If you are or know someone who would like to learn about warriors but has had difficulty getting into the series so far with the mounds and mounds of material you need to learn, then you've come to the right place.

I aim to use this video as a bit of a canon and fandom introduction to the most basic elements you would need in order to start the books or interact with the fanbase.

I have a section with light spoilers at the end, but the majority of the video will be spoiler-free, so that if you are someone who wants to understand the lore but wants to be able to read the books for yourself, you have that chance.

Warrior Cats is a fantasy-adventure book series about cats who live in the wild, mostly those in one of several clans.

At the time of writing, it has seven completed six-book arcs, all with different main casts and stories, and an eighth arc with five of its six books released.

In addition, there is a variety of supplemental material to learn about different pieces of lore and dive into certain characters with more specificity.

There are sixteen, soon-to-be-seventeen super editions, books longer than a normal main series novel that usually tell the story of a particular character or plot element that was otherwise glossed over or skipped in the main series, twenty-one novellas, much shorter stories focusing on a single character as they try to go through an important portion of their life, which are contained in seven novella packs, nine manga or graphic novel stories, which tell a character's story through the lens of a full-length comic, and four guidebooks, or five, counting the ultimate guide, which are compilations of lore, character descriptions, and short stories for days in the lives of the clans, all without an overall narrative.

In a few months, we will also be getting the first entry in a graphic novel adaptation of the first arc of the series.

With that out of the way, it's time to explain exactly how you should read these books.

Now that we have, by some count, a hundred and seven different books across all different sorts of media, and three more on the way by the end of this year alone, it's a daunting prospect to get into the series in the way you might want to.

With that in mind, I have five different possible reading orders for you to choose from, all of which are written in full in the Google Docs, which I have shared with you in the description.

The first list is one I've titled, Learn the World, because it only covers the material you need to understand the world of the clans and some of the basic characters and lore elements that will come up most often in the fandom.

Read these books and you'll be ready to hop into role plays, a lot of fan fiction, and at least some of the fan discussions.

You'll be hard to find a fan that doesn't know the content from these books.

The second and third are both minimal orders, for the nostalgic and modern stories respectively.

Both orders consist entirely, or almost entirely, of the main series books, but in the nostalgic list, I suggest that you cover only the first four arcs, since they functioned as unique era in Warriors' history, and a lot of fans you'll come across won't have read past the end of the fourth arc.

If you read this, you should know enough about Warriors to get by in most discussions or talk with fans about what other individual books or arcs are best to read on their own.

The modern list, on the other hand, is aimed to get you caught up to the present as quickly as possible, so you could hypothetically start reading and or participating in discussions about the newest books when they come out.

This means that, in addition to the main series, there are a couple of super editions included here, but only the most essential ones that build up the backstory and present of a certain group who will be introduced in the sixth arc and play a major role from then on.

The third order is the order of the books.

The benefit of this is that Warriors is a series with a lot of compounding lore, retcons, and prequels, so if you read it in this order, you won't be as blindsided by elements that were retconned into existence after the publishing of the material it is retconning.

However, because this means committing to all 107 stories in the existing series, I would only recommend it if you have quite a bit of time and want to get very familiar with every aspect of Warriors, or participate deeply in fan discussions and analysis.

You won't get through this list quickly, which is absolutely fine.

Just know if you choose this method, you'll be reading for a while before you catch up.

This list still begins with the first two full arcs as usual, so once you finish those, you can decide whether or not you would want to continue with the release order or one of the minimal lists with ease.

The final order I would recommend is a chronological order, but a simplified one.

As I mentioned, Warriors has a lot of prequels and retcons and stories that overlap or contradict each other in the timeline, so I wouldn't ultimately recommend a chronological read to anyone for their first experience with the books.

Even the list I have included for this order is a bit altered, with the aim of avoiding supplementary material spoiling too many major main series plot beats before you have read them and giving each book only one place on the timeline.

And I did that because the actual Warriors timeline looks more like this.

This took four days to make, and believe it or not, several aspects of contradictory timing or the minutiae of which stories exactly come before others are still left off.

The timeline is also included in the drive since it is an order for the Warriors books, but really, don't introduce yourself to the series by reading it like this.

If you're a veteran who has already read the whole series, though, it might honestly be an interesting experience to try reading the books in a fully chronological way.

That said, while I'll always argue reading the books is the best way to learn about them, it's hard to be motivated to read something without any knowledge about its contents.

With that in mind, I can at least let you in on the basics of the Warriors world.

In the wild, there are groups of cats called clans, who live together in a certain part of the forest.

They all live separately, on their own territories, with their own food sources, and it is highly controversial for any cat to cross over, either on foot or in their heart, with cats from other clans.

However, the clans do ultimately work together, more alike to each other than to the kitty pets, their name for house cats, loners, cats living alone, and other groups of cats in the world.

The clans all have the same structure and history, live under the same warrior code that governs their actions, and meet each month on the full moon to gather and share news and peace.

Even more importantly, all of them look to StarClan, the spirits of the fallen clan cats, to guide them, send them prophecies, and grant them good fortune as they head into various dangers.

Once upon a time, it is said that StarClan was the body to demand that the wild cats of the forest become warriors, and it was they who chose the first leaders of the clans, and granted them nine lives so they could fearlessly protect their clanmates for a long time.

ThunderClan went to the forests, with dense undergrowth, where careful and precise stalking would be a necessity to catch the mice and squirrels that darted along the floor.

ShadowClan instead went to the swamps, with thick trees overhead, creating a limited prey supply and reliance on frogs, stealth in the dark, and protectiveness over their resources to get by.

WindClan roamed the moors, vast fields of grassland unbroken by trees where they could always see their ancestors in the sky, and relied on their ultimate speed to chase down rabbits.

Finally, RiverClan stayed along the banks of a river, where no one would dare to invade, and prey was always plentiful in the form of fish, if you had the sharp reflexes and comfort around water to catch them.

Each clan has a leader, a deputy, chosen by the leader to lead day-to-day activities, who will become the next leader, and a medicine cat, who connects to and passes messages on from StarClan, as well as healing the sick and injured.

The rest of the cats in a clan are warriors, save for apprentices training to become them, kits too young to train, and elders too old to work.

The warriors can, for a time, become queens while they are expecting or nursing their kits.

If you're looking to dive into the books or interact with the fandom in certain ways, that information might be enough.

A lot of roleplays in some fanfiction, for instance, doesn't revolve around any specific character or plot from the books, but just the world and lore.

That said, most of the animations you'll find, a large portion of the fanfiction, and almost all of the discussion and analysis will instead be centered around one or more characters or plots from the books.

Because of that, to share more information, I will have to delve into a few light spoilers.

So if you want to jump into the books with the concept alone, hop off here.

When it comes to characters, there's no one better to start with than Fireheart, the protagonist of the first arc, a leader and role model for several arcs after, and a legend to the clans ever since.

He was born a kittypet and taken by ThunderClan when they were low on warriors, and the medicine cat was given a prophecy that fire would save their clan.

He found good friends in Graystripe, Ravenpaw, Sandstorm, and others, and eventually, with his connections, determination, and curiosity, managed to take down Tigerclaw, an ambitious warrior who killed to become leader of ThunderClan, and nearly succeeded.

Even so, Tigerclaw went on to be leader of ShadowClan instead, while Fireheart rose to be Firestar in ThunderClan, and they continued to clash, despite Tigerstar's death at the hands of an edgy outsider named Scourge, the leader of another group called BloodClan.

The rivalry between Firestar and Tigerstar was the main plot across the first arc, and a lot of what will be familiar to fans even who read beyond it.

After the first arc, Firestar also learned about the Lost Fifth Clan, SkyClan, which had been driven from the forest when their territory was taken over by Twolegs, their name for people.

Firestar went away to a gorge and reformed the clan with Leafstar as its leader, and since then, the clan grew and lived on its own with its own cast and culture.

The second arc showed the clan's finding and moving to a new territory, the lake, and at the center of that journey was Brambleclaw, Tigerstar's son who struggles with his identity and place in the clan before becoming deputy at the end of the arc.

Squirrelflight, Firestar's daughter and a heroic and assertive cat in her own right, also went on the journey with him and became his maid at the end of the arc, but not before briefly courting Ashfur, who was extremely interested in her.

Squirrelflight's sister Leafpool, the medicine cat, also fell in love with Crowfeather from WindClan, but they split up since it was against the warrior code for them to be together, and Leafpool needed to take care of her clan.

Now here's where we get really tricky, because if there's anything that ever manages to eclipse the first arc in terms of how much content is made about it, it is this.

Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw have three kits.

Jayfeather, a grumpy medicine cat, Hollyleaf, a code-obsessed warrior, and Lionblaze, a big brute with anger issues.

Two of these three kits...

have superpowers.

Jayfeather can see others' feelings and sometimes thoughts and always their dreams and sometimes their memories, and Lionblaze can't be beaten, except when he is, and can't be hurt, except when he is.

Hollyleaf, however, has no power.

All three were threatened by Ashfur as a way to hurt Squirrelflight, but she revealed that they weren't her kits, letting them go free, but destroying their relationship with her.

Ashfur then ends up dead, and we later learn that Hollyleaf killed him and Leafpool and Crowfeather were their birth parents.

Hollyleaf tells the clans everything and runs away in shame, and Jayfeather and Lionblaze are left to find the real third cat with powers, Dovewing, who can smell and see things very far away.

Dovewing also has a sister, Ivypool, who becomes jealous of how successful and rewarded Dovewing is.

Dovewing just wants to reach out and be close to Ivypool, but keeps being told she can't because of the importance of their prophecy.

This dynamic heavily features in a lot of fan media, animation in particular.

Ivypool ends up joining the Dark Forest, the bad counterpart to StarClan, along with a lot of other clan cats, and at the end of the arc, they launch a battle on the clans that does end in failure, but also in several deaths.

It is here where Firestar and Tigerstar faced off one more time, and both died.

At this point in the series' history, we have an arc about the founding of the clans, in particular surrounding a cat called Greywing, a careful and compassionate tom, and his brother Clearsky, the first leader of SkyClan, who is extremely defensive, aggressive, and becomes obsessed with borders to protect what they have.

This dynamic, and the arc in general, isn't as popular in the fandom, but it does come up in discussions.

From there, we ran back to the present with Alderheart, an anxious medicine cat, and two sisters separated into different clans, the bitter Violetshine and the flighty Twigbranch, both of whom are revealed to be kits from SkyClan.

SkyClan itself comes back in this arc, driven out of their own territory by the arc's antagonist.

In the seventh arc, Ashfur returns again as a ghost, and possesses Brambleclaw, now Bramblestar.

Squirrelflight and our protagonists, Rootspring, Bristlefrost, and Shadowsight, have to stop him and the clans and the Dark Forest alike.

As part of that journey, Shadowsight the medicine cat lost his connection with his ancestors, and Bristlefrost sacrificed her life, leaving Rootspring devastated since they were planning to be mates.

Finally, we come to the present with Frostpaw, a medicine cat in RiverClan, and Sunbeam and Nightheart, now a couple in ThunderClan.

Frostpaw is definitely at the center of the arc's plot, with her clan's leadership being killed and villains taking over as she is tasked with solving it all, since she is the only one with a connection to StarClan, but all three characters are being discussed a lot since this arc is ongoing.

In general, all of the personalities and character relationships in this series, both familial and romantic, can be a bit nebulous and inconsistent, so a lot of the fandom has spent time beefing up the existing stories through writing, animation, or headcanons to make it more understandable, meaningful, or personal.

A concrete understanding of every detail in the series is rarely needed, but if you are going to get deeper into the fandom, I would recommend watching my video on the Warriors Pipeline to understand the meta part.

For now, I hope this has helped you to get an extremely brief understanding of Warriors, and that, if you decide to jump into the books or fan content from here, you will have enough information to get by and see what you personally want to look more into.

Have fun out there.

This series is wild, inconsistent, and frustrating at times, but it can honestly be interesting and heartfelt as well.

I hope you enjoy your journeys into the wild.

Thank you for watching, and always remember that Battle Kitty books are more complicated than you could imagine.

Bye!