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  • Pre-emptive warning: This video will contain  spoilers for books 1-4 of A Starless Clan. If  

  • that's something you want to avoid, step away now. The fifth book of A Starless Clan, Wind,  

  • is now only a month away, and before that book  makes whatever impact it will on the overall story  

  • and characters, I wanted to take stock of the  wonderful things this arc has already done, and  

  • why I personally, at this point, consider it on  track to be on of my favorite arcs in the series.

  • Let's start off with the main new feature  of any main series arc: the protagonists,  

  • and specifically, I'll begin with  our darling little Riverclan gal:  

  • Frostpaw. The medicine cat protagonist has been  a staple in every arc after the first, save for  

  • Dawn of the Clans where medicine cats didn't yet  exist, and in the last three arcs especially,  

  • with the new team in charge, that protagonist  having a difficult connection to Starclan, a clan  

  • that doesn't trust them, and a generally anxious  and reactive rather than proactive personality has  

  • become the standard. Frostpaw was set up to, at  this point, be a boring retread of several ideas  

  • that were done badly to begin with. But she has  managed to set herself apart in a few ways. First  

  • is that cats she actively trusted and loved ended  up being the ones manipulating her, rather than a  

  • phantom Starclan spirit or a cat she barely knewSecond is that she actually forms positive and  

  • sustaining relationships, as well, with cats who  she can trust. But third, and most importantly,  

  • she has an arc around learning to trust herself  and balance the needs of her clan with her own  

  • need to be safe, happy, and comfortable in her  own skin. After a moon or more of distrusting  

  • everyone around her in case they turned out to  be a murderer, her resolution came in going away  

  • from the clans to learn about meditation and grow  a sense of safety with the cats there so that she  

  • was capable of acknowledging the harm Curlfeather  and Splashtail had done to her. The solution was  

  • one she actively took part in and grew from  internally rather than just letting the source  

  • of her problems fade away externally. Frostpaw  is not the same cat now that she was at the  

  • beginning of River, and that's great. I just hope  this growth keeps up for the rest of the story.

  • Sunbeam is up next, who also looked like she might  head in a poor direction when it appeared like she  

  • would fill the role of she-cat who falls for  a tom and loses her personality and arc in the  

  • process. However, she managed to begin as and  remain a compelling and complex protagonist,  

  • definitely my favorite without outshining  the other two. From my point of view,  

  • the biggest advantage of Warriors as a series has  always been that the large and closely-connected  

  • casts provide chances for plenty of engaging  relationships, rivalries, torn loyalties,  

  • and growth through those relationships and  trials. Sunbeam takes full advantage of that,  

  • having a story almost entirely focused on her  personal relationships rather than an overarching  

  • plot. She began in a comfortable relationship with  Blazefire as an established warrior hoping to be  

  • a mentor, lost that mate to her best and most  reckless friend, and shut herself off despite  

  • prods from both Gullswoop and her mother. Thenshe found Nightheart on their quick journey and,  

  • even if they didn't make a strong connection  then, and the relationship seemed fairly shallow,  

  • she came to appreciate him when  he stayed in Shadowclan with her,  

  • and eventually chose to leave all of her crumbling  and destructive relationships in Shadowclan to go  

  • to Thunderclan with him. This too, could have  been a point where they stripped her of her  

  • personality and arc and made her nothing but  a mate, but instead they actively chose this  

  • moment to remove Nightheart from the lake and had  Sunbeam forge new relationships and establish a  

  • sense of self in a new clan on her own. She  and Finchlight developed a good friendship,  

  • she had a fiery rivalry with Cherryfall, and got  to briefly live out her original goal of being a  

  • mentor with one of her unique challenges: teaching  the kits to hunt in a day. I'm just crossing  

  • my fingers that this lovely characterization  and culture keeps up when Nightheart returns.

  • Speaking of the man himself, he is easily the  biggest shock to me. With his story in the  

  • first and especially second books, it looked  like he would be following some of the worst  

  • Warriors tropes of being a self-centered  and volatile tom who is only warped into  

  • being sympathetic to the reader by making every  cat around him, especially all of the she-cats,  

  • act needlessly and illogically cruel, or at  least making the protagonist think of them in  

  • that way. Not to mention, he was following the  same loathed-by-me pattern as Rootspring in that  

  • he fell for the older and more emotionally  mature she-cat across the border who was  

  • just getting over a lost love and didn't return  his feelings until late into the relationship,  

  • at which point it felt more like stealing the  she-cat's agency and dignity for the sake of  

  • the young tom's satisfaction or arc. HoweverNightheart has managed to surprise me. Once he  

  • left Thunderclan out of blind love and spitehe had time in Shadowclan to become more mature  

  • and develop a genuine rather than superficial  connection with Sunbeam. I still wish Warriors in  

  • general was better about showing gradual rather  than sudden changes in their character arcs,  

  • which is an issue I have with both Nightheart  and Frostpaw, but it was a nice direction to see  

  • him grow in, and it was made all the better  when he then returned to his clan and had a  

  • resolution with his mother where he got an  apology from her and apologized himself for  

  • assuming the worst of her, which retroactively  make the earlier books somewhat better as we  

  • now know this to be the perspective of an angsty  teenager coloring the view of cats around him,  

  • rather than being exactly what the readers are  supposed to see the world like. He also had a  

  • nice friendship with Frostpaw on their journeydropping everything to help this stranger out and  

  • reaching out to her when he could. And uhlike I said in regards to Sunbeam, I think  

  • getting him away from Sunbeam for this book was  the best decision they could have made once they  

  • moved her to Thunderclan. It helped them to each  spend time growing independently from each other  

  • rather than being established in this second half  of the arc to only be relevant as part of a pair.

  • Our protagonists aren't the only ones making  this arc great, either. Our antagonists are  

  • equally as intriguing. Curlfeather was a loving  but controlling and manipulative mother who  

  • wanted to use her daughter and get her into  a position of power in order to fulfill her  

  • ambitions and make herself Riverclan's leaderSplashtail is a spunky and equally ambitious  

  • upstart who posed both as a loyal Riverclan  warrior, a supportive friend to Frostpaw,  

  • and a willing lackey to Curlfeather in order to  eventually subvert all of them and instate himself  

  • as Riverclan's de facto leader instead, even being  so young and without an apprentice. Berryheart is  

  • a volatile and bitter woman who hates the changes  to the code and the potential for outsiders to  

  • hurt the clans, as happened with Darktail when  she was younger. She is using her influence and  

  • seemingly righteous anger to not only go against  the code changes and anyone who uses them,  

  • but to ally with like-minded cats in an attempt  to plant a new leader in her own clan and show  

  • how easy the new code is to abuse. All three  have a large amount of active impact on the  

  • story and characters along with clear goals  that are revealed over time and underhanded  

  • actions they are willing to take to achieve those  ends. All three are also definitively clan cats  

  • with clan-related problems rather than being  another ambitious, cruel, or scorned outsider,  

  • which is a very welcome change. So far, with  Curlfeather killed and sent to the Dark Forest  

  • on the way to become leader and Berryheart's  plan foiled when Puddleshine turned out to  

  • be working against her, Splashtail is easily  succeeding the most, and none of their plans or  

  • actions have been the key driving focus of recent  books. However, in such a character-driven arc,  

  • I don't find that to be such a problem, and  one of the biggest things that makes these  

  • antagonists so engaging to me is that they all  have close relationships to our protagonists.

  • Berryheart is a demanding and sometimes  manipulative mother to her daughter, who often  

  • knows she is wrong but occasionally slips into her  rhetoric as well, when her friend seems to betray  

  • her or when the cat she was beginning to love back  leaves on a whim. Curlfeather and Splashtail both  

  • forcefully took up the role of Frostpaw's  confidant as a good mother or friend to the  

  • vulnerable and overwhelmed young medicine cat and  both became very trusted by her. Even outside of  

  • the antagonists, the clan culture among all three  protagonists' clans has been richer in this arc  

  • than it has been in a long time, arguably since  Power of Three. In addition to cats like Duskfur,  

  • Icewing, Lilyheart, Spireclaw, FringewhiskerGullswoop, and other mostly-background characters  

  • having distinctive personalities and roles in  their clans and the story, the protagonists also  

  • have several important relationships outside of  romance that change and develop as time goes on.  

  • Sunbeam was best friends with Lightleap who has  become more reckless lately in response to her  

  • perceived cowardice in the last arc and was mates  with Blazefire who started to grow apart from her  

  • when he realized she was too uptight in comparison  to her friend. The three of them fragmented bit  

  • by bit until Blazefire and Lightleap became mates  instead and Sunbeam was left unhappy with both of  

  • them. Sunbeam's relationship with her new mate's  family, Sparkpelt and Finchlight in particular,  

  • is heartwarming, with Sparkpelt nearly adopting  her and standing up for her against her mother  

  • and Finchlight becoming her closest friend in  her new clan. Yet even in this clan, she and  

  • Cherryfall had a distinctive rivalry that Sunbeam  clashed against and worked through, and that was  

  • fun to see play out. Nightheart, as I mentionedhas a complex and developing relationship with his  

  • family, and though I still wish he had shown his  friendship with Bayshine in more than one scene,  

  • his new friendship with Frostpaw is very sweet  and a rare occurrence given their complete lack  

  • of romance. Frostpaw also has a nice relationship  with Whistlepaw, even though they haven't spent  

  • many scenes together, amicable and with a fair  bit of trust and care, especially after Frostpaw  

  • was nearly murdered and Whistlepaw saved her and  snuck her away. The Erin team still hasn't made an  

  • effort to check past portrayals of charactersespecially more supportive or minor ones,  

  • to keep those personalities consistent, but they  have kept and, importantly, used, the ones they  

  • introduced in this arc which makes reading about  life in these clans so much more satisfying.

  • Another important factor is in how this arc has  carried over elements from A Vision of Shadows and  

  • especially The Broken Code, making it feel like  one continuous story about the lives of these  

  • clans. The changes to the code, mentioned but not  made explicit in the end of The Broken Code, are  

  • now the forefront of Berryheart's storyline and  have already caused three distinct couples to come  

  • together, two of which have been central focuses  to the story. Bramblestar was deeply affected by  

  • his experiences across all of The Broken Code and  it caused him to be a depressed, disconnected, and  

  • ineffective leader and eventually to step backusing that new code again, and let Squirrelstar  

  • take charge, also giving both of them the chance  to have the calmest and most amicable dynamic  

  • they have *ever* had, yes including in The New  Prophecy and Power of Three. Squirrelstar is also  

  • a much more assertive, strong, and sometimes even  pushy leader thanks to her experiences effectively  

  • leading the clan in the last arc. Meanwhile  Ivypool, the new deputy, and Rootspring are more  

  • subtly affected by their grief over Bristlefrost's  death, even though neither have been especially  

  • prominent characters. Shadowsight has calmed down  since his time as a protagonist and became a good  

  • voice of reason friend to Sunbeam, and even the  usually disconnected events of A Vision of Shadows  

  • are relevant as they are Berryheart's  internal justification for her actions.

  • The pacing across this arc, so faris also the best it has been in years,  

  • as the mystery driving Riverclan's conflict  and the pieces in Shadowclan connected to  

  • it have been revealed slowly and has yet to be  totally resolved even at the end of the fourth  

  • book. All of the new team's arcs have been  distinctly divided into the first three books,  

  • where a planned conflict occurs and is resolvedand a latter three books that tend to flounder in  

  • both direction and quality. This arc, even if it  messes up the last two books, has already broken  

  • that pattern, which is fantastic. It is a joy  to be this late in the arc and still be able to  

  • wonder what Splashtail will do now that he is in  charge, if Berryheart still has a part to play,  

  • what Lightleap was doing at the border  near Reedwhisker's death, how Frostpaw,  

  • and maybe the other protagonists, will solve their  issues, who Riverclan's new leader really will be,  

  • how Sunbeam and Nightheart will continue their  relationship, and so on. They even managed the  

  • phenomenal task of integrating super edition  material, from Riverstar's Home, nicely into  

  • a story, by using the Cats of the Park as a way  to teach Frostpaw about facing hard truths and  

  • developing self-esteem and confidence. With that  and the fact that the team has already stated they  

  • actively planned and are excited for the next  super edition, Ivypool's Heart, which will tie  

  • into the sixth book of this arc and involve her  grief over her daughter, I think it's safe to  

  • say we may still have things to look forward  to even now, though I don't want to jinx it.

  • To put it simply, I have loved this arc so far,  

  • and I hope it manages to stick the landing in  the last two books. Even if those disappoint me,  

  • however, I think I will still be able  to look fondly back on these four books  

  • for how many tired Warriors tropes they  have managed to break away from and how  

  • uniquely engaging it has managed to be. Good  luck, A Starless Clan. I'm rooting for you.

  • Thank you for watching, and always remember  that hope isn't always crushed. Sometimes,  

  • it's okay to be optimistic.

Pre-emptive warning: This video will contain  spoilers for books 1-4 of A Starless Clan. If  

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What Makes A Starless Clan So Good? – Sunny's Spiel | Warriors Analysis

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    WarriorsCatFan2007 に公開 2024 年 03 月 17 日
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