I Think The Thing That Frustrates Me Most About The Rebooted Love Triangle Is - Besides It Being Super

I think the thing that frustrates me most about the Rebooted love triangle is - besides it being super contrived and cliche - that it didn't have to suck. More specifically, it laid down the foundations for some potentially very interesting character arcs that could have just as easily been achieved without the use of a love triangle. But they added in a bunch of needless romance drama anyway, and all that potential was squandered.

To explain what I mean, let's start by reviewing why most people, myself included, hate the love triangle:

It's contrived, and it felt like it came out of nowhere

Cole didn't even exhibit any interest in Nya until Jay started fighting with him over her, and the attempt to build up chemistry between Cole and Nya felt annoyingly rushed

It led to a lot of unnecessary conflict for conflict's sake and overall felt rather pointless/directionless. It didn't even get resolved until ToE, with the tension between Jay and Nya persisting until well into Skybound

It completely derailed the entire season, which otherwise had a lot of narrative potential. Zane and Pixal's little robotic culture exchange, Kai overcoming his distaste for technology, the curse of the golden master, Lloyd bonding with his father, Garmadon's redemption, Wu turning evil, a robot apocalypse, going to space - Rebooted had a lot of really fun ideas, and could've been a really fun season. But pretty much all of that got eclipsed by the love triangle, and everyone paid the price

That on its own is enough reason to be annoyed with the love triangle, but here's the nail in the coffin: it could have been interesting if it wasn't a love triangle.

That...probably doesn't make much sense. But let me explain.

If we strip away the context of the love triangle and all that three-way romance drama nonsense, what do we have left? Well...

At the beginning of season 3, Jay is clingy and at times seems somewhat codependent on Nya, and Nya is beginning to feel claustrophobic in their relationship as a result. (Nya: "What did we talk about?" Jay: "Right. Boundaries.")

Nya has a hard time opening up to others about her feelings, as she feels that vulnerability will threaten her Strong and Independent persona. She's got a lot of baggage and abandonment issues, and she's not very good with handling her emotions as a result. Hence why she's so prone to anger and lashing out. She finds it easier to explode and be tough than to cry and show weakness. Opening up to others, asking for help, admitting she's not perfect, are all some of her biggest flaws. (Nya: "Oh Jay, this is the reason [...] you're the only one I've ever let into my heart.")

Jay, on the other hand, doesn't have as much baggage, and while he probably didn't have a perfect childhood (he was definitely bullied at lot while growing up), he also doesn't have some horribly tragic backstory like everyone else does. We haven't seen much of his past, but we can draw a reasonable conclusion that it was fairly mild compared to everyone else's. As a result, he doesn't have quite as many hang-ups about self-expression, nor quite as much baggage, so being open and free with his feelings comes more naturally to him. We see this through all of his iconic rants and screams and his generally frantic nature. He's got insecurities, and lots of them, but they don't significantly impact his ability to be emotionally vulnerable in front of others

Practically from the very beginning, one of Jay's primary character traits has been his crush on Nya, and a big chunk of his development hinges on his relationship with her (Jay: "Oh, we're saving a girl? Is she hot? Does she like blue?")

When Nya has to choose between cutting the black and blue wire, what does Jay say? "Choose blue! You know blue! You're comfortable with blue!" From this we can at the very least conclude that Jay's understanding of their relationship is one of stability, comfort, and status quo. Those are good and important things to seek out in a relationship, yes, but not when you become dependent on the other person for them. Which, I feel, is why Jay had become so codependent on Nya by the start of season 3

Nya is a very strong, stubborn person, and Jay deeply admires this part of her. He's constantly singing her praises, and it's good to be proud and affectionate towards the ones you love, and this is one of his most endearing traits, but at times it does often feel like he's putting her up on a bit of a pedestal

Because he so highly values her strength of character, I would argue that his crush on Nya pre-Skybound was in part a coping mechanism. He's had a relatively stable upbringing, thanks to Ed and Edna, so all this fighting and conflict is relatively newer to him than the rest of the ninja. He isn't used to this level of turmoil and unrest like they are. He's struggling to cope. And since he sees her as a source of stability, a source of strength, he begins to rely on her for those things. Hence the uptick in codependent behavior we see from Jay in the beginning of season 3. Of course, that's just my interpretation of it

Really, we could spend all day debating the reasons for Jay's codependence, but the fact remains that it's there either way. And he's never gonna work through it until Nya isn't around for him to cling onto

Cole has a tendency to withdraw and act closed off from others, resulting in a lack of communication that leads to disastrous consequences for his interpersonal relationships. It's something we first see a glimpse of in his relationship with his dad (Jay: "I'm starting to see why Cole is so closed off. It's because Twinkle Toes here couldn't deliver the goods. Is that why you ran away?"), and later when he chose to remain at odds with Jay instead of talking things out (Cole: "We should have been honest with each other instead of bottling this up."). Instead of talking things out, he runs away from his feelings

While it's all well and good that Cole was able to make amends with his dad, there's no evidence that this caused him to stop being so closed off with his emotions. The only way to truly shake Cole out of this habit is to force him to face the consequences of his poor communication. Bottling up his feelings and not talking things out with Jay directly contributed to a conflict between him and his best friend, nearly tearing them apart for good

See? All of that is potentially fascinating character dissection, and yet none of this necessarily has to link back to a love triangle. Not once in that whole rant did I ever mention Jay and Cole fighting over Nya because of some contrived matchmaking thing.

With that in mind, here's what I propose as an alternative:

Nya is feeling claustrophobic in her relationship due to a combination of Jay's clinginess and her own fierce need for independence, so she starts growing distant from him. She sees the first signs of impending vulnerability and begins pushing him away. She's scared of letting him into her heart.

Jay and Cole do end up having some kind of conflict, but it's not over who gets to date Nya. This time it's something completely unrelated to romance and Nya in any way, and being at odds with his best friend puts Jay's whole world off kilter. So he turns to Nya for emotional support - but she doesn't provide it. She's not good with emotions or comfort, and the very thought of experiencing something so raw and vulnerable with Jay is rather unsettling to her. So she doesn't help him, and Jay gets understandably upset. And now Jay feels like both his girlfriend and best friend have turned on him. Since he's still kinda codependent on Nya, still idolizes her as someone amazing and perfect, he probably chooses to blame Cole for her betrayal instead of acknowledging that Nya herself hurt him. And this naturally further fuels the grudge between them until it crescendos into something unbearable.

Then Zane dies, and that bad blood between them reaches its boiling point - which results in their ultimate separation. When they fight in Chen's arena, it isn't over a girl but rather the shambles of their own failed friendship.

Cole faces the fallout of his emotional repression in season 4, and he and Jay have to work as a team to piece themselves back together. And to do that, Cole has to stop being so closed off and actually communicate his feelings instead of running away from them.

And then his ghost arc in season 5 would be about putting that lesson to the test - is he going to internalize and learn from past mistakes, or is he going to repeat history again? Luckily, this time, when he's struggling with his new ghostly form, he doesn't close himself off from everyone and he doesn't run away. He communicates his issues. He talks things out, and as a result he's able to reconcile his new situation much more smoothly. Healing and growth and all that jazz.

Then in seasons 5 and 6, we get some actual character development for Nya and Jay as separate people. Jay has to decouple himself from the notion that Nya is some perfect and amazing goddess from which he can derive stability and comfort, and that she's just as prone to mistakes as he is, and that his own codependence on her led in part to their falling out. Now that he can't cling onto her, he has to seek out newer and healthier coping mechanisms. And Nya also has to accept that she's not perfect, that she can have flaws and be vulnerable, and that it's okay to not be strong and independent all the time. It's okay to be weak.

Jay still sees the future reflection of him and Nya together, still has that resulting character arc in season 6. But now we have the emotional context of Jay's past codependence - so this is less a matter of violating Nya's boundaries because it's destiny, and more a matter of him violating Nya's boundaries because destiny opened up the chance of them getting back together and he took that opportunity to cling to past codependent behaviors again.

He does still have his icky incel-like behavior in Skybound, because as unpleasant as it was i do think it was important for his character to experience that kind of ugliness. But now his motivations are a bit more complex and dare I say interesting.

So when Jay and Nya end up facing off against Nadakhan, we can now shift Nya's willingness to let Jay save her into something that makes a bit more sense. It's not because of some "I'm making a choice and I'm choosing for you to save me" bullcrap, but rather Nya finally letting herself trust someone else and accept that she doesn't have to be a one-man army all the time. It's okay to let other people save you, it's okay to ask for help. So she does. She decides to open up to Jay, to trust him, and trust that he'll save her. She decides to let someone save her for once instead of insisting on doing everything herself.

And in this version of events, Jay's quest to save her and stop the wedding is no longer about just rescuing the woman he loves - it's about being apart from her, it's about seeing that she can be weak and vulnerable and choosing to love her anyway, faults and all. It's about proving to her that her newfound trust in him wasn't misplaced. It's about him becoming a leader, growing a spine, and standing on his own two legs. It's about learning how to cope with all the stresses and traumas of life without needing to unhealthily latch onto another person for stability.

This would pretty easily wipe out all the annoying and vaguely sexist bits of the Skybound romantic subplot too, while we're at it!

See what I mean? The love triangle had all the makings of some interesting character development. But I think they screwed it up by making it an actual, y'know, love triangle. Even though they definitely didn't have to. Look at that, it's not even hard! You can give them all interesting conflict and development without falling into a cliche love triangle. You can actually have your cake and eat it too, folks. It's really easy. It only took me like...a half hour, tops, to come up with all that. Imagine what could be achieved by people who are actually paid to think about this stuff.