Why I believe River is one of the best start to an arc by Mintypaw

Mintypaw shares their opinion on River.

River is the latest warriors book so far and overall well liked by majority of the fandom. River released on April 5th 2022. Today I’ll be looking at the reasons why I personally believe River is one of the best starts to an arc so far.

Spoilers for River Below

* The Protagonists*
First of all lets start with the necessary thunderclan protagonist, Nightheart. Although he didn’t contribute much towards the overarching plot, I personally believe he is one of the most well written protagonists so far but not my favourite out of the three. When the River excerpt was shown I assumed he would be an Alderheart clone. But he proved to be unique.

I like his dilemma with Finchpaw and Sparkpelt being close and him feeling left out. Also his interactions with Sorrelstripe were adorable.

An interesting thing was other then Bristlefrost he was the only P.O.V cat to fail his assessment. With Bristlefrost it felt like it was used to create more tension with the Stemleaf thing and she passed her next one flawles. But Nightheart needed multiple chances and failed 3 assessments.

Side Note: I like how there still is consequences from the imposter saga with Stormcloud and Twigbranch having trauma and being afraid of Bramblestar

I liked how Nightheart refused his warrior name and Bramblestar compromised and named him Nightheart (Which just realising parallels with Sunbeam)

Speaking of Sunbeam she’s up next. I love, love loved Sunbeam she was really well written and reminded me of my Irl best friend. Even though like Nightheart she wasn’t contributing to the plot her chapters were my favourite.

I like her relationship drama with Blazefire and felt it was well written. I liked Blazefire in Tigerheart’s shadow and I like him here. I found it very sad when Blazefire rejected her and it kind of reminded me of Bristlefrost and Stemleaf.

Berryleaf was a compelling side character. She acted xenophobic and was a compelling (anti villain, antagonist, anti hero I’m not sure).

I like how Lightleap is trying to prove herself after backing out from going into the dark forest.

It also was interesting that we saw first hand a cat changing clans with Fringewhisker which also resolved the prologue with her and Spireclaw. Another interesting thing (Am I saying Interesting to much) was that not everyone was happy about the code changes *cough* *cough* Berryheart and her friends *cough* *cough* majority of Riverclan *cough cough*

Next is Frostpaw.

I found Frostpaw’s personality dull and generic as paint drying. However it might be because Frostpaw’s chapters were carrying the plot she didn’t get as much character development as Nightheart and Sunbeam. Hopefully that gets resolved in a later book.

*Cover*

The cover as shown above is pretty good, not on the same league as the sun trail in the category of first book covers. But better than the others.

It focuses on Mistystar who dies and is the focus of the books conflict (More on that later), It has our protagnists behind Mistystar. I really like Nightheart and Sunbeam’s designs but I found Frostpaw’s design generic and identical to Twigbranch and Dovewing (Erin’s what’s with gray cats with green eyes or sometimes blue being protagonists.

The lighting is amazing compared to other redesigned covers (Looking at you TPB, TNP, PO3, OOS and especially AVOS.)

*Theories*

I think that a starless clan doesn’t refer to a clan without Starclan but a leaderless clan. Starless being missing leaders as leaders have the -star suffix.

I think the arc’s antagonist/s will attempt to purge the leaders of the clan. Possibly someone believing they’re helping the clans after the whole impostor debacle and leaders having too much power.

*Conclusion*

This is my reasons why I think River is a good book. This is my first and probably last article as my adhd brain can’t be bothered to do Anything hope you enjoyed.

Minty is signing off