It's been a wild and exciting ride, and has given me the chance to explore so many

aspects of Warriors that I love, wish I could change, or had forgotten before I delved deeper

into the material.

I want to take a moment right now to just thank everyone who ever watched one of my

videos, whether or not you subscribed, and to everyone who may do so in the future.

I don't think I would be able to keep up the pace of this channel without your support.

As a celebration, I wanted to try making a video about a certain division across the

fanbase in regards to how we engage with the books, and how that division has played such

a large role in my journey through Warriors content.

Full disclosure that I started thinking about this after listening to an interview by Riddle

with Moonkitti.

Check it out if you haven't yet; they discuss a lot of interesting topics besides the one

I'm focusing on today.

I've linked it in the description.

For now though, I shall launch into the episode.

Since Warriors is such a massive series, with anywhere from 70 to almost 100 books depending

on how you count it all spanning nearly 19 years of content, it has a very unique position

among fandoms, only otherwise occupied by things like long-running comic series that

can span decades.

Back in late September I created a poll to find approximately the number of people who

had read and / or were familiar with various arcs and types of material in Warriors, and

the results, while being about what I expected from the fandom, would be shocking in other

spaces.

Preemptive disclaimer that of course I was only able to sample a small selection of fans

from Youtube and Twitter, and the size and demographics of the sample could have very

well altered the results.

But with what we have, out of the 1,100 people who responded, more than 81% of them had never

read some of the books, and if we look down to the arc-specific results it gets even more

interesting.

After the first arc, every subsequent story has been read by fewer and fewer people, excepting

Dawn of the Clans which had even lower results than the following arc, A Vision of Shadows.

(But, for the record, Dawn of the Clans ranked third in which section had people's favorite

books, only behind super editions and the first arc so more people should really try

reading it.)

All three of the newest arcs had lower readership than every type of supplementary material,

from super editions to even guide books.

And 23 people who took the test hadn't read any of the books at all, yet were involved

enough with the fandom to see the form and take it.

However, when I instead asked which stories fans were *familiar* with, the results evened

out substantially.

Dawn of the Clans and the Field Guides are still less widely known than the others but

the gaps aren't as large as before, between the first four arcs especially, and in the

three newer arcs, familiarity actually went up as we got closer to the present.

This, to me, implies a situation I think most people recognized already: where fans learn

about and even discuss the books without experiencing them first-hand, something that was confirmed

by the fact that only about 56% of the participants listed reading or listening to the canon books

as one of the primary ways they connected with the series.

Between the size of the series, the poor quality of many of the stories, and the time and money

it would take to read them all, legally at least, a lot of f ans simply stopped reading

at one point or another.

Still, the richness and potential of the world and the intense talent and creativity the

fandom has kept many fans around, even though they now engage in Warriors mostly just through

youtube, twitter, discord, tumblr, the Warriors Wiki, or other forums where they can watch

other fans explain and interpret the books for them.

Other people find the canon material irrelevant at this point, as most of their enjoyment

is in exploring stories distinct from the canon books through MAPs, fanfictions, or

roleplays.

So a remarkably large portion of even the active fanbase either doesn't know anything

about the material that one might discuss, or only knows about it second or third hand

from another person's account of the text, or some character in it.

And with this, alongside the numerous platforms Warriors fans can cover, the creativity rampant

across the fanbase, and the often contradictory or vague nature of the canon material, our

fandom can become quite divided, between those who know and look to the books for their main

sources on more analytic discussion, and those who only need an idea from the books as inspiration

for their own expansion of the ideas in headcanons, art, animation, stories, and more.

On the more discussion-based side of the fanbase, and especially in the context of analysis,

it is often assumed that the canon material should be the main focus of discussion.

Interpretations of characters should be backed up with evidence from the books, preferably

multiple books, and when there is a discrepancy in character, lore, or plot elements, it is

deemed a mistake, a critique of the writing that lowers one's opinion of the material.

Meanwhile, on the creation-based side of the fanbase, people instead look for particular

interesting moments: often absent of the arc or even book's context, and use those to

expand on the ideas and make their own stories and versions of the characters and events

for different projects.

Even if they do happen to know everything that happened to a character in canon, they

will often fudge the details or alter entire arcs to make new stories or fit their journeys

to songs for MAPs and PMVs.

Discrepancies in character here can be taken as opportunities to expand a character and

see how they would fit with all the pieces given to them, or simply ignored if someone

chooses to focus on one part of a character over the others.

Because of this, the two sides of the fanbase can often come away with entirely different

views and opinions of characters, based on how much they consume and care about the canon

in comparison to the number of ideas they have added for themselves.

Neither side is wrong, or engaging with the material incorrectly.

It's just a matter of opinion what people are looking for from Warriors.

So which side do I fall on?

Well it might seem obvious to you, considering that you are watching my analysis video on

my Warrior Cats analysis channel that I am on the discussion side.

I use evidence from the books to prove my points and always hope for the new books to

be in line with established characterization and lore, and to present coherent stories

on their own.

However, I am also deeply involved in writing a fanfiction where I take only the bits I

enjoy from Power of Three and Omen of the Stars and expand on them, adding more plot

points, details to characters, and sometimes entirely new cats to tell the story I want

to.

In a sense, I fall on both sides of this divide.

This is an interesting position for me to be in, as I often find myself switching “modes”

from one mindset to another: text and possibility, interpretation and inspiration.

I can understand why people enjoy characters and stories whether they cite evidence or

tell me about their amazing alternate universe idea.

Even in the videos on this channel, I can and have sometimes purposefully slipped into

the creative mindset to explain my thought processes around certain characters I love:

usually those I expanded upon for Paws of Stars.

I could easily argue a negative position on my favorite books by focusing on the ideas

that The Forgotten Warrior has a dragging and aggravating Starclan plot that exists

only to fill space and destroy any last hope of Starclan being a force for good; that The

First Battle continues the Dawn of the Clans trend of sidelining their she-cats and won't

give Clear Sky the time to properly develop after the book ends; that Tallstar's Revenge

shoehorns in a useless Starclan message and several cats that are needlessly cruel or

apathetic to Talltail.

But I could also easily make a positive argument on some of my least favorite books, by thinking

about the strong and unique society of the Sisters that Squirrelflight's Hope introduced,

the epic nature of Brambleclaw fighting his father's path and definitively killing his

brother and choosing loyalty to Thunderclan in Sunset, or even that Mistystar's Omen

had the beautiful visual of Mistyfoot accepting lives from her mothers in both Thunderclan

and Riverclan, along with reuniting her with all her friends and family who passed, and

inadvertently showing just how much Mistystar has lost, and thinking of how those experiences

could have affected her.

Having a balance of both mindsets is probably what has kept me engaged with the books over

such a long period of time.

In the months of break between new books or when the lackluster quality of a new book

gets me down, I can always fall back into the creative ventures like working on my fanfiction

or delving into an expanded version of a character.

Likewise, when I get drained from working on creative projects for such a long time,

I can delve back into reading the source material to remind myself what invigorated me in the

first place, and gather new ideas from intense analytical discussion with friends.

There likely are some people who, at this point, only engage with the fandom on one

side of the divide, but I would venture a guess that, for a lot of people who actively

spend time in the Warriors fandom and don't get tired of it, they use a mix of ideas from

both the creative and analytical sides to drive their passion and dedication, and that

really isn't a bad idea.

Different views we take on characters based on our own interpretations, a creative work

they are featured in, particular impactful moments in the books, or even projection based

on our own experiences to get them closer to ourselves help keep the world of Warriors

alive even without the canon material needing to play a factor.

Multiple entire stories have been built around characters whose only involvement in the story

was dying.

Even the world devoid of any particular canon characters or plots have inspired tons of

people to create their own collaborative stories through roleplay, fan-clans, and far-future

scenarios for the clans.

Warriors is, at this point, a sandbox for a lot of people, and considering how fun that

experience can be for them, I don't think that's something we should try to change.

And yet, it is also a still ongoing book series with new canon material to consume and digest,

and for a lot of other people, myself included, that can be just as entertaining.

Elevating books new and old that we treasure and even critiquing where the stories could

be done better or where they present harmful messages can not only inspire new creative

works and help to teach lessons in writing and behavior, but be fun in it of themselves.

We as fans all, at one point or another in our lives, loved Warriors, and care about

it enough that many of us want it to do better on its own, even though we know we can rely

on other fans and ourselves to do the stories and characters justice after the fact.

We have a wide and expansive fanbase, doing so many things with the books that I didn't

even know to put all of them on my poll.

There are people who make Warriors podcasts, fanmade audiobooks, animations, comics, wikis,

games, art challenges, and analysis that stretches from Youtube to Twitter to Tumblr, Discord,

Amino, and plenty of other platforms.

There are fans everywhere, creating and thinking so much, buildings entire communities who

value and see different things in the books.

It's all incredible, and varies so completely that it is clear why our fandom has stayed

alive for so long.

Being aware of your place in the fandom divide and how much you toe the line between analytic

and creative can help you understand why you love certain elements of Warriors so deeply,

and perhaps why another fan who is searching for something else from the books will feel

differently.

Debate is inevitable, welcome even, as long as it comes with understanding.

This is an analysis channel first and foremost, and I will continue to go into most topics

with the hopes of finding the pros and cons of the series as it is presented to us in

the text.

However, I will on occasion indulge in sharing my own headcanons, and of course warning you

when I do so.

I accept the balance of mindsets in me, and I only hope I can use it to create works that

are entertaining for you.

Here's to another year of videos!

Thank you for watching, and always remember to do what you love.