Alright so we all have read a story with a love triangle right, the main character ends up choosing only one and some of us end up with second male lead syndrome. My question is, would you like it if the main character chose both? Why or why not?
Jan '23
Feb '23
Overly sarcastic productions did a wonderful video on love triangles which I highly recommend, but that’s a tangent. I personally feel like the main character choosing both can be more likely to satisfy readers who enjoyed both potential love interests and did not wish to see either “losing”.
I enjoy love triangles where both love interests represent valid and realistic choices for the MC. We most often see is one partner represent "stability" while the other is pure "passion and romance". The "stable" lead is usually the one who gets dumped in the end.
If you decide that they should all be together, just make sure they are all fully developed characters and are consenting to the relationship. *This is one of my pet peeves for strong female characters and reverse harems.
One of these days there’s gonna be a love triangle where the MC offers polyamory only for it to just alienate/frustrate one of the love interests so much that it ends up being a monogamous relationship anyway.
If all three are down for both then sure, but just make sure to tag it as polyamory. For me as a reader, however, I do see it as kind of lazy. Like you set up a love triangle for a reason, the tension of who they choose is the point. The catharsis is when it's solved. When the answer is "trick question!" it's kind of a let down after all that set up you put the reader through. So yeah, just tag it so you don't get disappointed readers. They'll already know what they're getting into.
What @rajillustration said.
While it is possible all the people in the triangle end up being polyamorous, it's hardly what you've been building up to.
Sure second male syndrome exists, but I mean, the readers know what they are going for starting a love triangle comic, it's on them if they are pissed about it 
a writer should just make the most convincing couple they can.
I think it depends, like many things, on how well you present it in general. A good love triangle is good and will be tense and back and forth and make me wish they'd all get together but knowing they have to pick one, while a bad one the choice is either reallyobvious or I'll yelling at the MC about how they're both awful options why do you like either or them?!?!?! (Or all three of you are awful you deserve each other). But at the same time, just because I don't want them to choose doesn't mean they shouldn't. If you're going down a polyamory route, I don't know if I'd say it has to be tagged as such, I mea you don't often see love triangles tagged, and it's good to see a relationship naturally develop without knowing it's coming sometimes and so looking for the cues, but I would say to be sure that it's made obvious in text. For instance, one of my issues with love triangle to polyamory is often that it's just the MC dates both, which I guess is a valid option, but you rarely see the two rivals actually build a real friendship, let alone get to the position where I could believe they could tolerate a polyamorous relationship or even just an open relationship with the MC dating both. If the rivals hate each other/barely interact, how can I believe this is going to be a stable healthy relationship? The sign should be there to at the very least see in hindsight and go ooooh they did like each other.
I think (like many people above me said) it really depends on how it’s done, and whether it seems like a cope out meant to save the main character from making a choice or a decision that truly aligns with the characters and story.
I think an example where a love triangle turned polyamorous relationship is done extremely well is @Breezy’s The Rule of Three (I’ll attach a link below in case you want to check it out. It’s a great novel overall, but it also deals with this theme amazingly in my opinion).
It might raise some eyebrows if it comes off as cheating or polygamy. Or in more extreme situations harems. These kinds of stories tend to come off more fetishy and might get a lot of criticism for that.
I think it could work if the two love interests also like each other, like with a trouple or polyamory.
Tho honestly, the most interesting out come I’ve seen for a love triangle is the MC abandoning both of the love interests and choosing a third option. The love interests realize it was stupid to fight each other over someone who was leading them both on and the two end up friends…or their own romantic couple.
The main thing to remember with a love triangle is you have certain expectations from the reader to what is going to happen. In that type of story, one partner must be picked. To break that norm you better have one hell of a reason or the reader will feel cheated. It's like a murder mystery where at the end you don't find out who the killer is. Having a genre comes with a bargain with the reader to give them the reason they are reading it. Don't subvert those expectations unless you have a really good reason to.
Short answer, yes, nearly every time I want them to be a trouple. Hahahaha. I’m just all about those poly vibes.
To be fair I think a lot of classic love triangle stories don't have real tension either? Like there are supposedly 2 options... but we all know who the main character is going to choose. It might add to the drama, sure, but we can all pretty accurately predict who'll end up with who.
counter question - in what society and economy? The love triangle is a source of tension and drama only in monogamous societies with one sided bread earning. These societies define it as a problematic state soon to be ended. As a middle east male capable of supporting a harem, a german taking in the wife of his dead brother in the ages before social insurance or as a woman in some south chinese tribe its completely normal and often even necessary behaviour to form a family with several partners. Also in todays advanced industrial societies all kinds of arrangements become viable with less and less drama, as most individuals earn their own money and social insurance and theres contraceptives. -Hes not my boy friend, were gaming partners-
The classic monogamous partnership would be a bronze age herder who wants to pass his cows patriarchaic down the male line and his wife making sure to reproduce that son by isolating herself from other men.
closed Feb 11, '23
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