Harems, can they work?
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What harems do people think are real, they truly love the MC and are ok with sharing him, and what ones are based on something superficial. Like he's so powerful, or he has an OP trick, but is otherwise dumb.
How not to summon a Demon Lord comes to mind.
Rem is probably the only one who really loves and understand Diablo. He's the first to stay with her, has made her orgasm (while playing with her cat ears), and saves her when she's in danger. She sees through his Demon Lord role play and likes what she sees in him, his power doesn't seem to matter that much to her, HE'S what she wants. She's clearly going to stay with him, have his kids, and grow old and die with him.
Shera thinks she loves him but just likes what being around him gives her, as long as she is with him she doesn't have to go home, she's safe from harm and can adventure, and can hang out with Rem. That she is clearly bisexual makes being with Diablo and Rem easier. I do see her leaving them at some point, prob when they get to old or tied down with kids to adventure, because staying in one place is boring to her. Plus, being an Elf, she'll still be young when Rem and Diablo die of old age, I don't see her sticking around for that.
I don't think Horn will marry Diablo. She admires him greatly, like a cool older brother, but being so small compared to him would make marriage very hard on her. Plus, Shera would prob makes moves on her that would freak her out. She'll prob become a great thief and adventure but she's not wife material for him.
Lumchina is harder the figure out. She loves Diablo very much but also knows her position in life (as High Priest) makes marriage impossible for her. She might try to have his kids in secret but nothing public and of course, she can't live with him.
Rose is Rose and can't have sex with Diablo, as much as she wants too.
Kreb? It's to soon to know where she stands.
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Realist Hero. It helps that Souma is college-age and the others are adults too. Liscia is not 100% happy about sharing him (and others might feel the same) but they are friends and they talk things out.
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@harmlessdave Yeah but NINE wives? What man could give them the attention they would all need? Plus his kids would barely know him.
I do have a theory on why they are ok with being in a harem. Either the birth rate favors girls by a lot (4 or 5 to 1), or the death rate for men is way to out of balance. Girls grow up knowing they will prob be in a harem so they're already mentally prepared for it.Wait, that's smartphone.
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Personally I've found Mushoku Tensei's to be the most believable harem in light novels.
The female characters involved in it are just better fleshed out characters than most in harems. The motivations and feelings about it all are more fleshed out rather than "new girl is introduced, new girl is saved by mc, girl is now in love with mc".
They are also all given plenty of time to develop the relationship with the MC without any of the other female characters around for quite a while, which makes the feelings that they have more believable. -
"I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Little Apocalypse" is a story that actually has that as its overall main plot. That the MC accumulated a large harem (that happened to include a lot of super-powered females), and they went to war with each other over him and destroyed a good chunk of the universe. A time traveler was sent back to make sure it never happened, and so part of the plot is him learning (often the hard way) to treat his women in a way that keeps them friendly with each other. That said, this one is WAY out there, and more for the humor value than anything else, so it's most certainly not a good example of a harem that could really work. I just brought it up because that topic was actually the plot of this one. :-)
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Yes, but usually not in the way they're portrayed. As a corollary look at romance stories in media and how it compares to people's everyday experiences. The same deal is true with harem stories.
I mostly see the harem genre as it stands right now as a rebellion over the complicated love dodecahedrons of the prior cycle of romance stories which usually ended with lots of broken hearts. Both in the audience for their preferred pairings, and the characters themselves. Harems are the easy (read "pure fantasy") way to avoid hurting anyone.
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@timmaaah And unlike so many LN, he actually marries them and even has kids with them too. How often does that happen? In most series the MC acts like Sir Galahad, looks but never touches, like he feels he has to be the "eternal" virgin or something. It's funny at first but it gets old after they've been together for awhile.
Still think Rudy is a scumbag though. -
@endoftheline I hate old harem stories that didn't end in a harem. All those girls who love him, get along with each other, and are willing to fight and even die for him yet he picks one and tells the rest to F off (looking at you Rosarie and Vampire!). Or, like in Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki, he has no interest in ANY of them. It was the first Harem anime I remember watching and I thinking "Tenchi must be gay." A young man with NO sex drive for pretty women.
The worse is still This Is Greenwood, guy has two girls who love him but he only wants one of them, he sleeps with one girl (takes her virginity) then breaks up with her the next day so he can be with the other girl, then watches her life fall apart because of what he did and feels no guilt. Man it STILL pisses me off!! -
I think an actual harem only works when there is a massive power imbalance between the master of the harem and the rest of the harem members (had to phrase it that way because the master might be a man or woman). It's possible to have a near equal power balance with a couple or even a tri but after that people are going to have to submit their own opinion or desires to the will of others. There isn't enough time in the day or even week to share things evenly so some will be getting less from the relationship.
Also a smart harem master would have a manager to deal with the day-to-day issues that pop up in group dynamics or they'd go nuts. A smart harem manager would have to keep everyone in-line or they'd go nuts. I've read the term harem politics a couple times in the past and I bet trying to keep people's jealousy in line is a full time job with lots of overtime.
The harem in Arifureta is fun because all the girls after Yue have been outright rejected multiple times. But Yue seems to want her man to start creating a harem. I've read the WN well into the afterstories so I should probably shut up now.
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@folker46 At least in Mushoku Tensei, the Elf girl was already ready for Rudy to cheat on her or to have more than one wife, so she had already planned on being the "peacekeeper" in the home. Being first wife, and the first to give birth, also gives her a lot of authority over the others.
Like I've said, in these stories there is a big disparity in the number of men to women, so there are prob all kinds of unspoken rules they have to follow. -
From what I have seen in fiction vs Role playing, it depends Examples of varying from *Have not read the Light novel yet to read all of the light novel in english Date A live harem Shido has built up are doing well, from a Anime enjoyer's Point of View. Aside from having a few issues, with Kurumi, nothing too bad. The view is likely to chance once I read the light novels volumes 1 to 5 once I buy them before June. To see what is his thoughts.
Another example Highschool DXD, Looking back at the anime: Issei wants to have a harem really bad while still wanting to be Rias's Number 1 pawn. He is going through uncertainty, especially when I have checked out volumes 1 to 6, Waiting for 7 and 8.
Arifureta was brought up when it was already by @mortcs . I agree how that harem is handled is good. Real good. That does happen, especially how with how harsh he is with each of them he rejects.
So it mainly depends on the mental/emotional state of the owner and the women themselves, along with how fit he is and his personality. Not only that time and energy when it comes to handling the harem. Especially if the guy has to interact with women with powers/magic etc.
mortcs brings up good points about handling the levels of Jealously of the harem. I agree The harem aspect in Arifureta is enjoyable. I didn't read the after stories
Also looking over things, having a harem of 3 women is good enough, aside from anyone who can managed 4 women or more.
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I totally agree with @ TheNovelMusician69 about a harem of 3 women (or men) MAX is enough, especially since the owner is sort of expected to do and/or be something besides "owner of the harem". As in, how much time would be spent in just managing a close relationship WITH ONE person in most anime and manga trying to depict a realistic version of a romance.
Since the topic has been addressed again, there is something of a fatal flaw in most not rom-com harems: usually the harem members are quite outstanding on their own (whether is royal family members, OP cheat characters, or simply "the top beauty of the school with perfect looks and grades") which kind of makes you wonder why would they all settle for less than one person's worth of attention and love?
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@avatarian the answer is because harem stories serve primarily for wish fulfillment, not to portray realistic relationships. The heroines love the protagonist so much that sharing him is still better than having any other man all for themselves.
Personally I'm not bothered by that, the same way I'm not bothered by the fact that the heroines are almost always virgins who never dated anyone, but of course that's not everyone's cup of tea. -
FWIW, in most of the larger harems (or at least, all of the ones I've read), the man ends up with the least amount of power in the relationship. I'd also be hesitant to say they "own" their harem, since more often than not it's more that their harem owns them. In a communal property sort of way. i.e., a ten-person relationship requires that each person relate to 9 others, the singular man would only make 10% to 11% of the necessary relationship to function.
As a corollary, even people in monogamous relationships need other (non-sexual) relationships in their life if they want to remain mentally healthy and their monogamous relationship to remain healthy. Demanding one whole person's worth of love and attention tends toward making a very unstable and abusive relationship.
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@folker46 said in Harems, can they work?:
Or, like in Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki, he has no interest in ANY of them. It was the first Harem anime I remember watching and I thinking "Tenchi must be gay." A young man with NO sex drive for pretty women.
In the "season 5" OVAs that came out this last year, he actually got married finally. To three of them. I think he even had a kid.
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@endoftheline Which is why I've noticed that in many harems the girls don't really love the MC, they're hoping his power can be passed on to their kids, so they play the part of being the loving girlfriend but you know it's just an act. They often show more interest in the other girls then in the MC. Yuri anyone?
Shera from How Not to Summon a Demon Lord is kind of like that, she's with Diablo because he makes her feel safe, is very powerful, and she can be an adventurer and not stuck at home. But does she really love him? I have my doubts. -
I think Shera loves Diablo as much as Rem. She has just a different personality so she shows it in her own way.
More in general, in almost all the harem series I read (including the ones on this site) there is little doubt that the girls love the protagonist from the bottom of their hearts. -
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@baka_neko I was thinking of Yue from Arifureta in her role as main waifu.
Also there is the very cheesy Ghost series by John Ringo where the ex navy seal ends up with a castle and harem in Eastern Europe. The MC is smart enough to delegate and flies to Uzbeckistan to get them a traditional harem teacher/manager from a shiek. Of course the new manager is a gorgeous blond masochist who also becomes a member of the harem.
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@mortcs said in Harems, can they work?:
@baka_neko I was thinking of Yue from Arifureta in her role as main waifu.
Also there is the very cheesy Ghost series by John Ringo where the ex navy seal ends up with a castle and harem in Eastern Europe. The MC is smart enough to delegate and flies to Uzbeckistan to get them a traditional harem teacher/manager from a shiek. Of course the new manager is a gorgeous blond masochist who also becomes a member of the harem.
Oh lord is it cheesy.
I've come across descriptions of how the first book came to be published.
John had been reluctant to let anyone see it; he'd written it because he had the urge to write it, but he took one look at it and thought to himself, "This sees the light of day and my career is toast. Heck, my publisher sees it I'm hosed."
But he made the error of making mention of it in Baen's Bar, iirc, and Jim requested he send over a copy.
Next thing he knew a contract was shoved under his nose and a pen thrust in his hand. It sold.
Sequels were requested.
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