In Defense of Love Triangles (Sort of.)

Image credit: Sierpinski, I suppose, via Wikipedia.

I would apologize for the blatant click-bait title, except I'm not actually sorry. I will be defending love triangles, sort of, and that's the truth. Buckle up. 

(I won't be arguing like a Scholastic today, because this particular IDO works better in a narrative format. St. Thomas would understand.)

(Also, before we start...just for the sake of clarity, I'm going to be using the language of The Four Loves here. And if you're not familiar with either Ancient Greek or Lewis's excellent work, here's a handy key:
eros = romantic love
storge = affection, familial love
philia = friendship love
agape = unconditional love, perfect love, the love that God holds for us
And if you're wondering why I don't just use English words, so that y'all don't have to follow along with my Greek a) does that seem like it would be more clear? and b) that would be way less fun.) (This probably gives you some idea of what I'm going to be talking about, oops. XD)

So. Anyhow. Love triangles.

"Samantha", you ask, "have you lost your mind? Do I misremember that in your last Lewisian Musings post, you mentioned you vomit over love triangles?" 

No, I have not lost my mind. And no, you don't misremember, although I may have been exaggerated a tad. I've just had a realization.

See, these are what we think of as love triangles, right?

Two people in love with the same person, and/or one person in love with two people, with varying degrees of reciprocity. Love triangle. Yes?

Okay, but do you see the problem? Is that actually a triangle? 

Is this a triangle?

Nope. It's a pointy arch. A lambda. An incomplete triangle. 

"But Samantha," you say, "Wouldn't a complete love triangle be weird? Wouldn't that imply the sort of relationships that we might not want to read?"

Well, yes. In the sort of situation in which we're *used* to seeing love triangles. In eros love triangles.

However.

Think about this for a second:
(For the sake of the diagram, a line without arrows means it goes both ways. :))

Does this look familiar to you? It should. You know why?

It's a family. 

Yep! Love three ways! With three different kinds of love, at that--eros, storge, and agape. A complete love triangle! (If not a perfect one...) 

Okay, okay, let's do another! What about this one?

(Art credit: Ron DiCianni)

As the title of one of Fulton Sheen's books says, "Three to get married!" 

So, if the family is a love triangle, and a married couple is a love triangle, what other famous group of three might be considered a love triangle? 

Think about it. You should probably know this one.

Alrighty, what about this:

(Art credit: Unknown Orthodox artist)

The triangle is an ancient symbol of the Holy Trinity, and in fact, the idea of a love triangle is often used when trying to analogize the Trinity--God the Father loves, and that love is the Son, who loves the Father, and that love is the Holy Spirit, who loves both of them...voila! Love triangle! (This is obviously an explanation that's material heresy, as every explanation of the Trinity must be, but it's one that's often used by important catechists, so I feel okay using it here.)

This symbolism of the triangle even appears in this icon--look behind God the Father's head!

Obviously, the love we're referring to here is agape, and perfect agape at that! But that doesn't change the fact that it's a complete triangle of love--a complete and perfect love triangle!

So, God is the original complete love triangle...what does this mean? 

It means that love triangles are not inherently a bad thing.

It means that, hurrah!, we can be even more mad at YA! #sarcasm

YA writers took a complete thing, and made it incomplete for the sake of drama.

If you're thinking about a married couple, and "three to get married", they turned a beautiful love triangle almost into a love square. 

They turned something beautiful into something extremely irritating.

Dangit, modern YA writers. Why'd you have to go and do that? Why would you make your "love triangles" incomplete, and all about eros? Why would you make the name of "love triangle" hated throughout the land, when the original "love triangle" was such an overwhelmingly good thing?

My take: we should just start calling what are typically called "love triangles" "love lambdas" instead.

So. What do you think? Have you ever learned about the four types of love? What do you think of love lambdas in YA?