while this is a big milestone to have reached,  closely analyzing each book in the second arc  

isn't a very thrilling prospect. As a whole it is  often ranked as one of the worst arcs the series  

has put forward, either because of how boring  it is, how underdeveloped the characters are,  

or how out of wack the second half  is. But it is also an important job,  

as The New Prophecy lays the groundwork  for the entirety of the series to come.  

A lot of the tropes, situations, characters, and  locations that will become staples later on will  

be introduced somewhere in these six books.  But I am getting ahead of myself. As ever,  

I will judge these one book at a time,  as we build our picture of the series.

Midnight was released on May 10th of 2005,  about seven months after The Darkest Hour,  

which makes sense considering they needed to begin  a whole new series. But there very well could be  

an additional reason for the longer wait time.  This arc wasn't initially supposed to exist. Vicky  

and the publishers were originally planning to  just write the first arc and leave the series be,  

which explains its more self-contained nature.  However, when Warriors started selling well,  

they decided to write more. Originally,  even that new series was only going to  

have three books and be a sort of  epilogue arc to the original series,  

rather than the bouncing-off point of a whole new  era of its own. This fact will help explain some  

of the problems this arc runs into, so I'd ask  you to remember it for later. For now though,  

I'll just say that Midnight was written by Cherith  Baldry, who over the course of the first arc and  

beyond showed that, in comparison to Kate Cary,  she was quite good at writing plot driven stories,  

but relied far less on dialogue and  extra characters, which can lead to  

a lack of characterization and development  of relationships between the characters.  

Let's see how that impacts the book's performance,  first, as always, by looking into the allegiances.

There are, of course, plenty of differences  from The Darkest Hour thanks to the timeskip  

in between these books: Graystripe is deputy in  place of Whitestorm and Cinderpelt has now taken  

an apprentice, Leafpaw. Longtail has, offscreen,  been made an elder early thanks to being blinded  

by a rabbit, may his massive potential rest in  peace, and Frostfur also joined the elders den,  

presumably in her case because of old  age. Goldenflower has moved back into  

the nursery...for some reason. She doesn't  have any kits but she apparently decided to  

move back to the nursery before she became  an elder. Sure. With Graystripe, Darkstripe,  

Longtail, Frostfur, and Goldenflower out of  the warriors den, there very well could have  

been a dip in the main population of the clan.  But in the time since The Darkest Hour began,  

Thornclaw, Brightheart, Brambleclaw, Ashfur,  Rainwhisker, and Sootfur have been made warriors,  

meaning the overall total went up from 10 cats  to 11. That number will increase quickly as well,  

since Sorrelpaw, Rainwhisker and Sootfur's sister  and Sandstorm's apprentice, was held back from  

being a warrior along with her brothers for  reasons that will be explained in the book, but  

is now about ready to get her name. In addition  to her, there are 5 new apprentices in the clan:  

the aforementioned Leafpaw and her sister  Squirrelpaw plus Spiderpaw, Shrewpaw,  

and Whitepaw. Ferncloud appears to have moved  straight into the nursery after getting her name,  

and knowing her future that means that in her  whole life, she never spent any time as a warrior,  

and as I mentioned, Goldenflower joined her again,  perhaps just for company. On the elders' side,  

One-eye and Smallear have passed away, but  with Longtail and Frostfur joining them there  

are still four elders. And now to briefly go  over some important bits of the other clans,  

Blackstar has taken his place as leader with  Russetfur as his deputy, Runningnose moved to the  

elders' den leaving Littlecloud as Shadowclan's  sole medicine cat, and Tawnypelt is now a warrior.  

Deadfoot appears to have passed on in Windclan,  and Tallstar chose Mudclaw as his replacement.  

Additionally, Mudclaw has an apprentice, Crowpaw.  In Riverclan, Mistyfoot is now the deputy, and  

Mudfur has taken on someone named Mothwing to be  his apprentice. Interesting that she already has  

a full name, I wonder if that will be explained.  Also Featherpaw and Stormpaw were made warriors,  

Feathertail and Stormfur. As far as the statistics  this book does quite well. The top ten characters  

have only 76% of the lines, and even within  those ten they are spread far more evenly than  

in any first arc book. The cast in general is kept  tighter, but all the characters that are included  

are given significant attention. In even better  news, while 43% of the characters are she-cats,  

they have *46%* of the lines! Clearly  having a central group cast where half  

of them are she-cats and giving attention to  additional she-cat characters like Mothwing  

and Midnight is paying off. That's a pretty solid  foundation. Let's see what Cherith does with it.

We begin with a prologue from within Starclan  where Oakheart, Nightstar, Deadfoot, and Bluestar  

choose Feathertail, Tawnypelt, Crowpaw, and  Brambleclaw respectively to represent and save the  

clans from whatever disaster they have foreseen.  We then cut to Brambleclaw meeting Bluestar in a  

dream. She relays him the prophecy and tells him  to meet with three other cats and listen to what  

midnight tells them. Sorrelpaw is made Sorreltail  after being kept back due to being hit by a twoleg  

monster and being injured for three moons, and  Ferncloud has new kits, and since Dustpelt,  

the father, wants to stay with them for a couple  of days, he asks Brambleclaw to take care of  

his apprentice, Squirrelpaw. Brambleclaw isn't  thrilled with this news as he considers her to be  

the biggest nuisance in Thunderclan, and in some  regards he is correct. She quickly proves herself  

to be quick-witted, talkative, and unafraid to  challenge authority if she thinks they're being  

stupid. Firestar comes to talk with Brambleclaw  after the ceremony and asks if he misses his  

sister Tawnypelt, which Brambleclaw does of  course. Squirrelpaw sneaks away from her mentor  

Dustpelt multiple times, often running into and  getting into arguments with Brambleclaw while out,  

but when Squirrelpaw is punished with tick duty,  Brambleclaw offers to help her. Leafpaw meanwhile  

thinks about the special magical connection she  has to her sister Squirrelpaw, each always knowing  

what the other is feeling. She then heads to the  gathering where Tallstar begs Leopardstar to let  

his clan drink from their stream. She agrees  after consulting her clanmates below. Here we  

are also presented with new characters Hawkfrost  and Mothwing, the kits of a rogue who were raised  

in Riverclan territory even though their mother  left. Mothwing is also Riverclan's new medicine  

cat apprentice, something Mistyfoot, Blackstar,  and many others find worrying. And Hawkfrost is a  

strong and scary warrior. Brambleclaw learns that  Tawnypelt also received a Starclan dream with the  

same prophecy, and they agree to meet at the new  moon in Fourtrees and hope that the other two cats  

will show up too. Brambleclaw and Squirrelpaw do  some more arguing and getting annoyed with each  

other and then they meet Crowpaw, who attacked  Brambleclaw for calling him a thief while he  

was on their territory and gets told off for it.  Then as promised, he goes to Fourtrees to meet  

the other cats and finds that Squirrelpaw followed  him. We are introduced to the group that will be  

central to this arc as, in addition to Bramble  and Squirrel, Tawnypelt, Feathertail, Stormfur,  

and Crowpaw come to the clearing and wait. Nothing  seems to happen though so they agree to meet again  

at a later time, and this gives time for Starclan  to send Brambleclaw a dream of salty water.  

He talks to Ravenpaw about this who tells him  about the sun-drowned place and soon our cats  

sneak off on a journey to find it, only stopped by  Crowpaw refusing to follow Brambleclaw and a three  

chapter side-story of Firestar trying to keep  Brambleclaw and Squirrelpaw apart very blatantly,  

thanks to a misinterpreted prophecy from  Cinderpelt. Interestingly being kept apart is what  

made Brambleclaw finally start seeking Squirrelpaw  out, in comparison to before where he wanted  

nothing to do with her. Leafpaw sees her sister  and Brambleclaw off, gives them traveling herbs,  

and promises to keep their secret. The six cats  then travel a lot, spending time with Ravenpaw,  

crossing thunderpaths, navigating through  twolegplaces, getting stuck in fences, fighting  

kittypets and escaping dogs. One after the other,  they also each get their own salt water signs to  

show they are going in the right direction.  Oh, and Purdy. How could I forget Purdy,  

the old, well meaning but possibly not all there  tom cat who helps them get away from the dogs  

and...ahem…*attempts* to guide them through his  twolegplace. He's a charming fellow, at least,  

even if he's less than helpful  and quite irritating to our cast.  

Leafpaw telepathically sends Squirrelpaw the  cure for a rat bite Tawnypelt acquired thanks  

to Purdy and they finally get the rest of the way  to the sun-drowned place. Brambleclaw does drown  

just a tad but then they get into a cave where  they meet Midnight, a badger who can speak cat,  

fox, and rabbit along with presumably her  own language, and who communicates with  

Starclan. She says they came here to hear  that twolegs were destroying the forest,  

and they had to journey to get that message so  they could “become one,” and return to the clans  

as a united force. They resolve to go back and  make the clans leave the forest and we get an  

epilogue where Leafpaw witnesses twoleg monsters  invading the forest and tearing down the trees.

Heh...So, thoughts. Starclan is now, even  

outside nine life ceremonies, a concrete place  where dead cats live, communicate, and receive  

prophecies to pass on to the living. Knowing that  Starclan doesn't actually create the prophecies  

but instead just decides what to do with them  is a big step to depowering them as ancestors,  

so as we move into later arcs and uses of these  star-coated cats, just remember where it started. 

I just find it interesting that in  his very first appearance as deputy,  

Graystripe had Brackenfur organize patrols in  his place. This is the main job of a deputy,  

Graystripe. What is it that you do? Brambleclaw's first impression of Hawkfrost  

is that he doesn't like him, and thinks he seems  dangerous...I do wish this insight would stick  

around but just keep this in mind for later books. This book also introduces something completely new  

to the series: multiple point of view characters!  In addition to Brambleclaw, Leafpaw acts as a POV  

for seven of the twenty-four chapters, along with  the epilogue. Well, pieces of those seven chapters  

anyway, since this book tried the style of using  Leafpaw until they didn't need to anymore and then  

switching to Brambleclaw's point of view with  no warning in the middle of multiple chapters.  

I'm glad that style doesn't stick around  for long because it's quite confusing. 

In the time Leafpaw does get though, other  than giving us a camera into Thunderclan  

and thinking about Squirrelpaw, she  doesn't have much to do in this book,  

and she doesn't feel, think, or do anything  consistently enough to define her character beyond  

“nice medicine cat who cares about her sister.”  Well, with the exception of her opinions on  

Mothwing. From the beginning she empathizes with  her, comforts her, roots for her to be the best  

medicine cat she can be, and calls her beautiful  in her head at every opportunity. It's nothing  

more than that yet. She is an apprentice, after  all. But it's interesting to see. She also has  

a mild friendship with Sorreltail, enjoying  her company and seeking her out whenever she  

needs a warrior beside her in duties. Of course,  other than being more excitable than Leafpaw,  

Sorreltail isn't all that intricate of a character  either here, so she doesn't provide much. 

Leafpaw may be lacking for now, but  what about the real meat of the book:  

the six traveling cats? Let's take a look at  each, starting with the protagonist of the hour. 

Brambleclaw is already very different from the  Bramblepaw we knew in the first arc. For one,  

where Bramblepaw was always the reserved  straight-man who only stood up when he had  

something important to say, Brambleclaw is pretty  emotional with a strong temper and ambition,  

even within the small group he is a part of  on the way to the sun-drowned place. He did  

end up getting that position, mostly by virtue of  having the first salt water sign and nothing else,  

but it was challenged by both apprentices on the  journey. Considering he is both hoping to lead  

this group and is the point of view from which we  see this group, it would be nice if he grew close  

to the other cats over the course of his journey.  But Tawnypelt, Feathertail, and Stormfur are  

all warriors he already knows and is moderately  friendly with all the way through the book, and  

Crowpaw and Squirrelpaw are both cats who stand up  to him and who he finds annoying because of this,  

something he mentions at every opportunity and  never gets over. When problems do turn up with  

Crowpaw or Squirrelpaw, he usually asks someone  else to deal with it for him, and make them do  

what he wants, since they won't listen to him. Not  only is that not a great technique for leadership;  

it's also not at all a good way to bond  with the other main characters in your arc. 

Squirrelpaw is an outspoken and feisty young  she-cat who is eager to do anything she thinks she  

can, whether or not she should, and doesn't care  much about the scolding she receives, either from  

her mentor Dustpelt or from Brambleclaw. However,  there are things she cares deeply about and won't  

hurt or ruin, such as the relationships she  has with Leafpaw and later, to a lesser extent,  

Tawnypelt and Feathertail. She doesn't  appreciate when others try to fight for her,  

as she likes to prove herself by speaking for  herself. She's actually quite clever, just a bit  

too energetic at times which can get her in tight  situations as often as it can get her out of them. 

Tawnypelt is a serious and assertive she-cat  who doesn't put up with anyone else's nonsense  

and is focused on getting the job done. She  has a level head and comes up with plenty  

of the group's ideas. That's about all we get  from her though. She keeps the group grounded. 

Our Riverclan cats are both fairly bland  but Feathertail seems more emotional,  

where her brother Stormfur is more stoic. They're  both pretty generic good warriors and work as a  

pair more often than not. However we do get to see  a bit of their dynamic, in how Stormfur comforts  

and protects his sister as a strong man while  she gets to be more careless about her actions  

and reach out to others on an emotional level.  Stormfur also seems to *really* like Squirrelpaw,