Thank you for the infromation.
That much i understood (didn't know the specifics of Korean harem system). My confusion mainly comes from the fact that they are concubines but are portrayed more like daughters of the Emperor. (+ they are freaking young). Even if we talk about crown prince ( i either don't remember him OR he didn't show up, yet). Also a lot of characters and positions in the court aren't being shown to us but should have been shown a long time ago.
As for him getting one of them? Likely to happen, under the sky, Emepror can make any decision IF it serves his objective. Giving his concubine to another man to make him bound and loyal to him isn't something new.
both the current emperor and the crown prince (aka future emperor) each have their own harem. The 4 girls that fell for MC are all from the crown prince's harem. Each concubine comes from a specific palace, and are usually the daughters of the clans in change of said palaces. The emperor is technically free to select any woman he wants to be his concubine and similarly he is technically free to relieve them of their duties as concubines and set them free. However just because the emperor technically can do that doesnt mean he would even if he doesnt have any interest in the harem. Why? Obviously, politics. For example, if an emperor were to show favor to a servant girl of no renown and make her his concubine, that can displease the nobility, and while they cant go against the emperor's orders directly, they may be provoked into secretly acting against the emperor and even try to overthrow him. Same goes for relieving a concubine of her duties on a whim rather than as a punishment or something like that. The nobles could consider this as the emperor disrespecting the noble clans. It doesn't matter if the man want's to give his concubine as a reward to a renowned general of whatever, that is still disrespectful towards the noble clans because the concubine is considered to be a part of the royal family while she's still within the harem. To relieve her of duty is cast her down from royalty back to nobility. Technically it's even worse because a noble clan wouldn't be interested in accepting a failed concubine back into the clan or the palace. It also severs the link between the clan and the royal family through which the clan could've influenced the emperor's choices, which means the clan isn't just disrespected, but also loses some of their political power as well.
Anyway, point is, concubines are concubines for life, or death (if they fu** up badly enough).
The problem here? Some concubines are literally commoners. Correct me if i'm wrong but 1 is 100% a nobody, other doesn't have a backstory yet, 1 has a clan behind her (this one is actually understandable).
I think you and I to some degree have better understanding of this system than authors writting this.
3 out of 4 are from noble families, as for the one that is a commoner, I'm pretty sure she is related to the noble family of her palace but isn't an official member of the family (an illegitimate child). Besides, despite being supposedly a commoner she is still considered to be a genius that was accepted by the palace, which means that she has political weight due to her connection with said palace.
As for how deep the author's understanding is, it's hard to judge based on manhwa. If I'm not mistaken this is a manhwa adaptation of a novel, and it's a well known fact that such adaptations usually cut out a lot of context to move the story forward faster.