Bisexual
#FF00EC
Name Colour
BҽɾɾყႦʅσσɱ
Villain Enjoyer
Finally reading Wind!
|
Post by BҽɾɾყႦʅσσɱ on Jun 12, 2022 12:06:46 GMT -5
I watched this video by BGA yesterday and also saw a few people already adress the second issue with StarClan's reasoning behind not giving Nightstar his nine lives before that on the Exile from ShadowClan spoiler thread. While I'm still waiting for my copy of this newest Warriors book to arrive in the mail the following week for my own reading experience, StarClan refusing or rather being unable to grant Nightpelt what most other leaders have gotten is certainly unfair and the reasoning behind it seems a bit confusing if not even conflicting when other information in different books was presented and is considered regarding the choice of leaders. But anyways, here is the video! What are your thoughts on it and the matters of discussion?
Please be respectful of each other's opinions on this thread and also remember that Bright Guardian Akira uses she/her pronouns.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2022 12:16:32 GMT -5
The supernatural worldbuilding in Warriors is just the worst. StarClan's role and abilities just depends on what the authors need for their plot.
|
|
Bisexual
#FF00EC
Name Colour
BҽɾɾყႦʅσσɱ
Villain Enjoyer
Finally reading Wind!
|
Post by BҽɾɾყႦʅσσɱ on Jun 12, 2022 12:30:32 GMT -5
The supernatural worldbuilding in Warriors is just the worst. StarClan's role and abilities just depends on what the authors need for their plot. True that. It has just gotten ridiculously inconsistent at this point. I miss the days of StarClan actually being mysterious instead of either too powerful or even seemingly powerless at certain times.
|
|
|
Post by Hollyfall on Jun 12, 2022 12:39:40 GMT -5
I don't watch BGA often, but I'm not really sure the argument she's trying to make. I think the main criticism is that the novel went and retroactively made previous cats more nuanced and morally gray as opposed to being strictly evil (Blackfoot and Clawface are used as examples) and seemingly retconning those personalities is what makes the book bad. The thing is though, Clawface and Blackfoot were just background cats at that time? They really didn't have much in the ways of characterization. She also brings up that Brightflower didn't react at all in the novel when Brokenstar revealed he killed her kits. Yet, we literally see her reaction to it in Into the Wild. When Brokenstar is overthrown in Into the Wild, not all of ShadowClan went with him? Obviously we don't see their reactions as the book is from Firepaw's pov.
In terms of Nightpelt changing his mind after WindClan is driven out, he...wasn't the leader of the Clan at the time? He was against WindClan's exile because he was just on the sidelines watching it happen. After becoming leader, he surely would have realized that with the amount of cats they had, ShadowClan needed more prey and territory. Nightpelt's whole character is built around his love for ShadowClan and doing what he believes is right. I don't think it's too much of a leap to assume he'd change his stance over WindClan.
Nightpelt is trying to pick up the pieces of a fragmented Clan that was just reigned over by a literal dictator. As mentioned, Nightpelt is primarily characterized by his dedication to ShadowClan (part of the reason why he helped lead the coupe against him in the first place). Hunting on WindClan land, while a bit morally wrong, would be objectively in his Clan’s best interests.
ShadowClan as the "evil" Clan in the forest only "worked" because at the time, the series wasn't planned to go beyond the first arc. There wasn't a need to develop the other Clans' cast of characters that much. Yellowfang's Secret and Exile from ShadowClan gave more nuance to the characters so they wouldn't be strictly "evil" like Brokenstar was. One can be evil, but still have some standards of morality as later books showed Blackfoot did (Eclipse, The Fourth Apprentice, Bramblestar’s Storm, Blackfoot’s Reckoning). It seems the argument just boils down to "These cats aren't completely one-dimensional anymore". That’s…a bad thing apparently?
Brokenstar managed to get as far as he did because, at least in the beginning of his reign, he was the almighty leader chosen by StarClan, and he was actually making good on his promises to make ShadowClan feared again. It's only midway and late into his reign that we see cats question him. In the very first arc, ShadowClan cats didn't have a major focus and so we didn't get to actually see their thoughts on the matter beyond the outcasted elders and Yellowfang. In Yellowfang's Secret and Exile from ShadowClan, these cats are the focus and we actually are able to see their thoughts on Brokenstar and his atrocities.
BGA also brings up about removing any accountability from other characters just to enforce the fact that Brokenstar was evil from birth, showing the scene where Nightpelt mentions "not being able to teach Brokenstar anything". I...feel that part was misunderstood? I think Nightpelt said that because Nightpelt was made Brokenstar's mentor to try and teach him kindness and patience; said by Cedarstar himself. Nightpelt says this because in his mind, he failed to teach this to Brokenstar.
On the above topic, how come BGA doesn’t bring up that Yellowfang purposefully disowned Brokenkit? How Raggedstar spoiled and defended him constantly. How Lizardstripe belittled and abused him in his childhood. The whole Clan (barring a select few) treated Brokenstar like an outcast, shunning and ostracizing him from the everyone. These are absolutely factors in Brokenstar’s life that contributed to his character later on. These cats do take accountability for it? Or if not, it’s made obvious in the text. Singling out Nightpelt for this while ignoring that Nightpelt genuinely tried to be a good influence on him is just cherry-picking.
Also to the point of "making the character seem misled instead of evil, so the reader doesn't feel bad for liking them"; I like Blackstar as a character, but he did horrible things and I don't feel bad for liking him. I like Ashfur as a character, but I know he's a terrible cat and I don't feel bad for liking him. Hell, I actually like Brokenstar a lot as a character and villain. Brokenstar's born evil, but I don't feel like I'm a horrible person for liking him. You can like wholly "bad" characters for whatever reason you like. Perhaps this is just my opinion, but I'd rather a character do horrible things but still have semblance of morality as opposed to just being strictly evil. I know there's plenty of others who like bad or evil characters as well.
All and all, this whole video seems to just be filled with hollow arguments that can be deconstructed by actually looking and researching. StarClan's just dumb and inconsistent. That much I agree with.
|
|
|
Post by Midnightcacoon loves Sunbeam on Jun 12, 2022 12:44:03 GMT -5
Hollyfall Just a friendly reminder that BGA is female and uses She/Her pronouns. You might've not known so I'm just letting you know now^^
|
|
Bisexual
#FF00EC
Name Colour
BҽɾɾყႦʅσσɱ
Villain Enjoyer
Finally reading Wind!
|
Post by BҽɾɾყႦʅσσɱ on Jun 12, 2022 12:48:29 GMT -5
Hollyfall Just a friendly reminder that BGA is female and uses She/Her pronouns. You might've not known so I'm just letting you know now^^ I'm just going to put a reminder up so others who comment and do not know BGA's gender identity or read your post don't end up making the same mistake as Hollyfall.
|
|
|
Post by Hollyfall on Jun 12, 2022 12:54:13 GMT -5
Hollyfall Just a friendly reminder that BGA is female and uses She/Her pronouns. You might've not known so I'm just letting you know now^^ I haven't watched BGA that much so I wasn't aware of that. Fixed my mistakes on that, thank you!
|
|
|
Post by ivysaur on Jun 13, 2022 5:57:24 GMT -5
The supernatural worldbuilding in Warriors is just the worst. StarClan's role and abilities just depends on what the authors need for their plot. The worst part of modern Warriors for me! Everything StarClan does makes me so mad. I do agree with Hollyfall about her questioning the characterization changes. First arc ShadowClan has always been just the evil one, making the most morally dubious actions because we need a big antagonist. But its been more than a decade and I appreciate the direction of trying to make them have actual characters instead of one note bad guys. Nightpelt is interesting because its been shown that he cares about ShadowClan first before anything else - it would make total sense why he was against the initial WindClan battle (which had kit apprentices on it too!) vs justifying use of the extra territory right after a coup when hunting was literally neglected by the previous leader. Brokenstar's power over ShadowClan is also reinforced because he is supported by the strongest in the clan. The most of his criticizers were elders, (much too young) apprentices, medicine cats, or recent queens - none of them were in the best condition to fight back at all until they were organized and had outside help. Arguing that Brokenstar and his cronies could have been driven out quicker is like wondering why people don't just attack an armed force just because they have numbers - strength scares people into submission. And this strength also has the magical backing of their ancestors. Also I didn't like her nitpicking the ending. The length of the manga and the focus on Nightpelt's ascension to leader would obviously limit time spent on the rest of the clan at that point. Showing a panel where everyone is smiling after reuniting with elders and an assumed dead apprentice and calling them immediately ok after it all is a generalization.
|
|
Bisexual
#ffc5c5
Official Queen of Fan Clans
Name Colour
ʀᴀɪɴʟᴇᴀғ 🍁
Official ThunderClan & ElmClan Leader
Easing back in
|
Post by ʀᴀɪɴʟᴇᴀғ 🍁 on Jun 13, 2022 7:03:02 GMT -5
I have mixed feelings on this video. I can partially see her points, but I also can see Hollyfall's points as well. I think she could have hit on her stronger points, but that seems to be more like the general idea. No one is happy with the StarClan development at all.
|
|
Cloudstorm
Don’t let it kill you. Even when it hurts like hell.
|
Post by Cloudstorm on Jun 13, 2022 9:07:36 GMT -5
I haven’t read EfS yet, my copy does arrive tomorrow. I have watched the video, however didn’t pay the greatest attention to it, sounded mostly like a bunch of trivial nitpicking imo. I agree with what hollyfall says about the characterization changes, obviously when a character that’s primarily a background presence strictly viewed from a singular PoV(Firepaw’s) get’s a more personal focus, there’s going to character development and other aspects of their personality getting evolved, which is a good thing imo. And Giving characters that were strictly seen as evil some semblance of morality(whether gray, evil or somewhere in-between) is good as well, I think most people would say evil characters with depth outside of just being purely evil makes them more interesting and engaging. My personal beef is Starclan’s development in this book from what I’ve seen, it completely undermines, and rewrites the intention of the original narrative to make Starclan look foolish, which is to be expected nowadays, given the trend is to write content that retroactively makes Starclan look hypocritical and stupid. Their basically the writing teams big ole punching bag nowadays for laughs/annoyance whichever it may be. Which I’m not surprised by.
|
|