Exile

The elvin world isn’t all that it seems when Sophie first arrives in the first book. The glittering buildings, beautiful elves, and elaborate ceremonies conceal unrest and uncertainty about the future. The plotlines in both Exile and the series concern the proper responses to these problems. Sophie and Dex’s kidnapping in the first book revealed that rival shadow organizations were working behind the scenes to address these problems, and eventually everyone will be forced to pick a side, as Fintan suggests to Alden in Chapter 24. Against this backdrop of social crisis, the Black Swan organization created Sophie.

As Sophie learns from her interactions with Wylie and Forkle and from her experience using her telepathy, the Black Swan anticipated that the Council would react harshly to anything they perceived as a challenge to their authority. As Fintan observes angrily in Chapter 24, the Council ruins lives through their harsh reprisals, banning abilities and breaking of minds. Rather than addressing the root problems, they create the illusion of a solution. Sophie notices a similar impulse in the presentation of Silveny at the Sanctuary: The Council wants a spectacle. How they get it is less of a concern. Their claim that it is necessary to give hope to the elves’ flagging spirits has merit but doesn’t communicate how exactly they plan to address the root problems.

Within the large-scale elvin community’s crisis, Sophie confronts countless small-scale but related ethical dilemmas and experiences the challenge of making choices consistent with her personal moral values. Whether this causes her discomfort or danger rarely factors as a significant concern. Sophie repeatedly exhibits a desire to act for the welfare of those close to her. She refuses to give up on Alden even when the Council has already staged a seed planting for him. She shows up to support Fitz and Biana even when they’re trying to shut her out. She won’t leave Silveny behind when assailants are attacking. She consents to consume limbium, knowing full well that it could kill her, in the hope that she’ll be able to heal Alden’s mind.

Repeatedly, the novel emphasizes Sophie’s commitment to finding a way through ethical dilemmas and making moral choices she can live with. Any objections she has to the Council don’t arise from larger systemic oppositions but from a desire to help those close to her. As the series continues, this commitment to making morally right choices prepares her for confronting more complex and difficult challenges concerning how the elvin world is run and what needs to change.