Question Why do people rate harem stories low for being harem stories?

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by Tinkerlin, Oct 19, 2020.

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  1. Tinkerlin

    Tinkerlin Well-Known Member

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    I was just scrolling through reviews on some novels and I noticed that despite the stories having the harem tag on them, reviewers would still rate novels low for being a harem.

    i might be getting confused for no reason, but that feels something along the lines of ordering a sandwich and complaining you hate bread so the sandwich is bad...

    it just puzzles me, if anyone has done this i would honestly like to know why?

    [Edit]

    I think people misunderstood my question, harem novels have their flaws and i am not defending them, i am just curious as to why people would use the fact that a novel is a harem novel as point of criticism, if the partner counterparts are poorly written then why not use that as the point of criticism instead?

    that was what i was confused by, most harem stories are trash, that much i do acknowledge.

    on a side note, what does "beta male" actually constitute? I've seen that thrown around a lot too but have never really understood what exactly it meant.
     
    Last edited: Oct 19, 2020
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  2. apricotsoda

    apricotsoda Shy Shy Shy

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    harem novels are rated bad because sometimes there are no female character build up and they always end up liking the main character in one look, fake harem where the male only chose one at the end, or people just hate harem.
     
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  3. XIII

    XIII Well-Known Member

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    well, i think some find the harem of the mc "too many", or some with those mcs that picks up women on the streets with no proper back story or such. in my personal opinion though, a harem novel which i would rate badly would be those harems where the mc totally forgets aobout them and only comes back on the ending with no relevance to the journey of the mc.

    i only found a few harem novels that i find really good , where the harem is actually relevant to the story and is there throughout the novel helping the mc.
     
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  4. Toralk

    Toralk Certified Grouch

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    When talking about webnovels "beta male" usually refers to a MC (generally a Japanese MC) that ends up surrounded by beautiful girls that are clearly interested in him, but the cowardly piece of **** can't accept their feelings and only treats them as friends. As to why people keep rating bombing harem novels, I think the problem isn't that it's a bad genera, it's that it's one that's very hard to do well.
     
  5. peanutbutter_J

    peanutbutter_J Well-Known Member

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    same as why your mom see that you picking up rocks and pebbles to home is useless unless you bring some precious gem.
     
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  6. Suijin

    Suijin Blood God [Medic]

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    because all harem novels are written like shit.
    most harem tags don't even have a harem. just an entourage of girls who like the MC for no actual reason.
    some harem tags end up as one girl only. because the author is an idiot.
    and the rest is just crap plot in general
     
  7. yorozuyaginchan

    yorozuyaginchan Well-Known Member

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    80-90% harems are created with the females not having any personality. Most of them are either cold beauties who fall in love with the MC's strength even though they are stronger when they first meet. The others are damsel in distress types. Another gripe is that once they become part of the harem, they tend to be forgotten after a while and become side characters.
     
    Last edited: Oct 19, 2020
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  8. Nimroth

    Nimroth Someone

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    It depends on what role the harem aspect actually serves in the plot though, if it is the central part of the plot and can't reasonably be removed from it then yes it is counter-productive to criticise the story for simply being a harem instead of focusing on the execution of it.
    But for some stories the harem is just something that is tacked on and might detract from the main plot, in those cases criticising the story for even having a harem at all can be a legitimate point.
    That said, a lot of people are probably just so tired of badly done harems that they won't even bother making that distinction.
     
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  9. kingicez

    kingicez Active Member

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    I honestly believe harems ruin novels. Majority of those I have read have with just so it's there. It's freaking annoying how many novels have harems. These novels are already full of the stupid ass 'slender legs' bs, I don't want to sit through more dumbass crap. I don't rate novels for having harem, btw.
     
  10. Bastil

    Bastil Well-Known Member

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    Harems in and of themselves don't neccessarily ruin novels, though they're definitely a red flag that the author could be relying on there being multiple different 'archetypes' of girls to appeal to the audience, rather than making any single character an actual character.

    It also means that, almost by neccessity, either a significant amount of time is spent on romance and interpersonal relations beyond the superficial -- Which again, requires skill and attention few webnovel authors seem to have... Or there is too little time spent on that, which makes it shallow and unsatisfying.

    Writing a good harem is difficult and time-consuming, and few novels take the time needed to establish one. And adding a harem to a story without properly establishing it and the characters within it, is a sign of a new or poor author, which tends to lead to a poor story, and any romantic elements will usually be shallow at best -- At which point its better to minimize them, which is the opposite of what a harem does.

    So tl;dr: Harems are a red flag for poor and/or gratuitous writing. There are notable exceptions, but they are just that; Exceptions.
     
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  11. pastlover

    pastlover Well-Known Member

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    In my opinion, harems are a no go for me especially in progressive fantasy genre because the "heroines" are all just a bunch of jade skin princess or a beggar with godly potential. they just tend to be forgotten in the process and then a few chapter are for them just to power them up.
     
  12. Fluffums

    Fluffums 【R-18 Researcher】【Seeker of Moe】

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    To answer the real questions asked:
    Sometimes novels lack tags for whatever reason (the author didn't tag it because he wasn't planning on a harem, whoever put it up here forgot to add it, or some troll took it off) and after the review, the tag was added. Sometimes (often) people don't really look at the tags if the title and/or description sound interesting enough. Sometimes people hate a tag enough that they try to assassinate every story with the tag in the rankings by giving it a 1*. Sometimes, just sometimes, a story has so much potential that you want to love it, until the harem forms and is so poorly done that you have no choice but to say "harem" is why it's bad. It's usually just one of these reasons, and most tags can be targeted the same way.

    In short, "beta male" is a straight man surrounded by attractive women who doesn't have sex with them.

    I'm pretty sure it comes down to studies of wolf packs originally. Alphas are the ones that lead the pack and the only ones that breed, omegas are the ones that are at the bottom of the hierarchy completely, and betas are the ones in between. Then public speakers and self-help authors latched on to that and compared it to human society and taught men to be alpha (though in wolf packs females have the same kind of hierarchy). At first it was more for business, but then pickup artists started using the terms and made "beta male" more common as well. Because only alphas have sex, men who avoid having sex when they can (like many harem protagonists) are beta males. Sometimes a protagonist will be called omega when he's pushed around more than usual.

    Whether any of the terms are accurate or not, I'm pretty sure that's where it comes from.
     
  13. asriu

    asriu fu~ fu~ fu~

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    yeah some people just rate low cuz it have certain tag such as NTR (incoming cry), thats it~

    beta, used to condemn or mocking character that seeing as weakling or coward which usually associated with sex or relationship or personality~
    they praise alpha, mocking beta while run away if ever see omega cuz omega also associated with bl aka yaoi aka malexmale romance~
    19637.png

    maybe seeing boku no pico can give shock therapy~
     
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  14. ToastedRossi

    ToastedRossi Well-Known Member

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    The first takeaway is that you shouldn't pay much attention to the criticism on NU. A lot of it isn't very good so there's not much to read into it. I feel that a lot of the criticism against harem novels comes from how many bad ones people read and them applying this to yet another book. Admittedly it can be quite fair to complain about a harem that's particularly bad. I don't think I'd ever do it myself because a bad harem is almost never the cause of the problem - the books that have them tend to have horrible characterization to begin with so there are a lot of other fundamental things to criticize.

    I always ignore any mentions of "beta male" because it's bad criticism.
     
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  15. Wizley

    Wizley Active Member

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    For me whenever I read something with harem in which (which is rare) the people in the harems are written poorly to the point it made me displeased. This would happen so many times that now I instinctively think anything with harem in it will turn out bad. Of course this is only based on what I read, so I don't know if there are any good harems storylines out there. Not to mention I just don't like the concepts of harems in general as sometimes it drags a good storyline down.
     
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  16. HankyPanky2.0

    HankyPanky2.0 Member

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    Some people just really hate harem. I'm not a fan, but it is done pretty poorly in a lot of novels, which may explain why all harem is looked down upon.
     
  17. shennann

    shennann Member

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    Nothing against harem, it's the plot. A horrible quality plot ruins a good novel.
     
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  18. lunarshadow

    lunarshadow Well-Known Member

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    A vast majority of the novels tagged harem are just poorly written wish-fulfillment novels where the female characters tend to be walking cliches at best and just completely unbelievable as a person at worst. Add to the fact that the female characters typically have no agency or literally vanish after a short time (or the author even forgets about them)

    And then there's the harem novels where you the MC is blander than vanilla and all of these girls just fall for him for NO reason. Just makes you shake your head. So yeah I can understand why a lot of people just rate harems low as knee-jerk reactions.
     
  19. Daresan

    Daresan Well-Known CN Master

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    Well dont know why people are talking about beta males? Do beta males only have harem novel? Op should have said JP Novel or CN novel cause both have harem but one actually is doormat and always gets cuckblocked or too pussy to make a move on while other is super alpha fucks every women possible, left , right and center.

    I dont know what kind of weird fetishism author has to write this kind of weird fantasy. To write a story one must imagine and procrastinate very hard so either like re zero you dont give any flying fucks about the MC or you imagine yourself as MC AKA wishfulfillment and these harem novels my friend are solely wishfulfillment novels so cant relate to author at all like a normal man who cannot relate to a sociopath. So, Don't like the harem genre cause mostly it is really bad.

    But i did enjoy a harem novel called City of sin mostly because MC is hotblooded guy and harem is natural. Very well Written from child to a mature guy.
     
  20. ToastedRossi

    ToastedRossi Well-Known Member

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    While I do empathize somewhat with people who have only experienced bad harem novels, I don't think that this actually argument makes any sense. "All the isekai novels I've read have been bad therefore all isekai novels are bad" isn't an argument - literature just doesn't work that way.
     
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