Fan ArticlesPurpleshade shares their honest opinion about Vision of Shadows. (Spoilers!)
First, let’s do a quick look over of Vision of Shadows. In the first book, it follows Alderpaw and his quest to find SkyClan. In the second book, it talks about new characters named Violetkit and Twigkit. The third book is all about Violetpaw and Twigpaw. The newest book is about how Twigpaw struggles to find a place in her new clan and Alderheart struggles with a new prophecy.
The Apprentice’s Quest spent the whole time blabbering on about how to save SkyClan. In the beginning, we’re introduced to the familiar clan life and old characters. Alderpaw, the millionth descendant of Firestar (is it just me or is he everywhere even in death), really wants to be a warrior and then BAM! Jayfeather and Leafpool get a ‘vision’ of Alderpaw’s ‘new destiny’ as a medicine cat. What is this vision they speak of, Also, on his first journey to the moonpool he gets something important. How is this even possible? No one else gets a whole full-on quest once they are just apprenticed. Also, Needlepaw was a brat the whole time. They didn’t even succeed in their quest! Alderpaw is like, “Hey, SkyClan. Bye, SkyClan.” They spent most of their time trying to find them and ended up leaving in like 2 chapters. Alderpaw and Needlepaw magically find two abandoned kits. Alderpaw takes them to ThunderClan and they get separated and the book ends. What in the world?
In the second book, we explore new characters named Violetkit and Twigkit. Finally! A character which we know nothing about and whom sister is separated from. This is a whole new world! Then the whole Littlecloud crisis moves in. Also, the whole rogue thing. Violetpaw goes from clan cat to rogue the whole book. Also, the whole sickness is unnecessary. Onestar is being a horrible leader and ShadowClan is basically falling apart. Where in the world is the good old clan life? Isn’t that the whole point of a clan? Basically, every clan is shut off from one another. The book ends when (surprise, surprise) the newly named Alderheart discovers that they must find SkyClan. Seriously? Wasn’t that the whole point of the quest?
All the third book is about is Violetpaw living with the rogues and Darktail invading the clans. ShadowClan is basically dead, RiverClan got injured, ThunderClan is running around in circles, and WindClan has closed its borders. This crisis takes up the whole book. At the very end, (surprise) Violetpaw switches back to clan cat AGAIN! When is she gonna make up her mind? Needletail dies and all the prisoners from RiverClan are freed. That is when Twigpaw decides to go off and explore to find her kin and ends up finding SkyClan. She leads them back and BAM! Everything is back to normal. Why couldn’t they have done all of this at the beginning?
The fourth book involves Alderheart running in circles about a six-toed cat. Twigpaw struggles with romance problems and loyalty issues. Violetpaw bonds with her father Hawkwing and spends the whole book trying to find some SkyClan members. Violetpaw finds the six-toed (or was it five) cat, Alderheart gets injured trying to find the six-toed cat, and Twigpaw is still struggling with loyalty stuff. Dovewing goes missing and so does Tigerheart. ShadowClan joins SkyClan and RiverClan closes its borders. Repeat, repeat, and repeat. This all sounds familiar. It is just all repeating. Twigpaw decides to randomly go back to ThunderClan alongside Finnpaw and Violetpaw earns the warrior name Violetshine. Was any of this really interesting? Honestly, I was disappointed.
Hope you liked my article! No offense to the people who love Vision of Shadows.
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Nice article! I hope you give the last two books a chance since they still have potential to be good. Squirrelflight’s quest was soon after her apprenticeship, but of course she wasn’t assigned to it. Dovewing was, though, and she was super young.
*apears in a puff of smoke*
AVOS seems like an AWESOME series to me and I am dying to read it!!!! Even though I’ve had lots of spoilers, I’m still super hyped! I’ve found these quotes that really moved me and I can’t wait to explore Violetshine more. 😊
“Why did Clan cats have to call everyone names? Anger surged through her. Did no cat want her? She’d spent her life being passed around by other cats. First Alderpaw had taken her from her mother’s nest. Then Rowanstar had snatched her from ThunderClan. Then Needletail had taken her to the rogues. This was the first time she’d had any choice in the matter, and she was choosing to join ShadowClan.”
She really reminds me of Skye/Daisy from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I mean Skye too was thrown around everywhere and she never really got a chance to choose where she wanted to be……until she joined/chose SHIELD. You all prob have no idea what I’m talking about which is why I advise you to watch it cause it’s a really good TV show! This is probably one of the reasons why I like Violetpaw already even though I haven’t begun reading yet.
“…..I wanted to believe it would all turn out okay.”
Violetpaw: “Wait! Please wait! I can’t lose you!”
Needletail: “I thought you wanted to lose me!” (this made me sad and emotionally happy at the same time 😭)
I can’t wait! I absolutely love their sisterly relationship and hopefully that will stay with me once I actually start reading it. As you can see though, I don’t have a full opinion yet on this series since I haven’t really read it.
Well anyway I am leaving now again on a hiatus so bye!
I really agree with you in book 1 and 3. In The Apprentice’s Quest, the whole book was literally talking about how they failed the quest. Then in the third book, after the Clans defeated Darktail, everything magically seems to go back to normal. Dovewing and Tigerheart seem to have a relationship again which gets quite annoying after Dovewing broke up with Tigerheart, became mates with Bumblestripe, than broke up with him too. All in all, I enjoyed your article a lot.
Also, in Shattered Sky, I didn’t really like how Onestar suddenly announces that his son was Darktail. It was so random. Like wow, Darktail goes around and takes over ShadowClan and RiverClan, and then Onestar suddenly goes hey, by the way, my son is Darktail and after being afraid for so long, I’m going to fight him. Wheeee…
I agree with some parts and disagree with others 😛
TAQ: I liked it, but that’s more because I’m a sucker for new apprentices. I have to agree that the quest was rather dull. We’ve already had a lot of similar things in warriors–for StarClan’s sake the whole second series was journeying outside the clans (and, for those that read Firestar’s Quest, the trip to find SkyClan was annoyingly repetitive). I really enjoyed Alderpaw and Needlepaw’s dynamic, although I was bored by Alderpaw’s “crush” on her because we’ve had so many forbidden romances by now that the concept of another is a little boring. I was disappointed by Sandstorm’s death, I wanted it to be more heroic, and overall I think the book accomplished very little in terms of plot. Honestly, if it all had been pushed together into half a book I would’ve been a lot more satisfied with it. What it did do was contribute to the reader’s understanding of Alderpaw’s characters, which is useful but less so when the fact that the next book doesn’t even focus on his POV.
TaS: I LOVED THIS BOOK. It’s easily my favorite in this arc. At first I was really disappointed that it focused around Twigkit and Violetkit, but I got over this soon enough. I’m a big history nerd–especially revolutions. Who doesn’t love a good communist revolution? The whole plot with ShadowClan was really fun to read and, for me, it was one of the more exciting books I’ve gotten out of warriors in awhile. I think Needletail and Violetpaw really stole the spotlight here, although that could just be because I’ve never really been impressed by Twigpaw’s character. Anyway, I really, REALLY enjoyed this book.
SS: I think this is a solid book. It paled in comparison to TaS, but it was still likable. Needletail’s death came out of left feild and I ate it up (I love her but every story needs a good martyr). I really hope they keep her dead, bonus points if she ends up ghosting Violetpaw (negative bonus points if it’s Alderheart; I like their dynamic but we don’t need a new Firestar/Spottedleaf thing). I wasn’t a fan of Darktail’s backstory with Onestar. Just. Daddy issues are over. They should no longer be a thing. No one cares. When a villian’s reasoning for being evil is “wah my father was mean to me” I just… boi…. you’re an adult, what you’re doing is juvenile, get over it and get a life. I think his character would’ve been more interesting if he was just in it for the power, or had some sort of morally gray compass or whatever.
DN: Meh? That’s all I can really say about this book. I actually think you did a pretty good job of describing it. I felt like after Darktail’s death there really wasn’t much else to do? And that’s partly because all the interesting stuff is happening inside WindClan and ShadowClan, and (I’m pretty sure) the Erins didn’t want to give away what was happening in those clans because they’re going to dish out the info in Tigerheart’s Shadow/Crowfeather’s Trial. This was mostly just setting up romances which honestly bored me. I think this could’ve been combined with SS and been better.
I kinda agree, AVOS could have been better…
Hmm I’ve rather enjoyed A Vision of Shadows.
Overall the story line has been interesting and I liked Darktail as a villain. He was cunning and took advantage of clan cats prejudices and distrustfulness against rogues and loners, especially ShadowClan. Although admittedly something that would’ve been better was if this had been played up a bit before early on in the series.
While we know that in the past outsiders have given ShadowClan trouble, (BloodClan, rogues joining ShadowClan and leaving ShadowClan, the kittypets that terrorized them nearby in New Prophecy, and of course Sol in Power of Three) it would’ve been nice to have some mention of this at some point in the first book of A vision of shadows to justify their distrust of Tree after he brings Needlepaw back. Like there’d been a troublesome rogue living near them before Needlepaw got snatched to justify the boosted distrust.
Because honestly, even an offhand comment at a gathering by some apprentice who went ‘hey look at these scratches i got driving out this nasty rogue’ or some sort of hint/reminder that this prejudice existed in ShadowClan.
Admittedly the thing that does drive me up the wall is the fact that there are SOOO many characters now in ThunderClan especially. It makes it hard to have characters have unique voices anymore cause they’re just too dang many. I really hope we see some culling. I honestly kinda wish that Darktail had wiped out a few more ThunderClan cats, but we do still have 2 more books so here’s hoping. (Except Ivypool, and Cinderheart are going to be having kits soonish which means MOOOREE cats…)
Onto what you said about Onestar and Darktail being evil because of ‘Daddy issues’. I think Darktail just had issues in general and being rejected by your father would bring up some VERY bitter feelings. Maybe we should have a book that dives into Darktail’s distaste for clans, his thirst for power. AFter all those rogues do follow him, so I could see it as his hate is fueled by his mother Smoke’s hatred towards Onestar after he betrayed her, the rogues who lived near SkyClan and whom may have grown bitter and envious, and when he shared information about the clans may have decided to want to help him unseat them.
Overall I get it the journey’s haven’t been very exciting, but I really did enjoy Needlepaw in the first book. Then my liking of her waned in book 2, but I really appreciated her sacrifice in book 3.
Ultimately my criticisms lay with there being too many cats, I feel like a few things should’ve been gone into before just happening, but ultimately I like A vision of Shadows.
All in all, this was a very interesting series. I LOVE Alderheart, and I love Violetshine and Needletail’s relationship. They would go to the ends of the earth for each other. I love how Onestar takes a twist in this series, turning away from all the other Clans and kinda going insane. Then he announces that the evil rogue that leads the other evil rogues that destroyed ShadowClan is his SON. This was a great twist to the plot. One of my favorite parts of the books is the part when Jayfeather and Alderheart have that sweet conversation. Jayfeather adorably worries that Alderheart is going to leave with Velvet, (I HATE Velvet.) and assures him that he has a special place in the Clan. Or something along the lines of that. Pretty much, Jayfeather announces that he really cares for his apprentice, and Alderheart thinks this: My place is with you, you grouchy, difficult, dedicated furball. I immediately fell in love with that line, and I think that their bond was just so sweet. This series was a cool addition to the Warriors saga, and I’ll be glad to be adding it to my Warrior books collection. (That I have not started yet.) (But I will.) (I promise. 😛 )
Oh my god another person who loves Alderheart as much as I do! I aslo love Violetpaw and needletail’s friendship!
Okay I understand lots of things that you say in this article but listen I honestly loves these books! Alderheart is my all time favorite character! So seriously Saying these things about the book is just annoying to me!
This is a really nice and funny but true article,I had a lot of fun reading it sometimes I read it over and over again but only for spoilers because I’m one of those people.But I really loved the article.