So, I was writing a comment in response to this blog entry, but it got really long (because I unintentionally tend to rant a lot...) so I decided to turn it into a blog entry instead.
I just started reading the Ebook of Fifty Shades Of Grey. Just like many others, I assume, I wanted to read it because of the huge hype revolving around it. I wanted to see how good or bad it was, and how brutal the BDSM is - it's like a horror movie, I want to see if I can handle it, or if it'll scar me for life. Lol.
I didn't know it started out as a Twilight fanfiction until after I started reading, though I did notice the similarity not long after the beginning. Though, I only read 2.5 pages of Twilight before putting the book down, because it was so boring to me. I'm not even going to bother giving it a second chance; firstly because I don't want to waste my time and go through that torture, and secondly because I have several friends who did so and read the entire series, only to find it (as expected) horrible.
Anyway, back to the topic - Fifty Shades of Grey. I'm only somewhere around chapter five, but to be honest, it's been amusing so far.
Note: The rest of this post contains spoilers up to chapter five... Not that it matters much, but you know, it's always better to include a spoiler alert just in case. (Also, you probably won't understand most of what I'm saying unless you've read at least a little bit of the book.)
I find Ana a little annoying, but overall I find her hilarious. I mean, really? Her ability to trip over her feet could be considered a skill because of how hard it is (as far as I know) to trip and fall so often in real life. And the "old time movie director" image she had about Christian Grey when she was drunk made me laugh out loud, too, because of how random it was.
But throughout reading it, I was repeatedly yelling out loud at my Macbook screen, saying things like, "THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE" and "OMG UGH THAT'S BULLSHIT, THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE". Because really, the girl's a total klutz (I mean, yeah, some guys would like that I guess, to a certain extent which she's exceeded - and I'm pretty sure most would find it annoying, unless her looks're so superior that they can make up for it but that's also unlikely), and from the very start she has three guys chasing after her already? Really? Plus, two of them are mentioned to be very attractive, and the other's supposedly a total "boy next door" sweetheart.
Not to mention the part about her being almost run over by the bicycle. Trololol, that was so exaggerated and melodramatic, I just stared at my screen for a while thinking, "Wtf just happened?" And lol, obviously Grey's just in time to rescue Ana from the evil-when-drunk Jose, right? It seems Ana has such horrible friends that it's better for her to rely on some obviously peculiar new acquaintance than her friends, because her friends are useless - Jose was about to drunk-rape her, and Kate just dumped Levi to dance around Grey's brother. Yeah, okay.
And the part where they're in the elevator and suddenly both of them get super horny, like what, you didn't touch her throughout the night when you shared a bed with her being in a defenseless state, yet suddenly when you enter an elevator you decide to pin her down? :| "What is it about elevators?", you ask, Grey? A newfound fetish, most probably.
And all Ana talks about is how gorgeous Grey is, how this is the first time she wants to be fucked by a man so badly. So superficial and stupid! I can, at the very least, kind of understand why Grey might want her - she's such a vulnerable and innocent klutz, she'd be the perfect victim to his sadistic pleasures. But the girl's an idiot, falling for him just because he's attractive and rich. -.-
Also, I'd like to point out something I realized about Grey, based on my "anime knowledge", lol. In my own terms, the author's combined two "perfect guy" stereotypes to form Grey.
Firstly, the "bad boy" stereotype, like Edward Cullen I guess, where the guy's got that whole mysterious, dangerous aura and is all "stay away from me, i'm not good for you", but in the end they keep coming back to her anyway because they have no self control or whatever, and they're actually really nice and protective of the girl. And I think characters like this is one of the reasons why girls like bad boys in real life - they think that they can get the bad boy to open up to them (and only them) and reveal their true, nice selves, or that they can change the bad boy's ways or whatever. Lulz.
Secondly, the "rich boy" stereotype. The guy's well-trained to be forever polite and politically correct, making the girl want to know more about the man behind his facade. And the incredibly rich guy, who somehow is magically captivated by this random ordinary girl-next-door character, buys her tons of expensive gifts (the $14k+ book, for starters) and deems it as nothing. (Materialistic, much!) And more often than not, the guy has to try to avoid the girl because of some factors revolving his rich boy background, like she might be at risk of danger because she might be kidnapped for ransom or something, but he ends up going back to the girl anyway because she's "too captivating".
Not all the characteristics I mentioned might apply to Grey, but I'm sure you've noticed that most of them do, lol. So yeah - well played, E L James. Well played indeed. And whilst I say I've gathered this from my 'anime knowledge', anime tend to pull these stereotypes a lot better than books/stories like Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight do. I guess it's partially because a lot of things that happen in anime/manga are unrealistic (often comedically so), so we find unrealistic things to be more acceptable in anime than in novels, but I'm pretty sure it's mostly just because fictions like Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey really are just full of too much bullshit, whereas in (most) anime the characters and plot are more well-developed so everything's more believable and thus acceptable.
But yeah, about Fifty Shades of Grey's characters; all I've learned is that Ana is incredibly clumsy and trips a lot, blushes a lot, cries easily (Kavanaugh doesn't know shit), likes her English tea mild and loves English Lit - oh, and like Alexander Bernadotte mentioned, she likes to say "oh my" a lot. Not to mention how she's really superficial and stupid... As for Christian Grey, I know he's sadistic (though I haven't reached the part where the truth's completely revealed yet), has that 'cool, calm and collected' demeanor, is rich, is good-looking, is a "control freak" and is arrogant. They're really stereotypical characters; the whiny innocent klutz and the arrogant entrepreneur, just with minor twists.
And, as I mentioned before, I noticed the similarity between Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey early in the book, because of its style - a category that I've decided to name "Marty Stu and The Characterless Female". (I think they should really invent a nickname for 'the characterless female', just like how there's 'Mary Sue'. Does such a nickname exist? If so, let me know, because I haven't come across one before.)
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