Alright, Zippy and I have finished up the second Warrior Cats arc, The New Prophecy – believe it or not, there were surprisingly few sins from ShadowClan this arc. There are only two things from this arc that I would really consider sins:

• Encroaching on ThunderClan territory by moving their scent markers
• Taking no action to free a dying child from a fox trap

ShadowClan finally has a leader whose main character trait is something other than “evil” in Blackstar, and we finally get a non-villainous ShadowClan cat as a major character – Tawnypelt is one of six cats who go on an Incredible Journey-esque quest in the first two books. Although to be fair she is by far the least interesting member of the party: of the other five party members, three are POV characters (two of which are two legs of a love triangle), one is a prophesied hero who gets to make a heroic sacrifice, and one gets a forbidden romance plotline that lasts for like half the arc. Tawnypelt, meanwhile, gets…nothing? Seemingly her only narrative role is to wag her finger (paw?) at her brother Brambleclaw (PoV character and arguable arc protagonist) about following too closely in the footsteps (pawsteps?) of their dead evil dad. I get the feeling that the writers just put her in as a token ShadowClan cat in the party. #JusticeforTawnypelt

The structure of this arc was…strange. The first two books are split between the previously mentioned six characters going off on a generic travelogue adventure to “save the clans” and the way more interesting goings-on with the clans as things increasingly go to shit. Book three, the clans put aside their differences, unite, and pick up and move to a lake in another generic travelogue adventure narrative; books four through six are the goings-on at the lake as the clans split up and get back to their old bullshit – and it’s honestly way more engaging than whatever was going on in the first three books.

Like, there’s this plot in book four where the leader of WindClan realizes on his deathbed that his deputy (second-in-command and appointed successor) is a bit of a jerk and decides to appoint a new deputy with his dying breath. Problem is, the only cats there to witness this pronouncement are the ThunderClan leader, his old apprentice, and the new deputy [Onewhisker], who also happens to be a very close friend of the ThunderClan leader. Also, there are very specific formulas that are supposed to be recited to replace a deputy, and the old WindClan leader didn’t use the right formula. So obviously when the WindClan leader dies the old deputy [Mudclaw] thinks the deathbed change of heart is bullshit, that the ThunderClan witnesses are lying, and that Onewhisker is usurping leadership of WindClan, but the ThunderClan witnesses and Onewhisker are also conflicted because they don’t know if Onewhisker’s appointment is legitimate in the eyes of StarClan. What’s more important to StarClan, the old clan leader’s wishes, or the strictly legalistic truth of the matter? Nobody knows, so, there’s this fascinating dichotomy where it is genuinely unclear to both the characters and the reader who is the rightful leader of WindClan. Of course, everything gets resolved when Mudclaw tries to kill Onewhisker and subsequently gets crushed by a falling tree, which everyone interprets as him being smited by StarClan, but all in all, a genuinely interesting political fantasy plotline.

For me, the main strength of the franchise so far has been these political plotlines – and I’ve honestly been impressed by how well set-up the worldbuilding is to accommodate them. You’ve got four main factions, which is enough to keep things fresh (for example, you can make, say, RiverClan the ontologically evil clan for an arc.) The cats reach maturity in about a year, which means you can kill off a lot of characters (the average is probably 3-4 named character deaths per book so far) and take advantage of generational conflicts quickly (four major characters in this arc are the children of the first arc’s main villain.) StarClan diegetically exists but as mere observers rather than active participants in the world of the living, meaning there’s an undercurrent of mysticism that the writers can draw on. The Warrior Code is flawed in small but obvious ways that are great for sowing narrative conflict (cross-clan romances are forbidden, but there’s been one in both arcs.)

Zippy also wanted me to mention the series’ weird white savior undertones.

Overall, very happy with the series so far. I’d rank this arc slightly lower than the first arc because of all the quest nonsense in the first half but the second half is really strong. Next up: the Power of Three…

Originally posted 4/28/2025