The Prince Charming Myth

So, I picked up the vampire issue of Entertainment Weekly last week (Me? Obsessed? No....), and read it over the weekend.

I love how almost all of the other vampire genre authors snub Twilight in one form or another. One, though, actually appreciated the buzz it's created and how it benefited her by generating interest in her novels.

Something that one of the other authors interviewed, though, caught my attention in her diss of the Saga.

Laurell K. Hamilton, author of the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series (which I have not read), said:

"They [meaning fans of Twilight] like the idea that (Bella) was like the fairy princess and (Edward) is the handsome prince that rides in and saves her. The fact that women are so attracted to that idea -- that they want to wait for Prince Charming rather than taking control of their own life -- I find that frightening."

Uh...What?

OK, I kind of see her point. I also kind of think she's cracked.

Maybe I can help. Here's my take.

Bella was a lost soul -- an old one, perhaps, but still a lost soul. So was Edward. Together, they completed each other. He didn't "save" her from finding her own life. She found her life -- and took control of it -- when she found him. She was the one pushing her way into his life, while he feared her presence in it, wanting her to pursue a more human existence. He "saved" her from the villain in the first book, she saved him from himself in the second, he saved her from the villains in the third, and she saved HER ENTIRE FAMILY in the last book, her new husband Edward included.

The attraction that I think women have to this story is the desire to find that one person that completes their circuit -- the Ying to their Yang, as it were. It's the same theme that most love stories have. Who, on earth, wants to wander this life alone? You always want to think that there is a companion out there for you, whether he's from another time (Outlander), another species (Twilight), or just a good ole' human.

Twilight is not about a girl pining for marriage and then -- viola! -- a man enters into her life who just happens to want the same thing -- marriage to a girl pining for him.

This isn't Cinderella, Ms. Hamilton. Of course, this really isn't about Prince Charming, now is it?