If you skipped or never got to Dawn of the Clans, like many fans have,

I am putting in a recommendation right now that you go read it, because, while not flawless,

this story is probably one of the best full arcs in the series.

If you don't want to, you don't have to,

and I won't be getting into too many spoilers beyond the first book and a half or so.

But you should. Now. Go read it.

The dynamic between main characters Gray Wing and his brother Clear Sky is one of the best in the series,

and both characters have numerous fans.

However, unlike with a pairing like Dovewing and Ivypool,

there are plenty of people who understand and appreciate both sides of their conflict,

and grew to love both characters over the course of the arc.

Almost the whole cast is worthy of admiration, in fact,

with the future Shadowclan and Windclan leaders Tall Shadow and Wind Runner being standouts.

And the setting itself provides a really unique perspective for the series.

It takes place in the forest territory, but before the clans and borders were established.

There's no warrior code,

which leads not only to more desperation and death than the series has been willing to use for a while,

but also to more comradery and balance between clans.

There are friends, even families, that cross all the borders,

and even when cats are gone we never drop them from the story completely.

Family is a big theme throughout the story, and it's utilized beautifully,

with some heart wrenching scenes and relationships you can't help but get attached to.

But the arc isn't flawless.

Even within the family dynamics that make me adore the story,

Dawn of the Clans has some of the most egregious examples of adoption erasure in the series,

and it isn't doing particularly well on the gender front either.

The two most interesting she-cats are sidelined far more than they should be

and many others are just there to be love interests or stock characters to kill off.

Like all of the arcs by the modern Warriors team, the quality and purpose drops off after the end of the third book,

with strange choices in the plot, characters, and some villains that were seemingly pulled out of the ether.

But of all the issues the arc has, the one I want to talk about is Thunder.

The Sun Trail, the first book, doesn't have Thunder in it at all, and it's great.

It gets a lot done and introduces you well both to the cast of characters,

the new setting, and the conflict the arc will deal with.

But Thunder Rising, as the title might imply, introduces Thunder as a point-of-view character

and it is quickly made clear that he doesn't live up to the arc he's a part of.

First and foremost, he just isn't very interesting.

His primary narrative function in Thunder Rising is showing how bad life in Clear Sky's camp is.

Clear Sky picks favorites, Thunder included among them,

and treats them better while everyone else is jealous and competitive.

The default stance is fierce, mean, and sometimes vindictive.

But Thunder himself is little more than a window into the story of Clear Sky's camp without any interesting traits of his own.

It's difficult to sympathize with his desire to be in this camp at all

when he was abandoned by Clear Sky from his birth and raised by Gray Wing,

who never kept it a secret what Clear Sky had done to Thunder and the rest of his family and friends.

The book does *try* to put in the fact that Thunder isn't good at running for rabbits on the moor,

and that he's better at stalking things so the woods are a better fit

but it doesn't present that as his primary reason for leaving Gray Wing or staying with Clear Sky.

He just wants to be with his biological dad.

Everything about his conflict we already understand perfectly well from Gray Wing's point of view,

and really Thunder could be a far better presence in the narrative if you as the reader could openly hate him for Gray Wing's sake,

rather than being in his head, where you're expected to gain sympathy for him while you're told over and over

that he wants to abandon his adoptive father to stay in the oppressive woods of his biological father.

The other issue is that there were other characters who needed Thunder's spot as a point-of-view character far more.

Wind Runner and Tall Shadow are clearly the ones in real conflict for this book.

Tall Shadow especially with all that she goes through.

She is railed against as a leader, has to see her brother hurt and dying,

deal with her feelings on outsiders and Clear Sky separately, and give up her position as a leader,

all while doing her best to seem strong and confident.

She is an emotionally strong she-cat, but she clearly has turmoil going on in her head through this book

that we'd be able to see and understand if we had her point of view.

Even if you did want a point of view within Clear Sky's camp, without making Clear Sky himself the focus,

Thunder still wasn't the best option.

Dawn of the Clans already had Jagged Peak, Clear Sky and Gray Wing's younger brother who,

like Thunder, joined Clear Sky's camp because he idolized his brother,

and like Thunder, learned the hard way what his values truly were and came to join the moor camp instead.

But unlike Thunder, Jagged Peak knew Clear Sky before they came to the forest,

and already looked up to him for his skill and initiative in the mountains.

Jagged Peak had an interesting personality and journey of his own:

he was optimistic, eager, skilled in climbing trees and hunting in the woods, but also reckless.

His recklessness led him to leave the mountains on his own as little more than a kit;

It led him to follow Clear Sky into the woods in the first place; and it led him to get hurt, and be cast out.

Thunder, in his chapters, is there to see almost every bad thing Clear Sky does to his family and the other cats in the forest,

and feels uncomfortable about it often, in his head.

But whenever these discomforts arise, he pushes them down and declares that

Clear Sky must be a good cat, because he's my father!

With Thunder we see how bad life is in Clear Sky's camp

but from the perspective of a cat still trying to hang on to hope that Clear Sky is a great guy somehow, with no reason for it.

Now, Thunder, if you ever knew this tom before the forest like the rest of the cats who came from the mountains,

maybe I would believe your conviction that he's a good cat.

But you grew up with a loving dad who told you what Clear Sky has done, even to you specifically,

and you never got to speak with him before you joined his camp, let alone before he was the leader of this group.

Perhaps if he was your brother that you've known all your life who you looked up to

for being such a great hunter and leader with a passionate spirit,

perhaps then you would have a reason to think fondly of him.

What you are seeing now would conflict with what you knew of him before, and you would have reason to trust him.

Too bad that isn't the case.

But as my tone might have implied, that could have been the case for Jagged Peak.

If Jagged Peak was the new point-of-view character for the second book, and Thunder didn't exist,

we could move his injury to the end of this book instead of The Sun Trail.

Then we could have this whole book to see him in Clear Sky's group trying to justify what happened

and have Gray Wing and the others in the moor group watch him stand by as Clear Sky's actions lead to the deaths of Misty and Bumble.

Then *Jagged Peak* could be the one to stand up and say enough is enough,

and when he gets his injury and is kicked out, he would understand his opinion never mattered.

He stood by someone who didn't care about him.

The cat he put on a pedestal didn't deserve it.

That could be a truly compelling story, and all because we would see him with his own personality,

making his own choices, and facing the consequences himself rather than just seeing other cats suffer.

With Jagged Peak as a protagonist in the future you could have flashbacks in his point-of-view

to the nice things Clear Sky did when Jagged Peak was his favorite,

but use them together with memories of other cats being jealous or Clear Sky throwing him out

to realize how bad that environment was.

He could have fond memories of Clear Sky, even knowing how awful his actions were.

He would have mixed emotions!

Nuance! Amazing!

And if he took over for Thunder,

either by changing Jagged Peak's name from the beginning to something that could become Thunderstar

or by giving Thunderclan a different reason to have that name,

it would mean one of the original leaders had a permanent injury,

but was obviously still a strong, respected, talented warrior,

which would be some great and sorely needed disabled representation.

As a happy little bonus, not having Thunder would negate the need for Storm to exist,

taking away one of the bland as cardboard she-cats for Gray Wing to blindly fawn over and Clear Sky to take before they die.

You really only need that plotline once...if ever.

Boy I spent a lot of this Thunder episode not talking about Thunder, didn't I?

Well, maybe that's the way it should be.

Thunder is a bland blot on the beautiful world of Dawn of the Clans,

and an even more ludicrous choice for a point-of-view character

keep close eyes even on those you idolize... Admiration tends to fog the glass.