We have wide range of topics this week!  But you know you want to read/listen to what Stephenie has to say about it ALL!  Stephenie Meyer answers questions about the Volvo used in the movies, what Edward is thinking when he stops making out with Bella in the proposal scene, what it’s like to have teenagers and religion is always brought up in reference to SM and her books…

[audio:https://twilightseriestheories.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/VolvostoReligion.mp3|titles=VolvostoReligion]

TF: We have a little silly question.  It’s not super silly.  What about the movie Volvo  [not being] like the book Volvo?

Fansite: We had to go there.

TF: We really have to go there because, you know I’m over it now, but what about that?

SM: Um, I…you know the reason that Edward drives a Volvo is to be inconspicuous and because the whole—you know, people see a Volvo and think you buy them for safety and it’s kind of a joke, like it’s the way to blend in because the last thing in the world he needs is a safe car.  So when I was doing the cars, my brothers are car freaks—you know— and I asked them.  I said, “Okay, if you were gonna drive a Volvo but you’re a car enthusiast” and they’re like: “Ugh!” And I’m like: “No, what are you gonna drive?”  And they’re like: “Well, there’s the S60 R.  Very limited, not a lot of people did it.  It looks like a sedan but it’s built for racing.”  And so I was like: “Oh that’s perfect!  That’s perfect!”  They don’t make them anymore, and so that was kind of a problem.  They couldn’t you know…

Fansite:  But they don’t make Bella’s truck anymore though, either.

SM: And Bella’s truck is a ’67 in the movies.  It’s a ’53 in real life.  They look nothing the same, and it kinda killed me because I loved the old body-styling, in the 60s it got very square.  In the 50s it was all round and kind of bubbly and it was really cute.  And so that one actually—that one was harder almost than the Volvo, but I am very car attached so yeah, I had…I mean I didn’t have—Back in the day, I really didn’t have a lot of say over anything with Twilight.  They were great about telling me what was going on but I wasn’t part of the conversation, and so with the cars it was already a done deal, they already had the three sets of them and I kind of went “oh…”

Fansite:  Everyone’s just like: “It’s not silver.  It’s a mom-mobile.”

TF: It’s not a sexy vampire car!

SM: Well actually, it’s kind of a fun car.  They went with the darker grey to kind of differentiate.  I’m interested to see if it evolves again.  I’m not sure if it will, we’ll see.

TF: Well there’s plenty of them driving around so I thought maybe they were selling them!

SM: I was just glad that we got the Porsche because that was in question and we got the right Porsche, in the right color and that was a real relief to me.

Fansite:  That would’ve been like protest signs or something I think.

(chatter)

Fansite: Well we just had to ask you ‘cause your opinion is really the only one that matters to the fans.

SM: Well and you know if I were gonna do it, if I were gonna raise a bunch of money and do it—Oh, the cars would be spot on.  That’s how it would go.

LT:  If you were forced to write a sequel or some novella, which—what character or characters would you do?

SM: If I were to go ahead with sequels, and I think that I’ve already stated this in some book thing, I would tell it from two narrators again, although I think I’d switch back and forth and it would be Nessie and Leah.  And you know it’s funny because a lot of people are like—I’ve read a lot of theories about why I felt compelled to have Bella have a baby and there’s only one reason and it’s not because—there isn’t a lot of really negative stuff—it’s not because you know Bella needed to have a baby or anything, it’s because I knew—it was really clear because I’d already done “Forever Dawn”—once Bella becomes a vampire she loses her relatability.  It’s subtle, but you no longer could do anything she could do and it really, as a narrator, she—I wanted to continue, I wanted to show where she went with it—but as a narrator she loses a lot of her appeal because she’s a vampire now and it’s really interesting to see how she does things but emotionally I felt like the tie was not as strong.  I wanted my narrator for the next story.  When I was writing this I was never gonna stop and I may go back to it, but like I said there’s the burnout factor that you don’t take into account and working on the movies, it’s a lot of vampires.  But Nessie was created because she was the logical voice, you have someone who’s half-human, half-vampire who doesn’t fit in anywhere and is an outsider in some ways, but then loved and cherished by her family.  But all the intricacies—she had so many problems, so many challenges so she was so attractive to me as a narrator.  And then Leah, of course, obviously is left open, right?  I can’t—I couldn’t solve all the problems in this because I didn’t want to end it.  I mean clearly the Volturi, that wasn’t the end, end.  I needed to get to an ending spot for now, but you know I…I just couldn’t see them, the Volturi—they’re smart, they’re patient, they’ve been doing this forever—they’re not going to get into this situation and not say, “Oh we need to reevaluate.”  It didn’t make sense for me—them as characters to just go ahead with it, for me.  But like, Nessie’s supposed to tell the story next and Leah has a story to tell too and so that’s where it would go.

LT: Ah that’s what I want.

Fansite: So you’re not going to share what Leah’s story is next?

SM: No, because then I couldn’t write it.

Fansite: Yeah, I figured…

(chatter)

SM: She had some rough things to go through before she gets to a happy—you know it’s kind of like when I took Jacob on I knew I had…before I could get him to a good place I was going to have to drag him over the coals, but he is similar. Rough life for that girl.

LT: We were thinking of what a tragic character she is and maybe—

Fansite: And tragic now.

LT: —one of the most in the book, I think.

SM: It never gets super easy for her.  She is alone.  She is one of a kind, and she’s alone.  I mean she has this great support group, but nobody really.  I mean, they know her thoughts but they can’t understand her experience, and the thing with Sam and Emily, that’s ugly.  That’s ugly.

LT: Ugh, that part kills me.  Seeing that little clip of Julia Jones…like delivered one line and just walked off the screen I was like: [inaudible]

(chatter)

SM: Her face kills me.  Her cheekbones and her…When they did the auditions for Leah they read from Breaking Dawn, they did lines from the book and to see her—they did the conversation between her and Jacob when she first shows up and she’s yelling at Seth and she’s saying, “Look, I can do whatever I want!” and she had so much anger.  It was just like you could see how on edge she was.  She was great.

Fansite: Excited to see it.

Matt: It’s running out, why don’t you just ask it?

(laughter)

Elysa: Okay!  Well on Imprint we talk a lot about…we have a lot of thematic discussions about redemption and rebirth, obviously love.  Is there any theme that you feel really encompasses all of them, that for the series as a whole is the common thread?

SM: For me you know I don’t write with a “I’m going to—this is my message”.  I write because it’s a story, and I feel bad when people assign greater messages to it because it’s one person’s story and what Bella chooses in her life and everything is specific to her, and it’s not supposed to be a model for everybody, obviously.  So I have a hard time when people think that I’m saying that this is the right way to go.  I’m saying that this is what one character did in an interesting way for a story.  I do feel like the kind of overarching feel for me is about choice because I’ve always, always been fascinated with people who are in the same situation and one of them makes something of themselves and the other one wallows in a negative situation.  I have a friend who came out of a very abusive family situation and totally rose above it and has made a really great life for herself.  You wouldn’t have thought she would have been able to do what she did because she had so much against her, but people do!  You know you hear those inspiring stories about people who pull themselves up and do stuff that’s—they break through the history of the bad things that happened, and you can do that.  I’m always fascinated with people who are that strong.  And like the Cullens for me were all about people who were in a bad situation and made a really tough choice that never got that much easier, but still they wanted to be something more.  And I love people who can do that ‘cause I was raised…I had a really great family with really awesome parents and I was given a lot of good things, not that I was spoiled or anything.  I was one of six and there [were] always money issues, but my parents gave me good values, and they gave me love, and they cared about what happened to me, and they were careful with me and not everybody gets that.  And when people who don’t have that foundation are able to do great things it’s like—it’s one of the most amazing things in the world.  And so for me the vampires were like human beings, right?  These are—it’s a different world and some people make choices that just go with the flow and then the Cullens did something else, so that always…and you know Bella has to make choices about her life and I like looking at consequences of things.  Eclipse was a lot about making her stop and look at what she was doing because she was just so blinders: “I want what I want and I’m not gonna—I’ll think about it when I’m through.”  And I didn’t want her to do it, I wanted her to make the choice fully informed and so Eclipse was fully informing her.

Elysa: Right.

Kallie: Well that kind of—I’m curious about Eclipse because at the point where…I loved this book because Edward becomes a lot more flirtatious and you get to kind of see that relational side—

SM: They have happy moments, which are hard to do in fiction because everybody wants constant pacing and everything, and I tend to slow down.  A lot of what my editors did was cut because I just want to sit and talk.  Let’s have a nice moment.  Let’s have a happy time!

Kallie: Well and one of the most nice moments is when they’re in Edward’s room, in bed, and he proposes, okay?  There are lots of people that have asked questions, and I could probably ask 10 or 20 just within that one scene, but the one I want the answer to the most is: Edward at one point, you know he kind of caves just a smidge and when he says, “No, stop.  We’re not doing this until we’re married”, is it more out of a moral issue or is it more out of “I want to make sure you keep up your end of the deal”?

SM: They’re equal parts.  There are a couple of things: one is Edward was born in 1901 and in his mind—you know he understands the world more clearly than we do; he hears everybody’s thoughts.  But to him this is kind of a—for him it’s a very disrespectful [thing] and he can’t get away from the taboos of his youth, it would be wrong to take advantage of her in his mind.  Obviously she has a completely different viewpoint, and her viewpoint of it is very modern and she knows that she’s with him forever and she doesn’t see his point, but he just comes from a different place.  I really like every place that I could put in that would really date him because I like when he is 109, you know?

Kallie: Chivalrous.

SM: He’s different because he has a lot of different experiences.  Part of it is he is stalling for time and he wants to string this out because there is that part of him that knows it’d be better if she went with Jacob, for her in his mind.  He never foresees her being a happy vampire.  In his mind it’s all the Rosalie reaction; he just thinks she’s gonna be miserable and there’s gonna be so much pain for her, and so he wants her to be happy.  So he thinks—he is, you know the longer we string this on maybe she is gonna change her mind, maybe she’ll say, “Heck, I want to be human.  I’ll do this”.  So there’s that.  And then there’s just, absolutely, the physical fear because he is really worried about that part of it.  Just on your [Letters to Twilight] site a couple of days ago…the bikini waxing.  The pain of becoming a vampire is not a joke!  All this time the way I envisioned it, it’s a big deal!  And all these people are like: “Oh just bite her!  Just bite her!” and it’s like wouldn’t that give you so much pause?  You want your husband, or whoever you’re in love with, you want him to be like you but you’re going to have to torture him for three days.  It’s a long time.  Burning someone to death is bad enough but if it went on for three days?  Huge deal!  And then people discount the pain a lot but that’s a big thing for him, even knowing that she’ll get over it and it’ll be passed.  Those three days are a gigantic hurdle.

Kallie: Do you think that the way that she fears the fact that before she’s gonna turn, you know she kind of thinks, “Well what if after I turn I’m not gonna him anymore or I’m not gonna feel the same way?”  Does he ever fear that at any time?

SM: Oh he fears that.

Kallie: Okay.

SM: He does; she doesn’t much because she feels like: “I’m gonna love you forever” and he knows that things change.  After having just gone through this horrible thing there could be a part of her that turns around and said: “You did this to me.  I just went through all this horrible stuff because of you and now my family’s gonna die and I’m gonna have to watch it”.  He just only sees the negatives.  A lot of him becoming an optimist is her reaction to being a vampire and seeing she was right.

Fansite: We both have teenage girls.

SM: I’m sorry.

(laughter)

SM: I am new to teenage world and it’s a hardship.

(chatter)

Fansite:  The virginity talk in Eclipse is one of our favorites, we were rolling.  But did you—I almost feel like there’s almost a PSA that comes through in the movie that—

SM: I wish it didn’t.  I do see that. I feel like people take it as a message when again this was something that was just…I wanted Edward’s character to feel of that period, like you know he is a different character than a modern character.   He is not the same and I wanted that.  And you know you had all these motivations.  And the talk was fun to write, I was surprised actually that my editors didn’t have more of a problem with it, but you know it’s something that people actually could say if people were coming from those two mindsets.  There are people of both mindsets in the world right now and it felt very real to me.  It was never meant to be—none of it’s ever a message.  It’s a story.  It’s for fun, and I hate it when it comes through PSA.

Fansite:  You’re saying in the movie it kind of comes [across] as a PSA?

Fansite: Yeah, but you know for my 13 and 16-year-old daughters to watch it I’m almost like: “See, you gotta marry the guy!”

SM: I don’t like for people to feel like this is anything to apply to real life, but the one thing is I have had letters from people who have said that, who had somewhat abusive boyfriends, and after seeing a character like Edward [say]: “Love doesn’t do that.”  In that case, take it as a PSA and run with it, leave the guy.  That’s fantastic.  I’m glad for that one, that’s great.

TF: I like that it’s brought back that outdated concept myself!  Kim is LDS so…

SM: I’m an outdated person and you know, I’m LDS as well and it was—I mean I am, in some ways, from that earlier time period and to me that’s real life and that’s something that can be very realistic.  I do think that some people who haven’t had experience with that in their lives, like they aren’t a part of that world, think it’s very crazy like: “This is nothing anyone would say”.  But guess what those conversations really do happen, so yeah it isn’t foreign to everyone.

Fansite:  Well you know critics will say that’s because you are LDS, that’s why you’re saying that.  And it’s like: “No, Bella wants it, like Bella would do it right then and there if Edward let it!” So no it’s not, I mean…

SM: Well and I enjoyed the religion philosophy.  How do you say it?

LT: Twilosophy.

SM: Okay, so I’m saying it right.  Because it is so many people.  I don’t know the religion of—I know one or two authors that people have told me, “Oh yeah, that’s what this person is.”  I don’t know that!

(chatter)

SM: It does bother me ‘cause it’s just like: “Is that really relevant?”  It’s like when Jon Stewart has a book no one said, “Jewish father of two”, but it’s always “Mormon mother of three”, always.  Oh well, you have to roll with it.

THANKS TO STEFANIE FOR TRANSCRIBING!

To read our previous posts from the Stephenie Meyer Fan Junket 2010 click HERE!

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All Photos: Julie Adamson