This past week-and-change, Zippy and I have been working our way through the A Vision of Shadows arc. What have those cool cats by the lake been getting up to? Let’s find out…

Plot Summary

The arc begins by following Alderpaw, son of Bramblestar and Squirrelflight. Alderpaw wants to be a warrior, but he’s not very good at it and after receiving several visions it’s clear that he’d be better as a medicine cat.  Alderpaw receives a vision that sends him on a Quest to find SkyClan and bring them back to the lake.  The Quest is crashed by Needlepaw, a rebellious ShadowClan apprentice who insists on coming along.  The questing party arrive at SkyClan’s gorge only to find it occupied by a group of rogues under a cat named Darktail, who is Obviously Evil.  The questing party escape from Darktail and, on the way back to the lake, discover two abandoned kits, Twigkit and Violetkit.  Because the clans believe the kits could be the answer to a vague StarClan prophecy, they are split between ThunderClan and ShadowClan, with ShadowClan getting Violetkit and ThunderClan getting Twigkit.  Later, Darktail and his rogues show up in the lake territories, fight WindClan once, then settle down bordering ShadowClan territory.  Dissatisfied with Rowanstar’s weak leadership, several juvenile-delinquent-coded ShadowClan apprentices defect to the rogues, who are now calling themselves “the Kin.”  Needlepaw(tail) and Violetpaw defect to the Kin, but Violetpaw returns to ShadowClan.  Darktail and the Kin defeat ShadowClan and take over their territory.  Every remaining ShadowClan cat joins the Kin except Rowanstar, Tawnypelt, and Tigerheart, who flee to exile in ThunderClan.

The rest of the clans invoke Article Five and attack the Kin, but WindClan retreats in the middle of the battle and the clans are defeated.  The Kin then attack RiverClan and take over their territory, keeping RiverClan’s injured warriors as hostages.  Violetpaw, who is a member of the Kin again, realizes that the Kin are bad news and begins acting as a double agent for ThunderClan.  Darktail finds out about Violetpaw’s duplicity and, as punishment, murders her only friend Needletail in front of her.  The remaining RiverClan hostages revolt against the Kin, and with the assistance of ThunderClan the Kin are driven out of RiverClan territory.  Twigpaw, who had earlier disappeared and was presumed dead, returns with the remnants of SkyClan.  The Clans unite to fight the Kin again.  In the battle, Onestar and Darktail (who are revealed to be father and son) drown each other in the lake.  The clans win the battle, the Kin are scattered, and many former ShadowClan cats return to ShadowClan.

SkyClan is given some of ShadowClan’s territory by Rowanstar, and Violetpaw and Twigpaw leave their clans to join SkyClan with their father Hawkwing.  Dovewing and Tigerheart (who have had an on-and-off Forbidden Romance since Omen of the Stars) disappear, and Rowanstar, distraught at the loss of his son/deputy, unilaterally disbands ShadowClan and merges it with SkyClan.  Violetpaw(shine) becomes a SkyClan warrior, but Twigpaw leaves and re-joins ThunderClan, believing that’s where she belongs.  Prophetically important non-clan cat Tree joins SkyClan and is given the new role of “mediator” – effectively negotiator-cum-therapist.  Rowanclaw (formerly -star) dies and with him any hope of an independent ShadowClan.  Then Tigerheart and Dovewing show back up, Tigerheart is anointed by StarClan as leader of ShadowClan, and ShadowClan is independent again.  ShadowClan and SkyClan start arguing over territory, so SkyClan leaves the lake despite incredibly clear omens from StarClan that doing so would be a bad idea.  The remaining lake clans finally agree that SkyClan should live with them, so they bring SkyClan back (again) and create a more equitable division of territory for them.  With the five clans now centered around the lake, a new era of peace appears to be dawning for the clans (at least until the next arc…)

SkyClan and Clan Identity

I have to say, I was surprised to see SkyClan in such a prominent role in this arc.  Prior to this arc they had only ever appeared in Super Editions and other supplemental material, so I was operating under the assumption that they would continue to be the DLC clan, forever exiled from the main series.  Unfortunately, by moving to the lake territories, SkyClan has lost their single greatest defining feature – their isolation.  Everything that made SkyClan interesting in its earlier appearances is no longer a factor – no daylight warriors, no renegotiating the warrior code to suit their unique circumstances, no unique gathering ritual, nothing. 

This contributes to a larger problem that I’ve noticed recently, and that is the almost total lack of differentiation between the clans.  The clans themselves do not seem to have any distinct cultures: a given clan’s approach and attitude seems to reflect the approach and attitude of the clan leader more than anything else.  This really shows up in the characters of Violetshine and Twigbranch: both switch clans at least once, and sure, when they do they run into difficulties, but those difficulties are due almost entirely to distrust from their new clanmates and not from culture shock.  A large part of Twigbranch’s character arc is her realizing that ThunderClan is where she belongs, but it is not evident to me why she belongs more in ThunderClan than any other clan, besides maybe the fact that her surrogate father Alderheart is there.  StarClan (and I suppose on a meta level the authors) want us to believe that there need to be five (previously four) clans or the entirety of clan society would fall apart, but I’m increasingly struggling to see why this is the case when the five (previously four) clans are virtually identical and their permanent separation seems to act only as a source of conflict.

Tree

As is briefly mentioned above, the second half of this arc introduces Tree, a non-clan cat who ends up joining SkyClan and becoming Violetshine’s love interest.  Tree is interesting for two main reasons.  First, he’s given the newly created role of “mediator.”  What a mediator is supposed to do isn’t entirely clear, but it seems to mostly mean getting the clan leaders to actually communicate with each other outside of threats and boasting.  I like this.  Poor communication between the clan leaders has been a consistent source of cheap conflict for, like, the entire series, so I’m glad the clans are finally wising up.  Also, I like the idea of an increased division of labor.  Early in the series, every adult cat was either a warrior, a medicine cat, or retired.  In the books since there a few pseudo-roles have emerged (some cats have been dedicated “nursery queens” whose only role is to provide childcare, and a few cats are mentioned to have specific skillsets like building dens) but I think this is the first major shakeup to clan structure.

Tree’s other interesting character trait is his ability to see ghosts.  In this arc, it is established that the restless spirits of dead cats can remain on earth for a time before going to StarClan or the Dark Forest – it’s the pretty common conception of ghosts as “spirits with unfinished business with the living.”  One of the main plots in book 4 of this arc is Tree helping the restless spirits of all the ShadowClan cats killed trying to escape Darktail reconcile with their living clanmates.  I don’t really have a strong opinion on this – on one hand, ghosts have been around in Warriors since at least Power of Three, so it’s not really introducing anything new, but on the other hand I always understood previous ghosts to be in some way exceptional – that very specific circumstances were necessary for their continued existence on the material plane.  Also, given what went down with the Dark Forest in Omen of the Stars, I am inherently skeptical of any expanded lore relating to the afterlife.

Warriors’ Premature Climax Problem

One of my biggest frustrations with this arc is its inconsistency.  The first half of the arc has a distinct throughline around which the plot is built – find SkyClan, defeat Darktail.  Unfortunately, once Darktail is gone, the arc loses all structure, and the second half suffers because of it.  Funnily enough, this is the second arc in a row where this has happened: Dawn of the Clans’ first half is basically Clear Sky vs. the World and the second half is “and then some things happen.”  Why does this seemingly keep happening?  Well, I blame the writing team.  After the first book of Dawn of the Clans, the longtime series editor was replaced with a shadowy cabal known to us only as the “New Team.”  Will the New Team ever realize that arcs are six books long and not trilogies, or will we be doomed to read inconsistent arcs forever?  Only time will tell…

Other Plot Points

Some additional elements of this arc that warrant comments on are contained in the following bullet-pointed list:

• Yellowfang Is A Dirty Liar: As you may remember from the first Novellas roundup, StarClan cat Yellowfang convinced Squirrelflight to adopt Leafpool’s kits as her own by telling her that she would never be able to have kits of her own. The fact that this arc starts with her having given birth to two kits has determined that was a lie. Classic Yellowfang.
• Gee ThunderClan, How Come StarClan Lets You Have THREE Medicine Cats?: With Alderheart, ThunderClan now has three medicine cats.  Meanwhile, in the first half of the arc, ShadowClan has zero, leaving Leafpool to temporarily move there and train a new one.
• Rowanstar: If there’s one thing that this arc wants you to know about Rowanstar, it’s that he was a bad clan leader: virtually all his clanmates defect to the Kin, and he spends the rest of the arc feeling sorry for himself before disbanding ShadowClan and dying.  Unfortunately, the arc doesn’t do a good job of explaining exactly how or why Rowanstar was such a bad leader.  His followers often cite his perceived “weakness” but it’s not clear what is meant by this – we don’t see Rowanstar being particularly cowardly or weak or timid or anything.  I think a better explanation is his lack of strictness; ShadowClan apprentices in the first book are openly contemptuous of their elders and the Warrior Code, which is probably why Darktail and the Kin were so attractive to them.
• Darktail: Darktail is the main villain of the first half of the arc.  His backstory is that he is the son of WindClan leader Onestar and a kittypet named Smoke, who, when she was abandoned by Onestar, made him swear an oath to never be a friend to the Clans.  Darktail is not a complex villain, but I like him.  He’s very grounded – he’s just a guy with a vendetta against his deadbeat dad and the society that said dad chose over him and his mother.  He’s got some cool moments, and he genuinely feels like a threat, even without being a ghost or having superpowers. Although, I must say, his name bothers me – two minor first arc antagonists were named Darkstripe and Longtail.
• The Fate of SkyClan: The main “plot” of the second half of the arc is: what should be done with SkyClan and ShadowClan?  The incredibly obvious answer is, SkyClan should stay, ShadowClan should be reformed, and the other clans should shift borders to accommodate the extra clan.  Despite StarClan practically screaming at the clans that this is what needs to happen, it takes them three whole books of filler to reach this conclusion.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s some cool stuff going on in the second half of this arc, but this should not have been the main conflict.  At times like this it feels like the concept of communication is the main antagonist of Warriors.
• The Cooler Tigerstar: With Tigerheart ascending to the leadership of ShadowClan, we now have a second Tigerstar.  Tigerstar’s dead evil grandfather Tigerstar had his soul destroyed in Omen of the Stars, so there shouldn’t be any ambiguity as to which Tigerstar I’m referring to in the future, but if there is I’ll call the older Tigerstar Evil Tigerstar.
• The (Maybe Not So Much) Cooler Tigerstar: So, in the sixth book of this arc, ShadowClan’s medicine cat Puddleshine comes down with an infection and, while he’s being treated in ThunderClan, Alderheart figures out the only way to cure him is to feed him small amounts of deathberries (which are, y’know, poisonous.)  When Tigerstar comes to retrieve his medicine cat, he demands Alderheart come along to continue the treatment and says that he’ll be safely returned when Puddleshine recovers.  The implication, of course, being that if Puddleshine doesn’t recover, Alderheart will be executed.  This is incredibly strange behavior – not only is it weirdly confrontational, but it also goes against everything I thought I knew about Tigerstar’s character.  I guess every new leader of ShadowClan is entitled to one bizarrely stupid decision early in their tenure.
• Blue Velvet: During the fifth book in this arc, a pretty kittypet named Velvet comes to live with ThunderClan temporarily.  Alderheart and her clearly fancy each other, but Alderheart is a medicine cat, and Velvet belongs back with her twolegs.  This plot is resolved when…they decide to part ways amicably, appreciating the time they spent together but understanding that they walk two different paths?  What?  I’m not sure whether I like this or not.  It feels very similar to the Bramblestar/Jessy plot from Bramblestar’s Storm – pretty kittypet comes to live with ThunderClan for a while, tempts ThunderClan cat with her feminine wiles, but ultimately helps them reaffirm their commitment to the clan.  Also, like Jessy, Velvet seemingly only exists to be an object of affection for Alderheart, which isn’t great.  On the other hand, it feels like a deliberate subversion of the Forbidden Romance trope Warriors is so fond of, which I kind of like.
• Sorry, Nobody’s Home: At different points in this arc, both WindClan and RiverClan go fully isolationist: closing their borders, refusing to participate in Gatherings or medicine cat meetings, etc.  Two comments on this.  One, it’s strange that it happened twice in one arc, even if it was justified.  Two, all the way back in the first arc, it was assumed that every clan always had their borders closed.  I distinctly remember Fireheart and Graystripe being attacked by RiverClan in the second book for daring to set foot on RiverClan territory while returning from a mission RiverClan had agreed to send them on.  It just goes to show how lax things have gotten. And yet…
• Friendship Ended with Dovewing: When Dovewing and Tigerstar return to the lake territories with their kits, Dovewing makes the decision to join ShadowClan.  This is entirely reasonable given the circumstances, but her ThunderClan clanmates all strongly oppose this.  This is very strange given how open ThunderClan seems to be to accept defectors from other Clans – at this point, they literally just let Twigbranch and Finleap into their clan.  Also related to the bullet point above: back in the first arc, Graystripe joined RiverClan to be with his kits, and I don’t remember ThunderClan being nearly as upset about that as they are at Dovewing here.  It just goes to show how strict things have gotten.
• Wait, We Could Have Gone Around the Mountains This Whole Time?: Despite several Quests to find/retrieve SkyClan occurring in this arc, never once do the Clan cats go into the dreaded mountains, and for that I must give this arc credit.

Closing Thoughts

All in all, a pretty good arc.  The first half was much stronger than the second half, but even with that inconsistency it was a fun read and some solid Warriors fare.  Here’s how I’d rank the main arcs so far:

1. Power of Three
2. The Prophecies Begin
3. A Vision of Shadows
4. Dawn of the Clans
5. The New Prophecy
6. Omen of the Stars

Next up: another batch of novellas, then another batch of Super Editions, then the Broken Code.  Will the tenuous peace among the clans hold?  Probably not, but one can dream…