On Love Triangles

 I think that I’m almost at the end of Horizon Forbidden West (can’t get the DLC because it didn’t come out on PS4), which means I’ll probably spend a bit of time grinding to upgrade my armor before doing the final story mission. I’m not terribly fond of the crafting/upgrade system–there are a butt ton of things I’d rather be doing than hunting down random materials for crafting–but if you make them into little quests, it isn’t so bad.

My gut has been acting up a little for the past week, but I suspect it’ll right itself in a few days, as it usually does. 

Anyhow, I’ve been reading a lot of YA fiction lately, and I’ve thought about this a little. It was this or another Greek mythology Note.

On Love Triangles

There was a point in the early 2010’s in which every author thought that the best way to make conflict, whether it was in prose, television, or film, was to create a love triangle between the characters. I blame Twilight, though it’s hardly as if those books introduced the idea in the first place. There were plenty of love triangles before those books! And they were often dumb in a lot of those other stories, too. But Twilight made the love triangle a large chunk of its marketing campaign, with tie-in ads making jokes about “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob.”

Ugh, I’m getting war flashbacks.

Reading The Hunger Games and Ember in the Ashes, along with re-watching The Legend of Korra, reminded me how much of A Thing love triangles were in the 2010’s. I’ve said before (and I think I’ve even said it on this blog, probably?) that sometimes writers are stuck in trying to come up with motivation or development for their protagonist, so they introduce a love interest as a cheap way to be like, “See? Look! This person is just like you! He/She has a love life! Someone to care about! That makes a relatable character, right?” I’m not saying love interests are bad for protagonists to have, but very often, especially in Hollywood action movies, they’re used as a cheap way to develop a character instead of fleshing out a unique motivation.

If a love interest is a cheap way to build a character, a love triangle is very often the hack way of building drama. Commonly, you have the protagonist, one character who is quite obviously written as a love interest, and another who is just an attractive option without much character development. It’s not even really a choice between two people as much as, “Here’s a way to drag out the character drama in a way that’s obvious.” It’s not fulfilling, it’s just there.

There came a point in which it was pretty much obligatory for YA fiction. The genre was known for it, and it was really, really annoying. Writers kept shoving love triangles into stories and acted like that was what we wanted the entire time. And yeah, shipping has long been a part of fandom, but the idea that there was always going to be a love triangle? This was just obnoxious. 

One of the massive issues I had with An Ember in the Ashes is that it had TWO love triangles, one for both protagonists. This was an especially difficult sell because both of them had each other as one of the points of the triangle, so it was obvious who they would choose at the end of the series, especially since they’re both instantly incredibly attracted to each other the second they see each other.

[They also don’t have much reason to like each other when they meet, but they just do because… they’re hot, I guess? It wasn’t really a convincing relationship.]

In theory, one could write a good love triangle, but it’s so uncommon that my advice is for writers to not even really attempt it. The problem is that by their nature they’re so often manufactured drama, especially in science fiction and fantasy. These characters are working to try to save the world, and yet they’re worried about picking between who they want to date? Are you serious? Yeah, maybe they’re teenagers, and yeah, emotions are sometimes heightened during stressful scenarios, but not only does the audience assume you have bigger things to worry about, the audience has bigger things to worry about. It’s hard to even care about a love triangle when the world is at stake.

I suppose, in theory, in a straightforward romance story they might make more sense, but I can think of little occasions that would call for them. Then again, romance isn’t my genre, so perhaps the concept can be salvaged there.

In the case of Ember in the Ashes, the story involves slavery, colonialism, genocide, military death matches, murder, and betrayal–that we’re supposed to care about whether Laia likes Kenan or Elias better strikes me as a silly assumption. Especially since for Laia, the winner seems to be “the one who’s in front of me.”

Avoid them, if you can. Love triangles don’t necessarily kill my enjoyment of a work, but they certainly don’t help. They’re so hard to write in a way that makes it feel like it’s worth including in a story, and I don’t actually know anyone who actually likes them. 

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