Harem opinions

[kiirorainbow]

honestly depends but definitely the girls who call the MC a pervert at any given moment, even if they walk in on the MC changing, sneak into hhis room, or stalk the MC.

 

[Pyrrhic]

I consider myself a harem fan even though I only enjoy about 10% of the content that comes from the genre. Most poor, and even mediocre harems generally suffer from the same issues:

In western written harems the MC either tends to be overconfident to the point of arrogance, gets an OP skill or cheat (this is common with eastern harems), dick all the women to submission, or, worse of all, carries all these traits.

In eastern written harems the MC is oblivious of people being interested in them to a painful degree. The woman can literally tell the MC how they feel to his face and the guy has I high chance of misunderstanding. With that obliviousness, the generally have a one track mind and are very bland. Which makes the concept that anyone that happens to fall for the MC is due to a poorly written reason.

For women characters in harems, the issue is the same in both eastern and western stories. If the women aren't already 2-dimensional before they join they harem, they pretty much will be soon after joining it. Whatever personality they have is quickly dumbed down to having blind obedience and dependency after they become part of "the legion".

At the same time, Fantasy and Sci-fi stories that have well written harems are some of the best stories you'll ever read.

Pretty much what i think of harems, though there is one other aspect I think should be mentioned. That is how few stories bother to properly develop relationships between harem members. RL harems are notorious for being rife with jealousy, plots and dirty politics. Most stories either ignore these issues, usually with a cheap excuse like saying it's a different culture or something, or limit it to attempts to impress the harem master with the occasional passive aggressive comment, as their love is so powerful that they can't do anything that might make their lover sad, even if it causes that character to be sidelined

 

[Varstark]

Harems are a nice read when the guy is chad enough, but a lot of authors' concept of a masculinity on that level is either arrogant caveman or evil king and they end up jerking off to their daddy issues or NTR fetish or both. I'd say if you're going to hate a character instead of the author's (lack of) skill in writing, it'd be the guy, because he's sort of the crux of the whole thing.

 

[Slothy2.0]

They both usually suck. Not a problem with the genera but most authors who wrote harem kinda just don't write good characters. They all feel flat most the times. The girls are just another part of the harem and the protagonist came off an assembly line. I don't like harem.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Where's the "both" option?

 

[Avidya]

honestly depends but definitely the girls who call the MC a pervert at any given moment, even if they walk in on the MC changing, sneak into hhis room, or stalk the MC.

This is the main reason I usually hate Tsunderes. Prideful ones who don't like to show weakness is one thing, but violent Tsunderes are absolutely awful. Probably one of my favorite things to have been phased out to my knowledge in recent years was the inclusion of them.

Two examples are Kirie from Girls Bravo, and Minami from Baka and Test. The former is the above, I'm pretty sure at one point she invades his privacy then gets mad at him for it in a sterling moment of foresight of Social Media in the modern era.

The latter, Baka and Test was outstanding when I firsted watched it as it was a cool premise, and I would have liked...Well, most of the female cast more if they weren't absolutely violent psychos in retrospect. It says something when the male who is an unabashed voyeur pervert has the healthiest (hinted) relationship that does not involve getting beaten, tortured, or poisoned by bad food. Or all three.

 

[RaidenReader]

I hate the protag cuz of jealousy. He's usually a big dumborino, and is unworthy of my Waifus.

 

[edgy_chuuni]

I hate the girls.
Like YOU GET BOUGHT AS A SLAVE and after he refuses to make you sit in the ground to eat you fall in love with him... WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.
And then you got the harem member but not-so-harem-member child who immedeately refers to the mc as onii-chan.
And let me think of another generic braindead type...
The big-tits-princess! Always an airhead and clumsy and always falls in love with the mc at first glance just because 'he looks kind'? ?!?!????
And then you got the "I'm untalented" girl who the mc helps awaken her power...

 

[AliceShiki]

As long as the characters are well-written, I can like harem just fine tbh.

Like... Give me characters with actual personality and depth. Give a reason for the characters to like the MC, make the characters feel real, make the members of the harem interact with one another (they don't need to have a sense of rivalry though, a sense of camaraderie is fine)... Yanno, make them feel real.

That's it. Make them good characters and I'll like your harem. Make them bland and boring characters and I'll dislike your harem.

I dunno, like... I feel like harem has 0 impact on my enjoyment of a story tbh. If I like the story, it's because it has well-written characters. If I dislike the story, it's because it has poorly-written characters.

Having or not having a harem won't change that, it will just change the number of well/poorly-written characters~

 

[Alfir]

by being some nebulous concept of "nice"

LMAO! Hahahahahaha!
Same.

In JP novels especially, they are like a natural thing. Well, their is Redo Healer which might seem a very logical harem or Oukoku e tsuzuku... Wait, are Jp novels actually has harem novels that actually makes sense? No way...
(The shock momentarily seeps in my brain)

Rather than hating the protag/girls, I feel that it's more apt to hate the author. It's my personal opinion though. With a modern perspective, I think labeling 'harem' as generally wrong is perfectly logical.

However, its not the same for fiction. That's why the harem genre exist. And because we know that harem is wrong in the back of our mind, authors has the tendency to make their protags 'nice' which somehow offsets their guilt of writing harem.

It is the same for protag characters that are designed to be evil however made a martyr just because of the invisible moral compass that the author possess.

If it's a good harem story, all I could think off are the stories that adhere to the social constructs and the already established precepts of a functioning community.

So like what was I saying?
I hate the gods who created universes with a braindead harem.... my exposition is lengthy and conclusion is farfetched, but you get the idea, right?

PS. Redo Healer disgusts me and Oukoku e tsuzuku makes me hard.

I like Overlord's 'harem-ness' by the way. I know, haremness isn't a word, but meh.

 

[LilRora]

This poll lacks at least two options. Both, and author.

In regargs to harems in general, I get that it can often be really hard to portray the character realistically and with distinct personality, but way too many authors seem not to even try doing that. I won't be giving examples, because everything I could give was said above, but one thing is the characters being unikeable, and another is the author who makes them as such.

I personally like harems, but not how they are portrayed in at least 90% stories. One example I really liked was PurpleCatGirl's Maraverse. Some people might not even call it a harem because of how realistic it is, and that's what I really like about it.

No matter how you look at it, on Earth we had or have three kinds of harems. One is like with kings and nobles who had mistresses. The thing is that the women often weren't with the man because of love, and there was jealousy and conflicts between them.

Second is like Muslim have, but once again the women aren't with the men entirely because of love - largely because of culture, even if love plays a major factor - and there is a lot of rivalry and conflicts there.

Thrid is polygamy (also a harem in certain meaning), which is rare and is not without conflicts, jealousy, rivalry, and a lot of nastiness. It's just unavoidable in long term.

Realistically, it's almost impossible to have a situation like many stories describe harems, and the issue with that lies not in characters, but in authors.

 

[GhostyZ]

How about I just hate harem in general