Question Poll: Harem or No harem?

controversial question. but no offense, i just dislike any harem of sorts. there's never a harem novel where the female characters are ever fleshed out as apparently every female the protagonist meets would have iq, self-esteem and dignity to 0 and if they don't they're probably someone old or a widow. it's also really hard to take harem novels seriously, and i only read it when i want to have a laugh

people like that can probably read douluo dalu 1 and say that master is a good person. but yeah, the self-entitlement is crazy, even as a male it's kinda hard to fathom where they get all those ego from... probably haven't been beaten by society yet?? and for the argument that harem adds substance to the story,,, ha ha. imagine being the girl and then the male protagonist says he loves you and then you're very happy but a week later he again loves another woman deeply but you endure after all he still treats you the same but time goes on and the number of women on his side gets more and more... i don't know what love can endure that much but it's probably not respectable love and definitely not a true one.

i didn't expect that i would be in a situation where'd i have to go for ad hominem in a debate but this argument is really fucking brainless istg. our genes probably noticed that we have a problem with overpopulation so they made a lot of people less intelligent so they'd die by virtue of natural selection and all those who have high intelligence can reproduce by themselves and continue to evolve unfortunately the stupid people were shielded by society. honestly you can go back to the imperial era and spout this nonsense and you will be treated as someone with good vision and insights... and the fact you had the gall to say, 'but I'd imagine most dudes wouldn't want to see the girl they say they love getting rammed by a bunch of other guys I know' and you think women don't want to see their men banging a lot of other chicks they know? privilege and self-entitlement at its finest

 

I think it's entirely reasonable to find harem novels distasteful on general principle, but there some good ones out there. What these have in common is that the author tends to go out of his way to give complete characterizations to the female characters.

 

Some may say that harem is just fiction and there is no need to hate on the genre but even fiction more often than less needs an adequate amount of logic to continue its plot . If a novel has a major harem plot , the women that were described as strong and intelligent shows the author gave them a certain amount of power . And when the harem grows it sure as hell ain't going to be about the equal love that harem fans like propagating about . It's going to be about skewed power dynamics . Either the harem owner is gonna have favourites or he is going to treat all the women like corporate employees that need to have his attention on a daily basis defeating the purpose of the harem that was ' supposedly ' going to just increase love in the MC's life as he levels up with their help . Logic stocks drop to zero

 

don't care either way, but titles with no romance put me off often.
so if the MC keeps single till the end it'll lower my evaluation on it

 

go to the library and check out the history part.

btw those are non-fiction too!

also note that most harems novels do not take place in modern settings soooooooooo.

 

You should check your history too, or perhaps a dictionary.
I specified that they do not get along amicably.....

Those harem women you are referring to in history were:

• Often forced (either by the men, their families or abject poverty)
• Not there to get along with each other
• Often backstabbed each other constantly so that they could get the most benefits

 

well, polyandries custom on a certain mountain in asia still exist even now and there is no forced or backstab thing you mentioned above.
it depends on individual. i know some polygamy couples that get along well real life too

 

Yes they certainly do.
But I also specified the 'vast majority' originally.

 

Ultimately depends on the quality of the story itself I guess.

But from what I've experienced, it's a lot harder to execute a well-written harem because of all the additional characters that need to be developed, so I consider stories without harem to be better in general.

 

The thing I usually dislike about harems is that they're done with one-note characters and shallow relationships. Whether there is or is not a harem doesn't matter to me, I just want the characters and relationships involved to be interesting if there is one. I can't stand the waifu collection novels where all the harem members fawn over the lead for basically no reason.

Very rarely have I seen an author pull off a good harem, so I generally avoid them. I'll give a no harem vote.

 

That really depends on where and when we're talking about. Generally in places where polygamy was legal, it was considered normal, and the members in the harem would get along or not get along just as any other family members. In China for example, there were strict laws to reduce the amount of infighting. Obviously this doesn't always work, but it's not as if regular families always get along.

Yeah, one of the biggest problems is that harems are usually written by authors who don't have the skill to pull them off. Even writing a single female character well can be beyond the skill of an amateur writer so trying to tackle more than that is only going to lead to even worse results. That said, there are good writers who write harem novels; ones who manage to create compelling characters and interesting relationships. Separating them from the chaff can be hard though.

 

No harem. I read one (1) harem novel a while back and it was so atrocious that it scarred me from reading any more harem novels. As soon as I see the harem tag, I immediately blacklist it.

I just feel like harems (esp with those personality-of-a-brick OP MCs) are more on the collection side of things rather than actual well-rounded romance between multiple pairings. Like I don’t wanna know how this (supposedly) independent and strong woman was “conquered” by the MC with ~love and servitude~. All I ask for is a female character who exists beyond her relationship with the MC. Literally not that hard lol.

And THAT is why I avoid the harem tag like the plague.

 

No harem, I'm use to it

 

I’m personally fine with harem if the story is good . If the plot is good I don’t mind there being a harem in there . I’ll usually just try to ignore the harem ever exits tbh . But some stories with harem I cannot stand . It honestly depends on the story for me . I don’t dislike harem nor do i like harem . I can ignore it but I most of the time I like it out of my stories but I don’t mind it being there . But some of the Cultivation CN with really bad harem I cannot stand to read . If the harem is really bad sometimes and I can’t ignore it I’ll just drop it . But I won’t judge people if they like it or not .