The Prophecies Begin and Characterization
Time for my extremely nerdy English teacher side to come out.
Recently, I started doing a reread of The Prophecies Begin! It’s really been great, since, honestly, I haven’t picked up the first series books in at least about 8 years. My intention in doing this was mostly for some light entertainment...but finishing Darkness Within and feeling lackluster towards it had me really curious about what exactly is so...different about the original series considering the later series have, if anything, expanded on the lore and world-building.
I know this is something that probably gets talked about ALL THE TIME. But, hey, I don’t get to analyze literature much anymore post-college (other than on the teacher side of things) so fuck it. Let’s go. Time for the English teacher to analyze the shit outta some cat books.
The first thing I want to talk about here is characterization. Again, not a new topic in this fandom when it comes to our nostalgia for the original series, but I feel like some fans just aren’t able to put to words exactly why newer series background characters (and, even mains, at times) just feel so damn....stale.
I’m not going to talk down to everyone as if most of us haven’t taken high school level english, but, real quick, just in case these aren’t terms aren’t something you’ve heard in a while: Indirect Characterization is when the author SHOWS us a character’s personality through their dialogue and actions, and relies on reader inference. Direct Characterization is when we are TOLD a character’s personality directly.
Most books have both, but TPB does a WAY better job of balancing what we are shown with what we are told. Great examples of secondary characters that we get to know largely through indirect characterization are Whitestorm and Longtail. Whitestorm is consistently written as being helpful and amicable, and Longtail is consistently written as a pain-in-the-ass-but-harmless-bastard. Dustpelt’s courtship with Fernpaw is written pretty indirectly as well, as well as Fernpaw’s discomfort around her mentor, Darkstripe. These small moments are what make Thunderclan in TPB feel like a lived in society, and not one that changes based on the main character’s (or the plots) needs.
And, of course, there are characters that we don’t really know much about at all. This is something Moonkitti mentioned in the latest WOW video; but a lot of personalities of gen 1 characters really were made up by headcannons from the fandom. Runningwind and Mousefur really don’t have character moments, Goldenflower, Frostfur, and Brindleface are largely the same cat along with all of the Elders being the same as well. Thornpaw/claw barely speaks, and, despite his memorable death, Swiftpaw really isn’t spoken of much at all.
Lionheart gets some great character moments though, and I feel like his sense of humor actually largely gets forgotten by the fandom. He’s actually not the stoic noble archetype when you go back and read Into the Wild. Dude has some serious goofy dad energy. I’ll get into fandom perceptions VS reality in another mini essay!
The major issue with newer series books probably stems from the fact that there is just damn too many of them, and also that I feel like the author’s just kind of think up dialogue that they need said by background characters, and slap a random name on who will be the one to say it. While I can’t claim ALL TPB cats get great indirect characterization, I can say that the approach was definitely more of a “How would these characters genuinely react” and less of a “I need the characters to react like this.”
