Warning personal opinion incoming I don't claim to be right and in fact I don't think I am.

Few things are more powerful than the tongue.

I am writing and doing research for guide to help authors understand criticism and help to deal with them. So the "hate/criticism" certain works receive is interesting to me.Some even considering them "objetively bad"

One of those I have studied is the twilight saga.

The twilight saga has been criticized mainly for 3 things

1. bad writing (Mary Sue, telling instead of showing etc)
2. Dubious morals (abusive boyfriend, protagonist centered morality etc)
3. The obsesive fandom

I am not by any means a twilight fan/apologist. But one undeniable fact is that the twilight saga is very popular and is "cool to hate it" just like (belive it or not) The lord of the rings was

When is something objetively bad?

If a work is enjoyed (any work) by someone even if 1, 2 and 3 are true, is the work still "bad"?

Objetive or subjetive?

1. Bad writting: Iis not only subjetive but if the point of fiction is to be entertained if "bad writing" is achieving this end more effectively than "good writing" for some people then why is wrong to like a work with it?

2. Ethics:it is valid to criticize a work that is promoting questionable morals from the point of view of ethics.But as a fictional work is it less valid?. After all isn't the audience who will decide at the end?. Few would agree with Light Yagami's crusade from Death Note or the joker's in the dark knight. But is it relevant from a literary/fictional point of view to have perfect morals?, what if your morals become outdated?, what if the author is mistaken and even regrets it later?

3. The fandom of every work, is not only not about the work itself. But I think it's safe to asume that anyone can become a fan of anything ergo some "fans" will be bad people. But is it the fault of the work of fiction itself?

Could a work of fiction be "objectively bad" or is it all on the eyes of the beholder?

edited 11th Aug '12 1:46:04 AM by FallenLegend

I don't believe that there is any such thing as "objectively bad." Whether a work is good or not is inherently subjective. None of the three criteria you mention are remotely objective. "Bad Writing" in the form of violating the basic rules of storytelling can be considered objective in the sense that such criteria can be listed and defined, but every work of quality has to violate some of these criteria or it will seem uninspired and mechanical. Skilled violation of the standard rules is considered a hallmark of artistic talent. Besides, these rules change over time, and from culture to culture- what was considered an essential storytelling trope in the Victorian period, or in China, is regarded as bad form over here.

Dubious Morals cant be objective for pretty much the same reasons as bad writing. Morals vary, and any work that didn't generate some degree of controversy wouldn't generate much interest either. And works promoting immorality have achieved classic status. The Marquis de Sade promoted some very dubious morals, yet most people recognize the quality of his writing.

I'm not sure what Obsessive Fandom has to do with the issue, unless you are implying that obsessive people cant have very high artistic standards. I think there may be a correlation between obsessive fanbases and works that are generally seen as being pretty bad, because most of the works that generate that kind of fanbase are usually designed to appeal to a fairly narrow audience, which will rely on tropes that will not appeal to most people outside that demographic (young adult is fairly notorious for this).

That isn't to say that a strong consensus cant exist regarding whether or not a given work is good or not. Twilight is one example, Plan 9 from Outer Space is another one. People can generally agree when a work falls at one extreme or the other on a quality spectrum. That's because people talk to one another, and persuade each other to adopt certain subjective criteria in common. Things like Purple Prose, or overuse of cliches will impress most people as uninteresting or even humorously bad. So it's usually fairly easy to predict whether a given work will end up being considered at the bottom of the quality spectrum.

All that said, Twilight sucks.

I could make a TL;DR but simply put.

Twilight gives a message of "Its okay to be a stalker if you're pretty"

Technically, it's a case of Stalking Is Love

It's objectively freaky-as-fuck.

Good or bad is, I suppose, up to the individual nutter viewer/reader/unluckily placed fungus.

edited 11th Aug '12 10:05:50 AM by InverurieJones

I guess by some common basic literary values, it has faults (characters acting in strange, illogical ways), but subjectively, some people are more easily turned off than others.

It's a decent read if you like fantasized romance focusing on exploiting select characters more than the general story, which is more prevalent in fan fictions.

Shouldn't this be in literature of yak fest?

Twilight is bad, but — at least, judging by the handful of chapters I gave a peek at out of curiosity — nowhere as bad as people say. The writing is bad written, sure; the characters are flat, certainly; and their relationships are unhealthy, obviously (but then again, the same can be said for any number of works of far better quality, and people are generally able to distinguish fantasy from reality).

I am not debating any of that. Still, the same can be said of other popular series, such as, for example, Dragonlance.

So, why the focus on Twilight? Part of it is due to the obsessive fandom, certainly; but I get the feeling is that part of it is that it is both a romance series and a fantasy series — it addresses topics, such as vampires, that are perceived by the stereotypical "nerd" as "cool", but using typical clichés from bad romance novels such as pointless brooding, scarily obsessive stalking being portrayed as romantic, and so on.

I am quite convinced that a story of the same quality level that focused not on vampires in love, but rather on, I dunno, vampires fighting dinosaurs on Mars would not have gathered such a hatedom. Perhaps it might even have gathered a fan following of a sort.

edited 11th Aug '12 10:13:00 AM by Carciofus

It's certainly bad as a source of information on sex and sexual health, I'll say that. Tumblr agrees with me.

Martian dinosaurs would have been better.

Don't say that lightly; there's been Robinson Crusoe on Mars and Planet of the Apes. Both were received fairly well.

Have you actually read Twilight, or are you going by popular words?

I saw a bit of the film and now I'm scared the book will rape my face.

To be honest, all I remember is nice scenery and a lot of sulky-looking dorks.

edited 11th Aug '12 10:30:17 AM by InverurieJones

1. Bad Writing:
My problem with using "bad writing" as an objective argument, is that it mostly tends to be used by detached critics who are too obsessed with their theories and preconceptions about how tropes are ought to be used, to just enjoy a story in the same way as the rest of us.

For example, originally, Mary Sue was a useful term for warning fanfic authors that their character is a transparent device for fulfilling their personal petty wishes, and the average reader won't be able identify with her as a heroine, because your wishes are too stupid and boring for the rest of us. To take an already popular character, and tell millions of readers that they are not supposed to enjoy a character, because she fulfills a list of Mary Sue traits therefore she is officially boring, is the worst form of elitism.

I've commonly noticed something similar among gamers. The Game Overthinker once made an episode about how the FPS is an objectively inferior genre (because of it's limitations such as less field of view), and Yahtzee just recently wrote an editorial about how traditional adventure game format is rubbish because it just takes "a token effort to be able to call itself a game", and he frequently expresses his hatred of too much linear storytelling, as not utilizing the potential of games.

That's all based on the same idea, that they have some Grand Theory about how their art form ought to be used, and if it doesn't do that, then it is officially bad, even if it is an established genre with present audiences that demand that format.

2. Ethics:
I'm not sure exactly how the stalking problem plays out in Twilight, but I know some stories accused of Stalker-ism, that are good examples of subjective ethics, and how it might perfectly well for one culture and not for ours. For example the Dogged Nice Guy trope is often seen as stalker-ush, or at least sexist, for treating the woman as a prize that must be won with determination regardless of her wishes, but in most actual stories, it's very clear that both parties are interested in each other, they are just going through a a kind of courtship procedure. There are actual traditionalist communities, even in the western world, that prefer these courtship procedures, and even if they would be stalkerish if taken at face value, it is well-understood by insiders that it's mostly just a custom.

3.Obsessive Fandoms:
Arguments based on obsessive fandoms are so stupidly predictable and meaningless, that there should be a Forum Law written against them, like Godwin's or Sturgeon's: EVERY fandom is obsessive. Because it's made out of fans. Fanatics.

Every claim of a whole fandom being much more obsessive than all others, that I have seen so far, turned out to be a case of prejudice and double standard, with the claimer being so offended by the very idea of that fandom existing, that they deemed that even basic fannish behavior in favor of that subject is unacceptable. (E.g: bronies spreading image macros are forcing the show down on our throat, while Game of Thrones fans spreading image macros are just making a pop-culture reference. Anime fans defending themselves in the comment section of an article that was collectively calling them manchildren are too defensive and can't take criticism, but gamers defending themselves against Fox News "journalism" are standing up for their art form).

edited 11th Aug '12 10:41:19 AM by Ever9

That's because they're supposed to be seen as being in the wrong.

Umm, it did gather a fan following. A lather large one. If Twilight would be unpopular, there would be no discussion, it would just be one of the many obscure romance novels sold at airports.

The problem is that it is popular, just not among 'us''.

Sure. I expressed myself badly; I meant a fan following among, well, nerds (or geeks, or whatever the right term is this week).

This is exactly where your problem is.

@Ever: So how is breaking and entering not considered stalking?

She was also sleeping I recall.

I think that the stalking problem of Twilight is a bit overrated. Sure, Twilight's example of relationship would be awful beyond words if traslated into real life; but come on, behaving like Conan the Barbarian in real life would be a pretty bad idea too. Generally, people are capable of distinguishing fiction from reality; and I'm pretty sure that the same girls who sigh after Edward would be (more than understandably) horrified if they found out a classmate of them hanging out out of their window in order to watch them while they sleep.

I find a bit strange that the same communities who scoff so much at Think of The Children-style reasoning when it comes to violent computer games and so on do quite a bit of the same when it comes to a silly romance novel.

edited 11th Aug '12 11:03:35 AM by Carciofus

I cannot think of a single culture in which breaking into a classmate's house to watch them sleep is okay.

@Cats: Stalkanian culture

I personally just wrote it off as "vampire thing" myself, but hey may as well be as detailed as we can about this stalking thing. But stalking is "vampire thing" to me. As "watching people sleep" and "breaking into homes". And "abusive relationships". So hey maybe Meyers didn't fail on the vampire novel front after all!

Well, chivalric courtly romance involved lots of breaking and entering, especially window-related, see also the balcony scene.

My personal experience reading Twilight:

I read Twilight: The first book when I was like 16, and It didn't started as an egregious example of a bad work to me, at least at first. The setting was well explained, the mood was well settled and the explaining was well moody. But as I read more and more I started to get lost betwen pages and pages of deep careful descriptions of the utter beauty of the male character protagonist as well as incredibly concise explaining of the situation and the setting, and the whole darn plot.

As I was commenting in another thread, I'm into writing (and reading) erotic fiction and it is a common flaw of these kind of stories, when bad written, that the author seems to need to remind us how beautifully, supernaturally hot and flawless are certain characters. The obsessive description of these traits are usually linked to Author Appeal and can even becomes desperate, authors seems to think that if they are not describing at every moment how juicy, thick the character's pecs are or how utterly astonishing his smile is we would sort of forget it and, thus, lose the mood the author wants the story to set. This is a very common author insecurity, and most authors doesn't seem to be aware that a written text is not a movie, and there are much more reliable elements than the visual ones to get the reader caught. In the mind of the reader, it gets to the situation when the Willing Suspension of Disbelief goes all broken by the awareness of the autor desperately trying to get'em in the mood he wants, with leaves more than one question about the author's competence.

In regards of that series, that is exactly what happens and eventually Mrs Meyer goes from fork the plot to indulge in long, detailed and strenuous descriptions of the awesomeness of the lead character, and the normal-ness of that Bella girl to eventually leave behind every actual plot to the point of frustration in those who were interested in it. Was that feeling of immobilism, so that I keep reading I would be ever in the same page, with actually no advances, the reason because I couldn't finished that book.

Said that, I don't see much wrong in girls reading the series, most of them were introduced in Literature with them and most of them will grow out of it to more serious erotic/romantic work, wich is not bad.

As for the ethics, if these themes and motives were treated exactly in the same way but with just more witty intentions, we would have had the Madame Bovary of the 21st Century.

edited 11th Aug '12 11:37:08 AM by MrsRatched