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Love Triangle

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Alto sees impending doom.
Some fans see impending "wars".
Other fans see impending threesome.

"You love her
but she loves him
and he loves somebody else.
You just can't win."
— The J. Geils Band, "Love Stinks"

Alice is in love with Bob, but Bob is in love with Charlie, while Charlie is in love with Alice. Well, that's one of them. A Love Triangle commonly involves three people, love, and decisions. It can be dramatic, or it can result in Wacky Hijinx. Sometimes a fourth person is brought in to make it right, sometimes somebody might be kicked out. See Triang Relations for all the ways these three people can mess up their love lives.

Very common in Soap Opera.

Sometimes a Love Triangle can come to involve a fourth person, while still ultimately being called a "triangle." But move complications that insist on widening it can be explored further in a Love Dodecahedron.

Compare Friend Versus Lover.

Subtropes:

Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Most shoujo manga series require a love triangle at some point. And it's not only shoujo: character-driven shounen (like KOR, mentioned below) also rely on this heavily. Heck, even non-character-driven shounen have them sometimes.
  • Ao no Flag has a type 5: Taichi decides to help Kuze to conquer his own Childhood Friend and the most desired boy in school, Touma, however, in the proccess, he he starts falling for her. Turns out to be actually a type 2: Touma is in love with Ichinose, and implied to be ever since they were kids.
  • In Beastars Legosi comes to love Haru, Louis is friends-with-benefits with Haru, and Haru is caught in the middle.
  • Kimagure Orange Road is built partly around the long-term problems and implications of the triangle between Hikaru (A), Kyousuke (B), and Madoka (C). May have been the Trope Codifier for anime-based love triangles.
  • Mazinger Z: Kouji likes Sayaka, Sayaka likes Kouji, and Kouji's best friend Boss likes Sayaka. In Great Mazinger Boss has a crush on Jun, who is in love with Tetsuya, who likes Jun but is completely oblivious to her feelings. It does not stop him of getting angry and acting territorial when Boss sends gifts to Jun, though. In UFO Robo Grendizer, Maria's arrival gave birth to the Sayaka/Kouji/Maria: both girls are in love with him, and Kouji is oblivious to it. Likewise you had the short-lived Hikaru/Duke/Rubina triangle: both girls liked Duke and Duke had feelings for both.
  • In Shakugan no Shana, there is Shana to Yuji Sakai to Kazumi Yoshida.
  • In Martian Successor Nadesico where our main hero, Akito, is practically pummelled by affection by nearly every female character in the show, the main contenders being Yurika, Megumi, and Ryoko. Yurika has the distinct advantage of having known him at some point during their childhood, but her attempts to impress him are in vain for the most part. He actually appears to be going steady with Megumi in the 4th episode, which concludes with them kissing and walking along holding hands in mutual affection. However, their mutual attraction seems to begin and end there, as the Clingy Jealous Girl routine disqualified her later when she tried to move their relationship into adult territory. Ryoko is a more subtle contender in that she has strong feelings for him, but doesn't actively seek him out due to her pride. In any case, she seems to have garnered more attention from him than either of the other females (albeit not enough for him to see her as much more than a friend). Also, he does develop feelings for Yurika at some point, though her Clingy Jealous Girl antics are what kept the romantic flame stunted throughout the series. He winds up with her at the end as a result of finally caving in to his [somewhat coerced] feelings for her.
  • Yami No Purple Eyes has a Type 4 relationship between Rinko, Shinya and Odagiri. Rinko and Shinya are both in love with each other, but Odagiri is a third wheel and wants Rinko. More out of a desire to sleep with her than love.
  • Kiri no Mori Hotel has a typical Type 7 relationship in the case of Yui, Makio and Akira. She loves both men and they love her, but she has to make a decision which of them she wants to stay with.
  • Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl is so centrally about a Love Triangle (with additional hangers-on to the point of Unwanted Harem-ness) that the opening credits show A, B, and C standing on a triangle. Also, chapter 7 of the manga is titled "Girl Triangle".
  • InuYasha:
  • On Sgt. Frog, Tamama (A) vies constantly with Angol Moa (B) for the attention of Keroro (C), who seems somewhat oblivious of Tamama's semi-platonic jealousy and Moa's crush. Sgt. Frog even has a scenario with both types of Love Triangle rolled into one: Giroro (A) and Koyuki (B) both have a crush on Natsumi (C), who has a crush on Saburo (D). Unlike most of the above examples, the triangles aren't central to the plot of the series.
    • Another one involves Giroro's kitty Miss Furbottom (A), Giroro (B), and Natsumi (C). The narrator is quick to lampshade it.
  • Kaitou Saint Tail was in love with Asuka Jr, but so was Rina.
  • The initial triangle in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann of Simon/Kamina/Yoko leads to a very tragic outcome.
  • Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch had Lucia, who was Kaito's girlfriend, but then Michel took Kaito's memory, leaving him open to Michal, who was Michel's symbiote. Meanwhile, Lucia's trying to find Kaito, and when she does, get him back.
  • Ayoma-kun and Ichigo both had their share of admirers in Tokyo Mew Mew — the latter, a squad of fangirls; the former, Mission Control and a Stalker with a Crush.
  • Berserk has used this trope repeatedly throughout its run. The major one was the triangle of Guts, Casca, and Griffith. Guts's and Casca's romance with each other is undercut by their (separate) loyalty and attraction to their leader, Griffith. Said attraction is emotional, with implied physical undertones in both cases. Griffith himself seems incapable of entirely returning either's feelings, but does care deeply for both and shows a certain amount of emotional and physical attraction to Guts. No, it does not end well. Later, the initial triangle is echoed in the relationship between Serpico, Farnese, and Guts: Serpico cares deeply for Farnese and is jealous of how much she idolises and depends on Guts, making him take the back seat as it were. In the celebration at Elfhelm, Serpico admits these feelings to Guts and even says he contemplated killing him but also says Guts had changed Farnese's life for the better. Especially thanking Guts for putting Farnese in charge of the weaker Casca which gives the former strengh and purpose.
    • There some form of love triangle with Isidro, Schierke, and Guts as well )which is kinda werid considering, Guts looks after both of them like their his kids). Both children seek his care and approval, Isidro getting jealous when Schierke shows greater talent than he does. Schierke also having a school-girl crush on Guts while bickering with Isidro who has some unsaid feeling for her makes things more difficult. Really Guts treats them like son and daughter so any romantic thoughts are solely on Schierke's end, the justification is that she has a father complex.
      • Gut's place on that triangle is replaced by Isma who Isidro is attracted which Schierke finds annoying.
    • The love triangle between Guts-Casca-Farnese is ongoing. Guts is completely in love with Casca, who unfortunately can't love him back due to a series of unfortunate events, but he is devoted to her and only her and it is, in fact, the whole reason why Guts is on his current mission. Farnese, on the other hand, is in love with Guts, but he doesn't see her as anything more than Casca's caretaker. While she cares for Casca a lot (which brings on some more implications) and she knows that it really isn't Casca's fault for acting like such, Farnese still can't fight with her inner feelings that Casca is ungrateful toward Guts which causes some resentment on her part. Wonder how that's going to turn out...
      • To make matters more complicated, Farnese is engaged to Roderick who had no idea she loves another man.
  • A minor but still important triangle exists in Slayers between heroine Lina, her swordsman partner Gourry, and Sylphiel, a priestess and old friend of Gourry's. In this case, it's mostly one-sided, because not only is Gourry dense towards Sylphiel's feelings, he openly gains affection for Lina as time passes.
  • Subverted in ×××HOLiC, where Watanuki only thinks he's in a Love Triangle with Himawari (C) and Doumeki (A or B). In reality, Domeki and Himawari aren't particularly interested in each other romantically at all. In fact, the person Domeki and Himawari are both interested in is quite likely Watanuki himself... this actually makes this instance a rather interesting example of becoming a Double Subversion.
    • And then the Love Triangle is turned on its head when Yuuko vanishes, and she's the one Watanuki is endlessly pining for instead while Doumeki remains as loyal to him as ever. Meanwhile, the situation becomes such that Himawari can only see Watanuki in person once a year and winds up married to someone else. And Doumeki marries his and Watanuki's common friend Kohane Tsuyuri, who's also hinted to be in love with Watanuki, presumably to comfort each other and have descendants that will keep Watanuki company afte their deaths.
  • A Love Triangle is practically a requirement for a Macross show. Each and every installment has featured one.
    • Macross 7 is notable in that Mylene has a dedicated, loyal suitor in Gamlin, yet is unable to decide between his obvious affection and the brash emotional personality of Basara, who by all indications isn't even aware of her potential feelings for him and generally irritates her more often than not. And besides that, Basara's not only attracted the obvious romantic attention of a biker girl secondary character, but is locked in a pseudo-love triangle over the Enigmatic Minion Sivil, with his competition being The Dragon of the series' first half, Gigil.
    • In stark contrast, the love triangle in the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross, involving Hikaru, Misa, and Minmay is among the most well done examples of one. The three of them are portrayed as having flaws and pros as well as Character Development, and when Hikaru ultimately chooses Misa, Minmay takes it rather maturely.
    • In a change of pace, Macross Plus had Two Guys and a Girl: Isamu, Myung and Guld. It's... horribly complicated. When Guld discovers exactly how complicated it is and how a good part of the problems are rooted in his behavior, he chooses to go the Redemption Equals Death way, and Isamu and Myung get together.
    • Macross Zero has one between Shin and sisters Sara and Mao.
    • One of the more audacious ones is the triangle from Macross Frontier shown in the page image, where Alto gets the attention of Idol Singers Sheryl and Ranka. What's audacious about it is that, despite dispensing GALLONS upon GALLONS of Ship Tease so that it could've gone either way, the Love Triangle is never resolved in the original show. Every subsequent iteration nonetheless features the Love Triangle quite strongly (and some actually end it):
    • Macross Delta has one between Hayate, his wingwoman Mirage, and up-and-coming alien Idol Singer Freyja. However, the show gave more interaction between Hayate and Freyja which left Mirage on the sidelines. Unsurprisingly in the end, Hayate chooses Freyja.
  • The Vision of Escaflowne, a spiritual successor to Macross, (as stated by Shoji Kawamori) was not without its share. The principle triangle involving Van Fanel, Hitomi Kanzaki, and Allen Shezar. It may reach Love Dodecahedron if we consider Marlene (Allen's first love and the mom of his illegitimate kid Chid), Millerna (Marlene's little sister who crushes on Allen hard) and Dryden (Millerna's arranged boyfriend).
  • The principal love triangle of Full Metal Panic! encapsulates the primary female leads of the series, Kaname and Tessa, and their individual versions of affection for male lead Sousuke (who is unaware or just beginning to understand that he's in love with Kaname, and mainly sees Tessa as his superior officer and friend, much to her frustration).
    • Plus the fact that Sousuke and karate club president Tsubaki can hardly stand each other is undoubtedly fueled by the fact that they're both smitten with Kaname.
    • Around the same time it's made fairly clear that Tessa is something of a Hopeless Suitor, her brother starts showing very clear interest in Chidori. This element dominates its fair share of the story's later drama.
    • Depending on how you look at it, there is a weird, warped sort of love triangle between Sousuke, Gauron, and the twins Yu Fang and Yu Lan. With Gauron being completely and obsessively in love with Sousuke, the twins loving Gauron, and Sousuke hating Gauron. The most important triangle is the one between Sousuke, Kaname and Gauron. Except in this case Sousuke wouldn't have to chose between two people, but rather between two different life styles and/or two versions of himself: the weaker, gun-toting, socially clueless version that he is with Kaname, or the cold-blooded, unstoppable killer that Gauron became fascinated with once upon a time. All this became rather obvious at the end of the first season, and The Second Raid has only managed to take this further by having Gauron trying to Murder the Hypotenuse.
  • Nobuta Wo Produce: a classic high school Love Triangle, notable because the three started out (and eventually ended up) as close friends. Akira was head-over-heels in love with Nobuta, but Nobuta had a shy crush on Shuji. Shuji and Akira also had a ridiculous amount of Ho Yay played up between them.
  • Kaze no Stigma: Ren with his two best friends (a guy and a girl), and Kazuma with Ayano and Katherine (both type 3).
  • Much of Ef A Tale Of Memories revolves around the love triangle between Kei, Hiro and Miyako. Miyako wins. Kei may or may not get together with Kyousuke.
  • Super Robot Wars Original Generation series, has Mai Kobayashi, and Latooni Subota both going after Ryuusei Date. Who does Ryuu love? Latooni's giant robot. That, or Lune's giant robot. Or Lamia's. Or maybe Aya's once it got equipped with a skirt...
  • Prétear had a Love Triangle in the backstory (Sasame-Takako-Hayate), although it isn't revealed until much later. Then there is Mawata's crush on Sasame — and Sasame, depending on the adaptation, either likes Himeno (who likes Hayate), or still loves Takako, enough to betray his friends and join her.
  • Princess Tutu has two. First there's Ahiru/Mytho/Rue, Ahiru has a crush on Mytho but he's in a relationship with Rue. However, with his heart coming back together, he falls for Princess Tutu, who is Ahiru. This in turn, causes Rue to turn evil. Whoops. Also implied but never stated is Fakir/Ahiru/Mytho.
  • A rather odd Boys Love version resides in Descendants of Darkness, involving Tsuzuki Asato, Tsuzuki's partner Kurosaki Hisoka, and Hisoka's rapist/murderer, and psychotic doctor, Muraki Kazutaka, who has a strange fascination with Tsuzuki. Fanfictions naturally ensue.
  • Dragon Ball Z: In the Filler of Gohan in high school before the Babidi saga, Gohan gets into short lived love triangle with Videl and Sharpner who is love with Videl who is beginning to have feelings for Gohan who is disguised as Great Saiyanman. Videl successfully makes Sharpner jealous of Gohan and he spends to whole episode trying to unmask him but is foiled though hijinks. Since Gohan other female classmates, Erasa and Angela was also had big crushes on Gohan while Videl was still chasing him that also counts. All put to rest when Gohan marries Videl.
  • Played with in Fruits Basket:
    • Kyo and Yuki never precisely compete for Tohru, but they both care about her and their rivalry sometimes extends into this. Later, in a straight play, it shifts to Kyo/Tohru/Momiji about halfway through the manga.
    • The twisted triangle in the manga which involves Shigure, Akito and Kureno. It was solved in the end: Shigure and Akito get together, while Kureno goes with Uotani.
  • In Elfen Lied, Clingy Jealous Girl Yuuka has been in love with Kouta since they were kids. Homicidal maniac Lucy has also been in love with Kouta since they were kids. Kouta doesn't really remember any of it, though, due to Trauma-Induced Amnesia caused by Lucy murdering his father and little sister, but now he's going to the same college as Yuuka and Lucy has dropped back into his life as a completely innocent girl with no memory at all, or indeed the ability to talk, except for occasional moments of clarity/Ax Craziness. Also, Yuuka and Kouta are cousins. (Though this is Values Dissonance: cousin marriages aren't as badly seen in Japan)
  • Averted in Bakuman。 as Takagi shuts down the love triangle between him, Miyoshi and Iwase as soon as he's aware of it, remarking how stupid the whole situation actually is. The possibility of it becoming a distracting Plot Tumor is killed from the get-go, unlike in a lot of other Shonen manga where the Love Triangles are allowed to linger for years without contributing to the plot or showing any signs of being resolved.
  • Deltora Quest has three (which is fitting) love triangles, all involving Lief and Jasmine mainly done to throw wrenches in their ''just kiss already'' romance.
    • First one is Lief, Jasmine and Neridah. Lief finds himself attracted to Neridah (for reasonable reasons) and Jasmine does NOT like it. Neridah plays around with gullible Lief making him lower his guard and then proceeds to attack him and knocks him out Rithmere Games, Jasmine is not in the least bit sympathetic with his loss. Whenever Neridah shows up again in the show, she sure to be melodramatically grabbing hold of Lief and Jasmine getting pissed, this got so annoying many fans wished Neridah would die like she did in the books.
    • In some painfully forced Filler Lief meets sweet girl named Francoise and promises to look after her (much to Jasmine's annoyance), as it turns out Francoise is actually two of Sorceress Thaegan's monsters children disguised as a girl, and continually tries to kill Lief with Jasmine saving him at the last second and making a scene, causing antics. Lief just assumes Jasmine is jealous (much to her fury), only to realize later that Francoise is indeed false and apologizes to Jasmine after the big battle.
    • The third and finally love triangle is between Lief, Jasmine and Dain it happens in the books too but is far less apparent, Dain openly shows interest in Jasmine much to her bewilderment and Lief's jealously. Jasmine see connection she has with Dain as it "seems" they are both orphans and Dain even gives her necklace when they are on a river cruise causing Barda to point out how smooth Dain is being to a irate Lief. Dain is then captured and Jasmine is clearly worried, Lief too wants to save Dain but is still jealous of how close Dain is to Jasmine (due to high possibility Dain is the heir to throne) . Thankfully the love triangle end as it turns out Dain is a evil Voluntary Shapeshifting monster whose been spying on the Lief & co and was lying the whole time. And reveals himself just as they hand him the Belt of Deltora and then gloats about it, even mocking Jasmine for her feelings for him causing much heart brake and in the manga to add salt to wound the necklace he gave Jasmine was a tracking device). Lief then goes after Dain and kills him, though this mainly to get the belt back but it's clear he's taking revenge.
    • Though They're very coy in the anime, Lief and Jasmine do get married in the books.
  • In Mahou Sensei Negima!:
    • Nodoka and Yue are in love with Negi. It's largely oblivious on Negi's part, along with his knowledge of the feelings of many other students of his class... Nodoka and Yue eventually decide to be friendly rivals and support each other against other girls in the race. Later yet, Nodoka starts thinking of an alternative solution to this delicate problem... UQ Holder! shows that Nodoka apparently discussed this idea with Yue and she was fully on board with it. Sadly, Negi turns them both down.
    • There is also Konoka/Setsuna/Tsukuyomi, although the latter seems oblivious to it. It's all but stated that the "winner" is Konoka.
  • Ruka, Shiori and Juri engage in a messy one in Revolutionary Girl Utena. It turns Ruka into a Manipulative Bastard for a short while trying to resolve it. It works.
  • Touma, Mieko and Touma's cousin Urara in Sakura Diaries.
  • In the second Kujibiki Unbalance there is a love triangle between Chihiro, Tokino, and Ritsuko. This does not apply to the first version since in that version, Ritsuko is the only one that has any romantic involvement with Chihiro. However, due to it being only 3 episode out the supposed 26, it may be possible that there was some kind of love triangle and Ritsuko simply won in the end.
  • It is very common in all seasons of Gundam. Usually, one of the girl in the triangle dies, leaving the other one to win.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam has Amuro, Lalah and Char; Amuro, Fraw and Sayla; Amuro, Hayato and Fraw; Amuro, Sayla and Lalah... Damn it, Amuro! There's also Bright, Mirai and Cameron (and Sleggar). In the end, Amuro accidentally killed Lalah, who was protecting Char. Fraw hooks up with Hayato. Sayla ends up with no one. And finally, Bright ends up marrying Mirai and they have children.
    • Zeta Gundam has Kamille, Fa and Four. Kamille ends up with Fa (albeit in the sequel). Four dies.
    • Gundam ZZ has Judau, Roux, Elle and Haman, Judau, Beecher and Elle, Judau, Roux and Glemmy...Damn you too, Judau! He chooses Roux, Beecher and Elle get together, and Roux kills Glemmy.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack had Quess, Hathaway and Gyunei. Things turned ugly for these three.
    • G Gundam has Domon, Rain and Allenby. Rain became Domon's Victorious Childhood Friend, while Allenby gave way to them.
    • After War Gundam X has Garrod, Tiffa and Ennil; and Sala, Roybea and Jamil. Garrod and Tiffa got together and so is Jamil and Sala. Graceful Losers Roybea and Enni apparently made a Last Minute Hookup
    • Except for promotional images, Gundam SEED's main triangle are Kira, Flay and Sai. Kira and Sai patch things up and moved on with their lives, plus Kira ends up with Lacus. Flay on the other hand dies in the end.
    • Gundam SEED Destiny has many courtesy of Athrun's harem. Damn you three Athrun! In the end, Luna goes with Shinn, Meer dies, Cagalli breaks her engagement to Athrun but it's left open-ended so it's rather likely that they'll get back together when their work is over, and in the meantime Meyrin and Athrun are very close friends so it seems that, if Cagalli decides to stay Marriedto The Job, she may have her own chance.
    • Gundam 00 has Saji, Louise and Andrei. Andrei attempted to Murder the Hypotenuse but failed thanks to The Hero Setsuna's intervention, and the until-then Star-Crossed Lovers Saji and Louise are able to reconcile. In The Movie Saji and Louise stay together and Andrei, now The Atoner, goes the Redemption Equals Death way.
    • Gundam Unicorn has two: Micott, Banagher, and Audrey and Banagher, Audrey, and Riddhe in the light novels. Only the latter love triangle appears in the OVAs.
    • Gundam Age has Flit with Emily and Yurin. Damn you, Flit! Emily wins and becomes Asemu's mother in the end, since Yurin went the Stuffed in the Fridge way. And she's painfully aware of it. Asemu gets his own love triangle, involving Romary and Zeheart. Romary seems to choose Zeheart at first, but by the end of the second generation, marries Asemu and they have Kio. Zeheart goes the Anti-Villain way and ultimately dies.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans has McGillis, Carta and Almeria; and Mikazuki, Kudelia and Atra. It turns out McGillis sends Carta to her death while he marries Almeria after killing her brother and this is only for means to increase his role as Gjallarhorn's new leader. Kudelia stays on Earth as Makanai's adviser while Mikazuki heads back to Mars with Atra for his group's new mission at the end of Season 1. Season 2 resolve this where Kudelia stayed on Mars for a duration of the show because of her work while Atra has been with Mikazuki for most of the time. When Mikazuki became paralyzed, Atra requests Kudelia to have a baby with him as Someone to Remember Him By but Kudelia lets her do it. Eventually, Atra did become pregnant with Mikazuki and in the epilogue, she and Kudelia raised their son, Akatsuki.
  • Naruto:
    • Mainly the Naruto/Sakura/Sasuke love triangle. Naruto has a crush on Sakura, who loves Sasuke.
    Shonen Jump Question:
    Naruto and Sasuke kiss (accidentally) in the first chapter where they appear together. Does this add a special dimension to their rivalry?
    Masashi Kishimoto Answer:
    I didn't have any particular reason for it, other than to surprise readers. I mainly did it because I don't think there has ever been a manga where two rivals kissed. Also, by having this encounter, it was easier to set up the love triangle: Sakura, who had intended to be the first one to kiss Sasuke, has it stolen by her rival Naruto, Sasuke and Naruto are rivals, so there's and added tension there. And so on and so forth.
    • Naruto/Hinata/Sakura to a lesser extent, with Hinata loving Naruto. And Rock Lee loves Sakura and has every intention of beating Naruto for her affections◊.
    • Sakura/Ino/Sasuke in Part 1, with Ino liking Sasuke too, leading into a rivalry with Sakura.
    • Lee in Part 1 could be thrown in too with the Naruto/Sakura/Sasuke love triangle, with him also having a crush on Sakura.
    • Kakashi/Rin/Obito. Obito loved Rin, who loved Kakashi, who cared for her not romantically, leading to a messy but brief love triangle and specially after Rin was turned into an Apocalypse Maiden and chose a Suicide by Cop... with Kakashi as the cop. Not only Kakashi was terribly traumatized, but Obito witnessed it and that weas his Start of Darkness.
    • The Distant Finale and the 10th movie finally resolve the main triangle, with Naruto marrying Hinata and Sakura having a daughter with Sasuke.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion: Asuka/Shinji/Rei. Shinji deeply cares for both girls but he does not believe anyobody could love him. Asuka likes Shinji but she has a hard time admiting it to herself, partially because when she flirts with him, he is clueless, making her believing he is not interested in her. And Rei does not know/realizes her own feelings and the fact of being Shinji's mother's clone is, no doubt, a complicating factor. More disturbingly, there's End of Evangelion's Love Triangle between Gendou/Ritsuko/The Magi Supercomputers. Also, if you want to get into hopeless Love Triangles, there's Ritsuko/Naoko/Gendou/Yui/Fuyutsuki ( Rei is Yui's partial clone. And therefore Shinji's fraternal twin half-sister. Above "normal" A/S/R Love Triangle just got very very squicky.) and Misato/Kaji/Asuka/Ritsuko. Though that Love Triangle may just be an attempt by Asuka to attract Shinji's attention.
  • Ichinensei ni Nacchattara: Three ~7 year olds: Miho —> Touta —> Iori. Iori, secretly a genderbent highschooler, wants no part of it.
  • Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple has a minor one between Kenichi, Miu, and Renka, although it's fairly obvious that Renka doesn't have much of a shot. Later on, there's also a possibility of a Kenichi, Miu, and Shigure triangle.
  • Gantz Has one between Kei Kurono, Masaru Kato and Kei Kishimoto then one between Kei Kurono, Tae Kojima and Reika Shimohira but later the second Kei Kurono makes it into a love rectangle.
  • Honey and Clover has two main love triangles (and a third one in a flashback): Takemoto and Morita both fall in love at first sight with Hagu, who is oblivious to their feelings; Yamada is in love with Mayama, who in turn is in love with an older woman named Rika; in the flashback, Shuu was in love with Rika, who was married to Harada (who was Shuu's best friend and died in an accident). In the end, [[spoiler:Hagu does not return Takemoto's feelings and instead falls for Morita, but she chooses to stay with Shuu (her uncle) because she believes he'll be able to take care of her better; this love triangle is left unresolved and open-ended because although Hagu chooses to stay with Shuu, she is still very much in love with Morita and vice versa. Mayama wins Rika over, and Yamada is implied to find a new love in Nomiya, a guy who she works with and ends up helping Yamada come to terms with her unrequited feelings for Mayama. While Rika felt mutually about Shuu in the past, they decided it was best for them to stay apart because Harada's death made both of them emotionally unstable (after it is implied that Shuu almost pushes Rika off of a rooftop because he believed that the Rika, who became depressed over Harada's death, would probably be much happier with her.
  • Samurai Champloo - It's been said that Mugen, Jin, and Fuu all have crushes on each other.
  • s-CRY-ed had one between Ryuho, Mimori, and Scheris (which was part of a Love Dodecahedron if you take Kazuma and Straight Cougar into account!) In an ironic turn of events it ends with Scheris dead, leaving Ryuho and Mimori to possibly hook up, but Ryuho refusing to accept Mimori's advances and using Scheris dying because of her love for him as the reasoning for this. Scheris must have been laughing in her grave.
  • A brutally twisted version of this occurs in Future Diary considering how two ends of the triangle, Akise and Yuno, are both Yandere (Yuno even more so) for Yukiteru. However, in chapter 51 Yuno stabs Akise in retaliation for him kissing Yukiteru and later kills him by cutting his head off.
  • There's a HUGE love triangle in Kojima Akira's "Wa!" that it's no longer a triangle, but a circle. See for yourself.
  • In Area no Kishi, it is revealed in a flash back that the protagonist Kakeru realized that he had a crush on childhood friend and football teammate Seven. After working up the nerve to confess his feelings, he happens upon Seven as she is confessing her feelings for his older brother, Suguru.
  • Durarara!!:
    • Masaomi claims that there is a "love triangle" between Mikado, Anri, and himself. It's... more or less true, though it's mostly played for laughs than really anything serious. Besides, there's Saki to consider...
    • On a side note, there's also Namie -> Seiji <- Mika and Haruna -> Nasujima-sensei -> Anri.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! (the manga more so than the anime, anyways), Anzu is in love with Yami Yugi, Yugi is in love with Anzu, whilst Yami Yugi has no feelings, other than extreme loyalty to Yugi, for either of them. It's just more fun to joke that Yami and Yugi are... clooooose.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Yubel loves Juudai and insists that Johan has stolen Juudai's love away from him/her. Johan and Juudai have a metric fuckton of chemistry together. And once Juudai regains his memories of his past, he loves Yubel. And in a sense did when he was a child, though not (yet) in the romantic sense, since he sent her/him into space to try to heal her/him of her insanity.
  • In Shugo Chara! the sub-plot seems to be Amu's love triangle. Ikuto and Tadase are both in love with Amu, but Amu loves Tadase. In the manga Amu says that she fell in love with his outer-character. Amu also seems to develop feelings for Ikuto as the story continues. Only Ikuto and Tadase kind of hate each other.
  • In Cherry Juice, Minami begins falling for his step-sister Otome, after she finally gets up the nerve to ask out his best friend Amane who she has been crushing on for years. As Minami becomes increasingly more jealous of their relationship, Otome starts to realize that she has the same feelings for him (which has been obvious to her friends and grandmother for a long time.)
  • In Future GPX Cyber Formula, Asuka Sugo finds herself in this situation involving her, her teammate and rookie Hayato Kazami and the aristocratic and sports veteran Karl Lichter von Randoll, which plays a role in their intense rivalry in races. In the end, she obviously chooses Hayato, and end up getting engaged in the series.
  • The main love triangle in Star Driver involves the main protagonist Takuto, the heroine Wako, and Wako's arranged fiancé and childhood friend Sugata. Sugata is devoted to Wako but doesn't seem to mind the fact that Takuto and Wako are gradually becoming closer, Takuto and Wako show an interest in each other in spite of the engagement circumstances, and Wako seems to harbor strong feelings for Sugata than one would predict (and she is a Yaoi Fangirl for Takuto/Sugata) — make of what you will with that. Nevertheless, the love triangle is even lampshaded in an episode, where Takuto wonders if they were all really friends or if he was only a "third wheel" to a "couple."
    • The final episode has Wako confirm that she's in love with both - and that's its difficult to choose between the two of them; so much she briefly wishes that Takuto had never come.
  • In the second half of GUN×SWORD, Van is surrounded by an unwanted harem, with Pricilla and Wendy making a triangle as the main competitors for his interest. But the most significant triangle for him is the one involving himself, his dead fiancee Elena, and his most important love interest: Wendy. Meanwhile, Wendy is also involved in a triangle with Joshua, whom Yukiko seems to like too. It's not clear whether Wendy even realizes that Joshua has a crush on her, though.
  • There are currently three love triangles in Kimi ni Todoke: Sawako/Kazehaya/Kurumi, Ryu/Chizuru/Tooru, and Kazehaya/Sawako/Kent. All 'Bettys' win in the end.
  • The "main" love triangle in Ouran High School Host Club bottles down to Tamaki and Hikaru for Haruhi.
    • This does get resolved... in favor of Tamaki, on the final chapters of the manga... Although the Anime version left it ambiguous...
  • In Xam'd: Lost Memories, there's the hero Akiyuki, his best friend Furuichi, and their mutual love interest Haru.
  • Zero, Yuuki, and Kaname from Vampire Knight. Sooooorrta resolved in the end. Kaname ends up in a coma, Yuuki marries Zero and they raise their own child as well as Yuuki and Kaname's kid, Zero dies of natural causes, and once everything's resolved Yuuki sacrifices herself to revive Kaname.
  • There are a few standard love triangles in Onidere, but a hilarious one occurs between Tadashii (the boy), Saya (his girlfriend), and "Angie" (Saya again, wearing a Paper-Thin Disguise). To add to the hilarity, Tadashii sees through Saya's disguise immediately, and is so incredibly confused.
  • Cantarella has a perfect love triangle, illustrated here.
  • I'm Gonna Be an Angel! has, for majority of the series, something akin to 'love quindrangle' Noelle-Yuusuke-Natsumi-Fuyuki/Raphael-Mikael-Noelle, but it turns out Mikael never was interested in Noelle in that way (he is in fact in love with Raphael), so here the chain breaks. And poor Natsumi is the one left out..., as well as more traditional triangles Muse-Eros-Silky-Noelle, tragical, because Muse and Eros are just dolls and Silky expresses weird fixation/hatred towards Noelle. Also, Miruru-Gabriel-Sara-Mikael - where the one with poor luck is Sara.
  • Madoka Magica: Sayaka loves Kamijou. So does Hitomi. It's also strongly implied that Kyouko loves Sayaka, but that doesn't really interfere with the aforementioned triangle.
  • In Gankutsuou, there are two major love triangles, in two different generations. Edmund Dantes and Fernando Mondigo were both in love with Mercedes, who was engaged to Edmund. Fernand gets proactive. In the next generation, Franz and Eugenie are both in love with Albert, who is engaged to Eugenie. Franz had long ago made the decision to support Albert and Eugenie, and dies without Eugenie or Albert ever knowing that there was a love triangle.
    • Then there's a more minor love triangle, when Maximilian and Franz's fiancee, Valentine, fall in love. Decidedly resolved when Franz pledges his support to Maximilian and helps him rescue Valentine from her family. The most easily resolved triangle, what with the hypotenuse being a gay Shipper on Deck.
  • Fairy Tail
    • More of a love square, but in the background, both Jet and Droy are trying to win Levy's heart. However, most Ship Tease with her has been with Gajeel instead, and yet the two of them seem to be Just Friends, if that. Not that it stops Jet and Droy from hating him that much more.
    • There's also a very odd one in regarding Gray and Lyon for Juvia. Juvia loves Gray, but Gray doesn't show romantic interest. Lyon likes Juvia, but Juvia finds him creepy. Lyon sees Gray as a love rival, but Gray doesn't understand.
  • Tokyo Crazy Paradise has one with Akira, Ryuji, and Tsukasa. Possibly with Asago, Tsukasa, and Ryuji.
  • True Tears has the Noe <—> Shinichiro <—> Hiromi love triangle and the Miyokichi —> Aiko —> Shinichiro love triangle.
  • Rinne: The two main triangles are between Rinne, Sakura, Tsubasa and Rinne, Ageha, Sakura. Rinne and Tsubasa like Sakura (Sakura's feelings are unclear at this point) and Ageha crushes on Rinne who only tolerates her.
  • In ½ Prince Lan/Prince has, in addition to a swarm of female admirers, two main love interests, Zhou/Wicked, who knows she's a girl, and Gui, who thinks she's a boy but states that he doesn't really care about her gender. While she's initially annoyed with Gui and oblivious to Wicked's feelings, she eventually realizes that both of them really love her, and begins to angst over how she'll have to seriously hurt either her childhood friend or the man who's cheerfully sacrificed for her in subtle ways since she met him. She ends up married to the latter, Gui.
  • In Haruhi Suzumiya's student film, "The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina", there is some sort of love triangle between Mikuru, Yuki Nagato, and Itsuki Koizumi, to the point where the two girls transfer into Itsuki's school. However, this was just a case of Haruhi losing sight of the characters' actual conception: Mikuru is a Magical Girl from the future, Yuki is a Human Alien Dark Magical Girl, and Itsuki is the Living MacGuffin whom the former two battle over.
    Kyon: Yuki and Mikuru's story of battling has now turned into a heated romantic comedy, or rather nothing more than a love triangle.
  • The story of Chihayafuru starts when Genki Girl Chihaya takes an interest in New Transfer Student Arata, which infuriates her Tsundere Crazy Jealous Guy friend Taichi. Several years later all three are friends and Taichi and Chihaya are separated from Arata who now lives in another district, but the tension is still there. Also, we are later introducer to another character, Sumire, who has has a crush on Taichi (like most of the girls in his school, really) and forms another Love Triangle with him and Chihaya, but also is able to recognize the nature of Taichi-Chihaya-Arata situation at instant when she meets the last of them.
  • Gakuen Babysitters has a love triangle involving Ryuuichi, Ushimaru, and Inomata. However, it's not really a major element of the story.
  • Tamako Market has a bisexual one between Mochizou (male) and Midori (female) towards Tamako, particularly fleshed out in episode 5.
  • Two triangles develop around Judy in the last third of My Daddy Long Legs. First, there's the Judy-Jimmie-Julia triangle. Then there's the more significant Jimmie-Judy-Jervis triangle. Judy chooses Jervis; she never seems to have had romantic feelings towards Jimmie at all. (This is how it was in the books too)
  • Sakura Trick has one that's Played for Laughs: Mitsuki likes Haruka, who's in a relationship with Yuu.
  • An interesting variation in Yurara. Yako and Mei are both in love with Yurara. However, Yurara, thanks to her Guardian Spirit, can transform into a superpowered alter ego, with a slightly different personality. And it so happens that Mei is in love with "regular" Yurara, who is falling for him in return, while Yako has feelings for "Guardian" Yurara, who can't stand Mei and loves Yako instead.
  • Captain Tsubasa:
    • In the pilot episode, there was one between the childhood friends Genzou Wakabayashi, Tarou Tsubasa and Aki Yamazaki. Genzou asked Aki out, but she politely refused him as she already liked Tarou.
    • In the series itself, the first part's potential love triangle between Tsubasa Ohzora, Sanae Nakazawa and Yayoi Aoba fizzled out almost immediately after Yayoi's first appearance, as she focused more on her team captain Misugi. However, in the second part the trope was played straight between Tsubasa, Sanae and the new assistant Kumi. Sanae won easily, and so much that she managed to marry Tsubasa when they were old enough for it.
  • While Fushigi Yuugi has a huge Love Dodecahedron, the prequel Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden has a simple Love Triangle between Takiko Ohkuda aka Genbu no Miko, Prince Uruki aka one of her Genbu Seishi, and their ally Firuka. Nope, it was a misunderstanding. The guy that Firuka actually likes is Urumiya Hagas, another of the Genbu Seishi.
  • In Heartcatch Pretty Cure, Tsubomi and Erika help out inspiring mangaka Ban with an love triangle... in his doujinshi about the Cures - in his story, Blossom had fallen in love with a handsome man (who looks like a fusion of Ban and Itsuki) and Marine has opted to help her. However, she ends up falling in love with him as well. It's this situation that puts him at Writer's Block. Tsubomi and Erika act out the perfect ending - the two girls confront each other and decide that their friendship and duty is more important than one guy.
  • Deconstructed in the anime version of School Days, which appears at the beginning to be a light-hearted High School romantic comedy. Then Boy (possibly) gets Girl A (who he is dating) pregnant, which causes him to become an absolute Jerk Ass and start sleeping around. Girl A murders Boy, then Girl B (who Boy was dating but never got around to breaking up with, stringing her alone as he dates Girl A and Girl B gets atrociosuly broken) finds the body and confronts and murders Girl A. Girl B then decapitates the Boy's corpse, takes the head and relaxes on a nice boat with it. However, the original Visual Novel can play this very differently...
  • In Detective Conan, both Hot-Blooded Detective Takagi and Non-Idle Rich Detective Shiratori are after Action Girl Sato. Technically all the young men in their station are after Satou's affections, but these two are the ones with the biggest chances. Satou chooses Takagi, but few afterwards Shiratori finds the girl he actually loves...
  • Denki-gai no Honya-san has Hio-tan and Director, who like each other but can't quite say it out loud, and Kameko, who likes Director but knows that the feeling isn't mutual.
  • Lampshaded humorously by Shiou in D-Frag!.[1]
  • Domesticna Kanojo has Natsuo, Rui, and Hina. Bonus points for the three being step-siblings.
  • Happiness Charge Pretty Cure had one between Megumi, Seiji and Blue (with Hime coming in for an episode or two) It went completely nowhere - Blue fell in love with another and Megumi and Seiji just went the "Just Friends" route.
  • In the animated adaptation of White Album 2, just like in the VN (see below), there's the Setsuna - Haruki - Kazusa love triangle. The winner? No one. Not even Haruki.
  • Your Lie in April has Kousei, Kaori and Tsubaki; and Watari, Kaori and Kousei. Kousei chooses Kaori but she dies after a complication for her surgery and he only finds out after her death that she loves him and not Watari. Tsubaki is still gunning for him but Kousei is still mourning for Kaori's death.
  • The main 'couple' of Ojisan And Marshmallow, as such, is Owakabayashi-san and Hige-san. A couple of episodes introduces a new coworker that wants Hige-san for herself....
  • Dagashi Kashi has Kokonotsu, Hotaru and Saya. Saya has a crush on Kokonotsu who is oblivious to her feelings and who instead has an obvious crush on Hotaru. Hotaru for her part seemed largerly unconcerned about romance at first but later chapters suggest she might reciprocate Kokonotsu's feelings.
  • In Flowering Heart, Ari has feelings for Chess and his half-brother Trump.
  • In Sekaiichi Hatsukoi, both Yuu and Hatori love Chiaki, however Chiaki chooses Hatori.
  • Date A Live: Early on, the main competitors for Shido's affections were Tohka and Origami. As Shido's Unwanted Harem became larger and more developed, the love triangle was slowly phased out.
  • There's a few of them in Destruction Flag Otome given how many people are after Katarina, but only a few get any real focus. Keith and Jared are in direct competition with each other as her most aggressive suitors while the engaged pair of Alan and Mary also happen to both be after Katarina, though Alan doesn't realize that his fiancee is competition. Those two are more cordial about it, however, since they actually like each other and get along well.

    Audio Plays 
  • The main premise of the Choose Me otome audio drama series. You, as the main character in each story, must choose between two love interests vying for your attention.

    Comic Books 
  • Marvel Universe has some truly legendary love triangles:
    • Peter Parker alias Spider-Man has one early with Liz Allen and Flash Thompson, with Liz beginning to have feelings for Peter much to Flash's jealously. But seeing them both fight, soon led to Liz giving up on both of them.
    • Betty Brant the center of triangle with Peter and Ned Leeds and the most famous with Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane until Gwen's role (after her death) was taken by Black Cat and subsequently Peter married MJ.
    • The archetypal X-Men love triangle had Jean Grey torn between stoic Cyclops and bad boy Wolverine.
    • The Fantastic Four's Invisible Woman is devoted to her husband Mr. Fantastic but drawn to the passionate Sub-Mariner.
    • Deadpool and Thanos are involved in an exceptionally Black Comedy version of this with the Anthropomorphic Personification of Death. They're both in love with her, but she remains willfully aloof while switching her affections back and forth from one to the other.
    • There's also The Avengers' Crystal/Black Knight/Sersi love triangle, which threatened to turn into a Love Dodecahedron because of Crystal's husband Quicksilver.
    • The younger generation isn't free from this either. Young Avengers has Kate Bishop in a Betty and Veronica situation with Patriot (Betty) and Speed (Veronica), and Stature is in a tweak of the Superman variation with Iron Lad and the Vision, whose brain is patterned off Iron Lad's memory engrams.
      • The only stable couple? Wiccan and Hulkling, the resident Yaoi Guys.
    • Betty Ross with Bruce Banner and Glenn Talbot, then with Bruce and disposable love interest Ramon. Throw her and Bruce's alternate personalities into the mix and things get even more complicated.
    • There is also Gambit/Rogue/Magneto for the X-Men as well. Luckily Rogue went back to Gambit after Savage Land.
  • DCU:
    • An interesting (and classic) variation happens with Superman. Clark Kent is smitten with Lois Lane, who is completely infatuated with Superman. So...Clark's only competition is with himself?
      • Different adaptations of the Superman mythos (i.e. the 90s' Lois & Clark TV series) will throw in Lex Luthor as a competitor for Lois Lane' affections. Results may vary.
      • Superman's ex-girlfriend Lana Lang is also in competition with Lois for his affections. In some versions of the story, Lana is just as unaware as Lois that Clark is Superman. In other versions, Lana has known since high school, and it was the initial reason they broke up—resulting in her rocky marriage to Clark's friend Pete Ross, making this a Love Dodecahedron. Superman himself long carried a torch for his college girlfriend Lori Lemaris, and was bitterly disappointed when she rejected him for Ronal, whom she married (Lori and Ronal are both merpeople, incidentally). Superman and Lori are now "Just Friends.".
    • The main trio of the Justice League, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman actually sometimes have of love triangle sorts. Diana has been with both men on more than one occasion but Bruce and Clark would never◊ actually fight over her. There's also some unsaid sexual tension between Supes and Batman themselves.
    • Happens in the same fashion to Hal Jordan. At about the same time that Hal received his ring, Carol Ferris broke up with him in order to focus on running her father's business. That didn't stop her from chasing after Green Lantern whenever she got the opportunity. Carol/Hal/GL also threw Carol's alter ego Star Sapphire into the mix for extra bonus fun. Retcons have made Star Sapphire not so much evil per se, just ... persistent and perhaps a bit delusional.
    • There are so many of these in Teen Titans, fans don't even know where to start.
  • Archie Comics has a Love Triangle subtrope all to itself.
  • Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog tends to have a third wheel enter into Sonic and Sally's Will They or Won't They? - first with Geoffery St. John, then with Monkey Khan.
  • Circles sometimes hints at one among Marty, Taye and Ken, but never acted on it. Also, Paulie, John and Arthur were an actual One True Threesome during the 1970s, and Paulie and Arthur are still best friends.
  • Mickey Mouse Comic Universe: Does Clarabelle Cow go out with Goofy or Horace Horsecollar? Some of the comics involving them play with this trope.
  • ElfQuest has a few, complicated by Recognition. This is a "mating urge" bringing together a pair that are a good genetic match to produce gifted children, and traditionally a Recognised couple will become lifemates.
    • Leetah's choice between Rayek and Cutter.
    • Dewshine, Scouter, and Tyldak (when Dewshine and Tyldak recognised, but couldn't stand each other)
    • Dewshine, Scouter, and Tyleet, when Scouter and Tyleet recognised, ending in a stable threesome
    • Ember's choice between Mender and Teir.
  • Empowered/Thugboy/Ninjette. Type 4, or a type 6 if you have your yuri goggles on.
  • Subverted in the erotic furry comic, Omaha the Cat Dancer. In this series, Omaha runs away from her lover, Charles Tabey Jr., in utter desolation after he blew up on her for a dark secret she had to confess (She was already married, had broken up with her husband long ago, but never actually divorced yet) and goes to a small town where she starts a passionate relationship with another man. However, Omaha learns that Charles was hospitalized with a nervous breakdown because her leaving him and she decides to return to him. Before she does that, she explains the full situation with her new boyfriend and he is understanding enough to encourage her to go back. After all differences are patched up, Charles makes a point of inviting that man to their New Year Eve's party to show his appreciation for helping Omaha at that tough time he himself put her through. As it happens, the pair get along so well they agree to take Omaha to bed a threesome and a fun time is had by all.
  • In Pocket God, Nooby has a crush on Sun, but get jealous when she starts hanging out with Ooga. Nooby gets over it by issue 21, when he realizes they still care for him.
  • Sin City is normally not the sort of place you might expect a love triangle, but we have at least two:
    • Dwight bounces back and forth between Gail, the badass prostitute and Shellie, the sweet waitress.
    • Then we have an All Love Is Unrequited situation. Marv loves Nancy, who loves Hartigan, who only loves her in a platonic manner. It's a rare example in that Marv and Hartigan never knew each other.
  • In SpyBoy, Alex has a liking to both Bombshell and Spy Girl.
  • German artist Walter Moers once wrote such a story, involving a (male) fir tree, a (female) triangle (as in the instrument; forms a pair with the tree) and a toblerone bar (male, bisexual) who cheats with the triangle. While they're in a tent. (Triangle / triangular story, get it?) As the author Lamp Shades: Doesn't that sound pretty constructed?
  • There are multiple triangles in play in Revival: one cheating husband, one cheating wife, one chain of affections, one settling for sibling...

    Fairy Tales 
  • In The Fire-Bird, the Horse of Power, and the Princess Vasilissa, the princess hates the old tsar and falls in love with the archer, but the tsar insists on marrying her.
  • In Anguillette, the protagonist, Hebe, loves Prince Atimir, though she marries the Prince of Pleasure Island. Hebe's older sister Ilerie competes with her for Atimir's affections, and Atimir marries her.
  • In "The Two Trees" King Niall of Leinster and King Fergal of Ulster became bitter enemies due to both loving a woman called Maeve, who deliberately encouraged this antagonism. They don't become friends again until their children have a vision stating that they're fated to marry one another.

    Fan Works 
  • Axis Powers Hetalia fanfic Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità: Germany and Japan both love Italy. Let's just say neither was happy about the competition.
  • A Crown of Stars: Shinji and Asuka love each other and are finally starting out a relationship. However Rei likes Shinji and she refuses to believe Asuka can open up to Shinji or care about him like she does because she is jealous. On the other hand Asuka does not appreciate Rei meddling with their relationship now they are finally getting their act together.
  • Advice and Trust: Asuka and Shinji liked each other, and Rei liked Shinji. At the beginning Asuka was jealous but she got over it when she and Rei became friends. However, as the bonds between the three pilots became stronger, Rei fell for both. Yet she will do nothing because she does not want to disrupt their relationship.
  • The Bleach fanfiction Heirverse includes one with Gin/Aizen/Momo, an Imaginary Love Triangle of Kisuke/Aizen/Gin and a variation on Psychotic Love Triangle with Aizen-Jac/Orihime/Ulq and Gin/Aizen/Orihime. In which Jac wants Orihime and so influences him and strips away his memories.
  • Calvin and Hobbes: The Series: Andy is in love with Maria, but she's infatuated with Calvin, who doesn't really care much about romance and ends up attracting the ire of Andy.
  • The Child of Love: Shinji liked Asuka but he was too afraid of being rejected to confess, Asuka liked Shinji but she was too afraid of being rejected to admit it to herself, and Rei liked Shinji and she was jealous, but she did not want to interfere. After a while Shinji and Asuka got together, and Rei made Asuka jealous until Rei explained she did not intend to take Shinji away from her.
  • Children of an Elder God: During their first battles together Rei fell for Shinji. Then Asuka came along and as soon as she started to get familiar with Shinji, Rei was very, very jealous. Both girls competed over Shinji until he chose Asuka.
  • Doing It Right This Time: Subverted. Asuka and Rei love Shinji, and Shinji spends a while agonising over having to choose between them… only to be informed he does not have to make a choice because both girls like each other and him.
  • Evangelion 303:
    • Asuka and Shinji love each other. Jessika is Asuka's best friend and is secretly in love with her. However she never said anything.
    • And then you have Asuka/Jessika/Mandy. Mandy was Jessika's girlfriend and hated Asuka because she thought that Jessika had been unfaithful. However Jessika never cheated, and Asuka never knew of her friend's real feelings.
    • Rei/Kaworu/Saburo. Kaworu and Rei like spending time together, and Rei likes Kaworu but she is uncertain of what kind of relationship Kaworu wants. Saburo is Kaworu's ex-boyfriend. He broke up with Kaworu because he felt ignored and was jealous of Kaworu's relationship with Rei. He wants Kaworu back, but Kaworu wants nothing with him now; ironically, Kaworu and Rei became closer after Saburo dumped Kaworu.
  • HERZ: Asuka and Shinji love each other, and Kurumi loves Shinji. She has been chasing him since they were high-schoolers despite of having absolutely no chance.
  • Higher Learning: Misato and Kaji liked each other even after breaking up many years ago, but they were wary about restarting their relationship. Then Misato met her pilots' new teach, Kaoru, and she liked him. He felt drawn to her and they started out a short-lived relationship.
  • Last Child of Krypton: Shinji likes Asuka, Asuka likes Kaji, Kaji likes Misato. Gradually Asuka fell for Shinji, and allowed herself open up to him after realizing her crush towards Kaji was hopeless.
  • The One I Love Is: The Asuka/Shinji/Rei love triangle drives the plot. Rei realizes she likes Shinji and he likes her... but he is falling for Asuka. Since she does not want to lose him to the other girl she starts to express her feelings openly, in turn forcing Asuka to acknowledge and display she loves Shinji openly. Meanwhile Shinji likes both girls and he is afraid of hurting either of them.
  • Scar Tissue: The Asuka/Shinji/Rei triangle is downplayed because after returning from Instrumentality, Rei decides to act like Shinji's sister, but Asuka and Rei are still jealous of each other.
  • Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton: Shinji liked Asuka who liked Kaji who liked Misato. To hilariously complicate things further, Misato thought for a while that Shinji had a crush on her. Anyway Asuka gradually fell for Shinji and stopped to have a crush on Kaji.
  • Racer and the Geek appears to have a formenting one between Rainbow Dash, Sunny Breeze, and Faraday. Given that the author is Kalash93, anything is possible.
  • In the Tamers Forever Series one exists between Takeru, Kari and Pauline. You'd be surprised by how many people are Takeru/Pauline shippers.
  • Love triangles are a favorite fanfic trope, especially with an OC coming between the two leads.
  • On the BLU team, Sniper and Spy vie for Scout's affections in the Team Fortress 2 fic Paternal. Sniper calls it quits after realizing he's too old for Scout and Spy wins, though the three remain friends.
  • Ancient Languages has two triangles, two types of Triang Relations.
    • Jared↔Lyla Jared↔Rachel, from a flashback in chapter 9. Jared and Lyla almost married, but on the wedding day, Lyla found the sexual affair between Jared and Rachel. Lyla ran away from the wedding, and decided that she no longer wanted the love of any man.
    • Lyla←Elhael Lyla←Glorfindel. Both male elves want Lyla, and Lyla likes both. Elhael and Glorfindel become rivals as they compete for access to Lyla. There is also confusion over whether each edge is a romance or just a friendship.
  • This is a major plot point in MLP fic Hands — Andrew and Twilight Sparkle end up in a relationship together, but an awkward situation with some pheromone-emitting flowers causes a mutual attraction between him and Fluttershy that only strengthens over time. One offscreen cat fight and a lot of awkwardness later, and the three of them ultimately agree to give a polygamous relationship a shot. And all things considered, it seems to be working out pretty well. And now Chrysalis is trying to get in on the act.
  • Demigod Power had a massive one which went on for approximately a year, between the resident Unwanted Harem, Ill Girl, and Knight Templar Big Bad. It was only recently resolved with the Knight Templar's death.
  • Four Deadly Secrets has two triangles, Alice-Miltia-Ruby and Miltia-Ruby-Weiss.
  • Discussed in the Contractually Obligated Chaos series. Prince Vince explains the concept of Triang Relations (even referencing This Very Wiki) to Donny, whose brother is stuck in a type 4 scenario, and remarks that he dislikes Love Triangles for being so overused in fiction.
  • In the first story of Bound Destinies Trilogy, Sheik is revealed to have fallen for Link who is already in a romantic relationship with Zelda. In the second installment, Malon has a crush on Link but again, he is in love with Zelda.
  • crawlersout: One is developing between Tom Riddle and Gellert Grindelwald with Fem!Harry Potter in the middle. That being said, no one is aware of it because Tom is currently ten and neither he nor Harry are able to comprehend the romantic undertones of their relationship yet. They're there, it's just that Tom hasn't hit puberty yet while Harry's main goal is to Raise Him Right This Time.
  • To Hell and Back (Arrowverse) has three:
    • Barry/Iris/Eddie: Barry and Eddie are both in love with Iris, who is with Eddie but slowly becoming aware she may also have feelings for Barry. A later chapter confirms that Barry will be the one to marry Iris in the end, but it's not exactly clear how yet.
    • Oliver/Laurel/Tommy: Tommy has feelings for Laurel, while Laurel has unresolved feelings for Oliver, stemming from before the Gambit. Oliver is starting to realize he might have feelings for Laurel, but has yet to act on them.
    • Laurel/Oliver/Nyssa: Laurel and Nyssa both have feelings for Oliver, and Oliver has feelings for both, which is partially why he has yet to act on them. It's also a strange case, in that Laurel and Nyssa are unaware of each other.

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Godzilla (1954) is a very tragic one-sided example of this. You have the three characters Emiko Yamane, Hideo Ogata, and Daisuke Serizawa. Emiko and Ogata were already together when the film starts, but Serizawa knew about their relationship. In contrast, Serizawa revealed his horrible secret while Emiko's affair was hidden from her father's eyes. Then Godzilla came and destroyed Tokyo twice over, to the point Emiko felt she had no choice but to reveal his secret weapon: The Oxygen Destroyer. Another character contrast is also revealed: Ogata wanted to use the Destroyer to kill Godzilla, but Serizawa does not. After a scuffle, Serizawa knew the weight of Japan's fate is on his shoulders, and voluntarily uses it. How does it end? He gave up his own life so they can be together. But if Godzilla vs. Destoroyah is anything to go by, they didn't get married after 1954.
  • A rather strange, and even squick-worthy one to some in The Constant Nymph, between Lewis (adult), Florence (adult), and Tessa (14 years old).
  • In this nasty little noir, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, there's two: between Sam, Martha, and Walter & between Sam, Martha, and Toni.
  • Bend It Like Beckham: Jules adores Joe who only has eyes for Jess. More triangular in that multiple supporting characters mistake Jess and the boyish Jules for a couple.
  • Flying Down to Rio: Julio is engaged to Belinha, and they love each other. Unfortunately, Belinha falls for Roger, who adores her back
  • In Last Vegas, Billy and Paddy both loved Sophie. She ended up marrying Paddy after initially choosing Billy, who told her that she belonged with Paddy. A year after her death, when the movie takes place, Billy and Paddy again end up falling for the same woman, and again, Billy tries to be selfless, but this time, Paddy won't let him and insists that Billy pursue his own happiness.
  • Pirates of the Caribbean turns this into more of a Love Pyramid, with Will and Norrington in love with Elizabeth, and Jack attracted to Elizabeth. Elizabeth loves Will and is also attracted to Jack. Hilarity Ensues many times over.
  • The Philadelphia Story, as well as many other classic screwball comedies.
  • In the Film Noir, Road House, Jefty is in love with Lily while she’s in love with Pete. Jefty, however, won't take this lying down.
  • House of Flying Daggers with Leo, Mei, and Jin. It does NOT end well.
  • The Incredible Mr. Limpet has two mild examples: a Type 8 between Henry, Bessie, and George; and a Type 7 between Bessie, Henry, and Ladyfish. Both are resolved by the end of the film.
  • This is the premise of François Truffaut's Jules and Jim. They wound up going the Polyamory route.
  • Casablanca is a classic, with Victor loving Ilsa who still loves Rick but whose duty lies with Victor...
  • In Pearl Harbor, we have Evelyn torn between her boyfriend Rafe, who was believed to be dead, and his best friend Danny, who befriended her after Rafe was reported to be dead.
  • The Chinese film Painted Skin is just one big love triangle pileup. With certain supernatural elements. But no, it's mostly a bunch of love triangles (pick a main character, any main character).
  • Anchors Aweigh had the triangle between Clarence, Susan, and Joe. Clarence eventually finds another girl, and Joe and Susan end up together.
  • Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: Johanna is loved by Anthony Hope and Judge Turpin (though the latter is more lust than anything else). Will she chose the beautiful young man who might help her break free - or the creepy old man who has the power to hurt her if she defies him? Simple, she chooses the sailor willing to help her. After all, why would she marry some creepy old man that treated her like a prisoner and was her guardian since infancy?
  • In The Quiet Earth between Api, Joanne and Zac. They are the only known people left, so it's not surprising.
  • The Roaring Twenties (1939) has one between Eddie, Jean and Lloyd. Jean and Lloyd end up getting married during a Time Skip.
  • While this was averted for the most part in the first movie (although it implied that Sif was interested in Thor), it was advised that there would be a love triangle between Thor, Sif, and Jane in Thor: The Dark World. But Thor still clearly loves Jane, and while Sif tried to show her affections for Thor, he remains oblivious to her. Odin wants Thor and Sif together, like in the comics. The only real moment is when Sif passes Jane and glares at her, to which Jane glares a little back.
  • In Top Hat: Jerry loves Dale, who also has Alberto madly in love with her. Dale believes that Jerry is the husband of her best friend, but slowly finds herself falling for him.
  • In TRON between main character Flynn, ex-girlfriend Lora and her current boyfriend Alan, writer of the eponymous program. This carries over into the computer world with Alan and Lora's program expies, Tron and Yori (with whom Flynn shares a Last Kiss).
  • In X-Men: First Class, Raven and Hank hit it off almost instantly, but the moment he refuses to accept his mutant form (and her mutant form) drives her to attempt to seduce Magneto, who prefers her natural appearance just the way it is.
  • The Hunger Games movies play up the barely-even-there-at-all love triangle from the books into a much bigger thing, presumably to cash in on the "Twilight" fad. The first movie isn't so bad but the second manages to make it seem like Katniss is in a relationship with the guy she never has romantic feelings for in the book, while her relationship with the other boy is very downplayed. Suzanne Collins, who wrote the books, has stated that she didn't plan a love triangle of any kind but her publisher insisted that she add one.
  • In Two for the Road, there's a minor one, before Mark and Joanna get together, and a major one later, almost leading to divorce.
  • Prime Cut: Lee Marvin's character has two love interests, a teenage prostitute and the middle aged wife of the Big Bad.
  • I Shot Jesse James: Both Robert Ford and John Kelley have feelings toward Cynthy Waters, and work toward earning her affection. Bob's reputation as the killer of Jesse James makes the triangle even more intense. In the end, she chooses to stay with John.

    Literature 
  • The Kane Chronicles feature Sadie, having to pick between Walt and Anubis. Anubis is a Egyptian boy-god that the other gods forbid Sadie to go near and Walt is dying because of a curse. The triangle is solved by Walt hosting Anubis, thereby keeping Walt alive and letting Sadie near Anubis, as he's not in his godly form. Yes, the triangle is solved by the two love interests sharing the same body.
  • Ur-Example: the Trojan War was a consequence of the Love Triangle between Helen, Paris, and Menelaus. Then there's the whole problem caused by the triangle between Achilles, Briseis, and Agamemnon.
  • Enoch Arden by Alfred, Lord Tennyson is the story of a love triangle between childhood friends Enoch, Annie, and Philip.
  • One Arthur C. Clarke story has a love triangle between some minor characters (due to the relationship-stretching difficulties of space travel) which all the participants are completely aware of. It's also "completely equilateral", if you get Sir Arthur's meaning. For one, Rendezvous with Rama has several triangles, including one equilateral, although only the two men of that triangle appear in the story.
  • The Wheel of Time has all of Elayne, Min, Aviendha, and Rand's angsting before they settled on a polyamorous relationship. There was also Berelain's determined pursuit of Perrin, which utterly trashed his relationship with Faile, and the whole complicated set of customs and rules that put Bain, Chiad, and Gaul in their position.
  • Nikolai/Sonya/Marya form one in War and Peace. Natasha/Anatoly/Andrei form another.
  • The English Patient: the title character's affair with Katharine Clifton.
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream, anyone? Helena loves Demetrius who loves Hermia who loves Lysander, who loves her back. And that's before the fairies start mucking around with their relationships.
    • It's resolved early on when Hermia decides to leave Athens with Lysander secretly.
    • Then Helena, who's a Yandere by the way, decides to tell Demetrius of this, who, by the way, loves Hermia and hates Helena. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Warrior Cats loves these. Spottedleaf and Firestar liked each other in the beginning, but she died and promptly began stalking him from above. He then fell in love with Sandstorm, although for a while she wasn't so sure he wasn't still in love with Spottedleaf. And he somehow managed not to realize that he and Cinderpelt weren't Just Friends.
    • Then, the sequel series has two more. Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight love each other, but they fall out for a while and Squirrelflight hooks up with Ashfur. They make up in the end and become mates, but Ashfur never forgives her, causing him to go insane, betray the Clan, and try to kill her children—forcing her to admit that they aren't hers. Brambleclaw, who had no idea, left her because of this, but they eventually got back together. Stormfur was also sweet on Squirrelflight for awhile, but later fell for Brook.
    • And then there's the infamous Crowfeather/Leafpool/Feathertail/Nightcloud triangle. Crowfeather fell for Feathertail, who then promptly died, and later ran off with Leafpool because they could never be together because of the boundaries between their Clans, but eventually returned. To prove his loyalty, he hooked up with a cat from his own Clan, Nightcloud, and a kit with her. It was later revealed that Leafpool actually had Crowfeather's kits and was forced to give them up to her sister at first or risk punishment. When this was revealed, he rejected her completely and declared that his mate was Nightcloud and his kit was Breezepelt.
    • Lionblaze used to love Heathertail, but gave her up (much to her dismay) because they were from separate Clans and he couldn't be a great warrior if he was seeing a cat from another Clan. They grew to hate each other, and now Heathertail and Breezepelt may or may not be Just Friends.
  • In Les Misérables, Eponine loves Marius, who loves Cosette, who (eventually) loves him back after a bit of trepidation.
  • Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet at least for the first four books. While its clear that Desjani is head over heels for John Geary, Geary is already in a relationship with Rione, which gets complicated when they find out Rione's husband may not be dead. And they're all on the same ship.
  • In the Darkest Powers series, Chloe has feelings for both Simon and Derek, and both of them have feelings for her. Simon and Derek are brothers. Awkward. In a refreshing change from most female protagonists who find themselves in this situation, Chloe doesn't toy with either of them. She's also honestly confused about her own feelings, and barely realizes that she has more-than-friendly feelings for Derek. In the end, it turns out that she does like Simon, but just as a friend. She's honestly in love with Derek, even if it takes both of them a bit of time to work things out and get together. Some completely understandable angst ensues between Simon realizing that Chloe likes Derek, and Chloe and Derek finally figuring out that their feelings are mutual, but everyone involved is actually mature about it, completely free of pettiness, and no one resents anyone because they all act like rational people.
    • In the beginning, it looked like the triangle would be a rather generic Main Character Girl vs. Alpha Bitch for The Nice Guy between Chloe, Simon, and Tori, though this was resolved fairly early when Tori’s mother warned her to stay away from Simon practically under threat of death. Tori then tells Chloe that Simon is all hers right before hitting her in the head with a brick and hog-tying her as revenge for making her already crappy life even MORE miserable. Though, she gets over her crush after being forced to spend a few days alone with him. And then later on it turns out they’re half-siblings, which explains why Mrs. Enright was so adamant about Tori staying away from him. Cue awkward music!
    • Also played with in The Reckoning when Tori makes a comment about Derek actually not looking so bad, though this was more a casual observation and a chance to tease Chloe than anything serious. Doesn’t stop Chloe from getting mad, though.
  • In John C. Wright's The Golden Age, The Phoenix Exultant, and The Golden Transcedence, Phaethon is in love with his wife Daphne Prime, who drowned herself in a simulated dream, and emancipated a partial personality, Daphne Tercuis, whom she thought would be better suited to Phaethon, and who is madly in love with him. Owing to Laser-Guided Amnesia, neither Phaethon nor Daphne Tercuis know this at the opening, and because Daphne Tercius derives from Daphne Prime, she had most of her memories, and Phaethon confuses the two of them. Eventually he realizes that most of his fondest memories of Daphne are of Daphne Tercius and asks her to marry him in her own right.
  • Harry Potter reveals the existence of a Snape/Lily/James triangle when Harry rewinds the lifetime memories of the deceased teacher via the Pensieve.
  • In the The Hunger Games series, Gale/Katniss/Peeta.
  • In the Brazilian book The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, Otacília loves Riobaldo, who likes her and could even love her back if he wasn't already in love with Diadorim, who seems to love him too, but he has his own reasons - besides being both male - to stay quiet.
  • Erik/Christine/Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera. Some people ship Christine and Meg.
  • Will—>Tessa<—Jem in The Infernal Devices. Jessamine lampshades it in The Clockwork Prince.
    Jessamine, mocking Tessa: Oh, I must choose between Will and Jem! Whatever shall I do?
  • The Mysteries of Pittsburgh has main character Art Bechenstein falling for both Phlox and his friend Arthur in a bisexual variant.
  • Sisterhood Series by Fern Michaels: By the book Deja Vu, one has clearly developed between Maggie Spritzer, Ted Robinson, and Abner Tookus. Maggie loves them both, but in different ways. She was engaged to be married to Ted. However, she calls off the engagement to Ted and says that the two should just be friends. She tells Abner how she feels about him, but he does not forgive her mistreatment of him, and their relationship comes to an end. The book Home Free has her hooking up with Augustus "Gus" Sullivan, and apparently Abner finally forgives Maggie. Whew!
  • In John C. Wright's Count to a Trillion, Blackie accuses Menelaus of trying to steal his fiancee, whom Menelaus has never met. Then Menelaus meets her. Followed by his discovery that she met his other personality.
  • The infamous love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob from the Twilight saga.
  • In Teresa Frohock's Miserere: An Autumn Tale, Catarina regards her brother's love for Raechel as making them this.
  • Taylor Anderson plays with love triangles as sub-plots in his "Destroyermen" series.
    • The first one introduced involving Chack, Selass, and Saak-Fas (eventually a fourth party, Safir, gets thrown into the mix). Chack initially loves Selass, but Selass puts him down and chooses Saak-Fas, another suitor. After Saak-Fas is lost in battle, Selass refocuses her love on Chack. Oddly enough, this same battle is what makes Chack forget about Selass and when Saak-Fas is found alive as a prisoner of war/rations for the Grik, Selass is unable to mate with Chack for a while. Once Chack meets Safir, Selass becomes the unlucky suitor instead of Chack.
    • Is somewhat downplayed and possibly subverted with one of the human Destroyermen, Dennis Silva. Silva attracts the attention of the human nurse Pam, and Lemurian warrior Risa. His solution to this is that he has relationships with BOTH of them simultaneously, as he loves them equally, and both females seem to consent with this.
  • In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol story "Brave to be a King", Manse had lost out in one in the Back Story. When Cynthia comes to him to help save her husband, Manse wrestles with the temptation to follow the rules easily — at Denison's expense — because of this. At the end, Denison realizes that his years in the past with Cassadane meant more to him that his brief marriage with Cynthia, even though he had chosen Cassadane because she reminded him of Cynthia.
  • Percy Jackson and the Olympians, where hero-turned-villain Luke is implied to have had feelings for the seemingly deceased Thalia, and is fancied by Annabeth, who also slowly developed a conflicting crush on main protagonist Percy, who returns the crush but also has mixed feelings for Rachel, who is attracted to Percy but in the end figures out that she is attracted to him jut because he is her key to the mythological world, while Annabeth figures out that she loves Luke as a brother, conveniently after the latter performs a Heroic Sacrifice.
  • The Heroes of Olympus, has Piper, who likes amnesiac Jason, who also likes her but is conflicted because he has just met Piper and he vaguely remembers another girl from home, named Reyna, who is implied to have feelings for him but needs someone to replace him with in the role of praetor, and promptly asks Percy, also informing him that the position would require a certain closeness, while Annabeth, Percy's girlfriend, searches for him all over the country. In the meantime, Frank gets involved with Hazel, who had a boyfriend back in the 1940's who appears to be related by blood to present-day Leo, since they look exactly the same.
  • Lisa Jane Smith has yet to write a YA series that does not involve a a love triangle involving a girl caught between a Knight in Shining Armor and a Bad Boy:
  • In Sarah A. Hoyt's Draw One in the Dark, Kyrie/Tom/Rafiel.
  • In Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, Holger, Alianora, and Morgan Le Fay. It doesn't last long.
  • The Host features one In two bodies! The triangle being Melanie/Jared/Wanderer.
    • It's even more complicated than that actually and leads to an interesting subversion: Melanie and Jared were together before Wanda took over her body and then Wanda and Ian fall in love. It's ultimately resolved when Melanie gets her body back and is free to be with Jared, while Wanda gets a new body and is free to be with Ian.
  • In Poul Anderson's "Holmgang", Bo, Lundgard, and their passenger Valeria on the flight to Earth. Lundgard is winning when Bo realizes that he murdered Johnny, and reveals all.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin naturally horribly deconstructs this trope.
    • Before the series's start (this is recounted in flashbacks), Catelyn Tully was in love with Brandon Stark, while her father's foster son Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish loved Catelyn (additionally, Catelyn's younger sister Lysa was in love with Petyr but he never reciprocated her feelings). So when Brandon came to claim Catelyn's hand, Petyr dared the much older, vastly stronger and vastly more skilled Brandon to a sword fight over Catelyn. Petyr was nearly slain and developed a seriously unhealthy obsession with Catelyn (who, by the way, had to marry Brandon's brother Eddard after Brandon died). In A Game of Thrones, Petyr manipulates events to contrive ways for him and Catelyn together. When he fails, he goes after Catelyn's young teenage daughter Sansa.
    • And there's another major love triangle before the series' start: Robert Baratheon/Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen. Robert was in love with Lyanna and betrothed to her. She was abducted by Rhaegar Targaryen, who had named Lyanna his "Queen of Love and Beauty" at an earlier tourney despite his marriage to Elia Martell. It's implied that Lyanna's abduction was the final straw for Robert, who started a war against the ruling Targaryen dynasty and personally killed Rhaegar during one of the battles.
    • A third: Robert Baratheon/Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister. Cersei and Jaime had been having sex since they were twelve, but it stopped when Cersei was betrothed to Robert Baratheon. Despite her original infatuation with Rhaegar Targaryen, Cersei was the happiest woman in the Seven Kingdoms marrying Robert, but Robert was still too heartbroken over the death of his original betrothed (Lyanna Stark), causing Cersei to seek solace in rekindling the relationship with her brother. As a result, all three of Robert and Cersei's children are actually fathered by Jaime.
  • The School for Good and Evil features a triangle between Sophie, Agatha, and Tedros (son of King Arthur). Sophie loves Tedros, and Tedros loves Sophie, but in all of their lessons on picking Good from Evil, keeps picking Agatha. Tedros eventually comes to feel love for Agatha, who starts to feel something for him, but is loyal to her friend Sophie and keeps trying to mend their relationship. Sophie ends up a full-fledged witch, and then goes to various lengths to win/kill Tedros AND Agatha. Sophie eventually takes a death blow meant for Agatha, and then makes a Dying Declaration of Love to her ( She got better )
  • In Stephanie Burgis's A Tangle of Magicks , Kat realizes with a shock — as Lady Fortherington complains to Papa about how he had refused to listen to her warnings about Kat's mother— that she was jealous, having lost out in a triangle.
  • In Richard Ellis Preston Jr.'s Chronicles Of The Pneumatic Zeppelin, both Max and Sabrina are in love with Romulus — who, in spite of their all being older children when adopted, thinks it Brother–Sister Incest and feels guilty about it.
  • In The Maze Runner, while Thomas’s original love interest is Teresa, he ends up growing closer to Brenda in The Scorch Trials after being separated from Teresa for an extended period of time, and finding out that she had betrayed him. He eventually ends up with Brenda, partially due to him never forgiving Teresa for what she had done and partially because of the girl’s sudden death at the end of The Death Cure.
  • In Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain, Penny likes Ray and Ray likes Claire. Or at least so she believes. In the end, it turns out Ray likes her back and she was just totally oblivious.
  • In the Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Mysteries Georgiana finds herself subjected to one when two men start vying for her attention.
  • The Witcher has a long-running and complicated one between Geralt, Triss, and Yennefer, Played for Drama. Geralt and Yennefer have been in love since The Last Wish, but in practice have an on-again, off-again relationship (in part due to Geralt tying their destinies together with the eponymous last wish from a djinn to save both their lives, so they're not entirely sure how much of their relationship is genuine). Triss seduced Geralt when he and Yennefer were "off", and Triss has carried a massive torch for him ever since. Thing is, she's also Yennefer's best friend and she frequently hates herself for loving Geralt.
  • Midnight's Children has a Type 5. During Saleem's childhood he develops a crush on Evelyn Lilith Burns (an American girl who moves into his gated community), but she develops a crush on his friend Sonny, who in turn is enamored with Saleem's sister the Brass Monkey. The Brass Monkey doesn't love anyone, and reacts violently to shows of affection.
    To save time, I shall place all of us in the same row at the Metro cinema; Robert Taylor is mirrored in our eyes as we sit in flickering trances — and also in symbolic sequence: Saleem Sinai is sitting-next-to-and-in-love-with Evie Burns who is sitting-next-to-and-in-love-with Sonny Ibrahim who is sitting-next-to-and-in-love-with the Brass Monkey who is sitting next to the aisle and feeling starving hungry.
  • Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note. By the egg burger arc (fourth in novels, second in anime), Aya may have developed feelings for Wakatake and Sunahara. The problem is Wakatake is occasionally a bit of a jerk to her, while Sunahara has a bad reputation.
  • Magician by Raymond E. Feist has the Pug/Carline/Roland triangle. Pug never tries to commit and Carline angsts over him for a large chunk of reasons for various reasons.
  • The Crimson Shadow: Between Luthien, his new lover Siobhan, and his old flame Katerin.
  • The Day of the Locust features two significant examples, both with aspiring but untalented actress Faye Greener at the centre.
    • Much of the plot is driven by protagonist Tod Hackett and Deuteragonist Homer Simpson's contrasting forms of unrequited love for Faye, which form a Type 3 Triang Relation. After she rejects him, Tod's love for Faye becomes an obsession with possessing and destroying her, and most of his actions toward her are motivated by his own selfish desires for her than out of any concern for her. Homer is the opposite; Faye is equally uninterested in a romantic relationship with him, but he happily soaks up her abuse and caters to her every whim in a doomed bid to make her happy. Tod and Homer's own friendship starts to break down thanks to their divergent attitudes toward Faye.
    • Faye is simultaneously at the corner of a Type 7 Triang Relation, as she is overtly romantically interested in dim-witted cowboy Earle Shoop, but flirts with, and eventually sleeps with, his friend Miguel to make him jealous. In Chapter 14, Earle attacks Miguel with a club when he dances with Faye at their campsite, and in Chapter 24, Homer tells Tod that after Earle found Miguel and Faye in bed together, the two men got into a fistfight, and the next morning, all three of them had moved out of his house.
  • The Stormlight Archive:
    • The Way of Kings: An unusually amiable example in the backstory, created by an unspoken attraction between Dalinar and his brother Gavilar's wife Navani. Dalinar and Navani manage to keep it buried until a ways into the story, long after Gavilar's death.
    • Words of Radiance: One nearly forms around Shallan between Adolin and Kaladin, though Kaladin consciously attempts to defy the attraction once he recognizes it. It helps that by the time Kaladin realizes he's attracted to Shallan, he's also friends with Adolin, and decides it would be best to leave them alone. This gets more complicated in Oathbringer, when Shallan's Lightweaving is causing her to create numerous Split Personalities that have their own opinions on the matter. Prim and proper Brightness Radiant doesn't like Kaladin's rough nature, and wants to hold to the implied oaths she has made with Adolin. Street-wise Veil, on the other hand, finds Adolin boring and much prefers Kaladin's wit and strength. Shallan herself doesn't know what she wants.
  • The Belgariad features a somewhat... complicated example between Mandorallen, Nerina (the Baroness of Vo Ebor) and the (considerably older) Baron of Vo Ebor. Mandorallen is hopelessly in love with Nerina, Nerina is in love with him, and the Baron is (accurately) aware not only of the love but also that both are too noble to do anything, given Nerina is married to him and Mandorallen sees him as a mentor and father figure — the Baron's solution is to try to invoke Death of the Hypotenuse on himself by picking up dangerous hobbies like dragon-hunting, warfare and duelling people who badmouth his wife and protege. Apparently generations of Mimbrate maidens have wept at the tragic nobility of it all. The Baron dies early in The Malloreon of wounds inflicted towards the end of The Belgariad, clearing the way for Mandorallen and Nerina to marry once Belgarion gets everyone involved to stop being so wrapped up in the mess. At swordpoint.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The First Shop of Coffee Prince: Yoo Joo once left Han Seong for DK. She returns to Han Seong, but has a borderline flirtatious friendship with Han Kyul, who likes both her and Eun Chan. Han Seong also has romantic feelings for Eun Chan, but her feelings for him seem to be platonic.
  • Grey's Anatomy: Dr. McDreamy, Meredith, and Dr. McDreamy's wife. An interesting example, in that the audience is primarily rooting for the "interloper."
  • Practically every show on The WB and UPN that had more than a handful of episodes had at least gone through a long Story Arc centered on a triangle, including, oddly enough, the Professional Wrestling franchise.
  • On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spike and Angel(us) compete for either Drusilla or Buffy.
    • During season 3, Willow is torn between Oz and Xander, and Xander is torn between Cordelia and Willow.
    • A short-lived triangle existed between Oz, Willow and Veruca in season 4.
  • Third Watch: Bobby Caffey is in love with his colleague Kim Zambrano... who is still in love with her ex-husband Jimmy Doherty.
  • Merlin (2008) [BBC] has, as in the legends, the Arthur/Gwen/Lancelot love triangle.
    • It's somewhat deconstructed considering Guinevere is legitimately in love with Arthur, and her tryst with Lancelot brought on due to an enchantment.
    • Earlier on, however, Arthur was falling in love with Guinevere at the same time she was falling for Lancelot, until Lancelot vanished from the face of the earth.
  • The third season of Degrassi: The Next Generation has a truly grim Love Triangle that ends (after many, many twists) with all three people hating each other and vowing to never see each other again. Later seasons overused the Love Triangle to the point of insanity; an absolute majority of the cast has been in at least one Love Triangle, and some of them have been in two or more.
    • The aforementioned love triangle essentially recreates a love triangle from Degrassi High that was just as catastrophic. It will forever be remembered not only for breaking up what was perhaps Degrassi's most popular couple ever, but also for being the first time the word "Fuck" was uttered on Canadian TV.
    • Averted in Season 7, as Mia and Holly J are both interested in Sav. Sav decided to date Anya.
  • Lost: Much of the drama of the series involves Kate trying to figure out whether she loves Jack or Sawyer.
    • Further muddled by the inclusion of Juliet, an extra love interest for Jack who gets stuck on the Island with Sawyer after Jack and Kate leave and the Island moves. Finally settled in the Grand Finale where the pairings settle as Jack/Kate and Sawyer/Juliet.
  • Jeff and Marty over Jeannie in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (both versions), Marty has one advantage of being Jeannie's husband (or fiancé in the newer series) but one huge disadvantage in being dead and invisible to Jeannie.
  • Sophie, Paul, and Megan in the third season of Slings & Arrows are a textbook love triangle. In the show's backstory, Oliver, Ellen, and Geoffrey have a more complicated (type 12) relationship.
  • Stingray (1964): Atlanta Shore is in love with Troy Tempest, but in the pilot episode Troy meets and goes all dewey-eyed over Cute Mute Marina. This is such a key part of the show that it's even lampshaded in the closing titles.
  • Babylon 5
  • The Closer: Agent Howard is in love with Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson, who's in love with Agent Howard... now. But back in DC Brenda had an affair with her superior, Chief Pope. Ironically, she's now working for Chief Pope again, this time in L.A., and he still has feelings for her, but she's over him and married to Agent Howard, resulting in a very grudging I Want My Beloved to Be Happy.
  • On Angel, Fred is pursued by both Gunn and Wesley during Season Three. Gunn wins at first, but Wesley eventually gets with her, a year after Fred and Gunn break up and just before Fred's death.
    • There's also the Angel-Cordelia-Connor love triangle in Season Four, complicated by the fact that Angel and Connor are father and son and that Cordelia is possessed by the Big Bad.
    • Branched off from spin-off Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Spike argue over Buffy and their shared relationships with her all throughout S5. She's not actually with them though so mostly it's just the two fighting pointlessly.
  • Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is all about the love triangle between Rebecca, Josh and Valencia. Rebecca is Josh's ex-girlfriend from a summer camp when they were teenagers, while Valencia is his long-term girlfriend. Josh intensely cares about, and is attracted to, both women, and which one he prefers varies from episode to episode. As of the end of season one, he has dumped Valencia for Rebecca ... and looks like he's severely regretting that decision upon hearing that Rebecca's whole reason for leaving her extremely well-paid job in New York and moving to West Covina, California was to try to resume their relationship.
    • There's also the love triangle between Rebecca, Josh and Greg. Greg becomes attracted to Rebecca while she is trying to seduce Josh, then has a relationship with Heather for a few episodes before realizing that he loves Rebecca after all. For a couple of episodes Greg and Rebecca make a go of it, before Greg acts the total douche - he's playing hard to get but it backfires spectacularly - and persuades Rebecca to go for Josh after all.
    • There is even a song in the second season called "The Math of Love Triangles." It's filled with triangle puns.
  • Game of Thrones
    • According to the Word of God, Ser Jorah Mormont has been in love with Daenerys from pretty much her wedding day.
      • In Series 1 it's hinted that Jorah has feelings for Dany and is jealous of her husband, Khal Drogo.
      • At the end of Series 3, there is some Ship Tease between Daenerys and Daario Naharis and, as a consequence, they become lovers in Series 4, which hurt Jorah deeply. In Series 6, he and Daario have some Cock Fight, while searching for Daenerys.
  • Glee has love triangles for the kids AND the adults. The kids are Finn, Rachel, and Quinn while the adults are Will, Terri (Will's wife), and Emma.
    • The Will/Terri/Emma triangle has been (mostly) resolved because Will found out Terri was faking her pregnancy and promptly divorced her. The Finn/Quinn/Rachel triangle was resolved as well as Finn learned the baby wasn't his. The second triangle was replaced with a Rachel/Finn/Jesse triangle until Jesse was written out of the show.
  • In the season 1 of Heroes, the triangle of Peter, Simone and Isaac was epic and led to catastrophic consequences.
  • Stargate Universe has Eli, Chloe, and Lt. Scott.
  • Stargate Atlantis has Ronon, Keller and McKay. Interestingly, she chose McKay.
  • The Steve Harvey Show had Steve, Regina, and Warrington Steele (Regina's college boyfriend who is a big Jerk Jock)
  • The Office (US), in one of the most hilarious love triangles ever conceived, with Andy Bernard and Dwight Schrute competing for the affections of Angela Martin. It did lead to accusations of Soaperizing, however.
    • Triangles between Jim Halpert, Pam Beasley, and Roy Anderson... followed by Jim, Pam, and Karen. As well as at least one episode of Jan, Carol, and Michael and another of Andy, Dwight, and Erin. Andy, Dwight, Angela was hardly the first (or last with the newer Dwight, Angela, Isabelle triangle) time that show has used a love triangle.
    • The British version also highlighted the tension between Tim/Dawn/Lee, as well as Rachel/Tim/Dawn.
  • Battlestar Galactica has its own heaping helping. Starbuck is torn between Apollo, who marries Dee, and Sam Anders, while Tyrol used to be involved with Boomer, but marries Callie and has a son with her. Or so he thinks. Even Colonel Tigh gets in on the action, falling in love with a Six, but still has feelings for his not-actually-dead wife.
    • The original Galactica series had Athena-Starbuck-Cassiopia
  • Chuck: Chuck loves Sarah Sarah loves Chuck back but her ex boyfriend Bryce wants Sarah back and Sarah still cares for Bryce there are more to Sarah:Cole Chuck:Lou and later Jill.
  • The Secret Circle: Type 10. Adam is in a relationship with Diana, but has Unresolved Sexual Tension with Cassie. Diana breaks up with him in "Wake" because of it.
    • Also, there was a love triangle between Adam/Cassie/Jake later on in the season.
  • The Vampire Diaries: Stefan and Damon compete for Elena (because she looks like Katherine, a woman whom they both used to be in love with).
    • There are lots of other triangles in the show as well, but most importantly as of the second season both of Elena's best friends also have love triangles of their own.
  • Gilmore Girls does this with Lorelai, Luke, and Christopher and Rory with Dean, Jess, and Logan.
  • Two notable examples on Farscape - John, Aeryn, and Gillina in the season one finale, and John, Aeryn, and John in season three. John Crichton is involved in a love triangle with himself.
  • Doctor Who:
    • Jack and Rose are both in love with the Doctor, and also fancy each other. The Doctor cares about Rose in his own way, but the show leaves it ambiguous whether it's deep friendship or romantic love, and the Doctor Cannot Spit It Out either way. All three pairings get sweet and emotional kissing scenes. The Doctor eventually solves the Rose side of the problem by convincing her to live Happily Ever After with his half-Donna clone, which is messed up on a whole lot of levels.
    • Amy and Rory are Happily Married, but Amy also quite fancies the Doctor. The drama is as goes:
      • The Doctor, upon knowing, wants nothing to do about it, pushes Amy and Rory together and freaks out when Amy tries to kiss him against his will. Just as well for Rory, since the Doctor literally can, and does, fly Amy to the moon and take her on a spin amongs the stars. Amy turns out to be completely shameless during her and Rorys wedding.
    Amy: [moves up to the Doctor] You absolutely definitely may kiss the bride.
    The Doctor: [Casually puts his index-finger over Amys lips] From now on, I leave all of the kissing to the brand new Mister Pond!
    • And later:
    Amy: Oi! Where are you off to? We haven't even had a snog in the shrubbery yet!
    Rory: Amy!
    Amy: Shut up, it's my wedding.
    Rory: Our wedding!
    • This doesn't really stop until Amy finds herself to be the Doctor's mother-in-law.
    • There's another sort of love triangle between The Doctor, River his wife, and the TARDIS herself (Idris).
    • Series 8 establishes an unusual triangle involving the Twelfth Doctor, Clara Oswald, and Danny Pink, with Clara trying to maintain relationships with both men. Explicitly illustrated in "Mummy on the Orient Express" when Clara finds herself saying "I love you" to both men at the exact same time: Danny is on the phone speaking to Clara, but when she breaks the show's "I love you" stigma she ends up actually addressing the words (per Word of Saint Paul, Jenna Coleman) to the Doctor and begins actively lying to Danny about staying with the Doctor thereafter. In "Death in Heaven", it doesn't end well. Clara finds herself talking to a Cyberman about how much she cares for and trusts the Doctor, and how he is "the one man" she'd ever truly trust ... at which point the Cyberman removes his faceplate and we see it's Danny.
    • Series 9 has the Doctor firmly in Camp Clara and Clara in Camp Doctor throughout, but that doesn't stop Missy from trying to throw a spanner into the works in "The Magician's Apprentice".
  • Alias included several love triangles; however, the most prominent were between Will/Sydney/Vaughn and Sydney/Vaughn/Lauren.
  • Fringe appears to be setting up a mind-frak of a love triangle between Peter, Olivia, and Alternate!Olivia.
    • Though now with the addition of Lincoln Lee, it's morphed into a Love Dodecahedron.
  • The three-season long back and forth between Telema, Kwame, and Soji in Tinsel. Then there was also Angela/Reginald/Amaka, then Reginald/Amaka/Sunom before Sunom killed Reginald.
    • And in Season 5, Telema/Soji/Bimpe.
  • Beautifully (and possibly uniquely) done in an episode of Community; when Troy and Abed develop a simultaneous crush on the new librarian, their response is to approach her at the same time, explain the situation and invite her out on a mutual date so that she can determine which of the two she'd prefer to see again. She ends up settling on Troy, but he breaks it off when she says some unflattering things about Abed.
  • The season 4 finale of iCarly ends with Sam kissing Freddie, which makes a Carly/Freddie/Sam All Love Is Unrequited Love Triangle canon for now.
    • In the season 5 premiere, the sequel to the season 4 finale has Freddie kissing Sam and returning the feelings Sam has for him. However, that didn't last long though.
    • Miranda Cosgrove even hinted at some magazine interviews that there was a love triangle in the show.
  • The trope has become a game show - GSN's Love Triangle. Wendy Williams hosts the show, designed to chop one branch off the triangle after 30 minutes of somewhat intrusively personal questioning. The show debuted in the spring of 2011 for a first season of 36 episodes. Williams' hammy hosting is one of the many reasons nobody expects a second season.
  • In Frasier, Niles was in love with both Daphne (who was oblivious), and his unseen wife, Maris, finding himself torn for several years because he refused to cheat on or break up with his wife, yet couldn't get rid of his feelings for Daphne. Contrary to most triangles of this kind, however, Maris was so evil that fans spent all those years screaming "dump the bitch!" instead of rooting for Niles' marriage to succeed.
  • Downton Abbey has this in spades, with the most prominent example happening among the house staff in season 3 (Daisy fancies Alfred, who pursues Ivy, who likes Jimmy, who's hit on by Thomas).
  • Rookie Blue loves this one. Lets see: Sam/Andy/Luke, Dov/Gail/Chris, Andy/Luke/Jo, Traci/Jerry/Dex...that's every single one of the rookies in one at some point over two seasons.
  • In AMC's The Walking Dead, there is a type 4 between Shane Walsh/Lori Grimes/Rick Grimes — now that Lori's husband whom Shane and Lori thought was dead has returned and the affair with Shane ended.
  • The Amazing Race 2 had Wil/Tara/Alex. Wil and Tara were married but separated, but Tara still started flirting with Alex, and cost them the race by doing so.
    • Zach/Flo/Drew on Season 3. Zach and Flo were friends seeing if they could be more, but Flo fell for Drew instead.
  • There was a love triangle between Sara/Aitor/Lucas in Los Hombres De Paco. Sara and Lucas got married, then he went to the USA for CIA training (the series takes place in Spain) and then Sara had a long-term affair with Aitor while he was gone. She then got married to Aitor, while still be married to Lucas. Lucas came back home and then Sara went back to him.
  • Chinese Paladin: Ling'er loves Xiao Yao, and vice versa, but believes things will be better if she leaves him. Yue'Ru loves Xiao Yao, but knows it is unrequited. Both girls then attempt to bow out and let the other have a chance to be happy with the man they love, to the point where the man in question tells them both to shut up and stop helping him.
  • Once Upon a Time has a few of these:
    • There is a lopsided one between Emma, Graham and Regina. It ends when Regina pulled a If I Can't Have You... and crushed Graham's heart, killing him.
    • There was Snow White and Prince Charming loving each other despite the latter's Arranged Marriage to Princess Abigail, as well as their Storybrooke counterparts, Mary Margaret and David Nolan with his wife Kathryn. The former love triangle was resolved with Charming leaving his wedding for Snow and Abigail being reunited with her true love Frederick. The latter's triangle is resolved when Kathryn pulls an I Want My Beloved to Be Happy and everyone gets their memories back.
    • In season 2, Prince Phillip and Aurora are each other's true loves but Aurora suspects that Phillip's longtime friend and comrade Mulan might be in love with him too. His untimely death at the wraith leaves this unresolved. But then he's resurrected and it turns out Mulan has feelings for both of them and decided to leave them to save them all the pain.
    • In Season 3, there's one between Emma, Hook, and Neal. Neal is still in love with Emma and hopes to pick up where they left off, while Hook has been developing feelings for her practically from their first meeting. Emma herself loves Neal but doesn't trust him enough to resume their relationship, and is attracted to Hook but isn't sure she wants more than friendship. Therefore, she shuts them both down for the time being so she can focus on rescuing her son. The triangle is resolved via Neal dying and Hook and Emma hooking up at the end of Season 3.
    • In Season 4, one arises unexpectedly between Regina, Robin, and a time-traveling Marian. At first it appears Robin/Regina will happen, but a horrible streak of bad luck forces Robin to leave her to look after Marian.
  • In BBC's Robin Hood, Guy of Gisborne and Robin Hood are both infatuated with Marian, who loves Robin but cannot have him because he’s an outlaw. Marian also is obligated to marry Gisborne in order to save King Richard’s life, and is genuinely on-again-off-again sympathetic towards him despite his villain status. The triangle gets resolved in the series 2 finale when Marian finally tells Gisborne that she loves Robin Hood and intends to marry him, and Gisborne kills her.
  • The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Fascination" has two parallel love triangles pop up temporarily due to Lwaxana Troi's Power Incontinence (It Makes Sense in Context). Jake Sisko develops a crush on Kira, who starts making out with Julian. Meanwhile Kira's boyfriend Bareil goes after Jadzia, who wants Ben Sisko.
  • The finale for Star Trek: The Next Generation has a Worf/Deanna Troi/Riker love triangle happen in the alternate reality. It's much of the reason why Worf and Riker were barely on speaking terms in the alternate reality.
  • Done at least once a season on Friends.
  • Appeared to be the case in ShougekiGouraigan, between the Protagonist Gou, his Evil Former Friend Jin, and their mutual love interest, Rin. Flashbacks initially seem to hint that Rin genuinely loves Gou and Jin is deliberately convincing himself he and Rin were in love, but when Rin returns it turns out she really is in love with Jin, sending Gou into a Heroic BSOD
  • In season six of The Mentalist, we have Jane/Lisbon/Pike, with both guys vying for Lisbon's affection. Jane wins; the series ends with them married and Lisbon pregnant.
  • Salem: Mary Sibley and Anne Hale both have feelings for John Alden. It gets downplayed later in the season as Anne has her own witch powers to come to terms with.
  • Downplayed on The 100. Finn has a relationship with Raven on the Ark, but when he's stranded on the Ground and thinks he'll never see her again, he starts building a romance with Clarke, unaware that Raven's on her way down to be with him. However, once Raven arrives, and the characters realize they've stumbled into a love triangle, both Clarke and Raven quickly terminate their relationships with Finn, and all three characters try to put this mess behind them and get back to just being friends.
  • The Hour had its three main characters connected this way: Freddie has feelings for Bel, who's sleeping with Hector, who's jealous of Bel and Freddie's extremely close friendship. Turns into a Love Dodecahedron as time goes on and more characters join the mix, but the pairing the show ends on is Freddie and Bel.
  • How I Met Your Mother has tons of these and some of them do not work very well for each party:
    • Season one has Ted/Robin/Victoria which didn't work out for them no thanks to Ted. Though in the end, Ted gets together with Robin until they broke up at the end of season two.
    • There's also Robin/Barney/Nora in Season 7 until Robin gets together with Kevin. Then, she sleeps with Barney, forcing him to pick between her and Nora. He chooses Robin, but she chooses Kevin until they break up with Ted wanting to be with Robin, who rejects his feelings.
    • Season 8 Robin/Barney/Patrice except that it's part of Barney's plays to get Robin to like him. Though Robin didn't like it, she accepts Barney's proposal while Ted still has feeling for her.
    • Season 9 continues with Ted/Robin/Barney until Ted decides to let go and eventually meets The Mother.
    • The Grand Finale sees Barney and Robin get divorced, which leads to Robin/Ted/The Mother. The Mother turns out to be dead and Future!Ted is telling the story to his kids. The kids figure out that he has feelings for Robin and the story is more or less asking their permission to date her again, which they accept. In the end, it's Ted and Robin.
  • Supergirl has established one between Kara/Supergirl, Jimmy Olsen and Winn. In an unusual case, all three remain close friends despite all being aware of the situation, though the series has so far shown Kara to be more interested, romantically, in Olsen. Olsen - who is also involved with Lucy Lane - and Winn have even been shown commiserating over the situation a few times, but so far the triangle hasn't impacted their ability to work as a team.
  • The final episodes of Family Ties featured this between Alex, his longtime girlfriend Lauren, and Marty, a music student he was tutoring. Unusually, it's resolved by him ending things with both women (or more accurately, they with him), realizing that despite loving them both, that neither is "The One" for him.
  • No Tomorrow: Kareema falls for Sofia, her brother Rohan's fiancee. At first this seems fine, since Sofia says their engagement is just for her to get citizenship. Then Rohan reveals to Kareema that he loves Sofia as well...

    Music 
  • Defied in the song Au fond de temple saint from the opera The Pearl Fishers: when two close friends realise that they have fallen in love with the same person, they vow to renounce her so they do not become enemies.
  • "Hide Your Heart" by KISS has a variation of this. Rosa and Tito are together, but an (implied to be unhappy) Rosa hooks up with Johnny anyway. It doesn't end well for Johhnny.
  • The song "Withered Hope" by They Might Be Giants describes a love triangle between Withered Hope, her "Soul Mate", a crook, a motorbike, and Sad Sack (who loves Withered Hope).
  • Sarah Brightman has "Make Up My Heart". The singer has two great men in her life, but she wants one in her life. The whole song is dedicated to her talking about her dilemma and what one man has that the other doesn't.
  • Suede's "Asphalt World": "When you're there in her arms / And there in her legs / Well I'll be in her head".
  • The opening song for Macross Frontier, named Triangler sung by Maaya Sakamoto is a deconstruction of this trope. It tells of the feelings and crushing doubt that one who is in that situation might feel. An alternate version of this song is sung by Ranka and Sheryl and the version is aptly named Triangler Fight on Stage. Lyrics here.
    • Frontier also has the other song Tablet which is sung from the POV of Sheryl and Ranka; they are both asking Alto to pick the other because they want them to be happy and apologizing to the other for falling for him while also thanking each other for being a true friend. It is heartbreaking.
  • This is the premise of the Vocaloid song Acute. Kaito is engaged to Miku, but he's having an affair with her best friend Luka. Luka doesn't want to betray Miku, but she can't deny her feelings for Kaito. Miku eventually finds out, and the song ends with her stabbing Kaito, before trying to commit suicide.
  • In "Second Boys Will Be First Choice" by The Brobecks, two boys are in love with the same girl, and the song comforts the one that she ends up not getting together with by saying that he'll find love somewhere else.
    Gather 'round ye boys and girls, listen ye to my tale
    Of two boys and one girl, but which one will win her
    And which one is destined to fail?
    Complicated situation made harder every day
    Boy number two, there is someone for you
    Just forget her and walk away
  • "Love Triangle" by RaeLynn tells of one between a mother, father, and another man, told from the child's perspective.
  • Reba McEntire and Linda Davis' "Does He Love You" is a duet between two women who are vying for the same man, and asking the other "Does he love you like he loves me?"

    Myths & Religion 
  • One of the interpretations of the Song of Songs from The Bible, which is a series of love poems about the Shulamite and her Beloved, is that the Shulamite's Beloved isn't actually Solomon, but a shepherd, and the whole thing plays out as the story of two suitors vying for her attention. However, as hard as Solomon tries to woo the Shulamite into marrying him, she ultimately chooses the shepherd over Solomon, saying to the effect that all the money in the world wouldn't be enough to buy her love.
  • The King Arthur stories largely revolve around the triangle of Arthur, Guenivere, and Lancelot. Interestingly, each of them originally came from a different story line, and merged together sometime in the 12th centuries. It's widely believed to be the French poet Chrétien de Troyes, who wrote about it in his Lancelot or The Knight of the Cart.
  • Greek Mythology has the triangle of Aphrodite, Hephaestus and Ares. And then there's the perpetually recurring triangle of Zeus, Hera and whoever Zeus happens to be sleeping with at the time.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • WWE had the Triple H-Stephanie McMahon-Kurt Angle triangle, which seemed to be leading to Steph leaving HHH to be with Kurt, but this is Triple H, so it didn't.
  • The real-life Edge-Lita-Matt Hardy love triangle (Matt and Amy "Lita" Dumas had been a couple both on-screen and off before she left him for Adam "Edge" Copeland, messing up his real-life marriage at the time in the process) crossed over into the wrestling world, temporarily getting Matt fired for complaining about it online and turning Edge into a seemingly unstoppable Karma Houdini.

    Radio 

    Theater 
  • In The Phantom of the Opera, the Phantom loves Christine, who's in love with Raoul.
  • The relationship between Eliza, Professor Higgins and Freddy in My Fair Lady is considered this.
  • Elisabeth of Elisabeth is the center of a love triangle with her husband the Emperor Franz Joseph and with Death himself, though her husband does not even know that der Tod exists. Death, however, is fully aware of the situation:
    It is an old story, but for me, new
    Two have the same beloved — namely, you.
    • He tells Elisabeth at her wedding that she will regret the choice she has made because she loves him and not Franz Joseph, and he is right, despite Joseph's unconditional love for Elisabeth no matter how far she pulls away.
  • Many of Shakespeare's plays include love triangles, e.g.:
    A Midsummer Night's Dream
    All's Well That Ends Well
    Othello
    Romeo and Juliet
    Twelfth Night
  • In the musical Violet, the title character is in one with with Monty and Flick.
  • Finale has Alex, who is in love with Tyler, who is in a relationship with Dylan, but is really in love with Alex.
  • In Verdi's Aïda, Princess Amneris of Egypt loves the warrior Radamès, but he's in love with her Ethiopian slave Aïda.
  • Nadir and Zurga both share feelings for the priestess Leïla in Bizet's The Pearl Fishers. Ironic, since earlier, they sang the famous duet 'Au fond de temple saint' in which they swear that their friendship wouldn't be ruined over Leïla.
  • In Donizetti's Roberto Devereux, Queen Elisabetta (Elizabeth) is in love with Roberto Devereux (Robert Devereux), who's in love with Sara, the Duchess of Nottingham. Naturally, this ends in tragedy.
  • Subverted in Bellini's Norma. Even though Norma still loves Pollione, despite him abandoning her for Adalgisa, neither Norma nor Adalgisa let it ruin their friendship and they both confront Pollione in one of the famous trios.
  • Meyerbeer's L'Africaine has this between African slave girl Sélika and Admiral Don Diego's daughter Inès for naval officer Vasco de Gama.
  • Dvorak's Rusalka, with Rusalka the water spirit and the Foreign Princess competing for the Prince's love.
  • Bizet's Carmen two love triangles: one with sweet village girl Micaela against Femme Fatale Carmen for soldier Don José; the second one being Don José against bad boy toreador Escamillo for Carmen. The latter is perhaps the deadliest love triangle in the entire opera.
  • Ponchielli's La Gioconda actually subverts this. At first, Gioconda seems to be competing against Genoese lady Laura for the affections of Prince Enzo Grimaldo. However, Gioconda's love for her mother prevails, as after finding out that Laura saves her mother's life, Gioconda puts aside her own feelings for him to repay Laura and helps both Laura and Enzo escape before sacrificing herself.
  • A one-sided love triangle appears in Puccini's Tosca, with good-hearted painter Mario Cavaradossi competing against corrupt Baron Scarpia for singer Floria Tosca. Though, calling it a love triangle would be a stretch, seeing as Scarpia doesn't really love Tosca and wants to rape her. Even Tosca hates Scarpia for endangering her lover Mario.
  • Wagner's Tristan und Isolde has one between Tristan and King Marke of Cornwall for Irish princess Isolde.
  • Cavalliera Rusticana, dear God. Turiddu, a soldier, has an affair with Santuzza, a village girl, to get revenge on a married woman named Lola; however, Santuzza loves Turiddu. Lola is driven with jealousy so she and Turiddu both mock Santuzza and scorn her, and Santuzza ends up telling Lola's husband Alfio of the affair, who then challenges Turiddu to a duel, in which he is killed.
  • Verdi's Il trovatore has a one-sided love triangle, with the corrupt Count di Luna against the troubadour Manrico for the affections of Leonora, who is in love with Manrico.
  • There's also Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, where Pelléas is up against his half-brother Golaud for Mélisande, who is married to Golaud but loves Pelléas.
  • Rossini's The Barber of Seville has Count Almaviva and Doctor Bartolo competing for the affections of Rosina, who loves Almaviva. This is one of the few love triangles with a happy ending for all.
  • The Czech opera The Bartered Bride by Smetana has a love triangle between Jenik and Vasek for village girl Marenka.
  • Another Rossini opera, La donna del lago, has a love triangle between rebel chieftain Malcom Groeme and Uberto di Snowdon for Elena, the Lady of the Lake.
  • The love triangle in Janacek's Jenufa is between Laca and Steva for the titular heroine.
  • Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore has one between simple peasant Nemorino and sergeant Belcore for the wealthy Adina. However, unlike most of these examples, it ends well.
  • There's Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, with a love triangle between Count Almaviva and Figaro for Figaro's own fiancée Susanna.
  • La favorita by Donizetti has Leonora di Guzman caught in a love triangle between Alfonso XI, King of Castile, and her lover Fernando.
  • Yet another Rossini opera, Il turco in Italia, has Fiorilla, the unfaithful wife of Neapolitan Don Geronio, caught in a love triangle between Prince Selim and Narciso. There's also a love triangle between Fiorilla and Turkish woman Zaida for Prince Selim. And if that weren't enough, there's another love triangle between Geronio and Prince Selim for Fiorilla.
  • In Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier, there is a love triangle between Marschallin Princess Marie Thérèse von Werdenberg and Sophie von Faninal for Octavian, Count Rofrano.

    Video Games 
  • Final Fantasy
    • Kain from Final Fantasy IV spends the majority of the game fighting with his best friend Cecil over Cecil's lover, Rosa. He even maintains his affection for Rosa through his two Face-Heel Turns. Certain versions of the script up the ante by implying Barbariccia, the Archfiend of Wind, has a thing for Kain and is therefore jealous of Rosa.
    • Final Fantasy VII has the famous love triangle between Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa.
    • Subverted in Final Fantasy VIII. The game initially seems to be setting one up involving Squall, Rinoa, and Seifer, particularly when Rinoa thinks back to the time she spent with Seifer the previous summer and confesses that she thinks she might have been in love with him. However, by the time all three of them are brought together, Squall and Rinoa are beginning to grow close to one another while Seifer has fallen under the sorceress's influence, to the point that there's never any actual romantic conflict involving the three of them.
  • Played with in Skies of Arcadia. While Aika and Fina both show occasional feelings for Vyse, none of the three ever show any real desire to resolve the triangle.
  • Drakengard has an interesting Love Triangle between Furiae, Inuart and Caim that's only alluded to as being serious one or two times in the whole game. And the sequel repeats the trend by setting up another triangle between Nowe, Manah and Eris. In the end, it is Manah who gets the guy.
  • There are several examples in Warcraft III: The Stormrage brothers, Malfurion and Illidan, with Tyrande Whisperwind. Winner? Malfurion. Then Frozen Throne has a new triangle: Arthas-Jaina-Kael. Who wins? Probably nobody, since Arthas has completely thrown away his soul and love to become Lich King, and as of World of Warcraft, Kael is just thinking to have a hot sex with Kil'Jaeden.
  • Dragon Quest V tries to have one of these, but the player will feel absolutely horrible if they go for the woman other than the one that's obviously supposed to wind up with him. Time to review the choices the Hero has:
    Flora: Hero has known her for a day. Cute and nice enough, though shy almost to the point of a hikikomori. Has a fiercely determined suitor already.
    Bianca: Obviously loves the Hero. Is cute and tomboyish. He's known her since childhood, when they exorcised a haunted castle together, hwe rescued her from being held captive, and got a Glowing Ball of Plot Significance, with a promise to meet again. The Hero's Pet Baby Wild Animal recognizes only her bow. Her mother died, and her father is in a bad way, but will recover from sheer joy if the Hero marries her. If not, she will be forced to become a mistreated barmaid.
    • But if the player marries Bianca, they'll still feel like a jerk since the lavish wedding Flora's father had planned for his daughter becomes the lavish wedding for a stranger instead. Oh, and the remake adds a third bride, Flora's older sister Deborah, and choosing her means dumping both Flora AND Bianca for a woman who just showed up.
    • The DS version does tone down the Bianca bias a bit, and removes the Diabolus ex Machina if she's not the chosen girl.
  • Fire Emblem
  • There's the Mario/Peach/Bowser triangle in Super Mario Bros., even becoming a major plot point in Super Paper Mario.
  • Geo/Luna/Sonia, Mega Man Star Force. In Star Force 3, depending on whose item you reclaim in the Stolen Items quest (Sonia's bag or Luna's handkerchief), one girl gets to hold hands with Geo while the other pigs out in an angry fit. If you pick Bud's shirt, both of them pig out.
  • Implied between Max, Grit and Nell in the first Advance Wars, before never being mentioned again. It was never one hundred per cent explained what happened, but Grit left Orange Star for Blue Moon to give Nell and Max the room they needed.
  • Kingdom Hearts has a bit of a Love Triangle between main protagonist Sora, his best friend and rival Riku, and their mutual love interest and childhood friend Kairi. It tones down considerably following the first game, probably because Riku knows how his two friends feel about each other and wants them to be happy.
  • Alicia and Princess Terria both like Waffle in Tail Concerto. Waffle seems to slightly favor Alicia by the end, but nothing is explicitly stated and he's apparently fond enough of Terria that Cyan has decided he's his rival for her affection.
  • One exists in Jade Empire, between Silk Fox, Dawn Star, and a male player. You can exacerbate it by expressing an interest in both of them, resolve it by expressing an interest in only one, or if you have a high enough Charm skill you can have them both.
  • Mass Effect:
    • The first game has either human love interest, Liara, and Shepard, assuming Shepard led both of the others on enough.
    • The second game introduces some potentially complicated ones, as Shepard can have expressed an attraction to as many as five characters (either gender) over the course of the story.
    • The third game can potentially feature one straight-up if Shepard pursued a romance in both the first and second game, given that the developers explicitly described the ensuing situation as a "Love Triangle." Given the possibility of NEW romance options in the third game, this could quickly get out of hand.
  • Dragon Age also comes to mind. Origins has Leliana vs. Morrigan if your character is male, female players have Alistair vs. Zevran, and Zevran and Leliana are bisexual so they're actually third options for the same-sex player. Having two interested in the player makes one of your romances confront the player at some point down the line to force you to dump one of the romances.
  • Dragon Age II doesn't appear to follow the same format as Origins. No one seems to care if the player pursues more than one romance. Not really surprising either since all romance options, excluding the chaste priest Sebastian, are bisexual. A Fenris/Hawke/Anders is the closest thing to being a love triangle. It's heavily implied that Anders has strong feelings for Hawke, even if he's turned down for someone else. Also Fenris continues to wear his alternate outfit (unlocked by romancing him) even if he's not the "endgame" romance and it's implied that he regrets running out. Fenris and Anders will have party banter about Hawke if she or he slept with Fenris and then with Anders after Fenris ran out after they spent the night together.
  • Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark contains a severely underdeveloped one that might exist between Nathyrra, Aribeth, and a male player. It can potentially end in them accepting that you love them both. The sequel has a slightly better defined one (though Neeshka's romance plot was cut from the final game) between Neeshka, Elanee, and a male player and a rather obvious tension for female player's affections between Casavir and Bishop (whose romance plot fared slightly better than Neeshka's).
  • Vanguard Bandits as a few of these, with the Triangle being determined on which of the Multiple Branches the player decides to head unto.
  • There's an implied Triangle in Fallout 3 between Amata, the (male) Lone Wanderer and Sarah Lyons. The UST with Amata is fairly evident right from the beginning if you take the right conversation options while Lyons' only hint is a single line she drops at the end of Broken Steel where she expresses sorrow that if they would've met under different conditions, they might have "become... friends".
    • This being Fallout, you can screw it all up by damaging the Vault and forcing Amata outside, leading to her being interrogated and executed by an Enclave patrol as well as sending Lyons into Project Purity where she dies from radiation.
  • Fear Effect. Trailers for Fear Effect Inferno reveal that one would have developed between Hana, Rain, and Glas. Hana loves Rain very much, and she begins to show affection to Glas. Rain loves Hana very much, and she appears to want to have sex with Glas and maybe more than that. Glas begins to show affection to Hana, and he appears to be willing to have sex with Rain and maybe more than that. This would have been one complicated Love Triangle and how it would have been handled is not revealed. One trailer indicates that Rain and Deke have formed a relationship. Talk about complicated relationships!
  • Disgaea 4. Although it's never outright stated that Fenrich has a thing for Valvatorez, the game throws enough hints at you that it can be assumed he's in one of these with Vulcanus and Valvatorez. And when you consider his less that friendly relationship with Vulcanus, well...
  • In the Dating Sim Always Remember Me, there’s a point in the story where you’re forced to choose between the Amnesiac Lover and another love interest. Choosing the love interest means you can no longer interact with the Amnesiac Lover.
  • In Mia's route in Duel Savior Destiny a love triangle of sorts that Taiga never seems to realize pops up between him, Lily and Mia. Lily never really has a shot, but Mia's jealousy leads to her becoming more unstable. The jealousy is somewhat understandable: Right as he confesses his undying love for her Mia is quite able to smell Lily's smell on him after the pair spent the previous evening having despair induced sex over the apparent loss of Taiga's sister and Lily's mother.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The series has a few of these in some games, such as Kafei/Anju/Cremia in Majora's Mask and Pipit/Cawlin/Karane in Skyward Sword. Note that other alleged examples are only a result of the fandom's shipping, so the "triangle" between Midna/Link/Zelda does not count.
    • In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Link is involved in four of these. Among the Champions, there is Zora Champion and childhood friend Mipha and the princess of Hyrule Zelda who both harbor a crush on him. He also had another one going on between Mipha and another Zora childhood friend called Kodah. The third is between him and an unnamed Sheikah poet regarding Princess Zelda's affections. The final would exist post-game between Impa's granddaughter Paya and Princess Zelda, who again, both harbour feelings for him. Though, as Paya makes it clear in one of her diary entries that she would support Link and Zelda if they were to become a couple.
  • In Feel the Magic: XY/XX, you and another man are fighting a girl. In The Rub Rabbits!, you're going after one girl, and another girl is going after you.
  • In Country Tales, the main character and the narrator are attracted to each other. Unfortunately for them, the narrator happens to be the mayor's fiancee.
  • Halo 5: Guardians surprisingly includes one. Between Chief, Cortana, and Warden Eternal. Warden obviously harbors similar feelings of devotion toward Cortana that Chief does, though Cortana only reciprocates the feeling with Chief, while her attitude toward Warden is more "Stop Helping Me!" than anything else. Master Chief is more focused on Cortana's new belief in tyrannical rule than romance.
  • In Valkyria Chronicles III, both Imca and Riela eventually fall in love with Kurt; the player gets to choose which one of them gets the guy.
  • Tales of the Abyss just after the one-tenth mark or so through the game gives the players Asch/Natalia/Luke, with Natalia being attracted to both Asch and Luke (Asch reciprocates, but his clone Luke simply can't like her that way). By the time Natalia has stopped being attracted to Luke (finally able to keep them separate in her memories and cheering on Luke's crush on Tear), there's hints she might be attracted to Nice Guy Guy as well as the emotionally distant Asch.
  • The Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) game guide states that Rouge may have feelings for both Knuckles and Shadow. What they think of her in terms of a crush is unknown, but Rouge does get along better with Shadow...
  • Tomodachi Life has scenes where one Mii confesses their romantic feelings to another. Occasioanlly, a third Mii may pop in, becoming a love rival for the Mii doing the confessing, or you might tell a lovestruck Mii to go after someone who's already taken, resulting in that same scenario. In rare instances, this can escalate to a Love Square. The Mii being confessed to will take several seconds to think before choosing one of them, leaving the others in a slump; if the Mii picking had a significant other and chose someone else anyway, that SO-turned-ex will be hit with Sadness status.
  • The sequel to Rival Schools, Project Justice, has one in the Teachers' Path since Hayato Nekketsu and Hideo Shimazu have feelings for their teammate Kyouko Minazuki. By the end of the path, Hayato has realized that Kyouko does love Hideo back, and decides to step aside.
  • In The Elder Scrolls series' primary Creation Myth, there are Anu and Padomay, "Twin brothers" who are the Anthropomorphic Personifications of the primordial forces of "stasis/order/light" and "change/chaos/darkness", respectively. Their interplay in the great "void" of pre-creation led to creation itself. Creation, sometimes anthropomorphized as the female entity "Nir", favored Anu, which angered Padomay. Padomay killed Nir and shattered the twelve worlds she gave birth to. Anu then wounded Padomay, presuming him dead. Anu salvaged the pieces of the twelve worlds to create one world: Nirn. Padomay returned and wounded Anu, seeking to destroy Nirn. Anu then pulled Padomay and himself outside of time, ending Padomay's threat to creation "forever".

    Visual Novels 
  • Two in A Profile. Miou and Rizu love Masayuki, who used to date Miou until they broke up and starts out somewhat in love with Rizu. Messy, that. The other triangle is Kaine loving Miou loving Masayuki. Since both triangles together only contain four people, everything is settled once Masayuki starts dating any of his three options.
  • There are two different ones in the Science Fiction visual novel Bionic Heart: the first is between the android Tanya, Luke, the main character, and Helen, Luke's girlfriend. The second is between Luke, Helen and Tom, Luke's best friend.
  • Canvas 2 has Yanagi, Kiri, and Hiroki. Yanagi loves Kiri loves Hiroki, who loves her back but pretends he doesn't to support his friend. Five years later, Elis and Kiri love Hiroki, who is completely oblivious and can pick from five other heroines instead.
  • Sakura and Nemu in Da Capo form the game's real triangle with their adamant refusal to accept Junichi pairing up with the other. Both say more or less that they'd be perfectly okay if he would pick any other girl, like Mako or Kotori or even some catgirl maid. Who... really does show up later.
  • Gets messy in Eien no Aselia. First, Kouin loves Kyouko loves Kouin, but Yuuto more than him. Yuuto is oblivious. Turns out surprisingly okay. Kotori also feels jealous of how close Kaori and Yuuto are since despite her rather blatant hinting he still hasn't caught on yet. This one doesn't end very happily until both Kaori and Kotori's memories get erased anyway though not exactly terribly, either.
  • In Higurashi: When They Cry, though Mion is the only who showed clear romantic interest in Keiichi, there is a sort of minor love triangle between her, Keiichi, and Rena. In the last episode of Rei, Rena confesses to Keiichi, though it may have been exaggerated by the magatama's power. It's still heavily implied that she loves him without the magatama.
  • The Letter:
    • There can be one between Isabella, Rebecca, and Ashton. Which girl ends up with Ashton, if either, depends on how the player handled their relationships earlier.
    • Alternatively, Hannah, Marianne, and Rebecca can have one between Luke.
  • Subverted in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies. It's common knowledge at the Themis Legal Academy that Juniper Woods' friends Robin Newman and Hugh O'Conner are both in love with her and competing to see who gets to be with her. This is only gossip though, with neither of them having romantic feelings for her.
  • As said in the anime section, School Days is unique in that it deconstructs and reconstructs the trope. The triangle can end up in massive disaster, but at other times it can either be played straight, become a Love Dodecahedron involving other people, and sometimes even evolve into a One True Threesome — it all depends on what the player aims for and the decisions they take through the story. The spoileriffic anime paragraph above only counts for The Anime of the Game, which already has a fixed plot that takes elements from what made the School Days series famous: the possible bad endings that the player/s can get. (And we're not including the School Days manga, with totally different characterization and ending, and the spin offs and/or Alternate Universes known as Summer Days, Cross Days and Shiny Days.)
  • Another favorite of the Shall We Date? series. The routes may give the player multiple love interests to fight for her affection and put her in unique scenarios. Often times, the player will be a part of a Sibling Triangle.
  • Starstruck Love uses this for both routes available. Each focuses on two characters (one them including two of The Heroine's adoptive brothers). The player can choose which love interest they can go for and increase their intimacy with the character. Around Chapter 8 or 9, the play can choose which guy they want. Be careful, though. If your intimacy with one of the guys is low and you choose him, you may get a bad or normal ending.
  • Sunrider Liberation Day has an ugly one. Asaga (A) and Chigara (C) both love Kayto Shields (B), but Kayto only has eyes for Chigara. This puts a serious strain on the friendship between the two women, which isn’t helped by Chigara overshadowing Asaga’s heroics with her own or Asaga’s growing suspicions that Chigara is a Prototype spy. When Asaga catches the two of them having sex on the eve of an important battle, she snaps and attempts to Murder the Hypotenuse during the battle.
  • Sayo, Itsuki, and Akira in the first chapter of Suika. In the second during the alternate route, Mie and Sayaka and in the third route, Akane, Touko and Yoshikazu. Only one of these ends well.
  • In Symphonic Rain there's Torta -> Chris <-> Ari from the start and in her route Asino -> Fal -> Chris, who may or may not reciprocate based on your choices.
  • The Tokimeki Memorial series is fond of these, as the protagonist usually has a rival for the affections of most of the potential love interests, and befriending both the intended date and the person who likes them will result in said rival becoming quite bitter towards the player (until things are smoothed over and the rival decides I Want My Beloved to Be Happy and tells you to take care of them). Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 3 actually allows the player to set up a love triangle with the datable guys, so that they'll fight over the player instead.
  • Can potentially happen in True Love Junai Monogatari, if the Player Character attracts the attentions of both Mikae Morikawa and Remi Himekawa towards himself. In fact, if the PC does not push the Mikae away enough while romancing Remi, the first will get angry enough to completely ditch him — something she does not do if he romances other girls.
  • Tsukihime: Arcueid —> Shiki <— Ciel. Technically, there are 8-9 girls in love with him, but this is the set that has the triangle relation to it. In the more or less canon ending, Arcueid wins by default. Ciel's route makes Arcueid scary because she's losing/lost. Actually, Ciel and Akiha can also more or less make one of these as well, as, unlike the above, they genuinely hate each other. A lot.
  • War: 13th Day has Wildfire —> Arsenik —> Ambrosia. Depending on your choices, Ambrosia may like Arsenik back or one of the other boys.
  • White Album 2, particularly in Introductory Chapter (which the anime adapted), we have Setsuna <—> Haruki <—> Kazusa. No, it doesn't end well for all three characters. Interestingly, you get to have Haruki resolve this in Concluding Chapter and Coda.

    Web Animation 
  • Terrible Writing Advice constantly advises throwing this in to the point of it being a Running Gag. Gets taken Up to Eleven in the "Evil Empires" video, in which the narrator admits that evil empires are one of his favorite clichés, only for an actual love triangle to come in and complain that it thought it was his favorite cliché, putting him in a Love Triangle with this very trope, and The Empire.
  • In Brawl Universe, This is Played For Laughs and Played Straight with Sheik and Zelda. They are initally the same person, so they fight over Link's affections. Link himself has feelings for Zelda, but has to deal with Sheik as they travel to find the whereabouts of Zelda.

    Web Comics 
  • Bittersweet Candy Bowl has a number of these, generating a Love Dodecahedron. However, the comic focuses mostly on SandyxMikexLucy, though AbbeyxDaisyxAugustus also appears, as does AbbeyxDaisyxMike].
  • A Love Triangle is the whole point of Groovy, Kinda. Nerd Larry loves The Alcoholic artist Edison Lighthouse, who likes Hot Librarian Anya Langerak, who wants Larry too, but he's not sure.
  • In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, there's the one between Bob, Jean, and Voluptua; and later between Bob, Jean, and Slick.
  • Platinum Grit has the protagonists in a massively dysfunctional love triangle. Jeremy likes Nils but beats himself up over thinking naughty thoughts about her. Nils enjoys teasing Jeremy but is terrified at the thought of developing a real emotional attachment to anyone and is retreating into no-strings casual sex with strangers. And Kate (who may or may not have had a badly thought out same-sex relationship with Nils at some point) initially just felt pity for Jeremy, but is finding herself more and more attracted to him, but she's too embarrassed to come right out and say it. If she did, he'd almost definitely beat himself up for suddenly thinking naughty thoughts about her too.
  • In My Roommate Is an Elf, both Jacinda and Sebastian more or less start flirting with Griswold as soon as they meet him. Griswold seems more attracted to Jacinda though, but Sebastian sees it all as a competition.
  • Girl Genius has several with the main one being the one between Gil, Tarvek and Agatha.
    • Amongst the minor characters there is a love quadrilateral. Both Violetta and Snaug are interested in Moloch who in turn fancies Sanaa, who in turn possibly fancies Tarvek, thus linking the triangle and quadrilateral into a septagon.
    • There was also a love quadrilateral in the previous generation, with Bill Heterodyne, Klaus Wulfenbach, and Aaronev Sturmvoraus all in love with Lucrezia Mongfish. She wound up marrying Bill, but now Gil and Tarvek, the sons of the two unchosen suitors, are courting Lucrezia's daughter, Agatha.
  • In Sandra and Woo Sandra and her friend Larisa have both fallen in love with Cloud who seems to prefer Sandra.
  • In Nip and Tuck, Gilly overestimates his chances in one of these.
  • In Maggot Boy, Davey is in love with Sam, who loves her boss, who loves no one. Later, Davey and Carville are both competing for Sam, who still is in love with her boss.
  • In American Barbarian, Rick is glad when he realizes this is not a possibility: the other man is Uli's brother.
  • In Blue Yonder, Kevin thinks he's in one, and that Jared is the Romantic False Lead. Lena disabuses him of the notion.
  • Homestuck has a few, complicated by the great amounts of Ship Tease and the fact that the trolls have several different kinds of romance, in each of which only they are expected to be monogamous.
    • Firstly, there's the Dave-Terezi-Karkat-Jade love square. Dave and Terezi are friends, with Dave possibly having feelings for her; Terezi and Karkat have something going on in the red quadrant but it's unclear exactly where they are; Karkat canonically gets a crush on Jade later on, who rejects him; and Jade has had a bit of Ship Tease with Dave. A later update reveals that Terezi has now separated with Karkat as matesprits, if they ever were in the first place, presumably due to a) Karkat seemed to want to be in every quadrant with Terezi and b) their relationship was continuously rocky and on-off, both of which frustrated her. Terezi now appears to be seeing Dave, but this is yet to be confirmed. Jade is now dating Davesprite, which John highly disapproves of (though not in a Crazy Jealous Guy-type manner). Upon conclusion of the story, Dave and Karkat are canonically a "thing", though it's not specified exactly what kind of "thing" (it seems to have both black and red elements, somewhere in the vicinity of Vitriolic Best Buds).
    • Secondly, there's the Kanaya-Vriska-John-Rose (and Gamzee-Tavros-Jade) dodecahedron. Kanaya canonically had a crush on Vriska, who never found out; Vriska canonically has a crush on John, who returned her feelings at first but doesn't seem to anymore; John has some Ship Tease with Rose; and there is some indication Kanaya developed a crush on Rose, though it was more likely to simply be admiration. To complicate matters, Vriska also had a..."thing" for Tavros, who didn't feel the same way, instead crushing on Jade, who also rejected him, thus bridging the two squares. And not to mention when Gamzee hit on him that one time.
    • Among the trolls there's also Eridan and Sollux both having feelings for Feferi (and Eridan having unrequited black feelings for Sollux), and both Sollux and Equius having red-ish feelings for Aradia, who seems to maintain a simple friendship with Sollux, while not interacting with Equius.
    • Finally, Jane, Dirk, and Roxy all have a thing for Jake, plus sometimes Dirk's autoresponder, and Roxy also has a bit of a crush on Dirk as well, while Jake has a crush on Aranea, who doesn't really feel the same way, though admits it's not out of the question.
    • The trolls' romance concept in general allows this (or more precise, a Type 8 relationship). Let's say Troll A is in a flushed relationship with Troll B while being in a caliginous one with Troll C. Troll B and C are "platonically" involved in a pale relationship. And there you go.
  • In No Rest for the Wicked Perrault speculates about some gallant woodsman who helped November and promised not to tell November's fiance.
  • Questionable Content:
    • The Marten-Faye-Dora triangle was seemingly resolved in , but lingering angst doomed Dora and Marten's relationship.
    • Marten, Padma and Elliott have a very short-lived triangle as well.
  • Karin-dou 4koma: At Seren's suggestion, Ran and Shizuki decide to resolve their rivalry over Tamaryu by having Shizuki become Tamaryu's wife, Tamaryu become Ran's wife, and Ran become Shizuki's wife. Tamaryu immediately mauls Seren and runs off.
  • College Roomies from Hell!!!:
    • Mike/Marsha/April is a pretty basic one, in that Mike and Marsha are deeply in love and April just trying to get in the way because she's crazy (and possibly being influenced by Satan). ...okay, maybe not that basic.
    • Dave/Margaret/Blue is all over the map. First, Dave was just Margaret's stalker. Then Blue (Mike's sister) came to visit, fell for Dave, and started stalking him a little bit. Dave and Margaret slept together to save Dave's life (though he didn't realize it until after) because she does love him, just not romantically. Then Dave and Blue slept together to help make him feel better, and around and around it goes. Mike points out that eventually Dave is going to have to choose between the two, and it's not as easy as Betty and Veronica (the friendly and understanding Blue is the Betty and the crazy survivalist Margaret is the Veronica). If Dave chooses Margaret, he will have to deal with Satan. If he chooses Blue, he will have to deal with Blue's mother. And, in all seriousness, no one knows which is worse. In the end Dave eventually chooses Blue, after having a long talk with Margaret and realizing he's just obsessed with her.
  • Tripp: Tripp, Coco and Proxy.
  • General Protection Fault has the (in)famous Ki-Nick-Trudy triangle, though for Trudy it was both to 'harass Ki' and later to 'Get a hold of Nicks inventor gene'. Even after the sojourn to a parallel dimension where Trudy was left behind this triangle kept simmering because in fact the parallel Trudy managed to get the original Trudy to return and when Ki disappeared for a while, Trudy tried grabbing Nick for herself again.

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 
  • As Told by Ginger, "April Fool's": A is Dodie, B is a boy named Dustin, and C is Macie.
    • As Told By Ginger again, "Love With A Proper Exchange Student" (the next ep in production order, actually): A is Dodie again, B is an exchange student named Joaquin, and C is Ginger.
    • Dodie seems to always be at the losing end in these love triangles.
  • Hey Arnold!, "Gerald vs. Jamie O": A is Gerald, B is an older girl named Chloe, and C is Gerald's older brother, Jamie O. Helga/Arnold/Lila, Helga/Arnold/Ruth, and Brainy/Helga/Arnold. This show lives off of this trope.
    • It was even parodied in the episode "Quantity Time" when Helga and Big Bob went to see a musical called RATS. The singers started this:
    Male Rat #1: "I love her"
    Female Rat: "But I love him"
    Male Rat #2: "And darn it, he loves me!"
  • South Park has the bizarre Love Triangle of Saddam Hussein/Satan/Chris. Yeah. For Fanon examples, see One True Threesome.
  • Gargoyles had this for one episode after Goliath's daughter, Angela, joined the Clan. After months of thinking that they would never see a female Gargoyle again (except for one who's psychotic, genocidal, and Goliath's ex), the young trio Gargoyles instantly leapt at the chance to woo this comely newcomer, creating an annoyingly aggressive romantic rivalry for her. Eventually, Angela angrily put her foot down on this and told them to be patient for her to respond, while consoling them with the delightful fact that she has 15 sisters back on the magic island of Avalon. (For the record, she chose Broadway; Brooklyn would find a mate while being Unstuck in Time and the creator said Lexington would eventually get a male suitor.)
    • There's also a subtle one between Goliath, Demona (the aforementioned ex), and Elisa. The girls don't directly fight over Goliath, but he's becoming close to Elisa at the same time that he's realizing that his relationship with Demona can't be salvaged. Demona does hate Elisa more than she does other humans, but it's unclear whether or not that's because she recognizes her as a romantic rival on some level.
    • More triangular examples include the one between Princess Katharine, the Magus, and Tom, and the one between King Kenneth II, Finella, and Constantine.
    • The love triangle among the Coldtrio added an extra layer, when Coldsteel, who secretly lusted after Coldfire, tries to convince Coldstone that Coldfire was secretly in love with Goliath.
  • You won't believe how many Love Triangles fit into Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. There is Gadget who is admired by Chip and Dale. Then there's Tammy's mad crush on Chip, combined with Gadget making her jealous. Gadget herself shows too much interest in Sparky for both chipmunks to just sit and watch. Monty is heartbroken since Désirée hooked up with Errol. And so forth...
  • Danny Phantom starts off with Danny, Sam, and Paulina before it moves to Danny, Sam, and Valerie.
  • Jimmy Neutron features Jimmy/Cindy/Nick and Cindy/Jimmy/Betty. It only fits that Jimmy/Cindy and Nick/Betty happen.
  • The Fairly Oddparents: Tootie loves Timmy, who's in love with Trixie. Early episodes set up the possibility of a well explored love triangle. Then flanderization set in...
  • And just to dust off an old classic, in Popeye, Olive Oyl is always being courted by Popeye or Bluto, who compete for her affections. Olive will sometimes favor Bluto depending on the short, and she's rather fickle, prone to suddenly leaving Popeye for Bluto because she's "tired of" him. Despite this, Popeye always takes Olive back after letting Bluto have it; except in "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" where he snapped at her and put her in her place at the end, which might just be a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Popeye.
  • Averted in Avatar: The Last Airbender. The ONLY episodes where Aang isn't in love with Katara are the ones in which she is in love with or being pursued by Jet. That's two episodes. And during those episodes Aang likes Jet, until things go sour for other reasons.
  • The Legend of Korra,
    • There was one prior to the series between Aang's son Tenzin, Toph's daughter Lin, and Pema. In the end, Tenzin married Pema, with some implication that Lin is still a bit bitter about the whole thing.
    • And then there's Korra/Mako/Asami. Both Korra and Asami like Mako while Mako likes both Asami and Korra. Bolin was briefly a fouth person, as he had a crush on Korra which started out strong, cumulated in episode five, and due to...circumstances, seemingly faded away afterward.

      Season one ends with Mako and Korra as the Official Couple, after Mako realized he was in love with Korra and Asami noticed. Their breakup seemed fairly amicable, however. It is then reignited in season 2, when Korra and Mako get into a fight and break up, Mako and Asami begin to re-explore their feelings for each other, and an amnesiac Korra returns and wants to rekindle her relationship with Mako. Turns out that Korra wasn't an amnesiac after all - she was just pretending because she didn't want her relationship with Mako to be over. In the end Mako and Korra both accept that their romantic relationship won't work out - leaving every side of this triangle single by the end.
    • The whole thing ends rather neatly at the end of Season four, Korra ends up with Asami. Mako ends up alone, but according to Word of God in a much better mental space to handle future relationships. Bolin, who sensibly stayed out of things since season one, is in a relationship with Opal.
  • The Daria/Tom/Jane triangle was a major arc throughout Daria's fourth season.
  • Young Justice has had three love triangles: Kid Flash/Miss Martian/Superboy, Miss Martian/Superboy/Artemis, and Aqualad/Tula/Garth. As of the first season finale, all three of these have been resolved. Aqualad discovers that his crush Tula and his good friend Garth are a couple and eventually pulls a I Want My Beloved to Be Happy. Miss Martian chooses Superboy, but they break up between Season 1 and 2 because of Miss Martian's abuse of Mind Rape. And Kid Flash and Artemis got together and are still going strong five years later.
  • Jimmy Two-Shoes: Peep loves Heloise, who has Single-Target Sexuality for Jimmy.
  • Kid vs. Kat: Phoebe has a crush on Coop, but Coop is terrified of her and is in an unofficial relationship with Fiona. Unfortunately for Fiona, Phoebe seems to think Murder the Hypotenuse is the best solution to this.
  • In one episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Shredder dopes three of the Turtles with a pizza laced with a love potion (Donatello demurs, because he's driving), causing the three to fall in love with April's friend Irma, and fight with each other over her affections. She's oblivious to the fact that she has three mutant turtles lusting after her, but is delighted that she is suddenly the target of three anonymous suitors.
    • The entire franchise has always had one as the source of the conflict between the Hamato Clan and the Foot (primarily the Oroku Clan). The beautiful, but ultimately ill-fated Tang Shen is the object of affection for both Hamato Yoshi and another suitor (in most adaptations, Oroku Saki, though in the original comics it was Saki's brother Nagi), and always chooses Yoshi over the other suitor. Said suitor then gets jealous, and, well... you know the rest.
  • Sidekick has Eric who likes Vana who hates him, but Kitty likes Eric to an almost stalker level.
  • Kick Buttowski has Kendal Perkins who secretly has a crush on the title character, however Jackie Wackerman, better known as "Wacky Jackie", more or less has a crush on him first.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: In the episode "Simple Ways", Rarity liked Trenderhoof, Trenderhoof liked Applejack, and Applejack was indifferent to him.
  • BoJack Horseman, in addition to a couple of minor love triangles that pop up over the course of the series, has the central love triangle of BoJack, Diane, and Mr. Peanutbutter. BoJack falls in love with his ghostwriter, Diane, who's in a relationship with Mr. Peanutbutter, BoJack's longtime rival—who, in fact, genuinely likes BoJack and doesn't see why the two of them can't be friends.
  • Steven Universe: In the flashback episodes "Story for Steven" and "We Need to Talk", Pearl was in love with Rose Quartz, who was in love with Greg. Pearl was incredibly jealous, and tried to get Greg to give up pursuing Rose.
  • Star vs. the Forces of Evil: After the episode "Bon Bon the Birthday Clown", one has started between Jackie, Marco, and Star. The season 2 finale "Starcrushed" leaves all three of them aware for the first time that the triangle exists. After the season 3 episode "Lava Lake Beach" one has started between Star, Marco and Tom and Star, Marco and Kelly.

    Real Life 

"I love you!"

"But I love him!"

"I am so conflicted!"

Alternative Title(s): Love Quadrangle

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