Trope analysis: love triangles, the scourge of YA Fiction
If you’ve read some of the more popular titles in the young adult genre such as the Hunger Games, Maze Runner, and Twilight, chances are you’ve seen a love triangle develop somewhere in the plot. But what exactly does this trope entail, and why is it so controversial?
Before we jump into the analysis of love triangles, let’s take a step back and figure out what exactly a love triangle is. A love triangle, in its simplest form, is a romantic conflict between three people, and can develop in many variations.. Let’s use three random characters as examples — Alice, Bob, and Carl. The classic love triangle is where Alice has to choose between Bob and Carl, both of which are madly in love with Alice, or Bob could be chasing after Alice, who likes Carl, who’s not interested in romance. You get the idea. So why exactly is the love triangle so controversial? Well, there are a variety of reasons.
The first, and arguably the biggest reason why love triangles are so controversial is that they’re simply overused to the point of becoming a cliche. Love triangles have almost become a necessity in writing a young adult novel, and this trend is caused by none other than publishers (the root of all evil in writing). Publishers repeatedly urge authors to include love triangles in their work because in any young adult novel where romance is involved, sales increase if the romance is complicated by a love triangle. In the end, it’s money motivating the overuse of this trope.
Love triangles are also used as an easy and often cheap way to create drama in a story, regardless of its relevance to the plot. One of the biggest offenders of this, in my opinion, is the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. The main heroine, Katniss Everdeen, is caught up in the machinations of a totalitarian and oppressive government and must find a way to resist and overthrow the government. So what does she do? Agonize over which hot guy to choose from. Of course. Apart from using her relationship with Peeta as a selling point to gain favor amongst the citizens of the Capitol, the love triangle serves no real purpose in the series other than to create drama. If her other love interest, Gale, was removed from the picture entirely, very little of the plot would change. Love triangles, if used at all, should be an integral part of the plot with the outcome able to change the direction of the story. It shouldn’t just be thrown in for the sake of it.
While I do spend a lot of this article trashing the love triangle trope, it is by no means inherently bad. The problem is that the love triangle has consistently been used in unnecessary and uninventive ways. As the adage of TV Tropes goes, “tropes are tools.” They are neither good nor bad. Writers simply use tropes to work with the audience’s expectations. A good example of a love triangle done right would be in the Archie Comics. The love triangle between Archie, Betty and Veronica is not only the central driver of the plot, but also sets up the majority of the series’ humor.
All in all, the love triangle is an an example of a trope that’s widely overused to the point of becoming a cliche and a trope that is commonly used poorly.
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