Yeah, it's been a while since I've read this. Otherwise, multiple love interests and lack of developed male characters (compared to female ones) made me think it could turn into harem, but never really thought about it. There was one teacher at the academy I can remember being important in the story.

I guess I didn't explain my thoughts well enough in my initial post. I mostly mentioned this fic because Retsu's Folly is the best fic I can think of in Bleach fandom.

 

You can be forgiven for getting harem vibes from Forry if you went in blind. There are so many other harem fics in Bleach that you can't help but see the flags being raised. Harry is close friends with Rangiku and Shukaku, but their relationship isn't romantic. Annette expressed no interest, while Izanami only tried to seduce him as a power play to manipulate him. Harry shut that down quick-like, and his only explicit move towards any relationship ended with that student beating the shit out of him recreationally for the Fong clan.

Unohana though? Retsu is love, Retsu is life. Fight me.

 

I think I was binge-reading Bleach/Naruto/One Piece (classic anime/manga fandoms) fics when I first found it. I was mostly convinced there were no well-written Bleach fics at that point, so it was a welcome surprise.

On another note, I noticed that some authors give in the reviewer pressure and change pairings or make the fic a harem one. Can't really remember specific examples though.

Also, author's note at the end of the chapter asking for recs for harem members is usually where I stop reading a fic.

 

The only good thing about the word "harem" in a fic's description is that it helps me scroll on by with ease.

A thoughtful deconstruction of the genre, now that would be worth something.

 

i think i hate you

 

You know, sometimes I ask myself why they aren't more new people on DLP but the more new people I see the more I'm okay with it.

 

Sure, provided that the harem fic:

a. Instead of having one man owning a bunch of women, how about one woman owning a bunch of men? Or one man owning a bunch of other men. Or one woman owning a bunch of other women. Or any other dynamic that didn't involve one man owning a bunch of women

b. When someone is made part of a harem for reasons beyond their control, show them actually being upset or angry about it. Maybe even plotting to get out of the harem by any means necessary.

c. Instead of everyone getting along perfectly well in the harem, how about some rivalries, factions, and disputes.

d. Show that the wizarding world either does it all the time, or Harry is doing something unusual or even illegal.

e. Don't have 11 year olds making or joining a harem?

In other words, no. The only time I ever actually enjoyed a story with a harem in it was Rorschach's Blot's Lets do the Time Warp Again, and that was supposed to make fun of the whole harem concept.

 

To be fair, the Firebird Trilogy includes most of those concepts.

 

True. Although I think it's worth remembering the Firebird Trilogy, the closest thing there is to a good harem fic, was only good because it basically did everything most harem fics don't, from creating a logical reason behind the existence of harems to explicitly making it a very bad thing to put 11 year olds into harems.

 

What would be a thoughtful deconstruction of harems?

Guy builds a harem because he can but comes to eventually hate all the girls because of that decision was made prematurely when he didn't know them well enough and when he does he finds he doesn't like their personality at all?

Or he finds, after forming a harem, that he was the target of a curse that makes him run after any other girl that is not his the one he truly loves, and later the initial harem end up resenting him and become antagonists?

Let's get some ideas rolling, people.

 

Seems to me like a good deconstruction of the harem genre would require the sort of time, finesse and skill best spent writing something actually good.

 

Precisely my point.

I think part of the reason why these sort of concepts are considered bad is that no one has ever actually bothered to write a good one. I'd like to see more writers challenging themselves to be honest.

 

Yeah, reminds me of the challenge that lead Jim Butcher to write the Codex Alera series: namely, that any premise can make for an interesting story with the right execution.

Granted, harem stories have a lot of problematic elements to them, especially if you're doing it in a Harry Potter story. Leaving aside the whole consent and age issue (which we probably shouldn't), finding a way to do that plausibly in a modern setting where all the characters go along with it is kind of a huge challenge. That's why harems usually only work if the whole thing revels in its absurdity and you're not supposed to take anything seriously.

Honestly, the closest thing I can imagine to a plausible harem fic is one where Harry is just a total manslut who bangs any willing girl. All that would really take is Harry wanting to go down that road, given he's famous and good-looking.

 

The word "owning" is not only loaded, but I would imagine it's inaccurate in regard to most of these stories.

Like it or not, as unrealistic as the male with multiple wives is, it's still far more realistic/believable than the woman with multiple husbands version. This is mostly for biological reasons, especially considering that the usual excuse for harems in HP fic is the continuation of near-extinct family lines, which implies reproduction... something a man can do multiple times in one day with little physical impact, but a woman can only do once (barring twins, and that's most likely from the same guy, not two different ones) every nine months at the minimum, with significant physical impact.

It should go without saying that, if reproduction is part of the goal/reasoning for the formation of a harem, this makes mono-gender harems even more unlikely (barring the introduction of some sort of far fetched and massively cringe-inducing magic).

But, hey, it's fantasy and there's magic so... whatever. People will use any excuse to shoot realism in the head and kick it into a ditch, if it doesn't suit their purposes.



I neither like nor dislike a story just because it's a harem story, I like or dislike a story based on whether it's entertaining. Most fan fiction turns out not to be entertaining, and harem stories have to beat those odds, plus the extra ones stacked against harem fics (because, let's face it, not many upper tier authors bother with them, and you have to do quite a bit of finagling with what are usually already dodgy plots to even try and explain how a harem would be legal, why the participants would even agree to such an arrangement, and so on).

 

I think people dislike Harem fics because they are usually more of a conduit for cliches than anything else, particularly (1) Dumbledore and Ron bashing, (2) Poor Harry finally gets love to fill all his hurts, (3) innocent Harry is lovingly seduced, over and over and over, (4) Ancient and Noble Houses, and so on, (5) overpowered Harry, (6) women jumping into the harem because-SoulMate!

I'm just finishing Whispers in the Night that had some great moments of writing followed by moments of wanting to bang my head against a wall stupidity for these very reasons. In the positive, it builds slowly, Daphne, Susan, Hannah, and Tracy are all best friends who grew up together and had moments of experimentation as kids with each other. Susan and Daphne are the harem at first, and there's rivalry between them before it even begins. Tracy joins later on, but Hannah does not. Once it's clear that a few others will join, Susan, Daphne and Harry decide to wait a year to build their relationship first, even though Susan and Harry were best friends in this fic since first year and Daphne was friends with him since the beginning of third year. While the "magically chosen" cliche is used, it's also twisted a bit, as "soul mates" doesn't equal husband wife. Sometimes it might equal close but plutonic friendship for life, much like best friends. Once others join, there's conflict and jealousy but it is not overboard. In fact, it's handled very well.

On the other hand, the fic is completely ruined by cliches that made me want to quit several times (I had nothing else to read so I continued). Such things as "Lords of Ancient and Noble Houses," family Grimoires, Ron-bashing, Angelic-Hermione (although she thankfully doesn't become part of the harem), over-powered Harry (although he gets his ass handed to him by Death Eaters and Voldemort so it's a bit more realistic), Dumbledore-bashing, Harry-speech-making-that-shames-adults, and so on. Worse yet, at times it feels like an amalgamation of several other stories, particularly when, in Harry's fourth year, he exchanges letters with Fleur, chooses to work with Poppy to get out of Snape's class, is condemned by Gryffindor foolishly for putting his name in the cup, and there being a second form (warrior form) for Veela (of course, Fleur and Tonks join the Harem).

I have to say one positive thing, however, in 50+ chapters (600k+ words), there's only a handful of lemons, so the primary purpose of the plot isn't smut.