By: Hannah Bazinaw

In 2008, Lionsgate released the first movie in the Twilight Saga, a low budget project expected to flop. Needless to say, it didn’t. 

Not only did it not flop, it became a pop-culture phenomena that people have likened to the Harry Potter craze. 

The movie was an adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s 2005 novel of the same name which rapidly launched the series into fame. The following three books, Eclipse, New Moon and Breaking Dawn were best sellers. Lionsgate also turned those into feature-length films, splitting Breaking Dawn into two separate films. All of these movies were box office successes. 

The five films alone grossed over three billion dollars in total. 

Stores began carrying replicas of movie outfits, t-shirts adorned with character’s faces, jewelry, posters, decorative merchandise and even children’s dolls. 

Meyer also released an illustrated guide, graphic novel and a novella entitled The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. 

2012 came and the last movie was released. The hype was expected to die down. It did, to an extent. The mid 2010s brought a hatred for the franchise often attributed to misogyny. 

Despite criticism, Meyer wasn’t done with her vampires just yet. Life and Death, a gender swapped version of the first Twilight book, was released in 2015. It received mixed reviews on both Goodreads and Barnes and Noble. 

What revived this series was the 2020 release of Meyer’s fifth Twilight novel, Midnight Sun. The book is a retelling of the first Twilight book from the main love interest’s perspective. 

The book’s publication resulted in what fans of the series have taken to calling the “Twilight renaissance”. The films and books are circulating on social media under a microscope. 

As watchers interpret the franchise through a modern lens, themes and plot points are being scrutinized more closely. 

One such topic receiving scrutiny is the depiction of the werewolves of the Quileute tribe in the series, and how the series has impacted the people of the real Quileute Nation in La Push, Washington.

Meyer’s depiction of a tribe of Native Americans that shapeshift into wolves was not her original idea, but rather a real belief of the Quileute people that Meyer “latched onto” and fictionalized to fit into her story. 

There are no werewolves, but there is the Quileute Nation. 

Meyer not only took their name, she took one of their central creation of man story and heavily edited it to fit the narrative of the Twilight books. 

In Eclipse, we learn the Quileute men were given the ability to shapeshift into wolves in order to fight the “cold ones”, which they say when referring to the vampires in the series. 

There are no legends of the “cold ones” in the Quileute religion. The vampire legend is only a  plot device in the book to give protagonist Bella Swan a clue to uncovering the mystery surrounding Edward Cullen, the primary love interest. Looking for legends of the cold ones is what leads her to the conclusion of vampire. 

Another fictional plot device disguised as myth is imprinting, an involuntary process for the werewolves that ties them to one person for the rest of their lives. It’s stated that imprinting has the potential to be a familial bond, but the majority of the examples leave some to conclude that it is inevitably romantic. 

In Breaking Dawn, Bella gives birth to a half-human, half-vampire baby. The wolf pack, which essentially exists to keep the vampires in check, makes an attempt to kill the child. It is a major plot point in the book and a large obstacle. It is resolved by having the werewolf Jacob Black imprint on the newborn baby. As werewolves cannot hurt any imprintees, the problem is resolved and all is suddenly well between the vampires and the werewolves.

The books and movies are criticized for having the chance to spread cultural awareness but ending up perpetuating Native American stereotypes, such as Native Americans being violent savages. 

One of the werewolves’ most defining traits is aggression and an increase in anger is one of the signs that they are about to shift. The leader of the pack is a man who disfigured his wife because he lost control of his anger. 

The Burke Museum criticizes this and points out that that can easily be read as domestic abuse, making the vampire clan look superior in comparison.

The fictional Quileute wolfpack belongs to Stephanie Meyer, and she has not donated any of her proceeds to the Quileute tribe in a time where they desperately need it.

The Quileute Nation’s tribal land is currently located in a tsunami zone, where a single earthquake could wipe away their entire history. 

Not only would it take the lives of everyone on the reservation, it would destroy the Quileute Tribal School. This is the only school in the world that teaches their language and culture.

Move To Higher Ground is a fundraiser the Quileute Nation started in 2017. Their goal is to be able to move their community out of a tsunami zone. 

The school is their highest priority, but they also strive to be able to do disaster-proof construction, increase tribal engagement and integrate into a new and safer community, among other things.

The tribe is currently making the most out of the exposure and welcoming the increased tourism. Outsiders are welcomed into activities in an attempt to preserve, share and spread Quileute culture.

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