My Soap Box (Just a rant)

It seems everywhere I go I'll be looking for a new story to read and I find that one word that makes me mad. Harems.
Why the hell do we need so many F*kn harems?
I'm going to go cry in my corner for the loss of integrity these authors have, even though I know that most of them only write to hash out their fantasies.
And yes, before anyone mentions it, I am aware that I'm looking through Fan-Fiction and that it's notorious for Slash/Harem writers, but I needed a place to vent this to.
Thank you for letting me stand on my Soap Box.

Who had TFF member complains about harems on their 2020 bingo card

It broadens the appeal I guess? Even if a reader hates one of the "Harem Members" they might like the others, and thus stick around.

I still drop Harem fics if a character I hate get's included, so take that opinion with a grain of salt.

Yeah, I don't have a high opinion of harems to begin with, so the words NaruHinaHarem make me hit 'close tab' immediately.

Edit: part of the appeal, other than wish fulfillment is, I suspect, that the writer doesn't have to pick a pairing. He (yes, usually male) just goes the Pokemon ("gotta catch 'em all!") route.

That usually makes it worse in my opinion. It implies that Hinata is the "main" pairing, and the other girls are just there because Harem's are popular.

Then again, I'm still heavily biased, since I think Hinata should have died instead of Neji.

I think it also really depends on the series. DxD has a bunch of characters with Harems in it, and FSN: UBW has Shirou/Rin/Saber as a Threesome in one end (not technically a Harem but w/e). It also works for Code Geass fics, where Lelouch becomes Emperor because he's supposed to have a Harem.

I don't like Hinata either, but Neji dying did give a 'shit got real' air to the conflict. Of course, it might have been best if they had both died together -- greatest impact.

I think that harems only work in smut fics or Code Geass. DxD harems in (semi-)serious fics just make me want to barf for some reason.

True, that also works. It's just Neji was supposed to be a Once-a-Generation genius of the Hyuuga Clan, and it would have been interesting to see what he could accomplish.

Any fic where the protagonist is royalty, I think you mean. I'm personally fine with Harems, so long as they're kept to a reasonable size, and the story is written well enough to justify it, with actual characters.

I'm the same way. Personally, I think the only reason that people write harem fics for DxD is that Issei's, as DxD's Super-Pervert, life long dream is to have a harem.
When it comes to "Harem" style stories, I prefer the Love Hina approach.

You couldn't have picked a better example?

I can live with reading a story with a harem, especially if it either makes sense for the universe/crossover/series (Ex. Sekirei), or if it is ok to have such in that universe by the morals of its society (Ex. Tenchi Muyo), or if the characters change enough from canon due to story plot and direction with a lot of effort in story to back it up.... and if it is not so much the focus or there is a good enough plot besides to make it not as central to the story or plot.

However, I have to find the characters to be decent characters for me to want to bother to read it, particularly the central character (normally, the guy)... By that yardstick, for me personally Issei in particular is a horrible character... As I find him repugnant, and go out of my way to find stories where he is either replaced, or dead, or had a personality transplant, or the story centers on a different character or crossover character. An example of a tolerable HSDXD harem story with Issei in it to me is 'Beyond the Outer Gates Lies A high school library' by Xavon Wrentaile, as it centers on Dresden, not Issei, even though Issei also has a harem. (he is not only marinalized, but made more tolerable, by plot interaction with Dresden).

As for Love Hina... I like Love Hina as a series, but its harem in canon is IMHO horribly flawed and not believable... I've always hated the fact no one ever got revenge on Gandma Hina or evven told her off for what she did to set this up... but even putting that aside, the whole promise girl concept is horribly implemented, and also those girls do not strike me as really being good for him long term.

I thought Shirou/Rin/Saber was in the Fate route only? (Never played the OG VN, just been watching the anime.)

No, UBW has that as the...Good End? Was that what it was called in the VN? The anime has the True End instead, I think. I never got around to watching the second half.

They also animated it for the UBW Anime:

Well, at least there wasn't a dragon...

I honestly struggle to think of an original fiction that actually does a harem even remotely well. Wheel of Time is probably the closest that comes to mind, and it basically had none of the harem elements besides 'the main character has three girls he gets to bang'.

On a totally separate subject, I keep thinking of the idea of a reverse harem, and how amusing it would be to write one (my mind wandered to the possibility of quoting Kyuubi16 and his legendarily bad perspective on this, just like his legendarily bad perspective on anything else).

Do you mean western fiction?

Is he even still around anymore?

Well, fiction in general that isn't fanfiction. Obviously, there's a lot more eastern fiction that have harem elements, but it's usually derivative fanfiction that just tosses out anything like character development and goes straight for the harem stuff.

Bad fanfiction never dies (but apparently he is, his last update on FFN was January 11th)

There's plenty of Manga and Light Novels that feature the Harem Genre, so there has to be a few good ones in there.

That's weird since I can't recall seeing any of his fics in any of my recent searches...