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Warriors Roundup: Super Editions III

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This past week-and-change, Zippy and I have been digging into the next batch of Super Editions: three books, set in three different time periods. Let’s see what we have…

Tallstar’s Revenge

This prequel biography-style Super Edition follows Tallstar, leader of WindClan during the first arc and the first half of the second arc.  At the time of Tallstar’s birth, WindClan warriors are divided into two categories: moor runners, who hunt prey on the surface; and tunnelers, who dig tunnels under the moor.  Tallkit’s parents are both tunnelers, so it’s expected that he will be a tunneler as well; however, he’s apprenticed as a moor runner.  This seriously strains Tallpaw’s relationship with his father Sandgorse.  Later, a group of visitors come to WindClan for the summer, and Sandgorse is killed in a cave-in while showing the tunnels to one of the visitors, Sparrow.  Tallpaw blames Sparrow for his father’s death, and when he becomes a warrior, he leaves WindClan to track him down and kill him.  On his journey to find Sparrow, Talltail meets Jake, an adventurous kittypet, who joins him on his quest for vengeance.  Over the course of their adventure together, Talltail and Jake become very close.  The two eventually track down Sparrow, but Talltail can’t bring himself to kill him.  Talltail and Jake tearfully part ways, with Talltail returning to WindClan and Jake returning to his twolegs.  Over the years, Talltail becomes deputy and then leader of WindClan.  During the ceremony wherein he receives his nine lives, the spirit of Sandgorse tells Tallstar that Sparrow didn’t kill him and asks him to watch over a certain cat, “kin of [his] dearest friend,” whose fate is integral to the fate of all the Clans.  Anyone paying attention should recognize this unnamed cat is Jake’s son Firestar.

This Super Edition has some interesting things going on.  First, I think calling Jake “[Tallstar’s] dearest friend” is underselling things a bit; the text all but explicitly states that their relationship is romantic in nature.  The descriptions/dialogue tags from Tallstar and Jake’s farewell (“Talltail’s throat tightened,” “Hope flared in Talltail’s chest,” “Pain stabbed Talltail’s heart” [Tallstar’s Revenge, pg. 432-433]) do not read to me like Tallstar and Jake’s relationship is purely platonic.  This, taken with the fact that Tallstar doesn’t seem to have ever taken a mate or fathered kits makes it clear to me that Tallstar prefers toms. It’s kind of a Frederick the Great situation, where if someone was really committed to the idea, they could probably convince themself that Tallstar isn’t gay and all it would cost them is looking incredibly foolish.

The relationship between Tallstar and Jake is interesting for reasons outside of its implications re: Tallstar’s romantic predilections.  When I realized a not insignificant portion of this book would be dedicated to Talltail’s quest to find and kill Sparrow, I was concerned, understandably so considering how “quests” in Warriors are typically super boring.  However, I was pleasantly surprised to find Talltail and Jake’s quest to be reasonably engaging.  A lot of this is due to the interplay between Talltail and Jake; their different backgrounds, skillsets, and personalities allow them to play off each other well.  Jake saves Talltail from eating a poisoned rat by getting his twoleg to take him to the vet; Talltail teaches Jake to hunt.  When Jake and Talltail need information from a group of hostile rogues, Jake defuses the situation through his pure orange cat energy.  The vibes are far less “epic quest” and more “buddy roadtrip” and I love it – Talltail and Jake’s quest is by far the best quest in Warriors so far.

I also liked the way that the plot developed.  Tallpaw goes through so much misery in his youth and apprenticeship – latent guilt over the death of his littermate, being relentlessly bullied by his denmate, becoming estranged from his father – even though is immediately obvious that Sparrow was not responsible for Sandgorse’s death, it is totally understandable that in his grief Tallpaw latches on to the idea and becomes obsessed with exacting his revenge on him.  Vengeance in Warriors is a common motivation for villains (see: Tigerstar, Mapleshade) so it’s fun to see a less Obviously Evil character struggle with it.

Overall, one of the better Super Editions so far.

Bramblestar’s Storm

This Super Edition acts as a sequel/epilogue to Omen of the Stars.  After several (presumably uneventful) moons as new leader of ThunderClan, Bramblestar deals with the aftermath of a devastating flood that temporarily drives ThunderClan from their camp.

“Wait,” I hear you cry, “is that the only plot summary we’re going to get?” Well, kind of.  This book doesn’t really have a plot; much like SkyClan’s Destiny, it’s mostly a series of things that just kind of happen.  Here are a few things in this book that happen:

  • A group of three kittypets come and live with ThunderClan for a while.  One of the three stays permanently, adopting the warrior name Stormcloud.
  • Dovewing and Lionblaze struggle with the loss of their superpowers (this one is never really resolved.)
  • The Dovewing/Bumblestripe/Tigerheart love triangle continues – Dovewing is acknowledged as Bumblestripe’s mate for most of the book, but they break up by the end.
  • Bramblestar has a love triangle of his own – does he stay/rekindle his relationship with his mate and deputy Squirrelflight, or does he dump her for the kittypet Jessy? (He chooses Squirrelflight, unsurprisingly.)
  • Bramblestar continues his predecessor Firestar’s policy of interventionism, helping ShadowClan with both troublesome kittypets and badgers despite the ShadowClan clan leader’s explicit instructions to stay out of it.
  • Firestar’s spirit gives Bramblestar the TL;DR of his adventure with SkyClan, for some reason (?)
  • Bramblestar convinces the other clan leaders to pass a new rule in the Warrior Code advocating for collective security, thus giving legal cover for his inevitable future interventions and earning him the title of “the Woodrow Wilson of Warriors”

If I had to pick one main “plot” of this book, it would be Bramblestar’s relationship with Squirrelflight.  Bramblestar and Squirrelflight were two legs of a love triangle all the way back in the second arc – a love triangle that resolved itself with Squirrelflight choosing Bramblestar, Leafpool receiving an omen from StarClan that Squirrelflight made the correct choice, and the third leg of the love triangle (Ashfur) later trying to murder what he believed to be their children.  After the whole “Leafpool is the real mother of Bramblestar and Squirrelflight’s kits” thing came out, Bramblestar cat-divorced Squirrelflight and the two remained estranged for most of Omen of the Stars.  Then, when Hollyleaf somehow returned near the end of Omen of the Stars, Bramblestar and Squirrelflight seemingly made up, and soon thereafter when Bramblestar became clan leader he named Squirrelflight as his deputy.  Perhaps understandably, then, I came into this book with the understanding that Bramblestar and Squirrelflight were mates again, so you can imagine my confusion when Bramblestar started padding after newcomer kittypet Jessy.  I genuinely do not understand what I’m supposed to make of this plot point – are we supposed to understand Bramblestar’s behavior as a jerk move?  Were we not supposed to believe he and Squirrelflight made up?  I’m not mad per se, I’m just confused.

The other major “plot” of this book would have to be Bramblestar’s struggle to come into his own as leader.  He seems to struggle internally between doing things because he believes they are the right thing to do versus doing things because it’s what his illustrious predecessor Firestar would do.  This had the potential to be an interesting plot, but unfortunately the book whiffs it entirely.  First, there seems to be functionally no difference between “what Bramblestar thinks is right” and “what Firestar would do;” both have a somewhat interventionist attitude towards the other clans and are very accepting to outsiders.  Second, a large part of Bramblestar’s character arc during the New Prophecy was dealing with his evil brother Hawkfrost and the ghost of his dead evil dad Tigerstar – recognizing his own desire for becoming clan deputy mirrored their ambitions while rejecting the whole “being evil” thing.  Tigerstar’s whole evil plan during the New Prophecy is for Bramblestar and Hawkfrost to become clan leaders and then conquer the other clans, and the New Prophecy climaxes with Bramblestar rejecting Hawkfrost and Tigerstar’s “the ends justify the means” approach to obtaining power.  Well, in Bramblestar’s Storm, Bramblestar is clan leader, meaning he effectively is fulfilling Tigerstar’s ambitions for him, at least to an extent.  One might think that Bramblestar would struggle with this a little bit – with the nagging sense that, even though he rejected Tigerstar’s methods, he has still done what Tigerstar wanted him to.  Unfortunately, this isn’t really explored.  And, of course, since his ghost died in the Great Battle at the end of Omen of the Stars, Tigerstar can’t even show up as a voice in Bramblestar’s head to tempt him into darkness.

One recurring topic that again appears in this book is the role of kittypets.  As is consistent with most of the franchise, kittypets are shown to be just as competent as clan cats when they need to be; a group of kittypets fights ShadowClan and straight-up wins, and the three kittypets who join ThunderClan adapt to clan life just fine.  This wouldn’t be super notable were it not for the fact that this book was released between books 3 and 4 of Dawn of the Clans, the arc that seemingly forgot that kittypets were people, too.  Even more confusingly, the ghostwriter of Bramblestar’s Storm is the same ghostwriter of the two Dawn of the Clans books with Bumble.  I feel the need to ask – what in the Dark Forest was going on with Dawn of the Clans?

I also feel the need to mention that during the events of this book, longtime ShadowClan leader Blackstar lost his last life and moved on to StarClan.  As a self-professed ShadowClan partisan, I will grieve his passing as his successor Rowanstar seems like a piece of work.

This book was okay, I guess, but it mostly felt like 470 pages of filler.

Moth Flight’s Vision

This super edition acts as a sequel/epilogue to the Dawn of the Clans arc and follows Moth Flight, the first medicine cat.  This book is mainly the story of how many of the rules/norms of being a medicine cat came to be.

Moth Flight is a somewhat air-headed WindClan cat and the daughter of clan leader Wind Runner.  One day, a vision of a green moth leads her to the Moonstone, a local holy site in the forest territories, where StarClan tells her she is to be the first medicine cat.  She takes this information back to the Clans, an omen convinces them she’s not totally full of it, and all of the clans appoint medicine cats.  The medicine cats struggle to figure out healing herbs but get through by sharing information.  Moth Flight falls in love with SkyClan’s medicine cat, a former loner named Micah.  Micah dies, Moth Flight is distraught, then she discovers she’s pregnant with his kits (because of course she is.)  After she gives birth, Clear Sky gets back up to his old nonsense and takes Moth Flight hostage. A battle breaks out between SkyClan and WindClan and Wind Runner is grievously injured.  Moth Flight gets another vision of a green moth that directs her to take Wind Runner to the Moonstone, and when she does, Wind Runner is given her nine lives and her official clan leader name Windstar.  The other clan leaders soon follow suit.  Finally, Moth Flight realizes that she cannot properly care for her clanmates if she’s worried about her kits, so she gives them away to the other clans and makes the other medicine cats take an oath to never take a mate or have kits.

The highlight of this book has got to be our loveable trainwreck of a clan leader, Clear Sky/Skystar.  Whenever the pace gets a little stale, he’s always nearby to make some stupid decision to get things going again.  Sending a spy after his own medicine cat, causing the death of his own medicine cat, refusing to let his new medicine cat consult with other medicine cats, holding another clan’s medicine cat hostage – all classic Clear Sky behaviors.  Sure, his characterization has reverted a bit from where it was at the end of Dawn of the Clans but I’ll give him a pass.

One other strange subplot in this book is what is apparently an exploration of drug abuse.  At one point, a cat named Rocky is feeling ill, so Moth Flight gives him some catmint for his cough.  Unfortunately, at this point Moth Flight is very inexperienced so she gives him way too much and he gets a little loopy.  For the rest of the book, Rocky is seemingly constantly scheming to get more catmint – he complains that Moth Flight’s substitute medicine cat wouldn’t give him any, he asks if it’s good for sore paws, he offers to go collect some for her, that kind of thing.  It’s played for laughs, which makes perfect sense considering this is Warriors we’re talking about, but at the same time it feels a little strange for what seems like an obvious proxy for a serious real-world issue to be used for comedy. 

I think this is also a good point to mention something that has been bothering me for a while now – Warriors’ sheer number of birthing scenes.  It seems like every other book there is a scene wherein a PoV character partakes in, assists with, or is otherwise present at a birthing.  In this book, it happens twice.  Once again, this is Warriors, so there’s not really any graphic detail, but as someone who has only ever taken part in a birthing as the birthee, there’s still enough detail to make me a tad uncomfortable.  Maybe this is just a consequence of the series being primarily written and edited by women, or maybe I’m just a prude, but still, I felt like I had to mention it. 

Overall, a decent but not exceptional Super Edition.

Closing Thoughts

Another mixed bag of Super Editions.  Here’s my current ranking of Super Editions:

  1. Crookedstar’s Promise
  2. Tallstar’s Revenge
  3. Bluestar’s Prophecy
  4. Moth Flight’s Vision
  5. Yellowfang’s Secret
  6. Bramblestar’s Storm
  7. SkyClan’s Destiny
  8. Firestar’s Quest

Next up: back to the main timeline with a Vision of Shadows…

Warriors Roundup: Novellas I

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While Zippy and I have been working our way through the next batch of Super Editions, we’ve also taken the time to read the first six Warriors novellas.  Let’s take a look…

Hollyleaf’s Story

This story follows Hollyleaf between her presumed death in Power of Three to her return in Omen of the Stars.  What was she doing during that time?  Apparently, she was living in underground tunnels with Fallen Leaves.  “Who is Fallen Leaves?” I hear you cry.  Well, Fallen Leaves is a ghost.  If you think that sounds interesting, unfortunately it isn’t.  Not really a lot to say about this one – a lot of this story is just seeing events we’ve seen before in Omen of the Stars from Hollyleaf’s perspective, and the rest isn’t particularly interesting.

Mistystar’s Omen

“Who is Mistystar?” I hear you cry.  Well, Mistystar is, as of the end of Omen of the Stars, the current leader of RiverClan.  This story covers her ascension as clan leader and her relationship with senior RiverClan medicine cat Mothwing. When the previous clan leader dies, Mistystar and Mothwing go to the Moonpool (the local holy site) to commune with StarClan and take part in Mistystar’s nine lives ceremony.  However, during the ceremony, Mistystar notices that Mothwing is missing.  This is because, as you may recall from my Omen of the Stars roundup, Mothwing is an atheist and therefore cannot astral project into StarClan.  Mistystar is seriously upset by this revelation because medicine cats are supposed to act as spiritual intermediaries between StarClan and the living (interpreting omens, performing ceremonies and whatnot) so she strips Mothwing of her title.  Shortly thereafter, when Mistystar’s son is grievously wounded, she receives a sign from StarClan to restore Mothwing to her position as medicine cat, which she does.  The novella ends with Mistystar learning to respect Mothwing’s beliefs and appreciate her dedication to the Clan.

I like this one.  There’s a fascinating bit near the end where Mistystar talks with the spirit of Mudfur, whom Mothwing apprenticed under.  Mudfur’s position is that Mothwing’s atheism isn’t really an issue – that StarClan can send signs to anyone, that she is still able to perform ceremonies, and that faith is mostly about “being loyal to whatever is most important to you.” (The Untold Stories, pg. 195) It seems clear from this interaction that StarClan is primarily concerned about the well-being of their living descendants and only really care about the living’s belief in them insofar as it affects said well-being.  I’d be interested in seeing a more thorough exploration of faith in Warriors later in the series; Mistystar’s Omen was a good start but there’s only so much you can cover in 80 or so pages.

Cloudstar’s Journey

“Who is Cloudstar?” I hear you cry.  Well, Cloudstar was the leader of SkyClan when they were driven from the forest territories due to real estate developers destroying their territory.  This story follows the last days of SkyClan in the forest before departing for their new territory, where the reformed SkyClan remains as of the end of Omen of the Stars.  Again, not a whole lot to say about this one – it’s mostly just standard Warriors filler (hunting, border patrols, battles, etc) with one dramatic scene at the end as SkyClan tells the other clans of their plight, the other clans refuse to help, and SkyClan departs.  I like this final scene, but I’d probably enjoy it more had I not already read it in the prologue to Firestar’s Quest.

Tigerclaw’s Fury

This one, set during the first arc, follows everyone’s favorite dead evil (relation) Tigerclaw/star.  Tigerclaw, deputy of ThunderClan, is exiled from ThunderClan after staging an attack on his own camp and attempting to assassinate his clan leader Bluestar.  Tigerclaw, with the guidance of an evil voice in his head, reforms his band of loyal followers and begins aiding ShadowClan, who is suffering from a bout of the plague.  Tigerclaw and his followers (many of whom are former ShadowClan cats) are invited to live with ShadowClan permanently.  When ShadowClan’s leader conveniently dies without a deputy, one of Tigerclaw’s followers fakes an omen that gets Tigerclaw declared as the new leader of ShadowClan as Tigerstar.

This one is interesting for a few reasons.  I don’t believe we’ve ever had a Tigerstar PoV before so it’s nice to see inside his head for once.  How Tigerstar became leader of ShadowClan is also an inherently more interesting concept to me than any of the prior novellas.  The evil voice in Tigerstar’s head turns out to be none other than…Mapleshade!  Another great appearance from our girlboss.  Overall, a solid novella.

Leafpool’s Wish

This one follows Leafpool between the second and third arc.  Leafpool realizes that she’s pregnant and freaks out due to the whole “medicine cats are supposed to be celibate” thing.  She talks with fellow medicine cat code-breaker Yellowfang in StarClan who tells her to figure it out.  Leafpool informs her sister Squirrelflight of the situation and asks her to raise her kits as her own, but Squirrelflight refuses until Yellowfang appears to her and tells her she’ll never be able to have kits of her own. Squirrelflight and Leafpool leave camp under the pretense of going on a journey, Leafpool births the protagonists of Power of Three, and they return to camp with Squirrelflight claiming the three as hers.

This one is okay.  By far the most interesting story beat is Yellowfang telling Squirrelflight that she will never have kits of her own – later, Leafpool points out that StarClan virtually never makes such explicit predictions about the future, to which Yellowfang admits that she was lying.  I like this plot point – on one hand it’s obvious Squirrelflight raising the kits is the best possible outcome, but on the other hand manipulating her into it by making her think she’s infertile is a messed-up thing to do. 

There’s also a scene where Leafpool’s Forbidden Romance partner Crowfeather shows up and practically begs her to come back, but she refuses.  This is interesting because of its implications for the timeline. In Power of Three, shortly after being apprenticed, Jaypaw encounters Breezepaw/pelt, who is Crowfeather’s son through a WindClan mate.  The fact that Breezepaw is an apprentice shortly after Jaypaw is apprenticed implies that they were born at roughly the same time, which in turn implies that 1. Crowfeather found a new mate basically immediately after ending things with Leafpool, and therefore 2. Crowfeather’s new mate is likely already pregnant with Breezepaw when he’s begging Leafpool to resume their Forbidden Romance.  What a jerk.

Dovewing’s Silence

This novella acts as an epilogue to Omen of the Stars and is primarily focused on the cats of ThunderClan grieving for those lost in the battle with the Dark Forest.  Paralleling the loss of their clanmates, the Three have also lost their superpowers, as since the Dark Forest has been defeated, they no longer have any need for them.  Another plot of this novella is the re-integration of those cats who trained in the Dark Forest into the clan; although all of the surviving Dark Forest-trained cats switched sides during the battle and fought against the Dark Forest (except Breezepelt) their clanmates are reluctant to trust them, for obvious reasons, but this is resolved after they demonstrate suitable heroism by fighting off an injured fox.

I like this novella.  I like the exploration of the distrust towards those cats who trained in the Dark Forest – it’s the kind of thing that would probably get exhausting if it was used as a plot in a Super Edition or full arc, but it works well in novella form.  I think Breezepelt got off way too easy; the guy seems to feel no remorse about fighting against the clans in the Dark Forest battle, but WindClan needs warriors and all the other Dark Forest-trained cats were pardoned so I guess we have to just overlook his obvious betrayal.  Purdy is great in this one, too – then again, he’s great everywhere, so maybe it’s just the fact that he plays a more prominent role in this novella than he tends to in the regular series. Also, what in the world is up with the Dovewing/Bumblestripe/Tigerheart love triangle? I thought Omen of the Stars ended with Dovewing pretty conclusively on #TeamTigerheart, but for some reason in this novella she seems to be back on #TeamBumblestripe. Don’t tell me we’re going to have another arc of this nonsense…

Closing Thoughts

Overall, a bit of a mixed bag for this first batch of novellas.  I think because they’re so short, the quality of a novella is going to depend greatly on how interesting the premise is, and some premises are clearly way more interesting than others. 

Warriors Roundup: Dawn of the Clans

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This week on Warriors Roundup: the much-anticipated prequel arc, Dawn of the Clans.  Once again, Zippy and I have a lot of thoughts.  About what, exactly? Let’s see…

Brief Plot Summary

This arc begins at some point in the distant past by following a group of cats living in the mountains, where the worst book of every Warriors arc takes place.  Through Jayfeather’s time travel powers, we know that these cats are descended from ancient cats that lived around the lake, and that they are the ancestors of the Tribe of Rushing Water.  Life in the mountains sucks – prey is scarce and cats are starving all the time – so when the leader has a vision of a new, less sucky home in the east, a bunch of cats decide to go live there instead.  Among these cats are the three brothers Clear Sky, Gray Wing, and Jagged Peak; Clear Sky’s pregnant mate Bright Stream, who dies on the journey; Turtle Tail, who is obviously in love with Gray Wing; future group leader Tall Shadow; and a bunch of other cats who aren’t that important.

The journey through the mountains is difficult (both for the cats and the reader) but eventually the mountain cats arrive in what readers will recognize as the forest territories from the original arc.  The mountain cats split into two groups, one led by Tall Shadow on the moor, and one led by Clear Sky in the forest.  The groups encounter local cats (including the kittypet Bumble, River Ripple, and Wind,) some of whom are invited to join their groups.  Gray Wing falls in love with local rogue Storm, who then becomes Clear Sky’s mate.  Storm quickly grows tired of Clear Sky’s poor treatment of his cats, so she leaves to live by herself, pregnant with his kits.  She gives birth to three kits, but her and two of them die tragically, and Clear Sky refuses to let Storm’s sole surviving kit (Thunder) join his group.  Turtle Tail is struck by a car and dies.  Relations between the groups continue to sour as Clear Sky becomes increasingly paranoid and authoritarian, casting out any cats who he perceives as weak (including both his brother Jagged Peak and, after briefly accepting him into the group, his son Thunder) and aggressively expanding his territory.  Clear Sky’s ruthless leadership eventually leads to an all-out battle between the two groups in which many mountain cats are killed. 

After the battle, the spirits of all the mountain cats who died since leaving the mountains appear to the survivors and tell them to get their shit together.  The two groups agree to a truce and Clear Sky, thoroughly spooked by the spirit cats, commits to being less evil.  A plague strikes, and Clear Sky is driven out as leader of the forest group by a ruthless rogue named One-Eye. The two groups unite to kill One-Eye and in doing so secure the cure for the plague.  The spirit cats show up again and tell the prominent groups that they must manifest their destiny by growing and spreading, so the cats split into five groups: Tall Shadow’s group in the pine forest; Wind Runner’s group on the moor; River Ripple’s group on an island; Clear Sky’s group in the forest; and, a little later, Thunder’s group in a different part of the forest.  Clear Sky’s latest mate Star Flower gets kidnapped by a group of rogues led by a cat named Slash; the groups unite to rescue her and, later, drive Slash and his closest followers out.  Slash returns, kidnaps one of Gray Wing kits, but he is quickly rescued.  Shortly thereafter Gray Wing (who is ostensibly the arc’s protagonist) gives the five groups their canonical Clan names and passes from this mortal coil, joining the other spirit cats in what will presumably eventually be called StarClan.

Bumble

The single thing in this arc that I have the strongest feelings on is Bumble.  You might have noticed that Bumble is barely mentioned in the plot summary – she is, after all, a relatively minor character – but her place in the story is a whole can of worms that I just have to talk about.

The mountain cats first run into Bumble shortly after arriving in the forest territories.   In her first named appearance, she introduces herself to Gray Wing and Turtle Tail, explains that she’s a kittypet, and leaves.  Later, when Grey Wing finds her and Turtle Tail sharing a vole, he asks her, and I quote, “Bumble, why don’t you come live in the forest all the time?” (The Sun Trail, pg. 218) which she refuses, instead offering to show Gray Wing and Turtle Tail her twoleg’s den.  Turtle Tail continues to meet up with Bumble for the rest of the book, and when Gray Wing starts padding after Storm, she decides to go live with Bumble permanently. 

At the start of the next book, Turtle Tail comes back to live with the mountain cats.  According to Turtle Tail, her and Bumble’s twolegs adopted a male cat named Tom, who Turtle Tail took a liking to.  Once Turtle Tail realized she was expecting Tom’s kits, Tom’s behavior became oddly distant.  Turtle Tail begged Bumble to tell her what was going on, so Bumble revealed to her that she would be separated from her kits once they were weaned, and that Tom had told her not to reveal this to Turtle Tail.  Not wanting to lose her kits, this causes Turtle Tail to return to the wild.

Later, Gray Wing and Turtle Tail run into Bumble, covered in scratches, who asks to join their group.  Evidently, Tom blamed Bumble for causing Turtle Tail to leave and started attacking her.  Gray Wing and Turtle Tail’s immediate reaction to an abuse victim begging for asylum is: we cannot possibly let her join our group.  This is a bit odd, because presumably when Gray Wing asked her why she didn’t live in the forest full-time just last book he believed she would have been able to survive in the wild, but whatever.  Anyway, Bumble convinces them to let her make her case to Tall Shadow, the de jure leader of the group and…it does not go well.  First, Gray Wing and Turtle Tail both seem to interpret Bumble’s claim that Tom is mad at her because Turtle Tail left as her blaming Turtle Tail for her abuse, which is strange because they understood what she meant perfectly well in the previous chapter.  Then, Tall Shadow says some shit that must be seen to be believed.  Directly quoting from the book:

Tall Shadow hesitated, seeming to struggle for the right thing to say.  “Is there any way of making your peace with Tom?” she asked Bumble eventually. “Can’t you find a way of living happily together?”

Bumble shook her head.  “You should be saying that to Tom, not me,” she declared.  “I haven’t done anything to him.”

Tall Shadow seemed to be at a loss. “Well, then…why not make yourself extra nice to your Twolegs,” she suggested. “Purr at them, or whatever kittypets do.”

[…]

“There must be something you can do,” Tall Shadow went on […] “Then maybe the Twolegs will give you extra treats that will make it worth staying.” (Thunder Rising, pg. 118)

Then, Wind speaks up:

“I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad time,” [Wind] told the kittypet. “But there’s absolutely no way you can come and live in the hollow with these cats. You’re a kittypet. You don’t know how to hunt, you’re soft and lazy, and you’re used to eating too much food.”

Bumble flinched back at the harsh words, her eyes wide and hurt. Some cat in the group that surrounded them – Gray Wing wasn’t sure who – made a small sound of protest, but Wind ignored it.

“You wouldn’t be able to contribute to the group,” she told Bumble sternly.  “And not only that – your presence would put the lives of other cats in danger.   There’s simply no place for a weak cat in the wild.”  Wind looked over her shoulder.  “Isn’t that right, Tall Shadow?” (Thunder Rising, pg. 119)

Wind’s entire argument against letting Bumble into the group is some deft political maneuvering on her part.  Essentially, Wind and her mate Gorse want to be let into Tall Shadow’s group, but Tall Shadow is reluctant to let them join.  Through her arguments against letting Bumble join the group, Wind is forcing Tall Shadow to either:

  1. Let Bumble into the group, therefore setting the precedent that outsiders can join, or
  2. Concede that invitations to the group should be based on the amount that one could contribute to the group at large, which positions competent hunters Wind and Gorse well to be invited in the future.

Tall Shadow agrees with Wind and goes to escort Bumble out of the camp.  Bumble is understandably upset with Turtle Tail for doing nothing to help her.

The next time we see Bumble, it’s from Thunder’s PoV.  Thunder, leading a patrol for Clear Sky, runs into a much thinner Bumble in the woods.  Clear Sky’s group being Clear Sky’s group, they chase her off.

Later still, Turtle Tail, Gray Wing, and Wind (now named Wind Runner), who are on their way to confront Clear Sky for murdering another minor character, stumble upon Bumble, bleeding out and near death.  Clear Sky then appears and tells the group he ran into Bumble while claiming more land, accidentally knocked her out by cuffing her too hard, and that a fox must have found her.  To anyone with a functioning brain, this is an obvious lie – Bumble’s wounds clearly came from a cat and Clear Sky has already murdered one she-cat this book – but Gray Wing doesn’t want to believe his brother is capable of such cruelty, so he buys it.  What follows is another unbelievable exchange – again, quoting directly from the book:

Bumble fixed her eyes on Turtle Tail’s face.  “I’m sorry if I ever hurt you,” she whispered.

“I wish you could have found happiness,” Turtle Tail replied, her voice quivering. “I know you could never have lived wild with us in the hollow, but I was so unhappy to learn how much you were suffering in the Twolegplace.”

Bumble’s eyes closed while Turtle Tail was speaking.  Her breath wheezed and her face twisted with pain. Her body jerked once or twice as her breathing grew shallower still, fading with each heartbeat until her chest stopped moving. (Thunder Rising, pg. 282)

So, to recap:

  • Bumble is never anything but friendly to the mountain cats.
  • Bumble goes against Tom’s wishes and tells Turtle Tail the truth about what will happen to her kits if she stays with the twolegs.
  • For her trouble, Tom starts physically abusing Bumble.
  • Bumble goes to the wild cats to seek asylum, where…
    1. She is told to make peace with her abuser
    2. It’s implied that extra treats will make her abuse worth it
    3. She is called soft, lazy, fat, and weak
  • Turtle Tail, who she invited to live with her, the cat for whose sake she is now being abused, does nothing to help her
  • She is mortally wounded by Clear Sky for the crime of trespassing on land he hadn’t even claimed yet
  • She uses her dying breath to apologize to Turtle Tail, a cat whom she has done nothing to hurt, and Turtle Tail’s response is effectively “sorry you’re dying, but just to reiterate, we were 100% right to not let you into our group.”

And…that’s it for Bumble.  She is brought up a few times in the third and fourth book in the arc (Tom comes to the forest looking for her and ends up kidnapping Turtle Tail’s kits) but after that, nothing.  She isn’t one of the spirit cats who appear to the survivors after the First Battle, so presumably she doesn’t get to go to StarClan.

So, you might be thinking to yourself, “what’s the problem?  Sure, it’s a tragic story, but Warriors is full of tragic stories.”  True enough, but my main problem here is how utterly meaningless the tragedy is to the arc at large.  At no point do any of the characters involved in rejecting Bumble from Tall Shadow’s group – Gray Wing, Turtle Tail, Tall Shadow, or Wind Runner – stop and consider “hey, maybe we shouldn’t have turned away an abuse victim looking for asylum.”  At no point does Gray Wing stop and think, “hey, isn’t saying ‘we can’t allow weak cats into our group’ exactly what Clear Sky is doing that I find so objectionable?”  At no point does Clear Sky stop and think “hey, maybe I shouldn’t have murdered that kittypet who was in territory I hadn’t even claimed yet,” even after his heel-face turn at the end of the third book.  It seems like every character is committed to learning absolutely nothing from Bumble’s fate, which leaves her story feeling like a morality play that’s missing the moral.  It’s bad enough to have a character exists only to suffer, but her suffering isn’t even narratively meaningful.  I am reminded of the infamous trope of “woman in refrigerators” but I don’t think Bumble even rises to that level because her suffering isn’t meaningful to the plot.  She could be written out of the arc entirely and nothing would materially change except all the so-called “good guys” who stopped her from joining Tall Shadow’s group would be more likable.

Bumble’s story also brings up the issue of clan/kittypet relations.  Anyone reading the series in release order should know by now that the idea that “kittypets are all soft/lazy/weak” is just total nonsense.  Plenty of cats born and/or raised as kittypets have adapted to life in the wild just fine (see: Firestar, Cloudtail, Millie, Sasha, and a good chunk of reformed SkyClan.)  Hell, sometimes cats still living as kittypets can beat up Clan cats (see: that one random kittypet that Sandstorm had to save Firestar from in Firestar’s Quest and the two kittypets in the ShadowClan lake territory in the New Prophecy.)  The fact that Wind believes these xenophobic stereotypes (or at least claims to believe them as part of her political maneuvering against Tall Shadow) doesn’t bother me; what bothers me is that the text never questions the truth of the stereotypes.  The other semi-major kittypet character this arc is Tom, and when he’s not busy abusing Bumble or kidnapping kits he’s primarily characterized as pathetic.  The only rogue/mountain character that doesn’t seem to buy into the “kittypet bad” stereotype is the single unnamed cat who “[makes] a small sound of protest” during Wind’s anti-Bumble speech.  I thought “xenophobia is stupid” was supposed to be a theme of the series, but I guess I was mistaken, because it certainly isn’t a theme of this arc.

What Is Clear Sky’s Deal?

You might have noticed Clear Sky features prominently in my brief plot summary.  This is because Clear Sky is hands-down the biggest plot mover of the entire arc.  For most of books two and three of this arc, he’s a villain; he’s the ambitious, greedy cat who kicks perceived weaklings out of his group, aggressively expands his borders, humiliates his underlings, and murders innocent mothers and kittypets.

The explanation for Clear Sky’s villain-coded behavior given in the text is that he was so afraid of losing anyone that he was willing to do anything so long as it was in his group’s best interests, and that once the spirit cats revealed the existence of an afterlife to him, he didn’t have to be so afraid anymore.  However, it’s also clear that Clear Sky is just fundamentally a bit of an authoritarian bully.  Even after the spirit cats give him the “be not afraid” shtick, he still thinks he’s always right and that everyone else should just listen to him until that part of his character disappears two books later, too.  Narratively, I kind of like this – I’d think it was a major cop-out if being told off by ghosts once was enough to completely change Clear Sky’s personality – but I don’t entirely buy the way his behavior changes as being consistent with his new lack of fear. It reads more like Clear Sky is now afraid of eternal damnation, but eternal damnation isn’t really a thing in Warriors. Clear Sky is a PoV character, so I was expecting to see him struggle internally with his past sins, but it just doesn’t happen.  It feels to me like the authors got halfway through the arc, realized they had written Clear Sky to be way too evil, and quickly dialed it way back so it wouldn’t be quite so jarring when he was made one of the five clan founders.  I still like him – it’s not every day we get what is effectively a villain as a PoV character – but he had a lot of potential that wasn’t properly utilized.

Things I Could Have Done Without

  • Bumble and everything relating to her (see above)
  • The first 200 pages.  It’s a quest plot that takes place in the mountains – practically the Platonic ideal of bad Warriors fare.
  • The second half’s rogues’ gallery.  One-Eye is kind of interesting, but Slash is just generic and forgettable.
  • Gray Wing is kind of boring as a protagonist.  His big thing for the first half of the arc is being totally incapable of thinking Clear Sky is evil despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary which is an interesting character flaw, but he loses this when Clear Sky stops being evil.  Seeing him deal with debilitating lung injury for most of the arc is interesting, I guess.
  • The uncomfortable number of tragic female character deaths.  Lots of cats die in Warriors, that’s nothing new, but the issue is who dies and the ways in which they die.  For the purposes of discussion, let’s classify every character death as either Type 1 (“non-tragic” deaths – deaths in battle, heroic sacrifices, death by old age, etc.) or Type 2 (“tragic” deaths – accidental deaths, murder, disease, etc.)  Excluding cats who died of the plague, I’d consider the following to be major or semi-major characters who suffer Type 2 deaths this arc:
    1. Fluttering Bird – starves to death, female
    2. Bright Stream – carried off by an eagle, female
    3. Shaded Moss – hit by a car, male
    4. Storm – crushed in a building demolition, female
    5. Misty – murdered by Clear Sky, female
    6. Bumble – murdered by Clear Sky, female
    7. Turtle Tail – hit by a car, female
    8. Gray Wing – dies of lung disease, male

This is weird, right?  In prior arcs, Warriors has been reasonably even-handed with its distribution of Type 1 and Type 2 deaths by gender but in Dawn of the Clans, ¾ of the major Type 2 deaths are experienced by female characters.  I can’t help but feel that the series is backsliding from its historically largely gender-neutral storytelling.

Things I Liked

Now that I’ve rambled at length about some of my issues with this arc, let me list some of the things I liked:  

  • No Warrior Code.  Because the Warrior Code hasn’t been written yet, it can’t be used as a source of cheap drama or easy conflict, which was incredibly refreshing.  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m pretty sure we went a whole Warriors arc without a single Forbidden Romance.
  • The smaller cast of characters.  Dawn of the Clans has way fewer characters than previous main series arcs, and I like that – it makes things much easier to keep track of.
  • The atmosphere.  The first half of the arc, from the initial arrival at the forest territories to the first battle, is essentially the decline of the mountain cat’s new society from an almost Edenic paradise to a land torn by conflict.  As I’ve mentioned previously, I love these kinds of stories.
  • The plotting.  In previous arcs, one of my main complaints was that subplots would just sort of resolve themselves out of nowhere and have no effect to the broader story.  With some notable exceptions (Bumble & One-Eye) I felt like this arc was much better about using individual subplots to push the overall plot forward
  • As mentioned above, Clear Sky – he’s often a terrible cat who makes everyone around him miserable, but I have a soft spot for those kinds of characters.
  • Star Flower is a fun character, at least to start with – in her first book she’s kind of a femme fatale archetype, which isn’t something we’ve really seen before in Warriors.  Her kidnapping also directly causes Clear Sky’s most pathetic scene, which I appreciate.

Conclusion

Overall, I liked Dawn of the Clans.  It was a somewhat subdued arc with some fun characters and interesting conflict.  I was a bit concerned that the distance from the main series would cause me to lose interest, but I found it to be a refreshing change of pace.  I’d rank the arcs I’ve currently read as follows:

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

Next up: I think I’ll knock out some of the novellas, then catch up on Super Editions.  After that: a Vision of Shadows…

Warriors Roundup: Super Editions II

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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

Warriors Roundup: Omen of the Stars

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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 4th 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

Warriors Roundup: Super Editions I

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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

Warriors Roundup: Power of Three

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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