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Ep 06 Transcript: xXBr0kenStarXx

Episode 6

PAZ: Welcome back everyone to Stairway to StarClan, a Warrior Cats reread pawdcast. I'm Paz.

JULIAN: I'm Julian.

LIZ: I'm Liz.

PAZ: And we are in an exciting, I guess, finale episode today because we're finishing Into the Wild. Went for a pretty good clip through it, and we're at the end, and, um, I think we'll do more of like, full on like, post book. What's the word?

JULIAN: Like a recap, like, revisitation of the book as a whole?

PAZ: Yeah, our full impressions of the book, post book, later, but I'm just gonna say before I do the summaries that this was a good book. And I had a lot of fun.

JULIAN: Yeah!

LIZ: It was. I mean, it was my first Warriors book ever and I think-- I'm in it now. I'm invested. If this got me at like 12, 13, 14, I would have been the Warriors veteran at this point.

JULIAN: It's never too late.

LIZ: No, it's not. You're right.

PAZ: I mean, it's still quarantine season. No one's gonna judge you for getting into Warrior Cats right now.

LIZ: You think I wouldn't go to like a super-- you know, back in 2019, I wouldn't have gone to a super hip cafe and pulled out of my artisan bag like a Warrior Cats book? Like yes, I have my oat milk latte and read my book Into the Wild right in front. Oh, would you like to join me? Hello, I see you're a fellow fan.

PAZ: Yeah, that's how it goes.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Oh, to sit in a cafe.

PAZ: Ah, truly. Well, no cafes in the wild. Just death.

LIZ: That's the saddest thing I've ever heard.

PAZ: So let's get into these chapter summaries. Okay, so this week we read chapters 22 through 25, which is kind of like the end of the book, a lot of action and drama. So chapter 22 opens with Firepaw and Graypaw returning to ThunderClan territory after they saw Ravenpaw off. Firepaw goes back towards ThunderClan camp hoping to pick up Yellowfang's scent before the storm ceases entirely.

Her trail leads into ShadowClan territory, and Firepaw grows worried that maybe Yellowfang was a traitor. Graypaw smells kit blood in ShadowClan territory and they find Yellowfang nearby. The two apprentices attack her and accuse her of killing the kits and Spottedleaf, but Yellowfang's genuine shock at the news convinces Firepaw she is innocent.

Yellowfang explains that Clawface, a ShadowClan warrior, stole the kits, and she was trying to get them back. She explains how Brokenstar has been stealing kits and forcing them into warrior training much too early. He also killed ShadowClan kits and then accused Yellowfang of killing them, which was why she was banished. Firepaw promises Yellowfang they'll all rescue the kits together, and the three hide as a ThunderClan patrol approaches.

Chapter 23 opens with Yellowfang deciding to go and convince some old ShadowClan warriors to help and Firepaw deciding to try and convince the ThunderClan warriors to help rescue the kits and also to not attack Yellowfang. They part ways, and Firepaw and Graypaw go out to meet the ThunderClan patrol, which is headed by Whitestorm rather than Tigerclaw, who was ordered to stay back at camp. Whitestorm is much more level headed and open to hearing Firepaw out and agrees to hear Yellowfang out as well, and they go back to their meeting place.

Yellowfang soon returns with three other ShadowClan warriors who want to get rid of Brokenstar. They report that ShadowClan is in shambles, with the old and sick starving and countless kits dying. Yellowfang laments that Raggedstar died in a warrior patrol ambush and that his son has become evil. The cats come up with a plan to lure Brokenstar out into the open by having the ShadowClan cats bring Yellowfang in as a fake captive. Then ShadowClan and ThunderClan cats will attack Brokenstar and his guard once they're out.

In chapter 24, the cats make their way to the ShadowClan camp. Yellowfang and her friends go in and signal the ThunderClan cats to come in, and a fight erupts in the camp. During the fight Firepaw off faces off against Clawface, the cat who killed Spottedleaf, and nearly kills him in his rage before Whitestorm stops him. Then Firepaw sees Yellowfang fighting Brokenstar, who reveals to Yellowfang that he killed his father Raggedstar. Yellowfang is overcome by grief and stops fighting, and Firepaw jumps in to attack Brokenstar before he can kill Yellowfang. Brokenstar says Firepaw won't be able to kill him because he has nine lives, and retreats from the camp with the rest of his warriors.

The ShadowClan warriors who remain that were not loyal to Brokenstar promise to rebuild the clan and keep Brokenstar away. The ThunderClan kits are rescued and Whitestorm promises to leave ShadowClan and peace for one moon, and Yellowfang decides to return to the ThunderClan camp.

In the last chapter, chapter 25, the ThunderClan group returns to the camp, and Frostfur is overjoyed to see her kits back safely. Tigerclaw is angry that Yellowfang has returned to the camp, and Firepaw insists that she is no traitor. Graypaw suggests they look at the fur between Spottedleaf's claws, which turns out to be brown fur of Clawface, and not Yellowfang's gray fur. Tigerclaw still accuses Yellowfang of taking the kits, but Firepaw fiercely defends her and Whitestorm backs him up. Bluestar then formerly asked Yellowfang to become ThunderClan's medicine cat, which she accepts.

Bluestar then asked where Ravenpaw is, and Firepaw says they found his body in ShadowClan territory, where he had been killed by ShadowClan warriors. He promises to tell Bluestar everything later. Tigerclaw pretends to be upset by this news and gives some empty words about regretting the loss of Ravenpaw. Bluestar then declares that it is time for Firepaw and Graypaw to be given their warrior names, which is a ceremony that she conducts. Graypaw is named Graystripe, and Firepaw is named Fireheart. Fireheart thinks about how grateful and happy he is to be in ThunderClan. Tigerclaw then hisses a threat to Fireheart to not tell Blueheart-- Bluestar.

LIZ: I know.

PAZ: Oh my god, these names, they're tripping-- bleagh. There's too many consonants. Fireheart tries to go and speak to Bluestar, but she insists that he follow the traditional silent vigil following his warrior ceremony. The book ends with Fireheart and Graystripe sitting together on their vigil. As Fireheart locks eyes with Tigerclaw across the camp, Fireheart thinks to himself, if he was destined to oppose Tigerclaw, then so be it. And that's the end of Into the Wild.

LIZ: I hope I see you. It's on sight.

PAZ: That really was the--

JULIAN: Again, ShadowClan has got to get better SEO on their names.

PAZ: Oh my god. There's like, Clawface. Clawface?!

JULIAN: Well, and Raggedstar was the good one.

PAZ: I mean, maybe they're just like punk, but like, come on guys.

LIZ: Yeah, that means they have like a whole bunch of like little babies that are just called like, Clawkit and Brokenpaw.

JULIAN: Bustedkit. Like someone please get like an image consultant or something in for ShadowClan.

PAZ: Their medicine cat is named Runningnose. Like come on, guys.

JULIAN: Well, and the one before that, the competent one, was named Yellowfang, which also doesn't fill me with confidence.

LIZ: Yeah, both of the medicine cats have names that say, I have allergies that I can't take care of, and I have dental problem that I can't take care of.

PAZ: Oh gosh. ShadowClan.

LIZ: I mean, just, it loops around somewhat to kind of be like cool again, because if you see like a little baby kitten that's called like, I don't know. Clawevil, something something.

JULIAN: Scorchedkit.

PAZ: Oh, gosh.

LIZ: That's just a little punk baby now.

JULIAN: Is ShadowClan the Hot Topic of clans?

PAZ: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like out of all the clans, yes. And I guess they think the names are really cool, but that backfires on them when they're evil because then it just, you know, seems a little on the nose.

JULIAN: They edged all the way into an authoritarian dictatorship.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: Yeah, ShadowClan was having a real bad time.

JULIAN: Yeah, God.

LIZ: They need to be in like a little farming commune now.

JULIAN: Yeah, all the elders.

PAZ: Yeah, I love that there was just like this reveal-- this totally off screen father murder plot happened. Seemed very dramatic.

JULIAN: We said it was Hamlet and turns out it was Hamlet.

LIZ: But Hamlet was evil.

PAZ: It just was happening in ShadowClan. Oh gosh. Yeah. It was also very funny that there was a ShadowClan cat named Ashfur because that's the name of like a major character later. I was like, hello?

LIZ: Is that the same one?

PAZ: No, cuz this one's a fucking old ass bitch, I don't know.

LIZ: Oh.

JULIAN: Yeah, they seem to reuse names sometimes.

PAZ: Which makes, I mean, sense. There's only so many combinations, I guess.

LIZ: It happens in real life.

PAZ: Maybe, maybe Ashfur is just like the like, I don't know, Jake of Warriors names.

LIZ: The Susanclaw of Warrior Cats.

PAZ: Ashfur is just your John Doe.

JULIAN: Yeah, if I search Ashfur on the Warrior Cats wiki, I do get a disambiguation page.

PAZ: Speaking of characters who show up later, I think one of the kids was Cinderpaw.

JULIAN: Oh yeah. Definitely.

PAZ: Yeah, that was a cute little like cameo before she shows up for real in the next book.

JULIAN: God, there was one bit, before they actually even go into ShadowClan, Graypaw goes something about like, "my mother warned me about the stench of ShadowClan many times." And I'm like, Are y'all good?

PAZ: No, they're so xenophobic. To the point when anybody who's not them is smelly, apparently.

LIZ: I have some news for them. They're all stinky cats. They're just rolling around in the dirt and hunting wild animals and never having baths, except for maybe RiverClan.

JULIAN: They all have ass ticks.

PAZ: They do. They definitely all have ass ticks.

LIZ: And fleas. And their medicine is mouse bile and spiderwebs. I don't think they're walking around smelling like Bath and Body Works or anything.

PAZ: No.

JULIAN: No.

PAZ: Rolling in garlic too, apparently.

LIZ: Oh yeah.

JULIAN: Maybe they just like-- at this point, none of them can smell very well because everything is so stinky around them at all time, like nose blind.

PAZ: That's kind of how I felt when I was on excavation, and like all we could do is take bucket showers.

JULIAN: Oh god.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: I was like, I'm sure I smell horrible right now. But we all are dirty. It's fine.

JULIAN: Yeah. Eugh.

LIZ: Cats can be so stinky, too. Even housecats. There's a point where like they just become stinky. And you have to help them.

JULIAN: Although I will say this for Graystripe. If all the cats have been like eating like roadkill and like getting sick, they may in fact be stinky.

PAZ: That's true.

JULIAN: It's not their fault but.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: I also can't believe that none of the other clans seem to have noticed that ShadowClan has like been all slowly starving, question mark?

PAZ: Right? Okay, maybe at the gatherings like Brokenstar only brings his like best warriors, who presumably get to eat more, so maybe nobody noticed.

LIZ: That's true.

PAZ: I mean, that makes sense to me.

LIZ: They did note also at the last one that like the warriors that he did bring were like, pretty young looking and also kind of skinny, which is because they're also--

PAZ: Yeah, the apprentices?

LIZ: Yeah. They are young and skinny.

PAZ: Yeah, they're babies apparently.

JULIAN: Fucking, okay, chalk up another war crime. That's child soldiers.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Oh yeah. ShadowClan has that one down.

LIZ: This cat's a war criminal. Violated the Geneva Convention.

PAZ: Yeah, okay. ShadowClan, not only do they have child soldiers, they are taking hostages, too.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: To turn into child soldiers.

PAZ: Yeah, that's some pretty big war crimes if you ask me.

LIZ: How do they conceptualize this as cats?

JULIAN: I mean, they seem pretty upset about the child soldier thing. Like they're all like, Oh, he's been training kits as young as three months old.

PAZ: Yeah. No, like the normal cats aren't happy about that.

LIZ: Oh, no. Yeah, for sure. I mean, like, hey Brokenstar, how did you come up with this idea? Where did you get it from? What the fuck, my dude?

PAZ: Yeah, he's kind of twisted. He's a little twisted. He's kind of a sicko.

LIZ: He's real fucked up.

JULIAN: Brokenstar in his Invader Zim tshirt. I'm a little different.

PAZ: Oh no.

LIZ: Screen name, xX, Brokenstar with a 0, xX.

PAZ: Yeah, he's so comically evil. Like, like, way more than Tigerclaw. Like Tigerclaw is like kind of cool and conniving. This guy's just fucking like-- not even like Skeletor. He's just evil.

JULIAN: Like he's not even sneaky about it. He's just like, what's up? I'm gonna torture children.

LIZ: Tigerclaw is like the evil regent in every story. But Brokenstar is just like laughing maniacally on top of like a hill where he's on a throne of bones. And he's like, yes, I will make a soup out of the children.

PAZ: God. Again, if you look at the map in the book, ShadowClan territory is right next to Carrionplace.

JULIAN: Jesus.

PAZ: Which is like, great. I think maybe ShadowClan needs new-- maybe they should just go somewhere else.

JULIAN: Yeah, have they thought about moving?

LIZ: Hey, maybe they could all just be barn cats.

JULIAN: I'm like, do the cats ascribe to the miasma theory of-- just in general?

LIZ: Where are they at in their phase of society?

PAZ: They don't know shit about germs.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: Because it seems like even if you don't understand germs, you might understand that those are bad vibes coming from the Carrionplace and you should...

PAZ: Right?

JULIAN: The vibes are really rancid.

LIZ: What about their humors? They're gonna get all messed up.

PAZ: Too much black bile or whatever. I think we're looping back into Hamlet. We've done it again.

JULIAN: I think-- yeah, we've done.

PAZ: Shit.

JULIAN: Welcome to Staircast where every episode we loop back around to discuss Shakespeare.

LIZ: Finally, my degree comes in use.

PAZ: But poor-- I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out what happened chronologically. It's all kind of, a lot of action going on. But like poor Yellowfang.

JULIAN: Yeah. She seems to have really liked Raggedstar.

PAZ: Yeah. Yeah, she's very, very upset to hear he was murdered by his own son. But I also mean like, poor Yellowfang. Like, even like Firepaw gets a moment where he's like, oh, maybe she is evil. Like, leave her alone.

JULIAN: Yeah. No one trusts her.

LIZ: And she's getting like, jerked around so much. Like she was basically like, welcomed before cause of like a huge act of bravery, specifically involving children, like saving children. And then she got cast out immediately. And the same thing is happening again. And like, that's good, but also like, how-- she must be thinking like, well, is this one gonna stick? Fuck if I know.

PAZ: Yeah, right. I guess maybe now she's like, if I'm the doctor, they probably won't kill me.

LIZ: She was the doctor last time, too.

PAZ: No, she wasn't. She wasn't the doctor. Spottedleaf was still there.

LIZ: No, no, in her clan anyway, like in ShadowClan.

PAZ: Well, that's cause Brokenstar is a sicko.

LIZ: That's true. Tigerclaw isn't a sicko but he's a real nasty guy.

JULIAN: The sicko versus nasty guy dichotomy. Oh, another one of Brokenstar's crimes I'm finding here is he also like forced out all the elders and made them hunt for themselves.

PAZ: Yeah, what the fuck?

JULIAN: Which is just like, well, fuck you. You took the one good thing about this fucked up cat society.

PAZ: That was real fucked up.

LIZ: They have already such a hard time like conceptualizing sharing and like mutual aid. So let's make it worse.

PAZ: No, I mean, like, they got that mutual aid. It's just in very clearly defined borders is the issue. But Brokenstar said, fuck that. Brokenstar said, we're going full authoritarian, baby.

JULIAN: It does sound like ShadowClan has some-- I mean, maybe ThunderClan has it too and we just haven't seen it yet because Bluestar is a girl boss. But like, it seems like they have some fucked up ideas about leadership already because Yellowfang is like, oh, no one could stand up to Brokenstar cause Raggedstar was his father, and his word is law. And it's like Well, great. You've reinvented monarchy.

LIZ: Oh no.

PAZ: Yeah, like is ShadowClan just doing like rules of succession? Like cause I don't think--that's not how it's supposed to work, even though it feels like that. There's a real nepotism problem in ThunderClan coming down the line.

LIZ: Ooh, good.

PAZ: I think we'll see but um, but yeah, like ShadowClan just straight up has like their first son succession rule going on or whatever.

LIZ: And it's definitely not supposed to be like that. And like the whole word is law thing, that is-- like we see pretty early on that Bluestar at least consulted like the other members of the clan on pretty important decisions. She's always like, what do you guys think? And I would like your input on this, right?

PAZ: Yeah. I think we do get to see more of RiverClan and WindClan in the upcoming books. Definitely WindClan I think comes up in the near future.

JULIAN: Oh yeah. No, they definitely do.

PAZ: But yeah, I'll be interested to see what they got going on in their leadership structures. Also, I think Firepaw should have committed a murder.

LIZ: Yes.

PAZ: He's allowed.

JULIAN: Yeah, that was like in the heat of battle. It's justified.

PAZ: Right? These cats killing each other constantly. Just let him have it.

LIZ: He can have some like conflict about it later, but you know, I think he should do it for the drama.

JULIAN: Oh, I do have a quick question. Hey, how the fuck does Graypaw know what kit blood smells like?

LIZ: That has never popped up before.

PAZ: That's a great question, actually. Yeah.

JULIAN: Like very specifically like the blood of kits. Excuse me?

LIZ: It was so alarming when it popped up because it was like oh, like did one die? Is this just like a bloody scene? No. It's like just the scent of it, right? Like around?

JULIAN: Yeah. And like when we do find the kits one of them was like-- like a couple of them were like kind of scratched up. But.

PAZ: Maybe like in the camp the kits get like, I don't know thorns in their paws or something. Who knows?

LIZ: How do you pull those out if you don't have thumbs?

PAZ: Your teeth.

LIZ: That sounds like it hurts.

PAZ: Well yeah, probably.

JULIAN: I mean, it hurts when you have thumbs, too.

PAZ: But this series does also not stray away from child death. So don't worry about that.

LIZ: They're just little guys though.

PAZ: Yeah, but they're warriors. They're out in the wild. And anything could happen.

LIZ: (crestfallen) I see that now.

PAZ: This series is like the opposite of video games where like the children are invincible and you can't kill them. The children here are very killable.

JULIAN: Yeah, I would say children die like a lot in a series that is meant for children.

PAZ: Uh-huh. I'm kind of amazed that all of these kits survived, actually. Good for them.

LIZ: Yeah, there's a pretty good survival rate in this book. I can't wait to see that just decimated.

PAZ: I feel-- just like from knowing general knowledge about what happens in the first series, I think it gets real bloody near the end.

JULIAN: Oh yeah. Yeah, it does. Um.

LIZ: I guess it's not called Peacetime Cats.

PAZ: Yeah, it is kind of wild to be like rereading this as an adult, and be like these are like so graphic for kids novels. I mean, kids like love that shit, but.

JULIAN: Right. I don't know if I like-- if I remember it being in this book, but there's definitely like in later books, like explicit descriptions of like cats getting their throats torn out, and like, cats getting like disemboweled. And like--

PAZ: I feel like there was a bear trap or something at one point.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Oh god, the bear trap. Oh, God, that was awful. Yeah. And like kids do eat that shit up.

LIZ: Oh, for sure.

PAZ: But usually, it's not like in the kids media. It's usually like you sneak in and like watch or something you're not supposed to. This series is just like, fuck it.

JULIAN: Yeah, gloves off. Ugh. Speaking of kit death. Firepaw completely forgot to mention that Ravenpaw was dead until like, they got back to the camp and like, did a lot of other exposition.

PAZ: Oh my god, that was so funny.

JULIAN: Like he didn't even remember to act sad when they met the ThunderClan patrol. He was just like, Oh, this is fine.

PAZ: Oh my god, yeah.

JULIAN: And then when they get back to camp, it's like, oh, by the way, real sad. He's dead.

LIZ: It's his limited object permanence. He's just a little guy.

PAZ: There was a lot going on. But yeah, he's uh, he failed in his great like, subterfuge plan there, I think.

LIZ: He did the best he could as Firepaw.

PAZ: Yellowfang was just giving him a look like, uh, excuse me?

JULIAN: Yellowfang has the only brain cells in this entire, like society of cats.

PAZ: It really feels like that.

JULIAN: And then later on Firepaw-- after becoming Fireheart, when Tigerclaw threatens him, is like Bluestar has to know about Tigerclaw's treachery. And it's like, yeah, she would have if you hadn't forgotten to tell her.

PAZ: I know. You could have told her when the witness to the murder was still in the camp. But no. Oh, God. Yeah. And then he says something like, Tigerclaw isn't a problem to be solved in a day. I'm like, it could be. It really could be. I don't know.

LIZ: Mm, I think the sooner you solve it, the better, too.

JULIAN: Like it's only going to take longer the more you let him get his claws in.

PAZ: Haha. Yeah, though. But, but it was also very, like, Whitestorm like, is the cat who like comes out to help in the ShadowClan battle, specifically because Bluestar is like Tigerclaw is too bloodthirsty, so he'll have to stay in camp. And I'm like, Bluestar, why didn't you just make Whitestorm the deputy?

JULIAN: Right?

PAZ: Hello?

LIZ: Yeah, he's like, right there. He's doing great.

JULIAN: He's right there. He's like, very chill.

PAZ: Yeah, he seems like a real nice, nice guy. But I guess if he have been a deputy, he would have gotten fucking murdered instantly.

JULIAN: Yeah. I guess it's good.

LIZ: Maybe she did ask and he was just like, no.

JULIAN: No, I don't want to die today.

LIZ: I'm good.

JULIAN: That's the secret. You got to turn down the promotion or they make you do more work.

PAZ: Yeah, he just wants to go like, take some sunbaths, like he doesn't need that deputy business. It also like boggles my mind that nobody investigated the murder scene with Spottedleaf before. Like, if you can just look at like fur color and rule out suspects, I feel like you should do that right away, maybe.

JULIAN: Yeah, I mean, they had just found out the kits were missing. So tensions were kind of high.

LIZ: They need to have more jobs aside from doctor, president, evil vice president, soldier, and mom.

JULIAN: Are you suggesting that the cats need to have cops?

LIZ: Noooo, oh I take it all back.

PAZ: No, just like forensic scientists.

JULIAN: Okay.

LIZ: Alright.

JULIAN: That's fine. I mean I guess if you think about it, they're all kind of cops already.

LIZ: Noooo.

PAZ: They got that multipurpose job title. Also going back to the Ravenpaw thing, that lie was like, also just terrible in general because everyone saw the three of them leave together. So it's like, Firepaw, are you gonna make up a story like at some point you got separated and that's where Ravenpaw got killed? Like, it's just-- the holes in this story are enormous.

JULIAN: He like straight up doesn't even come up with a story. He just goes, Ravenpaw is dead. Oh, no, he does come up with a story. I'm sorry. I'm rereading it.

PAZ: It's just not very good.

JULIAN: They found his body in ShadowClan.

LIZ: On the other hand, Tigerclaw can just say whatever shit he wants, and that's fine with everybody.

PAZ: That's true.

JULIAN: I mean, if we think of Firepaw as like, exemplar of the average cat intelligence in this clan, it might not be that hard.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: What a grim prospect.

PAZ: Well, you know, apparently nobody liked Ravenpaw. So I guess they don't really care enough to think too deeply about it.

JULIAN: God.

LIZ: So sad.

JULIAN: Including, like his siblings.

PAZ: I know, fuck his siblings.

LIZ: His siblings fucking suck.

JULIAN: I hope he's having a great time getting those Barley smooches.

LIZ: Good for him.

PAZ: Yeah, there's like a line. Oh, yeah, it's like after Tigerclaw pretends to be sad about Ravenpaw. Firepaw is like, "what would Tigerclaw say if he knew that Ravenpaw was safe, far beyond the forest, catching rats with Barley?"

JULIAN: Good. It's what he deserves.

PAZ: It is what he deserves. Not deal with any of your shit.

LIZ: Get out of the horrible, wartorn, militaristic cat society.

PAZ: Also, like, I guess Ravenpaw is also like, only five hours away from also being a warrior.

JULIAN: What do Sandpaw and Dustpaw think about this? Because they're older, right?

PAZ: Oh yeah, that's true. Probably pissed. Maybe they became warriors offscreen. I don't know.

LIZ: I don't know, a lot's happening. Maybe they did. They're just not part of like, the main friend group. So, they went patrolling or something together.

PAZ: Here's some trivia though about Ravenpaw. Tara says that if she could have made Ravenpaw a warrior, she would have named him Ravenwing.

JULIAN: Aw.

LIZ: Aww.

PAZ: So that's his warrior name that was never realized.

LIZ: That's very cute.

PAZ: That's a good name, I think. We love and support Ravenpaw here.

LIZ: We do.

JULIAN: He's our little guy.

PAZ: He's our little guy and he's a member of our community. So we have to support him.

LIZ: Absolutely.

PAZ: Yeah, but then once again, that does raise the question, though. How does like Bluestar come up with these names? Does she just have like a list she pulls from, like?

JULIAN: I mean she does like have a line to StarClan, it seems like. Maybe they're giving her the names.

PAZ: StarClan has that Warriors Cat name generator up there. They're clicking away at it. You know, if I was leader, I would absolutely having to give people their names. That's too much pressure for me.

JULIAN: I mean, I think she picks pretty good ones. Like Fireheart and Graystripe are pretty solid.

PAZ: No, they're good. I'm just saying if I was a cat and a leader of a Warrior clan I would not be good at it.

LIZ: I mean, not good in the way that they would like, but would there be-- if it was me, would there be a lot of cats named like Oatmilk and Jeremy? Yes.

PAZ: I'd be the one naming people Fuzzypelt.

LIZ: They should be honored.

JULIAN: I dub thee Susanclaw.

LIZ: Yes.

PAZ: Susanclaw is extra funny because someone pointed out in the later books that there are cats named, like Bellaleaf I think is one of them. There's cats that basically get names that are Susanclaw in canon, so.

LIZ: No, no, no, no. You don't understand. That cat's Italian.

PAZ: Oh, okay. I see. My bad. But you know, I do appreciate this series like promoting the idea of like, name changing being simple and easy, and like, just swapping, like how you refer to someone. I don't know.

JULIAN: Yeah, no, it's nice. Like, the cats have names that change throughout their lives like, as their roles in the clan change. Like even when they become elders, sometimes they get weird names.

PAZ: Sometimes the name changes are questionable, but. But yeah, I mean like, it's because it's part of this like cat society lore mythos. But I don't know, I think it's nice for children to see that concept at least, like changing names not being like a big deal, so.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Nice to have.

LIZ: Yeah, the scene at the end is like, very sweet because they just changed their names, and like both of the cats are like swelled up with pride. And everyone just immediately starts chanting both of the new names, and it's great. Like that's a wonderful little scene to have there.

PAZ: Yeah, it's very heartfelt and touching.

JULIAN: Yeah, I legitimately really do like all of the like Warrior Cats little rituals that they have.

PAZ: Me too.

JULIAN: Like all the religious stuff is cool, but also just like the life of the clan and like, you know, the stuff that they do to mark people's passage from like kit to apprentice and apprentice to warrior is neat.

PAZ: Although the fucking vow of silence thing really fucked Bluestar over in this case, because she's not getting to hear vital information.

LIZ: I know.

JULIAN: Yeah, I don't have anything else for the rest of the-- or for the book.

PAZ: Yeah, a lot of it was mostly like action. Um, and ShadowClan being cartoonishly evil, or I guess just Brokenstar being cartoonishly evil. Um, let me just look.

LIZ: Hey, did you know that if you google Ravenpaw, one of the suggested additional words is Ravenclaw-- sorry, Ravenpaw sad?

JULIAN: Oh. Oh, no.

PAZ: Makes me sad.

JULIAN: Hey, how come Fireheart gets two moms and Ravenpaw has none?

PAZ: Yeah, that's not fair.

JULIAN: Ravenpaw, who needs the most moms.

LIZ: He does. What the fuck?

PAZ: Can Ravenpaw get like any parents? Any parents at all? Oh, god, it's okay. Ravenpaw can go hang out with the cows and sheep.

LIZ: They're his moms now.

PAZ: Yeah. Oh my god, I do-- I can't stop thinking about that fanart I saw where the artist very specifically made it so Ravenpaw and Barley were in a trap neuter return program. Everytime I think about it, it kills me. Nothing but respect for that artist and taking a strong stance.

JULIAN: God.

LIZ: I think we have to describe this art a little. It's just a--

PAZ: No, it's very nice art. It's very, very sweet.

LIZ: They're just like sleeping on a windowsill, and then the tag underneath is like, by the way.

JULIAN: I think it's because they have like the little ear corner taken out.

PAZ: Yeah. I would not even have made that connection if not for that helpful clarification in the tags. Well, I hope they're having a good time over there in that barn cause shit's still going down in these woods. Yeah, I don't know. That was a good arc in the first book. Yeah, I don't have much else about these chapters.

LIZ: Oh, one last thing I guess. Just like a nice scene. When Yellowfang and Firepaw are like meeting up again, she says something like, you were looking the wrong way the first time I met you too.

PAZ: Oh, yeah, that was very cute.

LIZ: It was. That's her son now.

PAZ: Yeah, I like their relationship a lot.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: That is his mom now.

LIZ: Yeah, at some point like, he says like, in the-- he didn't say in the dialogue, but in the text it's like, oh, he's so happy because like the cat that he had grown to love is going to join his clan. Aw.

JULIAN: That's his mom.

LIZ: That is his-- boogie woogie woogie, you're my mom now.

PAZ: His two moms. I think Yellowfang is a better mom, though. I'm gonna pick sides.

JULIAN: She's certainly a smarter mom.

LIZ: Yeah, you need at least one mom who can like do the taxes and know when assassination plots are happening.

JULIAN: Yeah. It's important for a household to have clearly, like delineated division of labor.

PAZ: Exactly.

JULIAN: And Bluestar's job is look cool and get visions.

LIZ: Tag yourself, which one are you? Don't worry, the visions are tax deductible. They do work together.

JULIAN: Well, as we know, if it's a religious organization, it can be a non-profit.

PAZ: These cats don't need to discover taxes.

LIZ: Wait, if a cat had a mortgage, it would be a meowgage.

[laughter]

PAZ: Thank you.

JULIAN: Thanks.

PAZ: I think with that, I think we can move on to hear from the authors themselves.

[meow]

Um, so I figured to celebrate us finishing the first book, we could look at some interviews from the authors about the series and like the conception of the series, because I don't know, I think it's interesting, kind of how it came to be. So I think we look at the one on the Warriors Cat official website first, because it's kind of short. So this is a post from Vicky Holmes, who I think is the-- I don't know if she's one of the authors or editors.

JULIAN: I think she was one of the like original Erins.

PAZ: She was, but I'm not sure if she was an author or like the overseeing editor. So this is just like a post on the website about the origins of like, the Warrior cats and its world building. Great first paragraph here that ends with this inspiring sentence. "Writing really is all about harnessing the fish and persuading them to whisper their stories to you." Thank you, Vicky.

LIZ: I love that.

JULIAN: Vicky, why are you writing about cats and not fish?

PAZ: Yeah, so she goes in a bit about like the conceptions of the series. She says, "many of you know that Warriors began with a request from a publisher for a book about cats. They didn't mind what form the story took, just that it would appeal to a ready made nation of cat lovers. The earliest worldbuilding tried to establish the elements that are needed for any good story: characters from different backgrounds, a strong sense of location, lots of potential for conflict and resolution." I think that's so funny that the publisher was just like, write some shit about cats. People love that.

LIZ: Were they wrong? Were they wrong?

PAZ: No, they were right.

JULIAN: They were right.

PAZ: I don't know if the Erin Hunters need to go so hard, though. But they did. And thank you for that.

JULIAN: Oh, this is interesting.

PAZ: Do you want to read the next paragraph, or?

JULIAN: Oh, yeah, sure. Um, "it was decided quite quickly that we would focus on a tame kitten joining a band of feral cats who lived in a forest. These cats would be divided into clans that sometimes fought and sometimes united against a common enemy." We have yet to see that, but. "There would be a town or at least a clutch of modern houses next to a broad expanse of woodland and moor, and some spiky stone hills in the distance where the cats could visit an old mine for quasireligious purposes. A rough cast list was drawn up, and we came up with the idea for composite names that would change according to the stage of life that the cat was in: kit, paw, etc.

At first the four clans were called RiverClan, WindClan, ShadowClan, and StarClan. This would be the clan that our hero, the tame kitten joined. He would be treated as an outsider until he did some heroic things. And then at the first book, indeed the only book, he would be made the leader of StarClan." Whoops.

PAZ: Yes, that's another interesting piece of trivia is that they initially planned for it to be one book, like a single book. They were not expecting a series, really. And I don't think they were expecting to go beyond the first series once it became a series. So that's quite funny.

LIZ: Look at where they are now.

PAZ: I know.

LIZ: People love cats.

PAZ: The publisher was right. There is a ready made nation of cat lovers. Yeah, I didn't know that trivia about StarClan initially just being a regular clan.

JULIAN: She goes in a little later to talk about it was they chose ThunderClan because the territory is bounded on two sides by the Thunderpaths, which is fun.

PAZ: Um, Liz, do you want to read some of the next one?

LIZ: Yeah, I'll read the next part. "It was at this point that the development of Warriors became my responsibility. The stories were proving hard to nail down, and as I was a very new and inexperienced commissioning editor, it was a chance to test my creativity on a project that didn't have an established audience. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into for, dot dot dot..."

PAZ: "Given that nearly 20 years have passed, it's a bit difficult to remember exactly what order things happened in. But I know that I soon realized that StarClan would be a much better name for the ancestors that my living cats worshipped in the night skies. This meant I needed a new name for the fourth clan. RiverClan lived near a river, WindClan lived on the windy moor, ShadowClan lived in the pine forest. So it seemed logical that ThunderClan whose territory is bounded on two sides by roads should be named after Thunderpaths, which meant that at this point, I didn't foresee an origin story in which each clan was named after its founding cat." Which I think is what they've retroactively done now.

JULIAN: Really?

PAZ: Yeah, yeah. I think there's like ancient cat history, quote, unquote, "ancient," because the cats. There was like Thunderstar or whatever.

JULIAN: Oh, the last paragraph is great. "I had a very rough map drawn on a scrap of paper, names for my clans, and a starting place for the story, Rusty the kitten feeling bored with his life and wondering if tales of wild cats in the forest were true. It was time to harness some bigger fish and follow Rusty's adventures into the woods."

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: Aw.

LIZ: I love the continuing fish metaphor. It's very good.

JULIAN: It's very good.

LIZ: Also, just going back to the previous paragraph about names, ShadowClan lived in the pine-- why is it not PineClan? Or even ForestClan?

PAZ: I don't know, I guess those weren't cool enough. I guess also, they probably just said we need an evil clan.

LIZ: That's absolutely true. But in the universe as a cat, why would you do this to yourself?

PAZ: They're just goth and punk. What can you do?

LIZ: You're right. Gotta respect that.

PAZ: So yeah, that was a very recent article. I think this was posted like a week or two ago. But I have another interview from the old Warrior Cats forums, which were obliterated in 2016, I think.

JULIAN: Tragedy.

PAZ: This is the interview with the Erins from 2010. So this is-- God, this is 11? God, this is 11 years old now.

LIZ: Old enough to start middle school.

JULIAN: This is older than my brother.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Jesus.

LIZ: Also this is--

PAZ: But there's-- oh.

LIZ: Oh, no, just want to say it's on archive.org. Thank goodness for that.

PAZ: Yeah, you have to access anything from the old Warriors forums through Wayback Machine, which is very frustrating. But I'm glad some of it is archived. Yeah, so there's some interesting Q&A stuff in here. This first question. Shademint's coming in with some, some weird gender ideas.

LIZ: Right from the start, too.

PAZ: So the first question is from Shademint. And they say, "the rule for medicine cats to not take on a mate, does that go for male medicine cats, too? They wouldn't exactly be stuck in the nursery nursing their kids, they could still work. But are they still required not to take on a mate?" Somebody want to read the Erin?

JULIAN: Oh, yeah. "Hi Shademint, a male medicine cat could still work. But just because he can't give birth to cats wouldn't make him any less distracted. He would still be focused on the raising of his own kits and by his mate's needs. Plus a medicine cat must treat all the cats in his clan fairly. Could you imagine how difficult it would be for a medicine cat to treat his own sons and daughters after a battle, and maybe have to make them wait for treatment after other more seriously injured warriors?" Nice save by the Erins.

PAZ: The Erins were like, we support equal shared labor from the parents, so.

LIZ: That's a very graceful answer, hopefully teaching this-- I'm assuming-- 12 year old boy, that if you're a father you should also parent your child.

PAZ: Yeah, Shademint was like, Why don't they just be absent fathers? What's wrong with that? I also like this answer for other reasons, ignoring some future stuff. But you know, that's a little foreshadowing for our readers in the know.

LIZ: Just a fun hint for me, I guess.

PAZ: Do you want to read the next question?

LIZ: Yeah. Two. "Hi, Erin. I've been wondering, how did three of you meet? I think about it a lot. Please reply. Thanks." From Lilybreeze.

PAZ: And they reply, "Hello, Lilybreeze. This is Vicky here. So I'll answer from my viewpoint. Before I started in Warriors, I worked as an editor of children's books. Kate and Cherith were established children's authors, who were interested in working with me on a project. Kate started first on Warriors. For book 3, I realized that we needed another writer on the team in order to deliver the books fast enough, so I invited Cherith to join because I knew she loved cats, and even more importantly, would be able to write in the way that sounded like a combination of Kate and my style.

Meanwhile, Tui Sutherland, the fourth Erin who wrote Secrets of the Clans and some of the Seekers books, was the editor at HarperCollins Children's books who worked on the finished Warriors manuscripts. After the early seasons, Tui left to write her own books, and I quickly asked her if she could join the Erin team as well. So the short answer is I knew each of the other Erins through work, and now consider them to be my friends. The other Erins have never met, partly because they live so far away from each other."

LIZ: What?

PAZ: They're in the UK. They probably live like an hour and a half away from each other.

LIZ: That's so far, geez.

PAZ: An impossible distance.

JULIAN: Y'all have trains.

PAZ: "But we all correspond by email." End answer.

LIZ: Amazing.

PAZ: This is so interesting to me. I don't know if this is like common in publishing to do this shit, but like, what a wild way to to start your book.

LIZ: Okay, I have some thoughts. One, you know, there's three of us. We could totally-- listen, we love cats. I mean, the Erins can use the competition.

PAZ: Oh no.

JULIAN: We're gonna start a competing series of collaborative cat books, in which the cats of CrabClan learn about socialism. And our pseudonym will be Terran Punter.

LIZ: Wait, hold on. Terran Gather.

JULIAN: Holy shit, I'm sorry. This is completely unrelated to the wiki or the sorry, the interview. I went on to the Warriors wiki because I remember there being seven Erin Hunters, and the other three joined after this interview. "Gillian Philip is a former member of Erin Hunter team. As of June 2020, she's no longer with the Erin Hunter team due to her conduct and demeanor and actions on her public Twitter account. The nature of her comments resulted in her being stripped of her work."

PAZ: Oh my God.

LIZ: What?

JULIAN: Jesus.

LIZ: What did she do?

PAZ: Was she like off being like a TERF on Twitter?

LIZ: Oh no.

PAZ: I just assume any British person's doing that.

LIZ: Yeah, you know, that's--

JULIAN: I mean, it's June so I wonder if it was like some--

PAZ: Ooh. That's fascinating.

JULIAN: --Black Lives Matter bullshit.

PAZ: You know, like, I love to see that she was just fucking kicked off entirely.

LIZ: You should have some, you know, immediate action.

JULIAN: She was a TERF. I found the results.

LIZ: Oh, man.

PAZ: Yeah, I assume any British lady who gets in trouble for something is just being a TERF online. But wow, that's really nice to hear actually that they punted her to the curb.

LIZ: Immediate fuck off. Good.

PAZ: Yeah, unlike some other British TERF authors who still have a platform

LIZ: I can't possibly know who you're talking about.

PAZ: No, I don't know. I don't know who it could be.

LIZ: Also, I do want to draw attention to like a cute little part in this answer, where Vicky's saying like, I worked as an editor of children's books, and then it says in parentheses, "(I still do, in fact, in between being one of the Erins.)"

PAZ: It always sounds like they're a band. But yeah, that's a fascinating way to write a book to me. But I think it's worked for them, so

JULIAN: Oh, they talk a little bit more about the process in the next answer.

PAZ: Yeah, I can read out that question. "Hi, Erin. I can't believe that I'm actually talking to the person who created all those awesome books that I buy and read EVERY NIGHT!!!" Three exclamation marks, all caps.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: Parentheses, "(when I can, that is.) How long does it normally take to write a book?" asks Spottedfang?

LIZ: That's adorable.

PAZ: Very cute.

JULIAN: I can read the answer. "Aw, thank you, Spottedfang. There are certainly plenty of books to read, aren't there, if you read them slowly. Take note, those of you who are very proud about being able to read a whole book in one day. It takes about two months to write the storyline for a new book, which includes details of what happens in every scene, plus some suggestions for dialogue and character development. This is Vicky's job. The final storyline usually takes up half the length of the entire book.

Then the storyline goes to Kate, Cherith, or Tui, who have about three months to write the first draft. Then the manuscript comes back to Vicky, who spends about a week or so carefully going through it, checking that it all sounds like Erin, and that the story works as she imagined. Sometimes she asks whoever wrote it to do a bit more work on it. But if all the words seem to be in the right place, she sends it to the editor at HarperCollins. Erika for Warriors, or Sarah for Seekers. They go through the manuscript and ask for changes or additions to be made to make the book as perfect as it can be. Sometimes Vicky does these changes. And sometimes she asks Kate, Cherith, or Tui, whoever wrote the first draft, to produce a second draft. Then it goes back to the publisher ready to be turned into a book. So the entire process takes about six months in total, although we are always working on two or three books at once, so that we can produce more than two books a year." Jesus, they turn them out.

PAZ: That is crazy.

JULIAN: Wow.

LIZ: That is a lot of books.

PAZ: That is such a tight writing deadline.

JULIAN: Yeah, I mean, I guess like if Vicky is doing the storyline. And then she does a storyline, and then one of the authors has three months, she can be doing another storyline during those three months.

PAZ: Yeah, that's true.

JULIAN: But God.

PAZ: Yeah, and I mean, I guess it works because you already have like, established worldbuilding, but oh my gosh.

LIZ: It feels like a good like process. Like if you have someone to map out, you know, the the basic planning and everything, and you already have that set of rules from your universe. And then you can just pass it on between people who are also very familiar with it. Like it sounds like they have a good clip going.

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, it seems to have worked, so good on them, I guess.

LIZ: I wouldn't want to do this twice a year, but this sounds like something fun to like, try.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Just, um, what do you call it a thing where like-- this isn't the same thing, but it's like a group of people. They write like one section of a story and then like they pass it on to the next person.

PAZ: Exquisite corpse?

JULIAN: Oh.

LIZ: Yeah. Like, kind of like that, but a little more organized. I don't know. That sounds fun.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah. I've liked like what I've done, just like collaborative like fic or whatever, in the past. It's been fun. It's a nice challenge to kind of fit into someone else's style.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: It is cute that they refer to it as the Erin style.

PAZ: I'll be curious to see if I can like notice when a book switches a writer. I think we learned early in this interview, the first three books were all one author, so. Do you want to read the next question, Liz?

LIZ: Question 4, "hey Erins. Do you have any guidelines or rules when naming Warrior Cats? When I first started reading the series, I heard something about how you were breaking your own rules for creating warrior names. Are there any, or is that just a fanbase thing?" From Hawkclaw20.

JULIAN: Hawkclaw has clearly fallen afoul of the Susanclaws of the world.

PAZ: I can read this. "Hi, Hawkclaw. Well firstly, we can only create names from words that cats know about. So you're unlikely to find a leader with the name Ferraristar." Why not? "A warrior's name comes in two parts, either or both of which can reflect something about the cat's appearance, personality, or habits. For example, fur, claw, heart, or stripe, or something about the natural world like fire, bramble, or cloud. You can also have colors or something descriptive, such as tall, red, or swift. So Hawkclaw is a perfect example."

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: "These are the basic rules by which we have followed throughout Warriors, although you might be interested to know that in the very first book, Tigerclaw was originally called Hammerclaw."

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: [singing "Can't Touch This"]

PAZ: "Until someone pointed out that cats wouldn't know what a hammer was." Oh my god.

JULIAN: How far into the prep process do you think they got before they were like, oh fuck.

PAZ: Hammerclaw.

LIZ: No, they finished the entire first draft and they were like oh, fuck, we need to Control-F hammer.

PAZ: Oh my god. Hammerclaw's a much less intimidating name. It's so funny.

JULIAN: Yeah. I'm very glad they made that switch.

PAZ: Yeah, oh my god.

LIZ: That's so funny. He just sounds like a guy on YouTube who like makes stuff.

PAZ: Some like weird like blacksmith YouTuber is...

LIZ: Yeah, he's a guy with a beard silhouette as his icon. That's what it is.

PAZ: Oh my gosh. Okay, question 5. "Are greencough and whitecough actual sicknesses, only with different names? If so, what are they?" Basilstar.

LIZ: That's such a cute name, Basilstar.

PAZ: Extremely cute.

JULIAN: I know. "They certainly are real, Basilstar, although we haven't based them on a specific illness like pneumonia. Whitecough is a chest infection: coughing up clear fluids, feeling tired, but still able to eat or drink. And greencough is a severe chest infection: coughing up green fluid"– yuck– "and feeling too ill to move, let alone eat or drink. This is why so many cats who catch whitecough end up developing greencough if it goes untreated.

PAZ: Nice little bit of--

JULIAN: Bit of lore.

PAZ: --medicine lore.

JULIAN: I think whitecough/maybe greencough come up like in one of the next books, like pretty soon.

PAZ: Yeah. Next question, I think is about the Seekers series, so.

JULIAN: Yeah, a number of the next ones are. Although right after it is--

PAZ: Yeah, I think seven is Warriors.

JULIAN: Number 7.

PAZ: Do you want to read that, Liz?

LIZ: Yeah, question 7. "Okay, StarClan gives clan leaders their names and nine lives. They lose their lives to sickness and wounds. But what about age? Let's say a leader gets really old. Do they die over and over again?" From Foxcloud. There's a second question in the same number. So I'll read that, too. "What happens if a leader dies of natural causes on their first life? Do leaders lose all their lives if they die of natural causes on their first life? I REALLY want to know." And that's from Moonstar99.

PAZ: These are such big brain questions I never even considered.

JULIAN: Foxcloud has raised a horrifying possibility.

PAZ: I know.

JULIAN: Which is that like you get old. You like get old enough to die and then you just speed run dying nine times.

PAZ: Oh God.

LIZ: That's terrible.

PAZ: I feel like someone must have written like a horror story like that.

JULIAN: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. I can read it.

PAZ: Okay.

JULIAN: "Welcome to the Ask Erin pages, Foxcloud and Moonstar. In the natural world, animals rarely get to die of old age. They're more likely to die sooner than their domestic counterparts due to the harsh lives they lead."

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: "Without medication or a reliable source of food."

PAZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Yeah, Erin.

LIZ: Uh-huh.

JULIAN: You put them in the woods.

LIZ: They can't get vaccines there.

JULIAN: "Even very old warriors usually die because of something else, such as a disease, or hunger, or extreme cold. Leaders are even more likely to lose lives because they take part in most battles, and would go without food or medical treatment for the sake of a clanmate in greater need. So it would be unusual for a leader to make it to a very great age with more than one life remaining. If they became very weak, say from being unable to eat or because their kidneys were failing--"

PAZ: Oh god.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: "--I think they could return once. But after that, more than one thing inside them would fail, and they would lose successive lives very quickly."

LIZ: Holy shit.

JULIAN: This is horrifying.

LIZ: Holy shit.

PAZ: This is so scary.

JULIAN: This is so scary. Erin! Erins!

PAZ: Oh my god. I love that they just admitted like, yeah, like wild cats just fucking drop like flies. But it's okay because they're cool.

JULIAN: These cats eat it constantly.

LIZ: They jump from oh, from death in battle to their kidneys failing.

PAZ: Yeah, I feel like there is a cat that dies of kidney failure.

LIZ: Oh my god. You know how you can, you know, mitigate that. I have a suggestion. Take them inside to the vet.

JULIAN: Take them to the cutter.

PAZ: Not dying of kidney failure is a small price to pay for not having balls.

LIZ: We'll take the balls, but we'll take the other stuff too.

PAZ: Oh gosh.

LIZ: Who wants to read the next one?

JULIAN: I can read it. Number 8. "I heard this question during a book signing, and I'm curious. Will there be an albino cat sometime in the series? I think it would be really cool if there was. It would make the book really interesting." Starshine.

PAZ: "Hi Starshine, we are definitely considering an albino cat. But we're waiting for the right story to come along so its unusual coloring can play a central role." Um, to my knowledge, this has not happened yet. So sorry to Starshine.

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: Also, what do they mean by albino cat? Because there are like white cats in the series. I know like albino cat and white cat are different.

PAZ: I guess they just have like cool red eyes and bad vision. I don't know.

LIZ: I also think that cat can just like, be. Just let that cat be in the story.

JULIAN: It doesn't have to play a central role.

PAZ: I think Starshine may have an OC that they want.

LIZ: Starshine is like, here's my G-- no, no, sorry. Here's my Hotmail address.

PAZ: Do you need another Erin?

LIZ: I know in several years, you're going to be kicking one out and I will-- I'll probably be at an employable age by then, so.

PAZ: Okay, well, sorry to Starshine from 11 years in the future. That didn't happen, as far as I know. So the next Warriors question is number 10, which is--

JULIAN: I think this is also the last one.

PAZ: Ah, I think there's one more we got to read.

JULIAN: Oh, you're right.

LIZ: Oh, I see it, yeah.

PAZ: Number 10. "How popular is Warriors?" From Pigeonheart.

LIZ: I can read that one. "That's kind of tricky to answer, Pigeonheart. As popular as the readers make it is the truth. New books always make the top 10 on the children's bestseller charts in America when they're first released, which is a good sign that a series is doing very well. In the UK, only the first series has been published. So the books are less well known."

PAZ: What?

LIZ: "Although they have some dedicated fans. Warriors is much better known in America, and hundreds turn up wherever I tour. Yet in the UK, where I'm from, the popularity is more, dot dot dot... subdued. That said, my very first UK event in October 2009 was a big success. So watch this space."

JULIAN: That's wild.

PAZ: Why is only the first series out in the UK?

LIZ: That's so crazy.

PAZ: That's so confusing.

LIZ: I mean, it's worldwide now, so.

PAZ: Yeah, it is, but okay, then. Once again, the mysteries of publishing, I do not understand them.

JULIAN: You would think that I would have like a better grasp on how publishing works, given like that we know folks who work in publishing. But I do not.

PAZ: I have no idea, no.

JULIAN: It is a mystery to me.

LIZ: All I've learned from that is that publishing's real fucked up.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Basically. Okay. There's one last question we must read.

JULIAN: Oh, yes.

PAZ: Which is number 12. "Will you write about horses? Yes, they live in groups (herds) and they'd be different from Warriors. Horses aren't exactly really like cats, but they could travel their home every so often. Horses would be a very neat idea, and I'd rather like to see a series about it sometime. Sincerely, Willowfern, parentheses, (your number one fan.) Smiling sunglasses emoji."

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Incredible.

LIZ: Julian, would you like to read this beautiful answer?

JULIAN: Oh, yes. I would love to. "Are you a horse lover too, Willowfern? We have considered writing about horses because they are such beautiful, intelligent animals. But we were concerned that horses tend to run away when anything exciting/scary happens."

PAZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: "We need our heroes to sprint towards danger, not vanish over the horizon in a cloud of dust. Also, cats have tiny paws, which are handy for harvesting and using herbs, whereas you can't do much with a big clumsy hoof. However, never say never. Maybe when we've written about some other animals, we'll find a way to bring horses into their own series."

LIZ: Looks like someone didn't watch Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.

JULIAN: This is such a funny like reason for not writing a horse book.

PAZ: I know.

JULIAN: A very popular genre.

LIZ: Yes, they're fucking cowards and don't have thumbs.

PAZ: This is just like a big own on horses.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Horses can never be warriors.

JULIAN: Can't pick up grass, fucking cowards.

LIZ: Wait, warhorses were a thing.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: More than cats, you could say.

PAZ: Oh, God.

JULIAN: Like horses fight each other all the time.

PAZ: Yeah, I bet they do.

JULIAN: Yeah, I guess they didn't want to get into like the sexual dynamics of like...

LIZ: Nooo.

PAZ: Oh gosh, no.

JULIAN: Stallions.

PAZ: Oh no. Also, I will say like if horses break a leg they're just goners. They're like, bye-bye, so I guess that's another downside.

LIZ: I read a lot of horse books when I could have been reading Warriors Cats books. That's so-- yeah, you sprain your ankle? They just shoot you.

PAZ: Yeah. Did anyone else here ever read Misty of Chincoteague?

LIZ: Yes.

PAZ: Yes.

JULIAN: Yes. In fact, I was Misty of Chincoteague for Halloween in third grade.

PAZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Um, it was great. Everyone thought I was a cat. Because it turns out if you dress up like a horse, you need to have like some sort of back situation. Or people are just like, oh, you have pointy ears. Cat.

PAZ: That's incredible. I loved those books.

JULIAN: I was really upset that A, no one recognized that I was a horse, and B, no one recognized that I was specifically Misty of Chincoteague.

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: I would have recognized you. You should have gone to my school.

JULIAN: Thank you.

PAZ: Yeah. Could have banded together. My very fun story about that series is I did get to go to the pony run on Assotague as a kid.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Oh, that's so cool.

PAZ: Yeah, I think it was probably like 12 or 13.

LIZ: The perfect age for it.

PAZ: It was so cool. And I would go again as an adult, so.

LIZ: Yeah, sounds like a cool place to go. My personal experience with that book is I loved it so much. I kept it in my lunchbox every single day I was at school.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: That's adorable.

JULIAN: I was really worried that this story was gonna have like a tragic ending.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: Like you were gonna spill something awful on it.

LIZ: It does kind of. Yeah, I spilled like some salad dressing on it.

PAZ: Oh no. I think my mom gave me her copies of the book from when she was a kid.

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: Yeah. So I think if Willowfern needs a horse series, just go read Misty of Chincoteague. Well, yeah, that was the end of the Warriors questions in that interview. I think it's very nice that they did like interviews of the, like 13 year olds on the forums.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah. The writers, like from what I can tell, seem pretty like, engaged and supportive of the fan base, which is nice to see.

JULIAN: Yeah, the first paragraph of that Vicky Holmes interview was her talking about like, one of the best things is seeing how many kids write their own fiction in the world of the books, which is really sweet.

PAZ: Uh huh. And, um, the official website does like, like fanart, like spotlights and like, features a lot of fanart with like credit, of course, which is very nice.

LIZ: Yeah, from the the first page that we looked at, that's, you know, on the current website, like, right in the middle of that writing thingy is a banner with some deviantArt fanart with little credit. And another fanart of the I think ancestor cats with some credit, also on deviantArt. So it's sweet.

PAZ: Yeah. That's nice to see. Yeah, I mean, that was it for this section. I am hoping we'll be back next week with a more in depth like book wrap up retrospective episode. So look forward to that, probably. And then we'll be moving on to Fire and Ice. I think I accidentally called it Ice and Fire in the last episode. So apologies. I know what books we're reading.

JULIAN: Outed as a fake fan.

PAZ: Yeah. Sorry. You're gonna have to cancel me now. I'm also announcing my resignation from this podcast.

JULIAN: Oh, no.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: For my unforgivable crime. But yes, that's the update. Very happy we finished Into the Wild. Had a great time. And I'm very much looking forward to the next book.

JULIAN: Hell yeah.

PAZ: And once we figure out what-- we'll probably announce what chapters we're reading them, in the next episode.

JULIAN: Yep. And that will be on our Twitter, which is @staircast.

PAZ: Yes. And, as always, if you have any questions or anecdotes, you can send them in to [email protected]. I think maybe every few episodes, we'll kind of dive in there and take a look if we have anything and answer them. And thank you so much again, everyone, for listening.

LIZ: Oh, one more thing, because we are now on Spotify. Right?

PAZ: Yeah, we should be on Spotify. And we're also on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. So if you listen there, go check it out. Also, I guess leave a review if you want. I don't know.

LIZ: You know, we're just vibing.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah, I guess that's all the housekeeping.

JULIAN: Thanks for listening. And also, this has been really fun to do with y'all.

PAZ: Yeah. Thank you so much for listening, and for doing this podcast with me. It's been very fun. And I hope everyone who's been listening has been having lots of fun too, because that would be the best thing to get out of this is for everyone to have lots of fun.

LIZ: Thank you for taking me on this journey with you.

PAZ: Yes. I'm excited.

JULIAN: Thank you for coming on this journey. It's so fun to talk about this with someone who like hasn't read the books before.

PAZ: Yeah, I'm really glad we could get a initiate here.

LIZ: A noob.

PAZ: A noob, as they would say.

JULIAN: (with a funky accent) Your fresh perspective.

PAZ: Okay, well, I think that's gonna do it for us. And we'll see you all again next week, and until then, may StarClan light your path. Bye.

JULIAN: Bye.

LIZ: Bye.

[outro music]

PAZ: We clap.

LIZ: Podcast wrapped.

PAZ: We finished the first book!

JULIAN: Time.is. I know. [claps]

PAZ: It really has been so fun. Thank you guys for doing the podcast.

JULIAN: It's been really really nice. I've loved doing this.

LIZ: It's fun. I knew I was gonna have fun with the book, and of course you guys, but I got way more into the book than I thought I would.

JULIAN: Oh, I'm so glad.

PAZ: Me too. I'm back in it. Yeah, I forgot how much I liked this series.

JULIAN: Same.

LIZ: It's real good!

JULIAN: They're just funky little guys.

LIZ: That's the thing.

JULIAN: I'm really invested in all of their emotions

PAZ: Yeah, we haven't even hit the real like romance drama aspect of these books yet.

JULIAN: Oh God.

PAZ: Oh, it's gonna pop off. It gets wild.

LIZ: Paz has been showing me, like these characters way ahead of me that I'll never remember by the time we get there, but all these women cats just going apeshit, and I'm like yeah, I'm ready for this.

JULIAN: It's good.

PAZ: There's definitely some apeshit women.

LIZ: Oh, wait. We should also just clap before it gets too far.

JULIAN: Yes.

[meow]

PAZ: [typing] Okay, cat psychedelic substances.

JULIAN: You're gonna get put on so many watch lists.

PAZ: "Behavioral effects of LSD in the cat." What?

JULIAN: Who is giving the cats LSD?

PAZ: B. L. Jacobs, apparently. They fucking gave these cats LSD.

JULIAN: Why would they do that?

PAZ: "We talked to a scientist who gave LSD to cats back in the 70s."

JULIAN: Okay, back in the 70s it was a little easier to do shit.

PAZ: But no, I don't know if this was-- okay, yeah, this article was published in the 70s. I just notice. In the news article reporting on this, they have a picture of a cat, and the caption is, "photo of a presumably sober cat via Flickr."

"Reporter: So what do cats look like when they're on acid? Did they seem to have good trips?

Dr. Barry Jacobs: With a dog, I could have told you, right? Because he'd be wagging his tail and have a big smile on his face. The one thing I can tell you definitively is that none of them seemed fearful, meaning we studied cats for years in my laboratory. And what a typical fearful cat would do is crawl into the back of the cage. These are all done in cat cages, you know, big large, where they can move around, but nice and clean.

None of them crawled to the back of the chamber, and stood there looking at you in a fearful manner. That didn't happen. Some of them ran around like crazy people bounding around. Can I say that they were happy? No, I can't tell you about happiness. But they certainly seemed-- can I say they enjoyed it. They were really bounding around as opposed to having behaviors that looked fearful. And a lot of them stared for long periods of time."

JULIAN: Oh my god.

PAZ: They gave these cats acid. Oh god. "So why were they licking their paws so much? Maybe-- and this is a guess, maybe has something to do with increased sensitivity through their paws? That is, they felt something crawling on their paws, which would be very consistent with hallucinatory-like interpretation.

JULIAN: Oh no, the poor cats!

PAZ: "After the study was published, did you get any backlash from animal rights groups? No. This was a long time ago. Once we--" no. Well, um, we know that now.

JULIAN: Incredible.

PAZ: Aw.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's really sweet.

PAZ: No, I was looking at Ravenpaw trivia on the wiki. And it says--

JULIAN: Oh, I thought you were talking about the art that Liz linked.

PAZ: The art's also very cute. But the wiki trivia says Ravenpaw is revealed to be one of Vicky's two favorite cats because he is quote, "shy, says dumb things under pressure, and is much happier living outside the clan rather than the middle of a busy community governed by rules."

JULIAN: Aw.

#into the wild ep #transcript #xXBr0kenStarXx #ep 06

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luminaluna · 6 years

Text

NieR: Automata Ought to Matter

And not just because of my horribly cheesy puns. Do a quick check on the internet - some reviews on Metacritic, a few YouTube videos - and you’ll get the impression that a lot of people were taken aback by the quality of the game. NieR, the original game released in April of 2010, didn’t do so well. It gained a cult following for a handful of reasons that I’ll address later, but the overall consensus suggested that the game wasn’t anything special. Poor combat, lacking visuals and repetition were the most commonly cited problems from review outlets such as IGN and Kotaku. Then along comes an announcement from Square Enix that NieR was in for a sequel and everyone was just a little bemused.

I say all this without having had the benefit of first hand experience. I was an initiate to Yoko Taro when I first plunged into NieR: Automata. Like a lot of others, I picked up the game on the assurances that followed reviews of the sequel. This one was different, they said. Different in a lot of ways. And one of the reasons for that was Platinum games.

Platinum. The studio that focused on action combat games like Bayonetta. Their combat systems sought to provide fun and entertainment, with enough depth for gamers to sink their teeth into should they wish to really understand the mechanics. Their previous games received rave reviews (well… let's forget that one Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles title. Everyone tries to) so naturally, interest had sparked in their new collaboration before it was even released. Whilst the team up ultimately paid off, there was a sense of trepidation towards the other party.

Here’s where things start to get a little more… different. So you have a studio known for their excellent combat and a game director whose previous game in the same series was criticised for having dull combat. You’ve got the one thing needed to plug up the leak in an otherwise study ship right? All fine, except that ship is steered by Yoko Taro, and this captain likes sailing over rocks just to see how much damage he can do. Damage, in this sense, would be the emotional kind. NieR: Automata thankfully doesn’t suffer at all for Taro’s tendency to go off the map. In fact, that’s when it flourishes. Platinum games provide the base for which a story can be built, in which everything weaves around it perfectly.

When Yoko Taro spoke at the 2014 Games Developers Conference, he made a point of how he writes his stories: “Backwards script writing and photo thinking” he calls them. Backwards scriptwriting is just as it sounds. “It’s the process of creating cause of reason starting with the conclusion of the story.”

I must admit, this resonated with me as a writer. Often, I’ve had people ask me how I create characters or build plots. I always refer to it as a snowball effect. In my head, I begin with one point; a name, a personality trait or a scene. Then I start filling in the blanks. It’s never a conscious process. I hardly ask myself “I wonder what this character was doing when she was three years old?” or “What plot shall we add in order to give her character motivation?” As the ideas snowball, the answers to the questions follow. It tumbles down the hill picking up more snow as it goes.

In essence, this is what I felt when playing NieR: Automata for the first time, and later hearing Taro’s methodology, even with Taro snowballing from the ending. Everything comes together in such a way that when it does fly off the course you were expecting it to take, it still keeps going. It never feels outside the realm of the world you’ve created because everything serves the purpose of reinforcing that world and the characters.

Automata is a game that relies heavily on its characters. It’s world made be ruined, but the characters give it life. 2B and 9S, our initial protagonists, are introduced in the norms: on a mission. And it’s here that Platinum starts showing off its effortless play style. “B fights with class. Even as a beginner, you can tell you have in your hands a seasoned pro. She leaps with a grace and style that should be impossible in the high heels she’s wearing. But we don’t question it. By the end of the prologue, your heart is in your mouth thinking “They can’t possibly die like this?” as they detonate these black boxes they hold in order to complete their mission. But then, not a few seconds later, there they both stand. This tells us two things: one, the mission is above all else. And two, they are artificial. Man-made.

It’s then that everything starts tying into this. The upgrade system: a series of plug-in chips that can be collected, then inserted into your friendly androids for a variety of perks and benefits. The quick travel system, which has your body being stored and reassembled at the new location, your consciousness data being transferred. And the death and retrieval system. You want all your plugin chips after dying? No easy way around it. Go back to the site of your death to find your old battered body, and loot them from your corpse.

It’s a morbid system perhaps, one that other games like Darksouls have used in the past. And whilst Automata isn’t trying to go all Bloodborne on you, it does use these systems to enhance its story. Death isn’t something that just causes a restart. You lose yourself every time. A body is left in the place you failed and you must revisit it in order to gain what you lost. Wonderfully poetic, but also practically in Yoko Taro’s android driven world. If you fail to backup your data to the androids’ main base of operations, the Bunker, you’ll lose all of your data when you do die. Everything, and I mean everything, ties into the logic of this world. It makes it so tangibly real that you can't help but begin to care for these characters.

Who doesn’t play a game wanting the heroes to succeed? There are few exceptions, but Automata goes a step further. In another method of driving home what these androids go through, Taro makes you play the game again. NieR did this of course. To unlock certain endings, various different story requirements are met, and various perspectives need to be seen. Playing the first route of Automata alone is like only eating the crusts off a slice of pizza. You’re only getting the base, not the main sauce and cheese of the story.

But then, I hear you cry, why should someone have to play a game twice (theoretically) to get the most out of the content? Why should it be necessary to look deeper into the story when we get a basic, albeit thought-provoking story in the first route? Let me introduce to you, my dear friend, route B. A simple character perspective switch as it first seems. You’ll notice something upon starting up 9S’s story that you can’t believe you missed before when you first booted up the game: this is the first time we get a title screen. To me, this subconsciously marked the beginning of the real story. We’d just made our way through a ten-hour long prologue. And what Taro and his team do in this playthrough is subtle enough that you don’t think too much about it. The gameplay is once again changed, giving you wider tactical options and a little more access to loot the world now that you know the basic layout. Everything seems normal until you hit the desert area.

The strange cardboard style intermission appears on the screen and for a minute, you’re thrown for a loop. What was that? What relevance does it have to the story at all? So you think about it. And think about it more. Until another reveal comes later on when you reach another new area, and then 9S’s hacking abilities start revealing the inner workings of the supposedly evil machines you’re fighting.

I’m not suggesting that this dual perspective narrative is something that hasn’t been seen before - spoiler warning, that’s exactly how the first NieR game pulled its emotional punches - but it’s the way it’s implemented here that causes the new insights to slowly worm their way under your skin and unsettle you. Taro is setting you up for a fall and getting you through a largely similar playthrough with a breadcrumb trail of promises. “Hey, if you play some more, this might all start to make sense.”

It does, eventually. But only after the player embarks on their third playthrough and- hang on, aren’t we going back to the start? The repetition of the previous two acts lulls you into a false sense of security. 2B’s narration at the very beginning of the game sets you up to think there’s going to be more of the same; “We are perpetually trapped in a never-ending cycle of life and death.” Taro just straight up breaks the rule that is an established feature in video games: a new playthrough is a repeat of the game. Now the game continues, and whilst there are many more shocks to come, 9S has to deal with most of them. The perspective shift seen before becomes a protagonist shift.

I love Automata for doing this. The player has spent so much time with 2B, seen her as the face (yes, face) of the game that losing her is as shocking to us as it is to 9S. It’s expected, but that doesn’t make it any less unbelievable when it does happen. I would argue here that 9S is the main protagonist of the whole game. We see his journey from small sidekick to emotionally broken crusader, fighting for revenge. He’s the smarter one, the one who figures it all out. Yet he can’t handle losing 2B and losing his purpose soon after. He snowballs, just like I would with a story. But his snowball is more the kind that breaks windows then ends up being the base of a snowman.

Two things become apparent from these later acts of Automata’s story. Firstly, Taro knows how attached he wants you to feel to these characters. You could almost say he’s being emotionally manipulative. The false sense of security is ripped away from the player after their two repetitions of the same story, thus the second half of the game feels off the rails and unpredictable even when we can guess what will happen next. Secondly, the story is no less at the forefront of the game's design. You could go as far as to say that the story is one of the main designs of the game. Critics and creators often keep these things separate, the story a secondary thought to the game's mechanics, weaving it around what already exists to hold it loosely together. But Automata’s story defines so many of its gameplay mechanics that it is equally important. The features that run from the early gameplay - the death system or plug-in chips - continue throughout, and then the game uses the multiple playthrough concepts, one which is usually just a shallow attempt at extending gameplay hours, to enhance the story.

The truth is, we don’t see enough of these games anymore. This year's releases have placed a much greater importance on the open world exploration style of gameplay we’ve seen in older RPG’s. Games such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Skyrim (which is still being newly released on systems even six years after it’s initial launch) all have good stories. But they aren’t tied into the gameplay as much as NieR: Automata threads it’s narrative into every aspect of the game. Nintendo has shared their philosophy on making great games time and time again. They begin with a fundamental “clear concept and then do as much with that concept as the time will allow” according to Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto. And this works brilliantly. There’s no way to say with is better: putting story first, or gameplay first. But what Yoko Taro does is fundamentally the same as Miyamoto states. Instead of taking a gameplay concept and making it the key to the game, with Taro it’s the narrative concept. Though we do not know the exact scene that sparked Automata’s story like we do with NieR’s, suffice to say it would have involved androids, or if we want to get a tad more specific, mechanical lifeforms fighting each other in an attempt to understand life.

Because underneath all the swerves in narrative, the protagonist changes and the lolita dressed androids, there is always that philosophy that 2B starts out with. What is life? And why is an android talking of life if they aren’t considered living beings? NieR: Automata doesn’t allow you to create your own story out of your experiences (though this is very much possible in some of the more open areas of the game), but invites you to question it alongside the main characters. Games are such a unique platform for telling stories and NieR: Automata should be applauded for the risks it takes in its narrative brutality and refusal to treat gameplay and story as two different entities. We need more games that are willing to take risks with the stories they want to tell, and in particular, ones that put so much detail and care into the presentation as they can. Yoko Taro and Platinum games marry together narrative and gameplay in an intrinsic way that gives NieR: Automata its identity. In a landscape of the world, make-your-own-story games, Automata shows why a linear story can still be relevant, and how games are the perfect medium to tell stories that can’t be told through anything else.

And that’s why Automata ought to matter.

Yoko Taro: Making Weird Games for Weird People - https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020815/Making-Weird-Games-for-Weird

#s; vague hope #nier automata #rambling about automata and trying to sound semi professional #it's not working #sorry people in the tags.

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