The Twilight series has seen a recent resurgence of old fans with many people turning to comforting franchises they enjoyed in their youth during stressful times. Also, with the release of Midnight Sun set for this August, Twilight has become a popular topic of conversation again.
While Twilight has always been criticized, for both fair and unfair reasons, one of the things about the series that makes the least sense is the concept of imprinting. It completely defies all logic.
The reason that it exists in the first place is never explained
In the books, imprinting is explained as something that the Quileute shape-shifters do as a sort of biological but almost supernatural force that allows them to find their soulmates. However, the explanation behind this is pretty sparse and shoddy. It seems to allude to something to do with wolves, but overall, it doesn’t seem to have much basis in anything.
That it seems to be such a gendered concept
Some of the most valid criticisms of the saga have to do with the fact that it’s pretty outdated when it comes to gender roles and feminism.
So, while there is one female werewolf, Leah Clearwater, she’s honestly treated badly by everyone, and overall, werewolves seem to be men. Because of this, imprinting is only ever talked about in somewhat gendered terms of a man falling for and protecting a woman.
Because it doesn’t allow for actually falling in love in a natural way
In the Twilight series, there are obviously supernatural beings and things that wouldn’t make sense in our own world. Vampires can read minds and have other special powers, for example. However, while a supernatural force helping you find your soulmate might be appealing to some people, it does seem to take away a lot of agency and the joys of actually falling in love with someone and getting to know them.
It’s never explored if a female werewolf is able to imprint on someone
It makes the most sense that Leah, or any other future female shapeshifter, could imprint on someone given that she is a werewolf just like the men. However, this is never really explicitly stated. Stephenie Meyer hasn’t said that she ever imprinted on anyone, so it’s still somewhat open to interpretation, and it would have been nice to see this happen.
The explanation for why Jacob was so drawn to Bella
One of the strangest things about imprinting was the explanation for why Jacob was so in love with Bella but never imprinted on her. The reasoning is that Bella was drawn to her because of her basically her egg that lived inside her body that would eventually produce Renesmee. So, he was actually drawn to the future Renesmee instead of Bella. This is super weird and makes no sense at all, and it also just seems like it was included in as a shoddy validation for why Bella and Jacob weren’t meant for one another.
The fact that Jacob wasn’t equally as drawn to Edward
Many fans have recently pointed out that if Jacob was so drawn to Bella because she was the future mother of Renesmee that he also should have been romantically drawn to Edward. Given that Edward’s venom is what contained the biological material to create Renesmee for his part, and that the venom was always there since he was a vampire in a similar way to a woman's eggs, Jacob should have been into him, too.
There’s little room for consent by the person whose been imprinted on
Imprinting on someone seems to be a phenomenon that gives the imprintee no real choice in the matter. While Jacob tries to explain this by making it seem like the imprintee will eventually want the relationship given the intensity of the imprinter’s bond, it's still really strange. This sounds almost more like grooming than anything else.
It makes all of the shapeshifters seem like criminals
Given that Stephenie Meyer is a white woman, there are some things with her using the Quileute tribe, which actually exists, and making them supernatural werewolves that are pretty problematic.
So, the fact that she then included imprinting which seems creepy at best and criminal at worst, isn’t a good look at all. There are a lot of issues with this that wouldn't be received very well if the books were written today.
The fact that it’s possible to imprint on a newborn
While the entire concept of imprinting already seems kind of messed up, at the very least it would make sense for it to only occur between people who were both adults and in the same age range. The fact that it’s possible for a teenager, or adult, to imprint on a baby or child is extremely messed up. While the books try to present it as not a creepy thing, there’s just no way it doesn’t seem abnormal and predatory.
How Jacob being like a weird boyfriend to Renesmee is presented as normal
Going along with the point above, the fact that Jacob is just accepted as a constant part of Renesemee’s life from her birth to her death is upsetting. She really has no say in the matter, and it makes it seem like he’s just waiting around for her to be old enough to sleep with. Plus, the fact that for some reason she grows to maturity quickly and then stops aging makes it seem even more like she wouldn’t get to developmentally mature and make her own choices. It seems like she’s just being groomed.