either by creating problematic  situations that must be solved,  

or by solving situations themselves. Part of this  comes down to how out-of-touch I can feel with  

a story that doesn't actually involve our main  characters, the eyes we see the world through,  

to any sizable degree. But it can be even more  frustrating when character choices that would  

otherwise define their identities are left  out in favor of warping the world around  

them instead to create a specific emotional  response in the reader. Now, I would argue that  

these are separate problems, but they are also  connected by their source: character-led choices.

On a structural level, there is a  reason why choices are so important,  

why it is imperative that you give the main  characters of your story agency in their  

world and over their journey. In a fictional  world, one of the top priorities is connecting  

the audience to the characters and storyline,  and making sure there is some sort of journey  

that will take place through those avenues for the  audience to follow: character arcs and plotlines.  

The main character you see the world through  is usually, and in Warriors, is always,  

the character through which the journey is  supposed to funnel. We see the journey with  

them and see the character and / or world change.  If a character doesn't make choices at all,  

or if their choices are completely obsolete to  the character or plot journeys, the character  

themselves become obsolete. We could remove them  from the story, replacing them with an omniscient  

third person perspective, and the story would  still progress as usual. We are not present to  

see the changes, why they were made, or the mighty  triumphs someone must have taken to win the day,  

and so the story, to us, either feels confusing,  disconnected, or ultimately meaningless.

On this level, I actually find the four  protagonists of Omen of the Stars to be some  

of the worst offenders. Jayfeather, Lionblaze,  Ivypool, and Dovewing all do make choices,  

and those choices allow us to see who they are as  characters. Jayfeather argues with Starclan and  

yet gets frantically determined at the prospect  of a death he might be able to prevent. Lionblaze  

pines endlessly over his rocky relationship  with Cinderheart, but has no hesitation in  

battle to the point that he kills Russetfur.  Ivypool lets her jealousy over Dovewing fester  

even in the face of counterevidence, but also  seeks out other close relationships that she  

is endlessly apologetic for like Blossomfall and  Hawkfrost. And Dovewing reaches out to and tries  

to befriend cats everywhere, but also has limits  around cats putting her on a pedestal or using  

her as a tool. As much as we come to understand  these characters though, none of them affect the  

overall plot. None of the three's powers were  used to defeat the Dark Forest, Ivypool never  

saw anything that gave intel the three didn't know  already, the entire plot with Starclan illogically  

breaking up and Jayfeather bringing them back  together was insanely short and ultimately had no  

effect on the Dark Forest or their final battle,  and their final struggle to find the fourth cat  

was completely meaningless since they only found  the fourth cat, Firestar, after he did his duty,  

and Firestar would have fought just as hard  whether or not he was in another prophecy. With  

or without the protagonists of the arc, the Dark  Forest's rise to power, battle with the clans, and  

defeat would go exactly the same way. These cats  make no impact on the plot we're supposed to be  

following, and as such we end up feeling detached  from the plot of Omen of the Stars as a whole.

However you can still walk away, and in fact I  still did walk away, enjoying Omen of the Stars  

because I got to see characters being themselves  as the plot passed them by in the background. I  

enjoyed the people I spent the time with even if  I didn't care even a bit about what the events of  

that time were. This is why I consider the second  level on which choices are necessary for your  

characters to be even more important, as it has  to do with the very identity of the characters.  

The choices I will be considering here are much  smaller and subtler, but ten times as important.

A fictional character is difficult to  define at first. In nearly all cases,  

you won't come out of the first chapter  being able to list off all of their traits,  

and starting a complete story by directly  telling the reader what your characters are  

like is an approach that lacks a lot of subtlety  and prevents the reader from gleaning that  

information for themselves during their own  interpretations. Putting that option aside,  

though, you as an author still need a  way to communicate who a character is  

and why they do the things they do, along with  hopefully giving an opportunity for development  

and growth over the course of a story. For  this purpose, one of the most useful tools  

a writer has to employ is choice, which in  this case is synonymous with individuality.

Choices, unlike something like backstory,  define who a character is now. With every  

choice a character makes, that choice should  be made for a reason, and ideally, over time,  

readers should come to understand what motivates  them to make each choice. With each subsequent  

choice they are given, and each response to those  choices, the reader is able to build a larger and  

richer picture of who a character is, even if  they aren't doing that process consciously.

Considering how abstract this is, I'd like to  provide an example. Say that a character, let's  

call them Bob, is our brand new protagonist. On  the first page, what do you know about Bob? Well,  

nothing, of course. But as you read, you see  that Bob's mother licks him firmly on the head  

and asks him to not leave the nursery again while  she goes out. Bob gives a heavy sigh and agrees,  

crashing limply down onto his nest while silently  crying out about his boredom. Now you know that  

Bob has a mother who cares about him but can't  be with him all of the time, that Bob is likely  

a kit, that Bob has previously left the nursery  without consent, and that he doesn't like having  

to stay in the nursery. Perhaps in a couple of  chapters, Bob is made an apprentice and he is  

the only one in this ceremony. Perhaps, at this  point, Bob immediately goes to speak with the  

older apprentices as he takes joy in the fact that  he won't be stuck alone anymore. Now we not only  

know that Bob is an only child and that he enjoys  company, but we can look back to his first moment  

and see that the reason, the motivation behind  him not enjoying the nursery or wanting to leave  

it could be about his solitude, since he didn't  enjoy being the only cat his age in one boring  

room for moons on end. Each chapter that moves  forward, we learn more about Bob in the moment,  

but can also use what we learn to look back and  inform our understanding of Bob's earlier actions,  

allowing us to build a fuller picture of who Bob  is. Without Bob being given the opportunity to  

make choices, to leave the nursery rather than  making up games for himself or asking the elders  

for stories, to immediately greet the older  apprentices rather than asking to go out on  

patrol or getting to know his mentor, we wouldn't  be able to learn who he is. If the entire world,  

regardless of previous characterization,  relentlessly praised or berated or ignored him,  

and all of Bob's own characterization  was just feeling happy or sad about how  

the world treated him, we would know nothing  about Bob except that he is in that situation.

So speaking of character choices being left  out in favor of making the situation *around*  

the characters as sad as possible, it's time  to discuss Violetshine and Shadowsight. Both  

main characters had extremely hard lives,  and the Shadowclans that surrounded each of  

them were cruel, often illogical communities  with little to no understanding or sympathy  

for them. Violetshine and Shadowsight  both faced bullying and continuous scorn  

from their clanmates even when it made no  sense at all for them to feel that way,  

in Violetshine's case because Shadowclan *chose*  and even *fought* to have her in their clan and  

then spent the rest of her life treating her like  a waste of fresh-kill, and in Shadowsight's case  

because it was plainly clear that Shadowsight was  just reporting messages as he saw them and both  

the leaders and other medicine cats agreed with  the interpretation they came to so he is in no  

way at fault for Ashfur's rise to power. Bullying,  even illogical bullying, is something that people,  

unfortunately, truly do go through, though.  So why do I dislike these characters so much?

Well, it's mainly because these characters'  status as bully victims or outcasts in their  

clans is used as a replacement for establishment  of their personalities or development of their  

characters. Violetshine acted as a camera whose  motivations were never kept consistent long  

enough to establish any trait about her. Her  bullying made her...mad about being bullied,  

but it didn't affect her future performance  in any notable way. She joined the Kin because  

she liked Needletail, not because she disliked  Shadowclan after they scorned her for her whole  

life. In fact, she decided to return to them  of her own free will before the Kin took over,  

as if their bullying never really mattered. Its  only purpose was making us feel sorry for her,  

while leaving out any motivations for either  her or her clanmates to do the things they did.  

Shadowsight was always an unsure medicine cat who  did his best to share and follow his visions since  

that's what his culture encourages everyone in  his position to do. When he was bullied for doing  

just that, it didn't do much other than make him  feel slightly worse than he already felt about  

himself. Really, aside from being a standard  medicine cat and dying for part of one book,  

I can't think of anything notable he did *at all*  until *after* all the bullying in Darkness Within,  

when he sort of decided to free Ashfur without any  motivation for that choice either and proceeded to  

immediately regret it and…hypothetically worked  against it for the remaining two books, while  

still not doing anything notable for any of his  chapters. In both cases, I genuinely couldn't name  

more than one or two *personality* rather than  situational traits for either of them, especially  

not ones that are represented consistently across  their arcs. Violetshine is…mean to her sister but  

clingy to Needletail? So stubborn I guess? But  no, she also joins the Kin very easily and is  

pretty quickly convinced to fight back against  the Kin or rejoin Shadowclan, her tormentors,  

if she feels like it. Uh, inconsistently holds  grudges then, maybe? Shadowsight meanwhile…well,  

he sure is hesitant and insecure, most of the  time, except when he occasionally gets bursts  

of determination or certainly. I couldn't tell  you why these moments pop up when they do, it's  

mostly a “needed for the plot” type thing. And  he's generally a nice guy…and that might be it.

Late-Sunny coming in here after this video has  already been done for a while. There's another  

reason that I failed to mention in here but that  is definitely important and becomes especially  

so in the most recent example that is beginning  to happen in A Starless Clan. Having the entire  

clan senselessly attack the protagonist also rids  the authors of any need to justify either side  

of the argument. The protagonists are often too  broken down by having bullying on all sides and  

aren't prepared to offer any counterarguments to  the problems their clans have with them and with  

so many cats in agreement, the cats in the  mob aren't pressured to add points to their  

argument at all. Violetshine just doesn't belong  here. No reasons need be given. Shadowsight just  

doesn't deserve to be a medicine cat and is at  fault for Bramblestar's death. No reasons need  

be given. And yes, small spoilers for A Starless  Clan, Nightheart simply is disgracing his family  

and Firestar. No reasons need be given. We as  fans can think of reasons for either side and  

even argue why certain characters might have  reason to take up one argument or another,  

but the characters in the story  never take any of those arguments,  

because they don't have to. These three gray-area  situations are never and will never be discussed,  

because the framing of the story doesn't leave  room for it. The two sides in examination aren't  

those who want to follow a prophecy versus those  who find Shadowclan to already be too crowded,  

or those who think Shadowsight was just doing  his job versus those who resent him for not  

catching Ashfur's manipulations earlier, or  those who think Nightheart should be allowed  

to choose his own identity versus those who  consider upholding legacy to be an important  

tradition. The only sides left are the bully  victim and the many, many bullies. And that is  

a black and white situation that the readers are  expected to sympathize with and that no author or  

editor has to justify the poor morality of. Okay.  Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Now, I should be clear that bullying itself  isn't the problem. Crookedstar was also bullied  

in his super edition, not on as wide a scale, but  certainly made uncomfortable by most of the clan.  

However, unlike Violetshine or Shadowsight, the  writing used this situation as a way to explore  

more of who he is, and as a defining motivation  for his actions. His initial name change and  

being held back from being an apprentice made him  want to leave the clan to stay with the barn cats  

instead who didn't mind him and could help him  learn to use his crooked jaw. When he came back,  

his scars and the treatment he got for them were  still the motivation for him to work harder,  

train not only with his own mentor, Cedarpelt, but  also with Mapleshade in his dreams, and become the  

best warrior he possibly could to prove himself  to his clan, something he never stopped doing  

through to the end of his book. His ambition  and determination were elements of his character  

shown off even before his injury, so using them  in conjunction with his reactions to adversity  

led to a character who made choice after choice  and became both Riverclan's leader and a Dark  

Forest trainee as a result. His bullying isn't  all that he is. And, perhaps most importantly,  

each of his clanmates had individual reactions  to his injuries and felt like real characters  

with their own lives rather than a rabid,  faceless mob, so the bullying that he did  

receive felt significantly more real, like each  of those clanmates had as much agency as he did.

Giving your characters meaningful choices to make  and allowing those to both be entwined in the  

plot and guide how your characters' personalities  are shown off is so intrinsic to writing any good  

story. There really isn't a way I can stress this  enough. If your characters don't care about the