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…