Leader's Lives -
The way Starclan communicates with their living descendents is vastly different from canon. In the first arc, Starclan was such a mysterious force, communicating in strange ways only a medicine cat could interpret. All that mystique was lost when we got Leafpaw’s pov, and say that Starclan cats simply just chatted with the mcs, in usually unnessicarily vague ways. It really hammered home the idea that these dead cats had no clue what they were talking about, they were just regular dead guys.
This also exposed a bunch of plot holes. Why can't Staclan cats just tell the cats the answers to prophecies, or instruct them exactly what to do in these scenarios? If they can enter and fight in the living world, why don't we see dead cats hanging around and talking to cats all the time? Why did they not help fight in other battles, like the battle of Bloodclan or the Eclipse battle? Why would they need to send the traveling group to Midnight, when they could just tell them where to go?
Starclan has just so many problems, way more than mentioned here, and it barely feels like a fun concept to explore anymore, especially with a medicine cat protagonist in EVERY arc since tnp. At this point, you either have to commit to Starclan being flawed or even malevolent, or find someway to fix the many problems and unnessicary pain they've caused. The canon authors have decided to do neither, leaving us with increasingly weak usage of Starclan.
But Staclan is a whole other post: Let's talk about leadership ceremonies!
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Leadership Ceremonies and Leader Lives in AtD
Almost all picks for life givers are changed in AtD. I'll explain the lives of the current leaders in DAWN, cutting out any spoilers for Stormstar’s Curse (the prequel)
There are some constant rules for leader lives:
1. All the chosen cats must have had some impact on the cats life, or represent something important to that cat
2. The seventh live is always the previous leader
3. The eighth live is the clan founder, who will always give a life for leadership
4. The ninth cat is the cat who had the most impact on the new leader's life, or for me, the most interesting pick
5. Dark Forest cats can give lives but only on certain occasions
6. Each ceremony is somewhat unique
7. Leaders loses lives in the order given
DAWN
Firestar
1. Redtail (compassion)
2. Silverstream (doing what's right and acceptance of outsiders)
3. Spottedleaf (wisdom)
4. Snowfur (love)
5. Gorsepaw (youth)
6. Leopardfoot (forgiveness)
7. Bluestar (courage and inner strength)
8. Thunderstar (leadership)
9. Yellowfang (trust)
Blackstar
1. ???? ?????? (care)
2. Flintfang (mentorship)
3. ???????? (control)
4. Hollyflower (faith in clanmates)
5. Stonefur (forgiveness)
6. Raggedpelt (honesty)
7. Tigerstar* (never be betrayed)
8. Shadowstar (leadership)
9. Badgerfang (self-love)
Leopardstar
1. Willowbreeze (hope)
2. ???????? (asking for forgiveness)
3. Brambleberry (empathy)
4. Greypool (understanding)
5. ????????? (following the code)
6. Willowkit and Minnowkit (mentorship)
7. Crookedstar (looking to the future)
8. Riverstar (leadership)
9. Silverstream (trust)
Tallstar
1. ?????? ???? (clan as a family)
2. ?????? ???? (energy)
3. ?????? ???? (action)
4. his father (responsibility)
5. ?????????? (faith)
6. ??? ???? (loyalty)
7. Dawnstar (wisdom)
8. Windstar (leadership)
9. his mother (love)
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Each leader ceremony will be a short story written here