...to my knowledge. Sorry to anyone who's favorite clan is the Tribe.

The Tribe of Rushing Water is a group of cats separate from the clans in Warriors.

They are in fact the first group we meet, by release order.

The first iteration of them was shown in the New Prophecy, Power of Three, and Omen of the Stars.

I'll call this period the modern Tribe.

We first met this tribe in Moonrise, the second book of the New Prophecy which came out in August of 2005.

The second non-clan group we were introduced to was Skyclan,

and they were introduced in Firestar's Quest in August of 2007, a full two years later.

Considering what a large impact that would have on how other groups were treated

it was essential to get them right so they could serve as a blueprint for meeting other cats throughout the series.

And unfortunately...the blueprint the Tribe gave us was not a great one.

Our picture of the Tribe in the New Prophecy is one of desperation and unnecessary levels of hostility.

The Tribe needs one of the cats on the journey to save them according to their prophecy,

so they kidnap Stormfur and throw out the others.

When the clan cats go back to save him, Feathertail saves the Tribe and dies herself.

Then when all the clans come to stay Stormfur decides to stay with the group that kidnapped him to be near his sister's spirit,

and mostly to become mates with Brook.

However, before the arc even ends, they both show up at Thunderclan's new territory without explaining why they left.

The Tribe at this point suffered from the character writing, or lack thereof, present in all of The New Prophecy.

Not one of the tribe cats was seen as having a definable personality or any noteworthy moments as individuals.

But there is an exception, and that is Stoneteller, the unquestioned leader of the Tribe and who shows himself to not really care for or about any cats other than his own.

As long as they are saved, nothing else matters.

And the fact that they had to be saved by a clan cat rather than a Tribe cat makes him very angry and hostile,

such that he isn't especially welcoming the second time when they come with all the cats from the clans.

But I'm sure that was just a first impression and it will get better in soon, right?

Well...

In Power of Three, Two Tribe cats come to take Stormfur and Brook home because, as we find out,

they were wrongly exiled after Stormfur tried to help them deal with invaders using clan methods.

But after they go back with a couple generations of protagonists, they manage to do exactly that.

This time not only using clan methods to set and protect borders, but win[ning] the battle with a superpowered apprentice from the clans.

Stoneteller didn't want their help, but got it anyway.

Two arcs in a row where the tribe had to rely on clan cats to save them

while being hostile and defensive to any help isn't great,

but it only becomes a pattern after three-oh shoot we have this.

So in Omen of the Stars, the Tribe is doing even worse.

Now Stoneteller is old and refusing to pick a successor [now not only reluctant to help outside cats but his own as well]

so *Thunderclan's medicine cat* Jayfeather gets a dream telling him to go and help the Tribe.

Stoneteller is of course not happy to see them but after Jayfeather lies about why they're there, he reluctantly accepts.

The clan cats get to witness several cats die and Stoneteller admit his Tribe's weakness before he dies too

and Jayfeather, *Thunderclan's medicine cat* has to pick out the tribe's new ruler.

He picks some guy named Crag.

What do we know about Crag?

Well, he's Brook's brother.

But other than her being Stormfur's mate and from the Tribe, we don't know anything about Brook either, so that's no help.

He's really just one of the generically nice Tribe cats.

When Vicky Holmes was thinking about and creating the Tribe,

she aimed to make a group very close to being a clan, with just a few subtle differences.

Recently, in describing them, she framed them as being stronger, more skilled,

because of how much adaptation they had to do for their mountain environment.

The first part definitely worked.

Other than the combined leadership structure and the division of guarding and hunting jobs,

the Tribe system is pretty much identical to the clans' in all but names.

But in the case of her second goal, it never really came across.

The Tribe cats should very well be stronger, leaner, and more skilled than the clan cats,

but every time they were presented to us for over six years, they had to be saved by the clan cats.

They, or Stoneteller at least, kept trying to assert their ways of doing things could work out,

but they were proven wrong over and over again.

And more often than not, it was a small patrol of clan cats who managed to do what an entire Tribe of cats couldn't.

That doesn't make them particularly impressive.

Beyond that, in all their interactions it is Stoneteller and any Tribe cats who side with him that are in the wrong.

He is consistently hostile, defensive, and refuses to take actions that would save his Tribe in every story he's featured.

This could have worked as a story if 1. The Tribe cats were given more individuality and opinions that may go against him,

allowing the cats to help overthrow him or change his mind,

and 2. If this wasn't the first out-of-clan group we knew.

As I've said, the first non-clan group we see lays the groundwork for all groups introduced in the future,

and what we were given is a hostile, defensive, inferior copy of the clans

that is constantly on the verge of breaking apart and requires clan cats to keep it together.

Considering the clans already think of themselves as perfect and treat the outside cats as strange or inferior,

it really doesn't do anything good to have the narrative prove this to us, and set that as an expectation for later groups.

This perception isn't really helped by the second iteration of the Tribe: the ancients.

Once each in the Power of Three and Omen of the Stars,

Jayfeather goes back in time to create the Tribe out of cats living in relative peace at the territories the current day clans call home.

He sent them to the mountains and came back a second time to be sure they would stay

and installed his past self's love interest as the first leader,

despite the reservations the present time Stoneteller just confessed about his Tribe, not five minutes before he time traveled,

about them not being right for the mountains.

The Tribe cats constantly explain how they have to do things their way, and have to stay in the mountains,

but the reason they're there in the first place is apparently because another superpowered clan cat told them to go many generations ago.

Moreover, those same cats had a group who split up before the first leader was even dead,

the group who went to the forest to form the clans (which by the way was actually a fantastic story and arc, go read Dawn of the Clans).

So we have a group of inferior, stubborn cats who only exist because of the modern clans,

who have become dependent on the modern clans, and who now have a ruler who likes the clans and will bow to their whims.

That keeps it pretty stable for the future, but there is one problem that not only remains, but grows.

The Tribe is entirely lifeless.

There are no personality traits you could assign any of them besides in our first Stoneteller who is now dead.

The characterization of the Tribe itself is lifeless as well.

They are nothing but a badly made, boring clan, with a different environment and names that does nothing to intrigue the reader.

And the place they serve in the stories follows that trend.

New Prophecy had them as a larger plot point than any time since,

but because their role was only to either antagonize our protagonists or need their sacrifice to be saved,

it left the question of what the clan cats gained from going there in the first place, instead of going back through the twolegplace.

In Power of Three and Omen of the Stars both the physical Tribe visits and the time travel segments actively stopped any plot from happening,

as it separated our characters from the friends and foes they cared about that could drive them to do anything.

But in the case of those arcs specifically,

the plots meandered so much, and delivered so little that I truly believe the Tribe visits were mostly there to fill time while thinking of other ideas.

After that, we get Dawn of the Clans, which mercifully gives us a much better Tribe in the first book than we've gotten before or since.

And then we jump into the post-modern Tribe where for two arcs in a row,

there is bonus material with almost identical plotlines featuring the Tribe.

The titular character in each finds a reason to go to the Tribe, taking along one or two younger cats,

and while there they consider how much their clan has changed and whether they could belong in the Tribe more than in their clan.

But ultimately they decide their clan does need them, because while it is changing, it is still their home, and they go back.

This plotline could have happened anywhere, with any two older cats, and they proved that by making the story twice.

They could have just been loners for a bit and done the same things.

the Tribe has nothing to offer a plot other than pretty scenery and familiarity,

but those two things are enough to keep bringing it back over and over.

That last point really is a shame, because with the world opened to other groups of cats besides the clans,

there's a plethora of possibilities for groups they could meet and stories they could have with them.

Each group the cats met after the Tribe was, for a while, either one that needed to be molded into more of a clan

or an adversary to be fought

There is one group that toed this line quite well, and that's the Sisters, introduced in Squirrelflight's Hope.

They certainly aren't a perfect society, and neither are the clans, but their faults are unique to them.

They have their own culture, traditions, values,

and while they don't want to do battle with all five clans, they can hold their own,

being able and willing to stand up for themselves.

Their culture briefly forced some of the clan cats to reassess their own culture, and consider if they could do things differently too.

But the Sisters are a recent and currently single example of a nuanced group in warriors.

I wish the Tribe were better than it was,

but at this point, I'd rather leave them be and see if we can hit gold like the Sisters ever again.

Thank you for watching,

and always remember to think before you time travel and create a boring group of cats stuck in the mountains.