Discussion Let's talk Harem novels for all the lovers and haters out there.

Personally I like harem (polygamy) novels because I catch feelings way too easily so if for example the 'chosen' girl of the mc is not my chosen girl, then I'd be super depressed since it's get to me way more than it should especially after INVESTING so much time ONLY for things not to go my way.

Endings overall depress me (anime, manga, novels) It just brings tears to the soul and a feeling of emptiness. Sad part is a bad ending makes you question why you didn't stop before seeing the signs, and a good ending has you congratulating your fav characters yet the fact that the great series is over doesn't change. The latter is usually preferable but they are both painful.

That's why I prefer harem novels.


The critics can say What they like but personally I don't like reading love interests that get discarded after I get to like them and that happens almost 100% of the time in novels since the authors can't exactly write a novel with a single female character right?

Though I'm not saying harem novels are perfect just my taste, everything is fine from a fresh perspective. It's like the old saying goes "Too much of anything isn't good for you" Hero complex mcs and all the common tropes tick me off sometimes so I take breaks before moving to a similar novel.

Though I'm cool with no romance novels. I read fully knowing that the female characters are passersby.

 

Issue is, harem is "haram" if not done right, and too rarely is it well-done. I have no bone to pick with harem lovers tho, since it's just a matter of having differing tastes.

And while it's not my usual cup of tea, I do admit it can become an appetizing morsel when the plot is porn.

 

I'm with you man. Either give me one love interest the entire time or harem ending. Seeing the discarded character makes me too sad. Or maybe just phase out the losing character over time. Stop toying with my feelings author! I'm looking at you ISSTH

 

Personally, my preferred love interest tend to be so weird that they'll never get chosen. i.e. the childhood friend. Hence why I prefer the harem route because it'd be a longshot otherwise.

 

Yes. why go to the effort of building up multiple characters as love interests if you just gonna end up dumping all but 1 (and sometimes dumping all of them for a 'non-ending' ending.)

One of my really big gripes is when an author builds up a harem but only focuses on the loli characters that shouldnt even be in the harem (looking at you death march). It always end up giving off a feeling of "author, your loli fetish is showing".

 

If characters are well written enough for you to care if they are together in the end then it absolutely sucks to see them discarded without their own happy endings. Be it some love triangle or full blown harem, the author choosing to leave a character miserable who didn't do anything particularly wrong is annoying. Let the unloved character fall in love with someone else or whatever.

 

I agree but sometimes the girls in the harem are equivelent to pokemon and the mc is literally just trying to catch em all witch is annoying af

 

I have to say I like harem and also dislike harem. it's my personal opinion here lol
let me elaborate, in a harem novel to be enjoyable for me the most important factor is the MC has to be someone I can actually see have the charm to have a harem, the harem members gotta have character development. there must be a reason why harem members managed to be able to be in a harem too and not kill each other.
the only times i don't care for it is when it's hentai/porn whatever, didn't come here to watch character development here
edit: it applies to all types of romance bg/gg/bb

 

Depends on the story

 

Authors could also just write female characters who don't have a romantic relationship with the MC. Nothing wrong if authors wants to write MC in a relationship with multiple women, but if its a fair relationship the women should be able to have multiple partners as well.

Not really healthy to view certain people as only valuable insofar as they can be in a romantic relationship with you, if you respect a person as a person, you respect they have their own goals and interests and want them to be in a good relationship with whoever, not just as an object to collect.

 

Most people don't hate the harem genre itself. It is the terrible writing and cliches connected to the genre that we could expect from the story after seeing the harem genre. For example the one dimensional female leads, the simp MC, the double standards, the one dimensional antagonist interested in the female leads and a lot more. Seeing the genre is like seeing a red flag, just by seeing the genre you know the story is going to be bad. Most people I know including myself didn't hate harems when we started it was after reading several harem stories. It is sort of like the isekai tag.

This can only be blamed by the terrible authors. Finding a harem that played a vital rol in the story and was done well is close to impossible. Reason why many run from it when they see it. For me I only read a harem novel when it plays in the background and doesn't take over the main story like the second comming of gluttony.

 

mostly for da lul
harem be it used as romance or drama or bait or whatever~
imo it just as bad as using romance on story~ this cat just ignore such aspect cuz most of time not important~ exist for sake it have such element, it kinda bland or overuse~
btw it kinda rare harem member on each throat ya know? it kinda weird more so if it on ancient setting with nobles here and there and politic around~ main wife is big deal~
reverse harem hmm usually more direct stealing mc attention.... maybe~

 

It's theoretically possible to write good female characters without romantic attachments, but these books are rare and don't tend to get translated. My ideal book right now is one with a female protagonist who gets to do cool things throughout the story. It's no good if she gets sidelined in her own book just so that the (usually boring) male love interest gets to show off. It's not much of a request, but it's surprising how rare it is to see it done properly in Romance novels. Outside of Romance novels it's rare to see female protagonists in the first place, so I have to look further afield; harem novels being one of these refuges. It's still not ideal as only a few harem novels have good female characters.

I think that the problem is that some readers conflate the two ideas together. They very much do blame the harem aspects for making the writing terrible when it's actually the symptom rather than the cause. In particular, "Seeing the genre is like seeing a red flag, just by seeing the genre you know the story is going to be bad" is just outright wrong. Think of it this way: the vast majority of isekai novels out there have terrible writing that can't even get the basics right. However we shouldn't dismiss them out of hand; we should still judge them on their individual merits. In comparison harem novels have a much better track record so shouldn't we give them the benefit of the doubt?

I have a lot more sympathy for the readers who are just opposed to harems out of general principle; they're no different from those who can't stand NTR or BL. Their distaste for this subgenre has nothing to do with the quality of the writing or story so their reasoning makes a lot more sense.

 

Usually the writer's incompetence

 

Indeed, the more I look at how people judge media, at least in those circles, the more I think that objective quality/(if it actually exists, I feel like often times is a rhetorical tool or a rationalization of one's biases and preferences) is a more trivial factor behind how people judge stories, when people read something they don't like they are far more likely to jump at genre and cliches they personally like and tolerate less, while tolerating cliches they like even if non ideal to them far more.

To be honest, I feel like a lot of people that dislike a given genre are quick to rationalize their dislike as said said genre being "objectively" bad or like he said a "red flag" than to actually say they just dislike the genre.

 

I don't get this argument, why should anything be fair? The author is building a completely arbitrary setting with completely arbitrary societal and moral attitudes or creating characters that could have attitudes that would be rare in our world, given this why should anyone abide by a principle of "fairness" of any kind?

This is like saying that if MC wants to kill then the author is obligated to have other people kill MC's people too, it seems a non sequitur to me.
Never mind the fact that our own world is driven by hypocrisy and contradictions of many kinds.

 

Did you mean Douluo dalu? I personally have a bone to pick with them but also with similar novels, why the Hell would you introduce the love interest first where it's so obvious everyone and their grandmother knows she's the main heroine yet still add some extra female characters to pursue the mc just so he can discard them and prove his loyalty.
There's also the issue of a single romantic interest in a long novel, my most recent peeve is Dragon Prince yuan that copies the trope. With only one love interest, they are forced to use the 'separation to rescue trope' where the female lead is captured, poisoned, dead (seen this one) and the mc has to wander the world to fix them.

 

What is haram?

My favorite Jin Yong novel : Duke of Mount Deer is harem
But it is a satire.

I don't think harem works in a serious story. It will be highly dependent on setting eg a king's harem(@userunfriendly , I forgot correct phrase)

I don't watch such dramas since it is depressing with royal concubines dying like flies

 

I'm mostly talking about people who find polygamous relationships distasteful to begin. Most of these are female readers who feel that the characters in the story are being degraded, but male readers can feel the same way as well!

Slight correction: "the Deer and the Cauldron" is a comedy but it's not really a satire. It is possible for a serious novel to have a harem but it's not easy to write and the writer has to take a lot of care in doing so. Most fail miserably.

 

Same for once, I'd like to read a novel where I couldn't say for sure, yea the maincast will never die, he seems dead but I don't see a body so we'll see him her later with a massive powerup

Personally

This hits home for me , I hate the loli genre well hate is a strong word. I just try to avoid as much as possible. Even if you are a thousand years old if you look 8 then that's a no for me. Not that I don't understand the genre since I like its opposite a lot so I click on novels with Older Love Interests. I try not to judge since we all have our tastes similar to how I steer cleer of yaoi novels %100