What do vampires, werewolves, and pirates have in common?

I finished the Twilight series in the past week or two. (I love reading series which are fully published, it means not having to wait impatiently for the next book to be published, though the wait for the book to become available through the library can take just as long.)

As you may recall, I said earlier that I didn't think the first book was all that and a bag of chips. Or more words less descriptive to that effect. But I stuck with the series, I figured that if so many people are that into it, that the series had to have some merit.

I still think Bella was whiny, manipulative, and not my favorite character. But I appreciate that so many books allowed the nuances to be explored, and the broad scope of the story to play out. And the ending of the last book tied everything up, for the most part.*

And that's where the pirates come in. I happen to be in a kick of listening to the AOL music / Soundtracks / Movie Tracks at work. (Streaming music is pretty sweet.) This morning while thinking that I wanted to write something of my reaction to the Twilight series, the theme from "Pirates of the Caribbean" started to play. And it clicked.

One's a movie trilogy, the other a book tetralogy (maybe I made that up, tetra is the greek root for four), but they both are epic stories with broad scopes of action and romance and three people, 2 men (one younger & one older) & 1 woman, who are drawn to each other with the men competing for the woman. (So does Star Wars, for that matter....hmm. Wish I could remember enough of my english literature classes to use the fancy SAT words to describe the character types.) At least the Twilight series managed to tied everything together pretty neatly. Can't say the same for Pirates, though maybe if it had been a tetralogy, it would have allowed a less rushed feeling conclusion.

So that's what vampires, werewolves, and pirates have in common.



*Team Jacob all the way baby!