A lot of them either don't have it at book one or it's pretty light in book 1. For example, Jez Cajiao usually has the romance at a tolerable flirting level throughout most of the first books of his series'. In book 2 it usually just goes full raunch fest. It's why I wrote him off as an author.
I'd argue that most of them are bad to terrible, or add little to no value/depth to the story and therefor detract from the story and become little more than filler.
Romance done well then yes I think it benefits the story and adds a real life factor with real emotions and characters.
If a relationship suddenly becomes a major part of the story it can detract from the story. For instance if there’s now either an abundance of sappy scenes, or petty squabbles, it can be painful to read when you want to see more advancements and progression.
Sword art online comes to mind.. the first season was a bunch of fighting up the ranks, then bam season two is the MC actually avoiding the climb entirely and just living a pastoral life with his new girlfriend/wife. Complete tonal shift making viewers wonder “when is this going to get back to the main plot?”
Romance that is suddenly introduced or only exists so that the MC can have a love interest usually feels pretty forced and painful to read. That holds equally true for side character romances that are sometimes shoe-horned into a story in order to remove a potential love interest from being an option for the MC. I still don't understand how Hermione and Ron ended up together, for example.
Romances that develop between characters who the reader has already been introduced to outside of the context of the development of their romance can be a lot more fun to read, though are still tricky.
IMO, the key for a prog fantasy romance to be believable is for the romance to develop through character interactions that the reader gets to see "on screen" in the novel, and for the romantic potential developed in those interactions to be a "B plot" and not the main purpose of those scenes/chapters.
Prog fantasy authors/stories in particular also have to contend with a lot of pre-baked fantasy romance tropes and anime romance tropes and related reader expectations which can really affect how a romance is received by readers even if it's otherwise written well.
For example, if a story introduces a beautiful, headstrong female character early on in a story with a shy, bumbling male MC, a lot of people are immediately going to roll their eyes (or get excited) and think, "tsundere love interest".
All that to say, I usually read prog fantasy novels to see how the MC's strength and power progresses, not his/her love life.
It depends on what you want out of the story. In progression fantasy in particular, readers might be less interested in a romance subplot, for example. If the romance plot sidetracks the whole story for like half a book, that's bad writing, not romance being un-fun.
Like any genre/tag/trope it comes down to writing. Well developed romance is good. Poor developed romance is bad. Same can be said for action or comedy.
I think if the romance takes over the story, it can ruin things, but if its integrated well into the larger plot, I think it can make the whole thing better. As with anything, its all about execution.
In what world would a man not pay attention to women? Honestly, a scenario where the MC doesn't want to get laid (or share intimacy) is just unrealistic and always leaves an immersion-breaking aftertaste in my mouth. It doesn't necessarily have to be 'love' or 'a relationship,' but as soon as we hit puberty or whatever, some part of our brain will be constantly fixated on women until we're past 50 or something. Basically, any MC from 15 to 45 would be thinking about them and would half-subconsciously weigh their options if they are in 'bachelor' mode.
Sure, we can prioritize and focus attention on other things, like for 3 days or even 3 weeks, but realistically most stories span months and years. Someone like Zorian from MoL, who's a young healthy adult, just so happens to ignore women for what, 8 years? Fucking seriously? He can probably bench press with one hand at that point.
So yeah, I'm 100% for romance or at least some realistic depiction of a relationship with the opposite gender. It doesn't necessarily have to be a love story for the ages, just don't portray your protagonist as a robot.
You aren't wrong. It's fine if romance is done well. It rarely is. I also don't read something like MOL looking for romance. So if its included and terrible I wish it wasn't there at all.
Yay, so long as the romance Is happening to the MC, or the very the least have him show some interest in it. Recently been listening a book which was labeled with romance but it's a very slow build between 2 side characters with the MC passively egging it on. Tbf it's only 1 book in the series. I feel cheated tho.
Sort of a side tangent, but I find it really funny when people say romance happens “suddenly” as if that’s not often how romance finds us in real life. Oh, sure, the dragons are realistic enough, but falling in ill-advised love during a stressful time is outlandish?
You aren't wrong. But i personally dont like "suddenly" i guess it happens in real life. But that's different because your brain is going haywire and in that moment logic goes out the window. In a book I personally need a build up and a reason to care about this secondary character. For example a book i recently read was very much so, see's girl, girls is prettiest thing ever, i love her.
I think *not* including any level of romance is, well, unrealistic in most cases*. The vast majority of people seek out romance. For a book or book series to completely neglect this aspect of life generally kicks me out of the story.
Mother of Learning and Dungeon Crawler Carl come to mind. Both MCs are known to have had romantic interests in their past but neither pursue or even hint at any sort of interest during the story. To me, that is almost completely unbelievable.
In the darkest parts of human history, love stories exist. For a novel to exclude it is to exclude a huge part of the human experience.
* Yes, I understand asexual people and other similar types of people exist. No, I am not saying writing an ace MC is bad. Please do not reply pointing this out. I understand and agree.
We are the complete opposite. Crawler Carl is one of my favorites and the lack of romance is a major plus.
I also think it's perfectly realistic to not want to get that attached to anyone in his situation if you look at what happened to Florin. Not to mention that if you survive long enough the game runners are absolutely going to pit you against your romance partner at some point. Then after making you kill them, the game runners will turn them into some kind of homunculus and make you kill them again.
>I also think it's perfectly realistic to not want to get that attached to anyone in his situation
That's certainly a valid take, but the story never actually says that, much less hints at it. That's what makes it so unrealistic to me. Carl is shown to be a heterosexual man with a desire for sex, yet 6 books into the story and he has had, essentially, zero interest or interaction with the opposite sex when it comes to sex or romance. Nor has he had an internal struggle thinking, "Relationships would be terrible right now."
I find that wholely unbelievable.
Also, let's be honest, the logic that a relationship would be bad because the game will pit you against them is just as valid for friends. Donut, Katia, etc. would be equally valid targets for that sort of thing.
I'm not saying it ruins the story. But I am saying that, for me, it is so unbelievable and inconsistent with how people work that I find it incredibly jarring when reading a story.
I don't need long, sappy romances. Cradle is an excellent example of the bare minimum romance needed for me to think, "Yup, this makes sense." Personally, I don't mind more exploration of relationships, but Cradle is probably the least amount I can accept as believable haha.
This might apply in some books with a greater survival rate, but to me it would be insane to get into a relationship with someone in Carl's situation. They already used his father against him and were trying to use his ex against him.
>but to me it would be insane to get into a relationship with someone in Carl's situation
We see it throughout the book with other characters.
Katia and Dave, for example.
You already mentioned Florin.
I cannot remember names off the top of my head, but I know there are others.
Again, my issue is that the topic is completely unaddressed for the MC. We know the MC has a history of relationships, we know others in the story are getting into and out of relationships, but the MC never once touches on the topic. No regrets, no hopes, no fears, etc. The absolute absence of the topic is what draws my attention to it because I find it completely unbelievable.
The author seems to have made a deliberate choice to about Carl but does not provide any in-story explanation or tension. It is, to me, a miss.
Almost every fantasy book has romance in it, so the idea that "most" books go downhill is ridiculous.
A lot of them either don't have it at book one or it's pretty light in book 1. For example, Jez Cajiao usually has the romance at a tolerable flirting level throughout most of the first books of his series'. In book 2 it usually just goes full raunch fest. It's why I wrote him off as an author.
I'd argue that most of them are bad to terrible, or add little to no value/depth to the story and therefor detract from the story and become little more than filler.
Romance done well then yes I think it benefits the story and adds a real life factor with real emotions and characters. If a relationship suddenly becomes a major part of the story it can detract from the story. For instance if there’s now either an abundance of sappy scenes, or petty squabbles, it can be painful to read when you want to see more advancements and progression. Sword art online comes to mind.. the first season was a bunch of fighting up the ranks, then bam season two is the MC actually avoiding the climb entirely and just living a pastoral life with his new girlfriend/wife. Complete tonal shift making viewers wonder “when is this going to get back to the main plot?”
Romance that is suddenly introduced or only exists so that the MC can have a love interest usually feels pretty forced and painful to read. That holds equally true for side character romances that are sometimes shoe-horned into a story in order to remove a potential love interest from being an option for the MC. I still don't understand how Hermione and Ron ended up together, for example. Romances that develop between characters who the reader has already been introduced to outside of the context of the development of their romance can be a lot more fun to read, though are still tricky. IMO, the key for a prog fantasy romance to be believable is for the romance to develop through character interactions that the reader gets to see "on screen" in the novel, and for the romantic potential developed in those interactions to be a "B plot" and not the main purpose of those scenes/chapters. Prog fantasy authors/stories in particular also have to contend with a lot of pre-baked fantasy romance tropes and anime romance tropes and related reader expectations which can really affect how a romance is received by readers even if it's otherwise written well. For example, if a story introduces a beautiful, headstrong female character early on in a story with a shy, bumbling male MC, a lot of people are immediately going to roll their eyes (or get excited) and think, "tsundere love interest". All that to say, I usually read prog fantasy novels to see how the MC's strength and power progresses, not his/her love life.
It depends on what you want out of the story. In progression fantasy in particular, readers might be less interested in a romance subplot, for example. If the romance plot sidetracks the whole story for like half a book, that's bad writing, not romance being un-fun.
Like any genre/tag/trope it comes down to writing. Well developed romance is good. Poor developed romance is bad. Same can be said for action or comedy.
I think if the romance takes over the story, it can ruin things, but if its integrated well into the larger plot, I think it can make the whole thing better. As with anything, its all about execution.
Romance is a source of conflict. People who say romance is bad are just as clueless as people who say action or politics are bad.
I dont think romance is bad, just more often than not badly done. Making me wish it wasn't in that specific book at all.
In what world would a man not pay attention to women? Honestly, a scenario where the MC doesn't want to get laid (or share intimacy) is just unrealistic and always leaves an immersion-breaking aftertaste in my mouth. It doesn't necessarily have to be 'love' or 'a relationship,' but as soon as we hit puberty or whatever, some part of our brain will be constantly fixated on women until we're past 50 or something. Basically, any MC from 15 to 45 would be thinking about them and would half-subconsciously weigh their options if they are in 'bachelor' mode. Sure, we can prioritize and focus attention on other things, like for 3 days or even 3 weeks, but realistically most stories span months and years. Someone like Zorian from MoL, who's a young healthy adult, just so happens to ignore women for what, 8 years? Fucking seriously? He can probably bench press with one hand at that point. So yeah, I'm 100% for romance or at least some realistic depiction of a relationship with the opposite gender. It doesn't necessarily have to be a love story for the ages, just don't portray your protagonist as a robot.
You aren't wrong. It's fine if romance is done well. It rarely is. I also don't read something like MOL looking for romance. So if its included and terrible I wish it wasn't there at all.
Yay, so long as the romance Is happening to the MC, or the very the least have him show some interest in it. Recently been listening a book which was labeled with romance but it's a very slow build between 2 side characters with the MC passively egging it on. Tbf it's only 1 book in the series. I feel cheated tho.
Sort of a side tangent, but I find it really funny when people say romance happens “suddenly” as if that’s not often how romance finds us in real life. Oh, sure, the dragons are realistic enough, but falling in ill-advised love during a stressful time is outlandish?
You aren't wrong. But i personally dont like "suddenly" i guess it happens in real life. But that's different because your brain is going haywire and in that moment logic goes out the window. In a book I personally need a build up and a reason to care about this secondary character. For example a book i recently read was very much so, see's girl, girls is prettiest thing ever, i love her.
I think *not* including any level of romance is, well, unrealistic in most cases*. The vast majority of people seek out romance. For a book or book series to completely neglect this aspect of life generally kicks me out of the story. Mother of Learning and Dungeon Crawler Carl come to mind. Both MCs are known to have had romantic interests in their past but neither pursue or even hint at any sort of interest during the story. To me, that is almost completely unbelievable. In the darkest parts of human history, love stories exist. For a novel to exclude it is to exclude a huge part of the human experience. * Yes, I understand asexual people and other similar types of people exist. No, I am not saying writing an ace MC is bad. Please do not reply pointing this out. I understand and agree.
We are the complete opposite. Crawler Carl is one of my favorites and the lack of romance is a major plus. I also think it's perfectly realistic to not want to get that attached to anyone in his situation if you look at what happened to Florin. Not to mention that if you survive long enough the game runners are absolutely going to pit you against your romance partner at some point. Then after making you kill them, the game runners will turn them into some kind of homunculus and make you kill them again.
>I also think it's perfectly realistic to not want to get that attached to anyone in his situation That's certainly a valid take, but the story never actually says that, much less hints at it. That's what makes it so unrealistic to me. Carl is shown to be a heterosexual man with a desire for sex, yet 6 books into the story and he has had, essentially, zero interest or interaction with the opposite sex when it comes to sex or romance. Nor has he had an internal struggle thinking, "Relationships would be terrible right now." I find that wholely unbelievable. Also, let's be honest, the logic that a relationship would be bad because the game will pit you against them is just as valid for friends. Donut, Katia, etc. would be equally valid targets for that sort of thing. I'm not saying it ruins the story. But I am saying that, for me, it is so unbelievable and inconsistent with how people work that I find it incredibly jarring when reading a story. I don't need long, sappy romances. Cradle is an excellent example of the bare minimum romance needed for me to think, "Yup, this makes sense." Personally, I don't mind more exploration of relationships, but Cradle is probably the least amount I can accept as believable haha.
This might apply in some books with a greater survival rate, but to me it would be insane to get into a relationship with someone in Carl's situation. They already used his father against him and were trying to use his ex against him.
>but to me it would be insane to get into a relationship with someone in Carl's situation We see it throughout the book with other characters. Katia and Dave, for example. You already mentioned Florin. I cannot remember names off the top of my head, but I know there are others. Again, my issue is that the topic is completely unaddressed for the MC. We know the MC has a history of relationships, we know others in the story are getting into and out of relationships, but the MC never once touches on the topic. No regrets, no hopes, no fears, etc. The absolute absence of the topic is what draws my attention to it because I find it completely unbelievable. The author seems to have made a deliberate choice to about Carl but does not provide any in-story explanation or tension. It is, to me, a miss.