Fantasy world of seven Realms based on the rainbow

Question

I invented a fantasy world which primarily consists of 7 Realms, six based on the six colors of the rainbow (the consensus is that indigo isn't really a color), red yellow green blue orange violet, with a 'Realm of the Light' in the center.

Each morning, the inhabitants of the six outer Realms raise their colored crystals to the sun, the rays of the sun bend and shine towards the center, where the Citadel of the Light is located. There is a prism atop the Citadel, it combines the colored rays into a shaft of pure light that extends to an even higher world, a world that is not discussed much in my novel.

The purpose of this Light is to provide hope, joy, and optimism to Mankind, back on Earth.

Now, the Colors must remain in balance for the Light to form, if one Color were to dominate and overpower the rest, the Light will fail to emanate from the Prism, mankind will become depressed, and they will stop making art and wearing colors.

Every time a human chooses a color, to paint their house, to paint their car, to tattoo themselves, or to wear an item of clothing, the corresponding Realm in the Color Realms expands physically and its ruler gains more power.

The first book deals with a conflict between the King of the Realm of Blue and the King of the Realm of Green. In short, Blue wants to destroy the rainforests on Earth, causing the oceans to rise, and the entire world will be painted in Blue. Whereas Green will use all the water to grow new forests and spread green over the lands.

A human male and female are transported from Earth to the Color Realms to become Champions of the Light and unite the Realms of Blue and Green once more, in peace and harmony. They are part of an ultimately larger group of 14 young characters from 14 different countries and cultures who unite as a force for peace and healing.

The Philosophies of the Rulers of the Realms: So far, I've decided that none of the Kings and Queens are truly evil.

Vallidius Blue wants to cover the Earth in ocean. But this will cause a revolution of our entire ecosystem. Sure it will probably take millions of years, but we've been through this before, at one time everything was covered in ocean and then land rose into what we walk on today. He believes that the environment is so damaged that the only way forward now is a complete transformation of the whole system. Sure, the humans will likely die, but he doesn't care about them at all. He's looking big picture, at the Earth and life on Earth as a whole. When there is only blue ocean the Light won't form, and Vallidius is okay with that.

Red is fiery, seeks renewal & regeneration through flame, like a forest fire.

Yellow is nurturing like the sun, but too much of a good thing scorches everything!

Yionaffe Green prefers forests and greenery, even at the expense of water.

Violet and Orange: I am less clear about these; they are "in progress". Orange might be ferocious like a tiger, perhaps? Violet is perhaps an alien color?

The Citadel of Light: unaddressed as of yet.

The Fatal Flaw I believe there is a major flaw in all this, as follows: if the Colors need to be in equal balance, I'm afraid that the Light can not be formed when Red, Violet, and Orange are so underrepresented both in nature and in fashion.

As a reality check: Does this world seem consistent or make internal sense?

Answer 1

Frame challenge - the so-called "seven colors of the rainbow" are, for the most part, completely arbitrary. The only reason we think of the rainbow as having seven colors is because Isaac Newton had an obsession with making everything fit into sevens. As anyone who has looked at a rainbow will tell you, the colors blend into each other seamlessly, and you can divide them up however you feel like.

So the idea that each color must be "in balance" is kind of silly - do you need to find an equal number of objects in nature that are precisely chartreuse or puce? If you're having a problem finding a function for orange or violet, just leave them out.

If you want to connect something to human vision, you can use red, green, and blue as your primaries - the three kinds of color receptors in the human eye - and yellow, cyan, and magenta as your secondaries. Magenta can be an odd one out since it isn't part of the rainbow anyway (it's a color that is created within the brain when we perceive red and blue light simultaneously).

(Worth noting that Newton's "indigo" was probably just what we call "blue" and what he called "blue" was what we call "cyan". Again though, this just underscores how easily you can change the system to suit your needs.)

Answer 2

There were a lot of questions in there so I am just gonna respond to your first two...

My first question is... ...if the Colors need to be in equal balance, then how can the Light be formed, when Red, Violet, and Orange are so underrepresented both in nature and in fashion?

Things can be in balance without being equal. Is there any rule in your world that says the colour pie of the prism must be totally equal - or could the whole thing stay balanced with, say, a bit less red and violet if only they had a bit more orange?

EG > Look at this old zodiac clock from Lund - the inner circle is off-centre which makes some constellations closer for longer. They don't all share equal time in the sky. https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/lund-sweden-november-horologium-mirabile-lundense-fifteenth-century-astronomical-clock-cathedral-131334210.jpg*

What if there could be different combinations of amounts of colours that harmonize and form a stable structure? As the author you could decide these stable recipes for yourself and allow the colours to change but to also represent both the quality and structure of your world.

This doesn't stop things from going out of balance. Like the world only needs a little bit of red - but what if they don't get it? Does everyone go mad spilling each other's blood to make red?

Is Kylie Jenner really supporting the entire Orange way with her collection of super luxury Orange sports cars?

Maybe.

If you need more orange, what about including a sun? They last longer.

Answer 3

There is a lot to unpack in this "question", probably enough for more than one question, but anyway...

Problem 1:

...the Colors need to be in equal balance, then how can the Light be formed, when Red, Violet, and Orange are so underrepresented both in nature and in fashion?

There is another world with different color distributions. On our world plants primarily use chlorophyll to make energy, which is green, but many plants have a purplelish pigment on their leaves too. In Otherworld the balance leans more toward purple leaves. Other "coin flips" in the evolution of the natural world went differently there too. Except they weren't random coin flips, it was nature enforcing the Law of Conservation of Chroma.

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Problem 2:

Violet and orange are the hard ones, perhaps someone can assist me in developing a philosophy for them. Orange ferocious like a tiger, perhaps? Violet is an alien color? Idk.

I don't actually have an answer here, but it reminds me of the color pie in Magic the Gathering, which divides all spells/motivations/effects into the jurisdiction of 1 (or more) of the 5 colors. The color pie is a huge part of the game's balance and philosophy. One interesting aspect is with 5 colors, each has 2 "friendly" colors whose motivations overlap and 2 "enemy" colors whose motivations conflict But because each color contains so much (1/5 of the universe), even enemy colors have some commonality, and friends have some conflict. For example green has the power of life/regrowth/plants/beasts/nature, while black (one of its enemies) has death/greed/necromancy/ambition. Life/nature and necromancy are opposing, but life/death are part of the same process/cycle.

With 6 colors (an even number) the friend/enemy dynamics would have to work a little differently. Maybe this could serve as inspiration though

Answer 4

Frame challenge for red and orange: autumn in higher latitudes. Also remember that brown is mostly red, also include so many furry creatures. And as long as there are prey and predators in nature, there will be blood being spilled.

As for violet, there are many plants and bacteria of that colour. If they are not present in abundance in your world, just say they are denser in power, so a few special orchids here and there have as much power as oceans and forrests. That makes it even easier to throw the world off-balance because a few more or a few less of violet will either hurt or empower every other colour, respectively.

Answer 5

(R,G,B) model

Make (R,G,B) model where white light in (R,G,B) terms is (255,255,255). Then you will not worry about yellow, orange, violet, indigo etc. The model will be 6 colors (R,G,B) as primary + (C,Y,M) as secondary around and white in the middle. (C,Y,M) are just combinations or overlapping of (R,G,B).

Yellow is overlap of Red and Green but Complimentary of Blue

and same for Cyan and Magenta

White = R+G+B OR B+Y OR G+M OR R+C