| Spoiler warning! This article contains plot details from the latest book. |
Sophie is the 14-year old (as revealed in Neverseen) protagonist of the Keeper of The Lost Cities, Exile, Everblaze, and Neverseen. Her full name is Sophie Elizabeth Foster.
The name "Sophie" means "wisdom."
Biography
Sophie Foster developed her telepathic abilities at the age of five, when she hit her head. She woke up in the hospital, suddenly able to hear everyone's thoughts. She learns that it was triggered by Mr. Forkle, her elven neighbour.
She is also known to have had a severe allergic reaction to limbium, a rare mineral, which the human doctors could not identify.
She skipped many grades, eventually becoming a twelve-year-old high school senior courtesy of her photographic memory and her other skills. She got accepted to Yale, but her parents did not allow her to go, instead choosing to have her attend San Diego City College, thinking it was a better choice for her. On a field trip to the National History Museum, she met another mind reading elf named Fitz, who brought her to Eternalia, one of the lost cities. One of Sophie's best friends is Dex. A few of her other friends are Keefe, Biana, Fitz, Marella, and Jensi. When she is in the Lost Cities, she is placed in the hands of her guardians, Grady and Edaline Ruewen. During her first few weeks in the lost cities, Sophie had to become accustomed to using her abilities in new ways, using her telekinesis, concentrating for lightleaping, going to a new school with new subjects, Elvin food, and all of the (sometimes strange) Elvin customs. In Exile, Sophie finds and is entrusted to the care of an alicorn named Silveny.
Sophie grows a lot within the four books, learning how to control her abilities and accept herself with all of her oddities. She makes many friends along the way but never looses her human connection, seeing both the positive and negative sides of human and Elvish communities. Near the beginning of her journey she was afraid that the Black Swan, and the people who made her, were evil and by extension of that, she was evil too. Under the guidance and love of her family, friends, and mentors she chooses her own destiny and makes decisions about what she feels is right despite any consequences she may face.
Abilities
Telepathy- Sophie is able to hear everyone's thoughts, except Mr. Forkle when he is not "giving off" thoughts . She became a telepath at age 5, when Mr. Forkle triggered it. She is able to prevent anyone from getting inside her mind, except Mr. Forkle and Fitz. She can project her memories on paper and transmit thoughts to another person's mind, even from very far away. She can also implant memories, as it was shown when she accidentally implanted her memories of the star charts to Fitz.
Telekinesis- She is able to move things with her mind, including several very heavy objects at once. She uses this ability to beat all of the prodigies in Foxfire in the Ultimate Splotching Championship.
Infliction- She is able to cause others pain. Sophie has not yet been trained in Infliction, but is being trained in Exile by Councilor Bronte and later it says she can inflict positive emotions such as love, peace, and happiness.
Photographic memory- She has a photographic memory, so is able to memorize facts very quickly, as well as being able to memorize an entire map of stars for her Universe class.
Polyglot- Sophie is a polyglot. A polyglot can speak different languages just by hearing them and mimic different accents too. Alden tells her being a polyglot will help her advance in Multispecial studies. She cannot mimic yet, though. Other known Polyglots are Lady Cadence and Lady Gisela.
Teleport- Aquired from her alicorn genes. She can teleport with her mind, like her Alicorn, Silveny. She is also able to "blink" like Vanishers with this ability. Besides the 2 alicorns, Greyfell and Silveny, she is the only one who can teleport.
Personality and Traits
Sophie is first depicted as a lonely and shy girl among high-school seniors. She was an outcast because she was very different and was often called a know-it-all. Her good grades annoyed her peers. Sophie had a hard time accepting the fact that she was an elf, though this did not deter her curiosity. Sophie also has the habit of doubting herself and sometimes needs reassurance to boost her self-confidence, often picking out loose eyelashes when she is nervous. She usually cries when she's frustrated and needs to express her feelings (most of the time privately in her room). She is also headstrong and brave, wanting to help despite the fact that it was dangerous and she might not be able to do anything. Sophie's most prominent trait is her protectiveness and willingness to help her friends, even if it harms herself. This is shown when she nearly killed herself light-travelling without a nexus and wrapping all of her concentration around Dex, who was unconscious. Sophie is also very determined; she refused to give up despite the hopelessness of the situation. A prime example would be during her capture in the first book where she did not give up hope when trying to contact Fitz.
Physical Appearance
Sophie Foster by Shannon Messenger
Sophie has shoulder-length blonde hair and brown eyes, which set her apart from the other elves, who share the same blue eyes. Her eye color might have resulted from the Black Swan tweaking her genes. Many people would describe Sophie as pretty-Della tells Sophie that she will become a heart-breaker when she grows up. As of Exile, she has a star-shaped mark on the back of her hand that may scar forever. She wears two nexuses because of how badly she faded away in book 1 when she was trying to save Dex. In the human world she often wore dull colors, such as black and grey, to avoid attention. However, in the Elvin world, she has no choice but to wear their colorful robes, and comes to like it.
The art on the right is by Shannon Messenger, the author of the series.
Relationships
- HUMAN FAMILY (The Fosters)
Sophie seems to have a very strong relationship with her human family. She thought her younger sister was annoying at first, but when the time came for her to depart, forever losing contact with them, she expressed fondness for the young girl. She and her mother share mutual love, her mother having went through twelve hours of labor to bring her into this world which Sophie was grateful for. Sophie and her father got along very well too, and her father had the habit of calling her "Soybean".
Sophie cried when the time came for her to be separated from them and fell into depression which she eventually recovered from under the tender care of Grady and Edaline. While living at Havenfield, Sophie recieves an unauthorized Spyball along with the new names of her family. She uses the Spyball to watch over them and to provide herself with a bit of comfort from her loss of them.
Sophie admitted that Fitz was her first friend. She and Fitz developed a bond so strong they were capable of transmitting thoughts to one another from a great distance, even from different worlds.
Sophie and Fitz are on friendly terms (though Sophie seemed to have hoped for more), Sophie thinking long and hard when she went out shopping for his present and was severely disappointed when Fitz did not get her anything special. It is heavily implied that Sophie has a crush on Fitz since they first met, having eagerly anticipated meeting him the day after they first met. She thought he had beautiful eyes and when she nearly lost hope, when she thought she was about to die, she thought of Fitz first and only him.
Fitz mourned and blamed himself, thinking that she'd died and was deeply aggrieved. However, he was the first person to find her after her escape because Sophie telepathically told him where she had leapt; the Four Seasons Tree. Fitz was overjoyed by Sophie's recovery after the light leaping incident but remains worried about her welfare afterwards. Possibly, he might return Sophie's feelings though he's good at hiding them.
- DEX (friend/love interest)
Dex is Sophie's best friend and vice versa. Dex cares deeply about Sophie and he often studied with her for their exams, helping her through thick and thin. He strongly disapproves of Sophie associating herself with Fitz and his family, claiming that they were a bunch of distrustful people. Though Sophie ignored his warning, when she later learned that Biana only became friends with her because her father ordered her to, Dex supported her despite their previous argument.
Though never confirmed, his actions proved that he has a crush on Sophie. Though she didn't seem to have any particular romantic feelings for Dex, Sophie cares deeply about him as a friend and was willing to sacrifice her very existence to save his life. Due to her close relationship to Fitz, and Dex seems aware of Sophie's crush on Fitz, he is extremely bitter toward Fitz. However, in the fourth book he apologizes to Fitz for disliking him, and they become friends (sort of).
Keefe is Sophie's friend and Fitz's best friend. He first met Sophie when she had to go see Elwin after alchemy and he was skipping class. Keefe and Sophie have been in dentention together numerous times. He is an Empath and can feel Sophie's emotions even when not in contact. Keefe likes to tease Sophie and sometimes is a flirt. At the end of Book 1, Keefe is the one who figured out that Sophie light leapt Dex to the Four Seasons Tree as they were escaping the Neverseen. He is the only other person (besides Sophie) whom Silveny allowed to be close to her, and he calls her Glitterbutt.
Instead of calling Sophie by her first name, Keefe frequently calls her Foster. Keefe goes with Sophie to the Black Swan's hideout and is one of the main people Sophie trust with her secrets during book 2: Exile. He usually plays Base Quest with Sophie, Biana, and Fitz. Sophie and Keefe develop a deeper relationship in Exile, as he played as her escort to the Black Swan base on Silveny, and he admitted to her that he hid behind jokes because that's how he dealt with life because it was easier for him. In Everblaze, Sophie and Keefe go on many mini-missions together, and nearly all the time when she wasn't at school or practicing Telepathy with Fitz, she was with Keefe, deciphering messages from the Black Swan.
When Keefe finds out that his mother his part of Neverseen, Sophie is the first to comfort him. In Neverseen, Keefe becomes a mildly darker version of himself, and Sophie helps him deal with the possibility that he lost his mother, even going as far as to let him cry on her. On especially bad nights for Keefe, Sophie convinces him to sleep by his windowsill, as she does the same on her own, deeming them "window slumber parties". Keefe becomes exceedingly darker and is filled with more angst as the book goes on, and Sophie is constantly tailing him to make sure he doesn't do anything reckless. Near the end of the book, Keefe gives Sophie a beaded necklace he had originally made for his mother and leaves her.
Sophie follows him only to find that he is planning to join the Neverseen because he believes that his mother had set him up all along to be evil. He explains sadly to Sophie that he was never supposed to be the hero, his mother had ensured that. Keefe steals Kenric's cache by mimicking Sophie's voice, and when he is pressured to brand her (quite literally) as traitor by Fintan, he secretly sends her on her way back home, while he, nonetheless stays behind. Also, in the beginning of Neverseen, whenever Keefe says or does certain things, Sophie's heart switches to "hummingbird mode", and she feels fluttery things in her stomach. Sophie is heartbroken by Keefe's joining the Neverseen, but she knows he would never hurt her, and decides to stay true to her promise to not hate him.
- BIANA (friend)
Biana first became friends with her because her father made her, but as she got to know Sophie, Biana became genuine friends with Sophie. Biana has proven herself to be a fierce and loyal friend to Sophie when the she needs it. She always tries to include Sophie in her makeovers, but Sophie hates makeup, and thus avoids them as much as she could.
- EDALINE (adoptive mother)
Edaline is a sensitive mother when it comes to Sophie being burnt by something, as her late daughter, Jolie, died in a fire. Sophie reminds her of Jolie, as she has said a few times, and that made it a little painful to look at Sophie sometimes.
- GRADY (adoptive father)
Grady is fun and warm and cheery but when Sophie is in trouble, he is cold and stern. But he and Edaline have shown to truly love Sophie as if she was their own daughter too.
- ALDEN (guardian)
Alden is Fitz and Biana's father. Sophie always goes to him with problems and concerns and clues on the Black Swan. Alden had received a newspaper article leading him to Sophie. Sophie trusts him and he trusts her. In Exile Alden asks Sophie to be his guide when he does the memory break on Fintan. Sophie was upset when Alden's mind was broken.
- Mr. Forkle (creator)
Mr. Forkle was Sophie's next-door neighbour in the Forbidden Cities. He was one of the main Elves involved with making Sophie's DNA and triggered her Telepathy when she was five. He trained her mentally at night so she would be an exceptional Telepath. He became quite involved with Sophie's life after she joined the Black Swan (which is under his guidance).
- TIERGAN (mentor)
Tiergan is very supportive of Sophie's Telepathy training. He was the first to pair Sophie and Fitz together for Telepathy training because they worked so well together; and despite his dislike for the Vacker family. Sophie calls on Tiergan when she's in need (like when Alden's mind broke) and trusts him with some of her worries. Tiergan was later revealed to be Granite and a leading member of the Black Swan.
- SANDOR (guard/ friend)
- CALLA (friend/ supporter)
- TAM (friend)
- LINH (friend)
- MARELLA ((ex) friend)
- JENSI (friend)
- VALIN
Valin is a greasy-haired guy that has a crush on Sophie.
Ella is Sophie's beloved blue stuffed elephant.