I'd done a long post, but it boils down to a) I didn't mean to denigrate anyone's taste, b) I am evaluating by standards that are apparently different from y'alls, since the kind of thing I look for in vampire fiction (hero/monster duality, moral wrestling) were pretty much removed from the vampires in BDB, at least by the lights that I see with, and c) I'm not trying to say I have more experience or taste or anything like that, just that the things that work for me over my career as a vampire/romance/whatever story reader, the first BDB book didn't give me. If y'all find it great, that's wonderful.
I suppose it comes down to the fact that I love lots of things that I acknowledge are pretty crap, or I see they're crap now even though I thought they were great back in the day. In those things, I can acknowledge the flaws while still loving the hell out of 'em. I suppose I was predicting you'd see what I was talking about, even though your love for the work still abides. I didn't mean to harsh anyone's mellow.
Oh, and there wasn't supposed to be an insult when it came to "younger readers." It's just I was young when that kind of thing would have appealed to me (as so much like it did, back in the day). With age comes the ability to look frankly at the stuff you love and see where it creaks and doesn't work, even if you still dig it. In a ham-handed way, I wasn't trying to say you would come around to my opinion, just that I figured you'd see what I was criticizing as you broadened out, even if you still loved it. I don't take you as the type to assume a criticism on something you like is tantamount to a personal attack on you.
It wasn't an insult to you as a youthful adult (or to any adult who likes the series), just more of a "I figure you're a smart enough cookie, you'll see my points eventually, even if you don't get cockblocked by them like I did."
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