Love triangles suck
Love triangles are generally stupid, desperate and trite, especially when they center on a woman in the middle who can’t choose. There’s nothing romantic about this, since she usually ends up looking like a lovelorn teenage girl or she becomes an object around which two men are trying to piss possessive circles.
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11 comments
Agreed.
34, female, US
Boy howdy, do I agree. I cannot stand love triangles on shows. They’re meant to titillate, but nothing makes me change the channel faster.
SBG, female, 33, United States
I definitely agree - I don’t think I’ve ever seen it handled well.
23, female, Canada
I agree. I dislike love triangles on TV shows and in movies.
aizjanika, age 46, female, United States
I agree. It’s an insult to the intelligence of the audiance and the standard and unimaginitive way for the writers to keep the OTP apart. Make the characters act multi-dimensional, don’t add another half-baked character.
Maartje, 20 yrs old, female, Netherlands
Very very occaisionally, a love triangle is done well. I can’t think of any off the top of my head, but I seem to recall not loathing one or two of them….
Oh wait. Simone/Issac/Peter on Heroes. She dumps the drug addicted little leech! I did enjoy that.
The majority of the time, however, they are HORRIFIC. Utter and complete loathing. The love quad on Battlestar Galactica was particularly revolting.
Agreed. A love triangle can only be worthwhile when it is one aspect among many for all three characters - and for the story itself. But rarely do I see it treated that way - and often I see it shoved into stories and characters that are far more interesting without it (a prime current example would be Lost).
male, 35, UK
female, 20, US
ICK ICK ICK. No one involved ever seems to come off as sympathetic. Ever.
I actually thought the love quad on BsG was interesting in the sense that it was about all these fracked up individuals who really should have known better - it wasn’t romantic. And I thought the way they did the Sharon/Helo/Tyrol storyline was really intriquing too.
But generally, love triangles suck. And OTP. I’m getting through the early seasons of an Aus drama which I loved, and I think I know where it started sucking; when they introduced both.
Gabbie, female, 24, Australia
I have always disliked love triangles in certain TV shows, especially when it’s a one-shot deal that is quickly forgotten an episode afterward, and especially if it involves the female being a complete bitch about it. Examples which come to mind include: the African tribal sequence from [i]Nadia[/i] (32-33), “The White Knight” from [i]The Legend of Zelda[/i] TV series, and “That Stinking Feeling” from the [i]Aladdin[/i] TV show. All three of these episodes involve the female character being fought over by two men, and she acts like a completely stupid bitch about it–IOW, she treats her “true” boyfriend like crap while mooning over the rival, who barely shows any characteristics other than flattery. If you’re going to do a love triangle, make the rival less mono-dimensional and the female lead more caring, mainly in regards to her true love.
Good examples of “love triangles” in shows done right include:
[i]Escaflowne[/i], [i]Shana[/i], and [i]Casablanca[/i]–all three of these succeed in having the heroine/hero, the “true love” and the rival as being fully realized characters.
Bottom-line–I tolerate love triangles if they’re done with credibility, but when they’re stupid and cartoonish (not to mention mean-spirited), then I have a serious problem with it.
Depends. I’ve seen it done well, although I am not sure if I’ve seen it done well with an american produced show.
The best examples that I recall are actually in two different animes (japanese animation). The first of which is in Super Dimentional Fortress Macross/Robotech: Macross saga. It’s well constructed, and the series is long enough that the relationships develope in a believable manner. The second in Escaflowne, which has the teenage girl-who-can’t-make-up-her-mind at the focal point, but the two objects of her affections are busy with other things and arn’t activly romancing her.
Nathan, Male , 27, USA
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