My Thoughts on River by Mossflame

Mossflame shares their thoughts on River.

Henlo kitties, and welcome to my article. In this, I will explain my opinion on River. So. Have fun 😛
(Spoiler Warning: Minor spoilers for A Vision of Shadows, major spoilers for The Broken Code, and major spoilers for A Starless Clan: River.)

First off: Whether we like it or not, NightxSun is going to happen. They built it up that Nightheart feels out of place in ThunderClan, and now they’ve met and become friends. It’s going to be a Bristleroot repeat, and, frankly, I don’t want that.
Secondly, this book was not very good in my opinion. I get that it’s a first book and all, but Sunbeam’s chapters had potential but turned out to be the exact same thing until a few near the end. It was all “Huh, I thought Lightleap and Blazefire were my friends” and “I will make them like me again, oh no that failed!” I think she’ll be more useful in the coming books, but I really hope she’s not like Bristlefrost. Nightheart’s chapters were also the same thing every single time, and I was kind of excited to have a cat that’s not all “YES, I’m descended from Firestar so I will be AWESOME” but instead actually feels the weight of all that pressure on his shoulders. I liked the chapter where he stands up and decides he doesn’t want all this ‘named after Firestar’ nonsense, but still, most of his chapters were exactly the same until after that. Frostpaw was interesting enough, but have they completely abandoned the fact that Mothwing believes in StarClan? Because in River, she doesn’t anymore, even though she clearly does after The Last Hope.

“Now that you asked, but with time to reflect on what happened in the Great Battle, and everything that happened with Darktail and the cats we lost…I no longer deny that StarClan exists […] I don’t know that their intentions are good, or that we always benefit from their guidance.”

-Lost Stars, pages 77-78
They abandon this entire thing in River. Mothwing is a really confusing character in River. More on Mothwing later, back to Frostpaw.
Some of you may have noticed I said ‘Frostpaw is interesting enough.’ And yeah, Frostpaw was definitely my favorite character in River, but simply because the other characters’ chapters were repetitive. Frostpaw’s chapters were less repetitive, but still definitely the same thing a lot of the time. She worries about who’s going to be leader, she talks to StarClan, she goes on special patrols, and she goes to the Moonpool. More different things, but that’s really all I can think of that’s important in her chapters. Basically what I’m saying is I don’t find any of the characters really interesting.
Thirdly: Mothwing. As far as I can tell, she doesn’t contact StarClan, instead forcing Frostpaw to do so, but she also believes that what StarClan says is right, allowing Curlfeather to become the leader. And I know she wouldn’t want to deny her Clanmates’ and Frostpaw’s wishes, but she is the medicine cat, and at that point, she was the one in power. She could’ve chosen the leader or denied Frostpaw’s request to make Curlfeather leader. As I said before, Mothwing was a really confusing character in River, but I hope her actions become more clear in the next books.
Fourthly: Bramblestar. (note: this section is more me complaining 😛 none of it is exactly reasonable.) I want Bramblestar to go away. I want him to stop being important. He is probably that character that could have the most character development of anyone, yet he doesn’t. His character constantly stays the same, and The Broken Code should’ve been his last arc. He’s played his part, his arc ended FIVE ARCS ago, and yet here he is, still being an issue. He’s a better character in River, actually having emotions, but still. There were plenty of good times for him to die in The Broken Code, but he died once, and as far as I can tell, he has seven or eight lives left. Seven or eight! And he’s been leader for two arcs, three including A Starless Clan! His character arc is over, he’s gotten as much development as he’s going to get, kill him off! But no, in River, he’s gotten an important part to play: everyone’s scared of him because of what Ashfur did, so now he’s sad. Stop giving Bramblestar important things to do! He’s been leader for too long and he’s starting to get boring (not that he ever was interesting) and it’d be really cool to see ThunderClan go through the same thing as RiverClan, with Bramblestar dying and Squirrelflight being too sad to be leader in his place or choose someone else. This isn’t ever going to happen, but it’d be cool if it did. My point is: get rid of Bramblestar.
Fifthly, there was so much they could do with this arc that they aren’t going to do. Example: They could’ve named it something along the lines of “Starless Clans” and then kill off all of the leaders we currently have. Even though I would be sad to see Leafstar go, Tigerstar and Bramblestar are just nuisances, and Harestar has had no part to play since our anticlimactic Darktail death in A Vision of Shadows. That would mean starless as in leaderless since leaders’ names end in -star.

I’m gonna wrap things up there, but there you have it. My thoughts on River! Yipee!
Also for all of you interested, this started out as a comment I was gonna post on the River Spoiler Page :p
Bye~