Let's Read: Warrior Cats Series

[The Lion Queen]

hi guys, sorry for not posting for awhile

[Arcaii]

Don't worry about it! We're all over the place lately, you haven't missed much.

[Arcaii]

Warriors Musings - Language, Part Two

Prefixes and Suffixes

I have an entire thread dedicated to names, but the type of name isn't important. For the sake of efficiently explaining my point, though, I will be using traditionalism.

One of the most important parts of warrior culture is naming. Names come in two parts - prefix and suffix. The prefix is given at birth and will remain with the cat until they die or receive an injury worth renaming for. Suffixes, however, change at least three times in a cat's life; up to five times if the cat is both renamed and becomes leader. We're going to use an example name: Cherryfur, which here means "has the color of cherry".

Since the names in English are two-parted, we can assume that they are the same in the feline tongue.

Cherry fur
(Thay-min)

But what if a name carries multiple meanings? Cherry- could refer to the bark of the tree, or the flower, or the fruit, which all have different colors. This is easily solved if the prefix had two parts to it - one part referring to something, and the second part referring to what specific trait the thing has.

Cherry (flower) fur
(Thay-ein-min)
(Thayein-min)

The name could also be shortened for efficiency (feral cats do like to be quiet and quick, and more than two words in a name is wasting time).

Thaein-min
Thain-min
Thayn-min

This does bring up one trouble - if a cat is named Cherryflower, and the name refers to the flower of the tree, the name might be repetitive. I'll get into that shortly. For right now, let's continue about prefixes.

I previously discussed what letters would be more common with what subjects. There are four types of prefixes, and each would have a common letter/sound to them:

Animals - this breaks into three sub-categories: animals that can hurt you, animals you eat, and animals that are neither (bees and spiders, for example). Animals the cats would regularly have to go up against would be given R's, S's and Ao's to simulate the sound of fighting; prey would have M's, N's and purr-like sounds for the sense of a possible meal; neutral animals would be given Th's, T's and P's, since they don't really affect the cats.
Weather - while generally silent, the rain and wind do sometimes create noise. Perhaps H's, Oo's and Sh's would be the best letters/sounds.
Plants - they can be helpful or dangerous, provide cover or give you away to your potential food. These names would run the gambit of letters, with a slight preference for Th's, S's and N's.
Colors - these are way different to the other three, because colors are more of a concept than a physical thing. A color can't hurt you like a fox, or feed you like a squirrel. They're abstract, like StarClan and emotions - these would probably be given unusual letters like C's, L's and B's.

As for suffixes...

I imagine that the best translation from Feline to English would be body parts or objects, even though the suffix describes a skill or personality trait, simply because of its efficiency. The point of a suffix is to tell us what the cat is all about in as short a time as possible.

For example, Thain-rē means "a cat colored like the flowers of a cherry tree who is naturally fast"; "rē" means "fast". We don't have a specific term for people who are naturally quick. We have names for people whose job is to be fast, but for a cat, it isn't a job, it's a skill. Whether or not that skill is used in their actual job is debatable (a fast cat in ThunderClan isn't necessary, since the prey there requires stealth and agility), but it's a skill nonetheless. So it should have a specific term, much like silflay for rabbits. The best translation of that skill name would be the body part the skill is used with.

Of course, it would get more metaphorical with personality traits or certain abilities. Cherrystrongmorals is a little lengthy, and I wouldn't want to call a skilled mother Cherrynursing. It follows the same concept - "heart" in our language meaning "an idealistic and strong-willed cat" in theirs, but they have a specific word for that type of personality.

I did mention that a cat whose name means "the flower of ____" might cause some problems with the suffix "flower". However, I suggest that "flower" doesn't genuinely mean flower - it means "mother" or "nursery". "Flower" is just the most efficient word for that skill in English.

Likewise, -fur, -pelt and -stripe don't just refer to the pelt of a cat because they aren't skilled enough or have a specific personality for another suffix. Rather, they would be a much shorter version of saying "this cat is a warrior with traits that don't have specific names, but are still a useful, if unconventional, gift to the Clan". A warrior shouldn't feel ashamed or disappointed for becoming a -fur/-pelt/-stripe - I'd argue that these suffixes actually carry the implication of being special all on their own.

Part 3 coming soon!

[PrinceRazril]

Whew, ok, I have a lot to say. I'm so happy I found a thread where I can vent about all this freely. I'm sure all of this has been stated before in this thread, but I gotta get it off my chest in my own words.
Here goes, i guess:



So, first order of business: Firestar. Do I even need to say anything else?
I'm sure almost every fan of the series was so tired of him by the end of it. I had no problem with him in the first series. There were a few things about him that had annoyed me before the end of the first series, but they weren't really that founded, and more of my own biased opinion than anything. There's a lot that I could go into, but what annoyed me the most was that he was over-glorified. They literally turned him into Cat Jesus (sorry if this comment offends you). I was so, so sick of him by the time he finally died (for real). Everything in the entire series came down to him. I hated his little goody-two-shoes role. He was one of the biggest god mod/gary sue characters in any series I have ever read. There's so much more I want to say, but I want to move on to other problems I have.

Next: The older characters. The cats like Graystripe, Sandstorm, Mistystar, Brackenfur, the list goes on. They were alive for far too long, as it has been stated before in this thread. In the other clans, the cats come and go. but these cats were just favored. I understand the importance of main or major characters, but this was taking it too far. Even major characters die. These cats were practically immortal. I was so relieved by the time Dustpelt finally passed.

Firestar's daughters. I'm going to start with Squirrelflight first. It's my own biased opinion, but I didn't like her from the start. There are certain cases with characters that can pull off being snobby, extremely stubborn, impatient, ect. Squirrelflight just isn't one of them. On another note when it comes to her: I didn't respect Bramblestar's choice in making her deputy. I was furious that he had. He was showing personal favoritism; There were so many other cats who were far better suited to the role than she was. There was a little comic strip at the end of Bramblestar's Storm. In it, it was revealed that Squirrelflight was expecting Bramblestar's kits. I can only hope that she didn't remain deputy while this was happening.
On to Leafpool. The entire ordeal with her and Crowfeather was quite hectic. But what really irked me the most about it was that she got off easy on the punishment. Not allowed to be medicine cat. Ok. Mapleshade was exiled from ThunderClan for taking a mate from another clan. Both she and her kits ended up dying, as we know. Leafpool not only broke the Warrior Code my taking a mate from another clan, but the Medicine Cat Code as well by even having a mate in all. Her punishment wasn't nearly as severe as it could have been. I'm not trying to hate on her, I sort of respected her for her hardships, if you can call them that. It just annoyed me that she was "let of the hook" in a sense. but I digress.


Ashfur didn't deserve to be in StarClan with all the stuff he pulled. Bluestar explained to Jayfeather that his only fault was that he loved too much. Ashfur tried to kill 4 of his clanmates (Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, Jayfeather, and Firestar) to punish Squirrelflight for not loving him. There were cats who had gone to the dark forest for less severe occurances. One again, favoritism is shown.

The Power Of Three irritated me as well. I didn't like the idea of the cats having powers, even if it was only a select few. And another thing that annoyed me was that all of them were in ThunderClan.

Even though Leafpool was banished from being medicine cat, she still ended up being the medicine cat again, even if it was as Jayfeather's "apprentice." I was actually annoyed that Briarlight hadn't become his apprentice. But, once again, that's my own opinion.


There is so much more that I could say on each matter, but then again, I've never been that great of a critical thinker. I only hope to add on to what other people say in this thread in the future.

[Arcaii]

Welcome to the Rage Party, PM! Glad to have you on board.

[MockSun]

Random question I want to put out there: What would you do to make Firestar less of a sue? I'm currently playing him in a roleplay where we can make changes to the books, and he's definitely getting a few things about him changed. Any advice on where to start?

[hqmary]

Well, he could be less of a natural hunter, and have more problems with clan life. Other cats could hate him more, he doesn't become the leader, and he dies in his rightful time.

[Atheon]

[agathokakologic]

Random question I want to put out there: What would you do to make Firestar less of a sue? I'm currently playing him in a roleplay where we can make changes to the books, and he's definitely getting a few things about him changed. Any advice on where to start?

At Gatherings, NOT FRIGGIN HAVE HIM BE ALL CALM AND AGREEABLE WHILE THE OTHER LEADERS ARE HOSTILE. GOSH.
thats the thing that made me dislike Firestar after the first series actually ;p

[Mr. Cloudwhisker]

Random question I want to put out there: What would you do to make Firestar less of a sue? I'm currently playing him in a roleplay where we can make changes to the books, and he's definitely getting a few things about him changed. Any advice on where to start?

At Gatherings, NOT FRIGGIN HAVE HIM BE ALL CALM AND AGREEABLE WHILE THE OTHER LEADERS ARE HOSTILE. GOSH.
thats the thing that made me dislike Firestar after the first series actually ;p

Oh my gosh yes. I don't think there is one scene in the book where the charicter with the point of veiw in that chapter voices their opinion at a gathering. O-O