was released.

Considering this is an entirely new arc, there's not much relevant information I could say

without giving away spoilers of some kind, so if you're avoiding those, consider this

your preemptive warning, and come back when you've finished the book.

Now that we're here…I have some thoughts.

Overall I enjoyed all three of our protagonists and I'm excited for most of the story beats

that seem to be on the way.

That being said, I definitely took issue with parts of the story too, and a couple aspects

that worry me as things that could turn out badly if they continue through the arc.

I think the best way to discuss all of it in this case would be to go one protagonist

at a time, since, for this book at least, they each had their own, separated stories.

I'll begin with Frostpaw, our new medicine cat protagonist and our very first Riverclan

protagonist.

Plot-wise, just about every wish I had for her story came true: Mistystar and Reedwhisker

both died, one quickly after the other, and Frostpaw's first attempt at picking a new

leader, her mother, went badly when Curlfeather was killed by dogs on their way to the Moonpool.

As Riverclan's only connection to Starclan at this point, she has a lot on her shoulders,

and it seems from the examples we've had so far: Jayclaw, Reedwhisker, and then Curlfeather,

that she most often or always gets visions of cats only when they're about to die.

Riverclan is in a very precarious position for the whole book, and never let anyone help

them out of it.

This plus the possibility of a conspiracy, given Curlfeather's warning to not trust

anyone and the question of just how Reedwhisker ended up dead makes for a rather intriguing

premise for the arc.

I'm curious as to how they'll continue it over time, especially since the next book

is called Sky, named for one of the two clans that doesn't even share a border with Riverclan,

and doesn't have a protagonist point-of-view.

But Riverclan's side of the story isn't perfect.

You might notice that I didn't have much to say about personalities or Frostpaw's

choices in the plot section, and that's because they're a lacking part of Riverclan's

tale.

Frostpaw definitely demonstrates the most camera behavior of any of the three protagonists,

and the problems in her life are due mostly to events happening around her rather than

any choices she makes herself.

She doesn't actually make any mistakes, passing on Starclan's words and visions

exactly as she was given them, and, thanks to her rather desperate desire to not be in

charge, never makes a grab for power either.

The choice of Curlfeather for leader raised some eyebrows for a minute, but doubt in her

died down quickly, even before Curlfeather's death.

It's entirely possible that the clan will lose trust in her due to the nature of her

powers, but not due to anything she herself has done, and that ends up making her personality

something of an irrelevant note in her own story, which isn't great, and reminds me

of another…very recent protagonist situation: Shadowsight's.

The similarities don't stop there, as both Shadowsight and Frostpaw are relatively nice,

dutiful cats who do their best to help their clans in the medicine cat roles they were

given due to their high levels of unique visions, and both don't ultimately want any power

for themselves, shying away from it despite being thrust into the spotlight thanks to

what they see.

At least Frostpaw seems to have a friend in Whistlepaw, the new Windclan medicine cat

apprentice to Kestrelflight, but they don't get much time to bond or even see each other

in the two chapters where they interact, so only time will tell just how well these these

two will get along.

Generally speaking, I worry that Frostpaw won't get much agency in this arc, and won't

be forced to grow because of it, but I'm at least very interested in where the plot

of her clan will go.

Up next is Sunbeam, who is currently my favorite of the three protagonists.

She has distinct values, choices, and relationships from the get-go, and her story is significantly

more driven by those relationships than by any overarching plot.

Her main struggles for the first two-thirds of the book have to do with her…very bad

and reckless friends, Lightleap and Blazefire, the latter of whom was to be her mate until

he broke it off half-way through the book.

I'll speak on each of them individually to start, because knowing them is key to understanding

Sunbeam.

Lightleap is reckless in an emotional way.

She was upset that she didn't get to go into the Dark Forest and become a Light in

the Mist in the end like her brother did, and because of that, she has since been pushing

herself constantly, actively seeking out danger to prove herself to be brave, strong, and

worthy of the clan.

This recklessness hurts not only herself, but those around her, and she in fact gets

both Sunbeam and Blazefire heavily injured in the space of this one book.

She gets angry with Sunbeam for letting Shadowsight, and by extension Tigerstar, know what hurt

her, and never really gets over that grudge, breaking off their friendship and pointedly

avoiding or berating her for the rest of the book.

Blazefire meanwhile seems reckless in a less active way.

He is a light-hearted fun-loving tom who considers Lightleap's adventures to overall be a more

attractive option than the somewhat stuck-up, careful attitude he perceives in Sunbeam.

Even when he has been hurt and confined to the medicine den, he considers it a better

option to be hurt and enjoy life than to be careful and safe…not a choice I can empathize

with but fine.

This difference in opinion leads to him breaking off the cat-engagement he had with Sunbeam,

and he spends a great deal more time with Lightleap, though not in a romantic sense

from what we can tell.

With both friends breaking off their relationships with her, Sunbeam was accidentally instilled

with the idea that being a law-abiding, careful cat would leave you sad and alone, so she

started reevaluating her choices, trying to take more risks that did get her into trouble,

and stopping herself from reporting every wrongdoing to someone.

But she doesn't go fully into recklessness either, because she also has Berryheart, her

mother and the leader of the “we hate change; clans should stay separate and the code should

stay the same” club.

Berryheart gets especially angry when her son, Spireclaw, takes advantage of the new

rule change to get together with Fringewhisker, who joins Shadowclan much to her chagrin.

It seems like, with these two competing forces on either side, Sunbeam will end up at the

heart of the backlash against change conflict in the arc, which I will be excited to see

play out since it's so ingrained in who Sunbeam is as a cat.

We will get to learn more about her as we learn about the clans.

Flamepaw will definitely not be like that.

He doesn't have much reverence for older cats or Thunderclan especially, and tends

to be more brash, impulsive, emotional, and immature.

This makes it particularly odd that the only cat he could be said to have truly bonded

with over the course of the book (over a total of 2 short scenes) is Sunbeam.

Sunbeam is used to being friends with reckless cats so I suppose it makes sense, but it feels

like, after Lightleap and Blazefire each broke away so harshly, she would seek out someone

more like herself than her friends that hurt her.

I am also worried given the shallow nature of Warriors romances that their couple of

benign interactions were a precursor to another protagonist x protagonist romance, which…I

am not excited for.

I do not want that.

Putting Sunbeam aside though, Flamepaw's conflict is one I really like for the first

section.

He failed his apprentice assessment twice in a row because of his impulsiveness and

need to show off rather than just getting the job done.

But a lot of his conflict, especially at the very end, hinges on the clan, his mother Sparkpelt,

and the leaders requiring that he live up to the amazing legacy his family has, leading

all the way back to Firestar.

For a multitude of reasons people discussed when even the summaries of this book came

out, this idea makes no sense.

Flamepaw has no more connection to Firestar than the rest of his generation, and Sparkpelt

and Alderheart, the generation immediately before, didn't have his legacy hanging over

them at all.

Bramblestar at the end decides to name him Flameheart in honor of Firestar's warrior

name, and when Flamepaw refuses since he isn't like and doesn't want to be known as just

a Firestar descendant, Bramblestar insists that they see Firestar in him, and names him

Nightheart instead.

That is an improvement from Flameheart, I suppose, but I don't understand how everyone

sees any of Firestar's personality *or* appearance in Nightheart, who, by the way,

is a completely very very black cat with no ginger at all, people of the art world.

He says so multiple times as it is one reason that the insistence on legacy is ridiculous,

which it is.

But to make it this absurd, they had to pull the rest of Thunderclan out of character and

make them obsessed with legacy all of a sudden, even when they never gave a single reason

for Nightheart in particular to be so tied with Firestar.

Finchlight has ginger in her at least, and seems to have more Sparkpelt and Firestar-like

qualities than Nightheart, so why didn't Bramblestar try to give her the heart suffix?

It just…gets frustrating, to have the plot drive characters' personalities rather than

their personalities driving the plot.

The last thing I'd like to cover are the changes to the code, as we've seen them.

The new ordering of the code that was posted on the Warriors website probably won't get

into a book soon, if ever, as the main series has never written down the code in full in

any book, but the two changes we actually know of are the legalization and formalization

of both cross-clan relationships, and the dismantling of leaders.

From now on, if a cat wants to leave their clan to become mates with another cat, they

must declare their intention at a gathering and then pass some physical test chosen by

the clan they want to get into.

I have…some issues with this.

I don't know that a test of physical skill is the best way of proving commitment to a

clan.

Maybe a ceremony, a vow, or a trial period would be better for that.

But if someone who didn't excel physically wanted to join another clan, they probably

wouldn't be able to.

As far as replacing bad leaders is concerned, anyone but the deputy can propose to remove

a leader if they feel the leader isn't serving the clan's best interests, and then at least

three-fourths of the clan, including all of the clan's current medicine cats, must agree.

Then they need to get the other clans' leaders to agree, and finally Starclan, who will strip

them of their remaining lives and make the deputy the new leader.

Slight problem with this…the problem they are trying to solve with this change is the

inability to get rid of cats like Ashfur when they become leaders.

But there was never a point in time where three-fourths of Thunderclan agreed that Imposterstar

was bad, let alone the other clan leaders, and Starclan was completely inaccessible.

The rule they are proposing wouldn't actually solve anything.

Everyone complaining in-universe says that these changes make the processes too easy,

but they definitely don't.

In the case of clan switches, it's testing for an entirely irrelevant trait, and in the

case of leadership, it's too difficult to be viable.

Believe it or not, I did actually like this book, but I think it leans a little too far

into the outline of Lost Stars in its characters, stakes, and conflicts, and while I do like

all of the protagonists, I have doubts about how their stories will be handled going forward.

Still, it's exciting to start a new arc like this, especially with all that's going

on in Riverclan and with Sunbeam's story, and I'm still looking forward to seeing

the arc play out.

Thank you for watching, and always remember to let others into your life when you have

problems you can't solve on your own.