college kid rants about cat books for children

literally THE MOST un-obvious choice

'trust no cat' came from starclan (probably in regards to like the piles of bones and the dog attack and curlfeather and the like) and mothwing doesn't believe in/trust starclan's ability to make decisions for the living clans (this one is kind of a stretch i'll admit)

her fucking natural talent for leading the clan is such a strange thing to keep bringing up and do nothing with

splashtail is the only other one rn capable of making calm, reasonable, level-headed good decisions for the clan - honestly before frostpaw said owlnose I was rooting for splashtail - and he's the one tigerstar indirectly recognized as 'leading' at the very end

wouldn't it be just poetic fucking justice for hawkfrost and the tigers and stuff if MOTHWING BECAME LEADER when hawkfrost literally couldn't

TL;DR, in no particular order:

1.     Bristlefrost/Rootspring

2.     Graystripe

3.     Shadowsight

4.     Ashfur (spoiler, I’m unhappy)

5.     “Firestar breathed”

6.     NEW CHANGES BIG CHANGES COMING NEXT ARC YES PLEASE???

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HOO BOY WHERE TO BEGIN

The Broken Code has been one of my least favorite arcs. It’s just not been great. Book 1 was promising, but book 2-5 really kind of just…were disappointing, in a lot of ways, and the inconsistent writing was the least of its troubles. It had great potential but suffered in a lot of ways too. This book really helped mitigate that for me, and while it didn’t bring it back up a lot, it put it in par with AVOS for me (but my favorite arc is POT so like who am I to talk about plot).

ALitM actually kind of redeemed this arc for me. I left this book and this arc a shell of who I once was but, overall, satisfied. Of course, it’s not free of issues (what warriors book is, esp. recently), but I could stand for a reread.

1. Bristlefrost

*sigh*

Her death broke me. That whole chapter, with her despair turning into hope and love, and the flashes of what could have been really solidifying in her mind as memories because of course that’s what happened, how else could she remember if they didn’t happen, she loves Rootspring, and just ruin me why don’t you.

Time and again I’ve heard that the top ways to make a character’s death as devastating as possible are to make them die mid-character arc, have an unsatisfying recompense for those they were closed to, and describe their funeral in little detail if it’s described at all. All of those boxes (with the exception of the first? I’ll get to that) are ticked and ticked again. She’s not in the Dark Forest, she’s not in StarClan, she’s just gone and her family and friends and Rootspring just have to live with that. Ivypool didn’t even have a body to bury.

People are upset, and I get why. I am too! It felt anticlimactic, it felt like a last-minute decision at best, it was so heavily foreshadowed that by about the fifteenth time that Rootspring thought “if we get out of here” I just said “okay one of them is going to die, I don’t know who, but one of them will, there’s no way they won’t with how heavy-handed they’re being about this”. It felt like the Onestar-Darktail-underwater-lake-battle from AVOS but we got to see it under the water instead of on top of it.

Here’s thing, though—I’m glad it ended that way.

HEAR ME OUT.

How many times have we seen female protags, or even female side and supporting characters, taken from their own individual character development to become “character trait: mother”? Female characters who lose their personality and/or social group upon having kittens and get reduced to “mother cat who has no personality of her own after popping out some babies and her only character development is seen only when it’s directly related to the development of her children”? Millie. Ivypool. Dovewing. Cinderheart. Sorreltail (!! Remember when she and Leafpool were best friends??). Ferncloud(? maybe?). Hell, half of Bluestar/Bluefur’s character arc is her avoiding becoming this trope! The only real examples of this not being the case is Squilf and Sandstorm!

Bristlefrost, by killing Ash, atoned for the time she spent (albeit unwillingly) assisting Ashfur in Bramblestar’s body, and the best atonement we could have gotten was what we got, with her killing Ashfur and dying knowing she’d served and protected her Clan (which she talked about all the way back in book 1).

What would have happened if she’d lived? We would have gotten Rootspring making a huge fuss out of leaving his Clan to join ThunderClan (growing their numbers even more, which they for sure don’t need), a little bit of outside-looking-in at Rootspring trying to settle into ThunderClan, then they have a handful of side character children and they both become boring happy background characters.

Did her death break all my bones? Yes. Am I glad that’s the ending she got? In a way, yes.

I do hope we see more of Rootspring learning to cope with that in the next arc

2. Graystripe

MY SON

It was his time. His death was really sad, although it was great to see him get to see Millie and Briarlight (I thought it was so funny how angry Silverstream and Feathertail were at them even though it’s absolutely on par with Silver’s characterization we got in Leopard’s Honor), we got to see a lot of the funny, quirky Graystripe we haven’t seen in a while (haha he’s a chonky lad), and he’s reunited with Firestar.

2a. Firestar

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

Listen we haven’t seen Firestar in so long and we got to see him AND WE GOT A FIRESTAR POV AGAIN AND HE GOT TO SEE GRAYSTRIPE AND DARKSTRIPE FINALLY GOT WHAT WAS COMING TO HIM

-Image: a zoomed in picture of a book page with the phrase “Firestar breathed” circled in red, with the caption “*INCOHERENT SCREAMING IN THE MIDDLE OF A BARNES AND NOBLE*” from Snapchat-

I just love my pretty orange boy okay I missed him ;^;

3. Ashfur

*inhale* Okay.

This was unsatisfying, anticlimactic, and where the FUCK WAS HOLLYLEAF?? We don’t even get the “book Voldemort death, where someone broke Ashfur’s neck and we see his body and it’s poetic because he was just a bad icky cat who was just an asshole and then we watch him dissipate like Darkstripe and Darktail”, we get the “movie Voldemort’s death where he explodes into sparks because he’s the big bad” but he just evaporates because he’s so bad he can’t be killed legitimately?

Glad he’s gone. Wish it could have been a little more satisfying.

4. Shadowsight

OKAY BUT I’M IN LOVE WITH WHAT THEY DID TO SHADOWSIGHT

We have a meddy cat who doesn’t believe in StarClan, sure, but it’s so cool that they gave us the medicine cat who fully believes and loves his ancestors and simply cannot. He’s attached to the Dark Forest! That’s SO COOL! I so hope they do more with that in the next arc, please StarClan please let’s see more of our little dark baby boy please

5. Changes to world structure/warrior code

I’m so glad they addressed this.

It’s something that’s needed to happen for a long time, and it’s refreshing that they finally addressed it, and I’m surprised they actually did. I’m looking very forward to see how that goes in the next arc (and hopefully more changes follow in its footsteps).

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