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Immediately after being attacked, Frostpaw is afraid of every cat but Whistlepaw. Notably, she doesn't even try to communicate with her alleged ally Splashtail during this time. Only Whistlepaw. She ends up getting taken to the vet and spayed. I don't know why they decided to spay Frostpaw but yeah that happens. Symbolically, it could indicate that her connection with the role of a medicine cat as she can no longer have children. That's all I've got there.

Nightheart gets recruited for the journey, but she doesn't warm up to him for a while, seeing him as a kind of wanna-be hero figure who is mostly interested in getting back to Sunbeam, not helping the clans. With time she warms up to him and feels safer, especially once they reach the park.

Now things get good.

I want to talk about Frostpaw in the context of the park and also about one specific scene. Do note that I haven't read Dawn of the Clans so if there's any added context there I'm not aware. DO NOT TELL ME THOUGH!! The Sun Trail is sitting on my shelf rn. I even got a used copy signed by Victoria Holmes (as far as I can tell).

Riverstar was originally one of the park cats and still believes in a lot of their practices. Specifically, he believes in the idea of meditation and wants Frostpaw to practice it in this space. But why this space?

Outside of RiverClan's current issues, Frostpaw has to leave because the idea of meditation is pretty contrary to the lifestyle of the modern clans. The idea of Frostpaw solving her issues by doing nothing goes against everything the clans stand for and that we've seen so far. In the earlier books, Frostpaw ran into errors, most notably her choice of Owlnose as leader, are caused by her being rushed into action. Taking everything into account was never allowed for her despite it being the solution. It's why she had to get away, and why the only cat who she could take is Nightheart.

Nightheart's role is admittedly pretty minor, but when Frostpaw tells him that she'll hurry so she can return to Sunbeam, he shuts her down: "'No.' He shook his head. 'We came all this way. You need to do it properly.'" Frostpaw recognizes how much this means coming from him and it's one of the steps that leads her to fully trust him, seeing that he's willing to put aside his personal interests to support her in her endeavors.

He also gets to play games with cats all day so that's maybe another factor.

The other key thing that happens in the park is that Nightheart spends most of his time playing games with the local cats because, frankly, there's nothing else to do. One time, Frostpaw joins in.

Before the scene, Frostpaw tells Bee (a park cat) that she "barely remembers how to play." When she's explained a game that's effectively just reverse tag, she immediately asks what the end goal is.

Obviously, the point of the game, the point of having the shell, is that you have fun chasing the cat with the shell with your friends and then, if you have it, you have fun playing keep away. There's no winners or losers, really, as long as you have fun. Symbolically, having Frostpaw play a game with no purpose and sincerely enjoy it shows the contradiction between her linear purpose and her individual pursuit of joy. She's had a "win condition" since Mistystar died: find the new leader of RiverClan. And that's undeniably important, but she exists outside of that purpose as well. A lot of what Frostpaw wants for herself has no real purpose. She misses talking to her siblings about who knows what and that's the point of having the shell. At the end, "she still didn't understand what the point of having the shell was," but I think that is the point. Learning that what she's working for isn't a defined end to a problem but instead for the joy of pointless fun, which requires her to figure out what's going on in her home. The choice of the shell is also interesting. It doesn't really fit with the setting of a park honestly. But it's one to one with the type of toy Frostpaw would have played with.

My other favorite duel meaning of the line "she still didn't understand what the point of having the shell was," is how it relates to her meditation. She's reaching for information that's hard to grasp and accepting a desire to partake in the process instead of a desire to find a solution correlates with her inability to find a way to win the shell game. She has to learn to abandon the idea of a victory.

The whole point of Frostpaw's meditation isn't that she's being given the answers but that's she's finding the answers she already knows and coming to terms with them. She has to acknowledge that Splashtail killed her as well as acknowledge, with Riverstar's assistance, that Curlfeather was manipulating her and that she wasn't in StarClan.

Okay so. Huh? Curlfeather being involved makes sense and I think was pretty obvious to an extent. Her saying to "trust no cat" is really odd out of context as, unless she knew about some secret shady dealings, it doesn't make sense to say. It's, again, something Frostpaw was refusing to explain because one of the endpoints of that train of thought is that Curlfeather was involved in killing Reedwhisker. But, if Curlfeather was no in StarClan, then what was happening back in Sky?

The way Riverstar words it, Curlfeather was never in StarClan. At all. He even says that "it was a price she was willing to pay" implying that there was some sort of trial and she was okay with the result. So when Frostpaw spoke to her in StarClan and got given the "look beyond the obvious choices" dream, what was that? It was, actually, probably just a dream. It explains why the message was so vague. Additionally, Frostpaw thinks, before the dream, about how she wanted "more than anything" to see Curlfeather in StarClan. It seems like she kind of brings the dream on herself as a manifestation of what she wanted: an actionable answer and a sight of Curlfeather. Later on in Sky, Duskfur even implies that it was an atypical answer from Curlfeather. The whole conversation is weird and has some implications but I don't think Duskfur's involved at all. It's at the end of chapter 9 of Sky if you want to see what I mean.

After confronting what she knows, Frostpaw returns to the clans with two new recruits (Waffle and Wasp). And also information about Reedwhisker's death. That's probably more important. But it's too late! Podlight has been appointed as medicine cat; he's likely the easily influenced cat Splashtail mentions in Shadow. Also Splashtail is leader. That's probably more important.

It's such a tense ending that I, for the first time, almost went straight to reading Wind instead of writing this first. Unfortunately, while reaching for my copy, I realized something. I didn't actually have a copy of Wind. Uh oh.

my stupid looking book collection lmao

Okay this is off topic so skip if you don't care but my collection of ASC is so unappealing. I've been buying off Thriftbooks for obvious reasons (so cheap! My TBC collection is 1/3 free book redeems!) but there are some consistency quirks. Issue one: I bought River paperback before realizing that hardback was actually way cheaper for the rest of the books. Issue two: Sky is a former library book that I had to remove the film from (can't stand how it feels) and that lead to me tearing the cover. Luckily there's a jacket. Which has a library sticker on it. Issue 3: my copy of Star has no book jacket. This also happened to my copy of The Sight. Issue 4: when I went to buy Wind, the paperback was $6 cheaper than the hardback. And I want cheap thing! So here's the collection: - River: paperback - Sky: hardback former library - Shadow: hardback - Thunder: hardback - Wind: paperback oh and also they changed the texture of the cover - Star: hardback no jacket

I'd be mad if it didn't look really funny next to my completely uniform TBC collection. Gonna try for all hardback old covers with DotC and all hardback for CS. I also want to go back and buy AVoS at some point. Anyways back to actual cats.

Sunbeam, Sparkpelt, and Sunbeam again!

My immediate reaction upon seeing Nightheart leave was "oh no. They're going to have a book about Sunbeam not being sure if Nightheart really likes her even though last book was also kind of about that." So when Squirrelstar delivered her the message that Nightheart was away on business (playing games in the park for a month) I got so relieved. The purpose of Sunbeam's arc, regardless, was to prove that she can adapt to living in ThunderClan without Nightheart - that it's not just his home but hers as well.

Before addressing Sunbeam, the difference in reception between ThunderClan and ShadowClan is so obvious. Nightheart's only really ally in ShadowClan (beyond Sunbeam) was seemingly Tawnypelt and maybe Dovewing. Everyone else was indifferent or hostile. Contrarily, Sunbeam has been welcomed warmly by Myrtlebloom, Bayshine, Sparkpelt, Finchlight, and Ivypool among others. The only cat to really work against her is Cherryfall, who I'll get back to later.

The most pressing of that set is Sparkpelt. I'm playing my trap card now. This is secretly a section about Sparkpelt. There's part in one of Sunbeam's chapters that I'm going to type out in full real quick.

"It's taken me a while to get used to calling him Nightheart... But I'm coming to see how well it suits him. He seems far more himself than he ever did as Flamepaw. It's like he-"

I really love this dialogue as a way of framing Sparkpelt's actions for the duration of the book. I think it highlights the way she felt about Nightheart and how, specifically, she was wrong in those feelings. To put it as elegantly as I can, she has always loved Nightheart, she just never bothered to recognize who that was.

Her anger isn't really categorized by a personal disdain for Nightheart but instead a feeling of shame. After all, she was the one who gave him his name which he very publicly denounced in front of everyone. Sparkpelt definitely had a preconceived notion for who her child was and when he broke away from that she didn't really know how to react. She is not in the right, mind you, as Nightheart was fully okay to change his name, but I think it's very important that Sparkpelt's reaction was out of a misguided love not for Nightheart but for Flamepaw.

This is where we have to infer because we see extremely little of Sparkpelt in Shadow. When Nightheart returns to camp initially, she's still just mad at him. But when he decides to rejoin she actually apologizes and fully welcomes him back in. Crucially, she uses the phrase "I promise to do better next time," which leads me to my assumption of how Sparkpelt transformed between books.

The absence of Nightheart seemed to make who he was set in for Sparkpelt. She's an abnormally lonely character given her powerful relatives. Really, we only ever see her around Finchlight, though it's likely that she's still close to Alderheart. The incident between her and Ashfur, where she was sent to the dogs, probably strained her relationship with Brambleclaw, regrettably, but she does still seem to talk to Squirrelstar a good amount, as seen on the patrol in River. But outside of those three, Sparkpelt is very alone. With that, losing Nightheart goes from hard to crushing as he's not just another connection but, and this is getting hard into assumptions, the cat who most closely resembles Larksong. I have to imagine that a combination of guilt and loneliness lead her to miss Nightheart not as a concept but as a cat, however flawed he may have been.

So when Nightheart returns and Sparkpelt says "I see you, Nightheart," that sends a unique message. She's welcoming Nightheart into her life for the first time instead of being worried about a Flameheart that never existed. It's why she promises to do better "next time." Their relationship is effectively a fresh start as they've never truly gotten to know each other at all.

And so returning to that paragraph, where Sparkpelt says Nightheart "suits him" it comes to symbolize her seeing him, just as she said she would. Nightheart's fur has always been an important symbol for his character and his identity. It's a silly metaphor but a very effective one. Here, the sight of his fur correlating with his name is meant to signal that Sparkpelt recognizes all of the aspects of him that she didn't see just like how she didn't see his identity struggle. She follows up by saying that he "seems far more like himself."

Again, Nightheart is such an easy character to read as trans. I genuinely believe it's intentional at this point. Like really there's only so many coincidences before I suspect that the authors were getting a little sneaky.

One more important bit of text is Nightheart's reaction to Sparkpelt's warmth towards Sunbeam. He's still very hurt by what she did and that doesn't go away in a heartbeat, but he recognizes that she's doing everything she can to make it up to him by not just welcoming him back but making sure Sunbeam is comfortable as well. I adore how sincere Sparkpelt is with her apology. Maybe she went to the Finleap school of "actually apologizing for once" during Shadow. I love character growth grahhh!!! And, just to restate, she actually keeps making sure Sunbeam is comfortable in ThunderClan even when Nightheart is missing, which indicates that her change as a character wasn't shallow and was an actual permanent reflection on her actions that made her improve. I LOVE SPARKPELT! THE SQUIRRELSTAR DNA'S FINALLY KICKING IN YESSS!

Real ones know that I've consistently liked Sparkpelt though. Especially in The Apprentice's Quest and then later in Squirrelflight's Hope. She's certainly inconsistent in ways but nuanced in others. I like her though.

Anyways, what was that about Sunbeam? Really the only other big moment she has is her confrontation of Cherryfall, who's been hit with the "random xenophobia" beam. Maybe they should turn that off it keeps hitting background characters when nobody's looking.

The big scene is basically that Cherryfall is supposed to give Sunbeam a clue but she lies to try and make her fail. Despite this, Sunbeam guesses correctly and passes, making Cherryfall really mad. She storms off into the warriors den but Sunbeam decides to follow her and get into it. She basically says "Hey just so you know you can't do anything to get me out now. We're equals. If you try to bully me it'll be a waste of time." Cherryfall is surprised and later apologizes via mouse which is almost more impressive. Giving prey to Sunbeam along with a compliment goes beyond showing regret and also shows a respect, which is interesting.

Going back to the beginning, I think that confrontation is key to understanding the cultural difference. Because imagine if Nightheart tried to pull that with Berryheart. He could, sure, and he may not even directly face punishment from Tigerstar, but he's not given enough social power in order to actually confront her. As Berryheart says, nothing he does can make him a real member of ShadowClan in the eyes of her and many others. And that group is big enough to seriously dent Nightheart's ability to fully immerse himself in the clan. Sunbeam is given much more social power and is reaffirmed as a ThunderClan cat instead of being put down. Whenever she talks about her desire to stay in the clan she's met with literal cheers. That's the reason she can confront Cherryfall successfully. It's a cool subtle way to show the difference between her acceptance into ThunderClan vs. Nightheart's possible acceptance into ShadowClan. It is really the better home for the two of them.

Conclusion

Heartbreaking: local warrior cats analysis creature no longer has access to screenshots. More news at 7.

Yeah my pdfs ran out. I've been reading physical books since last arc but now I can't screenshot anymore. Tragic.

Anyways you may notice a really, REALLY big scene that I ignored, that being the gathering at the end. Basically, it bleeds into Wind so naturally that it's almost like chapter 1/2 of that book as opposed to the end of this one. But, for the record, I am extremely interested in Berryheart becoming a rogue and Podlight being able to commune with Splashtail StarClan. But they don't even finish the gathering so all I can say is "cool" and "Sunbeam had another sibling?"

I also keep forgetting that Sunbeam is Needletail's sister. It doesn't matter at all they weren't even alive at the same time but it's bizarre to think about.

So next is Wind. Really this arc could go so many ways but, for the record, it is currently the best paced narrative and, because of that, a serious contender for my favorite arc. Which is hard cause I really liked AVoS. Similarly, Sunbeam's up there for favorite characters. Like really up there. She's my favorite main character as a character since Twigbranch, who is my second favorite overall.

But that's all I have to say about Thunder. Great book and probably the current strongest in the arc. Especially cause Squirrelstar is real now.