Discussion Your opinion on harem as a genre

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by Drevart, Dec 3, 2022.

  1. Drevart

    Drevart [Eternal illusion][Tea lover][MC RLOAT]

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    So, lately I've been reading some fanfics on WebNovel (actually found some very good ones) and caught myself on this thought and wanting to discuss it. And since Webnovel forums are kinda... meh I decided to try to post it here.

    The story oes like this. For the past couple of mnths I've been reading some fanfics and since I'm a huge fan of romance in novels with male MC, I, of course went to look at what's out there. And while finding some really good novels with harem I still found next to none novels with no harems. (those are fanfics so I don't really generalize but even among originals there is a LOT of this trope). So I began wondering why it is like that?

    I, myself, don't really understand harems as a concept. I don't understand what's so attractive in this trope. And the genre is popular, I know that since most top popular novels have harems in them. I understand that most fanfics or novels are basically a wish-fulfillment of some sort but I just can't understand what's so attractive in harems that they are so popular to read? Like there are great non harem novels (jsut look at I Shall Seal The Heavens, Angel next door, Renegade Immortal, Date this Super Cute me, Eldritch Creature's Guide etc.) but still, he novels with harem always dominate the rankings with quantity.

    So what's your take on this ganre and how do you feel about it?
     
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  2. Lenux

    Lenux Well-Known Member

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    Well, in my view, harem is popular for the same reason isekai or other wish fullfillment tropes are, in a target audience that is mostly composed of teen boys, the ideia of multiple women as their girlfriend is gonna be very popular. Tho recently i've seem more and more people asking for a novel not to have harem.

    As for my personal opnion, I dont really like how its currently portrayed, like, all the girls just love the mc so much that they dont have a personality beyond tropes, dont have a life beyond the protagonist, no will for anything if it doesnt revolve around the protagonist, and all that. It's just an excuse for making a lot of bad characters at this point, and while i do think it could be written well, i just never really found a good harem novel.

    Sorry for rambling.
     
  3. Zeusomega

    Zeusomega M.D of Olympus Pvt Ltd. Seeking [Boltzmann brain]

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    I wouldn't put harem as genre.

    It's a trope, an aspect inside a bigger genre. Honestly I wouldn't say I have anything against it, it's just the novels which do have harem tend to be overly exaggerated wish fulfilment with little to no qualms about plot holes. Oh and the comedy.... Don't get me started on that.


    It's just cringe, most of times mc acts weird and everyone is in awe of his intelligence. Guy farts and the enemy runs away? He's so smart omg I never met a man like him, maybe I should let him under my skirts....


    So yeah I hate what comes with the harem package, but not the harem itself.
     
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2022
  4. Harry

    Harry Now you see me

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    MC with multiple love interest, you can see there is one or 2 heroine that caught your eyes and you think this heroine is the one suitable for MC... But you're only around 20% true (if the heroine you think the best for MC was chosen, let say 1 from 5 option), its actually delusion to milk your attention and money, in the end it just a fake harem where MC already paired with tsundere red haired heroine, long before the author introduces the other heroine. After that you will feel sad and to lighten your sadness, you fall into more harem anime/comic/novel and the cycle continue...

    I myself like harem genre but sadly most harem novel/comic/anime i found is trash, full of wish fulfillment (transported/transmigrated or reincarnated with cheat and bring deus ex machina), also most of them are fake (you got either open ending or OTP ending, not harem ending)
     
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  5. Wowafay

    Wowafay Well-Known Member

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    I mosty read Harems cause its stupid fun.
     
  6. Aki9012

    Aki9012 Well-Known Member

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    Harems allows the insertion of different flavours of like, passion and love, the development of which is more variated and entertaining.
    But personally, my investment in a novel goes way down whenever this genre is there, simply because the the actual value of each relationship tends to go down as multiple people get involved. It also tends to come with patriarchal, self fellacing and sugar daddy-ish implications that can just make you cringe internally (while also making the mc more shallow seeming)... but when done well (which is hardly ever ngl), harems can make a story spicier and more fun, and so why the hell not ig.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2022
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  7. Belixfvl

    Belixfvl Member

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    I find harem in genres important because then it's easy to avoid those novels rather than going through the tags
     
  8. bethatcat

    bethatcat Well-Known Member

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    I will just never read unironic harem, not even reverse harems. Wish fulfillment of this type pisses me off icl, and for me it's lazy character writing. An average MC managing to trap all of these beautiful people? Every single one? Where's the sense? The logic? (I get that some people don't need this, and can enjoy a novel at face value, I love that for them, but I am not them) I get that the MC might have traits that makes them a good/cool/strong person, but then why is everyone they attract earth shatteringly handsom? I want to read a novel where the harem is full of average ppl, a few uglies and maybe 1 beautiful person in order to reflect the general population. Also, Why does it all have to be romantic? There's deep forms of relationships that are platonic, you know. And the fact that there always has to be a little sibling or a CHILD in the harem makes me want to die.

    I'll only read stories that have a harem if the point is to deconstruct the genre low-key . I've read a couple that were funny where the MC reincarnates into a harem novel as a supporting character or villain.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2022
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  9. chencking

    chencking [Daolord Grammar Nazi]

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    I'm probably going to get some flak for this, but I honestly do not think harem is well-defined as a genre. I have seen it used as loosely as multiple characters being interested in the MC over an entire series. Even if the characters move on or the MC has a clear significant other it still gets labeled as a harem under that definition. On the other hand, I have also seen it used as strictly as the MC needing to have multiple lovers. The genre "harem" is so wide that when someone tells me "xxx is a harem" or "I hate harems" it does not tell me much.



    As for me personally, I don't care for harems one way or the other. I am an aromantic. I do read romances but the romance doesn't mean much to me. With the exception of a few series that executed the characters' relationship really well, they could cut out all of the romantic elements (preserving the plot) and I would equally enjoy it. Instead, what I look for in novels is interesting worldbuilding and characterizations. If it can make me laugh; make me invested me in a character / the world; or keep me interested in some reveal / twist then I am happy.

    However, because character development needs interaction with a wider cast, a decent amount of the novels I like turn into harems. It can be a welcome surprise when the author makes the world organic by romantically developing side-characters, but it neither increases or decreases my enjoyment when it turns into a harem. The harem is just incidental to what (dis)interests me.
     
  10. Drevart

    Drevart [Eternal illusion][Tea lover][MC RLOAT]

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    Oh just to clarify, I meant haerm as an actual harem during the course of the novel, multiple women being in a relationship with the mc at the same time. I can understand when multiple FLs can be interested in the MC and that's not a harem untile the relatuonship between multiple FLs and MC forms. (meh, kinda messed up the explanation, but...)

    Ok, so I messed up my reply... noice.
    Tbh didn't expect this to open such a can of worms.
    No worries about rambling the whole post appeared because I wanted to ramble and had free time :)

    Yeah, I don't have anything against a good story which uses harem trope, but sadly it just feels weird when I read most of them. Btw, you can try out A Nascent Kaleidoscope, quite a good rerad at least to my tastes.
    But if there is no good filtering system like on Nu, for example, you get a ton of harem tag/genre while searching for romance.
     
  11. Cutting_bamboo

    Cutting_bamboo [Cold snow during spring] [Big Boss]

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    Well, it seems to be quite popular. But not my cup of drink. Once I see that tag, I close the tab.
     
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  12. cudi01

    cudi01 Member

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    i don't vibe with it at all for several reasons but my main problem with it is that it is very very cringy
     
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  13. ToastedRossi

    ToastedRossi Well-Known Member

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    Genres get mislabeled on NU all the time, and this is one of the prime examples. Not so much Harem; even though I don't think of it as an actual genre, it's distinctive and popular enough that I don't think that it's unfair to call it one. No, the problem is that in the vast majority of cases, Romance and Harem should be mutually exclusive. Unless the entire story revolves around a central romance, then it shouldn't be called a Romance novel, and it's very rare for a Harem novel to work like that.

    As for the appeal of these books, you need to think of Harem novels as two separate categories: the ones that follow the Chinese tradition and the ones that are based on anime and manga. The latter is perhaps the more familiar of the two, and it's main (or only) is cute girls. If you don't find the girls in the story cute, or if cute girls don't do much for you, then these books will feel awful. These books usually aren't very good so it's not unnatural to dislike them.

    Chinese-style Harem novels are a very different beast. They are mostly historical novels with settings dating back to when harems were commonplace. While there is a bit of cute girl syndrome going on in these books, these books can have very strong characterization. I'm always on the lookout for good female characters, and these stories are surprisingly one of the best places to find them. Unfortunately, the better books that do this don't seem to get translated.
     
  14. kaloo

    kaloo Well-Known Member

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    I've mentioned this a few times, but a healthy established relationship is boring for a story. You do the harem (or reverse harem) so you can do the exciting courtship phase more than once. You can always fight another monster and save another damsel.

    And it's not what you're talking about, but I really like back court drama. The scheming of the many wives I find very satisfying. Concubines trying to sabotage each other and all that.
     
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  15. bethatcat

    bethatcat Well-Known Member

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    To YOU!! Damn have u ever read a good action scene bruh
     
  16. aShinyVaporeon

    aShinyVaporeon Well-Known Member

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    Harems provide conflict. Not only does the main character have to decide between whether they like A or B, like in a love triangle, they have C, D, and E to choose from as well. And all of the love interests can now conflict with each other to make character interactions. And the author can fulfill the reader's dreams of being desired by a bunch of themselves-desirable love interests.

    Granted, this means they have to be written enough like characters and not cardboard cutouts that have a vague lust for the MC. And they have to have somewhat believable reasons for liking the MC, because the generic nice guy with a million love interests just crushes my immersion to sand.
    The problem with a lot of harem novels is that they really go big on the wish fulfillment and sacrifice all the other parts of the story, so the story ends up being kind of terrible.

    I think Harem as it's defined as a genre on NU and Harem in the sense of NU's Imperial Harem tag shouldn't be compared. One is just a type of setting (like historical or fantasy), the other is a more of a romance (is harem romance? it is romance-related, ig?) trope.
     
  17. kaloo

    kaloo Well-Known Member

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    What narrative arc can you get from an established healthy relationship?
     
  18. asriu

    asriu fu~ fu~ fu~

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    damn straight!

    yeah a spice for thing sure~
    on general nothing much about it, a sub genre perhaps?
    personally this cat think nothing much about it~ it can be eye candy, thing to spice thing up, source of conflict, a pokemon medal~
     
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  19. Not Orris

    Not Orris Active Member

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    My take on the genre as a whole? It is not very good.

    In regards to why the genre may seem appealing, compare a harem novel to entering an ice cream shop. There exists a medley of flavors to try out. Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, mint... the list goes on. It will be fun to taste test every flavor before fully committing to one.
    At some point, you realize that the caramel flavor ice cream tastes similar to the chocolate flavor that you've tasted twelve ice cream samples ago, but you do not remember too well what chocolate's flavor profile was. You then sample again the chocolate, frown, sample the coffee, frown harder, then the coconut and mint chocolate chip before realizing that the entire shop was a sham— the shop had only actually sold two flavors, just mixed in different proportions and painted in different colors.

    In the six hundred forty-five chapters that you have just read, the author stretched each harem member's character and development far too thin, and the problem is only exacerbated by the fact that the author literally constructed every love interest from the same mold and was only creative in terms of hair color and names. But there is nothing to worry about, for the author next door, a far more enlightened writer, mastered the art of writing characters with different eye colors.
     
  20. sakyuya

    sakyuya 【Villain】【Very tired and wants to retire】

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    I'm alright with harem, but I'm not alright with Polygamy or Polyandry. :blobpats:
     
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