The Werewolves In Twilight Aren’t Real Werewolves
Saturday, August 1 2009 – 1:28 PM
Posted by Andrew
Okay, I’ve had enough. Every time I pick up a paper or a magazine, browse through blogs or read a news web site, someone is going on about the “werewolves” in Twilight. Aside from being boring, clichéd, visually uninteresting and a misappropriation of Native American culture, the werewolves in Twilight aren’t real werewolves. This fact is even printed in Breaking Dawn, the last book of the series (chapter 37, look it up). I was willing to let this go, but it’s getting so I can’t even walk down the street without hearing someone sighing dreamily over “those hot Quileute werewolves”. People are making their own Twilight-inspired werewolf stuff out of craft supplies and selling them to each other online. There are dozens of Twilight-based “OMG R U A WEREWOLF OR A VAMPIRE??” online quizzes designed to fill up your sister’s MySpace page and destroy the signal-to-noise ratio on Twitter. Don’t even get me started on the blog discussions.
So what can I do? Well, as an Internet-savvy werewolf fan, I can try to enlist your help in making a number get bigger:
http://werewolf-news.com/twilight/
It’s not much, but it’s something. If you feel the same way I do about this crazy business, please share the URL. Post it on your blog, spread it around on Twitter, and participate in the grim satisfaction of having complained about something on the Internet. You might feel a little bit better– I did.
August 1st, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Honestly, the Twilight series is geared completely towards 16 year old girls. I am not a 16 year old girl, therefore, I could care less. Let them make up whatever stupid crap they want. The whole series is completely lame, horribly written according to most critics, and not worth my time.
I am, however, sick of the mere mention of Twilight, period.
August 1st, 2009 at 5:03 pm
We’re on the same page, Jason. 75% of the stuff in my Werewolf News inbox is Twilight-related, though, thanks to lousy keyword-filtering on Google’s part. Therefore I get overexposed to Twilight crap, and it makes me a little… edgy.
August 1st, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Hahaha .. I hear you, man! As a fellow TRUE werewolf lover myself, I appreciate you fighting the good fight. Keep on keepin’ on.
I mean, we can’t even get a halfway believable transformation out of these people! ‘Nuff said. :(
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:03 am
Meh, it’s all an extended argument over semantics, and kind of ridiculous, actually.
“Werewolf” means:
“A person with the power to turn into a wolf.”
That’s it. We can attach all the extra meaning to it that we want, but in the end we’d still be defining terms ad hoc, which is a fallacy (are they TRUE werewolves? Are there no TRUE Scotsmen?)
Even if the author printed a clarifying blurb late into the series, after already creating a popular and well-established world for her characters… whoops, we’ve been calling them werewolves all this time, and suddenly we shouldn’t? That kind of inconsistency is one reason why I don’t like Twilight, but I’m not going to get my knickers in a bunch over it.
August 2nd, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Ah…I love you. :) And I will gladly join any allegiance you may be forced to make. Thank you for not giving in to the crap. I’m not surprised, just so pleased.
August 2nd, 2009 at 5:20 pm
[...] Find out here. [...]
August 2nd, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Let’s all agree Twilight isn’t worth even the effort to hate it. Goddamn, am I sick of hearing about it.
August 3rd, 2009 at 8:18 am
Thanks for making an Internet complaint about my Internet complaint, Berserker! You get bonus points for using the words “meh” and “semantics” in the same sentence.
August 3rd, 2009 at 8:44 am
Thanks for the publicity. We are more than willing to affiliate with your site and any literary supernatural beings you are passionate about. Please feel free to join OBS and fight the good fight here as well. Good luck in your endeavor.
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:41 pm
i have not read the books, but i remember 2 years ago when i am guessing the last one came out, every girl i knew had that book in their hands. reluctantly i saw the movies, and was falling asleep through it. yeah i get the story and, pardon me if i sound egotistical and chauvinistic, i dont see how girls sat through it. sure it had little action, but it had little substance too. there was the occasional flirt, but it wasnt much of a love story, not much action…. it was just…empty.
anyway, i agree. i love werewolves and have many books on them, and twilight takes the image of them to an all-time low. as said, even the author commented on the type of….shapeshifter they are.
anyway i am new to the site, and bookmarked it not 5 mins after browsing through it. nice site! keep the news a commin ^_^
August 4th, 2009 at 1:38 am
I think Berserker is essentially correct–a Werewolf is pure and simple someone with the power to turn into a wolf. It doesn’t mean that Twilight doesn’t suck–it still does! As Jason noted, there isn’t even the consolation of seeing any interesting transformations–just a lot of crappy blink-and-miss-it CGI . All that said, you are justified in ignoring any mention of Twilight in your blog, and I hope they will darken your pages no more.
August 6th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
While I agree with your sentiment, unfortunately, the shapeshifters are werewolves, by definition. Read the definition on dictionary.com, or look up werewolves on Encyclopedia Brittannica’s website, or any other reference source. I am sure you will find the explanation of the beast to be, at best, vague and all-encompassing.
I like my werewolves to be anthropomorphic and beastly, as I am sure most here do as well, but the fact is that they are, in fact, werewolves. I wish Meyer had left them out of her romance novels, but that doesn’t change what they are.
August 8th, 2009 at 4:57 am
I concure with the I can’t hear the mentioning of ‘twilight’ anymore, in fact I hate so much that write these words at ‘dawn’ to make a point about it. :p
Nah, seriously, do you really care if they are werewolves or only wolf descended indians?
Does it make any diff?
January 14th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
This is the entire thing from the book, word for word. Aro says it, not caius ^^ yes i am a fan XD but i also understand the difference
—————————-
“Caius, it’s the middle of the day,” Edward pointed out. He gestured to Jacob. “These are not Children of the Moon, clearly. They bear no relation to your enemies on the other side of the world.”
“You breed mutants here,” Caius spit back at him.
Edward’s jaw clenched and unclenched, then he answered evenly, “They aren’t even werewolves. Aro can tell you about it if you don’t believe me.”
Not werewolves? I shot a mystified look at Jacob. He lifted his huge shoulders and let them drop- a shrug. He didn’t know what Edward was talking about, either.
“Dear Caius, I would have warned you not to press this point if you had told me your thoughts,” Aro murmured. “Though the creatures think of themselves as werewolves, they are not. The more accurate name for them would be shape-shifters. The choice of a wolf form was purely chance. It could have been a bear or a hawk or a panther when the first change was made. These creatures truly have nothing to do with the Children of the Moon. They have merely inherited this skill from their fathers. It’s genetic- they do not continue their species by infecting others the way true werewolves do.”
January 20th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
hey i have read with the twilight series but i totally understand what your saying , i know about real werewolves and i knew from the begging when stepahnie meyer described those boys as werewolves but i think people just like them because its a new version ofthe old legends and in breaking dawn she DID make it clear that they were shapeshifters and the leader just HAPPENED to pick a wolf to store his soul into. Im a big fan of twilight but i kno that they arnt real werewolves , their shapeshifters and that real werewolves transform at night when the moon is full and they yatayatayata. Thanks for making that clear to all of the twilight fans who dont understand that the wolves in twilight ARNT REAL WOLVES. Well biz!
January 22nd, 2010 at 6:25 pm
Wow… I guess I like twilight but I’m not a total freak about it like most teen girls my age. I have to admit that Taylor lautner is pretty good looking. But really what idiot thought they were real anyway? I maen if you thought they were goin to be real you need to see a doctor!