Isn't it obvious? Harry can't be his real name. Since he's heir to both the Ancient and Noble Houses of Black and Potter, his real name, to be used for Gringotts transactions and the Winzengamot (but not for Hogwarts correspondence, of course) is Hadrian James Potter. Soon to be Lord Hadrian James Potter-Black.

 

I think I've read this story before...

Please, continue.

 

Old, obvious joke.

But I still raged.

 

*Frowns*

Just you wait until Odran sees this. You're stealing our gig, dude. Not cool.

 

The whole shebang about Harry being the last Potter-Black is so he can obviously snag Hermione and whomever else the author fancies; Tonks, Luna, Ginny or someone completely unexpected often end up being the Black bride. God, how I hate harem shits. Male or female centered (though granted, it's rare as hell that I encounter a female character centric story whereas the female in question has multiple partners), I hate them all. I hate them more than Potter-Longbottom alliances. Even more than Lily-and-Snape-are-friends-post-1981 fics.

 

Yeah I can't stand harem fics, I just can't take them seriously.

I don't mind Harry being the head of both those families, I can see Sirius doing that...some how. But the whole multiple wives for each line is fucking stupid.

 

I automatically skip over a story when I see that it's a harem or multiple wives.

Having a child for each line does sound kinda logical doesn't it?

 

What constitutes a harem? I'm rather fond of HP/HG/LL fics but my dislike goes up as the number of partners goes up. They always feel like a power trip to me.

 

Well I'd say a harem is probably more than 2 others. But I'm not a fan of those either. That might just be because I hate fanon Luna though.

 

Ah, Download, you just reminded me of one of my biggest peeves, Inserting Hermione in every god damn pairing, I am sick and tired of it.
*Ripping my hair of in frustration*

 

Yeah it's kind of terrible.

I love Hermione, am totally for Harry/Hermione in canon. But fanfiction has truly destroyed her by doing really dumb shit with her. Using poor characterisation, making her a Mary Sue. ...Making her Harry's bottom bitch to keep all the other hoes in line....

 

I detest those. To a great extent. Mostly because the authors put those two with Harry to sort of counterbalance each other's influence over him.

I guess the thing about the harem/multiple partners that annoys me is the lack of a human perspective on it, the lack of jealousy from the witches involved and so on. Because the minute they get together with him, they're scrubbed clean of imperfections and if a character shittalks on the relationship then he's slated for a unhealthy dose of bashing.

Depends on the kind of fanon Luna we're talking about. I dislike the ones that write her up to be some kind of passive Seer, or unbelievably wise in her childish ways.

 

Since we're on the topic, I have one main problem with multiple partner/harem fics, and that's the lack of focus on the characters as individuals.

In a romance you're identifying with the lead character, so the romance only works if you the reader find the prospective partner an interesting, attractive person.

But in harem fics, basically you have "Harry's partner with big boobs", "Harry's partner with red hair", "Harry's partner who likes sports", etc. There are so many people in the romance that each person is reduced to a single characteristic. All character focus is lost.

Some authors try to get around this by having Harry do dates with each partner in turn, but it feels far too much like characterisation by numbers.

The problem is that most people are, in fact, monogamous when it comes to love (love, not lust). When you develop that kind of an interest in a person, that person becomes your focus and others become uninteresting. Harry sleeping around with multiple people is realistic enough and can work (see Averis' work). But that works because it's just sex/trivial high school romance.

What harem fics try to do is to turn a sex fantasy into a serious romance, and it just doesn't work.

There are of course a lot of other problems with multi-partner fics, but I don't think those are problems inherent to the genre. Rather, the type of person who is inclined to write multi-partner fics is also the type of person to commit other errors like bad (misogynistic) characterisation, lack of conflict, and the shopping list of indy!Harry clichés.

 

Yeah... harem's are ALWAYS some kind of perfect polygamous relationship which frankly would never exist (though I'm sure that somewhere...) and frankly, makes the whole thing less special.

It's hard to care about the relationship when Harry's paying attention to 4+ women, how do you even have time for that. It's more like a casual relationship between 4+ people than a committed one. But that's not what the author wants us to think, he just doesn't fool anyone and it's boring.

All the women that join his harem become Mary Sue's too yeah, I can't think of many if any exceptions to this (though I haven't delved far in this area).

There's almost always Dumbledore bashing in Harem fics too. Because he dared not to tell Harrry about his 12 family lines that he needs wives for.


EDIT: Taure sums it up pretty well. The relationship of a harem is way more like one of lust than love, even though the author is shoving in how much they all love each other every 3rd sentence. It just reads terribly when the story isn't even fooling itself.

I also just don't think you can (equally) love that many people, perhaps not even more than one. Then again how does one quantify love...

EDIT2 Taure stop editing above me!: I agree that casual relationships between Harry and others while at Hogwarts is fine and can read great. People have flings all the time, if it's written well it's very believable and frankly, a lot of fun. But I haven't read many stories that do this, they try too hard on what they think love is and force it on their characters.

That's most of them though, I just hate it when authors try and make her more than she is because they like that she's weird. She is weird and quirky, and that's cool. But she's not weird and quirky because she's a seer, the heir of Ravenclaw, or because she's part fae. She's weird because she was raised in a weird enviroment and that's defined who she is.

She's a great side character, I think she just gets ruined whenever authors try and develop her more than that, because where do you really go from weird? You probably want her to be cool because you're the author, while still being Luna. So you get something like what I wrote above.

Leave her as a shallow side character that's great for a laugh with her weird interrupts and behaviour and I greatly enjoy her.

 

Polygamy... is very difficult for me to approach as a subject, for a few personal reasons, but I firmly believe that it is possible for a good fic to be written with Harry dating multiple women, without him being forced into doing it. The problem has been mentioned, in the stories, this relationship is much too perfect. There are no problems to deal with, no jealousy, no spite between the girls, and there rarely seems to be any dislike shown towards Harry for dating multiple girls.

The reason for this is remarkably simple, the writers are simply trying to give Harry a harem for wish fulfillment. They don't see the inherent problems that come with polygamous relationships, they just see Harry banging the blonde, brunette and redhead and life is perfect, la di da. This is not the way that this works in real life, especially in western cultures.

If a well writen fic was ever made detailing the struggles of a polygamous relationship were to be made, I'd read the fuck out of it. And it would be damn interesting, and very heavy on character development, but it would be a slog by the author. And if I could ever actually write on a level where I am satisfied with my abilities, I will write that fic, but without the time, patience, and ability, I'm not touching that idea with a stick. I want that to be done well, because if it's not, then it's not worth it.

Polygamous relationships, with all participants genuinely in love is... plausible, if not likely, but the dynamics would be much more interesting, at the end of the story when Harry is forced into making a decision on who to choose, or somehow managing to satisfy all participants (get your heads out of the gutters, I'm meaning emotionally).

Just so people realise that polygamy is a genuine thing, look up Sister Wives. It exists in the real world, and requires work, just like a normal relationship (it just requires shitloads more work, and is generally not worth it).

 

It does exist, but I'm not sure it's ever perfect. Sister Wives are real enough, but I'm pretty sure that in most cases they aren't all perfectly happy. Exceptions would definitely exist, but they would be quite rare in my opinion. Most people don't want that sort of thing anyway making the fic distasteful if taken seriously anyway.

Like you said, the writer is writing it as wish fulfilment. It's rarely anything more than a smut fic, and should be read as such.


EDIT: I'll state that I don't have any problems with 2 people in a relationship swinging though. I can understand that, but I don't understand 2 people who are in love wanting other people in on that.

 

Yeah, never perfect. Far from it. That's what I want to see writen, not endless seven-somes featuring Tonks, Hermione, Luna, Fleur and ever other witch ever vaguely mentioned in the series.

 

I'd still rather read a Harry/Harem fic than read Harry/Severus slash....

 

Well when you put it that way.

 

I'd rather read better things than either of those. Thank fuck I got options.