The vampires in Twilight are best remembered for resisting sunlight and having sparkly skin – and here’s why their skin shines under the sun. Back in 2005, Stephenie Meyer shared her world of vampires, werewolves, and humans in Twilight, the first entry in a series of four books that followed the often problematic relationship between vampire Edward Cullen and mortal Bella Swan. Twilight became a big hit, and it didn’t take long for it to get a big-screen adaptation.
The Twilight Saga was released between 2008 and 2012, with the final novel, Breaking Dawn, being split into two. The movies stayed as true to the books as possible, not only in terms of story and characters but also when it comes to the characteristics of the vampires and werewolves. Of course, the Twilight books and movies were heavily criticized for a number of reasons, among those the changes that Meyer did to these creatures, the main ones being that werewolves can turn into wolves at will and not under a full moon, and vampires can resist sunlight, with the only consequence being that their skin sparkles.
The vampires in Twilight have the basic characteristics of these monsters: they feed on blood (either human or animal), they are pale, attractive, and immortal. However, these vampires can’t die when being exposed to sunlight, but they don’t spend time under the sun either as their skin sparkles “like diamonds”. Bella and readers learn this in the first book/movie, when Edward shows her why he and his family don’t leave the house on sunny days. Meyer actually gave an explanation to this, saying that vampires’ bodies sparkle due to the crystalline properties of their cells, as vampire skin is very different to that of humans.
The skin of vampires is often described in the books as being like marble due to its texture, color, and feel. They are unnaturally pale due to their lack of blood flow, and their skin is very resistant, which is why when one is dismembered (to later be burned, as that’s the only way they can be killed), their skin breaks as if it was made of hard material. Because of all this, the cells have become hard and refractive as if they were tiny prisms, which is why they reflect light and make their skin sparkle whenever it’s hit by the sun. Of course, the sparkly skin and resistance to sunlight is a big part of what makes the Twilight books and movies possible: the reason why the Cullens move to Forks is because it’s cloudy and rainy most of the time, and if Edward could only go out at night he definitely wouldn’t have met Bella.
Stephenie Meyer made a lot of changes to classic monsters like vampires and werewolves which weren’t well-received, though she did give an explanation for most of them, even if they don’t make much sense. Ultimately, the sparkly skin from the Twilight vampires is what allowed them to blend with humans (as long as there was no sunlight), and it also gave viewers a lot to talk about and discuss.