Love Triangle

There are very few things that immediately ruin a good book for me. One of them is love triangles.

Edward, Jacob and Bella. Peeta, Gale and Katniss. Maxon, Aspen and America. This trope is used with such frequency it makes me want to pull my hair out. It’s apparently the easiest way to show inner turmoil, to create waves and put bumps in the road of the heroine. But I hate it, and I am going to tell you why, because writing about the things that make me angry is my form of therapy.

Let’s get one thing straight, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility are not examples of a love triangle by the same definition I am going by (and if I read one more blog post or article saying that Austen was the master of the love triangle I am going to break something heavy and valuable). Wickham-Lizzie-Darcy- not a love triangle. Lizzie liked Whickham while she hated Darcy, and it wasn’t until Lizzie learned what an utter douchebag Wickham was that she sees Darcy for who he is and falls in love with him. There is never confusion expressed in Lizzie’s mind over which man to accept, and only one ever proposed! This is not a love triangle, it is a pair of non-intersecting lines. It is a young woman learning that the outward expression of personality does not dictate the inner character of a good man. Darcy may have loved her the whole time (I heartily believe that he did) but he does not express that to her until late in the novel, at the same time that she discovers Wickham’s true character, and Lizzie does not reciprocate Darcy’s affection until later.

I am talking about the kind of love triangle used in Twilight, where Bella is actively pursued by two men at the same time and she actively leading on both men, until she is able to make up her mind. She uses Jacob to make Edward jealous, and both men know this. In later books the two men are not shy about the fact that they are both romantically linked to Bella and make their aggression towards one another well known. They actively fight for Bella’s affections, while Bella hems and haws and can’t make up her mind and this is somehow meant to be romantic.

There are several reasons that I think this trope needs to die a painful and ungraceful death, ranging from the fact that it is an indication of lazy writing, to the fact that it is downright sexist.

1). It never changes. Pretty girl who doesn’t realize she is pretty is desired by both the long time friend or home grown, local boy and a deeply mysterious stranger or dark and moody bad boy. The girl is overwhelmed by the process of being wanted by one boy, much less two and she could not possibly make up her mind which one she likes more. So she lies. She lies to both of them, she lies to herself, and to everyone around them. And instead of calling off the half baked relationships, she attempts to carry on with both at the same time and everyone ends up angry and hurt. And somehow, her lies, her indecision, and her inability to see her own beauty (and therefore experiences shock that two men would ever look twice at her) somehow makes her desirable. Or at least that is how the author portrays her desirability.

There is little or no variation in how this plot plays out in novels across the YA landscape. You can see it coming a mile ahead and you know what the outcome will be from the word  “Go”. Meanwhile, you have to slough through three books (and four movies) of the characters making fools of themselves. For me, this makes it difficult to take the characters seriously, and to see them as mature, interesting characters when they can’t decide which handsome, perfect boy makes them feel more tingly inside!

2). It’s frankly sexist. The formula is always one young woman and two men fighting for her affection. It is never used the other way around, because a man leading on two women instantly labels him a scumbag. Every reader immediately writes him off as a cheating, lying lowlife.

Case in point The 100 (the television show, sadly, I am a bad english major and did not read the book first…). Clarke and Finn find themselves falling in love after stranded on Earth. When Finn’s girlfriend, Raven, from their space station home appears on Earth, there is the brief introduction of a love triangle. Except for the fact that Clarke simply WALKS AWAY (so easy) the minute she realizes Finn is taken. She is understandably hurt that Finn kept a girlfriend under wraps, but she has no intention of carrying on a relationship with him now that she knows. Raven, when she finds out about Finn and Clarke, is angry. She calls Finn unfaithful, accuses him of cheating. The girls do not fight over the axis of their triangle, there is no lying or hiding of one relationship behind the back of the other. Finn is torn between the two young women he has fallen for, but he works it out with one AND THEN the other (very simple). Although, there is a considerable amount of hurt feelings and anger to work out first, which is much more honest than everyone being okay with the situation.  It is never given the opportunity to turn into a long, drawn out lover’s quarrel, because the parties are not willing to carry it on.

Since this is the case, that a woman in always the object of the combined affection of two men, I call shenanigans. It paints women as weak willed objects of romantic attention who will lie to maintain a level of romantic attention. And while everyone recognize the behavior as deplorable when a man is in that position, a woman in that place is normal, we see it all the time.

3). It's overused, and often in novels where it doesn’t seem to fit and then seems forced. Like the Hunger Games. Few love triangles have irked me quite like the Peeta- Katniss- Gale relationship. Everything that Katniss is; strong, fiercely protective, laser focused, serious, and she gets trapped in a f#$ing love triangle! A wishy-washy, I don’t know what I want, what do you mean you love ME kind of attitude that makes women appear to only care about their appearance and whether the boy likes them back. There is nothing in Katniss’s character as she is described in the books that makes her indecision seem plausible.

Also, these relationship issues could often be avoided with my favorite bit of romantic advice from author John Green.  “Use your words!” A few words of explanation could save everyone a heap of trouble in the long run. “I have a boyfriend” “I like so-in-so” “I don’t know how I feel”. Voila! All done.

So it is, in my opinion, lazy writing. Used in place of more unique or interesting conflict in the romantic relationship of the characters. To prove to the readers that although your heroine is awkward or doesn’t see that she is beautiful, that she is in fact desirable. See, look how desirable she is, two men are in love with her, two men are fighting for her! Instead of trusting your audience to be smart enough to realize that she is smart and kind, and has perfect aim with a bow, or loves her family dearly, and that is enough to make her worthy of being wanted.

Relationships are hard. In real life and in literature romance is complicated and full of emotion. But no one in real life is permitted to act in this way without consequence, no one would put up with this treatment (I should hope). Novels are supposed to be places for us to escape the lives that we live, but they are most interesting when they are decent representations real life. There are better ways to create romantic tension than this.