Ivypool’s Heart: A Dark Omen
Massive Spoiler Warning!
Being a Warriors fan who loves good writing is slowly killing me.
I know I said I was taking a break from long Warrior Cats posts, but Ivypool’s Heart came out and well… I have some thoughts. First impressions on the story, it’s mid. I think the exploration of Ivy’s grief was shallow and the repetitive narration killed a lot of its emotional weight. I do like the resolution for it, but the journey to that was flat. I love Icewing and Whistlepaw. Icewing is a serious, stoic molly with a lot of emotional strength. Whistlepaw is clever, cute, and energetic. I like the new obstacles the traveling crew ran into. There’s a scene where the cats are perplexed by crabs which is very funny and cute. When A Starless Clan is finished, I will deeply analyze this book and its shoddy writing, but for right now just know I find it mid.
Now onto the stuff I want to talk about, the wildcats and StormClan. The cats run into European wildcats and Whistlepaw draws a symbol she saw in her dreams: a cloud and a bolt of lightning with some vines around weaved around them. The wildcats tell them that this is the symbol of StormClan, a lost Clan that was compromised of WindClan and ThunderClan cats. The leaders, Galestar of WindClan and Stripestar of ThunderClan, fell in love and merged their Clans together to be with each other. The other Clans were intimidated by their presence so the massive Clan left the old forest territories in search of new land. Some cats went back to reform WindClan and ThunderClan… somehow. Galestar and her kittens were split from Stripestar and the rest of StormClan during a thunderstorm. Trapped in a rocky cave, Galestar was ready to accept her fate until a group of wildcats came over and rescued them. She and her kittens joined the wildcats and she took a new mate. The wildcats the traveling group meet are related to the Clans. They bust them out of the backyard zoo and lead them to a group of wildcats. Galestar speaks to the cats in the wildcat afterlife and ask Ivypool and Icewing to bring her back to StarClan so she can reconcile with Stripestar. Evidently, all the feline afterlives are connected by a mystical river. The trio ride down the river to StarClan. Galestar list off some StormClan cats’ names and they reappear. The Erins brought back fading after a decade of ignoring it and changed it. Now if the mortal cats forget, StarClan forgets too and so the spirits of the forgotten cats fade away. But if a cat who remembers them comes back and recalls them, their memory is restored and the cats of StarClan will soon remember. Apparently the living cats chose to forget StormClan because it was embarrassing or shameful or something, I don’t recall. Blah blah blah, book ends. My thoughts are scrambled so let’s just run down my many issues.
Warriors is Not a Xenofiction Anymore
I joked about the cats not behaving like cats, but this aspect is really starting to bother me. I love animal fiction and one of the things I love most about it is how the author utilizes real-world animal behaviors to flesh out the world, culture, and characters. Warriors used to be decent at this, but after Omen of the Stars, the cats drifted further and further away from actual feline behaviors. I didn’t mind this too much because the cats still had physical limitations, however, Ivypool’s Heart (and even A Starless Clan) erases a lot of that. The cats can draw up battle plans which is weird but fine. In A Starless Clan, however, Frostpaw knows what a cartoon star looks like, which implies they know geometry which is… umm. And in this book, Whistlepaw recognizes the StormClan symbol as a symbol and not just a bunch of nebulous shapes. They know what clip-art clouds and lightning bolts look like which is very odd. The wildcats tell her that the cloud and bolt are a Clan symbol which implies that the symbols we know for the Clans are canon and the cats created them to represent themselves. I guess they know graphic design now. Throughout the book, the cats are laughing, smiling, and grinning, something real cats cannot do. And I mean like out loud, human laughter, not the “mrrow of laughter” they usually write. I don’t mind the laughing, but the smiling took me out because Warriors has been pretty on point until now with not showing cats smiling because they physically cannot. They can smile with their eyes, but they can’t grin with their lips like primates and canines. This is ridiculous. I know it’s nerdy to get all pissy about this, but come on! They’re not even animals anymore! They are so humanized that the Erins should just bite the bullet and make them furries.
My favorite xenofiction book is Felidae by Akif Pirinçci. There, the cats are humanized as well. Francis can read human languages, he can understand human speech, and Pascal created a spreadsheet on a computer. But the book is a dark comedy. It doesn’t take itself too seriously which adds to the charm. And the cats still feel like cats. Francis is still physically limited by his feline body and instincts. Warriors goes full furry by removing the cats’ instincts and having them do shit they cannot do! It’s starting to remind me of Wolves of the Beyond, another xenofiction series I don’t like for many reasons, the biggest one being the wolves are not wolves. They don’t behave like wolves. They do stuff wolves physically cannot do. At the rate Warriors is going, it’s only a matter of time before the cats start painting on cave walls and making clay pots. It’s getting stupid and I hate it.
Omen of the Stars has Done Irrevocable Damage to Warriors
Three arcs in and Victoria Holmes already hit a brick wall for her premise so she made the afterlife a physical thing that the living cats can walk in and out of. She made the StarClan/Dark Forest cats able to rise from the afterlives and directly interact with the living. She had to create double death so we could truly get rid of characters. She turned dreams into portals to the afterlife, allowing the cats to communicate with the spirits. I despise all of this nonsense. It created problems that the current writer team are struggling with. In the current arc, A Starless Clan, Working Partners has to ignore StarClan completely and have them be silent so that they can create drama and intrigue. This is annoying on the reader’s part because we all know that StarClan can just tell the leaders that Splashtail is a murderer and solve the plot in two seconds, but if they did that we would only have one book. StarClan feels off because they have to be for the plot to happen. Holmes did not do the current team any favors with the mystical shit in Warriors. Warriors, as a concept, is ripe with potential, but since Omen of the Stars jumped the shark so early, the current team has no where else to go. They’re just going to keep jumping more and more sharks until the series shatters and dies.
Every cat we meet is super religious. Some cats can talk to ghosts and summon them and others literally have portals to Heaven. I am so tired of the supernatural stuff. The Broken Code, as fine as it is, was my last straw. When Ashfur was possessing Bramblestar’s body and destroying the afterlives with his dark water, I was checked out. But then A Starless Clan happened. I was elated that we got an inter-Clan conflict instead of another StarClan one, but now we’re back to the mystical crap thanks to Ivypool’s Heart. I’m very disappointed.
Edit 9/29/24: I say OotS was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but it was really Power of Three with the whole cats having magical powers and stick-induced time travel crap. So it was actually two arcs in did Holmes run out of ideas and jumped the shark.
StormClan and the Rehashing of Plots
Since A Vision of Shadows, Working Partners has been rehashing old stuff over and over. First it was SkyClan, then it was Ashfur, now it’s SkyClan again but with a different name, and I fear Changing Skies is going to be The New Prophecy Round 2.
As Leafbare approaches, a new danger threatens the Clans. Twoleg construction has encroached on Clan territory, poisoning the stream and making prey especially scarce for SkyClan. Meanwhile, their leader, Leafstar is struggling with a loss of vision while trying maintain authority over a Clan that increasingly doubts her ability to lead.
In ShadowClan, Tawnypelt senses peril as the Twoleg construction threatens the Moonpool, but she can’t get anycat, especially her son, Tigerstar, to listen. Frustrated with the younger cats who don't respect her, she decides to take matters into her own paws.
In the midst of the chaos, Moonpaw, an apprentice struggling to understand the mysterious voice in her head, thinks that she might be having visions. But the voice becomes increasingly sinister, and Moonpaw wonders if’s a sign of darkness on the horizon.
Just like in The New Prophecy, humans are destroying the Clans so my theory is that the Clans are going to move to wherever StormClan is and set up shop there. In short, it’ll be a mix of TNP and AVoS aka more shit we’ve already read. Again, OotS (and TPoT) did not do the current team any favors so now they had to create a fanfic Clan to manufacture conflicts.
Now a new location and a whole slew of new characters could be a good thing for the current team, but having read Dawn of the Clans… yeah I have my doubts that StormClan is going to revitalize anything. StormClan will be a big player for one arc and then they will be forgotten about. Once again, Warriors has a lot of potential, but since this series is written on an assembly line and they’re starving for ideas, they keep introducing new group after new group and then pushing them aside when they’re done. Dawn of the Clans is the (2nd) worst arc in the entire series because it is a big waste of potential. We have a whole new cast of characters full of personality and an excellent concept, but when Holmes left, WP didn’t do shit with any of it. They ruined the arc by destroying characters and didn’t even bother to explore how the Clans were created. Even in their DotC Super Editions, Moth Flight’s Vision and Riverstar’s Home, they still didn’t do anything! This is why I fear for Changing Skies. They’re going to rehash TNP, introduce us to a whole Clan of new faces, and then half-ass all of it. OR it could actually be good. Doubtful, but it could happen.
I Want to Abandon Ship, But There is Hope
Warriors means so much to me, but the fanfic nature of StormClan and the constant shark jumping is so asinine that it’s getting harder for me enjoy it. I am going to read the next books and arc, but my expectations are in the dirt. If Changing Skies is just a rehash of TNP, the only thing that can save it is some truly excellent character work. That’s what made TBC passable. ASC has some of the best protags and antags we’ve had in years, so good characterization is a possibility. What I really want from Warriors is a full reboot of the series (possibly in a different location), but I don’t know if that will ever happen. If Changing Skies is hot dog shit, then… well, that’s it. I’m done.
All in all, Ivypool’s Heart is mid. Warriors has jumped too many sharks. I am at my boiling point. I guess we’ll see what happens next.
