Bro same! I was the second in command admin at one point of a Warriors rp forum and I felt (I still do, actually) so proud of myself lmao. I needed to leave the house more...
When people tell me it's a book series for kids, I love to say "oh yeah, I loved this one scene where a cat named Scourge kills another cat named Tigerstar by using dog-teeth/bone laced claws and ripping him open, and I quote 'from throat to tail'. And the wildest part about it was Tigerstar had multiple lives, and usually when a leader sustains a deadly injury, they die for a moment and come back. But he was so messed up that he could only lay there and gargle on his own blood, dying and waking back up until he lost them all. It was wild" No response.
My favorite thing about the Warriors fandom is everyone's innate need to spoil the books for people who show interest in starting them. Not one comment section on anything relating to introducing the series to new people can be spoiler free. It's pathetic.
I literally just used this to explain how it is believable that there are just some wounds that can't be healed, not even by magic. It was in reference to FXIV where we can rez, but never seem to rez our friends when they die in the story. This attack by Scourge to Tigerstar shaped the way I think about magic trying to heal wounds.
The best thing that came out of being a Warrior Cats fan growing up is being able to tell people who have no knowledge of this series beyond "YA cat books for kids" the death of Tigerstar
@@exitsexaminedthat and the amount of visceral descriptions during birth giving and death scenes feel very... game of thrones-y. They've kiddie-fied it later on, but, shit, dude. That was disgusting
@@echidna7970 lmao as someone who absolutely lovessss Warrior Cats and a fan who’s keeping up with the most recent episodes of House Of The Dragon ( finished GOT ) I can safely say that these 2 series ARE indeed QUITE alike. They both have SOOOOOO MANY characters, to the point where you often forget names, some characters having little backstory on parents ( which forces you to go onto the wiki for explanation ) but in the end being very entertaining with the insane battles and political intrigue. Firestar and Jon Snow are great protags that audiences can easily side with due to their uniqueness ( one being a kittypet, the other being a bastard ) and having a good set of morals that makes them immediately likable. Along with a child seeing something they were NOT suppose to see ( Ravenpaw seeing redtail getting murdered, Bran seeing… well THAT ) etcetcetc it’s extremely fun seeing how alike the series REALLY are haha.
Unless you lived in Germany at that time, the german books always had giant cat faces on the covers! So at least he described my experience discovering the books pretty accurately 😂
I read all the way up till Firestar left us. And I f*cking cried and put the books down and said I was done. There's not been a better Warriors protagonist since his series, and I just couldn't keep going knowing he was gone.
I actually had the exact same reaction, even went as far as to scramble on a bit of paper how in the next arc he was going to be revived because StarClan would have realised they'd messed up. Then I learned the next arc was the prequels and I wouldn't get to read about Firestar, I just stopped the series. And then 3 years later I read the whole thing again, then caught up with the later arcs and to this day I keep reading (and crying) about these StarClan-damned cats
@@fabiopauli420 Oooh Whitestorm was a great character too. I actually don't remember how I felt when he died cause it was so long ago, but it must have affected me quite a bit as well, since Whitestorm is still among my favourite characters of the series
@@vickypedia1308 The books are just badly written, at one point you just read them and then you feel like you are being bamboozled because the authos themselves don't really know what's going on I lost interest because of that, not cuz of "cats do war" or anything like that
I will never escape the fact that I got into tabletop roleplaying games because I was obsessed with the now-defunct WarriorCatsRPG forum. My favorite hobby as an adult got latched into my brain because I used to roleplay a cat on a forum.
Whoa, what is the WarriorCatsRPG forum? Is that different from the tabletop RPG? If this is another thing I'll have to add a correction to the description!
@exitsexamined in my experience it is different cuz it's text based so your characters can get into way more long discussions and politics and religion stuff than in a dnd game which is more "Do x y z to kill the creature". Ik dnd can have long discussions too but you're not literally writing an essay from the point of your character
@@exitsexamined Forum boards roleplay has been around for a while, i can't speak to the warrior cats board but i did see it around. i used to roleplay wolves in this fashion. Forum RP is different from tabletop RP in that there can be more time between responses, responses can be multiple paragraphs, there are no "skill checks" or can you do this or that? as long as you can create a plausible way for your four legged animal to do something, they can do it. my old board had a system for fighting but that was only because fights involving two characters played by two people needed a form of mediation to prevent "my character wins because they're simply better" things like "god modding" or making another characters choices for them were very frowned upon. but yeah, it's very likely that the warrior cats forum board developed their own lore in regards to families and dynamics and what form of drama was happening. i find forum RPers also focus far more on character dynamics, drama and building relationships than table top players. table top players tend to focus on action and fighting and taking their party on a journey instead of chatting up bill over there just because you happen to be at the same river bank and then accomplishing nothing meaningful because of it.
There was a flood and food and territories have become rare. They think their prophet will help them but it turns out he is a false prophet. Meanwhile there is a prophecy that 3 pandas would become the new prophets or something but the current one doesn't want to become outed as a liar and fake prophet so he spends the series trying to kill the 3 main pandas or make them joining him by manipulating them and also kills other pandas who find out his secret
nearly 20 years old and it’s like i have a soul tie to this series 😭 i wont be able to escape until the series ends and even then i’ll never be able to deny how much these books have impacted me
I'm about to turn 20 lol. The thing that got me into the series as a kid were all the animatiom projects here on youtube. They are all so good it's insane. I loved this series so much. Even my first manga was a warrior cats book named 'the rise of scourge' lol.
The atheism thing actually makes sense to me, especially with Mothwing. She was so excited to be a medicine cat, and so nervous to meet StarClan. They didn't come to her. She found out her own brother faked the sign that made the clan believe she was destined to be a medicine cat. How could StarClan let that happen, if they were really there? Wouldn't they stop the evil and lying, or at the very least, tell Mothwing or their leader that she shouldn't be the medicine cat? I don't blame her for rejecting StarClan when they finally appear to her.
One of my least favourite thing about Warriors is how StarClan are all idiots, and it's never really acknowledged in the series. I like Mothwing's story because that's the only time it was.
I could be remembering it wrong, but didn't she kinda confirm at one point that she DID see them? And thought that they were just a weird dream or something?
@@purplepartytigerd1598I think she finally sees them *officially* at the end of Omen Of The Stars, but she shifts her stance from "I don't believe in Starclan" to "I acknowledge Starclan's existence, but don't think they have as much sway as everyone says they do." Which... She gets proven pretty damn right (and screwed over relentlessly) in the arcs after that one.
When I was a kid, I read every book in the series at the time like 3x's over each. I learned to draw specifically for Warriors. I participated in RP forums and did the quizzes that gave you your warriors name and clan. When I was in elementary school, the principle banned "playing warrior cats" on the playground because kids were actually scratching and biting each other. SpottedLeaf was my favorite character and I'm still upset.
I'm a veteran rper of Kugyay. Started in 2006 (when I joined) and still exist. Kugyay is a warrior cats rp forum. I was a freshman in high school when I got into the series. I still rp and read the series. I'm now 32. 😂❤ warrior cats forever.
@@exitsexaminedwell, from reading the recent series (A Starless Clan, A Vision Of Shadows), I can say that the authors are repeating the ‘Trauma Medicine Cat Apprentice’ POVs, with ones like Alderheart, Frostpaw(that one might have a name change since I haven’t read the end of that part cuz I can’t find the book), Shadowsight, and a new one called Moonpaw(probably the same). One tiny good thing is that they left a the ‘Apprentice POV’ for a full Warrior/med cat like Sunbeam, but only Sunbeam. This is my own opinion btw
I stopped at the place of no stars, I got married and had kids and life just hit me, up until then I read every single book, re-reading whenever I was waiting for a new release. I still have the place of no stars sitting on my nightstand to this day ready for me to pick it up again but I just haven’t had the wherewithal to begin reading again. I think I might have to now that RU-vid’s beautiful algorithm he fed me this gem of a video. It’s been 3 years and I’m 21 years old now.
I still think it would be super sick if the Warriors team collaborated with Rockstar Games on an open world video game with its own, unique storyline where you had free reign to do whatever you wanted as a cat, but you still had underlying obligations to serve your Clan/obey the Warrior Code etc.
A great breakdown of the series and fandom, i believe the reason for a specific app, is for the kids whose parents who don’t want their kids on a browser for safety reasons (aka the non ipad kids with parents who are actually cautious)
Hey thanks so much, glad to hear you thought it was OK! It was a beast of a series to go through haha. That makes a good amount of sense actually now that you mention it!
i’m 20 and i’m still in LOVE with these books, i still keep up to date with the newest releases although i prefer the writing style of the original couple arcs
I'm 35 and I still tell my fellow adults all about the silly cat books I love so much. The looks on people's faces sometimes when I tell them battle cats is my favourite series is hilarious, I'm sure they expected something else.
The first arcs are good after that tough.... It becomes realy repatative and boring and to be fair I personally don't like the first books as much as when I was a child lol. Those are children book after all.
i had such a fondness for this series i was dyslexic and never really read much but LOVED cats - i found these books and read the first 18 in like three months which was the most i had ever read in my life. we used to have yearly tests to find our reading age and i had been stuck at six my entire school career, read these then shot up to a reading age of fifteen. (i was like 9/10 at the time) i’m still a reader now as an adult and honestly think it’s because of these books! i’d completely forgotten about them, tysm for reminding me!
The books didn’t have those “weird close up pictures of cats” until recently Wayne Mcloughlin’s covers featured full-body dynamically posed cats and a character portrait in the center
Way nicer imo, but it could be I just love those covers cuz they were the dominant ones around when I had my warrior-cat-crazy phase XD I use them as my background on my Mac
I think it depends on the language, the German editions in my childhood (maby 15 years ago) had a single big picture of a cats face on it. Maby not as close up as the new covers, but very similar.
It’s always fascinating to see what Warriors looks like to an outside viewer who isn’t acquainted with the books or the fandom. I’ve been in cat purgatory for years.
@@exitsexamined The cat purgatory I’ve been in hasn’t been so bad, so you’re not wrong. Speaking of purgatory, you didn’t even mention there’s a cat hell in Warriors to go along with StarClan, cat heaven.
I have someone in a animation community that loves cat warriors and I wanted to approach/understand their obsession with cats lol they gave me a quick summary and hoooo boy u can really make ur own cat fantasy ahahaha
Hey honestly really appreciate you saying that! It was an intimidating series to speak on because there are so many nooks and crannies but glad you thought I gave it justice. Your gold star will arrive in the mail shortly
15:08 oh god, why is there Thistleclaw x reader fanfic? For some more context: Thistleclaw is a cat that is currently in (what is basically) cat hell. He was basically a power hungry guy who wanted to become a leader and start wars (which never ended up happening). He also had a relationship with an apprentice (basically a cat that is above six months old and is currently learning how to hunt and fight and stuff) and traumatised her so hard that she became a medicine cat just so he couldn't continue (they aren't allowed to be in a relationship). He also manipulated Tigerstar into being his successor (he managed to enact his plans and his name became as infamous as that of a certain man from the 20th century).
Thanks for the video!!! I read the first Arc when I was like 12. They were my moms attempt to get me to read more and she read the alongside me so we could chat about them. I stopped after the second Arc I think. Most of the caracters I grew up with were dead and I just kinda lost touch with the series, but it always keept a special place in my memory as the books that got me back into reading and the first book to make me cry. A few years later when I was deep in the anime hole I stumbbled over a bunch of Warrior cats fanart. I tried googling around to find out what had happend to the series but quickly gave up as it was quite ... convoluted. This video is EXACTLY what I was looking for back then. So thanks for explaining and the trip down memory lane!
haha is that really most of the channels?? Most of the reference videos I was watching were about the series itself so I didn't go too off the rails into the characters themselves but I can imagine there probably are entire series dedicated to it
This is the Gospel: Jesus loves you so much that He gave His life for you as a willing sacrifice to reconcile you to the Father and give you eternal happiness and peace. Romans 10:9-10 says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.
@@exitsexamined If I read this correctly and understand correctly- there ARE some Warriors RU-vidrs who have series dedictaed to talking about characters themselves. The one I actually know, is Moonkitti, were she goes into the stories of some suggested characters. Sometimes only a little bit. (Her Talking/Mini Talking series)
Cat atheism is basically “believing Starclan can always be trusted.” Rather then “believing Starclan is real.” At least that’s what Mothwing seems to believe in newer books. It’s not atheism as we think of it in the real world. But it’s the closest thing you can get in a world where magic is real and cats have 9 lives. Without the character being just dumb, of course.
They had a few books where it was stated that she believed that the DF attack was rogues who attacked the Clans I think they changed it because of how actually insane that made her sound
well cloudtail was full on "they're just fairy tails". even when he was fighting darkstripe in the great battle and gets taunted for that he responds " I might not believe starclan is real, but I know evil is" and keeps fighting
To be fair, I would put it closer to agnostic people than atheists people. Knowing there is a god (or here Starclan) but refusing to believe in them, pray for them and/or live your life "for" them.
I’m just now getting that this series and Redwall are really similar -kids books -anthropormophic animals that look like normal animals (not animal-like humans) -extremely violent -deep lore
I was in a very specific part of this fandom. There was this host of people on Animal Jam who participated in the AJCW (Animal Jam Clan Wiki). We coded pages for our clans and even some of our characters for the wiki, and we would create clan camps on Animal Jam and roleplay in them. Oh how I miss those days..
i never got to be a part of any AJ warriors roleplay groups, but i always admired them! their coordination/battles kind of reminds me of Club Penguin Armies back in the day. it's always nice to stumble upon cool little internet communities like that!
Warrior Cats is one of the franchises that I'd rather appreciate from afar [and avoid the dark side of the fandom as well], and I especially dislike how Squirrelflight was treated in the books. On a different note, I'd love to see you talk about Cosgrove Hall's rise and fall, they were so iconic in the UK and I feel like they could've even rivaled Disney and Hanna Barbera had ITV just gave them an actual chance. Will Vinton Studios also has a really bittersweet story, and Will himself deserved so much better. The documentary Claydream goes into details of his life, how he founded his studio, and how he lost everything no thanks to Phill and Travis Knight. Will Vinton Studios was turned into Laika, and Laika has had many controversies [OSHA violations as an example], that I don't think would've happened under Will's watch.
Honestly, I can understand appreciating this one from afar haha. Cool to know about Cosgrove Hall, not super familiar with it but I put it on my lost! I might reach out to you when I get around to it, always good to talk to someone familiar with the series!
@@exitsexamined Cosgrove Hall made a ton of classic British cartoons, such as Danger Mouse, The Wind In The Willows, Engie Benjy, Little Robots, and Roary The Racing Car [made in collaboration with Chapman Entertainment]. I am so excited it's on your list! Will Vinton Studios would also be a good one, given the bittersweet circumstances behind everything that happened to the studio. I recommend watching the documentary Claydream to get a basic idea of what happened to Will Vinton Studios.
The warriors fandom is so silly and crazy. But the passion and imagination is astounding. I still love it all these years later. I still love to poke my head in and see what's going on. I'm happy to have stumbled on the books as a kid and to have been there for the RPs on forums. To see it all transform and have new generations go through it all. Thank you for making a video on it!
They’ve really been pumping them out. It’s been what, three, four generations now? Plus the series for dogs, the series for bears, and the series for African wildlife. Take a break Erin Hunter😭
My daughter was very into this series. She named our cat "Raven claw"and we have a family tradition where our pets are given titles and that gives us Countess Raven Claw. She goes by Miss Kitty to us commoners. I read 40k, Horus Heresy, and many, many, many other book series are up in my head. Robotech, Battletech, Forgotten Realms, Varayan Memoires, etc. So I never saw anything wrong with her loving a series.
💖 I named one of my cats Greykit after Warrior Cats names. I had a whole Logclan, the Kittypet clan lore for my cats a few years ago but I'm not sure where I wrote it all down
I’m so glad I was a loner kid. I enjoyed my Cats of Thrones without any extra fanatical input, and managed to get out around the time of the Upside-Down invasion before the rising tide of supplemental material drowned me.
I wanna add to the games based off of Warrior Cats. 1- CatWar is an online experience where you can roleplay in canon clans from "Lake Universe" and custom-made clans from "Cteator Universe". It was made and is used by the russian-talking community, and is not official. 2 - CatLife, lot smaller than the first, but still quite active online roleplay game with canon clans. It's too, on russian. I have played them both, and may i say, they are fun and original experiences, with minigames, events, pvp and hunting.
This series was my childhood. I outgrew it now but I still have my books stored away to pass on to my own children. I’m surprised this series is still going. Last one I read was the one where Firestar died. It seemed fitting that Firestar dies when as I become an adult and say goodbye to childhood . RIP flame boy.
i loved the series as a kid, remember saving up some pocket money so I could go to the book store and get a brand new book that just came out. it was on the same level to me as Redwall series and other fantasy books with animal characters, these books really sparked the love of reading in me when i was around 7-10 years old. now listening to this video essay I'm also really happy that I read them without internet, so there was no drama, nothing, I just enjoyed the books as any kid should :))
Honestly it's so interesting how the internet kind of changed the landscape as far as fandoms and how series are perceived - anyway glad you enjoyed them and Redwall, that was another favorite of mine!
@@faliciaforward i know, right! some topics touched upon there were rather mature stuff, and don't get me started on how i was sometimes bawling my eyes out about some characters and what happened to them
I was one of the managers of a huge RP group on scratch. every day I got back from school and wrote about cats beefing each other over territory. lol good memories
I don't know if anyone mentioned this but Survivors, Seekers, Bravelands, Bamboo Kingdom, and Wings of Fire aren't spin-offs, they exist in their own universe with its own worldbuilding that isn't the same as the Warriors books. I'm a big fan of Wings of Fire and I feel that it often subverts tropes found in Warriors, and has much better characters with much more nuanced explorations of how things that happen in the book affects them.
I remember first coming across these books when I was in kindergarten (i could read at a very young age, and had been reading for years prior) and being so fascinated by the maps, and here I am still obsessed with fantasy books and maps
I loved warriors so much but the survivors series has my heart. The characters each get developed a lot more as there is a lot (and I mean a lotttt) fewer of them. The story was different from the whole “clans fighting each other” as it was more about a group of house dogs joining a pack of wild dogs after a horrible natural disaster fighting for survival in a changed world. I really really loved the series and it was a big part of my childhood! Sadly it doesn’t have an active fandom which is really sad
I think there also a book series about bears from the same authors. I remember reading something like that edit: Oop he ended up mentioning it later in the video
OML Survivors was literally how I got into Erin Hunter and reading in general and I read both arcs 16x times over but I remember being SO MAD it was underrated. I wish they didn't stop publishing it, Survivors deserves some love D:
I had a big warrior cats phase when I was younger, but nothing hooked me like wings of fire. I read all of them as they came out, they got me really into drawing dragons, and I still re-read them every so often. I would LOVE for you to cover that series like this!
I haven't read Wings of Fire yet, but it seems like people love it, maybe I will cover it! How would you compare it to Warriors? Is it same general vibe / target audience?
@exitsexamined As far as I can remember, both series have similar target audience and tone, (and a lot of the same type of violence) although WoF feels a lot grander imo because it takes place over a whole continent as opposed to one forest, and it takes time to explore all seven dragon tribes, each with a unique culture. Wings of fire probably also benefits from being a lot smaller than warriors, with only 15 books in the main series.
@@exitsexaminedif you do end up reading WoF make sure you read, Legends: Darkstalker, its the best book imo and a lot of people dont read it because its not part of the main series. WoF is also potentially getting an animated series but it might be a warriors situation
@@smiklosovic8971 I read the first book when it came out and loved it! Never went back to it because the books hadn't come out yet haha. Might have to revisit it and warriors now, been thinking about it since watching this video lol. Hopefully as a 20 yr old i'm not too old for these YA novels.
confession: I was obsessed with these books as a little kid, so much so I asked my mom to buy me yoga balls to ‘play’ with. In reality I wanted to attack said yoga balls like a cat, and I did once I obtained them. I pretended I was fire star and attacked the absolute sh!t out of them. Biting, clawing, pouncing, hissing, the whole 9 yards. The yoga balls would bounce back at me so it made it more immersive. There was a few times I even got injured by attacking them lmao. My mom caught me biting one and was extremely mad and a bit disturbed. That was strike one. I skipped straight to strike 3 when I popped one with me teeth, my beloved enemy cat balls were taken from me and deflated. IMO attacking yoga balls pretending you’re a cat is better then becoming a zombie to an IPad lol. At least I had an imagination
I still remember obsessively defending Bluestar in Animal Jam, and then Scourge came along and replaced Bluestar as my favorite. I only read 3 books past the first series, but MAPs and other fan animations had such a huge impact on me. Urnam7’s animations made me realize that animation isn’t just something done by big companies and that there are tools out there for individuals to make animation. It seems obvious now, but as a kid I had never seen animation outside of tv and movies. It’s been years and I still have vivid memories reading those books lol
Warriors was my favorite book series growing up, I haven’t touched these books since middle school! I’m amazed there’s a fandom dedicated to this series and it’s ever growing. It’s heartwarming to see that kids today get to enjoy the same books I grew up on.
Nice to see a shoutout to Clangen here as someone who helps work on it 🤗 Gosh, I remember playing Untold Tales back before Cattails was a thing, haha! It felt so amazing at the time!
Whoa so cool! It was so much fun going back to play it for this video, would have loved to talk to before to know what the dev process was like for it!
@@exitsexamined oh, honestly working on it is wonderful! The lead devs are very helpful and encouraging. I've learned a ton from them and it's fun to chat about possible new features and to see stuff we're working on behind the scenes. There are some incredibly talented people on the dev team!
I have been obsessed with Clangen lately as a way to engage with the Warriors world without actually reading (as much as I used to love it, I have ADHD and it can be so hard to get through a book these days), and I've been having so much fun telling my own stories and developing my own clans, getting attached to characters and then being shocked when they inevitably get murdered lol. Much thanks to you and the rest of the team!!
Mine sister actually is a warriors fan and as many fans have before after she found warriors she started drawing and now over 1 year later im now helping her to make her own original warriors fanfic about 3 apprentices, wavepaw, hollypaw and pinepaw that live in a slightly forrested tundra in one of the six clans, that clan name being boulderclan along side featherclan, lakeclan, iceclan, winterclan and hareclan❤❤❤
What a throwback, this was my very first fandom. I picked up the first book of the second arc when I was 11, and when I finished that arc went back to read the OG arc. Those were all the books available at that point, and when I finished them I went online and read fanfiction. Since then I've moved on from Warrior Cats but never from fan communities online.
Just a little FYI, "Queen" is actually the technical term for a female cat -- whether or not she's expecting kittens -- as used by people involved in cat husbandry, veterinary science, etc. Females are queens, and males are toms. I'm assuming this is where the Erins got the term.
I went back and reread as many of these as I could a while back (I broke my foot, had a lot of time on my ass with nothing to do) and the absolute chaos of the series and fandom is honestly amazing. I don't get into it in a typical fandom kind of way, but it's always gonna have a place in my heart. ETA: wings of fire is great, and is complete (for now at least, who knows) and it might make for a good subject if you're about the lifespan of stories. (First time here lol)
ayyyy clangen mention! i'm one of the lead devs, so that was fun to see lol I wish the fandom had more fan-made games tbh, it's really an untapped corner! Though it is amazing to me how animation focused the fandom is, from what I know it was pretty much the originator of MAPs and one of the first fandoms to ever be as animation heavy as it is. The OG animators like xxflightfeatherxx and sswarriorcats were so wildy influential, too. It all speaks to just how desperately the fans have always wanted some sort of animated media haha Anyways, for all the unhinged insanity of this series, it's something I'll always look back on with nostalgia even though I don't read it anymore. And I get neverending amusement these days from watching plot summaries of the new books xD
Hey that's so cool you worked on it! I would have loved to know about the dev process for that game, honestly I'm kicking myself for not trying to reaching out to you guys and other creators to ask a few questions about the games, anyway glad you found the vid! And who knows, maybe there will be more fan-made games in the future!
Yo!! I've been getting back into playing Clangen recently. It used to be kind of hard to get into a couple of years ago, but now it can hook me in for hours! The fangames are mainly how I got to know the series in the first place, and I'm grateful for all of them. And now that you point it out, the Warrior Cats fandom really is incredibly animation-focused, isn't it? ✨
The one problem about encountering warrior cats on the internet for me is I have no idea who people are talking about because I didnt read them in english. Really makes it difficult when I barely remember the german names 😅
I feel with you. Sometimes I want to interact with the community, which is primarily in English. I even can speak some English, but the warriorcat name parts are not in my vocabulary. Was heißt Diesel und Efeu, was heißt Streif oder Schweif auf Englisch?
This series engulfed my life in a way probably no other franchise ever has. It was the first book series that compelled me to purchase the latest releases because the library took too long to order them. My friends were baffled when I told them I spent all the Amazon cards gifted to me at my birthday party on Warriors books. I visited the official Warrior Cats website daily to check for news and updates on book releases (and the movie that never came to be). I even uploaded an unboxing video to RU-vid when I recieved my preorder of Crowfeather's Trial because I was so excited to get it 😂. Each night after school, I would sit for hours on my family's desktop on websites like PowerClan to roleplay with other fans of the series. Those websites have been dead for a long while, but the memories have endured after all this time.
I started reading Warrior Cats when I was 9 and have been a huge fan ever since. It's my favourite book series EVER and I love Squirrelflight, Yellowfang, Leafpool and Firestar.
0:17 "A little more edgy-" Animorphs of course! "Warrior cats" Well, yeah I suppose. Same goes for Guardian's of Ga'hoole. Which I'd argue, is darker than Warriors. Not only did it have death, but a lot of psychological horrors. Plus, it had the sense to end as a complete story.
Guardians of Ga'Hoole don't have as crazy deaths (Tigerstar...) but they defenitely didn't HAVE TO put a simulation of a brainwashing torture nazi camp
Guardians was crazy. Brainwashing, attempted killing by siblings, cannibalism. The world at times felt so dangerous and hostile,but it was also so interesting, especially the collecting of the coals for forging and stuff. The movie did the series dirty, as they made it too generic and took the dark elements out of it that made it so compelling.
As a child who was absolutely fanatical about all three series (warriors, guardians and animorphs) guardians definitely went the hardest in terms of fucked uppedness in my opinion but not by a huge margin (out of those three I think warriors actually comes in third for fucked uppedness but the race is close). Guardians also definitely had the most satisfying ending (I don't even know how warriors ended if it even does, I tuned out after the fourth arc due to a mix of growing up and just not enjoying the series direction anymore). Anyway tldr they're all great series everyone should read em have fun kids
Warrior cats has been such a insane inspiration for me, it inspired me as a young elementary schooler to start drawing, i’ve created an entire universes with more than 100 different characters, but all somehow important to this story i’ve made, all in my head. It’s such a hyper fixation that not even a day goes by that I do not think of this series, or my characters. It’s so very dear to my heart. I miss roleplaying, so much but unfortunately most of my friends have drifted away.
I remember reading these books as a kid and i remember enjoying them a lot. I also know that these were pretty popular in my school, but i had no idea that this fandom is actually THAT huge and that people are still reading these books💀
@@exitsexamined you made a really good vid so people like me are prolly watching through the whole vid I just saw you made a artimes foul vid the nostalgia dude, all you need is a rangers apprentice vid and im a forever fan imao
16:54 with characters being named after fans, I often wonder if Fireheart's grandmother, Crystal, the very earliest known ancestor of the character who started it all, was named after crystalpaw, the first ever known warrior cats youtuber to date? people often attribute alikatnya being the first one, but i've seen alikatnya state themselves that they were inspired by crystalpaw (even attributing the way they drew Fireheart's signature hairstyle with the way *they* drew it). I've never seen confirmation of this myself, but I really really really think that would be incredibly cool if it were true.
Wow I’m feeling like I should return to this. It was such a huge part of my childhood from elementary school to middle school. I haven’t been in the fandom in over ten years but it’s still very near and dear to my heart
It's always interesting going back to series like this for rereads, there's so many new details to notice as an adult, sometimes in good sometimes in bad, but always interesting!
I have followed the warrior series since it came out. I’m now over 30 and I still read the series to this day. I am a HUGE fan. I have summarized all the books so far so I don’t forget details, I make family trees so I don’t get lost with the characters, and I recently got a tattoo of all the Clan symbols including Skyclan. This series will forever hold a place in my heart ❤️
I read the entire warrior series, all field guides, all novels and novellas, all manga sidestories in chronological order...back when there were 4 main arcs. Can not even IMAGINE doing that now, god help the warrior fans. Even my child self eventually recognized the recurring plot motifs and plot devices driving drama-contested territory spats, cross-clan romances-but it was a lot of fun!
Hooolyyy this unlocked some memories, I read the original (trilogy?) that followed the house cat as a teen (32 now) but had no idea how deep the den went
There's also a decent amount of overlap between the Warriors fandom and the Rain World fandom, with both properties being about little cats (or slugcats, in Rain World's case) surviving in harsh worlds, with huge portions of both fanbases dedicated to creating their own Warrior cat/slugcat OCs. You can see it in the way a lot of Rain World fans draw the slugcats; huge Warrior cat fandom vibes.
@@exitsexamined Well, there's definitely a difference in genre. Warriors is fantasy, while Rain World is primarily post-apocalyptic sci-fi with heavy Buddhism-inspired spiritual themes. But the core appeal of cute kitties in harsh environments and violent situations is definitely there in both. Though I think the main appeal both properties share (besides the kitties) is just how easy it is to make fan content for them. The world-building and naming conventions in Warriors lend themselves perfectly to coming up with your own clans and cat OCs. Similarly, the slugcats in Rain World have such a simple design with such a distinct naming scheme that they provide a perfect blank slate to create your own slugcat OCs. And not just the slugcats; Rain World also has characters called Iterators (godlike AIs, basically), whose simple designs and distinct naming conventions also lend themselves perfectly to creating your own Iterator 'sonas and OCs.
I never realized there were multiple authors but that makes ALOT of sense. As a kid i was super confused. Some of those books had VERY contradicting takes on philosophy, religion, tradition, morality, war, killing, and even indevidual characters. Like first series was like "He died honorably in battle and the warrior who killed him is a hero for his clan and will not be resented by the enemy" and the 4th or 5th series was like "wtf wtf why are you trying to kill that guy sure he invaded your home and terrorised your elders and children but wtf r u doing warriors don't kill!"
I read all the Warriors books they had in my middle school library. The violence, death and disfigurement, and cat heaven and hell really caught my attention. Everything about Brokentail/star, Brightheart(?) getting half of her face ripped off and having to adjust to it, Ashfur's incel arc, some crazy shit went down in this series. Oh yeah, Scourge was pretty cool, too. I remember the Scourge/Ashfur crackship. I don't know too much about what's going on in the most recent books, tho. Just that Ashfur's ghost possessed his ex's man at some point
@@bigboi8207 To sum it up, Ashfur got really salty after Squirrelflight picked Brambleclaw instead of him. Later on in the series, he tried to burn her adopted kids alive so she'd "feel the same pain that he felt when she rejected him". His obsession with making her suffer and trying to force her to be with him continued into the afterlife. Yeah... Ashfur is/was a pretty fucked up dude. Idk how he was ever let into cat heaven in the first place 💀
Book vs. movies for younger audiences is a very interesting duality. I'll often see a darker kids books series like Warriors, Guardian's of Ga'hoole, etc. But when they get an visual adaptation, they lose all their darkness. Kids are reading these books about animal brutality and psychological trauma, but apparently they can't handle it if they see it. It's just feels weird. Obviously, it's to invite families and new viewers to watch it. But it just becomes disingenuous to the books. Like "then they brutally slashed at each other" or "his parents were dead and there was no going back" becomes "They hissed at eachother" and "his parents were completely alive and fine, no one was traumatized or scarred by tragedy, they were just a little roughed up." I'm not saying keep it exact, but come on, kids are reading these books for a reason. It just feels like they aren't respecting kids intelligence. (I'm still a bit peeved by the Animorphs graphic novel. It isn't bad, but it sure looks like a book meant for small children. All the characters have the same face and they have to dance around the brutality. Definitely not what fans imagined, look at any fan comic)
Never understood that either like stay true to the source material which is why I hardly watch movies that were originally books I’d rather read the book
Blixemi is AMAZING hahaha, this fandom i really into all the kinds of art! animation, drawing, music... This is one of the most active and creative fandom i've seen since a long ago! This really got into my childhood and will forever be in my heart (Still waiting for the movie...)
One time I was in a Warriors RPG site where we never actually got started because we were so busy creating a love dodecahedron between every single OC we created
How is that going so far? I wish I got into them when I was younger because they sound like a lot of fun. I think I knew about them but cared too much about other people seeing me read them… that seems really dumb now. Is it one of those things I can read for fun and get some enjoyment from if I’m around your age? Also one of my younger cousins is really into it and I think it would be funny and cool to talk about it with him lol
@@reesekelly2388 I'm 30 now and have been reading them since about 2008. If you keep in mind that it's a long running series (so there have been changes over time in the stylistic approach) and that it's meant for younger audiences, it's a pretty enjoyable read! I've found it especially enjoyable when I've decided to reread as I age and sort of picking up on nuances that I didn't read into at first as a kid. And, honestly, I would have *loved* if I had a family member to talk to the books about as a kid. Especially since they sometimes go into some more mature topics (loss, grief, and religious guilt are common topics, but the series has also covered other topics such as abusive relationships (both romantic and familial) or postpartum depression). Having someone older who could have broken those topics down more for me would have been nice as a kid, since while I think the series handles them well, it explains it through the lens of the characters. Hopefully any of that is helpful to you!
I read the original series as a kid, and knew other series existed, but had absolutely NO idea there were this many books or that the fandom was this strong! This is amazing
@@tomgu2285 lol I read the last three at the time, all the way through to the last hope. I thought it was epic and was challenged bby how much the author seemed to expect me to pick up so quickly, went back for more, only to realize I had just read the last three of a very long series XD
I've never read any Warrior Cats books. It, as a series, just never really appeared on my radar. But, like with the Owls of Ga'Hoole series, I really, _REALLY_ wanna start reading it all someday!!! 😁. After all, Owls of Ga'Hoole is _basically_ like the Warrior Cats, _but with OWLS._ :3. Unlike Warrior Cats, _the Owls of Ga'Hoole ACTUALLY GOT A FUCKING MOVIE._ :3. In 2011, Lionsgate released _Legend of the Guardians:The Owls of Ga'Hoole._ And it was _awesome._ :3.
Whoa, never heard of Owls of Ga'Hoole, thanks for mentioning! I'll have to check this out more and I put it on my list of series to cover on this channel. Is it more of. YA series?
@exitsexamined I haven't read it, but I think it's for like Middle Schoolers? Apparently, the books, like the Warrior Cats books, are pretty dark, as well;with even somewhat graphic depictions of violence and stuff. They were written by Kathryn Lasky. Also, I did a misnomer:The movie _Legend of the Guardians:The Owls of Ga'Hoole actually came out in 2010, NOT 2011._ I misremembered, sorry, :P. Also, the 30 Seconds To Mars song Kings and Queens was used in the first official trailer for the movie, and that is one of my _FAVORITE SONGS EVER,_ it's so _epic_ and _grand._ So, I think that _that's_ pretty cool. :3.
@@exitsexamined Gahoole is TECHNICALLY YA I guess, but with many animal xenofiction novels it seems they get put into YA because animal characters, even though they might be darker than typical YA. The movie is amazing too, it condensed the story maybe a bit too strongly but the visuals are INCREDIBLE. Dunno how they made CGI owls look that amazing in 2010 but they did.
Every now and then I remember this wild & violent series! Truly was my favorite growing up and it’s always fun explaining how convoluted it was to friends 😂
