Name: River! (New Release Thoughts) – Sunny's Spiel | Warriors Analysis
Uploaded: 2024-02-18T15:21:43.000Z
Duration: 11 min 17 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Last week on April 5th, River: the first book of A Starless Clan, the new arc of Warriors,

Adverbs of degree

Considering this is an entirely new arc, there's not much relevant information I could say

without giving away spoilers of some kind, so if you're avoiding those, consider this

your preemptive warning, and come back when you've finished the book.

Now that we're here…I have some thoughts.

Overall I enjoyed all three of our protagonists and I'm excited for most of the story beats

That being said, I definitely took issue with parts of the story too, and a couple aspects

that worry me as things that could turn out badly if they continue through the arc.

I think the best way to discuss all of it in this case would be to go one protagonist

at a time, since, for this book at least, they each had their own, separated stories.

I'll begin with Frostpaw, our new medicine cat protagonist and our very first Riverclan

Plot-wise, just about every wish I had for her story came true: Mistystar and Reedwhisker

both died, one quickly after the other, and Frostpaw's first attempt at picking a new

leader, her mother, went badly when Curlfeather was killed by dogs on their way to the Moonpool.

As Riverclan's only connection to Starclan at this point, she has a lot on her shoulders,

and it seems from the examples we've had so far: Jayclaw, Reedwhisker, and then Curlfeather,

that she most often or always gets visions of cats only when they're about to die.

Riverclan is in a very precarious position for the whole book, and never let anyone help

This plus the possibility of a conspiracy, given Curlfeather's warning to not trust

anyone and the question of just how Reedwhisker ended up dead makes for a rather intriguing

I'm curious as to how they'll continue it over time, especially since the next book

is called Sky, named for one of the two clans that doesn't even share a border with Riverclan,

and doesn't have a protagonist point-of-view.

But Riverclan's side of the story isn't perfect.

You might notice that I didn't have much to say about personalities or Frostpaw's

choices in the plot section, and that's because they're a lacking part of Riverclan's

Frostpaw definitely demonstrates the most camera behavior of any of the three protagonists,

and the problems in her life are due mostly to events happening around her rather than

She doesn't actually make any mistakes, passing on Starclan's words and visions

exactly as she was given them, and, thanks to her rather desperate desire to not be in

charge, never makes a grab for power either.

The choice of Curlfeather for leader raised some eyebrows for a minute, but doubt in her

died down quickly, even before Curlfeather's death.

It's entirely possible that the clan will lose trust in her due to the nature of her

powers, but not due to anything she herself has done, and that ends up making her personality

something of an irrelevant note in her own story, which isn't great, and reminds me

of another…very recent protagonist situation: Shadowsight's.

The similarities don't stop there, as both Shadowsight and Frostpaw are relatively nice,

dutiful cats who do their best to help their clans in the medicine cat roles they were

given due to their high levels of unique visions, and both don't ultimately want any power

for themselves, shying away from it despite being thrust into the spotlight thanks to

At least Frostpaw seems to have a friend in Whistlepaw, the new Windclan medicine cat

apprentice to Kestrelflight, but they don't get much time to bond or even see each other

in the two chapters where they interact, so only time will tell just how well these these

Generally speaking, I worry that Frostpaw won't get much agency in this arc, and won't

be forced to grow because of it, but I'm at least very interested in where the plot

Up next is Sunbeam, who is currently my favorite of the three protagonists.

She has distinct values, choices, and relationships from the get-go, and her story is significantly

more driven by those relationships than by any overarching plot.

Her main struggles for the first two-thirds of the book have to do with her…very bad

and reckless friends, Lightleap and Blazefire, the latter of whom was to be her mate until

he broke it off half-way through the book.

I'll speak on each of them individually to start, because knowing them is key to understanding

Lightleap is reckless in an emotional way.

She was upset that she didn't get to go into the Dark Forest and become a Light in

the Mist in the end like her brother did, and because of that, she has since been pushing

herself constantly, actively seeking out danger to prove herself to be brave, strong, and

This recklessness hurts not only herself, but those around her, and she in fact gets

both Sunbeam and Blazefire heavily injured in the space of this one book.

She gets angry with Sunbeam for letting Shadowsight, and by extension Tigerstar, know what hurt

her, and never really gets over that grudge, breaking off their friendship and pointedly

avoiding or berating her for the rest of the book.

Blazefire meanwhile seems reckless in a less active way.

He is a light-hearted fun-loving tom who considers Lightleap's adventures to overall be a more

attractive option than the somewhat stuck-up, careful attitude he perceives in Sunbeam.

Even when he has been hurt and confined to the medicine den, he considers it a better

option to be hurt and enjoy life than to be careful and safe…not a choice I can empathize

This difference in opinion leads to him breaking off the cat-engagement he had with Sunbeam,

and he spends a great deal more time with Lightleap, though not in a romantic sense

With both friends breaking off their relationships with her, Sunbeam was accidentally instilled

with the idea that being a law-abiding, careful cat would leave you sad and alone, so she

started reevaluating her choices, trying to take more risks that did get her into trouble,

and stopping herself from reporting every wrongdoing to someone.

But she doesn't go fully into recklessness either, because she also has Berryheart, her

mother and the leader of the “we hate change; clans should stay separate and the code should

Berryheart gets especially angry when her son, Spireclaw, takes advantage of the new

rule change to get together with Fringewhisker, who joins Shadowclan much to her chagrin.

It seems like, with these two competing forces on either side, Sunbeam will end up at the

heart of the backlash against change conflict in the arc, which I will be excited to see

play out since it's so ingrained in who Sunbeam is as a cat.

We will get to learn more about her as we learn about the clans.

Flamepaw will definitely not be like that.

He doesn't have much reverence for older cats or Thunderclan especially, and tends

to be more brash, impulsive, emotional, and immature.

This makes it particularly odd that the only cat he could be said to have truly bonded

Subtitles ListPlay Video

River! (New Release Thoughts) – Sunny's Spiel | Warriors Analysis

perceive

ridiculous

commitment

physical