Exiled to an Island

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You've just done something incredibly embarrassing - not to you, but to the higher-ups. And you're too important or visible to be fired (or killed). What happens? You're Exiled to an Island.

In fiction, this is often either backstory or a Beginning Trope. Less often, it's an Ending Trope. It's rarely an event that takes place in the middle of a series.

Examples of Exiled to an Island include:

Anime and Manga

• Sister Princess begins with Wataru Minakami being sent to Promise Island for high school instead of the high-status, high-pressure Tokyo high school that he expected to attend.
• In Code Geass R2, Zero makes a deal with Britannia to let him be exiled to an island off of China instead of killed.

Film

• Exiled: A Law & Order Movie shows that after Detective Mike Logan struck a politician in front of reporters, he was exiled to Staten Island - and out of the Homicide department.

Literature

• The Avatar Chronicles: Violence is seen as absolutely despicable in the colony, and merely the act of striking another human is enough to warrant exile onto a small island.

Oral Tradition, Myths and Legends

• Greek Mythology has Philoctetes, who was either bitten by a serpent or accidentally scratched by one of Heracles's Hydra-arrows before the siege of Troy. Philoctetes was not caused pain by the scratch, but the never healing wound stank like a mountain of corpses, which was unbearable during a prolonged siege, as there was no way to escape it. Philoctetes was exiled to an island, taking the quiver of Hydra-venom-tipped arrows with him (they were his property, having been a gift from Heracles). When the gods tell the Greeks that the only way the Trojan War can be won is with his bow, the Greeks swallow their pride and beg Philoctetes to return.

Real Life

• This was a popular way for Japanese emperors to get rid of daimyo that had become politically dangerous - Japan has many, many islands.