I have a theory about the game. So we know that the game is in the lake territories right? What if the Canon characters we see are actually starclan cats since most of the cats we saw in the trailer looked to be ocs. Maybe it takes place far in the future but not so far that these cats faded from existence.
Concept: Dovewing & Tigerheart choose to stay with the Guardian Cats. In Tigerheart's absence, Tawnypelt becomes Tawnystar and rebuild ShadowClan after Rowanclaw steps down.
Character Notes:
Dovewing
- Grew up being taught her worth was inherently tied to her powers & how they benefited the Clans
- Shadowkit's visions & seizures remind her of her traumatic upbringing, and she knows that the "trusted" adults of the Clans would claim ownership of him/his "gift"
- She chooses to stay with the Guardian Cats to protect/shield him from StarClan & the Clans.
- She experiences a lot of guilt/inner turmoil over this choice, knowing/believing the visions are genuinely useful to the Clans, but her son's worth apart from his visions matters more. She learns through her arc that she doesn't owe the Clans her son, that Shadowkit doesn't owe anyone his suffering, and that choosing her family is not a selfish decision.
- She worries that not returning forced Tawnystar into leadership, accidentally taking her autonomy away while seeking her own. They eventually have a couple much needed conversations about this. "Do not turn my choice into another reason to punish yourself. You have carried enough choices that were never yours. Leave mine with me." Seasons later, Dovewing will return this sentiment when Tawnystar is blaming herself for Berryheart's actions.
Shadowkit
- It's important to me that he continues having seizures after the visions stop (and the visions do eventually stop, when Ashfur realizes nothing will come of them).
- The Guardian Cats focus on making him safe and comfortable during seizures, and finding meaningful responsibilities and a role that HE chooses without pressure that are adapted to his needs. Instead of having to face the Clan forcing him into the medicine den, or the elder's den.
Tigerheart
- He does believe Shadowkit's visions are a sign that they need to return to the Clans. When Dovewing refuses, he goes back alone; expecting to find a crumbled ShadowClan in need of saving, and planning to use that to convince her to return.
- ShadowClan is not crumbled. It is alive. His mother is competent, and doesn't need saving.
- Tawnystar, understanding the value in finding where you belong, even if it isn't your birth Clan, encourages him to return to Dovewing.
- When Tigerheart returns, he realizes Dovewing doesn't "need" him either. She is hurt by him leaving, but she has learned to live with that hurt. Her life is not defined by his presence, or absence.
- His arc centres on him learning that he can be chosen without being needed.
- Dovewing won't welcome him back with open arms. Through listening to her, instead of making decisions on her behalf, admitting and acknowledging in trying to take her autonomy away, accepting the Guardian Cats as a group without trying to "Clan-ify" them, and learning how to participate in a community without leading it, they will eventually reconcile.
Tawnystar
- Afraid of becoming like past ShadowClan leaders, including her mate. Afraid of becoming someone she doesn’t recognize. Eventually she will realize that change does not indicate corruption, and that being in a leadership role does require some degree of change, but that change does not inherently betray her values.
- When she, not only lets but also encourages, Tigerheart to return to Dovewing, some Clanmates worry she values family over the good of the Clan. Some sort of event will happen where she needs to rely on ThunderClan to help, shortly after, and she refuses the help, fearing it will encourage those beliefs (due to Bramblestar being her brother). This will lead to harm to ShadowClan, teaching her her first important lesson. That putting ShadowClan first doesn’t mean making ShadowClan stand alone.
- Bramblestar and Tawnystar's relationship becomes quite strained. He will often expect her to support him or stand with him, but all she hears is him asking her to sacrifice her Clan's good for their relationship. She repeatedly chooses her Clan over her brother, while terrified doing so is driving away her closest living relative.
- Bramblestar is both proud of his sister, the leader, while being hurt by his sister, his littermate.
- "You keep asking me to answer as your sister when you came here to speak to ShadowClan's leader." "I don't know how to stop seeing both." "Then don't. But you cannot ask one of them to betray the other."
The Broken Code
- Tawnystar recognizes the imposter early, because she knows her brother. Due to her earlier mistakes though, she delays on speaking on it, worrying that maybe she's letting her family bias cloud her judgement, but that NOT doing so, could harm ShadowClan.
- She eventually chooses to save Bramblestar, and is honest with her Clan about where her head is at. That the imposter is a threat to every Clan, but that her personal love for Bramblestar may be clouding her judgement. Some clanmates remain wary or call her leadership into question due to this.
- It's important to me though that this bias is written as a STRENGTH that helps expose Ashfur.
A Starless Clan
- Tawnystar strongly supports cats switching Clans for love because she understands the feeling of belonging.
- She refuses to occupy or control RiverClan during their leadership crisis, offering aid but not conquest. Her stance is that RiverClan's weakness does not make them ShadowClan's property.
- Berryheart is able to gather more and more "evidence" that Tawnystar is not a fit leader; saying that Tawnystar values outsiders over ShadowClan. Her rebellion echoes the apprentices rebellion against Rowanclaw in AVoS, which shakes Tawnystar to her core. The very thing she feared is happening before her eyes.
- Tawnystar initially overcorrects; through stricter control & demands for loyalty. Her final "test" in the AU is this. How to stop the rebellion without becoming authoritarian. "I will not save ShadowClan by making my Clanmates afraid of me."
Big fan of the idea that Tawnypelt was mentored by Russetfur as opposed to another tom (Oakfur who???)
Its not really discussed, but I like the idea of female apprentices having either a female mentor or just another female mentor-figure to help them traverse the extremely limited and sexist landscape as a warrior
I read The Elders' Quest: Warriors, Changing Skies
I got through every other arc to catch up to the current books and what am I greeted with?
The New Prophecy 2?
Maybe idk I've only read one book.
There is still a bit to talk about. Shockingly given the demographic, this is a book about aging. Between two extremely old povs, Leafstar even being a contender for oldest living cat, and Moonpaw, who's dead infant sibling is haunting her, the dynamics of age are extremely central to the narrative presented so far.
So yeah Leafstar, Tawnypelt and Moonpaw are the subject of today. Leafstar's dreams and the parallels between her current situation and SkyClan's Destiny are seemingly pretty important and make me thankful that my hatred of Sharpclaw made something from that book stick. Tawnypelt's doing something. She got a prophecy and also an affirmation that she should date Crowfeather. Why? And Moonpaw's also there. TBH I have less to say about her because the authors were careful to reveal very little about what's going on.
tl;dr: everyone's old and sad, except for Moonpaw, who is young and sad.
Tawnypelt what are you doing?
I'm going to start with the elephant in the room: Tawnypelt is in love with Crowfeather. Admittedly I had heard about this before because it is, above all else, really funny, but I do have some problems. The first problem I have is from Tawnypelt's perspective: in a society where they have proof of the afterlife to the extent that Tawnypelt's dead friends/husband can (and do) visit her in dreams, is it weird to remarry? Again, in real life Earth this isn't a question, but Tawnypelt speaks to dead Rowanclaw in this book, which kind of muddies things to me.
I'm a little biased - I really like Rowanclaw and Tawnypelt as a couple - but it's an issue that the book waves off in an unsatisfying way. When Tawnypelt asks Rowanclaw about it, he says that he doesn't want her to be alone in the forest given that she still has plenty of life left to live. That's good! Even with their confirmed afterlife it's nice that to show that she still loves Rowanclaw but wants companionship which she does find through Crowfeather, though as friends (for now). The book also really makes a point of how lonely Tawnypelt is especially after Birchfeather leaves. The thing Rowanclaw says before that is "In StarClan it is ... different." The only interpretation I can come up with for that sentence is that polyamory is common in StarClan, which means the Crowfeather extended-polycule could include:
Leafpool, Feathertail, Tawnypelt, Rowanclaw, and Crowfeather
The first power quintuple in Warrior Cats.
I actually think it would be really interesting for the book series to show a healthy non-monogamous relationship as much as I doubt it would happen. But I have no issue with Tawnypelt getting into another relationship. I think the book answers the only gray areas that exist uniquely in Warriors. But there's still the other half: Crowfeather.
No. No. Please. NO. NOT AGAIN! After both Crowfeather's Trial and A Light in the Mist I thought Crowfeather was finally done just in general. Like I want him to live out the rest of his life normally especially because he's somewhat salvaged his relationship with Breezepelt and established a strong friendship with Nightcloud and Heathertail. He's left in such a good, healthy spot that I don't want him to randomly get thrown into a relationship when he hasn't displayed an interest in years. I hope Tawnypelt asks him and he politely rejects her. That's the best ending.
That being said, I'll keep an open(ish) mind. I'm not as repulsed by Tawnypelt/Crowfeather as I remember others being. And if it means, in like 10 years once Breezepelt's in StarClan, we may get to see him confused watching his dad be in a relationship with three other cats and also hi Rowanclaw? Then I can't argue. But I want Breezepelt to become leader of WindClan and live for a comically long time so maybe 20 years?
First time I've used a break like that. Thank you Tawnypelt. I wanted to separate the discussion of Tawnypelt with Crowfeather from actual character analysis because, in all honesty, Crowfeather's only relevant because he was on the Great Journey and because Tawnypelt feels lonely in ShadowClan.
My first impression of Tawnypelt as a main character was that she's really old and miserable. The book opens with her hunting with a few cats and getting mad at them and borderline dropping a "kids these days." She's not wrong to be frustrated, but the point of the scene is to show the disconnect between Tawnypelt and ShadowClan's youth, which is very pressing because ShadowClan is practically all youth. Notably, Tigerstar is actually one of the older cats and Tawnypelt is his mother. And she waited a little while before having children, so it's not a situation where Leafpool's like, a year and a half older than Jayfeather.
Tawnypelt doesn't hate children, obviously. There's scenes of her visited Lightleap's kits and she adores her grandchildren, notably Birchfeather. The purpose is to show the social disconnect between what ShadowClan is now and what it is to Tawnypelt. She actually thinks about the struggles of the clan and it's funny to think about how few cats alive in ShadowClan experienced them. Sure they were there for Ashfur, but Darktail? He's practically the reason why there's so few old cats. Most of the clan was born after he died. Even more were born after Sol and Tigerstar 1.
As a brief tangent, this is why ShadowClan's my favorite clan. They have a much more distinctive history and cultural shifts to match it. You can actually assign traits to the clan under each leader, like how Rowanclaw had the most unorganized version of the clan and Blackstar had the least aggressive. Tigerstar 2's ShadowClan is probably best defined by it's involvement, non-violently, with the affairs of other clans. You can't really say any other clan feels as culturally fluid as ShadowClan. It's cool!
So really the issue comes down to Tawnypelt being deeply rooted in the Blackstar era of ShadowClan compared to the bulk of the clan now who have lived most of their lives under the current Tigerstar. Her ShadowClan doesn't really exist anymore.
That's also why she latches onto Crowfeather so much. He's the only living warrior besides Squirrelstar who was on the journey to find Midnight. That's an era of her live that clearly matters quite a lot to her but that she can't really share in ShadowClan. None of the cats but Oakfur were even alive when that journey happened. That also leads into the reason why Tawnypelt's a main character this arc which is shaping up to focus on the clans moving once again. StarClan has chosen to contact Tawnypelt to get her to help guide the clans through the new conflict with the people doing construction in the area. Tangential to that, the arc is really hampering down on trying to assess what leadership really is and the role of a leader compared to the title of Leader. Crowfeather (again) best demonstrates this as Tawnypelt regularly identifies how he takes charge of the control compared to Leafstar who best demonstrates how the title of leader does not equate to an ability to lead.
More importantly, Tigerstar II is meant to be in the wrong with how he's handling the construction. He wants to ignore it and not bother trying anything. Now does this line up with the previous characterization of Tigerstar as deeply impatient and proactive when handling conflict? No not even a little bit. The Tigerstar I know would've already been packing his bags and leaving the second Tawnypelt said "poisoned river." But still the story is trying to show how Tawnypelt will need to lead the clans even though she's given up any sort of leadership position years ago, no matter what Tigerstar thinks.
And, for the record, I do think Tawnypelt is going to lead the cats away from the lake territories. Bluestar tells her that "the end of an era approaches" which definitely indicates moving. Especially given that Bluestar says this applies to "the Clans" not just ShadowClan. The only really defined era that all of the clans have shared is either moving to the lake or welcoming SkyClan in, and I doubt the arc's going to end with SkyClan being booted out. That would be really bizarre especially because, like, why's Tawnypelt gotta do it? Next Bluestar says Tawnypelt was chosen for her age and, again, that really insinuates that the conflict of the arc will refer back to TNP which is the only old arc Tawnypelt was deeply relevant in. Bluestar then says, "You must not lose you way on the journey, even after the stars have faded away." The moonpool's looking like it's going to be destroyed so that can only mean one thing.
So here's my prediction for what Tawnypelt's supposed to do, according to StarClan: after StarClan becomes inaccessible she's going to basically be put in charge of helping the clans to follow their wishes and find a new territory. What's I'm interested in is what that territory will be. They haven't given her any directions like they did before.
My absolute wild prediction is that Midnight will come back. We haven't seen her in a hot minute but given how much this book alludes to The New Prophecy I could see Tawnypelt wanting to seek out Midnight.
Tawnypelt's the character I'm most interested in right now. She's very important to the arc as a whole and has a pretty good voice as a character. While I said I didn't like her first scenes, she really quickly grew on me. There's a million and one ways the arc could go but I'm really just excited to follow Tawnypelt. She's a great character with a lot of potential.
This was a really unfocused ramble about her but she's setting up a lot of stuff that will inevitably be expanded on in later books. There's a lot to throw at the wall but I hope something stuck! Yay Tawnypelt.
Leafstar :(
Leafstar is old. She is very old. We don't know exactly how old, but she's likely a similar age to Firestar who died in OotS about a year before SkyClan even came to the lake. But she could theoretically be older than Firestar; we have no way of knowing anything about her age other than it's a big number.
Most of her chapters were just very sad, to be honest. Her first one opens with a dream she has of SkyClan in the gorge shortly before Darktail came along. She gets to see her family, her "trusted" deputy Sharpclaw, and Echosong, one of the cats she seems to be closest to. But eventually she wakes up and mistakes Hawkwing for Sharpclaw which is how we learn she's losing her vision.
I don't really wanna hamper on it to much but Leafstar's life is really bad. Everyone she loved is dead (minus Harrybrook) and her clan decides to oust her as leader because her depression is causing her to be unable to lead her clan especially when compared to Hawkwing. So the only things I'm going to really address are one part of her character I found really interesting and one part that I thought was poorly done.
Another issue Leafstar runs into is in her power struggle with Hawkwing. Whenever the clan starts to mistrust her, she becomes paranoid that Hawkwing is trying to take charge of the clan around her and is possibly nudging her clanmates to help oust her so he can become leader. Obviously, Hawkwing isn't doing this; he respects Leafstar greatly and doesn't want to hurt her, but you wanna know who would've done this without hesitation? Sharpclaw.
SkyClan's Destiny is meant to show Leafstar coming into her own as a leader and a repeated problem character in that book is Sharpclaw. He goes behind her back constantly and basically tries to put himself in a position of authority over her. I think it gave Leafstar a lifelong insecurity about her deputies even though Hawkwing didn't do anything like that. Keep in mind that Leafstar's only experience with a deputy before Hawkwing was Sharpclaw given that she wasn't raised in a clan. She was never really given a healthy view of how leaders and deputies should interact with each other, and I like how that extends into the conflict here.
What I didn't like about the conflict was how contrived Hawkwing's leadership abilities felt. Leafstar, at one point, falls into a pit and is unconscious for a few days and Hawkwing takes charge during that time. While Leafstar's recklessness give the clan enough reason to have concern over her leadership, what I found weird was the detail that Hawkwing, somehow, made the camp better and the freshkill pile more full in the 3 days she was gone. How? Maybe I can understand the camp being cleaner, which is more in line with Leafstar's responsibilities, but isn't organizing hunting Hawkwing's job anyways? That's only a minor point compared to the real issue I had which involves the badgers.
At one point, Leafstar takes a patrol to fight some badgers and fails partially due to Starlingpaw scaring her and distracting everyone. Kitescratch dies because of this. What is more important is that the clan pulls a kind of "I told you so" because they told Leafstar they didn't want to fight the badgers. But the second Hawkwing later takes a patrol to fight the same badgers, nobody has a problem and things go perfectly and Hawkwing's a hero? Yeah I don't buy it as a reader.
It doesn't make any sense to me that SkyClan would be super willing to refight badgers that had killed Kitescratch just because Hawkwing proposed it now. There's no real reason I can come up with, explicitly or implicitly, as to why that would be the case. The narrative needs Hawkwing to be strong and popular and Leafstar to be weak and unpopular so that's what we're getting no matter what.
I don't have much else to say about Leafstar. I think her flashbacks are interesting, and her attempt to visit Echosong at the moonpool is the first time a leader has gone to commune with StarClan (outside of a nine lives ceremony of sorts) since I believe Bluestar? It's weirdly uncommon. There's more to say but I don't want to say it because the main point of Leafstar's character is that she is old and sad. The chapters kind of hurt to read because I love Leafstar a lot and don't like seeing her suffer like that. It hurts.
What little we know about Moonpaw
Moonpaw is the main character I have the least to say about at the moment, but that's not a bad thing. It's only book 1 and she's a brand new character compared to 2 literal icons of the series.
She can hear the voice of her very young dead sister in her head. That's a fun character concept, at the very least. I tend to be cautious when super natural forces get involved, especially after ALTIM which is very messy, but I think the voice in Moonpaw's head is isolated enough that they won't run into any logistical issues with it. Hopefully. My only issue at the moment is that it's unclear how material the voice is. I assumed she works like other ghosts, implying that Rootspring or Tree may see her later, but she also seemed to physically appear to Sunkit when she lured her to a tree. Or possessed Moonpaw? But that makes even less sense. So unless there's some capital "S" Scheme going on involving a sisters cat making the voice appear, then she currently contradicts prior ghost rules. Not that those were ever established. If I had to place a bet as to why she can, I'd say her attachment to Moonpaw, which seems to go beyond just following like what Spiresight did, maybe gives her more presence in the world? But that's pure guesswork.
So more on the voice, what's her deal? She seems to be more reckless than malicious, which I actually like. Both because it's a new direction for a possible antagonist character, which she is shaping up to be, and because "evil dead infant" is a concept that makes me kind of uncomfortable. Her ability to grow mentally is unclear but she acts more like a child than Moonpaw does, at the very least. As an extension of that, I feel like she's going to be a problem not due to a desire to cause trouble but because she doesn't properly understand harm and consequences because she was literally never socialized like, at all. You know. Cause she died.
Back to Moonpaw though, why doesn't she tell anyone? She became a medicine cat apprentice (briefly) to try and talk to Jayfeather or Alderheart about it but never brings it up.
For the first time I think it's totally reasonable for Moonpaw to not feel comfortable discussing it. Whenever she mentions hearing a voice, Jayfeather directly brings up Ashfur and pretty clearly insinuates that the voice is likely malicious, which only really scares her and doesn't help the problem. Before that, she's also kind of embarrassed by her issue after Bayshine or Thriftear (can't remember which) tells her it's an imaginary friend that will go away with time. So there's a lot of reasons for her to fear discussing it both for her own sake, as she might fear retaliation from Jayfeather and Alderheart and discomfort with the nature of it and, later, with having to tell her parents that their dead newborn daughter is maybe evil and certainly not in StarClan. She never directly tells anyone her situation but it feels reasonable for her character.
Lastly (literally), the final line of the book is really bizarre to me. The voice says to Moonpaw "I am always with you. We are tied together. And if you won't let me be with you in your world, you will be with me in mine." The first two parts affirm that she is kind of bound to Moonpaw, though it's still unclear how. Then there's the last line. It's literally the final line of the book and the one that confuses me most. It reads like a death threat, right? Telling Moonpaw, angrily, that she'll either have to accept the voice in the living world or become a ghost/die. But something I haven't mentioned is the tragedy that's being alluded to throughout this. It seems as though the voice doesn't have the capability of moving on to StarClan. For whatever reason she's stuck with Moonpaw.
I think that's the direction for their characters I would be most interested in as it creates a problem for both of them to solve while also setting up the voice to do whatever she wants to cause problems along the way. How does this tie into the rest of the plot though? That I don't know. But there's 5 more books, 3 of which aren't even out yet, so I'll be patient. Not like I have a choice.
Conclusion
Oh I didn't mention the prophecy Bluestar gave Tawnypelt. "Beware the two-faced cat with a paw in each world." It's very obviously Moonpaw. So obviously that I really think it isn't Moonpaw. The book goes out of it's way to describe her face, however, and she got a spirit tied to her so it fits her perfectly. Too perfectly. But as of this book nobody else even remotely fits. More on that later, I suppose.
Probably the least organized and most rambly I've been in a while. A sort of return to form.
I don't really have overall thoughts at the moment, tbh. I think that it's possible that this arc turns into something truly special, but it could also turn out really really bad. Will Moonpaw's sister be another poorly thought out supernatural element or finally something that checks all three boxes of "ghost-y," "coherent," and "thematically interesting." What's going to happen with SkyClan? I think the pov switches to Starlingpaw(?) which could be fun but idk I'll miss Leafstar a little. Gonna be weird to possibly see her become Leafdapple given that only two cats at the lake know that was her name. Honestly she should just make up a new name for herself. One last silly Leafstar name to close them all out. Or just call herself "Leafpool 2." That would be funny.
I'm not worried about Tawnypelt though. The way she's been written so far is unique and fun and she's more willing to take action and be confrontational.
But really there's so many ways this arc could go. I'm excited to see what's in store in the next couple of books, though.
