maybe genius: Love Triangles: Why? - A List
I wrote a thing on my long-form blog addressing the “why” of why love triangles are so prevalent in YA and romance categories (not to mention MANY other categories if we’re honest). Click through if it’s of interest to you.
Everybody likes to whine about love triangles in YA. Myself included, let’s be real — you guys know I love to write about them even though I don’t especially like them. I feel they’re often wedged in for added drama and not pulled off with much success. HOWEVER: I have read love triangles I enjoyed and that functioned very well, and the reality is that love triangles are popular in the YA category (and other categories) for real, psychologically and sociologically sound reasons.
LIST TIME.I enjoyed this post. :)
I first became aware of the idea that “there are tons of love triangles in YA” when someone told me they thought there was a love triangle in my first novel, Ash. I was like, huh? [*confused face*] But then I started reading a lot more YA and thinking a lot more about love triangles, and yeah, I deliberately structured Adaptation and its sequel Inheritance around this very popular romantic trope. So … anyway, I enjoyed this post. :)
Honestly, this is a great post with a lot of interesting, valid points. But I don’t like the idea that people who have issues with love triangles in YA books are the same ones who don’t have an issue with men getting all the ladies.
It’s really not about that for me, and I’m getting a little tired of seeing women assume other women who don’t like the idea of the love triangle as an oft-used structure for YA fiction are simply the victims of internalized misogyny. It seems to be happening a lot lately.
Fair point, and I say that as a feminist-identifying woman who also takes issue with many male-centered love triangles, as well. As I briefly touched on in the post, I think critique of problematic elements about this trope is not only valid, but necessary.
Unfortunately I wrote that post after coming across a review lamenting another fictional girl’s whiny uselessness and sluttiness and the author’s stupidity in including a LT, so my blood was fairly hot.
Summary: I am totally behind critiques of love triangles, and totally behind people who don’t enjoy them. I just also want to address people who go for the LT = slutty weak heroine and terrible book stance.
Here is my issue with love triangles in YA:
I was in a love triangle in high school. Like, a legitimate three-way love triangle, where every possible hookup combination had happened - and I do mean every. It was gutwrenching. It was agonising. There was zip zero zilch romantic about the situation, and when I say it nearly destroyed me, do not think for a SECOND that I am exaggerating.
I’m aware that this is a personal issue. Not everyone has that history to inform them. But having been in that situation and experienced firsthand its various permutations, I CANNOT get into love triangles where the very fact of the triangleness is romanticised. I mean, I get why other people might enjoy reading about that sort of thing and fantasising about some fictional version whereby ‘love triangle’ is code for 'all the pretty people love me HOW SHALL I CHOOSE’, and I’m not trying to judge that at all. But for me, personally? It’s like if someone were writing a story about that time I fell down a flight of stairs and then someone came and kicked me repeatedly in the spine, on my birthday, and also my cat died, in language that suggested this was a magical, wonderful thing.
But I can - and do! - enjoy love triangles that aren’t just there to cause drama, and which to me feel believable. I can even groove on the angst of it, because angst-grooving is, perversely, something I enjoy. But in my experience, actual love triangles - or at least, the one that I was in - have jack shit to do with 'how shall I choose between my beaux’ and everything to do with 'I love someone I can’t have, so I’m dallying with you in the interim to kill the grief, only you love me in a way that I don’t reciprocate, so I’m breaking your heart, too, which prompts you and the person I yearn for to hook up as a means of mutual comfort, which will slowly destroy us all.’
TL;DR: high school baggage, I has it.
(via yaflash)
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glamourweaver reblogged this from yaflash and added:
Some of it’s just really a question of how well written the triangle is. Too often it’s just designed as an obstacle for...
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yaflash reblogged this from fozmeadows and added:
More good commentary about why LTs might not be someone’s favorite thing. (Also omg I love Foz, she’s great!)
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fozmeadows reblogged this from yaflash and added:
Here is my issue with love triangles in YA: I was in a love triangle in high school. Like, a legitimate three-way love...
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hot-jupiters-blog reblogged this from malindalo and added:
Honestly, this is a great post with a lot of interesting, valid points. But I don’t like the idea that people who have...
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sylviasybil reblogged this from malindalo and added:
I interpret Ash as Ash being in a love triangle with death (represented by Sidhean) and life (represented by Kaisa). I...
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somethingaboutaboat-blog reblogged this from yaflash and added:
This is good explanation of why love triangles are popular, especially in YA.
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malindalo reblogged this from yaflash and added:
I enjoyed this post. :) I first became aware of the idea that “there are tons of love triangles in YA” when someone told...
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