Harem MC - Hating or liking them

[ainsoph9]

What causes them to have no common sense though?

[Mystes]

What causes them to have no common sense though?

Emotional trauma at a very young age.

Or the universal answer: This is Japan that we're talking about.

[ainsoph9]

The first part has some plausibility, but the second one is just cheap cop-out. I am looking for the very root here.

[shichinanatsu]

hmm.. reasons for the behavior/s of harem heroines?

let's see.. per Kira, part 1 does seem sound, but to broaden, heroine/s hold conflict/s for which resolution makes the MC central.. as for them meeting in the 1st place, for the most part its just a glorified excuse of MC and his pheromones, but of course that would seem shallow..

this would be a bit easier if we were talking about a specific harem title, say shuffle!, then see how it intersects with other titles; generalizing things haphazardly tends to be disastrous.

harem heroines gathering around MC pretty much boils down to how big of a character MC is. however, in practically all cases MC's personality is left as vague and ambiguous as possible, to obtain a minimum workable relationship with as many heroines as possible, AND for MC to be mirrored in as many a reader/player as possible, wish fulfillment if you will..

(pretty tough typing all that on a qwerty dumbphone, i'll try better when i get back to my aibo)

edit: changed "VN" to "harem", since harems aren't exclusive to VNs..

[ainsoph9]

Well, since you mentioned Shuffle!, we can use that as a sample case, if you would like. However, I think that using the typical stereotypes for characters will do just as well. Either way, I do not think it is impossible to find the root cause(s).

[shichinanatsu]

and i'm back with a real keyboard..

one stumbling block would be fans taking the harem genre for granted, because admittedly most titles hardly - if ever - warrant anything above B (MY honest opinion, fanboys/girls have been warned ).

anyway, let's start with the harem heroines themselves. hopefully by checking each cookie-cutter we can form a decent enough bigger picture. let's start with my personal fave, the 幼馴染 (osananajimi)

for her, we default to the longest-possible relationship with 主人公, barring 姉妹 (shimai) or 義姉/義妹 (gishi/gimai) presence. that's about a decade if we're talking jap's 1st yr high; an awful lot of growing-up-together conveniently swept under the rug, save one or two fond memories of the pair. they can get along normally without need for explicit backgrounds (TH's akari, TH2's konomi), or it could be a manzai pair, to the attention-calling tsun/yan-dere. (examples fail me, my memory only allowing for Shuffle!'s Kaede)

what usually happens is 主人公 + 幼馴染 being in a status close enough to progress to romance, but far enough to incite anxiety about gambling all those years in a leap of faith. we see them testing the waters, 幼馴染 starting to be either more insecure or more assertive, while 主人公 is conveniently dragged around by the rest of the harem. then we get either one or both of them driven into a corner using whichever plot device, just as long as it makes them question how sure one is of the other's feelings. moving to the good end, they graduate from being childhood sweethearts to real lovers.

主人公 + 幼馴染 compatibility-wise isn't actually that strong or numerically high. pitted against other stereotypes with more blatant appeal (gakuen idol, transfer student, etc..), 幼馴染 usually is restricted to playing the i'm-practically-his-wife card. hearts a-flutter doesn't matter so much, its the reassuring familiarity of all those days/weeks/months/years together that's pretty much a preview of what comes after the "I Do".

baton's up for grabs.. btw, i didn't consult tvtropes on this one, in case anyone wondered..

[ainsoph9]

Not exactly the psychology, but it is a step.

Next up: the -dere character types.

[Mystes]

Next up: the -dere character types.

What about them?

[ainsoph9]

As in, what makes them tick to want to be part of a harem.

[Assassin]

As in what makes them go dere, you say?

[ainsoph9]

Well, yes and no. Yes, because that is a part of it. No, because many of these are still kuu-, tsun-, etc. when they join the harem, or the harem starts after they already have an established relationship with the MC. Make sense?

[Mystes]

Well, yes and no. Yes, because that is a part of it. No, because many of these are still kuu-, tsun-, etc. when they join the harem, or the harem starts after they already have an established relationship with the MC. Make sense?

... *confused*

Mind giving an example, please?

[ainsoph9]

Case in point, Serizawa Fumino.

Even in the very beginning of the series, we can see that she has a childhood friendship with the MC that she wants to be "more-than-friends." Yet, she is a stereotypical tsundere. Even after the MC starts getting more of a harem, she still sticks around, often showing her tsun- side more than her -dere side. So, the question is why she sticks around in such a scenario, especially when she acknowledges that is a losing battle for her.

[shichinanatsu]

how about this?

___dere heroines practically grow up thinking that their ___ facade is the way to go, until they come across the ultimate siege weapon that is 主人公の優しさ. admittedly, this would only stick to heroines who do not have lengthy histories with MC, i.e. met around the beginning of the story. we can get past this though by combining the 幼馴染 and ___dere elements ( @ A-kun ), where it gets tricky.

1st, what gave the heroine the 1st half of the ___dere archetype(!?) was it a person? an event? combination of both? children are not born capable of deceit, if you will.
2nd, for how long has the heroine been living with her ___ half? is it triggered every time she's with MC, or only when MC un/consciously makes a move?
3rd, in what manner and circumstance does heroine permit herself to show some dere? how and to what level is MC involved in the triggering of these episodes?

i might be missing some, so add if you will. memory fails me, but katsuragi keima's observations on aoyama mio hit the mark on this. if anything, the 1st half of the ___dere is a defmech. problem is, eventually the heroine becomes dependent, endo- to exoskeletal - she literally can't survive without her armor, not to mention stunting her growth with the shell's weight. the pairing w/MC is supposed to reverse the process, hopefully get the heroine back to being a normal human being.

[ainsoph9]

I think your answer was quite good. That more or less satisfies me for the -dere categories. Now, what about the 皇女様 types?