Why do love triangles endure in pop tradition?…
Love is a battlefield.
Buffy was torn between Angel and Spike. “Twilight” had warring camps of “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob.”
Now, the favored Prime Video show, “The Summer I Turned Pretty” is back for its third and last season, following Isabel “Belly” Conklin (Lola Tung), a teen lady torn between brothers Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) and Conrad (Christopher Briney).
Trends come and go, but love triangles are a pop tradition staple.
Jennifer Prokop, a romance skilled who analyzes the style on “Fated Mates” podcast, instructed The Post that most love triangles are about the principle character – normally a younger lady – deciding on a life path.
Often, she defined, the selection between love pursuits is, “‘I could go to a place of safety and security, or risk.’ Especially when we’re talking about young people, the work of young adult romance is identity development. And so, you’re deciding who you want to be.”
Christopher Briney, Lola Tung, and Gavin Casalegno in “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” Prime
Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner in “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.” Summit Entertainment
Prokop added, “A really important thing about identity development is learning how to take risks.”
So, when a heroine ends up with the love curiosity who appeared like “the bad boy,” that message is likely to be, “It’s okay to take a risk. Like, yeah, you might break your heart. But so what – you’ll live,” she stated.
That’s why the trope is most common in tales about younger adults coming of age, such as “The Vampire Diaries,” “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” “The Hunger Games,” “Twilight,” “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and “Dawson’s Creek.”
Paul Wesley, Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder on “The Vampire Diaries.” ©CW Network/Courtesy Everett Collection
Paul Wesley, Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder on “The Vampire Diaries.” ©CW Network/Courtesy Everett Collection
“The Vampire Diaries” creator Julie Plec, who presided over an iconic love triangle – Elena (Nina Dobrev), who was torn between brooding good man vampire Stefan (Paul Wesley) and his snarky unhealthy boy brother, Damon (Ian Somerhalder) – instructed The Post that probably the most difficult half of a love triangle is, “its almost impossible to predict at the casting stage what you’re going to get, in terms of chemistry.”
Plec stated that a good love triangle shouldn’t be set in stone, particularly in a TV show.
“When you’re dealing with a show that has an infinite amount of years ahead of it, your best bet is to keep your options open,” she defined. “You can have all the intentions in the world for a relationship, but that just doesn’t show up onscreen.”
Ian Somerhalder, Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley in “The Vampire Diaries.” ©CW Network/Courtesy Everett Collection
Citing one other “Vampire Diaries” love triangle of Caroline (Candice King), who was torn between her werewolf boyfriend, Tyler (Michael Trevino), and the sparks she felt with the villainous Klaus (Joseph Morgan), Plec stated that Caroline’s chemistry with Klaus was unplanned.
“There can be surprises where something hits you out of nowhere. As a storyteller, you want to be prepared for all those things,” she stated.
In a love triangle plot, “best laid plans can be fluid – if something works that you didn’t expect, or if, frankly, it doesn’t work that you really were hoping would work,” stated Plec.
Because most love triangles are about teenagers and twentysomethings, audiences have much less persistence when tales are about older characters, Prokop stated.
Ian Somerhalder, Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley in “The Vampire Diaries.” ©CW Network/Courtesy Everett Collection
Katherine Heigl as Stephanie Plum in “One For the Money.” ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection
For instance, she cited the “Stephanie Plum” e-book sequence, which was tailored into the 2012 film “One For The Money” starring Katherine Heigl. In that story, the 30-year-old heroine is torn between two males.
The love triangle in the e-book sequence is drawn out across more than twenty books, and “people tire of that,” Prokop instructed The Post.
“I think [love triangles] are really hard [for older characters], because adult viewers will see that as a stalling technique, rather than an identity development kind of technique. It could be dangerous,” stated Prokop.
David Boreanaz as Angel and Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy and James Marsters as Spike on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
Bridget Chun, who hosts the podcast “Romance at a Glance,” instructed The Post that in most fandoms with a love triangle, some viewers “will always latch onto one character.”
“Now, there might be something where they cheat on [their love interest] in Season 3. Or, you have to do something devastating to get someone who’s rooting for someone to change their mind,” she stated. “I think the important thing is that both [options in a love triangle] be feasible options — especially in the beginning.”
Plec had firsthand expertise with making an attempt to orchestrate viewers expectations.
“When you’re planning a long-running show and a long-running love triangle, you want to wait as long as humanly possible before you get the second half of the couple together,” she defined.
James Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, and Joshua Jackson on “Dawson’s Creek.” Courtesy Everett Collection
However, “TVD” followers who had been rooting for Elena and Damon to be collectively had such “powerful intensity….we kept having to make choices trying to change their minds about wanting it so quickly.”
But, it didn’t work, because, “Each choice we made just further cemented their desire to have it.”
“We were having Damon do really terrible things that had catastrophic consequences for all the other characters,” she defined. “In our efforts to slow down the freight train of Elena and Damon…a lot of people had to die.”
Chun, meanwhile, recalled watching the “Dawson’s Creek” finale in high faculty with her soccer workforce. On that show, the ending resolved the love triangle between Joey (Katie Holmes), Dawson (James Van Der Beek) and Pacey (Joshua Jackson).
Josh Hutcherson and Jennifer Lawrence in “The Hunger Games.” Lionsgate/Kobal/Shutterstock
“I was like, ‘If she doesn’t choose Pacey at the end of this episode, I’m going to flip a ping pong table over!’” she recalled.
Years after “Dawson’s Creek,” Chun is now a fan of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” — and is rooting for Belly to finish up with Jeremiah.
“I think you can find ‘evidence’ for your side, especially in a good show.…having that chat is so fun,” she instructed The Post. “I mean, it can be so toxic. It can be crazy. People [in fandoms] go way too far, I think.”
Case in level: the official social media accounts for “The Summer I Turned Pretty” put out a message imploring followers to be “kind” and reminding them against “bullying,” forward of the Season 3 premiere (now streaming).
Lola Tung, Christopher Briney and Gavin Casalegno in “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” ©Amazon/Courtesy Everett Collection
Plec recalled that at the peak of “The Vampire Diaries” reputation, some of the “volume of response” of the fandom suggestions on social media may get, “legitimately scary.”
But, Chun stated there’s an upside to the fandoms rooting for completely different “teams” of a love triangle, too.
“It can definitely bond you together,” Chun famous.
“If you find a group of friends and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, you guys love [this relationship] too?’ I have one friend where, we’re going to watch the show together when it premieres. But she’s rooting for Conrad. So it’ll be fun for us to both be like, ‘No! That’s terrible!’”
Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth in “The Hunger Games.” Lionsgate/Kobal/Shutterstock
Prokop recommended that love triangles are particularly rooted in American tradition.
“There’s nothing more American than the idea that if you make the right series of choices, things will turn out right for you. And, for a lot of people, that includes who they marry or [end up with].”
“So I think maybe it has to do with a very particular kind of belief that we’re a series of choices,” as opposed to how some different cultures consider, “we’re a series of coincidences. Or, we’re a series of community building activities.”
When requested if creators of love triangles really feel wired about the chance of disappointing half the viewers, Plec laughed and stated, “Yes – exclamation point!”
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