This past week in Warriors: catching up on Super Editions.  Let’s see what we have…

SkyClan’s Destiny

This Super Edition acts as a direct sequel to Firestar’s Quest and focuses on Leafstar, the leader of SkyClan.  This is a very episodic book – it’s mostly a series of vignettes and incidents set in the early days of the reformed SkyClan.  The main conflict is between self-styled “full clan” cats – cats who live with the clan full time – and so-called “daylight warriors” – kittypets who are members of the clan during the day but go home to their owners at night.  Leafstar butts heads with her deputy, Sharpclaw over his poor treatment of the daylight warriors.  Some loners appear and join SkyClan.  There’s a fight with some rats.  The SkyClan cats concoct a Scooby-Doo-ass scheme to spook a local twoleg (human) into not being an animal abuser.  Leafstar gets into a Not Really Forbidden but Definitely Frowned Upon Romance with daylight warrior Billystorm, but she thinks they can’t be together because 1. He’s a daylight warrior, and 2. She’s a clan leader which she thinks means she can’t have kits.  The SkyClan cats assist in the rescue of a twoleg kit (human child) who fell into a gorge.  The SkyClan cats go on a journey to help the rogues that joined them earlier drive out a meaner group of rogues.  Finally, confident in her judgement and leadership abilities, Leafstar puts Sharpclaw in his place (which he takes very well,) decides to pursue her relationship with Billyclaw, and commits SkyClan to always be welcoming to outsiders.

I like SkyClan because they draw into contrast how dogmatic the four main clans are with their interpretation of the Warrior Code. The existence of daylight warriors is a direct rejection of Code 15 (“A warrior rejects the soft life of a kittypet”) [yes, the codes are numbered – see Field Guide “Code of the Clans”] and many of the other codes just don’t apply to SkyClan’s situation because they refer to other clans, and SkyClan doesn’t have any other local clans.  And yet despite their somewhat lax attitude towards the Warrior Code, SkyClan does just fine and StarClan doesn’t seem to care.  The cats in the four main clans have this tendency to take for granted the wisdom of StarClan and by extension the Warrior Code, but StarClan is just a group of non-villainous warrior ancestors who are presumably as fallible in death as they were in life, and the Warrior Code is just a collection of precepts that were developed over time by living cats to address issues in clan society (again, see Field Guide “Code of the Clans.”) It’s a utilitarian ruleset, not a deontological one, and it’s refreshing to see a clan treat it as such. 

The idea that “a she-cat clan leader can’t have kits” shows up here for the second Super Edition in a row.  The fact that both Bluestar and Leafstar independently have this weird hangup independent of the Warrior Code leads me to believe that there might be something to it – that it reflects real sexism present in clan society.  It doesn’t _entirely_ make sense here – Bluestar at least had to worry about getting appointed to deputy in the first place, but Leafstar, my sister in StarClan, you have been anointed by your warrior ancestors as an absolute monarch whose word is law (Code 13) – who’s going to stop you?

Unfortunately, the book itself is middling – not the worst Warriors has to offer but far from its best.

Crookedstar’s Promise

Crookedstar was the leader of RiverClan for most of the first arc and this Super Edition acts as his biography.  Stormkit and his littermate Oakkit get into various hijinks until one day Stormkit smashes his face on a rock and breaks his jaw, which heals crooked.  Because he is disfigured, Stormkit’s mother Rainflower is ashamed of him and starts treating him with unconscionable cruelty, making him sleep separately from her in the nursery and forcing the clan leader to change his name to Crookedkit.  Rainflower’s treatment of Crookedkit causes her mate Shellheart to cat-divorce her, which of course Crookedkit thinks is his fault.  When his brother is made an apprentice and he isn’t, Crookedkit runs away for several moons before coming back, further delaying his apprenticeship.  Despondent over his destiny, he is visited in his dreams by friendly spirit cat and surrogate mother figure Mapleshade, whom he presumes is from StarClan but of course we (and anyone who’s been reading the books in release order) know better.  Mapleshade tells him that she’ll make him her apprentice and her tutelage will make him clan leader one day – all he has to do is promise her that he will always put his clan first, above all other things.  Crookedkit sees nothing wrong with making a pact with a mysterious magical being who is offering him everything he’s ever wanted, so he agrees.

Crookedkit becomes an apprentice and eventually a warrior, taking the name Crookedjaw.  Two minor characters have a Forbidden Romance and their kits become subject to a custody dispute between clans.  ThunderClan and RiverClan fight over Sunningrocks.  Crookedjaw starts a relationship with Willowbreeze, which isn’t really forbidden but Mapleshade isn’t happy about it (“a mate will only hold you back” or something.)  Abusive mother Rainflower dies and Crookedjaw laments that he’ll never be able to make her proud of him.  His father Shellheart retires as clan deputy and Mapleshade engineers an omen gets Crookedjaw appointed in as deputy.  She then reveals to Crookedjaw that she’s a Dark Forest cat and therefore evil (gasp!) and that his earlier promise (i.e., to always put his clan first) has given her the power to make him lose everyone he loves. 

Shortly afterwards, Shellheart dies of what is presumably stomach cancer, followed closely by the old clan leader, leaving the now-Crookedstar clan leader.  His mate Willowbreeze gives birth to three kits, but she and two of the kits die.  Distraught, Crookedstar goes to the Dark Forest to fight Mapleshade; he loses, but instead of killing him, she reveals her cool-ass backstory in a four-paragraph long monologue: she was a ThunderClan cat who had a Forbidden Romance with a RiverClan cat; said Forbidden Romance caused her to be cast out of ThunderClan; RiverClan refused to take her in and her kits died; and then her forbidden mate left her and sired one of Crookedstar’s ancestors with a different she-cat.  Ergo, her whole motivation is vengeance against her ex-lover’s bloodline.  Crookedstar then keeps distant from his sole surviving daughter Silverkit for fear of losing her if he gets too close until his brother Oakheart points out that he’s behaving a lot like their abusive mother, and the book ends with Crookedstar finally introducing himself to Silverkit.  On a side note, both of Crookedstar’s close surviving family members would predecease him: Oakheart is killed offscreen in like Chapter 2 of the first book, and Silverstream (née Silverkit) dies in childbirth in the third book after taking part in the series’ very first Forbidden Romance.

There is so much to like about this book.  The plot, pacing, and atmosphere are on point.  One of the ghostwriters once cited Shakespeare as an inspiration and with the tragic character of this book I can see why.  It hits that perfect ratio of melodrama to sincerity that I find in all my favorite pulp fiction.  The sense of malaise that I loved so much in Power of Three is all over this book: ThunderClan and RiverClan are constantly fighting over Sunningrocks not because it’s a valuable piece of territory, but because they’ve been fighting over it for generations.  It covers much of the same period as Bluestar’s Prophecy and even contains some of the same scenes from Crookedstar’s perspective, Rashomon-style, which is fun – at their first meeting, Bluestar thinks Crookedstar is a cool rebel while Crookedstar thinks Bluestar is total dumbass.

Mapleshade continues to be an icon.  She is the Platonic ideal of what a Dark Forest cat should be – a malevolent, manipulative evil spirit, rather than a ghost that can just materialize and punch you in the face.  It’s stated by both Mapleshade and a medicine cat late in the book that Crookedstar’s destiny was set long before he was born, which implies that he would have become deputy and clan leader even without Mapleshade’s machinations.  It’s also not clear if Mapleshade is actually responsible for the deaths of any of Crookedstar’s loved ones – sure, she says she is, but did she really give Shellheart cancer?  If we assume that Mapleshade didn’t have any power over Crookedstar’s destiny and she didn’t directly kill any of his loved ones, then that implies her entire evil plan was simply to torment Crookedstar by convincing him that the deaths of his loved ones were his fault.  That’s the kind of subtle villainy I can really get behind. 

Overall, a very solid Super Edition that shows Warriors can still be great when it gets out of its own way.

Yellowfang’s Secret

“Who’s Yellowfang?” I hear you cry.  Well, Yellowfang was one of the best characters in the first arc – crotchety old lady-coded character, exiled ShadowClan medicine cat who joins ThunderClan and becomes Firepaw/heart/star’s surrogate mother figure, has some quotes that go incredibly hard, dies in the climax of book 4, and later shows up frequently in visions as a StarClan cat.  Unsurprisingly, this is another biography-style Super Edition that follows Yellowfang from birth through the beginning of the first arc.  Much of the first half of the book follows her training as a ShadowClan warrior and her romance with Raggedpelt, whose main character trait is his serious daddy issues.  Yellowfang has the superpower of being able to feel other cats’ pain, which convinces medicine cat Sagewhisker that she’s destined to become a medicine cat.  Yellowfang refuses to accept this because she wants to be a warrior and doesn’t want to break up with Raggedpelt, but she relents when she realizes that her power makes her useless in battle.  She and Raggedpelt carry on in secret during her medicine cat apprenticeship, but she breaks things off when she becomes a full medicine cat to avoid any Forbidden Romance-related tragedy.  Unfortunately, at that point she’s already pregnant with his kits.  Two of her three kits are stillborn, the third (Brokenkit) Raggedpelt accepts as his son (although the mother is kept secret from the rest of the clan.)

Despite Yellowfang doing everything she can to be a mother for Brokenkit/paw/tail without revealing herself as his mother, he grows up into an arrogant and cruel warrior with no regard for the Warrior Code.  When the clan leader dies, Raggedpelt ascends to leadership as Raggedstar and goes through two deputies in quick succession before appointing Brokentail as his deputy.  Raggedstar then dies under mysterious circumstances (aka he’s murdered by his evil son) and Brokentail ascends to leadership as Brokenstar.  Brokenstar then speedruns breaking as many rules of the Warrior Code as possible: cutting Social Security (exiling the elders, leaving them to fend for themselves – breaks Code 3,) appointing an invalid deputy (breaks Code 9) and, worst of all, apprenticing kits younger than six moons (breaks Code 5 and arguably Code 12.)  When his policies of warmongering and using child soldiers predictably result in child casualties, Yellowfang confronts Brokenstar and threatens to have StarClan take away his extra lives (which I’m pretty sure they can’t actually do, but whatever.)  Brokenstar responds by murdering two more children, pinning it on Yellowfang, and using it as a pretense to kick her out of ShadowClan.  Despondent and suicidal, Yellowfang wanders into ThunderClan territory, loses a fight to arc 1 protagonist Firepaw, whose pure main character energy restores her will to keep living until she does something to stop her Obviously Evil son…

The adjective I would use to describe Yellowfang’s Secret is “unnecessary.”  Yellowfang’s backstory was already a major plot point in the first arc, so we already knew the most dramatic parts (the framed for child murder, Forbidden Romance & Brokenstar stuff.)  Her empathetic superpowers are a new addition in this book, but they don’t really add much.  We see her relationship with Runningnose, her successor as ShadowClan’s medicine cat – I like him but he’s a minor character and they rarely interact in the main series.  We get some backstory on Nightpelt, interim ShadowClan leader between Brokenstar and Tigerstar, which is interesting.  Brokenstar is just Obviously Evil, which is entirely consistent with his depiction in arc 1 and as a Dark Forest cat in Omen of the Stars.  Raggedstar really gets the short end of the stick in terms of characterization – in the main series he seems to be remembered fondly by all, but in this book he’s just the worst.  He…

• Has major daddy issues that he simply refuses to work on
• Throws a fit when Yellowfang breaks up with him to be a nun
• Bans Yellowfang from ever revealing to Brokenkit that she’s his mother
• Starts ignoring Yellowfang entirely once Brokenkit is born
• Acts like Brokentail being Obviously Evil is somehow Yellowfang’s fault even though he refused to let her parent him
• Tells Brokentail off once and is convinced that’s enough to stop him from being evil when all it does is make him angrier

The fact that there’s any competition for who the worst character is in a book where Brokenstar LARPs as Joseph Kony is telling. 

Like I said, this entire book feels extraneous.  It’s not bad per se, it just doesn’t really add much to the cool Yellowfang stuff in the first arc, but at least it doesn’t detract from it either.

Conclusion

I understand Super Editions have a reputation for being spotty, and I can see why.  My ranking so far:

1. Crookedstar’s Promise (by a mile – probably the best Warriors book so far, period)
2. Bluestar’s Prophecy
3. Yellowfang’s Secret
4. SkyClan’s Destiny
5. Firestar’s Quest

Now that I’m up to date with the Super Editions, I’m free to continue with the next main series arc, Dawn of the Clans.  The prequel Super Editions were spotty – will the prequel arc be any more consistent?  Stay tuned…

Originally posted 5/23/2025

This week’s Warriors Roundup: Omen of the Stars.  Once my copies of the books finally showed up in the mail, Zippy and I tore through this arc in record time, and boy oh boy do we have some thoughts on it. For ease of reading I’ve divided this roundup into sections:

Brief Plot Summary

Omen of the Stars picks up where Power of Three left off: Lionblaze and Jayfeather are looking for the third cat that fits the prophecy.  There are two candidates: Dovewing and Ivypool who qualify as “kin of [Firestar’s] kin” because they’re the granddaughters of his nephew.  Within like 30 pages they and the reader realize it’s Dovewing, and her magic power is super senses (like, can hear/smell things from literal miles away super senses.) Said super senses kick off yet another boring, barely relevant quest where she starts an obligatory Forbidden Romance with Tigerheart, who is the grandson of his dead evil granddad Tigerstar through arc 2 token ShadowClan cat Tawnypelt.  Ivypool gets jealous that Dovewing has superpowers and gets to go on a quest, so when Arc 2 villain Hawkfrost shows up Ivypool’s dreams and offers to show her some new hunting moves she agrees, and the next thing you know she’s in the Dark Forest (aka the Place of No Stars, aka Cat Hell) with her sister’s beau Tigerheart and several other Clan cats being groomed by a veritable rogues’ gallery of villains from prior arcs including her dead evil great-granddad’s brother-in-law (not joking) himself, Tigerstar.  The Dark Forest cats get Ivypool to convince ThunderClan to attack ShadowClan for no reason, which they do.  Ivypool realizes the Dark Forest cats are bad news and begins to spy on them for Jayfeather and Lionblaze. 

Jayfeather goes on another boring, barely relevant quest into the mountains with Dovewing where he resolves a tribal succession crisis by using time travel and gets an addendum to the prophecy: there are four important cats, actually.  Both Hollyleaf and Sol, the cult leader from the previous arc show back up, and Sol instigates a battle between WindClan and ThunderClan.  Then, in the final book, the Dark Forest launches its attack against the Clans, StarClan comes down to fight on the side of the Clans, and a great battle ensues.  Hollyleaf dies (for real this time,) Brambleclaw kills Hawkfrost (again,) and Firestar kills Tigerstar only to die from his wounds immediately afterwards – Firestar was apparently the fourth cat in the prophecy.  ThunderClan acclaims Brambleclaw (now Bramblestar) as their new leader, and peace reigns in the forest once again.

They Ruined the Dark Forest

The Dark Forest was established as the afterlife for evil cats all the way back in the second arc, the New Prophecy.  Prior to Omen of the Stars, the Dark Forest was primarily utilized narratively as a place where living cats could train under dead cats in their dreams (Hawkfrost and Brambleclaw under Tigerstar in the New Prophecy, then Lionblaze under Hawkfrost and Tigerstar in Power of Three.)  I like this – StarClan can communicate with living cats, so it makes sense that dead cats too evil for StarClan would be able to do so as well.  To paraphrase the Bard, “The evil that [cats] do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” I like the Dark Forest as a physical manifestation of this principle; as a place where the evils of past generations live on in a very real way; as a metaphor for how the influence of someone Obviously Evil can spread even past their death.

The first few books of Omen of the Stars expand on the rules and lore of the Dark Forest in ways that I think are good: a dreaming cat must choose to enter the Dark Forest for the first time, but after that they can be pulled in against their will any time they’re asleep. Injuries experienced in the Dark Forest carry over to the waking world. If you die in the Dark Forest, your soul is destroyed, and your physical body just disappears.  Cool, I can get behind all of this.  Then, they ruin it by making Dark Forest cats able to enter and interact with the corporeal world.  I hate this.  What’s the downside of being dead and in Cat Hell if you can just leave?  Could Tigerstar have just come back at any time and killed Firestar in his sleep?  I don’t see why not – there’s nothing to indicate that being able to travel to the corporeal world is some new discovery for the Dark Forest cats.  Also, when Dark Forest cats materialize into the corporeal world, living cats in the Dark Forest in their dreams appear with them – what happens to their sleeping bodies?  Is it just their projected souls re-materializing separate from their bodies, or can the Dark Forest be used as a form of dream-based teleportation?   And worst of all?  StarClan can do this too.  As much as I like the idea of the dead heroes of ages past coming to aid of the good guys, the idea that it’s just a thing that the dead heroes can choose do – that they don’t have to be specifically called – really, really rubs me the wrong way.  Genuinely super disappointed that this is the direction the authors went.

Omen of the Stars (Directed by J.J. Abrams)

I’m gonna say it: this arc is the “Rise of Skywalker” of Warriors.  It had a lot of interesting things going on, both on its own and inherited from the previous installment in the series, and it totally failed to capitalize on most of them, some by just completely ignoring them and others by resolving them too neatly out of nowhere.  I liked the malaise, the lack of resolution in the Power of Three!  Not every plotline needs to be wrapped up in a neat little bow!  Ugh. Let me run through some of the worst ones:

• Cinderheart x Lionblaze: After recovering from his Forbidden Romance last arc, Lionblaze falls for Cinderheart (who is the reincarnation of a cat who died in the second arc but that’s not important.)  Cinderheart loves him, too, but she thinks they can’t be together because he has such an important destiny.  This drags on for half the arc before Lionblaze convinces Cinderheart she’s being stupid and that’s not how destiny works.  Totally pointless.
• Dovewing’s Aborted Love Triangle: After a falling out with her Forbidden Romance partner Tigerheart, Dovewing starts returning the affections of her non-forbidden admirer Bumblestripe.  This lasts for all of book 5.  Then in book 6, suddenly Dovewing is super into Tigerheart again and spurns Bumblestripe.  What changed?  Nothing, other than (surprise surprise) the ghostwriter. (You’re not sneaking your glorified slashfic past me, Kate)
• Somehow Hollyleaf Returned: After being presumed dead at the end of the last arc, messy queen and little miss “I tried to make my mom kill herself” Hollyleaf shows back up.  She contributes virtually nothing to the plot, makes up with her mother, then dies.  I’m honestly totally baffled by this one – the only thing I can think is that she was brought back as a red herring for the 4^th cat in the prophecy but that is barely a plot point.
• Somehow Sol Returned: After just kinda disappearing near the end of the last arc, messy king and mister “I turned ShadowClan into my personal cult” Sol shows back up.  He contributes virtually noth-hey, wait a minute, didn’t we already do this one?
• I’m Not a Murderer, I’m Just Related to One: At the end of Book 3, ShadowClan medicine apprentice Flametail drowns under the frozen lake despite Jayfeather’s attempts to save him.  Flametail’s sister accuses Jayfeather of having murdered Flametail.  This plot goes nowhere and is resolved incredibly anticlimactically.
• StarClan Is a Concept by Which We Measure Our Pain: Faith has been a recurring theme in Warriors.  There are two non-villainous cats I know of who are canonically atheist (as in, do not believe in StarClan) – Cloudtail (Firestar’s nephew) and Mothwing (RiverClan’s medicine cat.) One of the main debuffs of not believing in StarClan is that, in dreams, you cannot travel to StarClan, nor can cats from StarClan visit you.  Presumably this also applies to the Dark Forest.  In an arc where one of the main tensions is not knowing who is secretly visiting the Dark Forest in their dreams, I figured that the two characters who _for sure_ cannot be visiting the Dark Forest would play a major role.  Sadly, I was completely wrong – it’s never even mentioned except once, in passing.  Completely missed opportunity.    
• Mountainous Terrain, -2 to Giving a Shit: So ever since the second arc there’s been one book per arc focused on the Tribe of Rushing Water, which is a group of cats who live in the mountains near the Clans.  They have weird names, a different societal structure than the clans, and the books focused on them are (so far) universally the worst of their arcs.  This arc’s Tribe of Rushing Water book had to do with a succession crisis, which white savior Jayfeather solves using his time travel powers (yes, Jayfeather has time travel powers.)  This would probably upset me if I gave a shit about the Tribe of Rushing Water.

Stuff I Actually Liked

I know I’ve been trashing this arc pretty hard so far but there was some stuff I liked. 

• The Dark Forest before they ruined it (see above)
• I still like Jayfeather as a character; he’s endearingly abrasive and he will not hesitate to call StarClan out on their bullshit, of which there is plenty this arc.
• I like Ivypool’s storyline, going from jealous younger sister to dark rival to spy in the Dark Forest is a solid storyline. 
• Briarlight’s character arc was good, despite her name being obnoxiously like Brightheart’s given how often they share scenes.
• I know I made fun of Sol somehow returning, but I do like his character this arc – last arc he was largely a pseudo-mystic saying faux-profound things, but this arc he’s more of an obvious charlatan which is a character type I appreciate. 
• I like the Dark Forest cat Mapleshade – out of all the rogues’ gallery she is the only one to have not appeared in a prior book. I suspect she was written 1. as the token girlboss villain and 2. So the rogues’ gallery wouldn’t be entirely characters we’ve seen before.  Despite the somewhat contrived nature of her existence, I like Mapleshade.  She doesn’t seem to hold a grudge against any living cat in particular, but she’s down with the Dark Forest’s plot anyway because she just loves being evil.  And unlike most of the other major Dark Forest cats (Tigerstar/Hawkfrost/Brokenstar) she survived.  I hope to see more of Mapleshade in the future.

An Answer in ShadowClan

When I started reading Warriors, it was with one goal in mind: figure out why the hell the official “Which Clan do you belong to?” quiz on www.warriors.com put me in ShadowClan.  I think I finally have an answer.  Book three of this arc, Night Whispers, contains our second ever non-ThunderClan PoV cat and our first ever ShadowClan PoV cat, Flametail.  Flametail (who is Tigerheart’s brother and therefore Tawnypelt’s son) is an apprentice medicine cat for ShadowClan – his main narrative role is to die tragically at the end of the book (see above) but that’s not relevant to this discussion.  Anyway, in Chapter 6, ShadowClan is back in their camp after losing the pointless battle against ThunderClan at the end of the last book – everyone’s sad that they lost, then ShadowClan’s clan leader Blackstar walks out of his den, calls a clan meeting, and holds a post-mortem discussion with his warriors about the battle.  What tactics did ThunderClan use?  How can we counter them? And BlackStar listens to them – he praises them for their good ideas and takes their advice. This would never happen in ThunderClan – ThunderClan is more likely to just shrug and say “well I guess StarClan didn’t want us to win that battle” than seriously analyze why they might have lost.  In a later scene, when someone comments that something may have been unavoidable, Blackstar says that nothing is unavoidable.  Again, ThunderClan would never.  We don’t get to see a lot of ShadowClan’s culture in this book, but what we do see along with some of their actions in earlier books (like expelling their StarClan-approved leader way back in the first book of the first arc and falling under the sway of a cult leader in Power of Three) has led me to the conclusion that, of all the Clans, ShadowClan is the most resilient, least authoritarian, and least dogmatic.  This, I choose to believe, is why the quiz put me in ShadowClan, and totally not because I said I wasn’t afraid of the dark.

Conclusion

These are dark times for the Clans.  After three solid arcs, Omen of the Stars was…not great.  I’d rate Omen of the Stars below the Prophecies Begin and Power of Three.  I’d put it on the same level as the New Prophecy, with the caveat that New Prophecy had a bad first half and a good second half whereas Omen of the Stars was consistently meh throughout.  Is this a fluke, or the beginning of a downward spiral for Warriors?  Stay tuned to find out.  Next up, I’m going to catch up on Super Editions, and after that, the prequel arc: Dawn of the Clans….

Originally posted 5/17/2025

It’s Monday, which means it’s time for Zippy’s and my weekly Warriors roundup.  First, I’d like to call out eBay seller [REDACTED] – your shipping times are abysmal, and you will not see the light of StarClan’s hunting grounds.  Since my copy of the Omen of the Stars books didn’t show up until Saturday, I spent most of this week working through the first two Warriors Super Editions.  What are Super Editions, I hear nobody ask?  Well, they’re longer standalone books that focus on individual characters from the main series.  The typical publication schedule for Warriors is two main series books and one Super Edition per year, so you often end up with a Magician’s Nephew situation where it’s unclear what order you should be reading books in (for example, Bluestar’s Prophecy is a prequel to the first arc, but it also has spoilers through Book V of the first arc.)  Thankfully the Warriors website has an entire page dedicated to the proper reading order of the series – or you could just do what I do and read them in (roughly) publication order.

Firestar’s Quest

Firestar’s Quest takes place between the first and second arc and focuses on Firestar, PoV character from the first arc, as he experiences the classic children’s media trope of searching for the n+1th thing in a group previously established to contain n things – in this case, the lost fifth clan, SkyClan, who was driven out of the forest when a housing development was built on their territory.  I’ve noticed that I tend to not like Warriors books built around a “quest,” and unfortunately Firestar’s Quest is no exception.  There’s some decent stuff in the forest territories as Firestar tries to make sense of some obvious signs from StarClan, then a boring travelogue adventure to SkyClan’s territory, then some mid stuff as Firestar and his mate Sandstorm gather up the surviving descendants of SkyClan and forge them into a new clan.  There are some strange vibes coming off this part of the book – imagine you’re living out in the woods by yourself, minding your own business, then this guy shows up and starts talking about your proud warrior ancestry, and how you have to come live with a bunch of other warrior descendants in a ravine and follow some weird code.  Real cult leader shit.  There’s also a sideplot where Sandstorm is jealous of Firestar’s spirit-guide-cum-old-crush Spottedleaf even though Spottedleaf is a medicine cat (i.e. celibate) and also dead.  This book is also the origin of the “kin of your kin” prophecy that was so important in the Power of Three arc, so I guess it’s fun to see that.

Bluestar’s Prophecy

I suspect one of the main appeals of the Super Editions is they allow readers to see firsthand events that are only referenced in the main series, but since there was no real status quo change between the first two arcs there’s not a lot of meat on the bone there for Firestar’s Quest.  Bluestar’s Prophecy, conversely, had a lot of potential there.  Bluestar was the leader of ThunderClan for most of the first arc and honestly a great character – I would describe her as “MILF-coded” (an older she-cat who mentored Firestar in a non-parental way and was strangely permissive of his antics) There was a lot of potential for a Bluestar Super Edition – Bluestar’s past is a major plot point in the first arc (specifically her Forbidden Romance and subsequent half-clan kits which she had to give up to achieve her ambition of becoming clan deputy) – but unfortunately Bluestar’s Prophecy doesn’t quite deliver.  Much of the book feels like trauma porn as she experiences one personal tragedy after another.  The fateful Forbidden Romance is effectively a one-night stand as Bluestar is too loyal to the Warrior Code to put her own happiness first for more than one night. The main conflict is Bluestar’s ambition to be appointed clan deputy over Thistleclaw, who is 1. Obviously Evil and 2. prophesied to bring about the destruction of ThunderClan should he ever become clan leader – she achieves this, obviously, but it’s not at all clear why she was chosen over Thistleclaw.  We’re meant to understand that giving up her kits was necessary for becoming deputy, but I don’t think the book makes a convincing argument that this had to be the case: the Warrior Code doesn’t require clan leaders/deputies to be childless and clan society doesn’t seem to have a cat equivalent of the gender employment gap.  The only real explanation given is that “the prophecy (i.e. that Bluestar would become clan leader) didn’t allow for kits” but “’cuz the prophecy said so” is super hack.

Outside of the main plot there’s some fun/interesting stuff in Bluestar’s Prophecy. The clan leader of ThunderClan for the first part of the book is Pinestar, who at about the halfway point of the book realizes that clan life sucks and makes the incredibly based decision to step down leader and live the rest of his last life as a kittypet (clanspeak for pet cat.)  I love this plot point because how much clan life sucks has been obvious to me since the first arc and I’m glad at least one character agrees with me.  We also get to see several other characters from the first arc in their earlier years, which is fun.  The one that sticks out the most is Tigerpaw, future first arc big bad and “dead evil [family relation]” Tigerstar.  Tigerstar’s future Obviously Evil status could easily be intuited from his treatment in this book; he’s the sole surviving member of his litter, his father Pinestar is an absent father (for obvious reasons,) he’s apprenticed to the Obviously Evil Thistleclaw, and the clan medicine cat Goosefeather is constantly saying ominous shit around him like “This was never meant to happen” and “that cat shouldn’t have survived.”  Crookedjaw (future RiverClan leader Crookedstar) is a cool character – I’m looking forward to his Super Edition.

Originally posted 5/12/2025

Zippy and I have wrapped up the third Warrior Cats arc, Power of Three.  Another clean arc for ShadowClan – their only sins this arc were falling under the sway of a cult leader in book 4/5 and some trespassing in the first few books.

This arc has three PoV characters – Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf (“the Three”) – who are the children of two of the second arc’s protagonists (Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw) and, therefore, the grandchildren of the first arc’s primary protagonist and its primary antagonist (Firestar and Tigerstar, respectively.)  As Firestar’s grandchildren, they fulfill the requirements of a prophecy given to Firestar in the extra-arc Super Edition book Firestar’s Quest, namely “there will be three, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws.”

The three PoV characters are one of the major strengths of this arc: the first arc’s PoV character Firestar didn’t really have much of a character and the second arc switched PoVs way too often.  Jayfeather is blind and has a massive chip on his shoulder over it – he wants nothing in the world more than to be a warrior, but because being able to see is kind of important in combat, he’s stuck being a medicine cat.  Lionblaze wants to be the best fighter there ever was to the point where he starts training in his dreams with the spirits of his dead evil granddad and his dead evil uncle.  And Hollyleaf seemingly loves the warrior code more than life itself and wants nothing more than to be a clan leader one day.

The Three learn about the prophecy they fulfill in the first book, so the arc is mainly the three of them getting into various misadventures as they try and figure out what the prophecy means for them.  Jayfeather discovers that he can commune with StarClan and enter other cats’ dreams.  Lionblaze gets involved in a forbidden romance with a cat from WindClan, cuts it off, and then regrets doing so for the rest of the arc.  Hollyleaf realizes a seemingly imminent battle between WindClan and ThunderClan is based on nothing but unfounded rumor, so she goes to resolve the situation personally.  The three of them all go on a journey with the surviving members of the adventuring party from the first half of the previous arc to help some mountain cats who are beset by outsiders.  A cult leader takes over ShadowClan, so the Three fabricate a sign from StarClan to get ShadowClan back on board with the true faith.

Then, everything kind of goes to shit.  Ashfur, who was the third leg of last arc’s love triangle along with the Three’s parents, tries to kill the Three in front of their mother Squirrelflight because he’s bitter about being rejected and wants to make her suffer.  Squirrelflight saves the three by revealing that the three are not her children after all.  Ashfur buys this but threatens to reveal Squirrelflight’s secret to the whole clan before being found dead in a creek.  The final book then turns into a murder-mystery-cum-suspense-thriller: the Three are desperate to find out who their real parents are, but also to hide the truth of their parentage from the rest of the clan.  They eventually figure out that their real mother is Leafpool, the clan’s medicine cat, which is a huge problem because 1. medicine cats are supposed to remain celibate, and 2. the Three’s father must be WindClan’s Crowfeather, making the Three half-clan. Hollyleaf, who, as previously mentioned, is obsessed with the warrior code, goes to confront Leafpool about this, but Leafpool then hits us with the shocking reveal that Hollyleaf is Ashfur’s murderer, and she knows it.  This leads Hollyleaf to lose it completely – at the next Gathering (basically the cat UN) she reveals the truth of her and her siblings’ parentage to all present, then she tries to force Leafpool to commit suicide for the crime of breaking the warrior code, then she runs away and is killed by a collapsing tunnel.  The arc ends with Jayfeather and Lionblaze reflecting on the prophecy – at first, they conclude that they couldn’t have been the prophesied cats, but then they realize that 1. the two of them still fit the conditions of the prophecy as Leafpool is also Firestar’s daughter, and 2. They aren’t the only “kin of [Firestar’s] kin,” and his nephew’s daughter just birthed two kits…

This arc is suffused with an atmosphere of malaise – this feeling that things suck, and they will only ever get worse.  Victories are few and fleeting.  Hollyleaf may have prevented a massive battle from happening for no reason, but in the next book a massive battle happens for no reason anyway.  The Clan cats did help the mountain cats defend their territory from outsiders, but it’s obvious that it’s not a long-term solution.  Lionblaze may have done right by the warrior code by breaking off his forbidden cross-clan friendship/romance, but he regrets it for the rest of the arc. StarClan repeatedly refuses to help Jayfeather with anything, no matter how much he begs.  Hollyleaf kills to keep her parentage secret, then within a month reveals it to everyone.  And poor Leafpool – she gave up the only cat she ever loved, she gave up her children, she lived a lie for moons, and what does she get for her trouble?  She loses her position as medicine cat, the father of her children hates her guts, and her own daughter tries to force her to kill herself.  Absolutely brutal.  I love it.

Some other points that might make for an interesting discussion would be the role of disability in Warriors (Jayfeather is not the first disabled character in the series, but he’s the first disabled PoV character) and the franchise’s weirdly pro-monarchy overtones but I’ll save those discussions for another time.

Overall: Power of Three is the best Warriors arc so far.  The characters are strong, the atmosphere is great, and the drama is interesting.  Hopefully the upward trend continues in the next arc, Omen of the Stars…

Originally posted 5/5/2025