Discussion Limitations or Harem novel's, the theoretical Perfect One.

Once the four nations of harem were in conflict: Chinese it's a numbers game and fml are usually dead weight high probability of some being annoying, Korean and Japanese: dense mcs with the innocence of 10 year olds or 5 year old modern day child and Fan fiction: you'd think as readers themselves they'd know what not to do but nope they just mimic idiots.

Only the true harem novel can stop this. One day I believe It will appear. A harem novel without an idiot mc, with great love interests. And a good plot where the harem doesn't take away or drive the plot.

(There are limitations for every novel, for harem it depends on the numbers there's only.So many chapters you can give to love interests for character development. Or exposure. Of course theoretically it's possible in 1-5 chapters and a paragraph here and there afterwards which would allow a large harem that us well.done and wouldn't be borderline filler which most authors don't do I imagine since they see it as a waste But that takes mad skills but I Believe one day our savior will appear fellow harem fans, if SIU created Tower of God and Oda created One piece and Kishimoto created naruto (still can't tell how the SOBs created such immersive world's like they programmed an entire game and converted it to manga) the our savior will appear soon. Hopefully I'm still alive when he or she does.)

What other traits do you guys think Tue true harem novel should possess? Harem novels have a bad rep due to idiot authors and simp mcs but our savior will appear to save them all and show them how it's done.

 

The following are the keys to making a good harem novel:

1. The author must like writing female characters. This may seem obvious, but there are a ton of writers who don't qualify, and some of these write harem novels.

2. The members of the harem have to be complete characters. They need to have full personalities and interests and motivations beyond just being a member of the harem. This is where the vast majority of harem novels fall apart: characters in the harem have no substance so they're not worth reading.

3. The interactions between the harem members and the protagonists have to be one of the highlights of the novel. If this isn't good then what's the point in putting a harem in the novel to begin with?

4. The harem members should always be involved in the story in some way. In certain kinds of books this isn't going to be easy so the author has to be willing to put some effort into achieving this.

If you're used to reading only trash harem, this might seem completely impossible but books that do this already exist. Hell, they might have even been perfected. In particular, Yue Guan is the best author writing books like this. The relationships in his harem novels can be humorous, touching, intriguing, and always engaging. It's sort of amazing the things that can be pulled off when a writer like this is willing to put the effort into good characters.

 

By not wanting it to “drive the plot” I assume you are referring to cultivation/Isekai novels with harems involved and not a series that’s literally a harem novel that’s 100% about the harem. It also sounds like we're talking about larger harems, not ones with exactly 2 women and the like. With that in mind:

I think both OP and Toasted are missing a larger issue: The negative qualities you’re referencing are generally a direct result of the author needing to warp the characters/story to maintain the harem state in the first place.

> If MC isn’t spineless/painfully oblivious.. then why wouldn’t they decide which if any relationship to pursue and reject the rest? It’s common for JP MCs to have one FL they really get along the best with but it stays harem because they lack the wherewithal to put their foot down. If they had a spine the harem probably wouldn't have formed in the first place! This generally isn’t an issue with CN Cultivation MCs because they’re usually.. well, cheating bastards tbh.
> If the ladies had complete personalities, the likelihood of that personality jiving with sharing their beloved with a ton of other women is excessively low. When you take into account most harems (especially JP ones) have wildly diverse characters involved the chance of most of them making sense is basically nill. This is particularly true in action/adventure/etc genres as the characters are generally designed to fit the plot first, and are just pulled into the harem later by the relationship black hole that is the MC. If the character is too well-designed their agreement to be harem member #8 can feel more than a little brainwash-y.
> The ladies being wildly diverse characters is, itself, something that doesn’t make much sense. People have preferences – even if the MC was the sort of guy that would actively build a harem they’d generally end up gathering similar women. The MC being spineless “resolves” this issue, and CN MCs tend to be ruled by their third leg (Or -sigh- aphro).

If the author really wants a harem without warping the personalities of the characters involved the most effective means is likely to have the ladies be connected in some way. For example, in "Monster no Goshujin-sama" most of the MC’s harem has a mental/spiritual link that allows them to directly share each other’s happiness and love for the MC. Since he’s practically dating a hive mind, albeit one with very distinct sub-personalities, him being firmly with all of them makes sense. MnGs has other issues but it’s a believable harem and the monster gals can get character development without it impacting the harem state. Another option would be a MC that can be multiple places at once / can actually spend quality time with every harem member simultaneously, although there would likely still be some jealously there. Anyway, some kind of plot element that gives a valid reason for the harem to exist in the long-run (instead of just being multiple love interests with one eventually winning) instead of relying on the characters personalities being perfect for a harem.

Yeah, some authors just craft a bunch of well-designed female characters that have great development, fun interactions with the mc, and just… ignore the fact that them happily sharing one guy makes no sense at all for most/all of the women involved. If there is enough >stuff< going on plot-wise the MC might simply put off making a decision until the end of the series at which point the author can time-skip past the process of them actually becoming a family and just having a brief "and they all had babies the end. Close the curtains! QUICKLY!!!". Or just imply that they all stayed together after the plot. Either way, this avoids having to ever address the plot hole. I'm not particularly fond of that, myself.

 

Harem authors need to know that too much harem members isn't really pleasant and won't up their writing quality just because they add a new member every single time they get tired of describing the relationship of the mc with their most recent harem member.

2nd of all harem just prolly isn't for you if you aren't into the whole polygamy thing even if it's for a novel you read so don't read the book without expecting harem being harem.

 

Good harem novels already exist. At least, novels with good harems (being good or bad novels depends on taste). The only real requirement is spending enough time developing each character and relationship, which means the larger the harem the longer the novel needs to be. If there's more to the novel than "romance", then it needs to be even longer compared to the number of harem members.

Generally, in a "good" harem novel, the protagonist is going to be relatively trash, and the harem members are going to rely on the protagonist for reasons other than (or also including) love. For instance, a certain elf country's court mage basically deceives each harem member separately, finds her weak points, and hides the other girls from her, then when they find out about each other he deceives them some more and uses their weak points and their feelings for him to get them to reluctantly accept the harem. He actually does good things to help each harem member along the way, and feels guilt at times, and does his best to keep them happy because if they're not happy he will end up dead. The slice-of-life nature of the novel allows each character to get developed extremely well in many ways.

Also as an example, a certain ten-man leader in a crossbow corps made a promise to a half-elf when he was younger to make her his slave (because they couldn't be married in his country) and wound up with 50+ female slaves along the way. HOWEVER, they became slaves for their own reasons, and even then they would each have their own personality along the way. And not every named beautiful woman would become a slave - a lot of women were dissatisfied at the thought of being one of many, or just didn't want to be slaves or be associated with slaves - and while a lot of the harem members don't get as much individual screen time development as I would like, the focus is on the protagonist doing his best to be worthy of them and managing his time to accomplish his goals and prepare for the future for his family.

 

I mean I don’t care as long as other females(not the mcs girls) can have there own harem and not be looked down upon by society for being disgusting or whatever. Sorry but no(maybe just a pet peeve of mine-tho not a femi libtard)

 

I think you misspelled "arbitrary replaceable plot device".

 

I've always hated this trope in japanese stories, but apparently I need to reflect on this because just today I was at the store and the cashier who was ringing up my groceries asked, "are you doing anything fun tonight?" as she was getting my change and also while another cashier was signing in to the register to apparently take over for her.

Like an idiot I just made some small talk and left, getting all the way back to my car before it hit me that she's getting off work now and hoping to be asked out.

 

hee it quite simple but imo hard to execute

~ there strong or reasonable cause why the harem exist~ collecting pokemon is ok~ it just number~

~ the harem cause conflict on story~ conflict on sense harem member involve or creating problem hmm driving some plot~ even trope MC disagree with harem cuz monogamy stuff is ok but most of time the execution feel flat~

~ da harem member should be known enuf, maybe some of key member~ just the outline trait is ok~ why? cuz if you dwell too much into character it can be longer story, text wall~ basically it become special side character cuz harem imo close relate to MC~ its not like everyone can write drama ya know~

~ don't use harem for clickbait cuz some reader dumb enuf to think just because of xxx interested to MC that raise harem flag~ seriously? maybe read too much dere dere stuff~

 

This problem is trivial once the story is set in a place and time where harems are normal. All the good ones I read are historical works so nobody in them finds it unusual in the slightest.

The character situation is a two way street. It's not just about the male character and how he feels. If the women are complete characters then they're going to have their own unique wants and needs and those are important as well. Each relationship has to be looked at in detail instead of just using some general principle for all of them.

It's less a matter of making sense and more a matter of what's good for the story and what can make it interesting. There are two kinds of variety when it comes to this as well. The first kind is having a large number of character types and personalities. I find this good primarily because I always want to see more good female characters in the books I read. Too often stories ignore them in favor of more male characters and this is one of the few genres where I can find what I'm looking for.

The other kind of variety is the variation of the kind of relationship. Some become romantic very quickly, some will take a long time to build up. Some will will go smoothly, some will have personality clashes or other impediments. Sometimes a potential relationship will never develop, and sometimes a relationship will fall apart. All of these are interesting in their own way, and it's good to see a story take on a wide range of them.

I've actually seen books that do just this.

 

Alright, we can just set aside any of my comments geared towards JP Isekai / CN cultivation novels then. That said, although what little historical / semi-historical fiction I've read have indeed handled harems better it's because they don't ignore the jealousy/internal conflict/neglect/etc that gets filed off for the power fantasies. Being "normal" socially doesn't mean sharing their beloved is something they want to do, it's just something they put up with. Those were usually ones with female protagonists, granted.

Exactly! How much time does the MC have to spare between 4,7,9 wives? It's possible the harems in the novels you're reading aren't very large, making it more reasonable for the MC to possibly be meeting any needs at all, but at some point there aren't enough hours in the day to possibly be sustaining these relationships. Keyword here is "sustaining" - a relationship isn't meeting a woman's needs once, reaching 100% completion, and then shelving her away so they have enough time to develop a relationship with the next woman. I suppose this is a "general principle", in that there are women that wouldn't actually care that their husband isn't spending any time with them and/or appears to favor the new wife over them. However, I don't think that trait fits the personalities of most FLs as they've been previously developed. Again, putting up with the harem (because of social norms) isn't the same as being happy about it.

I can see where you are coming from. That said, I think this is more an issue specific to your preferred genre (historical fiction), where it's difficult for a female character to have screentime if they aren't the MC's wife. I can also see why someone might be willing to overlook whether or not it makes sense for the harem to be stable relationship-wise if the harem plot is the only way they're going to get any good female characters at all. To briefly step back to LNs as a whole, however, most settings don't have this issue - why can't a fantasy novel just have good female characters that aren't romantically involved with the mc? It's true that non-harem fantasy novels tend to be mostly male characters, but they don't need to go the harem route to change that.

This is a symptom, I feel, of LN tending to overly focus on the MC. Why can't important side characters have relationships that get fleshed out over the course of the story? A series can have a variety of relationships without the MC being a part of every single one of them.

 

Sure, but we're talking about how this works in a story; not how it would play out in real life. And in a story, it's more about things like how engaging the relationship is, what it adds to the narrative, and things like that. You're trying to argue that a monogamous relationship would be more ideal for the woman, and I'd agree on that score. But that's not what this thread is about.

The reason for both of these is that most authors don't like writing female characters. Unless there's a specific reason for a character to be a woman, then the character will be male instead. There are exceptions out there like the otaku, but they can't write characters worth a damn so the pickings are slim.

 

Sad but true.

I think the issue of LN overly-focusing on the MC isn't gender-specific though, even in majority male casts and what-not it's common for side characters to not get fleshed out as much as they do more in more typical novels.

Disclaimer: The following is only within the context of the more actually-multiple-wives type of stories, and not, for example, some JP Isekai plots where's its questionable if the MC is really in a relationship at all (which have their own issues).

Okay, I'm going to try to explain from another angle: I dislike two things:
> Characters that suddenly act out of character for the sake of the plot. The more well-defined the character was before this, the more annoying this contortion.
> The MC not having to deal with the consequences of their actions for no particular reason. Such as if they rob their friends blind continually and no one ever seems to be unhappy about this despite having no plot reason to not mind the thefts. Sure, maybe his social rank is so high they can't do anything about it, but not being able to do something about it isn't the same as not caring. "Dealing" with the consequence doesn't have to be moral or whatever, I've read novels with MCs that aren't good people, I just want the existence of a consequence to be addressed.

Mutli-wife plots tend to combine both of these. It's not how it's less than ideal for the women, it's that the negative aspects are suppressed by the author because the MC is the MC.

--

I also find hypocrisy to be the trait I loathe the most in a fictional character we're supposed to be rooting for, and many harem series have the MC sweep at least one of the FLs away from a suitor that doesn't really love her. Then he puts her in a closet and finds a few more ladies without even considering how his previous paramour might feel about it, because that's what love is :/.

Edit: I suppose I can go further with respect to the hypocrisy, and more generally mark any MC that clearly expects, on an emotional level, exclusivity from his wives when he himself has zero control over his third leg. This is backed by many an ancient society, yes, but the MC following a hypocritical social norm doesn't make it less hypocritical.
Edit 2: Added "on an emotional level", in that he feels personally betrayed and hurt and demands vengeance. If he just views them as his property he's awful but it's not hypocritical.

 

This is more a matter of what the author is like and less a matter of genre. For this entire thread I've been thinking of one particular writer, and he specifically loves writing female characters and inserts them into the story whenever possible. He also loves telling small stories about minor events and does a lot towards fleshing out secondary characters. His long novels typically have 7-8 romantic relationships aside from the protagonist.

Yeah I think that if you're used to reading only bad harem novels your opinion of the genre isn't going to be very high. Good harem novels aren't like this and I think you'd gain more perspective if you get a chance to read some. Sadly, I don't know if any of them are on NU.