Name: The Darkest Hour – Trip Through Time | Warriors Analysis Speedpaint
Uploaded: 2024-02-18T11:39:49.000Z
Duration: 15 min 51 s
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The Darkest Hour is often lauded as one of the best books not just in the first arc,

Adverbs of degree

but in the series entire, even after dozens and dozens of other books have come out to

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rival it, and I must agree that it is an emotionally engrossing and action-packed story.

It's not perfect, and I don't think any Warriors book is, but it's certainly one

of the best books in the first arc if not the series.

The Darkest Hour was released on October 5th of 2004, four months after A Dangerous Path.

Cherith wrote this book as well, meaning that the first arc ended up being equally divided

between the two ghost-writers of the time.

I will say, in many ways, this book redeems Cherith for any foul we might have given her

It has a consistent train of action along with some emotion, and gives a satisfying

conclusion to this first arc of Warriors, with one possible exception.

But that exception has nothing to do with what choices Cherith had to make in the writing

of the story, and she executed the last-minute switch with grace.

Although, it certainly has its flaws, so let's begin with one of its biggest: division of

Looking at the top 10 cats, they do have 73% of the lines, which is a nice percentage.

However, the vast majority of those lines in the top 10 come from Firestar alone.

Throughout the arc, he had around 400-600 lines in each book.

That is a lot considering most other cats got around 4-20 lines.

However, previous books were still balanced better since at least the other cats with

Firestar in the top 10 spots had reasonably large numbers of lines.

In each previous book, there were three to five other cats who also had more than 100

In The Darkest Hour, Firestar is the only cat in the book to have more than 100 lines,

Whitestorm, Tigerstar, Cinderpelt, and Sandstorm each have line counts in the 50's, and no

other cat in the book can get even 40 lines.

The first arc as a whole has always had an issue incorporating its supporting and background

casts with a level of depth even close to Fireheart, but this book takes the cake in

Each cat in this book, putting aside Firestar, is here to serve one function as a wrap up

to their arc, and outside of that one purpose, they step aside so Firestar can take all of

This is very much *his* book, more than any other.

It tells his story, and everything else is secondary.

This also explains a bit of our she-cat problem in this book.

44% of the cast is female, but here they have only 20% of the lines, which is insane.

None of the first arc books have been particularly good at giving she-cats screentime, but this

book, for two reasons, is easily the worst.

First, there's the problem I already mentioned, with Firestar taking up almost all of the

Firestar is a tom, so of course his overwhelming presence would result in a smaller percentage

But also, the first arc only ever had 4 she-cats who had substantial presences consistently

through multiple books: Bluestar, Yellowfang, Cinderpelt, and Sandstorm.

By The Darkest Hour, the former two have died, and the latter two aren't given much to

And as always, the wider cast of characters is still tilted in the toms' favor, with

cats like Bramblepaw, Cloudtail, Ravenpaw, Tallstar, Darkstripe, Barley, and even Scourge

all being given relatively large amounts of attention, for this book anyway, while only

Mistyfoot, Bluestar, and Leopardstar even come close to reaching their level.

But this will become more important when I do a complete comprehensive lookback on the

For now, let's speed through the allegiance updates and begin with the story.

Fireheart is now Firestar, leader of Thunderclan since Bluestar has died.

Along with that, Whitestorm is now the deputy.

Despite Whitestorm being moved out of the warriors section, with Cloudtail becoming

a warrior and Goldenflower moving out of the nursery, the warrior count increased from

Interestingly, Lostface, despite having some version of a warrior name, is listed with

Because of this, and with Bramblepaw and Tawnypaw as new apprentices, the apprentice count stayed

Goldenflower moving into the warriors' den and Speckletail moving into the elders'

den has left Willowpelt as the only queen, and there are now 4 elders rather than 3.

After a brief prologue setting up the dynamic and partnership between Tigerstar, Boulder,

and some members of a group in the Twolegplace: Scourge and Bone, we return to Fireheart still

trying to process Bluestar's death, letting Stonefur and Mistyfoot stay for a while to

mourn their mother despite the clan's disapproval and meeting his clanmates one by one to tell

them what happened, not just at her death, but in her past, with her kits.

They bury Bluestar's body and Cinderpelt and Fireheart go to get the new leader his

nine lives from noteworthy cats in his life who have died.

In order, they were Lionheart with the life of courage, Redtail with the life of justice,

Silverstream with the life of loyalty to what you know to be right, Runningwind with the

life of tireless energy, Brindleface with the life of protection, Swiftpaw with the

life of mentoring, Yellowfang with the life of compassion, Spottedleaf with the life of

love, and Bluestar with the life of nobility, certainty, and faith.

Just as they are celebrating Firestar's new position though, he is given a vision

of a pile of bones with rivers of blood flowing out of it, along with the prophecy “Four

will become two, Lion and Tiger will meet in battle, and Blood will rule the forest.”

As soon as he gets back, he checks in with Whitestorm to learn what happened in camp,

reassures Sandstorm that being a leader doesn't stop him from loving her, gets told by Graystripe

that he doesn't need to be deputy, and then goes to decide who should be deputy himself.

He first considers Sandstorm, partially because she's an extremely talented and loyal warrior

who even just before he made his decision was ready to create patrols and take up the

duties of a deputy, but mostly because it would show her he loves her.

But he decides against it since she hasn't had an apprentice (and who's fault is that)?

But he convinces himself that it's okay because Whitestorm would be a far better deputy

Whitestorm is appointed and Firestar leaves him in charge while he visits Princess and

has a quick chat with Bramblepaw while there.

Darkstripe poisons Sorrelkit but since only Graystripe witnessed it, they need to wait

for her to wake up and confirm what happened before they can exile him justly, sending

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The Darkest Hour – Trip Through Time | Warriors Analysis Speedpaint

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