Some say the greatest love stories are the ones where you’re stuck choosing between two people fighting over you. Or at least that’s what the romance genre says. From Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night to Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and all the stories in the modern world of romantic fiction, the love triangle is one trope storytellers can’t get enough of.
What Is a Love Triangle?
In layman’s terms, a love triangle is when two people find themselves in love with the same person. But because they are not also in love with each other, the argument is whether it should be called a ‘love angle’ or ‘love arrow.’
This trope expands from 16th-century plays to mythological stories, making it one of the most popular tropes depicted.
What Makes Them So Popular?
Within love triangles, you’re witnessing different versions of love play out with one person. In the end, we decide which we connect to most. In real life, this would be the cause for some pretty harsh judgment. Within fiction, however, it’s a theme of romance that is temporarily sacrificed to messiness. The messiness is a part of what keeps viewers engaged. The drama is just a small part, however, because the real intrigue comes from the pining.
People love drama, but more than anything, people like knowing their love is worth fighting for. After all, how will the heroine know she is loved if the hero isn’t outside her door professing his love the night before her wedding?
This trope, somewhat unintentionally, convinces us that the sought-after party has no other options to choose from other than the two fighting for their affection. A good example of this would be Jenny Han’s The Summer I Turned Pretty. While the friends-to-lovers’ story between the main characters, Belly and Conrad, is swoon-worthy, the triangle between brothers is slightly excruciating.
However, there are different types of love triangles. You also have the ones where both options are acceptable matches, even though there is one that is obviously the better choice. Take The Notebook, for example. Here, we have two charming men, one who could provide our heroine the world and the other who would rebuild the world to her imagination.
The movie takes place in the 1940s, so responsibilities and expectations were a little different. The pressure for Allie to appease her family’s honor battled her longing for true love.
Do the Reviews Match Its Usage?
Despite its popularity within fiction, the trope isn’t well-liked amongst the collective. In fact, there are many reddit forums dedicated to how it is one of the least-liked tropes and social media posts on how it is an unnecessary stress-inducing plot.
Although the common conclusion on love triangles are that they’re chaotic, they will always be prevalent. Love triangles: either you hate them or love them, one thing’s for sure, you will never be rid of them.
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