I really need to reread the series, it's been so long; I reread the last 3 books, at least.
Still, I keep forgetting. It's said several times there are 5 Southern Kingdoms. Which are they? Kuneer, Tyto, and Ambala are three of them. Which lands make up the other two kingdoms? There's Silverveil, Shadow Forest, the Barrens, the Beaks, and the St. Aegolius Canyons left. Debatably the island of ga'hoole. It seems that maybe Silverveil is the 4th kingdom.
Also, like, the map's compass rose, I think we all know that it's not really deliberately oriented. North-to-south is more correspondent to right-to-left than up-to-down, which becomes increasingly clear as the Wolves of the Beyond series focuses on the beyond, "above" the Sea of Hoolemere on the map.
I don't really remember the Legends of Ga'Hoole prequel books, but if they really do reveal that Grank and Fengo drove the hagsfiends out of Kuneer.. My point is, I'm just surprised most of the culture and history turns out to be Northern Kingdom-owl-based. At least Ambala was special - indeed, ironically we learn more about it than the culture of Tyto. Maybe not that ironic since Soren was only 3 weeks old when captured.
Final question today, in Book 14 it's mentioned that "there are usually some visitors from off the tree." This is pretty much the culmination of the de-mystifying of the Guardians that begins with the main characters accustoming to the Tree by The Rescue - if owls easily found the island, the Guardians's existence probably wouldn't be refuted much. But, if I understand correctly, the frequency of these visitors is only because of the conflict - the Guardians usually are just legends, and when the Band was trying to find them it was true that most owls didn't know where they were. Right? Owls only visit them regularly later in the series?
