Time and place. If it works in the story I never have an issue with it, but I'm a much more open person in the area of relationships. Which makes writing monogamous vanilla relationships difficult as all hell for me. If you go harem I suggest you think hard about what each woman brings to the table. Is she there just so he can have another piece or does she bring a unique quality to the relationship. How do the other women involved feel about it, hell how does he fell about it. On top of that what does he offer that is so special that the women all gravitate towards him. If all of that can be answered it will be good, otherwise it will seem more like wish fulfillment to the readers. I know I'm going to catch flak for book 3 and four of my series as it is. I never intended it to go the route it is, but f**k it the story goes where it wants and I just try to guide it along.
I don't mind. Harem is a very polarizing topic. A chunk of people hate it period, some are more tolerant, and other will lap up anything with harem in it. Kind of like everything else, heh.
Yeah, a pros and cons or look at both sides might be nice. Although a title like, "Why Harem Haters are Stupid" might draw more clicks? Heh. Just kidding!
Harem. It's really difficult to do right, however, most of the time it's like the scene from Galaxy Quest...
What do I think about harems? Well I am seldom allowed an opinion in our household, so I thought I'd better ask. Jenny Wednesday felt they were quite a good idea whereas Sarah Sunday thought they were a complete waste of time. Then she started moaning about never getting a weekend off - but she always does that! It's the mothers in law that spoil things!
Just weighing in, the harem path can either go the real world Dan Bilzerian way with the guy gal at the center just having tons of options and women who are okay with sharing, or the universe and all the rules of the universe follow the protagonist and arbitrarily or because the story demands it: the MC becomes the most important person in the world to all different types of women. Not just those willing to share. Its Sidereal vs Tropical astrological charts, both are bullshit if you don't have some IT factor going on. /evade astrology lovers ire
Pretty much all the harems I end up reading come across as ridiculous wish fulfilment ego-driven fantasies. Beurgh. I suppose it could be done right. I mean, polyamorous relationships work in the real world, and that should be represented in fiction. But when you have male characters tripping over unicorns* every time they turn around, it gets so stupid and fake that it completely dismantles any willing suspension of disbelief - especially when said unicorns are players/real people. I could believe NPCs might be programmed that way, or the character could comment on how they wouldn't do this IRL but they're more willing to be experimental in the confines of a game. That might help. But a lot of LitRPG tries to make NPCs as complicated and real as Players, and saying they're programmed to want to be part of harems takes away their agency. I think the important thing to remember is that all the characters need to be real, to have emotions, desires, wants, needs. The thing that really annoys me is when every woman in the book fancies the MC and wants to bed him and share him. Or when the entire story becomes about the harem, and there's no plot other than the MC bedding every woman in the world. You know, this probably makes me sound prudish, but half the books on my kindle are erotica. An important fact, though, is that if I want to read erotica, I will. If I want to read LitRPG and it ends up being erotica, I'm not gonna be happy because I wasn't in the mood for that right now. Plus, the erotica I read is usually well written. The LitRPG harems I accidentally stumble across usually aren't. In fact, thinking about it, I think most of the time it comes across as wish fulfilment is because it is. Reading these fictions, it is often clear the author has not had a polyamorous relationship, or even just a one-night stand with more than two folk involved. The entire dynamic comes across as more fantasy than reality, and that's where the problem lies. I'm not saying that you have to have these to write it well, but at least do some research and talk to some people in these kinds of dynamics. You** wouldn't write a sword fight without researching swords, right? And lastly, why are all the harems centred around men? Women want their multiple man-toys, too. *In polyamorous terminology, a unicorn is a bisexual woman who enjoys sleeping with couples, so called because they are as common as unicorns. **A generic you, not pointed at anyone person.
I always thought that advert would work better with a really conventionally unattractive guy. Like, the guy in the advert isn't gorgeous, but he isn't bad either. Just... someone most people would agree isn't a sex symbol. Like Danny Devito, kinda like when he was a stripper in Friends.
