What is it about Twilight that makes it so alluring? It's the kind of addiction Edward Cullen describes to Bella as "My personal brand of heroin." Let me confess that I am a Twi-hard. I've read the books, even the partial draft of Stephanie Meyer's Midnight Sun (that's Twilight rewritten from Edward's perspective) and I do stop breathing every time Robert Pattinson makes an appearance on screen. But there's more to Pattinson's essay of Edward Cullen's character that makes me want to watch the movies again and again. I like the impossibilities: A vampire-human romance (Twilight), a vampire resisting a human's blood, a werewolf falling in love with a vampire's girlfriend (New Moon), werewolves fighting alongside their natural enemies, the vampires in Eclipse, a kind vampire-doctor in a hospital's emergency room, a half-vampire-half-human child, a werewolf falling in love with that child (Breaking Dawn) etc. Though there are flaws in the story and its adaptation on screen that will be always open to review, Twilight stretches the boundaries of imagination, shattering our centuries-old myths about demons and angels. All credit to Meyer's genius in creating characters such as Carlisle and Edward who blur the lines between the damned and the revered. As a little girl, I would be scared to hear stories about vampires, Dracula and werewolves. I wonder how many kids out there would fear vampires now. Not with Edward Cullen in their heads. Sure, Meyer's created the bad ones - James, Victoria, Riley and the reasonably scary Aro, Felix, Jane and Caius, but it's the Cullens you'd think of when you'd think of vampires now. Few works of fiction offer a chance to readers to create a perspective that is different from the existing norms (much of our lores of vampires, witchcraft, werewolves and the Dracula have come down from the time of the Inquisition). I say 'create' not just 'lend'. The Twilight Saga does that!
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