Looking for examples of partnerships tested or changed by third parties

[HareBrain]

Reading a book recently, I realised that some of the bits that worked best for me were when characters in an established partnership were affected by the introduction of a third party, provoking tension and change between the original partners. I’ve been thinking about it since and haven’t been able to come up with many other examples in SFF, and am wondering if others can, because I’d like to study the concept.

The obvious scenario in real life would be where a marriage is tested by one of the partner falling for someone new, but I’m really looking for examples away from the romantic or “love triangle” thing. A good example from TV is the Netflix series Stranger Things, in which the strong triad of the boys is temporarily split by the introduction of Eleven, when Lucas becomes suspicious of her. A weaker example is in Lord of the Rings, when Frodo and Sam disagree over their treatment of Smeagol. In both these examples the tension is unintended, but could with different writing have been used by the third party to engineer a split.

I’m sure there must be loads of other examples, I just can’t think of them.

 

[Toby Frost]

Would The Shining count, where the third party is the house? If so, I think The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons would work: it's a ghost story about a haunted house that causes three marriages to collapse. There might have been two friends who are divided by the advice of a witch in The Neverending Story, but I can't remember it very well.

This subject reminds me of a trailer for the Channel 4 programme Humans, in which the father of a family is clearly letching at the android maid. I'd expect there to be a fair few stories like that.

 

[HareBrain]

Would The Shining count, where the third party is the house?

It wasn't quite what I was thinking of, but interesting example!

 

[Mouse]

Rick & Morty, when Rick has adventures with Summer instead? That's pretty much all I can think of off the top of my head that isn't to do with romance.

 

[HareBrain]

Yeah, I think most of them are romance. I'm sure there's a whole slew of teenage fiction where one of two close (platonic) friends forms a romantic attachment with someone else.

There's something hovering in the back of my mind about a small, tight-knit ship's crew picking up a stranger or stowaway, and that causing all kinds of ructions. Is that what happens in Firefly? Anywhere else? I wasn't really thinking of that many people, but it works.

 

[Mouse]

Yeah that's Firefly. Also Farscape, when they pick up Crichton.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Another King one is Firestarter where Charlie and her dad's relationship is derailed by Rainbird. Mazer Rackman in Ender's Game might also be a case in point - late addition of a character, which splits Ender from his troops.

 

[Dan Jones]

Reading a book recently,

What book would that be, squire?

It's a tricky one. On reading it you'd think there would be thousands of examples, but I'm struggling to think of many.

Here's one. In Never Let Me Go, Kathy and Ruth's friendship is altered by the addition of Tommy, although the disclosure of their true natures is arguably the bigger effector here.

Er....

Adam and Eve and the serpent?

 

[Toby Frost]

Is that what happens in Firefly?

I kind of wish they hadn't.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I would say that your example of Smeagol is quite a strong example. Here are a pair of Hobbits ready to die to save the other, yet Smeagol ingratiates himself with Frodo, and heightens his suspicions about Sam by telling lies and fabricating evidence; so much so that Frodo tells Sam to go back home. It almost brings about disaster for the Fellowship.



In scifi tv, Red dwrf's crew were occasionally temporarily added to by the likes of Rimmer's twin hologram and Ace.

And the introduction of Admiral Helena Cain to the BSG team is short, brutal and memorable.

 

[Margaret Note Spelling]

It's interesting, because that kind of split-partnership tension story is something that's actually rather hard for me to read! I completely love that you enjoy it--I just don't usually, myself, and I think it's really fascinating that the kind of plot type that one person really enjoys reading about/viewing, can be just difficult for another person to sit through. It shows just how much of a reader's assessment of stories is personal to them, and not reflective of the merits of the story itself.

Thinking about it, though, my problem might be simply that most of the examples that I've seen of that plot type have been poorly-written examples. I'm sure you've seen them--the ones with unrealistic character choices, and friends turning on each other for the weakest reasons, so that you sit through the entire thing frustrated at the characters and completely unsympathetic to any of them. I actually do have plans to write a really good plot where two characters, previously friends, fall out due to an actual tough situation. Similar to the descending-character-arc plot type, where a character undergoes a moral downfall--I've seen that done poorly so many times that I really, really want to write a realistic and satisfying one myself! But meanwhile, every time you see a pair of characters who get along really well in some ongoing TV series or book series, you just know there's going to be that one episode or book where the writers get bored and make them suddenly doubt and seriously distrust each other's motives, despite all their history together. In fact, I'm planning to completely subvert that concept in a future book of the series I'm working on--the bad guys deliberately start a campaign to divide the two main character allies and make them start distrusting each other, but the two of them actually realize what's going on and decide to stage an entire quarrel and division between them just to trap their enemies.

I think I might be a little bit traumatized, actually. Every time I see any good character relationship in any kind of show or book, especially one that's supposed to be a romance, I'm instantly worried the writers are soon going to make them start doubting and hating each other for some completely unnecessary reason. I don't dislike relationships being tested--I love relationships being tested, in the most horrendous of ways. I just don't enjoy seeing them fail the test, at least not without really strong reasons.

Again, no judgement at all upon you or anyone else who really likes a good, juicy, partnerships-going-sour plot! I'm sure if I'd exposed myself to more examples that were well-written, I wouldn't have the visceral dislike of it that I do. I even wrote one myself for a 75-worder Challenge last year, which actually ended in murder--I'm still planning to turn that into a full story someday. And interestingly, the Frodo and Sam conflict actually works pretty well for me, since the whole point was that possession of the Ring makes people act out of character, and meanwhile Sam never once wavered in loyalty to his friend. If it weren't for the corrupting/addictive influence of the Ring, though, I'd probably hate it completely, especially since it wasn't even in the book to begin with.

It just...sometimes, not always, seems like writers think they have to ruin a good thing just for the drama of it, you know?

The worst examples I can think of right now are...let's see, about 3/4 of all Wodehouse plots (actually, now that I think about it, that might be the main source of my trauma!), and old TV shows like Mister Ed and Get Smart which occasionally use the main characters, romantically or no, being very upset with each other just for gags.

The best examples I can think of...actually, for me, are the ones where the friendship is never repaired. The "we were friends, once" concept. I love the tragedy of that. I'm pretty sure my brain has mostly sworn off the "misunderstandings as plot points" concept, and when a friendship is falling apart for actual reasons, yet nothing significant changes about the characters in the end--which would actually make the relationship stronger than before, rather than simply returning the characters to their original state--then any solution the writer can provide for them to be friends again would be no solution at all. Basically, if you're going to realistically attack it, the relationship cannot ever be the same again. It has to change, either for the worse or for the better. The story cannot just go on and pretend it never happened, or that it was all wiped away when the characters choose to forgive, because if the problems were real, then you're solving nothing and going nowhere--and while that obviously happens all the time in real life, it's not a resolution to your story. Which, of course, could be the whole point of the story, but in most cases it isn't.

Anyway, huge apologies if this approaches the level of a rant no one wanted to hear about, or if this is just the wrong place to talk about it. I think it's relevant here? I'm truly not rubbishing the concept in any way, I think it's really dramatically powerful, when done right, and I'm keenly interested in doing it right myself one day, which first of all means exploring examples of what other people have written and, most importantly, deciding what are well-written examples of that kind of story and what aren't. I think the best "we were friends, once" story I've come across so far is probably...actually, I can think of several good ones, but I can't think of a clear best one without thinking about it for a few hours, so I'll do that, and come back when I think of one. I've already spent over two hours on this post and I'm way out of free time!

 

[hitmouse]

Little Grey Men (1941) and the sequel Down the Bright Stream by BB (Denys Watkins-Pitchford), in which 3 gnomes go looking for their brother. Actually finding him is quite disruptive.

 

[Dan Jones]

Thinking on this a little more, Sally Rooney's Normal People features two young people - Marianne and Connell - in a passionate relationship, but that's changed when Marianne goes to university, and their relationship changes in a degree of different ways. So the university is the disruptor in this instance, but it does act in the same way as the sort of character you're thinking of, I think.

Would The Shining count, where the third party is the house?

To me the Overlook hotel is more an amplifier for what's already there. The evil in the hotel brings to the surface what's already in Jack, and makes it apparent in the world. It doesn't really change the relationship between him and Wendy and Danny, it intensifies it to catastrophic effect. Maybe that's the case with horror stories - the alien in Alien does the same thing, bringing to the fore conflicts which were already bubbling away among the crew. There may be others.

 

[HareBrain]

Thinking about it, though, my problem might be simply that most of the examples that I've seen of that plot type have been poorly-written examples. I'm sure you've seen them--the ones with unrealistic character choices, and friends turning on each other for the weakest reasons, so that you sit through the entire thing frustrated at the characters and completely unsympathetic to any of them.

I agree with your whole post, really -- I get frustrated with situations where characters fall out through some misunderstanding that could be resolved with a short dialogue. I like the sound of your subversion too. And I wasn't necessarily asking for examples where the new/third party's influence is destructive, though I guess that would be most of them.

I think there are probably good examples in Steven Erikson's Malazan books, but someone with a better memory than I will have to tell us what they are.

I would say that your example of Smeagol is quite a strong example. Here are a pair of Hobbits ready to die to save the other, yet Smeagol ingratiates himself with Frodo, and heightens his suspicions about Sam by telling lies and fabricating evidence; so much so that Frodo tells Sam to go back home. It almost brings about disaster for the Fellowship.

Thanks, I'd forgotten how far it almost goes.