History Main / RomanticPlotTumor

* Some {{Homestuck}} fans didn't particularly ''like'' the troll romance subplot (and everything that comes with it). The fact that trolls have 4 different romance "quadrants" which can allow for both bigamy and monogamy ''at the same time'' and there's trolls dying everywhere doesn't help.

* Some {{Homsetuck}} fans didn't particularly ''like'' the troll romance subplot (an everything that comes with it). The fact that trolls have 4 different romance "quadrants" which can allow for both bigamy and monogamy ''at the same time'' and there's trolls dying everywhere doesn't help.

* It is rumored that Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knightley's decisions not to reprise their respective roles for the fourth ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' film, as well as their bordering on OldShame dispositions toward the characters, stem from the romance story which took over the trilogy, rather than the characters themselves.

[[folder:Music]]
* The better part of the Backstreet Boys song "Larger than Life" is an oddly refreshing statement about having their lives turned upside-down by an unending swarm of screaming fans and paparazzi. Then, without warning, it turns into a song praising them and wanting to "[[IntercourseWithYou thank [them] in a different way]]". Where did ''that'' come from?
** It's Jonathan Coulton's "You Ruined Everything" as written by people who can't write music, and wouldn't know emotional depth if it came up and bit off their kneecaps.
[[/folder]]

** Later seasons, at least, apparantly learned their lesson. Martha's attraction to the Doctor was very minor and never went anywhere, Donna and the Doctor had a RunningGag about them being quite vocal towards their [[TheStraightWillAndGrace non-romantic relationship]], and Amy's advances not only were firmly denied but her relationship with (now husband) Rory was rather sweet ''and'' had some plot relevance.

* It is rumored that OrlandoBloom and KieraKnightley's decisions not to reprise their respective roles for the fourth ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' film stems from the romance story which took over the trilogy, rather than the character's themselves. Both have openly stated that they do not want to be related any longer to their characters, which some take to lend credence.

Love is a [[ThePowerOfLove powerful]] emotion. It can completely change the way a character acts and thinks. It can be used to create [[LoveHurts drama]], [[LoveMakesYouCrazy comedic relief]], or [[WillTheyOrWontThey suspense]]. Maybe the writer just wants to tug at the audience's heart in a way he couldn't with the rest of the story. Whatever the reason for introducing it, love is a powerful weapon in storytelling that can also make the audience feel okay with [[CoitusEnsues abrupt, arbitrary sex scenes]].

A specific form of GenreShift or PlotTumor. Often invokes StrangledByTheRedString and TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot. Contrast [[NoHuggingNoKissing No Hugging No Kissing]].

* The XMen books in general and ChrisClaremont in particular love to drum up romantic tension between two seemingly randomly selected characters. Usually it only leads to one or two scenes of flirtation - a "Romantic Plot Freckle" if you will; sometimes it leads to an actual ongoing relationship - a "Romantic Plot Appendage," say; but sometimes it ends up as a full-fledged Romantic Plot Tumor, with an inordinate page count being devoted to a relationship that ends up being dropped as soon as the writer loses interest (or left the book) to be rarely, if ever, mentioned again. Examples (taken from all the X-Books) include Storm and Gambit; Cyclops and Psylocke; Nightcrawler and Meggan; Shadowcat and Pete Wisdom; Cypher and Psylocke; Storm and Callisto(!); Iceman and Mystique; Havok and the school nurse; Rogue and Northstar(!); Rogue and Colossus; and Storm and Wolverine.
** Cyclops and Psylocke was actually started by Jim Lee after Chris Claremont left the book.
** Indeed more than half the examples either happened after Claremont or were so short that you could have missed them if you blinked. And Rogue/Northstar was never romantic, it was Rogue bonding with him. At the time she was still very much isolated within the team, and as a former supervillain and having been raised by a lesbian couple, she really could empathize with Alpha Flight's outcast, gay ex-terrorist Northstar.
* SecretWars briefly diverts from the main plot to show a burgeoning romance between Magneto and the Wasp, of all people. Ends up becoming more of a BigLippedAlligatorMoment because it's ''never mentioned again'' after an apparent one-nighter.
** Not to mention the abrupt romance between Colossus and an alien healer ([[ExecutiveMeddling mandated by Jim Shooter]] who demanded that Chris Claremont break up Colossus and Kitty Pryde).

** ''{{Fans}}'' ripped on the Anakin/Padme dialogue in [[http://www.faans.com/books1-6/index.php?p=1680 this strip.]]
--->'''Rikk'''(impersonating Anakin): "I don't ''like'' sand, heh-heh. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets heh-heh ''evvverywhere''. Here everything is ''soft and smooth'', [[MontyPython wink wink, nudge nudge, knowhuddimean, knowhuddimean?]]"
--->'''Rumy''': It was excruciating!
--->'''Ally''': But see, I'd think you'd be into it, cause y'know, star-crossed lovers.
--->'''Rumy''': I love a good romance! But that was...
--->'''Ally''': A stalker and her enabler?
--->'''Rumy''': Yes, yes! Lucas makes me afraid. He's what happens [[ProtectionFromEditors when artists stop seeking criticism]]. Promise me you'll tell me when my own work is bad?
* The first part of Futurama's fourth movie "Into the Wild Green Yonder" features one of these, having to do with Bender being in "love" with a fembot called Fanny, who happens to be the Don-bot's wife. We are lead to believe that this subplot is going to go somewhere, but it NEVER DOES. [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment It's also completely implausible throughout, and afterwards, we never see Fanny again.]]

* TheMovie version of ''TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' features a fairly obvious example of this trope, between Arthur and Trillian. The "original" source materials (book, TV and radio series) all handled their past differently, but agreed that Arthur had been briefly interested in Trillian during a single superficial encounter in the past; when he re-encounters her during the story, he displays jealousy at a few points, but not much more than that. By comparison, the movie version features an Arthur who is desperately pining over Trillian, who could have been his one true love had he not been afraid to pursue her, and he spends most of the movie time thinking about, worrying about or focusing on her. This was deliberately inserted by Douglas Adams when drafting the movie, before his death, to increase studio interest and audience acceptance of the movie.
** Which [[MisBlamed has never stopped anyone from complaining]] about how ''horribly'' those damn studio execs ''butchered'' Adams' Glorious Vision(tm).
*** 'Cause, you know, Adams didn't write drafts of the script before his death. Nope.
**** Which also doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility that the new love plot was half-baked or several draft rewrites away from being good.
*** Another change in the movie was that the past encounter between Arthur and Trillian was sometime in the past week, so it had been a short enough time that he thinks that he has a second chance.
** There's also the fourth ''Hitchhiker's'' book, ''So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish'', which neglects most of the usual cast and the plots about the dolphins and God's final message in favor of Arthur and Fenchurch's love story.
*** The author suggests that readers who don't care about Arthur's sex life skip ahead to the last chapter, "which is a good bit and has Marvin in it."
* Some ''JamesBond'' movies are like this when either the BondGirl is a horrid character (Stacy from ''AViewToAKill'', Dr. Jones from ''TheWorldIsNotEnough''), or she's interesting in her own right, but has no romantic chemistry with Bond at all, and yet the writers have her sleep with him anyway (Kissy from ''YouOnlyLiveTwice'', Pam from ''LicenceToKill'', Wai Lin from ''TomorrowNeverDies''). [[spoiler: ''QuantumOfSolace'' averts this; Bond and Camille actually don't get together in the end, which also happens in some of the novels)]].
** The writing of most of these "romances" are awful to the point of Squick. In a few cases, the way Bond forces his "romance" on the girl is practically rape.
*** Averted in ''OnHerMajestysSecretService'' where they actually take time to develop the romance between Tracy(Diana Rigg) and Bond(George Lazenby) complete with a FallingInLoveMontage. Bond has a tender scene where he proposes to her and they marry in the end. Unfortunately [[spoiler: Tracy is gunned down by Blofeld minutes after the wedding and she dies in Bond's arms]].
* The 2008 film ''The Red Baron'' was heavily criticized for shoe-horning the fictional character of Nurse Käte and making her love story with Manfred von Richthofen the central plot in the film. Yep, ''that'' Red Baron. '''The''' RedBaron. [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot They had the freaking Red Baron and they overlooked him]]. You could even say [[IncrediblyLamePun They Wasted A Perfectly Good Pilot]].

* The movie ''Bram Stoker's Dracula'' ([[InNameOnly not to be confused with]] ''Dracula'', by Bram Stoker). Dracula isn't after Mina Harker because he's a undead embodiment of evil, a monster seeking to feed on the blood of the innocent. It's because he's in love with her. Awww. And she loves him, because destiny says so. And Dracula wasn't cursed by God to be a vampire because he was an evil bastard who deserved eternal torment. No, Dracula willingly became one as a RageAgainstTheHeavens because his wife committed suicide and her soul couldn't be redeemed. Never mind that none of this was in the book, or that the forced romance between Drac and Mina leaves her acting like a complete and unsympathetic bitch to everyone around her, especially her loving husband.

* Say what you will about {{Film/Taken}}, but one thing you must note is the fact that there is NO. LOVE. STORY. An action movie without romance is so rare that the aversion of this trope actually improved the otherwise wonky story and characters. It was an action movie, nothing more.
* An odd male example, Bliss's love interest in ''{{Whip It}}'' has only the barest influence on the main plot in triggering a conversation with her mom.
* In-universe example. In the original ''{{King Kong}}'', the reason Ann Darrow is hired by Denham in the first place is because the studio and the public want romance in his adventure movies. Based on his reluctance to do so, one can assume that a romance in one of his movies would be a case of this.
* Somewhat ironically, the movie ''{{Hitch}}'', which relied on Kevin James' romance might've proved to be a much tighter film without Will Smith's romance, leaving Smith as [[TheChessmaster the cool and confident mastermind]].
** [[YourMilageMayVary Maybe.]] That would kind of detract from the main point of the movie--which was a deconstruction of such 'player' style mastermind ploys, and in the end showed it to be a defense mechanism which really worked to avoid true love, not enable it. To remove his romance is to completely change the moral of the movie.

* ''MaximumRide'' began life as a fairly decent kids' series, full of action and fighting stereotypical {{Mad Scientist}}s. By book five, the relationship between the two main characters -- who are ''brother and sister'' -- has become the entire focus of the (thin anyway) plot.
** To be fair, they're [[NotBloodSiblings adopted]] brother and sister.
** Not even adopted, really. They formed their own little family and call each other brother and sister, but nothing is set in stone

* A lot of people feel this to be the case about the AnitaBlake series. However, the veer from "action-packed, fast-paced vampire mystery/shoot-'em-up" to "S&M filled smut novels with tacked-on mystery chapter" (''Micah'' being the most Egregious example) is so extreme that it's more like a before-the-fact Actual Plot Tumor on a larger and more bulbuous Romantic ... thing.

* ''HisDarkMaterials'' displays this: ''NorthernLights'', ''TheSubtleKnife'' and even a good deal of ''TheAmberSpyglass'' are world-hopping, action-packed adventures. The second half of ''TheAmberSpyglass'' is [[spoiler:Lyra and Will falling in love in a field]]. Unusual in that the RomanticPlotTumor is relevant to the wider story, fulfilling as it does a particular prophecy. But the excision of anything besides the love story makes for a surprising, and for some disappointing, end to a trilogy that had previously been so full of electrifying action, and of less hackneyed relationships and ideas.

* Rose Tyler and [[TheNthDoctor the Tenth Doctor]] from ''DoctorWho''. This was particularly jarring, seeing as up until then (with a few exceptions) the Doctor had almost always been portrayed as asexual, yet suddenly he falls head-over-heels for this particularly average, nothing-special character. While it was fine in the first series, the second series became particularly vomit-inducing with the doe-eyed looks every episode, not to mention the uncountable amount of [[ShillingTheWesley "Rose Tyler, you're brilliant"s]]. She became so clingy by the end of the fourth series that the Doctor had to dump her in a parallel world with a bloody ''clone'' just to get rid of her.
** Even with Nine it was a little much. A massively brilliant 900+ year old non human, falling head over heels with a not-too-bright cutie because...uhm, why? Rose was a decent companion but not a convincing love interest.
*** ''Head over heels?'' Really? I really don't see how with Nine you could see romance ''anywhere''. And even if you did, it was purely one-sided. That is to say, only Rose felt something. While the Doctor was referring to her as "a stupid ape", complaining he got slapped by her mother, rolling his eyes when her boyfriend felt threatened by him being in Rose's life, Rose still, in a sense, had feelings for him. Hardly suprising since he basically springed a council estate girl to show her a universe [[{{Understatement}} filled with much more than fish-and-chip eaters]]. As for the Doctor, it seemed that he was trying all his best ''not'' to feel anything for Rose, given that his home was wiped out, and humanity didn't even notice it, leading to his default {{Jerkass}} mode towards humans, shown in "not doing domestics", to JerkWithAHeartOfGold and friendlier towards them.
** And then there's that woman, Christina or something? from the Easter special. Which was even 'worse' because, well, there wasn't an entire season of set-up. Maybe it's just a Ten thing.

*** Ten also had Madame de Pompadour, and also the schoolmarm from the Family of Blood (though he temporarily turned human with new memories in that instance). On the other hand, approximately his entire species was wiped out, so no surprise if he's lonely and maybe a bit too attached to his first companion thereafter.
** Nothing romantic was ever made explicit, and part of the Doctor's HumansAreSpecial thing means he will ''always'' have good things to say about his main sidekick.
** And if you view Rose and the Doctor's relationship in light of the fact that he's just recovering from the massive universe-shattering trauma of the Time War, the clinginess makes sense. And anyway, it's not just about her, it's also her family and friends - so after s2 it's not just Rose he's torn away from but also the first tentative little support structure he's begun to construct since losing his home.
*** The support structure that the Doctor does everything he can to keep her away from?
** It seems Eleven is subverting this. His only companions so far have been Amy Pond, who had a one way crush on the Doctor and her now-husband Rory. He's explicitly brushed off Amy several times.
*** Donna and the Doctor had a running gag about them being quite vocal towards their non-romantic relationship.

** Ironically, the Buffy/Angel elements in "End of Days"/"Chosen" and the entire episode "The Girl in Question" could be [[YourMileageMayVary argued]] as Romantic Plot Tumors for their respective series, whose leads had moved on and drastically developed away from the characters they were then. Making it worse was their proximity to the end of each series, which used precious screentime that could have been dedicated to setting up the storyline of the finale.
*** Sadly this resumed in the recent Season Eight story.

* Leonard and Penny of "{{The Big Bang Theory}}" He's a {{Dogged Nice Guy}}, she's {{Ms Fanservice}}, and then they got together and {{It Got Worse}}. Having dragged the show down into the gravity well that was the stunning lack of chemistry and credibility, the only option left to the writers was to start a wholesale {{Character Derailment}} of everyone around them. Let it go already - it sucked then, it sucks now, and it's going to continue to suck forever. And yes, it was meant to be the point of the entire show - which makes it rather worse.
* The Kara/Lee/Sam/Dee {{Love Dodecahedron}} from {{Battlestar Galactica}} got completely out of control, hurting the otherwise-enjoyable season 3. The {{Will They Or Wont They}} between Kara and Lee had been interesting, but the ship should have sunk back when the other love interests came on board.
* Season 5 of {{Dexter}} seems to get accused of this quite a bit.

* [[MetalGearSolid2 Raiden and Rose]]. Let me just say this: [[{{Angrish}} GYAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.]]
** It ''could'' be an example of an InvokedTrope as part of some SuperSoldier plan, though [[GainaxEnding like everything else]] in that game, [[MindScrew it's anyone's guess]].
*** The part that complicates it all is that Kojima ''really is'' insane enough to write an ''intentionally'' aggravating subplot into a game, just to prove whatever overarching thematic point he thinks he's making.
**** Isn't the theme of those games "I don't want to make another ''MetalGearSolid''"?
* {{Aquaria}}: Naija meets Li. Naija kisses Li. Naija discovers that Li can follow her around and shoot things too. Li gets kidnapped. ''...and that's where the game lost its thread. [[{{Angrish}} NGRGFABHLG.]]''

* YourMileageMayVary but... possibly John Stewart and Shayera Hol's relationship, both in Justice League Animated as Justice League Unlimited...
* [[YourMileageMayVary Your mileage may also vary]], but ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated seems to spend more time on the angst involved with Daphne's unrequited love for Fred and Velma competing with Scooby for Shaggy's attention than the actual overarching mystery.
** Actually I don't think ANYONE would argue that the romance doesn't take center stage. The bigger question is [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks whether it was the right direction to go]][[/folder]]

----

* ''HisDarkMaterials'' displays this: ''NorthernLights'', ''TheSubtleKnife'' and even a good deal of ''TheAmberSpyglass'' are world-hopping, action-packed adventures. The second half of ''TheAmberSpyglass'' is [[spolier:Lyra and Will falling in love in a field]]. Unusual in that the RomanticPlotTumor is relevant to the wider story, fulfilling as it does a particular prophecy. But the excision of anything besides the love story makes for a surprising, and for some disappointing, end to a trilogy that had previously been so full of electrifying action, and of less hackneyed relationships and ideas.

*** Dona and the Doctor had a running gag about them being quite vocal towards their non-romantic relationship.

** Although at least Rose and the Doctor had banter together. All Martha ever did was pine for him like a {{Wangst}} riddled schoolgirl.

* Some would argue [[{{Understatement}} quite fervently]] that this is not the case, but there are those who feel {{Twilight}} falls victim to this. At times, it really does seem as though Stephenie Meyer fully intended to write an actual vampire-horror novel with a bit of romance, but when she ''tried'', the love story ended up taking over. Whether this was for the best or not is [[YourMileageMayVary completely up to you.]]

* {{Stargate Universe}}. It's not even possible to explain it with a straight face. Every episode seems to throw out some aspect of this, combined with wangst. It's bad enough that it's done with a dozen characters, but it starts getting even more ridiculous when they throw in some sudden deaths, making it so that the 40 minutes of screen time over the last few episodes are doubly worthless.

** ItGotWorse. As of the new Ben 10 series, ''Ultimate Alien'', Gwen barely does anything but be Kevin's girlfirend.

* It's Taking over the Show. Gwen dos not do anying but be Kevin's girlfirend.

-Actually I don't think ANYONE would argue that the romance doesn't take center stage. The bigger question is [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks whether it was the right direction to go]][[/folder]]

* [[YourMileageMayVary Your mileage may also vary]], but ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated seems to spend more time on the angst involved with Daphne's unrequited love for Fred and Velma competing with Scooby for Shaggy's attention than the actual overarching mystery.
[[/folder]]

*** Well, to be fair to the writers: if they had all that out, the show would probably be half its length.

** The redoubtable RogerEbert: "''Pearl Harbor'' is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality."