History Literature / TheTwilightSaga

* DrivenByALoveInterest: This is the basic concept of imprinting, the portrayal of which as a grand romance was not well-received even by the fans of the series. When a werewolf imprints on his mate, all his life becomes absolutely focused on her, with all her wishes becoming his top priority - unless she wishes for him to leave her, because it will be physically impossible for him. When Sam Uley imprints on Emily, it results in him mauling her when she tries to reject him; and Quil and Jacob find themselves imprinting on a toddler and a baby respectively.

* DeusExMachina: There are two main reasons in the first three books for why Bella shouldn't be a vampire: first, the overwhelming desire for human blood, which is incredibly painful to resist, and second, a vampire's inability to reproduce. In ''Literature/BreakingDawn'', however [[spoiler: all these concerns are swept away when it turns out that actually, only female vampires can't have babies -- male vampires have working sperm -- and therefore Bella is able to have Edward's child by having sex with him before being turned. And after the half-vampire baby starts eating Bella up from the inside and Edward turns Bella in order to save her life, it turns out Bella possesses the willpower to resist fresh human blood.]] Actually, ''Literature/BreakingDawn'' is crammed FULL of this. [[spoiler: A group of powerful vampires, the Volturi are built up for three books as being the most powerful group of vampires around, but Bella's newborn vampire ability is able to depower many of the Volturi's heavy hitters]].

** During the original Twilight craze, when our male heroes were still around twenty, the portion of the fandom that consisted of middle-aged women openly lusting after them had people saying: "If these were 40-year old men screaming for 17-year old girls, they'd be on [[PaedoHunt "To Catch A Predator"]] so fast it would make your head spin."

** Bella often manipulates the feelings of those around her to get what she wants with no regard to whether or not she is hurting them, but any other woman in the series who acts in this way is framed as a heartless bitch.
* DownerEnding: For Renee at least, post-''Literature/BreakingDawn''. After Bella's marriage to Edward, the public story was that she got really sick and was flown to another country for treatment. Bella muses that her parents would soon be told that she died, although her father (due to Jacob's actions) is brought into her world, although he doesn't know she and the Cullens are vampires. However for Renee, the parent whom Bella was the most closest to, she went to her daughter's wedding, saw her daughter be really happy before flying off to her honeymoon, and then will be told that Bella died of some illness.

* DrivesLikeCrazy: The only thing about Edward that frightens Bella is that he speeds and doesn't wear a seatbelt.
* TheDulcineaEffect: Edward. Bella also is a female version of this, ready as she is to die for a family she just got to know that week.

* CastFullOfPrettyBoys: Most of the vampires are male and hot.
* TheClan: The Cullens subvert this by all being physically within nine years of each other. Birth-wise the oldest was born in the 1630s (he's not sure which year exactly), and 1915 before [[spoiler:Bella joins]], and 1987 after. Carlisle is their patriarch.
* ClarkKenting: The Cullens pass for human by blinking at least three times a minute and lifting their shoulders to feign breathing if they have to hold their breath for any length of time, and also by avoiding going out in public when the sun is shining. The main reason people assume they're human is that they don't know vampires exist.
* CompellingVoice: Alpha werewolves (to other werewolves, at least). The dazzling from vampires to a certain extent.

* CoolCar: All the Cullens have at least one. Even klutzy Bella gets a motorcycle and a sports car (a Mercedes S600 Guard, which is somewhat fitting as it is bulletproof and armored against explosives). Meyer's brothers are massive gearheads, so she let them pick cool cars for each of the characters:

*** Though a '64 Chevy pick-up truck is pretty cool too; at least Bella thinks so.
** Rosalie: BMW M3 (books) and Mercedes-Benz CLK350 (movies)

* CoolPeopleRebelAgainstAuthority: Happens often enough to become a theme, or at least suggest that Smeyer has problems with authority. All of her protagonists go crazy when someone tells them what to do and the audience is supposed to side with them on the issue. The Volturi are obviously the main bad guys; any time they issue orders we're supposed to boo and hiss. Riley was an authority figure in ''Bree Tanner'', and Bree hated him. Any time Charlie tried to parent Bella and tell her no, we were supposed to disagree and think him unreasonable. Sam asserted his authority and told Jacob what to do, and he was vilified for it in ''Literature/BreakingDawn''.
* CreepyChild: Jane, Alec, and Renesmee. The last gets further up in the department since she wasn't intended to be so.

* BadassLongcoat: Victoria (in fur form), various Volturi guards, Riley Biers, Eleazar, Garrett...

** The Cullens are portrayed this way, and with the way Bella's friends disappear from the narrative whenever she has Edward and Alice to spend time with, she clearly has every intention of joining.
** Also: the Denali coven, who are described as "so beautiful that it made [Bella's] stomach hurt."
* BeautyEqualsGoodness:
** Played straight in the first book. James, the first book's evil vampire, is described as being an average-looking vampire because he was ugly as a human. Naturally, all the Cullens were beautiful in life, making them absolutely gorgeous as vampires.

** The later books avert this with the Volturi. When we first meet them in ''Literature/NewMoon'', Edward points out, [[BrokenAesop the Volturi aren't technically the bad guys]]. However, at that point all the Cullens thought the Volturi respected the law and controlled their world in a way that was better than what they will have if vampires became an anarchy with poor humans in the way. By the last book they know the Volturi (specially Aro) are ambitious bastards that will go to any length to get their way, including breaking their own laws and murdering innocents to achieve power.
* BeingHumanSucks: Bella constantly feels that being human makes her a liability to the supernatural creatures around her and an inadequate partner for Edward despite the fact that he tells her that her humanity is part of her appeal. [[spoiler:Once she becomes a vampire he finds her even prettier despite her losing all of her (literally) warm human traits.]] Other human characters aren't portrayed much better: Renee is easily distracted and has no sense of direction, and Bella's acquaintances at school are variously [[HumansAreMorons weak, shallow, jealous, immature, and ignorant.]]
** Meyer clarified that Bella being nearly useless wasn't because she (Meyer) is anti-female but because she is ''"anti-human"'', and she wrote an entire [[Literature/LifeAndDeathTwilightReimagined book]] to prove it. As she put it:
--->[[WeAreAsMayflies 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. [[PunyEarthlings It's sort of hard for an average vampire to take them seriously.]] [[HumansAreInsects They're going to die soon anyway, right?]]
* BigBadEnsemble: Between the Volturi, Victoria (especially in ''[[Literature/Eclipse2007 Eclipse]]''), and Sam (in the first half of ''Literature/BreakingDawn'').

** One aesop seems to be that a girl as plain and unassuming as Bella can find true love, but Bella's flaws fall mostly into the category of InformedFlaw, [[spoiler:and are almost entirely removed at the end of the series.]] Not to mention, though Bella is intended to be plain and unassuming, nearly every man she runs into falls for her and Edward himself states that most of the boys in the school find her attractive. Clearly, not so plain. However, maybe the intended Aesop here was that if you hold off on sex until you get married and then [[spoiler:die in childbirth,]] you will become a saint and absolutely perfect in every way.
** The Cullens are portrayed as saintly vampires who value human life and therefore maintain a "vegetarian" diet of animal blood. But they never once object to other vampires killing humans -- the closest they ever come is politely asking some non-veggie vamps who are staying with them to go out of town to feed, which has little to do with protecting human life and more to do with not blowing their cover. When there's a huge murder spree going on in Seattle caused by a vampire army, the Cullens never lift a finger to help until they realize the vampires are coming for them.
*** And worse still, some of the deaths the Cullens cause are ''glorified'', the most obvious example being Rosalie murdering her fiance and his friends. This would otherwise be a pretty badass moment, if it weren't for the fact that Carlisle is supposed to be an absolute pillar of morality; if he's so moral, why did he stand by and allow his new adoptive daughter to murder humans, something he's so strongly against?
*** In the first novel Edward briefly mentions that before he went full "vegetarian" he was sort of a vigilante vampire superhero; he would make meals out of muggers and rapists when they were in the middle of attacking someone. This is presented as wrong because he's inevitably still killing, despite the fact he would also often be ''saving'' people who would have otherwise been murdered, assaulted, or raped. The option of remaining a vigilante and just not feeding on the criminals he captures is never even considered.
*** Also building on Carlisle's supposed status as a pillar of morality, the reason he saved Rosalie's life was he saw her lying raped and dying in the street and thought it would be a shame to let beauty such as hers go to waste. And then he tried to give her to Edward as a girlfriend.

* BrotherSisterIncest: The Cullens have worked out a system where they pretend that Carlisle and Esme adopted the rest of the family when their parents died when they were children, and that the blonds Jasper and Rosalie are from blond Carlisle's side of the family while dark-haired Edward, Alice, and Emmett are from dark-haired Esme's side of the family.
** Discussed by Jessica in the book, when she explains to Bella that [[EveryoneCanSeeIt Alice is with Jasper and Rosalie with Emmett]].

* AllWomenAreLustful: Especially Bella. Other female characters display this trope, like Tanya and her succubus "sisters", and Rosalie, who is known to have spent many nights having loud sex with her husband.

* AntiquatedLinguistics: According to Bella, Edward, and by extension the rest of the Cullens, sometimes use old fashioned phrases. [[ShowDontTell Don't hold your breath waiting for an example of this in their dialogue]]. Bella, on the other hand, occasionally uses old-fashioned words and phrases herself. Presumably in an Arizona accent.

* AttentionDeficitOohShiny: The vampires superhuman senses lead to them being "easily distracted" by things they see, hear or smell.

** Meyer also has a thing for [[AllWomenAreLustful the women being far more sexually interested than the men. Considering that in almost all the relations depicted, it's usually the men that turn down the offers for sex.]]

* AuthorAvatar: Bella Swan seems to be this according to some readers (the claim is supported by a strong physical resemblance), although Meyer claims that she is meant to be a kind of placeholder for female readers to project themselves on. Interestingly, Bella is actually the first name she wanted to give to a daughter who was never born.
* AuthorUsurpation: ''Twilight'' is likely the only successful work of Meyer's that everyone can name.

* AscendedFangirl: Music/ChristinaPerri, a huge fan, was invited to a screening to submit a song for the soundtrack. She ended up with the successful single "A Thousand Years"

** Bella and Edward have their honeymoon on an island off "the west coast of Brazil". Unlike the country's other three cardinal directions, the west side of Brazil lacks a coastline entirely.

** The entire state of Washington appears to be significantly scaled down, as drives from Forks to places like Seattle and Port Angeles are described as taking far shorter than they would in real life. A drive from there to Alaska is also described as taking ''16 hours'', which is simply not possible on land.

The books were adapted into a massively successful film series entitled ''The Twilight Saga'', beginning with ''Literature/{{Twilight|2005}}'' and ending with the two-part ''Literature/BreakingDawn''. It helped launch the careers of Creator/KristenStewart and Creator/RobertPattinson. In 2015, a collection of seven short films titled ''The Storytellers: New Voices of the Twilight Saga'' was released, which explore background events in the Saga. The segments can be watched online.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: A flashback scene which takes place in the 1930s (judging by the Cullens' clothing) has members of the Quileute tribe dressed in buckskin breeches and animal skins. Not only would Quileutes of the 1930s have worn European-style clothing in everyday life and reserved their traditional attire for special occasions, but Quileutes ''didn't'' wear buckskin breeches. While numerous sites mention that Quileute men once wore breechclouts and/or deerskin kilts--kilts, not breeches--in hot weather, the Quileute Nation's website says very plainly that "[[http://www.quileutenation.org/programs/cultural-resources cedar bark is used for baskets and traditional clothing.]]" In fact, cedar was a common material for natives of the Pacific Northwest in general to make clothing out of.

** One of the most bizarre examples of this trope can be found in the concept of "imprinting", in which males "recognize" the females that they are destined to fall in love with -- which can occur as early as child-birth (in fact, Jacob imprinted on Bella's child before she was even conceived). Many of these female imprintees are "basic" by default considering they're infants or toddlers and thus have no fixed personalities at all. Their lives revolve entirely around their future husbands considering the teenage boys appear to become their caregivers until they're of marriageable age, and [[FridgeHorror whether the girls want to be in these relationships is treated as somewhat irrelevant in the text]]. [[WifeHusbandry They are future wives, nothing more]]. In-universe, it's explained that the boys become anything and everything that the girls want, literally living and breathing to make their imprints happy, so ''they're'' satellites as well.

* WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: Humans with certain abilities or traits are enhanced into superpowers if they become vampires: Edward, who was perceptive enough to guess what people were thinking when he was human, has that ability enhanced to full-on telepathy when he becomes a vampire; Jasper, who was charimastic enough to change people's moods gained the ability to alter people's emotions as a vampire; Alice, who was a psychic human who could see brief glipmses into the future, has her power magnified upon her transformation into a vampire. However, Carlisle's enhanced power is said to be "compassion", Esme's is [[ThePowerOfLove love]], and Rosalie's, according to Meyer, is her ''beauty''. An alternative for Rosalie's enhacement suggested by Edward, tenacity, isn't much better.

* WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: Carlisle's power is "compassion", Esme's power is [[ThePowerOfLove love]]. But Rosalie's main power, according to Meyer, is ''beauty''. The alternative suggested by Edward, tenacity, isn't much better.

* InterClassRomance: Bella's strictly working class. The Cullens are wealthy (its easy to make money if you're immortal and have a clairvoyant handling your investments).

** Also: the wolves won't do a thing to stop said human nomming if it's being done in the name of [[spoiler:Jake's sweetie]], Renesmee.

* TownWithADarkSecret: Forks is a subversion. Aside from Bella, none of the humans know there are vampires living in their town. La Push is a bit closer, since the tribe is actively hiding the presence of werwolves. But since the werwolves aren't evil, it doesn't quite apply.

** In ''Midnight Sun'' we find out that Jasper invokes and exploites this deliberately with his powers: when Laurent, James and Victoria meet the Cullens and may be hostile, he makes himself, Alice, Esme and Bella feel as boring and unremarkable as they can be. For a long while, none of the three notice the battle-scarred war veteran, the petite seer [[spoiler:that James personally knows]], or the human girl casually hanging out with a coven of vampires. Even Edward has a hard time keeping his focus on them.
* UnwantedHarem: Bella unwittingly gains a number of male suitors over the course of the trilogy. In ''Twilight'', she falls for Edward while gaining the attention of Justin, Eric, Mike, and Jacob as well as some guys who attempted to rob her without even trying. Same for Edward, who attracts the attention of Jessica and Angela but still wants Bella.

* VampiresAreRich: The Cullens ''own their own island''. James, Laurent, and Victoria were not rich, however. The nomadic vampires in general are not wealthy, just vampires who establish big covens and are old enough to accumulate money.

* DownerEnding: For Charlie and Renee at least, post-''Literature/BreakingDawn''. Since Bella takes measures to hide her newfound vampirism from them, with the implication that she's never going to tell them the truth, she will likely abandon them in a decade, before they start to notice that she's stopped aging.

*** Though a '64 Chevvy pick-up truck is pretty cool too, at least Bella thinks so.
** Rosalie: BMW M3

* CurseThatCures: This is how Edward views vampirism. On the bright side, he was saved from a horrible, wasting death from [[UsefulNotes/TheSpanishFlu Spanish flu]] and is now [[TheBeautifulElite impossibly beautiful]]. On the negative side, he is hard as rock, dead, can't go out in direct sunlight, constantly thirsts to kill people and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking has to go to high school for the rest of his life]] ([[{{Immortality}} which is forever]]). This is why he is unwilling to make Bella a vampire, despite the fact that she wants to be one.
* DeusExMachina: There are two main reasons in the first three books for why someone wouldn't want to be a vampire: first, the overwhelming desire for human blood, which is incredibly painful to resist, and second, a vampire's inability to reproduce. In ''Literature/BreakingDawn'', however [[spoiler: all these concerns are swept away when it turns out that actually, only female vampires can't have babies -- male vampires have magical sperm -- and therefore Bella is able to have Edward's child by having sex with him before being turned. And after the half-vampire baby starts eating Bella up from the inside and Edward turns Bella in order to save her life, it turns out Bella isn't horribly tempted at all, with a weak attempt at explanation in the form of "Well, she ''chose'' to be turned"]] Actually, ''Literature/BreakingDawn'' is crammed FULL of this. [[spoiler: A group of powerful vampires, the Volturi are built up for three books as being the most powerful group of vampires around, but Bella's newborn vampire ability just HAPPENS to be able to completely defeat them without even a fight]].

* AllWomenAreLustful: Especially Bella. Other female characters display this trope, like Tanya and her succubus "sisters", and all the Cullen women seem to spend their nights having sex with their husbands.

* AncestralName: Quil Ateara. In ''[[Literature/Eclipse2007 Eclipse]]'', while discussing the question of who Embry's father is, Quil Ateara Sr. is one of the possibilities mentioned. Quil's grandfather is introduced to the readers as Old Quil. In ''Literature/NewMoon'', Jake says he's descended from Quil Ateara, and subsequently clarifies that this is the great grandfather of the Quil Ateara from the boks. And acording to the Twilight Illustrated Guide, even that Quil Ateara is the second. Lampshaded by Jake, who says it's a "hand-me-down name" when introducing Quil.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: The Cullens live in Forks because the constant rainfall and cloud cover means that there isn't sunlight that'll make them sparkle and out that they're vampires. While Forks ''does'' get a lot of rainfall compared to most of Western Washington, it's similar to the rest of the region in that summers are highly sunny affairs with minimal cloud cover from July to September.
* ArtisticLicenseHistory: A flashback scene which takes place in the 1930s (judging by the Cullens' clothing) has members of the Quileute tribe dressed in buckskin breeches and animal skins. Not only would Quileutes of the 1930s have worn European-style clothing in everyday life and reserved their traditional attire for special occasions, but Quileutes ''didn't'' wear buckskin breeches. While numerous sites mention that Quileute men once wore breechclouts and/or deerskin kilts--kilts, not breeches--in hot weather, the Quileute Nation's website says very plainly that "[[http://www.quileutenation.org/programs/cultural-resources cedar bark is used for baskets and traditional clothing.]]" In fact, cedar clothing was common among natives of the Pacific Northwest; shirts, tunics, leggings, skirts and dresses were all made from cedar. [[https://www.flickr.com/photos/wafolkarts/6032489279/in/photostream/ Here's a picture taken in 1993 of Lillian Pullen, a Quileute weaver of traditional baskets, holding a cedar skirt]].

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: As if it wasn't obvious by now, the Cullens need to live somewhere which has lots of rainfall and is surrounded by clouds, otherwise people would have found out that the Cullens sparkle in the sunlight and their big secret would be let out. That is why Meyer chose Forks to be the destination of choice. While it is true that Forks does get a lot of rainfall (even compared with the rest of Washington), it can get pretty nasty during summer, which tends to be more sunny than not.
* ArtisticLicenseHistory:
** A flashback scene which takes place in the 1930s (judging by the Cullens' clothing) has members of the Quileute tribe dressed in buckskin breeches and animal skins (perhaps to highlight the alleged savagery of the Natives compared with the more 'civilized' Cullen clan?).
** The buckskin breeches and animal skins are doubly insulting, because not only would Quileutes of the 1930s have worn regular clothing for everyday, keeping native clothing for special ceremonies (even by the 1880s, the clothing of natives from the Pacific Northwest was a mixture of their own culture's clothing and the sort of clothes that European-Americans wore), but Quileutes didn't ''wear'' buckskin breeches. While numerous sites mention that Quileute men once wore breechclouts and/or deerskin kilts--kilts, not breeches--in hot weather, the Quileute Nation's website says very plainly that "[[http://www.quileutenation.org/programs/cultural-resources cedar bark is used for baskets and traditional clothing.]]" In fact, cedar clothing was very, very common among natives of the Pacific Northwest; shirts, tunics, leggings, skirts and dresses were all made from cedar. [[https://www.flickr.com/photos/wafolkarts/6032489279/in/photostream/ Here's a picture taken in 1993 of Lillian Pullen, a Quileute weaver of traditional baskets, holding a cedar skirt]].

* LoveMakesYouCrazy: A central theme. Both Edward and Bella fit this trope.
** Bella unquestionably, because of her lack of reaction to the fact that Edward's a vampire - [[LampshadeHanging which he often comments on]].
** Not to mention that she constantly get in trouble, walking alone in a dangerous forest, dark alleys, unstable werewolves, evil vampires. How she made it to seventeen before Edward met her is a mystery.
** ''Literature/NewMoon'' lampshaded it as well, with a comment from Alice: [[spoiler:"I've never met anyone so prone to life-threatening idiocy!"]]
** There's a part in the first book where Bella outright tells the reader she's thinking of deliberately putting herself in danger, and thus forcing Edward to come save her, in order to make him stick around.
** An early one: When Edward takes Bella to meet his family for the first time, she's much more concerned by the possibility that they won't like her than by the fact that she could very well end up as their next meal. {{Lampshaded}}, naturally, by Edward.

** Imprinting is supposed to be rare, yet the entire wolf pack that we see save Seth and Leah have imprinted by the end of the series. The series spans two years.
** This also applies to vampires' psychic powers. They're constantly said to be rare throughout the first three books, but by ''Literature/BreakingDawn'', it seems like vampires ''without'' powers are the minority.

* SmugSuper: Most of the vampires.

* TheBoardGame: A quiz-based board game where you answer questions about the franchize to move forward.

* BrotherSisterIncest: The Cullens have worked out a system where they pretend that Caarlisle and Esme adopted the rest of the family when their parents died when they were children, and that the blonds Jasper and Rosalie are from blond Carlisle's side of the family while dark-haired Edward, Alice, and Emmett are from dark-haired Esme's side of the family.

* CallBack: When Edward has Alice dress Bella up in a blue chiffon dress, Bella thinks he has decided to turn her into a vampire after all. When he actually does turn her into a vampire in '''Literature/BreakingDawn''Lit Alice dresses her up in a blue silk dress while she is turning.

* PantsFree: The scene where Bella sees Edward in her room, and discovers he's been watching her, it's framed in a way at first where Bella is shown from the waist up, and we see she has a t-shirt on. As Bella and Edward vegin kissing, the camera shot widens revealing Bella has no pants on and is in her underwear.