Why don’t love triangles work?

I just finished reading Shatter the Sky – by far the most vibrant and interesting YA fantasy book I’ve read for years. It had the start of a love triangle, and that particular element was tedious but as it was the only real flaw with the text, I still had a great time. I then read the sequel, and the love triangle managed to drag the entire story down to a watery grave. So, my question is, why don’t love triangles work in fiction?

This post is going to be essentially me thinking aloud, because I’m still extremely ill. It’s not going to be a structured argument, more a series of thoughts, but I’ll try and keep it flowing well.

So, some caveats: Not all love triangles are bad. The triangle in The Witcher 3, for example, works. It’s very possible that the triangle between Katniss and Peta in The Hunger Games also works, but I haven’t read those books for a while. I might have soured on that element since I last read them.

Also, saying ‘love triangles don’t work’ is an inherently reductive and inaccurate statement. It’s a literary device and, as such, isn’t good or bad by itself. When I say ‘love triangles don’t work’, I’m saying ‘when I discover a book I’m reading has a love triangle in it, I know I’m about to spend 200 pages wishing for this blasted love triangle to wrap up so that we can get back to the interesting stuff’. ‘Love triangles don’t work’ is merely a snappier way of saying that.

Positive aspects of a love triangle:

1)      Wish fulfilment

This seems like I’m being snarky, but wish fulfilment isn’t a bad thing. Just as people want to read about people engaging in gunfights or solving murders, so they can experience some of that same excitement, love triangles can provide some of that same thrill.

2)      They provide a natural character arc

In The Witcher 3, the two romantic Options, Triss and Yennifer, symbolise different aspects of Geralt – his hope for the future and his grounding in the past. Whichever option you go for in that game says something about the version of Geralt you’re playing. The triangle in The Hunger Games also functions like this.

3)      Being torn between two possible futures is authentically teenage

There’s a reason love triangles show up infamously often in YA fiction. Not because teenagers spend all their time caught between romantic prospects, but because the symbolism of What Path Should I Choose is core to the teenage experience.

4)      It’s a natural source of drama

“Oh no, I have feelings for two different people, and the mainstream publishing industry won’t let me be polyamorous! What am I to do?” – Every protagonist in every YA love triangle

It may not be Shakespeare but it’s a source of conflict, and conflict leads to drama. Also, Shakespeare is overrated. Give me a new book by Rebecca Kim Wells or Anne Leckie any day of the week.

Problems with love triangles:

1)      Inaction & statis

For a love triangle to last for more than a few chapters, the protagonist must be incapable of or unwilling to make a decision. As such, love triangles usually result in the main character pontificating in their head about which of her two options they’d most like to hold hands with. They have history with Suitor A, but Suitor B really gets them…

As such, a love triangle takes place almost entirely in the protagonist’s head, and any step forward is mirrored with an equal step back, until the final chapters when the triangle is finally resolved. It’s never a good thing when a reader wants to grab a protagonist by the lapels and scream ‘MAKE A FORKING DECISION’

2)       They don’t always provide a natural character arc

If the author hasn’t given a great deal of thought to what each possible romantic partner represents, then a love triangle inevitably devolves into a protagonist picking from two equally good options. In Throne of Glass, for example, the hunky captain of the guard and the hunky prince were both… fine. One was a playboy, and one was stoic but that’s not a thematic difference, it’s just there to appeal to two sorts of readers – those who like bad boys and those who like sad boys. Picking either one doesn’t tell us anything about the protagonist, other than she likes bad boys/sad boys.

3)      Resolving the triangle rarely leads to interesting development for the protagonist

This is a side effect of love triangles usually resolving at the end of the story. The protagonists picks Suitor B and they ride off into the sunset to be happy forever. In this instance, the act of making the choice is the consequence. This means that the protagonist spends 70,000 words failing to make a decision, and in the final 5,000 words, they make the decision… and then the story ends, because making the decision was the point of the love triangle.

A good protagonist will make many, many decisions across the course of a book. These decisions cascade out in a pattern: The protagonist choses option A, so consequence B happens. Consequence B makes the protagonist take new course of action C, which leads to consequence D. Love triangles don’t function like this. For the entire novel (or, more often, series of novels), the protagonist is trying to choose between options 1 and 2. What changes when they make the decision? They’re with their new romantic partner, yes. What else? They may or may not have blown up their relationship with the other character, but what actually happens as a result?

In The Hunger Games, when Katniss choses Peta, they help each other work through their PTSD. This results in a surprisingly sweet and satisfying conclusion to the series. When a character choses to take the coast road rather than the mountain path, there are all sorts of coastal-themed results to that decision. Peta in The Hunger Games was a kind character. He and Katniss would have helped each other with their PTSD whatever happened.

I think what I’m demonstrating with this point is I don’t read romance novels, because I’m reacting to romantic partners getting together by saying ‘Okay, so what?’

4)      The writer needs to be really, really sure that they’ve made both romantic options equally compelling for the reader, or they’re in trouble

The love triangle in the sequel to Shatter the Sky might not have doomed it, if that book’s Suitor A hadn’t been a terrible person. In Storm the Earth, Suitor A commits (in my opinion) unforgiveable acts (including murder), spends their time betraying their friends and making friends with obviously horrible characters. To balance this out, Suitor B also had flaws – specifically, the flaw of doing some of the same stuff the protagonist was doing (being uncommunicative, making decisions without consulting each other). I hope I don’t have to make it obvious that those flaws between Suitor A and Suitor B aren’t equivalent. In some ways Suitor A was an antagonist of the story, which isn’t a good thing when an extremely large number of pages are dedicated to the protagonist wondering if they’re the right partner for them.

Put simply, if the audience doesn’t care about one of the suitors, they’re not going to care about the love triangle. A counter to this was demonstrated by The Hunger Games (why don’t you marry The Hunger Games if you love it so much, Mike?). In that book, Peta and Gale are the suitors… but Gale barely appears in the story. He’s definitely there, but his presence is felt more in how Katniss thinks about him than by anything the character actually does. As such, it doesn’t really matter that Gale is a little underdeveloped, and less compelling than Peta, because the love triangle is an obstacle to Katniss recognising her feelings for Peta, rather than a binary choice between two suitors.

Conclusion

Honestly, the point that love triangles require the protagonist to be inactive is the best reason to not include one in a story. Protagonist action drives story. Having your protag be torn between two options, unable to move forward can be compelling under the right circumstances, but only if the writer is going to really dig into that idea, thematically.