In the Lost Cities, being banished and being exiled are two very different things. And yet it seems like some people use them interchangeably, and I find that annoying for some reason.
Being banished is being kicked out of the Lost Cities and sent to the Neutral Territory. Tam and Linh were banished.
Being exiled is being sent to Exile, the underground prison. Prentice was exiled. The kids at Exillium were not exiled, they were banished (even though the school name makes it sound like they were exiled). (Seriously, Councilors, you're really trying to break our brains, aren't you?)
It is deeply annoying to me that going to Exillium does not mean you're exiled, but we can't do anything about it. The Councilors are weird, I guess. And want to drive us crazy.
Cheat sheet:
Exile: the underground prison in the core of the Earth. (which makes no sense. In Exile, Alden and Sophie got to Exile [The prison], in a relatively short amount of time, even though the radius of the Earth is several thousand miles. Maybe its not actually in the core of the Earth, but the Council tells everyone it is to keep people from trying to break in. That...actually kinda makes sense.)
Being Exiled: The Council sentences you to the underground prison in the previous entry on the cheat sheet.
The Neutral Territories: Territory that belongs neither to any of the intelligent species nor to the humans.
Being Banished: The Council decides you are too dangerous (or something like that) to stay in the Lost Cities, and sends you to the Neutral Territories.
Exillium: The school in the Neutral Territories for banished kids. (And while we're at it, let's consider how there's a whole school for kids who are banished from the Lost Cities. How many kids are the Councilors banishing?)
Memory breaks: A form of a probe that shatters someone's consciousness to uncover their deepest secrets. The person performing a memory break needs a guide to keep them from getting trapped in the broken mind. This is just speculation, but I am almost 100% confident that the Council doesn't order memory breaks to punish someone, but orders them when they think that someone is hiding important secrets. Most, maybe (quite likely) all, of the people who have memory breaks performed on them were exiled, but I am confident that not everyone in Exile had a memory break performed on them. (Random thought: Can memory breaks only be performed on elves? We know that the different intelligent species have different "mindscapes," and that elves can break because of guilt, so maybe having "breakable minds" is unique to the elves.) (Random thought #2: Memory breaks are creepy and horrible.)
Is this really a cheat sheet or just more additional thoughts I had, 'cause there's a lot of additional thoughts.
YOU ARE READING
Keeper of the Lost Cities Thoughts
FanfictionI just thought a bunch about KotLC and came up with some crazy ideas. And theories. And rants. And "Okay, this kind of fits but I hate it so bad." Also me giving AI KotLC questions and watching it be horribly wrong. And some cool fanfics I've found...
