humans: "I know it might be difficult to step away from a human perspective and see it through their eyes. The question is, is it really wrong for them to see the world that way? Vampires are at the very pinnacle of the food chain. Should they feel bad about that? Or are they simply following the dictates of nature?" (The Twilight Lexicon).  Do we think it’s “wrong” or “evil” when a lion kills a gazelle in the wild?  Or when we eat beef?  In the Twilight world – as well as most other literary worlds that involve vampires – vampires ARE a superior being: is it so “wrong” or “evil” for them to act like it?  
    The issue of superiority comes up in the seventh season episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Conversations with Dead People.”  When Buffy encounters former peer/psychology student and current vampire Holden, she confesses to him in a mopey deadpan that she can’t muster up any excitement about the fight to come between the two because she knows she’ll win.  “Do the words ‘superiority complex” mean anything to you?” Holden asks.  Holden says he understand how Buffy feels: being the chosen one and all would understandably make her feel a bit superior to other beings on earth.  However, Buffy protests that she doesn’t feel superior at all because she’s done terrible things for which her friends should hate her.  She feels unworthy of their love, but she also feels like their love and opinions don’t matter because they can’t possibly know or understand the things she goes through as the Slayer.  She begrudgingly acknowledges that maybe this is the same as feeling superior.  To this, Holden concludes that she has “a superiority complex, and you’ve got an inferiority complex about it" (www.televisionwithoutpity.com). It’s a different situation, but the message is the same: if you are mentally and physically superior to those around you, does it make you a bad person to feel that way and act on it?  In the simple, to-the-point words of Justin Timberlake, “It might sound cocky, but is it really cocky if you know that it’s true?”
    Whether it is right or wrong for vampires to behave like predators at the top of the food chain, the Cullen family makes a choice to go against their instincts and nature in an attempt to overcome what they are and do good with their existence.  In my opinion, this choice has everything to do with conscience, which is inextricably tied to the soul. Without a soul, which presumably guides morality (supposing, as the definition does, that it’s our link to heaven), where would the conscience come from?   Joss Whedon might agree.  Vampires in the Buffy-verse commit evil acts because they lack souls.  They don’t sit around intentionally contemplating ways to be evil; they have no moral compass to distinguish between good and evil.  They commit evil acts because, without a conscience, they do not see them as evil.  As a vampire, Angel spent his existence committing heinous and unspeakably violent and numerous crimes without a second thought.  It is only when he is cursed with a soul by a clan of gypsies that he is able to see his crimes through the lens of morality and experience remorse.  In other words, when Angel was ensouled, he also developed a conscience.  That conscience gave him the ability to distinguish between right and wrong and cursed him to feel remorse for the evil actions he was inclined by nature to do; thus, he was able to choose to take a different path.  Meyer does not base Twilight on the same mythology as Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel, but this business of the conscience motivating vampires to do good seems to hold true in her work as well.  When Edward describes to Bella his own beginnings as a vampire, he tells her about a time when he resented Carlisle for curbing his appetite and went off on his own for a time: “It took me only a few years to return to Carlisle and recommit to his vision.  I thought I would be exempt from the . . . depression . . . that accompanies a conscience.  Because I knew the thoughts of my prey, I could pass over the innocent and pursue only the evil.  If I followed a murderer down a dark alley where he stalked a young girl – if I saved her, then surely I wasn’t so terrible . . . but as time went on, I began to see the monster in my eyes.  I couldn’t escape the debt of so much human life taken, no matter, how justified” (Twilight 342-343).  Edward’s decision to recommit to Carlisle’s “vegeterian” lifestyle comes from his conscience, from his sense of knowing right from wrong and feeling remorse when he commits acts that he knows are wrong.  When describing how Alice and Jasper came to join the Cullen family, Edward says, “Alice and Jasper are two very rare creatures.  They both developed a conscience, as we refer to it, with no outside guidance” (Twilight 289).  From both his words and actions, it is clear that Edward views a conscience as a necessary prerequisite to making the right choices in one’s un-life..
    And so, because they are possessed of consciences that tell them right from wrong, the Cullens make the difficult choice to abstain from human blood.  In the same personal correspondence mentioned above, Meyer makes it clear that this is an incredibly difficult choice to maintain.  She writes, “It seems that, in other vampire worlds, drinking blood is more pleasure than compulsion for vampires. They can “drink from” a person in a leisurely manner, leaving that person alive, and perhaps returning for more later. It seems like the lust for blood is very equivalent to the lust for sexual satisfaction. Thus, something that can be controlled by a responsible person fairly easily under most circumstances. A pleasure impulse rather than a need impulse . . . In the Twilight world, this is not the case. Thirsty vampires are in acute physical pain. It is comparable to the feel of a third degree burn inside your throat. It can make a vampire literally crazy for relief—beyond thought. If your hand was on fire and there was a bucket of ice water beside you, would you resist that relief? Of course not. You would have no reason to. Back to the average vampire’s viewpoint, neither does a vampire have a reason to resist. There is a fire, he or she quenches it. Problem, solution . . . Sure, we could sit around and trash talk the vegetarian vampires who make mistakes. But were doing it on a full stomach, so to speak. We’d all stick our hands in the ice water if we were burning” (The Twilight Lexicon).  Edward seems to be of the point of view that he is damned because of what he IS.  Edward is a vampire = Edward is a monster = Edward is damned to hell.  However, I argue that that it is precisely this choice that proves the existence of Edward’s soul and makes redemption possible for him and the rest of his vampire family.  If Edward were to face judgment, I believe he would be judged not merely on the fact that he is a vampire but more importantly by what he chose to do with his vampiric existence.
    JK Rowling’s characters might agree with this assessment.  When Harry learns that Voldemort put a part of himself in Harry in Chamber of Secrets, he questions whether the sorting hat made the right choice by placing him in Gryffindor.  Dumbledore admits that Harry has many of the qualities Slytherin sought in his hand-picked students and asks Harry to think about why he was put in Gryffindor.  Harry says, "It only put my in Gryffindor . . . because I asked not to go into Slytherin."  Dumbledore responds, "Exactly . . . which makes you very different from Tom Riddle.  It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."  The same theme recurs in the Order of the Pheonix movie.  Harry wonders, "This connection between me and Voldemort . . . what if the reason for it is that I am becoming more like him?  I just feel so angry all the time.  What if after everything that I've been through, something's gone wrong inside me?  What if I'm becoming bad?"  Sirius responds, "I want you to listen to me very carefully, Harry.  You're not a bad person.  You're a very good person who bad things have happened to.  Besides, the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters.  We've all got both light and dark inside us.  What matters is the part we choose to act on.  That's who we really are."  In JK Rowling’s universe, a clear distinction is drawn between one’s physical and mental abilities and how one chooses to use those abilities, and it is those choices that really count.  In terms of ability and even personality, Harry and Voldemort are similar in many ways, yet one becomes a monster and one a hero, and it is their choices that differentiate the two.  So much of this can be applied to Edward’s situation in Twilight. Edward didn't choose to become a "monster," as he sees himself.  None of the Cullens did.  They can't help what they are.  However, what they can do is choose what to do with it.  Yes, the Cullens do "slip up" and do things that are morally reprehensible, and Edward seems to assume that because of the mistakes he has made he is out of luck when it comes to a chance at redemption.  However, if one mistake is enough to send the offender to the fires of hell, then we’re all in trouble.  Humans aren’t perfect.  We all do things that are morally reprehensible at times.  It’s human nature.  As Sirius says, we’ve all got both light and dark inside of us.  I recently read a novel called The Book Thief that describes human nature like this: “So much good, so much evil.  Just add water.”  Edward might argue that his crimes of conscience are worse than the average person’s and fall into the category of “unforgivable,” but who’s to say?  Can we really judge whether one sin is greater than another in the eyes of God if one is truly repentant?
    Tolkein’s character’s might also disagree with Edward’s point of view.  In the film version of The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo says, “I wish the ring had never come to me.  I wish none of this had happened."  Gandalf replies, "So do all who live to see such times.  But that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."  Gandalf’s wisdom is very similar to both Edward and Carlisle’s explanation of why they chose the path they did.  Bella asks Edward, “Why do you do it? . . . I still don’t understand how you can work so hard to resist what you . . . are.  Please don’t misunderstand, of course I’m glad that you do.  I just don’t understand why you would bother in the first place.”  Edward responds, “Just because we’ve been . . . dealt a certain hand . . . it doesn’t mean that we can’t choose to rise above – to conquer the boundaries of a destiny that none of us wanted.  To try to retain whatever essential humanity we can” (Twilight 306-307).  Bella asks Carlisle virtually the same question when he talks about why he chooses to work as a doctor: “You try very hard to make up for something that was never your fault . . .What I mean is, it’s not like you asked for this.  You didn’t choose this kind of life, and yet you have to work so hard to be good.”  Carlisle responds, “I don’t know that I’m making up for anything . . . Like everything in life, I just had to decide what to do with what I was given” (New Moon 34-35).  Like Frodo when he bears the ring, none of the Cullens chose their fate.  None of them chose to become vampires.  They were put in a certain situation, and the only choice left for them is what to do with themselves now.  Given that they had no control over what they’ve become, one could argue that it means little in terms of redemption.  What matters more is what they choose to do with their existence, and the Cullens are arguably paying a high price to take what they believe is the morally high road.  In terms of redemption, that has to count for something.
    What’s interesting to note is that, in light of this argument, Bella and Carlisle become the most “evil” characters in the book.  In the previous examples, Edward refers to becoming a vampire as being “dealt a certain hand,” which implies he had no control over his fate.  When Bella reassures Carlisle, she relies on the fact that he also did not choose his fate: what happened to him wasn’t “his fault” because he “never asked for this . . . didn’t choose this kind of life.”  However, if Bella is to become a vampire in Breaking Dawn, it won’t just be a hand that she’s dealt.  What she is will be precisely her fault because she DID ask for it – repeatedly – and she DID choose “this kind of life” in full knowledge of what it meant.  Does the fact that she chooses to become what the Cullens fight against make her more morally reprehensible than the lot of them?  What about Carlisle?  The saintly Carlisle who pioneered the idea of abstaining from human blood and even works to save human lives as a doctor is arguably the “best” of the Cullens on the surface.  He certainly didn’t choose his existence; however, knowing what he was, he did make that choice for all those he changed: Edward, Esme, Rosalie and Emmett.  Despite his unwavering abstinence and altruism, does the fact that he took this choice away from them make him the worst of the bunch?
    In conclusion, I believe the questions of souls, conscience and redemption will be pivotal in Breaking Dawn.  Edward has spent 90 years hating himself for what he is and believing there is no hope for his soul.  Until he can see things from another angle – an angle in which choice weighs more heavily than being – he won’t be able to go through with changing Bella, a choice he equates to damning her to spend eternity as a monster.