Rant

I don't see Sandstorm as uninteresting and plain. As a young cat she was feisty, quick tempered and sometimes stubborn but also had a gentler and understanding side. After she had kits she mellowed out a bit and became more of that gentler side. We also didn't see much of her later on in the series so it's harder to establish what she's like now. I don't have any books on me to supply quotes, so this is just going off my memory and feelings towards her.

I haven't read AVoS so I can't comment on the others. I think with Jayfeather the only way he was made likable was by having his POV. If we just observed him from another characters POV (as with Alderpaw as you said) we wouldn't see much past the short tempered grouch he acts as. With his POV we saw his thoughts and his internal struggles which made him more relatable and allowed us to understand the cat he really is. I love Jayfeather but if we hadn't had his POV I most likely would have disliked him.

Jayfeather is as nice as Eight.

It's there, but it is only for those he is close with. It is mostly showing concern over them and being polite.

In regards to Sparkpaw and Alderpaw... as Lzrd Wzrd states:

"[The Apprentice's Quest] focuses on Alderpaw and his sister Sparkpaw. The siblings play off of each other hilariously, as the eager and confident Sparkpaw constantly exhibits her prodigious acumen for learning warrior skills, while Alderpaw is constantly riddled with anxiety and misfortune. Pretty common stuff, but the reason I find myself so attached to these characters already is because the authors constantly inject these two with subtle bits of characterization. For example, in the opening ceremony, Alderpaw is apprehensive to the point that he gets lost in his own worries about possibly having to prove himself in order to become an apprentice. While this does seem to be a natural part of his personality, the writers expanded this trait further by linking it to a strong desire to please his father Bramblestar. Right off the bat, Alderpaw’s relationship with ThunderClan’s leader has some real weight to it and even more interesting is that it’s not entirely tied to his father’s high status. Early on Alderpaw thinks about how he and the rest of his siblings were born pretty late to be his parent’s first litter. He recognizes that they are the only ones who can carry on Bramblestar and Squirrelflight’s legacy, a burden which is multiplied further by the fact that two of their weaker siblings have already died. Knowing all of this, Alderpaw’s primary initiative is to prove his worth to his father and make him proud. Alderpaw’s ability to reflect and empathize with adults at such a young age not only serves to amplify a naturally endowed weakness, but it also seems to indicate that he’s really smart. Not many kids are capable of this level of analysis, yet it seems to come naturally to Alderpaw. This is further exemplified in future scenes, such as when Alderpaw reasons that the moor territory belongs to WindClan via process of elimination. Then when they head to the gathering, he’s told that all of the Owls around the lake are too small to carry off cats — a comment which he extrapolates to mean that somewhere there are owls that are big enough to do so and immediately he begins worrying about it and wonders why none of the other cats seem to care. These thought processes are such a perfect portrayal of a kid his age, especially his fear of these hypothetical owls. I don’t know about you, but as a kid I was always having thoughts like this. When you grow up, you gain perspective and learn how to properly assess such threats. However as a kid, you don’t quite have the ability to give a rational scale to things like that. Moments like this don’t necessarily have a large impact on their own, but they all contribute to thoroughly defining Alderpaw’s character. Based off of only a few chapters, I can already tell you tons of things about him just by examining the way he responds to the world around him. There’s never a moment where the author lists off a series of traits to the reader. None of the characters ever have to spell out any of his characteristics in a way that would feel unnatural. As is so often the case in this series, everything we learn feels organic, like we’re quiet observers of very real characters and events."


"I also want to briefly touch on Sparkpaw, who serves as perfect counterpart to her brother. Now I can see how some people might dismiss her as a Mary Sue, but I actually like what I’ve seen so far. While she is far ahead of the curve with regards to hunting skills, she isn’t perfect by any means. One scene in particular stands out, where Alderpaw is learning how to hunt and Sparkpaw condescendingly chimes in with a lot of basic advice that Alderpaw already knows. This is another characteristic that really resonates with me — you have the golden child who excels at everything they do, so they assume that they know everything and can teach others just as well as experienced adults. It’s a nice little touch to round out Sparkpaw’s character. This one moment immediately transforms her from a trope into someone who I can relate to people I know in real life. Later on, Sparkpaw recklessly races across the tree bridge to the gathering island in an almost show-boat fashion. This one-sentence event shows us that Sparkpaw isn’t just confident, but that she’s also developed a potentially dangerous sense of invincibility. The writers don’t linger on it though — it’s short enough so you might just forget about it until it becomes a problem later on — which knowing this series it definitely will."


It does become a problem, specifically, when Sparkpaw dislocates her shoulder while attempting to walk on a narrow branch to reach a bird. But that's not the point.

The point is, these two characters are brand new. They still have a minimum of five books of development to go (assuming they both survive that long, which they almost certainly will). Even now, you can see that their personalities aren't bland, or based off of a single trait each. It looks like the author has finished building the foundation of their personalities, and is ready to start developing them. Because of this, we shouldn't be so quick to judge Alderpaw and Sparkpaw. The same goes for Needlepaw and the other new characters.