Discussion Why do people instantly downvote harem when they come across one?

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by Daoist Ghoul, Jun 23, 2022.

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  1. slarbi

    slarbi Well-Known Member

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    why its a simple thing what do you got against women
     
  2. DeirdreH

    DeirdreH Well-Known Member

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    Those are even worse.
     
  3. Harry

    Harry Now you see me

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    I like (true) harem and would upvote, but if i see the tag reincarnation, game elements, second chance, OP pets, transmigration, weakest job turn OP, dense MC, deus ex machina, food porn from home country, going back to young with old mental age but turn out the mental age is always in the border of grade-schooler and middle schooler, tsundere gorilla girl win, reincarnated into weird object, fake harem are mixed together i would downvote it
     
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  4. Lois.

    Lois. ❲.❳ Wooosh.

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    Its because most harem doesnt even commit to the idea of a harem. I also find it incredibly unrealistic when the harem is filled with women of the top of their game yet not one shares a diff preference in men they like and are all fine with sharing one man when in fact more status and power = more prideful and selfish.

    P.s. Most of the time harem makes perfectly decent female character degrade into a manic pixie dream girl / a girl wholly motivated by her love over the mc not to mention how some harem members who were originally 'useless' ends up with a totally convenient dues ex machine characteristic when there was totally no hint or foreshadowing of the characteristic.
     
    Last edited: Jun 30, 2022
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  5. deadeyemax

    deadeyemax Active Member

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    Stop using the "Bechdel test" as if it means anything, for the love of god. It was literally just a joke in a cartoon, not some advanced feminist theory. Embarrassing to even use it seriously.

    "It's mostly crap."
    90% of everything is crap. 90% of films, books, music, etc, etc, is crap. Most of the stories on this site are the Asian equivalent of shitty English web stories.
    If you want something that's better check out published novelists like K.D. Robertson, William D. Arand, Cebelius, etc.

    No shit, it's fiction, specifically a male fantasy. It's not going to be realistic, and if you want scientific go read a textbook.
     
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  6. Zerses

    Zerses Well-Known Member

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    Polygamy and polyamory are real things that do happen in the real world however they are completely different and fit only certain people. What works for some definitely won’t work for others. Polygamy is more a religious thing while polyamory is more a lifestyle choice that everyone goes into knowing and agree on and requires consent trust and openness in all party’s involved. That usually makes it unusable for most people
     
  7. Darius Drake

    Darius Drake A poster of verbose posts

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    I honestly believe that at least half of those instantly downvoting harem whenever they come across it are the same people who instantly 5 star BL whenever they come across it. In other words, horny females who, for understandable reasons, don't align with the power fantasy that the vast majority of Male Lead Harem Stories are, but enjoy the voyerism of what is often Male Rapes/Forces Another Male Into Relationship.

    The assumed pre-rater's relationship with Reverse Harems would be more subjective, and might actually require them to attempt to read the story before voting. This is because some Reverse Harems are set out such that the Female has the authority/power/ability to choose not only which male they end up with, but also if they even start dating. While other's... end up essentially five guys attempting to pressure a girl into a relationship with them. Even if the male character's in question don't mind sharing, it can easily be interpreted as quite skeevy, which would turn some of those readers off, because they want to put themselves into the fantasy position of the girl in the middle of the reverse harem (just like guy's do). Though the thought of asking two of the guy's to do things like display their affection for her by doing each other might appeal enough to some of those theoretical readers/raters.

    Basically, human's today as self-centered and obnoxious. If it doesn't appeal to them personally, there's plenty willing to try to tear down anything, particularly through the internet allowing one to hide from repercussions.
     
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  8. DeirdreH

    DeirdreH Well-Known Member

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    Pretty much all literature written before the 20th century had few if any female characters at all and it was better for it.
     
  9. Rumby

    Rumby Rumbly Tumbly

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    Because they don’t like it, likely won’t recommend others to read it, and/or (seeing how some translators ask / look for suggestions for what genre they should translate ) possibly discourage/let the translator(s) know they don’t like the novel
     
  10. asriu

    asriu fu~ fu~ fu~

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    they dislike it and downvote it~
    who care about story and stuff~
    plenty of similar people spread across all genre so nothing new really~
    the famous one is netorare, bl and harem~
     
  11. Mnotia

    Mnotia The Trash Man

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    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test

    It's a good test.


    Why are you being cringe.
     
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  12. powwder

    powwder Well-Known Member

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    There are 2 reasons i can think of why people downvote harems instantly without even reading it.

    1) Harems are done poorly like 95% of the time.
    2) personal bias and prejudice. In modern society a harem is frowned upon and i think illegal in most places in the world.
     
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  13. otaku31

    otaku31 Well-Known Member

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    The only thing the test is good for is in highlighting general trends approximately. As a benchmark for individual movies (people who use it to judge books deserve to rot in hell), it's pretty much meme-level and not worthy of a second glance by any academic worth his salt...

    which, now that I think about it, doesn't necessarily disqualify it from being applied to the kind of pure consumerist fiction we binge on here. :hmm:
     
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  14. IceLight303

    IceLight303 Well-Known Member

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    Yup, that's what I did within a week of opening at account. That's the only reason I created an account. Though I did read a post about someone trying to filter out BL, harem, tragedy and a few other filters but it ended up not working. I don't know if they ever got it fixed.
     
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  15. Zerses

    Zerses Well-Known Member

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    Seems to work for me for bl stuff
     
  16. sjmcc13

    sjmcc13 Well-Known Member

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    They are immature idiots.

    The reasons they "use to justify it" almost always apply just as much to the series they like just as much as harem, it basically boils down to the stupid "only what I like is actually good" mentality too many have, especially in their teen years.

    That is like 99% of this site though, or any genre/subgenre of writing.
     
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  17. Oddwaffle

    Oddwaffle Well-Known Member

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    In a way, I think it's not because harem is a bad genre or story but because authors who write harem don't actually have a story to tell.

    They have an interesting story but they don't know how to develop it beyond the initial impulse. That's why after the initial "excuse" for the story to happen, they devolve into senseless harem because they can't develop the characters they have created beyond stock characters so they have to keep introducing more stock characters.

    So after a while you get a set of stock characters surrounding the very no personality protagonist. Then all the stock girl anime likes the MC.

    So harem is mostly the sign of the author can't figure out a way to develop their female characters or almost any other characters in their story.
     
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  18. deadeyemax

    deadeyemax Active Member

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    No, it's not. Even the original creator disavows it, and points out how it's completely misused. This is not serious literary criticism this is just a tool for idiots to bludgeon others with. Imagine if I watched an amazing film that happen to focus on women primarily, but said it was terrible because the male characters only exist at the periphery of the story because it focused on the women characters. That would be a stupid criticism. A good work of art is good, and a bad work is bad, not because it ticked boxes of political correctness, but because of its resonance with the human condition and appeal to its audience. Furthermore, none of this supposedly intelligent criticism is echoed by the population at large. Surely if it resonated with anyone outside of a liberal arts degree holder you would hear similar complaints from lay-people when discussing whatever the big TV or movie is, and yet it never emerges, because average people don't care. Only morosophs care.

    The bechdel test is not serious. It was a cartoon, it was a joke made for the enjoyment of gay women (original publication was in a magazine for lesbians), it's not a 'good' test. It's nothing. Stop using it as if it holds weight in a conversation. It doesn't.
     
  19. Mnotia

    Mnotia The Trash Man

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    upload_2022-6-23_18-46-45.png
    I still think the test is a good way of weeding out dog films.

    I do think it should apply to men too.
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2022
  20. Darius Drake

    Darius Drake A poster of verbose posts

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    Think about it this way. Gladiator and 300 (both movies that are considered incredible, but that I haven't personally watched) almost certainly fail the test, simply because the female characters in the movie may not even talk, as they aren't relevant to the plot, and may not even be characters. That doesn't make those movies "bad" because they failed the "test". Hell, calling it a "test" is counter-productive, because it's a list of criteria about things irrelevant to the actual plot.

    Let's imagine a story where a character's family is killed by someone, and they go around gathering up a group of others harmed by the killer to kill them. All the characters end up talking about is related to their end goal of revenge, or gathering people for revenge. Now make the entire cast Female, except for the killer, who's Male, and you have a story that fails the Bechdel Test. You change absolutely nothing but the killer's gender to Female, you have a story that passes the Bechdel Test. The quality of the story is EXACTLY THE SAME, and the differentiating factor between pass and fail is nothing more than the literal gender of the villain.

    That is why the Bechdel Test is a critical examination failure, and that's why it's creator has rejected it. It's a one-off joke that was made, that people set on fire and throw around as a weapon. Stop supporting the weaponisation of a literal joke.
     
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