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  • The New Prophecy arc ended all  the way back in December of 2006,  

  • and as the second arc rather than the firstit has far less widespread viewership than The  

  • Prophecies Begin. Because of that, the idea  that it still holds a major influence in the  

  • series is already a bit strange. But I would go  further. I believe that, in the present, The New  

  • Prophecy's influence is stronger than that of any  other arc in the series, including the original.

  • Just about every fan who has gotten into the  series at all either started with it or went  

  • back to read the original arc. It is this story  alone that sparked so many fan communities,  

  • ideas, stories, and art, and speaking  from the fans' perspective, I would  

  • conclude that the first arc is easily the most  influential and widespread material. However,  

  • the original arc wasn't a template for the  series in the way that The New Prophecy was.  

  • When the team was drafting and writing the first  arc, those books were the only ones they ever  

  • expected to make. Certain details like the ages  and relationships between cats, the cultures and  

  • histories of each individual clan, and the precise  rules of the warrior code went overlooked because  

  • they weren't necessary to the exact story being  told. The New Prophecy did *begin* in this camp,  

  • as it was originally meant to be a simple  3-book epilogue series to the original arc,  

  • but soon enough, it was decided that  the series would go on for much longer.  

  • I suspect that this is one of the main reasons  that the material it invented has been clung to  

  • so tightly over the years. Though I should  defend that point. Let me go over the elements  

  • from the New Prophecy, and show how far  they have stretched into the present.

  • I think the most appropriate thing to cover  first is the characters, the easiest elements to  

  • track across the years. The New Prophecy's main  cast of Brambleclaw, Squirrelflight, Leafpool,  

  • and Crowfeather, along with the support cast of  Stormfur and Feathertail, Hawkfrost and Mothwing,  

  • Tawnypelt, and the tribe at large, have stuck  around and even been major players in every  

  • series since. All four of the main cast members  act as the biological and adoptive parents for  

  • the three protagonists in the next arc, and due  to that relationship end up as central figures  

  • for the whole of Power of Three and Omen of  the Stars. By the end of Omen of the Stars,  

  • Bramblestar and Squirrelflight were  Thunderclan's leader and deputy,  

  • and due to that status quo not changing at all in  nearly 10 years, they haven't left their spots of  

  • prominence. Both characters have gottensuper edition to themselves since Omen of  

  • the Stars concluded, and for that matter so has  Crowfeather. Leafpool too got extra material,  

  • though as a novella retelling her kitting  rather than a post-Last Hope super edition,  

  • and she only recently died in a super  edition before The Broken Code began.

  • They aren't the only New Prophecy  characters with heavy emphasis either.  

  • Hawkfrost and Mothwing's tale has been told  in two mangas and a novella, and Hawkfrost  

  • himself was one of the most prominent members  of the Dark Forest in the third and fourth arcs,  

  • being Ivypool's main mentor and our primary  avenue to learn about the evil afterlife.  

  • Mothwing meanwhile has been Riverclan's  medicine cat since New Prophecy,  

  • even past Willowshine's death, and as the medicine  cat who doesn't believe in Starclan, her story and  

  • oddities have been a strong curiosity for just  about every medicine cat point of view we've had,  

  • from Jayfeather to Shadowsight. Of course Mothwing  also came back to prominence recently with The  

  • Broken Code and her being driven out of Riverclan  to instead bully Shadowsight in his own clan,  

  • and now as the mentor for an upcoming  point of view protagonist, Frostpaw.

  • Tawnypelt, Stormfur, and Feathertail have  certainly had a lesser effect on the series  

  • as a whole, though to be fair they also had less  focus in their own arc. Even still, they have very  

  • important roles and legacies into the presentFeathertail and Tawnypelt have both been given  

  • very recent supplemental material, Feathertail  with her manga and Tawnypelt with her novella,  

  • and Stormfur has stood as the poster boy for the  tribe for a decade. It's hard for many to remember  

  • a time when the Tribe wasn't a part of the seriesbut it was the New Prophecy that introduced it,  

  • and despite the many, many times the  books have returned to that group since,  

  • Stormfur and to an extent Brook have been the  only Tribe cats with much if any characterization  

  • or focus. Even in Graystripe's Vow, when  Graystripe and Flipcaw visited the Tribe,  

  • it was only Stormfur and his kits that they  really talked to or spent any time with,  

  • and while they tried to include more cats in  books like Sign of the Moon or Tawnypelt's Clan,  

  • they failed to give them any characterization  as opposed to just screentime.

  • Even beyond the characters themselves, there  is of course the plot to consider, and The New  

  • Prophecy's plot elements all had massive effects  on the rest of the series. There is the obvious  

  • element of The New Prophecy bringing the clans to  the lake, which remains the home of the clans to  

  • this day, but there is far more to bring insuch as the Tribe's dependence on the clans,  

  • which I have already discussed at length as  stretching into the entire rest of the series,  

  • the introduction of the Dark Forest and the  possibility of being trained there, which  

  • continued into Power of Three, caused Omen of the  Stars' big conflict, and was the setting and main  

  • focus for the last two books of The Broken CodeGraystripe's disappearance and Brambleclaw taking  

  • up his position instead was brought up not only  in Power of Three with their deputy struggle, but  

  • in an entire three-part manga series, which was in  fact the first mangas the team ever put out, so it  

  • indirectly started the concept of Warriors mangas  existing at all. Tallstar's decision to make  

  • Onewhisker the leader and Mudclaw's subsequent  coup spawned an entire character arc for Onestar,  

  • starting from Power of Three and ending when it  spawned the main plotline for A Vision of Shadows,  

  • and also was the focus for last year's  extended manga: Winds of Change, which  

  • featured Mudclaw himself as the point of view  character. Cinderpelt's impactful death created  

  • the Cinderheart reincarnation plotline which  stretched until the very end of Omen of the Stars.

  • And, perhaps most importantly, the relationships  that took up so much of the arc, especially in its  

  • latter half, fuel three of the subsequent  four arcs that follow the main timeline.  

  • Leafpool and Crowfeather's forbidden  relationship resulted in three kits,  

  • two of whom were part of the prophesied  three, and all of whom were raised by  

  • Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw instead with no  clue as to who their biological parents were,  

  • and their breakup caused Crowfeather and  Nightcloud to get together, and have Breezepelt,  

  • one of the main antagonists in Power of Three  and Omen of the Stars. The relationships of  

  • those couples with each of their kits was the one  of the only things that could reasonably be called  

  • a plot in Power of Three, and was still a central  point in Omen of the Stars as well. Meanwhile the  

  • relationship between Squirrelflight, Brambleclawand Ashfur was not only the birth of the most  

  • famous moment in Power of Three and perhaps all of  Warriors, and the cause for much of the tension in  

  • Omen of the Stars, but also the reason for the  entirety of The Broken Code to have happened.

  • None of this would be an issue if the prominence  of The New Prophecy's cast and ideas didn't push  

  • out the supposed real cast and make them obsoleteThis happened in the Power of Three, where the  

  • protagonists were written sloppily thanks to the  plot's real focus on Squirrelflight, Brambleclaw,  

  • and Ashfur, and in The Broken Code, where the  protagonists were written...sloppily...thanks  

  • to the plot's real focus on  Squirrelflight...Bramblestar...and Ashfur. Huh.  

  • All told, it often seemed  that Ashfur, Squirrelflight,  

  • and Bramblestar were the real protagonists  of The Broken Code, rather than Bristlefrost  

  • Rootspring and Shadowsight whose jobs were more  about witnessing and assisting in their story,  

  • with the probable exception  of A Light in the Mist.

  • While the characters from the first arc have  definitely stuck around and kept popping  

  • up since their arc ended, it never got to the  level of intrusion that the TNP cast has. The  

  • strongest examples to the contrary are probablyfirst, the number of first arc cats who appear in  

  • Starclan or Dark Forest scenes, such as BluestarYellowfang, and Tigerstar, second, the climactic  

  • and somewhat overshadowing roles that Tigerstar  and Firestar played in the Last Hope, and last,  

  • the strangely large roles Graystripe and Firestar  played in the most recent arc. On the topic of  

  • Starclan and Dark Forest cameos including a lot  of first arc cats, I would say that it honestly  

  • comes down to how few cats have died since. The  first arc was far more brutal than any arc since,  

  • and the inclusion of so many Firestar cameos since  his death proves to me that there just weren't  

  • enough notable dead cats to fill up Starclan and  Dark Forest scenes before. And let's not forget  

  • that Feathertail has been in many of those scenes  too, despite dying in the second book of the New  

  • Prophecy. But the Last Hope being focused on the  Firestar vs. Tigerstar conflict more than anything  

  • else is a fair criticism. After all, Tigerstar was  the Dark Forest's leader, and Firestar was made to  

  • be the fourth cat in the prophecy who really saved  the clans, even if he didn't actually do much more  

  • than any of the three did. Still, their prominent  role only took center stage in one book: The Last  

  • Hope, whereas Squirrelflight, Brambleclawand Ashfur overshadowed the protagonists for  

  • about an entire arc and a half, including The  Broken Code and parts of both Power of Three  

  • and Omen of the Stars. And while Graystripe and  Firestar's recent prominence in the latter half  

  • of The Broken Code was oddly placed for sureit was only for one, or in Graystripe's case,  

  • two main scenes. Though admittedly, Firestar  literally taking over Rootspring's body to kill  

  • Darkstripe was about the most blatant expression  possible of old cats pushing out the current ones.

  • And along with this is a disturbing trend  particularly in the more recent arcs where  

  • characters are almost entirely left behind  as soon as their story is over. Despite all  

  • being the parents of main characters, IvypoolDovewing, and Violetshine were all given  

  • startlingly little attention or screentime to show  their continuing journeys or build relationships  

  • with their children. Ivypool especially  didn't even get 50 lines across the whole  

  • of the Broken Code despite Bristlefrost,  a main character, being her daughter,  

  • and Violetshine, Rootspring's mother, barely did  any better. Twigbranch too, has been forgotten,  

  • getting even less time than Ivypool. Alderheart  has managed to be slightly more prominent thanks  

  • to still being a medicine cat, but he hasn't had  a meaningful character beat since his arc ended.  

  • And it's not just their lines or presencebut their very stories that have quickly  

  • been forgotten. No one in The Broken Code  even mentions Onestar or the Kin's plot,  

  • and the closest thing we get to acknowledging the  previous tensions with Shadowclan and Skyclan is  

  • the mention of Juniperclaw poisoning freshkill  when he is up for redemption. And even though  

  • the setting for the Broken Code's end is the Dark  Forest, the area has changed so much since Omen of  

  • the Stars and no cat who trained there goes backso we end up not touching on that history either.

  • With all these refusals to include the more recent  growing history of the clans in the new material,  

  • the endless, significant reliance on the  characters, lore, and plot ideas of The New  

  • Prophecy starts to look excessive. When stories  go on for generations upon generations, you would  

  • expect some things to be less talked about as  time goes on, for old members to pass or fade  

  • into the background and be replaced in prominence  by new characters and newer history to share.  

  • But instead, the original arc and especially  the New Prophecy are still being treated as  

  • the blueprint from which all new stories should  arise, which I consider to be a disservice to  

  • the narrative. Evolution and change are what  keep the new books interesting, and part of  

  • that involves not just adding new characters, not  even just letting the new characters be the focus,  

  • but treating recent history as just as or  more important than history further away,  

  • and involving the characters who have come shortly  before. If there was one thing I could do to  

  • change the levels of intimacy and realism of the  communities in modern Warriors, it would be that.

  • Though, it wouldn't hurt to abandon most of  the New Prophecy. It's amazing they even got  

  • this much material out of such a nothing arc. I  am quite satisfied with leaving it behind now.

  • Thank you for watching, and always  remember to share your tales, new and old.

The New Prophecy arc ended all  the way back in December of 2006,  

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