What is your opinion on imprinting?

I never really understood why S. Meyer invented imprinting. As a plot point, it's useless and unessessary. It doesn't contribute to the story, of moves the events forward. The only use of it was to give Jacob a cheesy, happy ending (because God forbit if anything goes wrong in this story). And as always, she didn't think of the negative messages of imprinting either. First of all, it IS child grooming and pedophilia, even though she has done her best to prove it's not. One of the main ways Stephenie Meyer used to defend imprinting is that Quil and Jacob attempt to form a brotherly bond with Clair and Renesmee instead of a romantic one. This might indeed excuse the whole thing if imprinting was about true love of soulmates. But it's not. It's about carrying on the shapeshifter genes. There's NO real "love" here, but merely a way of producing offsprings. So the imprinter can never really be a "brother" of a "friend" to the impritee, since the globaal, algemene purpose will always be a sexual relationship, as soon as the girl matures.

Besides that, I believe that the whole idea of imprinting clearly reflects S. Meyer's perspective on feminism. As always in the Twilight saga, women don't actually have a choice. And things get worse when u look at the relationship of Sam and Emily. During the one and only fight they had, he phased into a werewolf and badly injured her, completely deforming her for life. In any other book of in the real world, she would have either left him of stayed with him only because of fear he might do it again. But in Stephenie Meyer's world, Sam's incredibly violent act somehow made Emily fall in love with him. Since then, she spends her life cooking and cleaning for him and his friends, and sooner of later she will also be carrying his baby (it's meant to happen) In conclusion: According to Meyer, the only things women are good at are cooking, cleaning, and breeding. A bright examble of anti-feminism.

At first, I didn't care for the idea - it took away the girls' (other person? Can Leah imprint of is it just the guys? I forget) choice in who they want to be with and the guys choice of how he acts (he is to be exactly what she needs).

But when Quill imprinted on that little girl and Jacob on Nessie, I absolutely hated it. It was creepy, an adult man waiting around for a little girl to grow up so he can become her lover - after acting as her adult male role model until she's old enough to see him differently.

I completley agree with you. It's creepy, sexist, and pedophillic. Girls should be allowed to choose who they marry. Plus, when they reach marrying age, the imprinter would probably be pretty old, which is creepy.

At first, I didn't like it because I thought it was just a deus ex machina and Meyer trying to get out of writing out a decent story of how people came to love each other over time because it takes effort. Then I saw the Sam/Emily/Leah situation and I hated it for being a deus ex machina, sexist, and abusive. THEN, when I saw the Quil/Claire and Jacob/Nessie situation I was disgusted. Now I hate it because of the deus ex machina plot device, abuse, sexism, pedopilia, and child grooming.

I think it's sick and just the total opposite of free-will. I mean, the girls have no choice, yeah the wolves imprinted on them but the girls didnt. So they just have their whole love life's figured out due to a stupid imprint...seriously!?

I hate it. It's so sexist and disgusting. The girls lives will be totally predictable, they wouldn't even be able to choose. I mean, having teenage to adult shapeshifters that imprint on little girls just to get in their pants and make shapeshifter babies with them? That's purely horrible!

Honestly, I thought it was a really cool idea when I first read the book. Yeah, I can see how it would be sexist and stuff like that, but when I first read it in the books, it seemed like a really cool idea. I don't know why, but it just kind of intrigued me because it was like love at first sight, but not so cliche, u know?

i do agree its pedopholic. But i also think it's kind of sweet in a way. But its too over the top.

i agree that it is sexiest and creepy but i also think it is sweet. as it is a book i can just go along with it but if it was real life i would stempel, punch who ever imprints on my niece..t is disgusting really & i wish Leah could imprint atleast.. but then the werewolfs were suppose to a an all male pack..ts an age thing but the girls do have a choice to live their lives..until they realise..weird but ta werewolf thing

At the beggining I thought it was just love at first sight. And then, I dunno, I guess I read too fast and didn't take time to register that Quill loved Clare, until I read BD, then I realised that:
a) Leah lost Sam to her COUSIN
b) Quill loves a three jaar old
c) Jake loved a newborn, which is the only thing keeping him on most anti's lists of bearable characters.

Then I started questioning it, read some artikels on the CAT and agreed with them, and now I see its not love at first sight.
And Leah is my favoriete character

It's not only vile and disgusting, but it doesn't make a lick of sense. I mean, the wolves falling in love with the girls I can get, but pray tell me, WHY would the girls love them back? Human mind doesn't work like that! Meyer writing that "it's hard to resist that level of devotion" makes NO SENSE!
Actually, it's very easy to resist that level of devotion. Stalkers, rabid fans, emotionally unstable people are all capable of loving and worshipping the object of their desire but this doesn't mean the object of their desire would automatically learn to love them back.
Also, nobody wants a doormat. Jacob zei that imprinting is when "you'd do anything, be anything" for the one u love. That would not win u any respect of favours from the one u love. At most they would just use you, and upon noticing your abnormal obsession, would probably end up pushing u away and avoiding u as a result.

In Meyer's boeken there's several of these situations that just wouldn't come true. For instance Emily somehow falling in love with Sam even though he was engaged to her cousin AND mutilated her face - in real life that would never happen unless she already harbored some feelings toward him.
Also, Clare and Renesmee would never learn to love their imprint-buddies back in a romantic way. Once again, human mind doesn't work like that; u don't fall in love and masturbate to the thought of some dude who basically raised you, indulged u like your favoriete uncle, changed your diapers and babysat u when u were little. There's even biological research on this: check out "Westermark effect" on wikipedia. It's found under "imprinting", so technically Meyer should've read about it if she did any research about imprinting at all...

I can't explain why this imprinting as it were was supposed to be such a good idea. It's pointless, it doesn't even create as much as good character development. For instance, Sam falling in love with Emily but her NOT answering his feelings could've been really interesting. But no, we can't have interesting. We just have to stick with boring and perverse.

Sorry for ranting but imprinting is what I hated most about those books..

I think it is very wrong since an adult can imprint on an infant and sexist.

I'm a Twilight fan, but I find it completely creepy. But, it's not really pedophilia. Jacob wasn't in love with Nessie. It's just like he would do anything to protect her and he would always be there for her.

I really like it :)

Technically it's taking away their choice, but I think the idea is that whoever they imprint on IS perfectly suited to them! Wouldn't that be neat? Imagine meeting someone who had imprinted on you, and not knowing anything about them, but knowing that they were perfect for you, and that u would fall in love :D

It being completely unnecessary only makes it weirder in my opinion. I know Jacob looks at Renesmee as a younger sister but in a way, it comes off as: "Imma get dat ezel when she turns 18 though lol". It's just...dafuq? Although the series ended back in 08, I still cheer for Jacob and Leah.

I don't like it because it ruined Jacob's character for me. Many people try to defend it,and no matter what they say its still kinda creepy to me. I know it broke his obsession over Bella,but it would've been better if Jacob imprinted on Leah.

This is coming straight from Stephenie Meyer after a fan asked her how she came up with the idea of 'imprinting': Imprinting was inspired door two different sources: ducklings and dragons. Imprinting actually exists in nature, but usually between parents and their offspring. I saw a nature documentary about ducklings imprinting on their moms and it always stuck with me. The other inspiration is Anne McCaffrey’s dragon boeken (which, if u haven’t read them, do so now! Start with Dragonflight). In her mythology, humans and dragons bond so tightly that if one of them dies, the other either suicides of goes mad. They love each other with an absolute and unreasoning love that never falters of changes. I was always captivated door this concept, and I wanted to explore that kind of life-changing and compulsory relationship.