and as the second arc rather than the first,  it has far less widespread viewership than The  

Prophecies Begin. Because of that, the idea  that it still holds a major influence in the  

series is already a bit strange. But I would go  further. I believe that, in the present, The New  

Prophecy's influence is stronger than that of any  other arc in the series, including the original.

Just about every fan who has gotten into the  series at all either started with it or went  

back to read the original arc. It is this story  alone that sparked so many fan communities,  

ideas, stories, and art, and speaking  from the fans' perspective, I would  

conclude that the first arc is easily the most  influential and widespread material. However,  

the original arc wasn't a template for the  series in the way that The New Prophecy was.  

When the team was drafting and writing the first  arc, those books were the only ones they ever  

expected to make. Certain details like the ages  and relationships between cats, the cultures and  

histories of each individual clan, and the precise  rules of the warrior code went overlooked because  

they weren't necessary to the exact story being  told. The New Prophecy did *begin* in this camp,  

as it was originally meant to be a simple  3-book epilogue series to the original arc,  

but soon enough, it was decided that  the series would go on for much longer.  

I suspect that this is one of the main reasons  that the material it invented has been clung to  

so tightly over the years. Though I should  defend that point. Let me go over the elements  

from the New Prophecy, and show how far  they have stretched into the present.

I think the most appropriate thing to cover  first is the characters, the easiest elements to  

track across the years. The New Prophecy's main  cast of Brambleclaw, Squirrelflight, Leafpool,  

and Crowfeather, along with the support cast of  Stormfur and Feathertail, Hawkfrost and Mothwing,  

Tawnypelt, and the tribe at large, have stuck  around and even been major players in every  

series since. All four of the main cast members  act as the biological and adoptive parents for  

the three protagonists in the next arc, and due  to that relationship end up as central figures  

for the whole of Power of Three and Omen of  the Stars. By the end of Omen of the Stars,  

Bramblestar and Squirrelflight were  Thunderclan's leader and deputy,  

and due to that status quo not changing at all in  nearly 10 years, they haven't left their spots of  

prominence. Both characters have gotten a  super edition to themselves since Omen of  

the Stars concluded, and for that matter so has  Crowfeather. Leafpool too got extra material,  

though as a novella retelling her kitting  rather than a post-Last Hope super edition,  

and she only recently died in a super  edition before The Broken Code began.

They aren't the only New Prophecy  characters with heavy emphasis either.  

Hawkfrost and Mothwing's tale has been told  in two mangas and a novella, and Hawkfrost  

himself was one of the most prominent members  of the Dark Forest in the third and fourth arcs,  

being Ivypool's main mentor and our primary  avenue to learn about the evil afterlife.  

Mothwing meanwhile has been Riverclan's  medicine cat since New Prophecy,  

even past Willowshine's death, and as the medicine  cat who doesn't believe in Starclan, her story and  

oddities have been a strong curiosity for just  about every medicine cat point of view we've had,  

from Jayfeather to Shadowsight. Of course Mothwing  also came back to prominence recently with The  

Broken Code and her being driven out of Riverclan  to instead bully Shadowsight in his own clan,  

and now as the mentor for an upcoming  point of view protagonist, Frostpaw.

Tawnypelt, Stormfur, and Feathertail have  certainly had a lesser effect on the series  

as a whole, though to be fair they also had less  focus in their own arc. Even still, they have very  

important roles and legacies into the present.  Feathertail and Tawnypelt have both been given  

very recent supplemental material, Feathertail  with her manga and Tawnypelt with her novella,  

and Stormfur has stood as the poster boy for the  tribe for a decade. It's hard for many to remember  

a time when the Tribe wasn't a part of the series,  but it was the New Prophecy that introduced it,  

and despite the many, many times the  books have returned to that group since,  

Stormfur and to an extent Brook have been the  only Tribe cats with much if any characterization  

or focus. Even in Graystripe's Vow, when  Graystripe and Flipcaw visited the Tribe,  

it was only Stormfur and his kits that they  really talked to or spent any time with,  

and while they tried to include more cats in  books like Sign of the Moon or Tawnypelt's Clan,  

they failed to give them any characterization  as opposed to just screentime.

Even beyond the characters themselves, there  is of course the plot to consider, and The New  

Prophecy's plot elements all had massive effects  on the rest of the series. There is the obvious  

element of The New Prophecy bringing the clans to  the lake, which remains the home of the clans to  

this day, but there is far more to bring in,  such as the Tribe's dependence on the clans,  

which I have already discussed at length as  stretching into the entire rest of the series,  

the introduction of the Dark Forest and the  possibility of being trained there, which  

continued into Power of Three, caused Omen of the  Stars' big conflict, and was the setting and main  

focus for the last two books of The Broken Code.  Graystripe's disappearance and Brambleclaw taking  

up his position instead was brought up not only  in Power of Three with their deputy struggle, but  

in an entire three-part manga series, which was in  fact the first mangas the team ever put out, so it  

indirectly started the concept of Warriors mangas  existing at all. Tallstar's decision to make  

Onewhisker the leader and Mudclaw's subsequent  coup spawned an entire character arc for Onestar,  

starting from Power of Three and ending when it  spawned the main plotline for A Vision of Shadows,  

and also was the focus for last year's  extended manga: Winds of Change, which  

featured Mudclaw himself as the point of view  character. Cinderpelt's impactful death created  

the Cinderheart reincarnation plotline which  stretched until the very end of Omen of the Stars.

And, perhaps most importantly, the relationships  that took up so much of the arc, especially in its  

latter half, fuel three of the subsequent  four arcs that follow the main timeline.  

Leafpool and Crowfeather's forbidden  relationship resulted in three kits,  

two of whom were part of the prophesied  three, and all of whom were raised by  

Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw instead with no  clue as to who their biological parents were,  

and their breakup caused Crowfeather and  Nightcloud to get together, and have Breezepelt,  

one of the main antagonists in Power of Three  and Omen of the Stars. The relationships of  

those couples with each of their kits was the one  of the only things that could reasonably be called  

a plot in Power of Three, and was still a central  point in Omen of the Stars as well. Meanwhile the  

relationship between Squirrelflight, Brambleclaw,  and Ashfur was not only the birth of the most  

famous moment in Power of Three and perhaps all of  Warriors, and the cause for much of the tension in  

Omen of the Stars, but also the reason for the  entirety of The Broken Code to have happened.

None of this would be an issue if the prominence  of The New Prophecy's cast and ideas didn't push  

out the supposed real cast and make them obsolete.  This happened in the Power of Three, where the  

protagonists were written sloppily thanks to the  plot's real focus on Squirrelflight, Brambleclaw,  

and Ashfur, and in The Broken Code, where the  protagonists were written...sloppily...thanks  

to the plot's real focus on  Squirrelflight...Bramblestar...and Ashfur. Huh.  

All told, it often seemed  that Ashfur, Squirrelflight,  

and Bramblestar were the real protagonists  of The Broken Code, rather than Bristlefrost  

Rootspring and Shadowsight whose jobs were more  about witnessing and assisting in their story,  

with the probable exception  of A Light in the Mist.

While the characters from the first arc have  definitely stuck around and kept popping  

up since their arc ended, it never got to the  level of intrusion that the TNP cast has. The  

strongest examples to the contrary are probably,  first, the number of first arc cats who appear in  

Starclan or Dark Forest scenes, such as Bluestar,  Yellowfang, and Tigerstar, second, the climactic  

and somewhat overshadowing roles that Tigerstar  and Firestar played in the Last Hope, and last,  

the strangely large roles Graystripe and Firestar  played in the most recent arc. On the topic of  

Starclan and Dark Forest cameos including a lot  of first arc cats, I would say that it honestly  

comes down to how few cats have died since. The  first arc was far more brutal than any arc since,  

and the inclusion of so many Firestar cameos since  his death proves to me that there just weren't  

enough notable dead cats to fill up Starclan and  Dark Forest scenes before. And let's not forget  

that Feathertail has been in many of those scenes  too, despite dying in the second book of the New  

Prophecy. But the Last Hope being focused on the  Firestar vs. Tigerstar conflict more than anything  

else is a fair criticism. After all, Tigerstar was  the Dark Forest's leader, and Firestar was made to  

be the fourth cat in the prophecy who really saved  the clans, even if he didn't actually do much more  

than any of the three did. Still, their prominent  role only took center stage in one book: The Last  

Hope, whereas Squirrelflight, Brambleclaw,  and Ashfur overshadowed the protagonists for  

about an entire arc and a half, including The  Broken Code and parts of both Power of Three  

and Omen of the Stars. And while Graystripe and  Firestar's recent prominence in the latter half  

of The Broken Code was oddly placed for sure,  it was only for one, or in Graystripe's case,  

two main scenes. Though admittedly, Firestar  literally taking over Rootspring's body to kill  

Darkstripe was about the most blatant expression  possible of old cats pushing out the current ones.

And along with this is a disturbing trend  particularly in the more recent arcs where  

characters are almost entirely left behind  as soon as their story is over. Despite all  

being the parents of main characters, Ivypool,  Dovewing, and Violetshine were all given  

startlingly little attention or screentime to show  their continuing journeys or build relationships  

with their children. Ivypool especially  didn't even get 50 lines across the whole  

of the Broken Code despite Bristlefrost,  a main character, being her daughter,  

and Violetshine, Rootspring's mother, barely did  any better. Twigbranch too, has been forgotten,  

getting even less time than Ivypool. Alderheart  has managed to be slightly more prominent thanks  

to still being a medicine cat, but he hasn't had  a meaningful character beat since his arc ended.  

And it's not just their lines or presence,  but their very stories that have quickly  

been forgotten. No one in The Broken Code  even mentions Onestar or the Kin's plot,  

and the closest thing we get to acknowledging the  previous tensions with Shadowclan and Skyclan is  

the mention of Juniperclaw poisoning freshkill  when he is up for redemption. And even though  

the setting for the Broken Code's end is the Dark  Forest, the area has changed so much since Omen of  

the Stars and no cat who trained there goes back,  so we end up not touching on that history either.

With all these refusals to include the more recent  growing history of the clans in the new material,  

the endless, significant reliance on the  characters, lore, and plot ideas of The New  

Prophecy starts to look excessive. When stories  go on for generations upon generations, you would  

expect some things to be less talked about as  time goes on, for old members to pass or fade  

into the background and be replaced in prominence  by new characters and newer history to share.  

But instead, the original arc and especially  the New Prophecy are still being treated as  

the blueprint from which all new stories should  arise, which I consider to be a disservice to  

the narrative. Evolution and change are what  keep the new books interesting, and part of  

that involves not just adding new characters, not  even just letting the new characters be the focus,  

but treating recent history as just as or  more important than history further away,  

and involving the characters who have come shortly  before. If there was one thing I could do to  

change the levels of intimacy and realism of the  communities in modern Warriors, it would be that.

Though, it wouldn't hurt to abandon most of  the New Prophecy. It's amazing they even got  

this much material out of such a nothing arc. I  am quite satisfied with leaving it behind now.

Thank you for watching, and always  remember to share your tales, new and old.