Warriors: Bramblestar's Storm

*Warning: The following post contains spoilers. You have been warned.*

So I recently (well, sort of recently) finished Bramblestar's Storm, the latest in the (long, long) line of Warriors books. While it certainly wasn't my favorite in the Warriors series, it was pretty good overall, though I had a few small problems and one major bone to pick with the ending.

So here we go with the review.

***

Bramblestar's Storm: The Good

• The plot was good. Warriors has always been a survival story--that's pretty much the baseline setting--but the titular storm in this book brought the 'survival' part to a whole new level. Much of the book dealt with the cats being forced to find a new (temporary) home, deal with loss of territory, etc. 
• I appreciated the new characters. For one thing, they were all well-defined, with personalities different enough that I could easily tell them apart. Frankie/Stormpaw, in particular, was a favorite of mine. 
• The aftermath of the battle in The Last Hope was shown and discussed. I was disappointed that Hazeltail got killed off (she was one of my favorite background characters), but I did appreciate the follow-up. 

Bramblestar's Storm: The Bad

• The 'prophecy' Cloudstar gave to Firestar (who then gave it to Bramblestar) was totally useless. Because there was a prophecy involved, I kept expecting a boss-level villain to pop out at the end to be fought. The actual answer to the prophecy--Bramblestar's bond with his sister remaining strong despite Clan differences--was an issue that had already been discussed. Frankly, it was anti-climactic and made the prophecy seem needlessly confusing, vague, and distinctly unhelpful. 
• I'm not sure what the writers intended for the Bramblestar/Squirrelflight/Jessy love-triangle, but whatever it was, they didn't do it right. I'm not a fan of love triangles in general, but there is a right way to do them. The triangle in this book seemed vague and oddly paced. The writers spent a lot of time setting up Jessy's involvement in the Clan. Then Bramblestar went on a few quasi-romantic dinner dates walks with Jessy... and then he decided that he wasn't in love with her after all; he wanted to be with Squirrelflight? Huh? When did you ever say you were in love with Jessy in the first place? And hadn't you made up with Squirrelflight already, when you made her your deputy at the end of The Last Hope?
  Like I said. Confusing. 
• This is probably the biggest spoiler of them all, so skip this whole point if you don't want to hear it.
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  Alright, so the reveal at the very end that Squirrelflight really can have kits?
  I hated that.
  If you want a happy couple with a romantic happy ending, there are plenty of those to go around in Warriors. In my opinion, it was interesting and different to have a character who was barren. I was perfectly ready and willing to see Squirrelflight as a happy grandmother with no kittens of her own, who helped raise her adopted grandkits and nieces and nephews and such. Why do we need to bend and rewrite things that have already happened, just so we can have another happy ending?
  And it goes beyond that.
  What are you trying to say here, author? That no matter how much you're in love, it's not a real marriage unless you have kids? I'm sure that's not what was intended, but it kind of came across that way. Because even though there are hundreds of mother characters in Warriors, we couldn't let Squirrelflight represent those who are barren.
  That disappoints me. 

***

Bramblestar's Storm: The Conclusion

Well, I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, It was pretty enjoyable in general. It was definitely better than Yellowfang's Secret, a previous Warriors Super Edition. I even enjoyed it more than Tallstar's Revenge, the Super Edition before this. But it wasn't the best Warriors book ever, and the aforementioned 'twist' at the end left a bad taste in my mouth. So I'm giving this one  three stars out of five:

***

And that concludes this review! 

My Halloween post is coming... soon... so stay tuned! Bye now!

A Layover-PSA-Update Type of Thing. [Or: Fireheart is really starting to annoy me.]

Alright, well, I finished re-reading Forest of Secrets (book 3 in the original Warriors series). And it was pretty good. Not my favorite, but it was pretty good. Did I mention that I like the OS because of its simplicity and tendency not to overexplain? The later Warriors books were good, don't get me wrong, but they explained way, way too much about StarClan. (And the Dark Forest, and the medicine cats...) Blah.

Okay, mini-rant over. Now that that's out of the way...

I've finished Forest of Secrets (and posted the first in a review series for Warriors); I think I already said that. I'd like to do the next part of that review series, focusing on The New Prophecy arc, but I think I should reread a couple books from that arc before I do. So that review probably won't be out until, say, next week. Maybe a little later. There'll probably be post between this one and the next Warriors one; they'll just be about different things.

Not that anyone will mind, I think.

Anyway. Yeah. That's what I wanted to say.

Also, Fireheart is getting kinda annoying, because all he can think about is Tigerclaw being EVIL, but nobody else knows, and I really want more ambiguity with Tigerclaw, and Fireheart, I wanna! And the other book I'm reading right now isn't helping!

Okay, now I'm done. 

On Cats [Review for Warriors, Part 1]

*Warning: Unmarked spoilers may follow. Viewer discretion is advised.*

Well, what with the arrival of The First Battle (the third book in the Warriors: Dawn of the Clans arc, and something like the twenty-seventh Warriors book overall) I've been re-reading some of the books in the Warriors series. Not all of them, mind you, but some. And I decided that since there are plenty of pros and cons to this series, I might as well review it.

So here goes.

***

 Today, I'll be reviewing the first Warriors arc, often called the Original Series. Each arc has six books; the Original Series (or OS) contains Into the Wild, Fire and Ice, Forest of Secrets, Rising Storm, A Dangerous Path, and The Darkest Hour. The OS centers around the tale of Fireheart, a former kittypet (house cat) who runs away to join ThunderClan and quickly finds that the forest is more dangerous than it appears.

Good/Favorite Bits:

• The simplicity. Reading back over the OS, I'm realizing just how much simpler it is than the later arcs. The third and fourth arcs probably have about fifteen different subplots between them. The OS is by no means completely free of subplots, but it's remarkably focused on the one main plot. (Maybe a little too focused, but we'll talk about that later.) 
• The simplicity of viewpoint characters. As the books go on, they gain more and more viewpoints. The second arc has, I think, 2-4 viewpoint characters, depending on the book, the third arc has 3 viewpoints, and the fourth arc has a grand total of 4 viewpoints. The first series, by contrast, has one viewpoint character and only one. But it also introduces characters who will be crucially important later, such as Fireheart, Bluestar, Yellowfang, Graystripe, and more. 
• The worldbuilding. The cats have almost an entire vocabulary of their own. They have names for seasons (leafbare, newleaf, greenleaf, and leaf-fall), names for humans and automobiles (Twolegs and monsters, respectively), plus legends, traditions, and their own way of living. 
• Realisticness. The later arcs--#2 & #3 in particular--tend to humanize the cats quite a bit. There's humanization here, but it's less intrusive; the cats act more realistically. 

Bad/Least Favorite Bits:

• Infodumping. You might not catch it on the first read--I didn't--but it's almost as if the author feels she needs to insert a PREVIOUSLY, IN WARRIORS paragraph into each book so the readers aren't lost. Just in Forest of Secrets (book 3), I've been reminded at least once that Bluestar let Fireheart into the Clan even though he was kittypet (house cat), Cinderpaw broke her leg in an accident on the Thunderpath (an asphalt road frequented by cars), Yellowfang is Brokenstar's mother, Spottedleaf died, Graystripe is in an illicit relationship with Silverstream... on and on it goes. And I know all this already. It would be a lot better to weave such information into the dialogue and/or narrative. 
• Clichés. The OS isn't the most cliché story I've ever read (that honor goes to My Little Pony: Equestria Girls), but it has its issues. Character archetypes, for one. Fireheart is the hero. Tigerclaw is the villain. Graystripe is the plucky sidekick. Bluestar is the doomed mentor. Spottedleaf is the equally doomed love interest. Sandstorm is the feisty other love interest whom the hero will become happily married to in the end. And all of this is pretty easy to tell from the first book alone. (Well, Sandstorm's role isn't crystal-clear until book two or book three, but still.)
• This is more of a personal thing, but I wouldn't mind a touch more moral ambiguity. Something that annoys me is that Tigerclaw is pretty much 100% EVIL, all the time. The only time he's not being EVIL is when he's pretending so that the Clan doesn't find out how EVIL he is. And of course, Fireheart is the only one who even suspects that Tigerclaw might be EVIL. 
• Conversely, Fireheart is an almost perfect main character. All of his perceptions match perfectly with what's reality--which they shouldn't--and even though he occasionally he slips up, such slip-ups are almost always made as a result of too much kindness, disregarding tradition in the name of compassion, or something like that. Unless, of course, it's Tigerclaw trying to frame him or blame something on him because he's a former kittypet and Tigerclaw is a racist bigot. I mean, if he actually gave Fireheart a sporting chance before he turned against him, however would we be able to tell that Tigerclaw was EVIL?
  #sarcasm

Conclusion:

The Original Series has its upsides, but it definitely has downsides too. I'll always be a bit nostalgic for the OS and its simplicity (not all character archetypes are bad, after all...), but overall, it's not my favorite Warriors arc. So I'm giving it three and a half stars:

***

And that wraps up my review of the Original Series! Next time, we'll go in-depth on the second arc--Warriors: The New Prophecy. Don't miss it!

Bye, and thanks for reading!

I Have a Problem with Characters Getting Killed Off

*Warning: May contain spoilers.*

Okay, well, this blog post may or may not have been influenced by the third-to-last episode of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. But really, it's a problem I have with stories where characters die in general. So basically, everything except My Little Pony.

But anyway. I have a serious problem with characters dying in stories. Especially if it's a tearful, melodramatic death scene. As I like to say, you should've seen me during Crookedstar's Promise. It was one giant tearfest.

I don't know exactly why I don't like character death scenes. Maybe it's because I'm a (mostly) normal human being. Actually, it's probably because I'm a mostly normal human being. It might also be because I've seriously scared myself by imagining what I would do if it was me and my sister in the place of those two characters. If my sister got hurt? If, God forbid this should ever happen, she died and I couldn't stop it? If I hurt her? (*coughFrozencoughcough*)

Scary, as I said. So maybe that's the elusive reason.

But my adverse reaction to touching character death scenes is also rather odd. Why? Well, you see, if I'm totally honest, I can be rather sadistic to my fictional characters.

Seriously. It sucks to be one of my characters. If you are one, well, first of all, stop reading this blog. I know where you live. [See? See?] And secondly, run for the hills and don't look back. And hope you don't get captured by elves or eaten by a dragon.

All that to say, a lot of the time I can watch/read/write a character death with something pretty similar to indifference. Other times (*coughcoughWarriorscough*) I melt.

And sometimes I just stare at the screen in shock and horror as one of the characters--one of the heroes--melts before my very eyes.

GOSH DARN YOU EMH SCRIPTWRITERS IF BLACK PANTHER DOESN'T COME BACK SO HELP ME--

Ahem. Please excuse the caps rage, that death scene was rather traumatic for the cynic living in my head.

So yeah, all that to say, I don't like character death. The more I like the character, the less I like the death.
We will always remember the Black Panther.

Ah, not really. He's back now. See? No one ever stays dead in these kinds of shows. 

The Many Faces of Evil

Before I start in on this, please just note that this post probably isn't going to be as dark as the title may imply. Just bear with me for a moment and you'll find out why I called it this.

To start, has anyone heard of Jim Weiss? Anyone? (Rhetorical question.) Well, in case you haven't, Jim Weiss is a narrator, among other things (I think). He narrated The Story of the World and has a number of re-told stories on audio. During an IDEA curriculum fair here in Alaska, we had the privilege of getting to hear him speak on a topic that I was very excited about: villains, both in real life and in stories.

One of the things I liked about the talk was that Mr. Weiss made several references to Lord of the Rings. This having been said, he started off with what may be the most well-known type of villain: the Dark Lord uber-evil over-arching totally bad supervillain. And of course, he used a well-known example: Lord Sauron from LotR.

Sauron is obviously the over-arching villain of the trilogy. He created the One Ring, and the whole problem is that he now wants it back, for the purpose of destroying/enslaving/taking over the world.
[Insert totally off-topic rant about how Isildur is a complete jerk/idiot for not destroying the Ring when he had the chance here]. So we have Sauron, the supervillain.

But there is something interesting about Sauron that you will notice (at least once it's pointed out to you). J. R. R. Tolkien never actually shows us Sauron. We see Sauron's minions all the time, and we see what they're doing to Middle-Earth. We even know what Sauron looks like. So we know he's real, very real, and yet we never actually see him. 

Now the movies may have ruined this effect by physically showing us Sauron more than once. But in the books, this is very well-preserved.

The Warriors equivalent to this type of villain would be Tigerstar. In the Wingfeather Saga, it's Gnag the Nameless (to a very similar extent, in fact). In Harry Potter, the main villain is obviously Voldemort. And then there's Chancellor/Emperor Palpatine of Star Wars. The point is, most stories have a general over-arching villain.

Then there is the next type of villain. The suave, smooth-talking villain that promises he'll give you whatever you want... if you'll just do x for him. The way Mr. Weiss actually illustrated this is by using the example of Satan.

Satan, Satan himself, would fall into the category of the over-arching supervillain. We all pretty much know this. But what about Satan's alter ego Lucifer?

Lucifer, to answer my own rhetorical question, would qualify as the smooth-talking villain described above. He doesn't appear blatantly threatening--far from it, in fact. But he very insidious and very dangerous.

The character Sol from Warriors definitely qualifies as this type of villain. He is very smooth-talking and is frequently forgiven by characters that he wrongs. Yet he is a villain. Actually, this deceptive tactic of his is quite frustrating. The characters frequently see him as non-threatening, when most of the time he's behaving in a way that makes you want to drop-kick him right out of the story.

Another example I can think of is Grima Wormtongue from LotR. It's obvious--especially in the movie--that Grima is a lying creep, but the only person who tries to address this is banished, and no one else tries to resolve the matter until Gandalf shows up.

Another example is Semiramis from the series Dragons in Our Midst. Semiramis is the mother of a one of the villains, and she is a villain... I think. Seriously, half the reason I hate her so much is because it's been literally impossible for me to figure out which side Semiramis is on. First, she's helping  her son take over the world... but then he's brutally mutilated by the other bad guy, so she goes over to the good side and helps save a young girl's life. She even tells the good guys how to get around the bad guys' scheme... but wait, her 'solution' was really just part of the plan all along! Hah! She's a bad guy! Wait, hang on, no, she still hates the real bad guy, she's just trying to get what she can out of it too. No, she's a bad guy, she's trying to kidnap Bonnie. Oh wait, no, she's only helping her son, and now she's helping out the protagonist... Wait! She just kidnapped someone! Oh, wait, no... ARGH. See what I mean?

I'm sure there are many other villains who fall into this category, but I can't currently think of any, so I'll leave it at that and move on to the next category.

This third type of villain is perhaps the worst of them all. Mostly due to the fact that he is rarely recognized as a true villain. This is the villain who is evil, unfalteringly evil, and yet he looks just like one of us. He could be one of us. He was one of us. But he chose to be evil.

This type of villain is very insidious, because they are so easy to pass up. They look normal, and usually act normal. There's nothing to suspect.

Or is there?

In other cases, this villain was originally a good guy/on the good guys' side/neutral. But he became a villain, and now he's in prime position to betray the good guys as soon as their backs are turned...

Do you now see why I occasionally yell at my books?

I'll use Lord of the Rings as an example for this one. Take Boromir. He begins lusting after the One Ring early on, and we see this when he suggests that the Ring be used for good (which is completely impossible, btw). From that point on, we slowly begin seeing Boromir's lust as it grows, up until the point where he threatens Frodo in an attempt to get the Ring. My point here, however, is that originally, Boromir's excuse for wanting the Ring was more or less "I'm going to use the Ring for good. I'm going to use it to save my people." The same with Denethor, in fact. But neither of these characters lived to see the end of the war.

Coincidence? I think NOT!

Ahem...
A fourth category of villain, which seems to be  fairly new, is demonstrated in the popular series The Hunger Games. What is this type of villain, you ask?

The system.

In Hunger Games, the system is the spider that sits at the center of the web. The system is what's brought about everything: Panem, the Districts, the Hunger Games, and the vicious cycle everyone lives in. To triumph, the rebels have to defeat the system and start from scratch. It's the same (at least I think it is) in 1984 (I say I think so because I've never actually read it).

As Mr. Weiss pointed out in his talk, this new villain known as 'the system' may stem from the growing amount of conspiracy theories today, which it turn may come from our desire to know why things happen. Why was President Kennedy assassinated? Who did it? Was it just one person, or were there more?

We may never know the answers...

In conclusion, there is more than one type of villain to be seen--both in stories and in life. There is more than one road to evil... which is why it pays to read stories. :-D

So what are your thoughts on villains in stories? What about villains in real life? Please tell me!