One Hundred Fantasy Clichés That Really Need To Rest In Peace

#82: Love Triangles

You ever wonder why I call fantasy the flawed yet fun genre of fiction?  From every past part of this editorial, I have expressed my outright devotion to its most imaginative aspects.  I love the infusion of cultural aspects such as mythology and the creatures that inhabit these tales in these types of stories.  Fantasy is the only book genre where you can interact with beautiful creatures such as griffons and creatures connected to the dreadful night like werewolves.  You can be the hero of the fantasy world you weave like the formally human Arachne through the complex characters you mold like clay.  Anything can be made beautiful or dreadful with the genre of fantasy.  Any emotional response and any story idea is possible with the right amount of imagination.  It is truly a genre where you do not have to paint inside the lines.  So if I feel this way about fantasy as a whole and call it basically perfection, why do I still call it flawed?  A huge reason for that are two little words; love triangles.

  Everyone and their mother has been subjected to the same monotone idea in fantasy thanks to the very idea of the love triangle.  Because of love triangles, people do not associate fantasy at all like I do.  Most see it as a genre exclusively meant for lustful teenagers who just want to get their weird ambitions fulfilled by seeing one girl or one boy fall in love with two incredibly unrealistically beautiful, perfect beings.  People associate these stories to be in a similar light to Stephanie Meyer's 2006 international hit book series Twilight, with no story except for the struggles contained inside the love triangle.  They see no motivation towards the characters' action except lust and recommend steering away from the fantasy genre entirely for more "mature, educated" works of fiction.  Meanwhile, this "truth" is all just a popularized trend fueled by copycat writers which has only been a thing for about ten years.  Before love triangles, fantasy was seen as creative and imaginative.  People inspired to write books for this genre, creating masterpieces such as The Wizard of Oz, The Hobbit, A Wrinkle in Time, and even Watership Down, which inspired what is considered to be one of the most violent pieces of animation ever created.  Now there still are gems such as The Percy Jackson series, the Warriors series, or the Harry Potter series, but they are much harder to come by due to the inclusion of love triangles.  Just try naming a fantasy book now without the trope.

  If you include a love triangle in your work, you have become a part of the problem.  Fantasy stories need more writers who can give this genre a breath of fresh air.  Repetition is just going to continue this trend of dissing the genre altogether.  Eliminating the love triangle plot line is a necessity.  Almost always they end the same with the main character choosing the bad boy or having dramatic heartbreak on all sides of the equation.  Then there is the motivation for loving two people at the same time, which usually is explained poorly with the characters just being plain immature.  The love triangle is just a nasty cliché that will bog up your story.

  If you do somehow still want to create a love triangle, you will have to do so keeping in mind the various traps the plot line falls into.  You need to make the reason the main character is in love with two people completely clear while keeping the protagonist likable to the audience.  The two people who are the focus of the love triangle need justification of their own for being involved in the conflict, so as to not look like a one dimensional character or just someone wanting to fulfill their lustful ideals.  These two characters should also not be completely beautiful and be attractive for their personality instead.  There needs to be a strong solution to the conflict and not all parties can be completely satisfied in the end.  Giving all sides of the conflict flaws will give more life to the plot and keep the audience from getting bored.  Basically, break all the expected expectations in a love triangle storyline.  That is the only way you yourself do not become a part of the problem.