A question to people with sisters.

[anthorn]

I have a question to people with sisters whether it's bro and sis or sis and sis as I am trying to gauge how realistic this plot point is in my book.

The main character is to marry the King of a foreign country in order to cement ties and increase the flow of money back and forth. She never had a good relationship with her younger sister on the count of the younger sister being jealous of the eldest being called Godtouched because she had visions from a Goddess and is sometimes visited by their dead mother.
The father, who disapproves of his country's tribal traditions, sends them away to school in another country when they are younger. (This is before the whole marriage thing) The younger sister is more carefree while the eldest is obviously more serious and is bullied for it. The relationship fractures during this time, leading up to a point when travelling from one city to the next, they are attacked by bandits, the eldest leaving her younger sister to her fate.

Years pass to where the eldest is due to marry the King. She is approached by a resistance group who want to cause trouble, and tell her that they will give her the location of her long lost sister in return for her murdering the King. She agrees, even though by murdering the King she's not exactly going to be able to leave the city afterwards for obvious reasons.

The situation seems to me to be a no win situation.

Would you agree to something like this if it was you? Would you do it for a sister if your relationship wasn't good? Would you do it if your father was obviously rich enough for him to wrangle an arranged marriage in the first place, so obviously it wouldn't be too hard to pay someone to look for your sister if you were so inclined.

For timeline purposes. Younger sister went missing 12 years ago.

 

[The Judge]

If you're asking whether this sounds plausible, then the answer must surely be it's your job to make it plausible.

Real life relationships are complicated. I have two sisters, but my relationship with each is very different and I would react to any news about them in a very different way. I also have nieces, one of whom is only a year younger than I am and is in many ways another sister, but she was effectively missing from my life for decades as she was taken to live in South Africa by her mother (my ex-sister-in-law) when we were children and she married and remained there. Had I heard she had gone missing in Jo'berg, I would certainly have worried and helped her father in searching for her, but whether I would have murdered someone to get her back, I just don't know. Probably not, especially if I had no reason to trust the people who were making the offer.

However, guilt is a very strange thing. If the elder** sister feels guilty that she abandoned the younger one, and has spent 12 years beating herself up about it, thinking her sister is dead, then she might well be receptive to such an offer, especially if she dislikes the intended husband and/or is angered by being sold to him like a lump of meat.



** NB if there are only two of them it's elder, not eldest.

 

[Phyrebrat]

It's not a case really of asking us with sisters to comment; make the character the kind of character who would commit these things. Simples

People will believe anything as long as they feel it's backed up with logic or justifiable. Consider you asked is how believable it is that the sister would act this way, not - for example - that she was touched by a Goddess...

People will believe she's been visited by a goddess because you've set it up or it's accessible to their logic. You just have to give the sister a need to act this way. Motivation is king/queen

pH

 

[VinceK]

Real life relationships are complicated

make the character the kind of character who would commit these things

Siblings fall out all the time, but in most cases there will always be a bond that ties them together. That said, if one sibling does something so abhorrent in the eyes of the other then the bond may not be strong enough. As @Phyrebrat says, it is up to you to place the characters in situations which lead to their logical actions. If the reader empathises with your character, they will understand their actions.

 

[Wruter]

This plot is very similar to Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson so I'd suggest reading that to see how it can be handled well.

 

[zmunkz]

I think @The Judge hit it on the nose. Only thing to add is a thumbs up, because the plot sounds really cool.

 

[prizzley]

... if one sibling does something so abhorrent in the eyes of the other then the bond may not be strong enough.

Yes, but time sometimes gives a person a different perspective. At the time, I couldn't forgive my sister. But I seem to have done so without consciously thinking about it. Blood can be thicker than water.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Would you agree to something like this if it was you?

Why not simply tell the king - or your father - so their men can capture the rebels next time they organise a meeting, and then torture the whereabouts of her sister out of them? That way the older sister can be a part of the heroic mission to rescue the younger one.

That would be better than committing murder - an act no doubt against her nature - and all for a vague promise from rapey kidnappers which would mean her own certain death, while doing nothing for her younger sister anyway. There's little point knowing the location is she can't do anything about it.

The danger is that your sisters are simply victims who are pushed around by external events, rather than defining the story by their own actions.

Simply honest feedback on what you've mentioned above.

 

[anthorn]

Why not simply tell the king - or your father - so their men can capture the rebels next time they organise a meeting, and then torture the whereabouts of her sister out of them? That way the older sister can be a part of the heroic mission to rescue the younger one.

That would be better than committing murder - an act no doubt against her nature - and all for a vague promise from rapey kidnappers which would mean her own certain death, while doing nothing for her younger sister anyway. There's little point knowing the location is she can't do anything about it.

The danger is that your sisters are simply victims who are pushed around by external events, rather than defining the story by their own actions.

Simply honest feedback on what you've mentioned above.

No, no you're quite right. You're all quite right.

I had thought, in a way to make the sister less of a victim, to have her form her own escape plan already. She would form a friendship with one of the honour guard, as well as having her own personal bodyguard from her tribe. When she ends up being Queen through the murder, it will obviously cause problems as to the country never having a Queen and that sort of thing being frowned upon by the religion there. She decides that her best way of survival is to destroy the religious institute and its hold on the country, which launches a civil war that ends with the religion becoming stronger than before and an outright ruler of the country while she flees helped by the guy from the honour guard and her bodyguard.

But this'll probably not work either. Just a thought. And to be honest as to why she doesn't tell the King? Because...plot? Which is bad.

 

[Zebra Wizard]

Yea as brian put it. If the main character is resourceful and had wealth, why not use that to find out where her sister is through spying on the rebel or via torture etc, rather than killing the king, which seems like a more difficult one.

However you can stil make it work, if the rebels do have the sister in their possession, make them meet so she knows they have her and the rebels can chop off an ear or something to keep the elder one motivated.

As for the strength of the relationship, siblings can be rivals, but still be loyal/love one another. Or family and her name is more important to her rather than her love for her sister (aka tywin lannister).

Also you can make it so that the sister are a bit more pleasant to each other (unless its detrimental to the story)

 

[Brian G Turner]

no you're quite right.

It's simply feedback on what you've mentioned - I don't know the story, and there's clearly more to it.

 

[Ragandar]

Why not simply tell the king - or your father - so their men can capture the rebels next time they organise a meeting, and then torture the whereabouts of her sister out of them? That way the older sister can be a part of the heroic mission to rescue the younger one.

That would be better than committing murder - an act no doubt against her nature - and all for a vague promise from rapey kidnappers which would mean her own certain death, while doing nothing for her younger sister anyway. There's little point knowing the location is she can't do anything about it.

The danger is that your sisters are simply victims who are pushed around by external events, rather than defining the story by their own actions.

Simply honest feedback on what you've mentioned above.

You could make it work by making hers an old, prestigious family that does not have very many resources left. Then it becomes a marriage for prestige rather than wealth. That makes the father incapable of assisting. He simply would not have the means to do so.

If the king then refuses to help because a second daughter is inconsequential to him, especially if he's already married the older one anyway, then you leave her with fewer options. And it gives her a reason to hate the king enough to do it as well. Kill two birds with one stone.

In that case it would come down to whether you want to make the king a likeable character or not.


One thing I would worry about is proving to the older daughter that the younger daughter is in their hands, and still alive. Otherwise she might dismiss their claims as simple attempts at blackmail. Especially if their relationship broke down in the past.