Question Anyone got annoyed a romance ruined a good story?

I mean for example a cool fantasy action story , have good dude as mc decent guy with decent personality, the flow of story is enjoyable to read and then suddenly become romance with a mary sue girl/a "im ugly but actually pretty" girl/ a childhood friend/ etc.

Idk i got pissed the good story got ruined because of romance.

 

Not specifically romance, but a harem. Seen it happen WAY too many times.

 

Yup, there are stories where I think the romance element wasn't done properly and brought down the story. Though to be honest there are a lot of things that can bring down a story for me. Too many plot holes, trying to hard to be funny, MC that's too op, annoying characters and bad pacing in the story.

 

Ugh idk why they always make harem

 

Yes, especially at the novel "My Wife is a Beautiful CEO".

This novel is awesome, because of the plot, mystery and action, but the romance part ruined it for me. The MC has a harem with girls, that always needs to be rescued.
Also, the romance part in itself is very annoying.

 

I never like harem/romance anyway but this is one big reason

 

yes.

it is soooo hard to find good female protag stories that arent damaged in some way by the inclusion of "romance" with an overbearing wanktard. That goes for translated fiction as well as published western fiction. Ooh boy, so many published novels out there that sounds so awesome but have "romance with wanktard" shoehorned in as major plot elements.

At least, more novels are slowly starting to appear (very very slowly) that ditch the wanktard for a second awesome FL (and some of which actually are GL)

 

yes. most cultivation stories have very badly written romance smack in the middle for no reason but padding.
harem always turns a good action/adventure story into a comedic farce and all the focus goes from the plot to the MC's incredibly low EQ or his d*ck (depending on if it's Japanese or Chinese).
of course I have problems with most romance stories as well, given the female MC usually loses all mental strength and most of her independence, her IQ drops by at least half, and she becomes a helpless child in the hands of the ML.

 

I watched a vampire slayer movie or something and when they are about to go to the last boss they kissed for few minutes. Do they really have time for that since their friend is about to be sacrificed.

 

There's fantasy novels and THEN there is romance novels.

Even though 99.99% of fiction have some sort of romance elements (cause humanity is just too cringy asf)... I'm just tired of reading two animals hoping around for tens or even hundreds of chapters just to mate, the over hype and mc's personality changes make it even more despising.

 

That's why you read novels without it, authors can't fuck up the romance if there is no romance...

Though personally I still kinda want romance in the back of my mind, it's like a guilty pleasure.

Even with a novel like Reverend Insanity I was constantly thinking MC should pick up a girl, even though in all honesty it would be a terrible idea.

So it's not really that I don't want it, it's just that it always turns out shit so I'd rather not have it in most of the novels.


Btw Little Tyrant's romance (harem even) isn't bad. Well first 80 chapters or so it got pretty annoying cause waifus bitch fighting, but after it got a lot better.

 

Sealed Divine thrones author, they suck with romance so much it ruined the novels for me.

 

Yup. Romance novels with romance are the worst! You have a perfectly good story with interesting characters and then it all gets ruined with a tone change and the story ends up completely revolving around the main relationship. It would all be fine if the characters were good but all too often they are junk (or at least the male love interest is).

I don't know why a romance would matter in other kinds of stories though.

 

In "My Wife is a Beautiful CEO" romance/harem comes before anything else though. Sure it is annoying but when it is the bigger part of the story, not liking it is like saying "I like to eat hamburger but without the patty or the onions or anything else in it, just the buns" in this case.

As for OP, sure, sometimes badly done romance may ruin stories but I prefer that over endless, mindless grind, I mean "action". It is better to read about bland girls with jade skins and big rabbits than the endless "ancestors" with dried ballsacks.

 

I disagree. What comes first is the mystery of the protagonist and the world (secret organizations, conspiracies etc.)
It is basically the foundation of the story.

Sure, the title of the novel is self explanatory and the "romance" between the CEO wife and the protagonist are a considerable part of the story.
I didn't say I don't like romance/harems per se. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed a couple hundred chapters of this novel, but what I disliked was, how the author handled the "romance" between ML and FL later (the devolopment) and how the harem members ended up mostly as damsels in distress.
It was tiring to see one harem member rescued and 1 chapter later another harem member was abducted or threatend etc.

I really really liked the story and I wanted to know more about Yang Chen. I wanted to see how the story unfolds, but I got one harem member rescue "filler" mission after another. Yes, you are right at this point. These "fillers" imo, got out of hand later and took a huge part of the story, so I dropped this novel.

 

Hard to find novels with out it or novels i like

 

Well you've already read it iirc but Reverend Insanity is great ofc.

Other than that, first few novels that come to mind with 0 romance is Chronicles of Primordial Wars and Instant Kill.

Honorable mentions: First 1000 or something chapters of The Legendary Mechanic (and even afterwards 'romance' is a very minor sub-plot in the novel if anything, and it's not a detriment anyway), Warlock of the Magus World (can it really be called romance tbh?).

Also tempted to mention Way of the Devil as well but that one's just weird in all sorts of ways, and "romance" is a detriment to the novel if anything.

 

im not complaining bout romance stories with romance. Its when novels would otherwise be very good and complete without any romance but the romance is shoved in as a (of varying quality) side plot point that ends up taking over from the established main plot and thus ruining the experience.

Of course, your post reeks of sarcasm so, this being the internet, i cant tell if you're serious or just being sarcastic.

 

I'm being entirely serious, and I'm willing to back up my opinions with examples:

The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage
This is a novel in three parts where the romance plays a bigger and bigger role in each subsequent part. And the story gets weaker in each subsequent part as well, mostly because it's dragged down by the romantic relationship. The first part could have absolutely been the start of a really good book, and if this wasn't a Romance novel that may have been possible. To be fair, the romantic relationship in this book isn't entirely awful (even though the male lead is about as interesting as cardboard) but it hurts the story a lot.

Transmigrator Meets Reincarnator
This book is the same as the earlier one as a story in three parts, getting worse and worse as the husband gets a larger role in the story. Now, the story is more interested in shenanigans and food porn than it is about plot or characterization, but that's what makes it good! The writer starts to lean on the male lead more later on, and tries to put some plot in the story. It doesn't fit with the book and the ending is pretty awful as a result.

The Legend of Chu Qiao
This is a book that I found really promising. Three quarters into the story, it was still quite good, but then it all falls apart because of awfulness of the male love interest and how this affects the themes of the story. It's all gross and horrible and it's all because of the romance stuff.

Not only could all three of these books have been written as non-Romance novels, they would have all been vastly had that been the case. The Romance parts are the worst sections of these stories and I'd like them a lot more if they had been absent. And I like romance in general! The thing though is that this kind of Romance novel just doesn't go a good job of delivering the kind of romance I like and I think it's terrible to read.

 

In that case, i totally agree with you in general and on the first two examples (i havent read the third one). Malicious Empress, especially, because in the first third she doesnt rely on the ML practically at all for her revenge so you really feel it more.

I see you have Eight Treasures Trousseau on your future list. I would definitely recommend it as a top tier level of this type of novel. The romance is passable, not overshadowing the plot and the ML really has to work hard to truly gain F!Protag's heart as opposed to the usual style of ML who uses dub-con brainwashing to eventually get their way. It's real quality, and the focus of most of the story, is the court and palace intrigue as well as the cast of characters