The Power of Three: In Firestar's Quest
Spoilers if you have not read Firestar's Quest and, well pretty much everything after that book Chronologically
Recently, in the Warriors community, I have seen several People taking a deeper look into the Power of Three and Omen of the Stars, and much to my surprise, I have seen a lot of negative opinions. Are there better ways that the arcs could have been written? I agree, but only to a point. My opinion, however, is that I believe that the arcs are actually planned and to flow like they did for many reasons.
First off, we know that the Erin's planned the Power of Three from early on in the series, and when I say early, I mean around halfway through the Prophecies Begin. In one of the super editions, Firestar's Quest, something interesting occurs. On pages 338 - 340 Firestar and Skywatcher are having a conversation in front of where Skywatcher had stayed prior to when Firestar and Sandstorm made the trip to ancient Skyclan's territory in the forest. During the conversation, Skywatcher warns of something major that will occur in Firestar's life in the future. At the end of the conversation, Skywatcher says, "Your clan is safe for now. But, there will be three, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws." (Hunter 339). Flash forward 8 books later into the first pages of The Sight, and the same wording is used introducing the Power of Three arc. As a matter a fact, the whole conversation (or interchange if you prefer) is in the prologue of The Sight. This is either one huge coincidence or this was planned from the beginning of where we are introduced to the Warriors series. One important thing worth noting is that these two books were published in the same year (taking place in different time periods), but even then, this may mean that the Erin's bridged all the Generation 1 arc's together. Within the next couple of Analyzing Warriors articles, I am going to try and prove something that is a huge task to take on, and I am ready for it. We all know that the two or three arcs that are going to be involved in this article have their issues, but I believe that they all had one endpoint in mind: The epic concluding battle between Firestar, one of the greatest leaders of all time and Tigerstar, The biggest villain in all of the Generation 1 arcs.
Part one: In Firestar's Quest (more of a lengthy introduction)
As mentioned earlier, we first hear about this prophecy (There will be three, Kin of your kin who hold the power of the stars in their paws) through the mouth of Skywatcher in Firestar's Quest so I will attempt to break down this entire conversation in this first part of this article. First and Foremost, we are still unsure about where this prophecy came from, so we are going to be looking at it from the perspective that Firestar first hears it, Starclan so lets dive in. To start off with, There are several little details that I want to look at from the conversation that is taking place on Pages 338 - 340 of Firestar's Quest.
The first thing worth mentioning is the delivery. "Skywatcher rose to his paws; his eyes blazed with reflected moonlight...the old cat's voice was soft but charged with power, stronger than it was before." (Hunter 339). In the first part of this quote it is talking about the body language that Skywatcher has, and Quite honestly, it gives me chills just thinking about the way things are happening from Firestars perspective. Firestar is just sitting there, and this old cat stands up and one of the things that I didn't include in this quote is the visual detail. Skywatcher actually looked like a Starclan cat, with his eyes glowing from the moon. This indicates that in fact, we are getting a prophecy from a living cat with the gift of prophecy, causing Firestar to almost crouch Another thing that is worth mentioning is his voice. His voice sounded more powerful than it had been earlier on in the conversation. I love the way that his voice is described as in The Prologue of The Sight, "The ancient rasp was smoothed from his voice, as though another cat used his tongue." (Hunter 2). From what I can tell, this shows that there is something else at play here, something more than we (the readers) and Firestar can understand.
The second thing that is worth mentioning before the delivery is the word choices that Skywatcher usees to set up the climax of the conversation. To further explain this I am going to be breaking down the things that skywatcher says. For that, I am going to be taking a look again at page 339 of Firestars quest. To give a little bit of context for those of you who ignored the spoiler warning at the top of the page, or who have never heard of the Warriors series, Skywatcher had summoned Firestar to his old den after the gathering that the recently rebuilt Skyclan were having. The entire time that Firestar is going to Skywatchers old den he is stressing out about what this late night meeting is going to be. Towards the beginning of the conversation, Skywatcher asks Firestar about Thunderclan. Skywatcher asks Firestar, "How far would it [Firestar's Loyalty to the clan] go?" Later on, he continues, "'There are difficult times ahead,' Skywatcher continued, 'and your loyalty will be tested to the utmost. Sometimes, the destiny of one cat is not the destiny of the whole clan.'" (Hunter 339). There is a lot of substance in this quote so I will attempt to break it down in the best way possible. The major point I would like to emphasize with this quote is the foreshadow of something huge, For example, maybe a massive faceoff between Firestar and the Dark forest leader -- Tigerstar. I know that some of you all might be wondering where I got this information, and to answer that question, take a look at the last sentence of the quote at the beginning of this paragraph. This could be pointing to the later information in Omen of the Stars, the introduction of a fourth cat involved in the prophecy --Firestar. For the sake of time, I feel like you should just trust me on this because I will break that down further down the road.
The final thing I would like to take a deeper look into is the events that occurred after the prophecy had been delivered. There is a ton of things that people could have grazed over while they were still in shock of the realizing that Skywatcher just delivered one of the biggest prophecies in the entire written history of the clans. First is the phrasing that skywatcher uses to close the conversation, and also Firestars reaction to the entire interaction. At the end of the conversation, Skywatcher closes saying, "Farewell. In seasons to come, remember me." (Hunter 339). First, I would like to briefly mention the irony and more foreshadowing that occurs in this sentence. For those of you who have read the book, you know that the next time we see Skywatcher, he is deceased. That could be one way to set off a whole nother interpretation, but for my purposes, I am going to be focusing on another interpretation - This could be Skywatcher's way of telling Firestar to not forget this prophecy that he had just delivered a few minutes earlier. The time frame that occurs at this moment in time to Power of Three and Omen of the Stars is almost a half a year. As a matter of fact, "Firestar's whole body felt cold. Skywatcher's words had the unmistakable ring of a prophecy from Starclan." (Hunter 339).
These next Analyzing Warriors articles are going to be looking at both Firestars decisions being impacted by this prophecy, and also looking for pieces of evidence from The New Prophecy, Power of Three, and Omen of the stars with this as an overarching plot line for all of the Generation one Arcs. If this is true, This could mean, that the Warriors fan base could have been reading the entire set of Generation 1 arcs wrong because maybe, just maybe we should have read them as one story, That story being "There will be three, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws." instead of separate arcs.
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-Thank you for reading
-As mentioned in the closing of the article, maybe the next several articles in this Analyzing Warriors series will be based on The Power of three's Prophecy. I swear I could write at least an 8-page paper on this topic.
-The next one of these will hopefully be posted in two weeks
- Brambles Prophecy will be back after midterms are done, so keep your eyes out for that
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References
Hunter, Erin. Firestar's Quest, Super Edition. HarperCollins, 2007.
Hunter, Erin. The Sight. HarperTrophy Pub., 2008