As an avid romance reader, I’ve encountered my fair share of tropes. I’m definitely in tune with my tastes and aware of what I usually do and do not like. A trope is not inherently bad, but as with everything in life, I prefer certain tropes over others. Though a favourite for many, I look at the forbidden love trope and often feel disappointed. Can I really ship them when they might be siblings? When their age gap is huge? When the power dynamics are questionable? When they’re from different species?
A trope is a recurrent theme, something certain genres of books such as romance and crime are expected to have. They create a certain level of expectation to invite the right kind of reader to pick up certain books. Though tropes may seem like they encourage cliché, that’s not entirely the case. They are an important part of the creation of stories, as while hardly any idea is original, the way they are executed can be and the way an author tackles a well-known trope can be what sets their story apart from all the others.
The forbidden love trope occurs whenever social norms prevent a couple from openly being in a relationship with one another. It’s also an umbrella term for many other specific sub-tropes, which is where the problems arise. The most popular example of forbidden love is in the tragedy Romeo and Juliet, in which star-crossed lovers are kept apart because of their feuding families. At its core, forbidden love is about desire and the central thing that ties all sub-tropes under the umbrella is wanting something that, for whatever reason, you cannot have.
At face value, it’s a great trope, primarily because it’s centred around hope, the hope that love can prevail over anything. In some cases, it stands to demonstrate that what some people believe to be irreconcilable differences can be overcome and that they’re not as big of an issue as they initially seem. Of course, it’s also a great set-up for disappointment or tragedy too, as the obstacles in the way of a loving couple—whether social, political, geographical, or otherwise—cannot always be set aside, and it can create an equally lovely story of loss.
Despite all this, for me, the forbidden love trope is almost joint last with the ‘mates’ trope (which is a topic for another day), and I want to explain why. First of all, I think it’s important to be clear that this is solely my opinion, and I don’t expect anyone else to agree with it. I am also completely open to the possibility that it’s probably high on most people’s lists of tropes and that there are plenty of books or even TV shows with this trope that I like.
To sum up, I can see the positives of the trope, and know that it makes for some great, gripping stories, it’s just not my favourite. The problem with the trope is what I mentioned before: forbidden love is all about desire, wanting something that you cannot have. Because of this, it often perpetuates sometimes criminal and usually taboo fantasies and all the drama in the story is centred around this one conflict, which can often lead to the story feeling quite bland or overcompensating with other less believable sources of conflict to supplement this central conflict.
Encouraging the pursuit of forbidden romance in all cases doesn’t seem right to me. When forbidden romance can include cheating, large age-gap relationships (which aren’t always an issue) or even relationships between an adult and someone who is still a child, I struggle to support the idea. Often, forbidden romance can be self-destructive, occasionally dangerous, and unhealthy which makes it hard to read about.
I acknowledge that when these tropes are used in literature, it’s always fictional and not prescribing any type of behaviour or way of living your life. However, it’s widely established that the media will influence reality whether it intends to or not, and if we are continually inundated by glorified portrayals of dangerous relationships, it will always be normalised for some. That goes for every romance trope with dark or toxic elements. It’s always best to tread carefully with them.
While people are entitled to indulge in their fantasies, I think it’s worth remembering that a lot of people who might take these ‘fantasies’ more seriously, including children, may have access to them whether they’re supposed to or not. All this is to say, I think that with the forbidden love trope, there’s too much of a grey area that exists between the good and the bad, and I find it difficult to enjoy it because of that.
To conclude, I’m not saying that I would never read a book simply because it contains the forbidden love romance trope, just that it is the trope I’m usually the least excited about, that I don’t necessarily gravitate towards. I find it hard to ignore how much range the word ‘forbidden’ allows, but I am aware that a lot of amazing, positive stories exist that use the trope too.
How do you feel about the forbidden love trope? Are there any tropes you don’t like?
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