Bex

Ok, so the prologue opens with monkeystar and warrior clan. I have been meaning to read grey stripes vow, but never got around to it, but I do know the gist of warrior clan. I’m wondering if them appearing in the prologue means they will somehow be relevant in the book/arc? Anyways, I do think it’s thematically relevant at least because it centers around the question of wether a clan without a way to contact StarClan is still connected to them, which seems to be an important question in this arc.

I would definitely be down for more warrior clan content, maybe this is the push I need to finally read grey stripes vow.

Moonpaw chapter felt really long, but I’m not complaining. This was the best her pov ever felt to read honestly. It felt like she suffered less than normal (aside from the typical coments from morningkit to kill herself). I’m still not sold on the golden moon romance, but at least it didn’t feel cringy like last book. I find it interesting that moon and golden bonded over stealing two leg food just like sunbeam and nightheart last arc(golden’s parents, I guess likening two leg food runs in the family). I really likes morningkit in this chapter. While she did have her scary ominous moments, mostly she was comedic relief. I loved the scenes where Moonpaw had to translate to goldenpaw what morningkit was saying. There were a lot of fun moments with morningkit. It also felt like Moonpaw was starting to warm up to morningkit, and she seemed genuinely regretful when she upset morningkit. Morningkit also tried to warn Moonpaw about the two leg trap. Character development? You could argue she just doesn’t want Moonpaw to be captured by twolegs because she thinks that would be boring, but with all the other examples in this chapter that the two are becoming closer, I choose to interpret it as genuine concern.

All this leads me to believe that morningkit really will be redeemed and is not the main Vilian of the arc. I already thought starlingpaw was becoming the two faced cat/deciever, but this preview just solidified it for me and I’ll get more into that during starlingpaws section.

My theory with moonpaw’s pov this book is that the twolegs who captured them will bring them home, where we find out they also are the house folk for one of the warrior clan members (it was mentioned that Moonpaw scented other cats on their hands). This will tie back to the prologue and explain why warrior clan are relevant. As for what they do once they meet warrior clan? I genuinely have no clue. As much as I like the idea of warrior clan, I don’t want them to join up with the other clans. I feel like a lot of warrior clans charm comes from the fact that they originated as larpers, and a lot of their members are kitty pets/daylight warriors. If they were to move territory, they would be forced to leave behind their housefolk like sky clan did when they joined the main clans. So I’m happy we’re getting more warrior clan, but I hope they don’t move. I want them to also find a new way to communicate with starclan. Maybe Moonpaw and goldenpaw can help with that? And then there would be precedent for finding/establishing a new moon place, so maybe they could find the main clans a new moon place too? Idk, just spitballing ideas.

Onto tawnypelt’s chapter. So thankfully they cut out basically the whole journey to the gorge. I’ve noticed there doesn’t seem to be a lot of on screen traveling in this arc so far, despite how many journeys have been made. Maybe the authors finally realized we don’t like traveling books? Anyways, they reach the gorge and quickly find out that the whispering cave doesn’t work anymore, making this whole plot point feel useless. Then we find out that leaf star dies in her sleep and get the confirmation that leaders can die of old age. I seriously doubt leaf star is making it back home alive, but at least she got to visit her old home one last time. It’s sad that leaf star will be going soon, but it’s for the best(she’s literally the only sky clan leader from after it reformed). I don’t really know if I’ll enjoy hawking as a leader, I’m worried they’ll butcher his character, but at least it will be a change from the current leader lineup. I want fresher characters in the leadership positions. I’m wondering what tawny will do for the rest of this book? I don’t have any clear ideas as of right now.

The traveling group was also a strange combination of characters: brightheart? (I guess tawny wanted an elder on the quest??), FROSTDAWN MY BELOVED (who has barely had any relevance since her arc ended🥲) breezepelt (I hope tawny has some sort of conversation with him and thinks about how wierd it would be to be breezepelts step mother bc it would be so funny, tawnycrow is so ridiculous I love it) leafstar and frecklewish, and maybe others I’m forgetting.

Right now tawny and co are planning to go back home, so I’m wondering if they will actually go back immediately or something will happen and they’ll go a different direction to prolong the quest? Otherwise this whole scene feels pointless. Maybe tawny and co will end up passing by the sundrown place and wildcat territory? It feels like the whole stormclan thing and the wildcats are supposed to be important for this arc, either for setting up a territory move closer to the wildcats or adopting the wildcats way of speaking with their ancestors. It’s still unclear to me whether this is a territory change arc (I hope it is, we need a change of scenery, preferably to a place where all clans can share borders with each other again like the forest territories so clans further from maincharacterclan don’t get ignored as much). With how far we are into the arc, and still no signs of a possible new territory, I’m starting to worry they won’t be moving 😔, that is, unless the theories going around that this will be another double arc situation like pot/oots are true. But I kind of doubt that because I don’t think pot was supposed to extend into the next arc, but they had to because of poor planning leading to unresolved plot points.

Onto starlingpaw’s chapter. I love him. He’s becomeing increasingly delusional and I love that about him. We already basically knew that he was the deciever, but him being the two faced cat was still debatable as of last book, but this preview strongly implies he is the two faced cat. Robinpaw even mentions that he ‘already has one paw out of this place’—>’ two faced cat with a paw in each world’. Thankfully this means that morning/moon were likely red herrings and it opens up the possibility of them learning to coexist and become closer, which I always wanted for them. Starlingpaw is definitely going to claim he killed the fox. I wonder if that would really be enough to convince hawkwing to make him a warrior early, I’m thinking no. Hawkwing will probably refuse to make starlingpaw a warrior early, making a lot of the clan more sympathetic to starlingpaw and that he’s facing injustice or something. This could possibly make more cats join starlingpaws secret gang. Starlingpaw will definitely leverage this to make his clan mates think hawkwing is prejudiced or something and not fit for leadership. I definitely think starlingpaw will try to stage a coup. I don’t think he’ll go as far as to kill hawkwing, I don’t think he’s that far gone yet, but he will definitely try to take over leadership. Maybe he’ll exploit the same wierd voting system that kicked leaf out of being leader, or maybe he’ll be more violent, who knows. The scene of him killing the squirrel last book definitely feels like foreshadowing, at least of his more violent side, but possibly that squirrel star may lose a life to him? Sky clan also seems to want to move back to the gorge, but after finding out the whispering cave no longer works and the fact that starlingpaw (the character who’s supposed to have bad opinions) is in support of this, I doubt they’ll be moving back. It would be wierd to double down on sky clan being separate from the rest after a whole arc of reuniting them with the rest of the clans. They did go out of their way to mention “the moon trees” which aren’t a way to contact starclan, but mentioned as being the closest a warrior could get to understanding what medicine cats experience. So maybe it has potential to become a new moon place, but I don’t know what the point of that would be because I’m pretty sure no one’s going to live there anyways.

Overall im pretty excited for this book, Moonpaw and starlingpaws pov’s look exciting, tawnypelts looks pointless as usual so far but maybe they’ll figure something out for her to do that isn’t just trying to convince cats to actually do something. Also this is the second half of the arc so the plot will hopefully pick up and we’ll get a better idea of where the story is going (moving, finding new way to commune with starclan, restoring the moonpool, learning to live without starclan, idk).