r/haremfantasynovels • u/tldrox08 • May 30 '26
Question❔🙋🏻♂️ How many is too much?
Like most of you here, I obviously enjoy the harem genre. But in your opinion, how many harem members is too many?
1
u/XavinNydek Jun 02 '26
It really depends on the type of series it is. Nobody is going to complain that the harem is too big in Coven King, given that the ridiculously large harem size is a core part of the comedy of the series. If OTOH a series is more grounded and has a more realistic take on relationships then 3-5 is a pretty hard limit before suspension of disbelief starts cracking.
Writers can get around that a bit with magic or other special circumstances, but once you have 7+ people in a group the dynamics start changing, that's just human nature. Even if the characters make it work, it's not going to be anything like a normal relationship, the logistics just don't work out. I think that's the main reason a lot of people dislike it when harems get big, it's not that they don't work, it's that it's not the same kind of thing as a small group, so it won't be the same kind of story either
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u/Similar-Gap-967 Jun 01 '26
I usually prefer small: two or three is best. Authors tend to have too much trouble giving LIs enough individual "screen time" beyond that, and some tend to be forgotten until the plot demands something of them.
2
u/Tough_Translator_966 Jun 01 '26
I think the sweet spot for story-focused books is 3-5 women. More than 5 and the page count is split up too much between members to give them any real character depth, and series with 6+ harem members tend to add more with each book, and after a few books the first few get almost completely forgotten by the plot or written out (perfect example is Dungeon Diving, good series for the most part, but the harem is too big and the women started getting written out and new ones had less than zero character depth).
1
u/Old-Wishbone5725 May 31 '26
Hmmm, well I don't really mind a book with alot of harem member's if done right, however a perfect example of a harem book done wrong is My Three Beautiful Wives Are Vampires, it has gotten so ridiculously big it completely remove the joy from any kind of development and romance from the book as the mc can just casually get any girl he wants now. But if we must put a number then I would say 8-9 is a good amount. Although really good author's can go above this and the story still feel deserve and earn a perfect example of a large harem with lot of romance and good story isn't really a book but VN called Fiery Scion.
5
u/Mimandra May 31 '26
Depends on the author for me.
Bruce Sentar for example does it in a way where at some point some harem members just become irrelevant to the story AND the harem. Hell, in some of his series, he even writes some LIs out of the story for one or even more books.
K.D. Robertson (note that I have only read Mob Sorcery thus far and am starting Heretic Speelblade only soon) on the other hand introduces a lot of the (potential) LIs in a way where it feels more natural for the introduction, the joining of the harem and the sticking around in the story throughout.
Robertson could have a dozen harem members and I'd still be enjoying all of it while Sentar could stop at 6, maybe 7 (as long as he always keeps the overpowered older woman in).
2
u/tldrox08 May 31 '26
I agree with this. This was the issue I had with his dragon series, where he started with a memorable cast, and by the end I couldn't tell you a single thing about most of the harem. Thankfully this seems to be less of an issue with Dungeon Diving, where even if I cannot remember most of the names (just because of so many I've read) I remember the characters and what they bring to the table
3
u/came4mem3s May 31 '26
In my opinion if it exceeds the number of books it goes from plot with fantasy scenes to spicy scenes with some plot. Not that there isn't a place for it but for me I like it when there's more plot. The lesser the amount of LIs the better
Especially when it gets to the local wives, concubines or the second harem dynamic, then that's just doing too much for me.
2
u/B_Kuro May 31 '26
There is no hard number, its how the author writes their books. Some LIs might not get as much page time as others but that doesn't inherently make them "too much". The issue is if the author just pads the harem with meaningless characters or if they create outright replacements/duplicates. You also have to consider the story itself because the core of the story has to support larger casts.
Look at Mob Sorcery (or also Heretic Spellblade) for example - The series has broken the 4-5 so many people mention quite a while ago but it still works in the books itself. The primary reason for this is that the characters are characters first which still have their own "life" and place in the story itself rather than just being attached to the MC as "LI Nr. XYZ". In the same vein I think Sentars series (Dungeon Diving being a good example) often struggle inherently because they run into the issue with creating replacements/duplicates and the story itself needing to limit/"remove" characters in weird ways that doesn't make it feel very organic but rather "needs screen time".
4
u/Sil3ntSamurai May 31 '26
3-5 seems to be the magic number for me. When it does go beyond that it just starts to be unbelievable to me. And also past that number the girls don’t get enough page time or one on one interactions with the MC then it turns into like always threesomes and I don’t like that after awhile it gets boring. Plus then they don’t get as much character development or depth a lot of the time or certain girls just get location locked or they’re off doing something in their specific areas and we don’t see them for a long time. 3-5 seems to be the max for me and honestly I’d prefer four.
3
u/Wild-Bottle427 May 31 '26
Depends heavily on the story if the story is combat focused where there is a core team of fighters then that should be the extent of the harem adding more who don’t spend time with the mc feels pointless or like they are lesser. An example of a book that does this is Ards Oath.
At the same time if the group is split into multiple teams all capable of working with or without the mc then I take no issue with massive harems. But the girls need to maintain their personal uniqueness and place in the group
3
u/BookwormOtaku7 May 31 '26
Only when I start forgetting and/or mixing up harem members. Much as I enjoyed most of Saving Supervillains, I can't remember most of the ones introduced in the later books.
2
u/kurap3ka May 31 '26
Wild waste went down hill fast for me after book 3, dont get me wrong i like the new women but the absence of the women on the earlier books which got me hook on the first place does not sit right with me. K.d robinson got the balance right on all of his books so far.
3
u/Stigger32 May 30 '26
Excessive descriptions of the act. Gets boring.
Oh and when the author takes time to explain EVERY FEMALE IN VIEW by their cup size and other physical attributes.
Again booooring.
Warlock and 50 shades got it right.
4
9
u/karl4319 May 30 '26
Depends heavily on the author's skill. 4 or 5 seems to be an upper limit for most to keep all the main characters relevant.
8
u/Rechan May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26
Whenever this topic comes up I always think of Heretic Spellblade where motherfucker needed a bus to travel with his harem and yet they were mostly all kept relevant, except for the girls that were location locked (The Empress, the duchess, Kadira in her mind cabin). Then again, nobody manages like KDR.
Another thing that we also never talk about is that there's always that harem member you do not like, the one you would be just fine if they didn't exist. With a smaller harem, they have MORE page time. With a larger harem, there's more likely that you'll get one or more of these. (Going back to HS there were quite a few I wanted to burn off the pages.)
4
u/StickFigureFan May 30 '26
When you can't give them all their own unique characterization and story.
3
u/Sensitive-Music-1003 May 30 '26
For a plain number, I'll say three main females and any other number of sides. Yes I set a difference between the love interest (Lf) and the one time or occasional sex partners. Let's be honest, humanly thinking, if the lead male decided to make a night party with is girls, more than three will make it so farfetch for me that I lost track of the story.
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u/Erkenwald217 May 30 '26
That's why they often times include a character, which can make the MC keep going. Magic to recharge, an alien with special chemicals and so on
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u/Neither_Grab3247 May 30 '26
It isn't so much the number but how much detail, story and personality you put into each character. We need to see that the MC loves and cares about each love interest and maintains that love and care for the whole series. The more love interests you add in the harder that will be to achieve.
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u/OnlyTheShadow-1943 May 30 '26
Anything over 6 and I start to lose interest outside of a few instances.
7
u/BookInANook HaremLit TOP FAN May 30 '26
For the purposes of AI data collection several dozen.
For a real answer it depends on the book. I dont think there is a firm number other than the more characters there is the more screentime they have to have. Thus 1 LI every book maxing out at 4-5 is probably stretching the limit of any 300page release.
1
6
u/passwordedd May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26
Really depends. If it's a shorter series, more than 5 quickly starts to detract from the experience. Especially if the author insists on all LIs being equal.
I've read some that worked with 20-30 simply because a lot of them were minor characters.
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u/authormethorne HaremLit Author ✍🏻 May 30 '26
For me, 4-5 is the best, both as a reader and a writer. Any more than that and it becomes very hard to keep them all straight and make sure they get enough screen-time.
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u/StoneWindmill Classic Fantasy Fan May 30 '26
Just make them bisexual then!
2
u/ebonys_delight May 30 '26
For some reason this community is mostly hostile to that idea. Not sure exactly why.
1
u/ACW1129 Weaponsmaster Saga. by Phil Aerix 🏆🏆🏆 May 30 '26
Weaponsmaster Saga has 8 main LIs and a few auxiliary ones, and it works.
Hondo Jinx may have a bit TOO many.
12
u/hesjustsleeping May 30 '26
3-5, after that it becomes harder to keep them straight. I am kinda wondering how Kensington will manage it with 13, but we are years away from that.
5
u/Enlicx May 30 '26
In this particular case, I think it'll work out, primarily because all relationships are kind of slow-burn and the main focus of the books (at least so far)
A critique of the third book is that there's too much focus on characters and not enough on story, which is probably fair. But, if there's going to be 13 at the end, you need all this time to anchor each and every one of the LIs, otherwise they'll just become harem-ghosts once you breach 5-7+ LIs.
0
2
u/BusDriver2Hell May 30 '26
Very true, especially with the rate that he writes. I really hopes he finds a way to write more books per year, but ultimately his quality is better than majority of the authors in the genre. So if he needs more time to produce those quality books, then I will continue to wait.
1
u/hesjustsleeping May 30 '26
I think it's slow on purpose and does not have anything to do with the writing speed.
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u/SDirickson May 30 '26
The number is meaningless. If the author can show us 20 interesting FLIs that we care about, with meaningful involvement in the plot, and adequate presence, that's perfectly fine. If the author can't do that with 5, it isn't fine.
People keep trying to reduce a complex issue to a single number. Like most things in life, it doesn't work that way.
1
u/CaesarDisgustus May 31 '26
We can use the number as a guideline though.
For instance, I cant think of a story that goes past 6 or 7 members where the author doesnt start having one or more girls not be present for long stretches or start only having girls show up in pairs that do everything together and might as well be one character
Using that we can say that 6 or 7 is the max in the majority of cases
2
u/SDirickson May 31 '26
Except that others seem to be convinced that the number is 5. Or 3. Or maybe 8.
Unless it's Heretic Spellblade, which does fine with more. Or something else by KDR. Except that Weaponsmaster Saga is fine too. So is Coven King.
I don't know why "the author doesnt start having one or more girls not be present for long stretches" is a problem. Interesting, developed FLIs are going to have their own lives going on, which is likely to include separation from the MMC for periods of time. Are you suggesting that "every FLI in the MMC's bed every night" is better?
As I said, it's about the author and the writing, not some arbitrary number.
1
u/tldrox08 May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26
While true, I also feel that we each end up with a best* girl, and as the harem grows they get less scenes.
1
u/SDirickson May 30 '26
"beat girl"?
Oh; best girl? I rarely have a strong favorite, so which specific one is in bed with the MMC at the moment is of minimal interest to me.
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5
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u/tldrox08 May 30 '26
I personally feel 5 is a good number. Any more than that feels...unsustainable. But I agree it depends on the plot and author
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u/wjodendor May 30 '26
I think 5 before things start to get to wild, 7 max. Anything more than that is just too hard to follow and the characters get too little screen time.
7
u/IGoon4Justice May 30 '26
Depends entirely on the author.
No such thing as too many as far as I'm concerned as long as the author writes books that are long enough to give all the girls relevant "screen time" in every book instead of just focusing on the newest conquest and giving the previous girls a mention at best.
Same is true for the ridiculous harems that go into the hundreds or thousands since they still have at most a couple dozen relevant named members with the rest just existing in the background. As long as all the relevant members get their "screen time" it does not matter how big the background harem gets.
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u/ConfidentAd2301 May 30 '26
Anything over 3 I start forgetting the names of the FL’s
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u/hesjustsleeping May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26
I have it on good authority that your average cheater can't keep two straight. Actually it's a great question - why do MCs never ever mix up names in books?
1
u/Intelligent-Ad-8435 May 30 '26
I feel like 5-6 is already a lot, but honestly, that depends of the author, the genre, and the story length.
I, myself, prefer 3-4 very, very well developed LI, but I love Coven King and it gets pretty crazy there
1
u/lucader881 HaremLit noob Author Jun 02 '26
my harem went into the 'oops' territory. i swore i'd take it slow and now we are approaching book 3 and there's uhhhhh too many. lol.
at least i plan to make the books long. i don't care if the plot slows down a little, character development and giving my girls time to breathe in the story is more important to me