Is pairing an MC with two women considered harem?

[Deleted member 24857]

I am thinking of pairing up one of my male MCs with two women. He will only romance these two women. Should a 'Harem' tag be included in such a story? The romance will be more like a spice added to the main story, which is not romance-related.

 

[GDLiZy]

Yes, and also added romantic subplot to avoid confusion.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

My stance on harem is simple, does your romance and the fact that the MC is paired with two women contribute in any form to the overall plot of the story?

If yes, then it is not harem.

If your romance is completely insignificant and the plot wouldn't change at all without it, then it is obviously harem. And not the good kind of harem. It is just fan service.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

I am thinking of pairing up one of my male MCs with two women. He will only romance these two women. Should a 'Harem' tag be included in such a story? The romance will be more like a spice added to the main story, which is not romance-related.

No but it is polygamy. Maybe bigamy is more accurate if he is only marrying one. I wouldnt call that a harem. I usually consider harems to have AT LEAST three or more love interests. Most of the time it aint even harem tho. More like pseudo harem since in the end they dont all end up fucking and dating or marrying and only one is chosen.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

My stance on harem is simple, does your romance and the fact that the MC is paired with two women contribute in any form to the overall plot of the story?

If yes, then it is not harem.

If your romance is completely insignificant and the plot wouldn't change at all without it, then it is obviously harem. And not the good kind of harem. It is just fan service.

I see your point. It makes sense. Tho lets be a bit more honest and say its fan service either way, yeah? One is just more satisfying and significant.

 

[TotallyHuman]

I think there was the romantic triangle tag. But a triangle implies conflict tho...
Well, I personally would consider the story to deserve the harem tag then

 

[Deleted member 24857]

My stance on harem is simple, does your romance and the fact that the MC is paired with two women contribute in any form to the overall plot of the story?

If yes, then it is not harem.

If your romance is completely insignificant and the plot wouldn't change at all without it, then it is obviously harem. And not the good kind of harem. It is just fan service.

For what you said, I thought it was the other way around. I thought Harem stories must have a harem contribute to the plot in some way.

Well, the romance will contribute to the character development of the MCs. My story is also in a matriarchy, so I'm planning to explore the psychological implications of pairing a man with two women in a matriarchy. Isn't that enough to be considered plot-significant?

 

[Deleted member 24857]

No but it is polygamy. Maybe bigamy is more accurate if he is only marrying one. I wouldnt call that a harem. I usually consider harems to have AT LEAST three or more love interests. Most of the time it aint even harem tho. More like pseudo harem since in the end they dont all end up fucking and dating or marrying and only one is chosen.

My MC will love both women equally, so he's not going to be marrying only one out of the two women. I'm thinking of making my world lack the concept of marriage anyway.

 

[Jemini]

Well, Urusai Yatsura by Rumiko Takahara is considered the OG Harem Manga/Anime, and it had the MC paired with exactly 2 women. So, that being the case, absolutely yes. It was only Ranma 1/2, the NEXT work after that by the same Manga Ka that solidified it as being multiple sutors, as well as establishing the majority of the modern harem tropes. But, the original had only 2, so it counts.

(Also, highly recommended for any person writing a harem to study and understand Ranma 1/2 and what made it so good, it's still to this day considered the single strongest entry in the entire genre with none of the later imitators even coming close.)

 

[DarkWe]

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

For what you said, I thought it was the other way around. I thought Harem stories must have a harem contribute to the plot in some way.

Well, the romance will contribute to the character development of the MCs. My story is also in a matriarchy, so I'm planning to explore the psychological implications of pairing a man with two women in a matriarchy. Isn't that enough to be considered plot-significant?

The question is what is harem to begin with? Harem originally denoted the "domestic spaces that are reserved for the women of the house in a Muslim family."

Over time, harem turned in the west into a literary trope. Already in 18th century, the harem was already object of sexual fantasies in certain romantic literature. So harem as a "tag" is quite old, or at least older than you think.

Anyway, so if your relationship with these two women is primarily sexual oriented and serves nothing more than wish fulfillment, then you have harem. Otherwise, not. Only because your relationship is polyamorous it doesn't have to be harem automatically. It can be a classical love triangle or whatever else.

"My story is also in a matriarchy, so I'm planning to explore the psychological implications of pairing a man with two women in a matriarchy. "

Depends on the context, but do you think that in a matriarchy such behaviour would be accepted? I wouldn't call it harem, I would just call it highly unrealistic. Maybe a second wife in secret, but officially and married too?

 

[aree]

harem? no way, man. the mc is just indecisive.

 

[Mejiro]

Well, Urusai Yatsura by Rumiko Takahara is considered the OG Harem Manga/Anime, and it had the MC paired with exactly 2 women. So, that being the case, absolutely yes. It was only Ranma 1/2, the NEXT work after that by the same Manga Ka that solidified it as being multiple sutors, as well as establishing the majority of the modern harem tropes. But, the original had only 2, so it counts.

(Also, highly recommended for any person writing a harem to study and understand Ranma 1/2 and what made it so good, it's still to this day considered the single strongest entry in the entire genre with none of the later imitators even coming close.)

Uresei Yatsura has an entire slew of other women pretending to like Ataru, or him horndogging after though, so it's not quite the same as just a dude and two women - more like a dude, his quasi-semi-sort-of-old girlfriend, his quasi-semi-sort-of-new girlfriend, any attractive woman he wanders near, various women that fake interest to piss off his new girlfriend (Benten, Sakura, Ran, etc. etc.), occasional ones that actually take an interest, and then Lum has her own circle of admirers as well.

 

[Jemini]

Uresei Yatsura has an entire slew of other women pretending to like Ataru, or him horndogging after though, so it's not quite the same as just a dude and two women - more like a dude, his quasi-semi-sort-of-old girlfriend, his quasi-semi-sort-of-new girlfriend, any attractive woman he wanders near, various women that fake interest to piss off his new girlfriend (Benten, Sakura, Ran, etc. etc.), occasional ones that actually take an interest, and then Lum has her own circle of admirers as well.

You know? I think that's the common key in what makes Rumiko Takahara's harems so interesting. It's not exclusive to the MC, and there are also a lot of dudes that take an interest in the MC's girls.

(And, there's also the fact that it's written by a woman. I've always been of the opinion that if you are going to write something that's super wish-fulfillment territory, you write better if the MC is the opposite gender from the writer.)

 

[Deleted member 24857]

Yeah, forget it, I'm dropping the harem tag. I think I'm just going to anger people if I do. I might not even mention the bigamy thing and leave it as a surprise.

And to be honest, I don't find the harem trope to be appealing. A lot of the time, due to the fact that the MC's attention is being split between dozens of love interests, the characterization of the love interests suffers.

 

[drakensji]

Well, Urusai Yatsura by Rumiko Takahara is considered the OG Harem Manga/Anime, and it had the MC paired with exactly 2 women. So, that being the case, absolutely yes. It was only Ranma 1/2, the NEXT work after that by the same Manga Ka that solidified it as being multiple sutors, as well as establishing the majority of the modern harem tropes. But, the original had only 2, so it counts.

(Also, highly recommended for any person writing a harem to study and understand Ranma 1/2 and what made it so good, it's still to this day considered the single strongest entry in the entire genre with none of the later imitators even coming close.)

Ranma was a harem? I thought there was only a romantic plot between ranma and one girl, while all the others were just annoyances?

 

[AliceShiki]

Ranma was a harem? I thought there was only a romantic plot between ranma and one girl, while all the others were just annoyances?

Ranma was not a harem. From beginning until the end there was only 1 real love interest.

There was one guy that tried to court Ranma when he was in girl form, and there was a girl that was interested in him, but... None of those were love interests, they were just people Ranma actively wanted to get away from.

 

[Thor]

I am thinking of pairing up one of my male MCs with two women. He will only romance these two women. Should a 'Harem' tag be included in such a story? The romance will be more like a spice added to the main story, which is not romance-related.

Since there is no other tag for relationships with more than 1 love interest I would advise to add the harem tag. It is important for people to know because they decide based on tags if they start to read a story or not.

 

[Mejiro]

kinda depends on how you define 'harem', tbh - Ranma was a romcom with lots of erstwhile romantic partners, even if the MC didn't have much of an interest in a lot of them (although would occasionally string them along), and one of the main draws was the relationships and everyone bouncing off each other. It certainly seems close enough to count - you could label it as 'romance', but there's fairly different stuff going on there than in 'regular' romance. A stable relationship with 2 people is more 'poly' than anything else, but I don't know if that's a tag.

 

[Walk]

I am thinking of pairing up one of my male MCs with two women. He will only romance these two women. Should a 'Harem' tag be included in such a story? The romance will be more like a spice added to the main story, which is not romance-related.

I usually see harem with 3+ women with little to add to the plot. If you have two women playing a significant role in the players growth or advancement of the plot, then no Harem tag is needed.