Activity

Hi everyone!

After thinking myself silly on the topic, I finally come to humbly request someone with some measure of logic to examine the issue.

To put it shortly, I have a fantasy worldbuilding element that might be too illogical to make work.

Those of you who know Liorah, or have read segments of my WIP, may have encountered the concept of a kolye or a birrin. 

Both are methods of identification used to differentiate between members of different tribes. A kolye is a golden chain or piece of jewelry worn on the forehead by women and girls over the age of twelve, while a birrin is a stripe of a particular color woven into the border of an outer cloak or garment, worn by men and boys over the age of thirteen.

These indicate whether the person is royal, noble, or commoner, whether they are single, married, or widowed, and of which tribe they are. (There’s a system but it’ll get tedious to explain the entire thing.)

Now, my issue is that I did not think this through when I thought of it. I had just started writing and had no clue what I was doing, so I just established that it was like that and moved on.

During revisions, I’ve realized exactly how illogical it is.

1. Why was it established in the first place? There might have been frequent cases of mistaken identity or something of the like, but how could it possibly be enough to make an entire law and start enforcing it?
2. Speaking of law, who enforces this? Is there a punishment? It seems a rather petty thing to enforce. (In the words of a wise meme, ‘ain’t nobody got time for that.’)
3. What practical use does it have? At the start of the novel, the tribes are mostly at peace with each other. There’s friction, but not enough to make it that important.
4. Who thought this was a good idea in the first place? (Me, apparently, but I mean in story.)
5. Does it have any cultural significance? I couldn’t think of anything.

The problems are so plentiful that I’ve considered entirely cutting the system out of the manuscript. It’s possible, it doesn’t play a huge part. I could work around it.

But on the other hand, it’s just plain aesthetically cool. I like it, I’d be sorry to lose it since it makes place for quite a bit of symbolism as well. I’ve never seen anything quite like it in fantasy. (Now I’ve examined how much worldbuilding it would need to suspend disbelief, I can see why.)

I probably won’t mention all of these things in the actual book, but I want to know, just for myself.

I might be overthinking this, but I’m really stuck. Would readers suspend disbelief based on the ‘rule of cool’, or is it just too illogical?

Does anyone know of any similar things that happened in history so I can research that? Should I just cut the entire concept?

Tagging some people:

@obrian-of-the-surface-world

@this-is-not-an-alien

@joelle-stone

@anyone?