the Stars arcs, those arcs certainly focused most heavily on them.

Unfortunately, that was less out of a desire to tell a specific story involving superpowered

cats, and more out of a need to fill space while waiting for the Ashfur and family drama

plotline to play out.

By the time of Omen of the Stars, they had already made several missteps in the formation

of the powers, and didn't manage to correct those by the time of the final battle, leading

to even the clans' victory over the Dark Forest having nothing to do with the powers

that were supposedly made to use in that very fight.

One of the most tangled aspects of the powers plot is actually in what the powers themselves

are.

From fairly early into the process of writing The Sight, the Erins already knew that Jaypaw,

Lionpaw, and Hollypaw, would have superpowers, and Jaypaw is using his throughout the first

book, including a moment where he uses it to see, in Firestar's memories, the exact

prophecy that his powers are based around: “There will be three, kin of your kin, who

hold the power of the stars in their paws.”

This prophecy, like many in the series, is quite vague.

It says that three members of Firestar's family will have powers, but it doesn't

say who those cats are, what any of their powers are, when they will use their powers,

or what they will be used for.

Strictly speaking, this prophecy doesn't even say that they'll be born with powers.

They could all be given power for a single special battle or other climatic moment and

still follow the prophecy to a tee.

The reason for all of this vagueness is simple: at the time the Erins were writing this and

most other prophecies, they didn't yet know how it would play out.

Warriors books are written three books in advance, so Outcast was being drafted as they

finished up with The Sight.

They don't know while writing The Sight what will happen in Sunrise, let alone The

Last Hope.

And in case you were wondering, the first time that Lionpaw and Hollypaw are even told

about the prophecy's existence is in the space between Outcast and Eclipse.

Hollyleaf herself was originally intended to be one of the three like her brothers,

and her eventual confirmation of lacking power was a last minute decision made in the latter

half of the arc, in large part because Victoria Holmes had found no luck in thinking of a

power for her until then.

Now, knowing how tremendously popular Hollyleaf has become as a result of that choice, and

as a massive Hollyleaf fan myself, I do believe that particular choice did more good than

harm.

However, it also resulted in Hollyleaf having a fairly inconsistent characterization and

storyline, one that continued to bounce and sway even through to her…less-than-perfect

death, which I'm sure I'll have more to say on in a different video.

Here, though, I'd like to stick to the topic.

Even once her lack of power had been chosen, it didn't affect her story much.

Through Long Shadows and Sunrise, Hollyleaf's main priority is still about her parentage

and the possibility of not being clan-born, or later, being half-clan.

In other words, she was concerned with what the plot of the arc was originally conceived

to be.

There doesn't even exist a single scene where Hollyleaf realizes that she doesn't

have a power, instead thinking that none of the siblings are part of the three since,

without Squirrelflight as a biological mother, they might not be related to Firestar at all.

The first time she has to confront her separation from the prophecy is when she comes back and

meets Dovewing in The Forgotten Warrior, but even then we don't get any of her thoughts

without her point-of-view, and most of what we do see is her trying to make up for the

murder she committed rather than anything to do with her power or place in the prophecy.

Lionblaze's power, meanwhile, definitely existed, and if you've read or know the

story of Power of Three, you probably have at least a general conception of what that

power is.

However, the exact description of what his power is would change depending on who you

asked, from not being hurt to instantly winning any battle to general strength or just anger.

This is because his power was only really invented in late Outcast, in a…ahem, distasteful

event in the Tribe, which led to many mistakes in it both before and after its implementation.

He definitely doesn't instantly win any battles he is involved in, either on his own

or with his clan.

There are only seven battles involving him before the end of Omen of the Stars: a border

skirmish with Shadowclan in The Sight, fighting the Tribe invaders in Outcast, fighting Windclan

and Riverclan in Eclipse, the battle with the beavers in The Fourth Apprentice before

they realized they needed to destroy the dam, a second battle with Shadowclan in Fading

Echoes, a second battle with Windclan and Sol in the tunnels in The Forgotten Warrior,

and the big Dark Forest battle in The Last Hope.

Now, seven is a very small number to make any judgement off of, but importantly here,

even one of those battles was flat out lost.

When the traveling group fought the beavers, Rippletail died, all of them were overwhelmed,

and they had to retreat, with Lionblaze himself making the call.

And when they went back the second time, Lionblaze and Dovewing worked to tear the dam apart

while the others distracted the beavers directly, so he wasn't even a part of that battle.

Along with that, the battle in Fading Echoes was only declared to be won by Thornclaw,

but both Thunderclan and Shadowclan lost a high ranking life that day, so whether Lionblaze

won them the battle or not is questionable.

Even beyond that though, winning the majority of battles you are involved in is a trait

shared by a great majority of Warriors protagonists, especially those in the main series.

It doesn't seem all that special for Lionblaze specifically, and he has been beaten even

in single combat, with Berrynose nonetheless, so being undefeatable doesn't seem like

a possible power for him.

The second most prominent idea is that he can't be hurt, but this is proven false

many, many times.

Lionpaw is regularly scratched by the environment or by other cats, and even if his power was

meant to be used exclusively against the Dark Forest, it wouldn't work, because Tigerstar

himself, effectively if not literally the leader of the Dark Forest, was easily able

to draw blood.

Suffice to say, he is in no way indestructible, no matter how many times he comes out of a

battle without any scratches of his own.

The only remaining possibility seems to be that, as lines like this imply, his power

is a form of adrenaline that allows him to have more energy, anger, passion, or focus

during battles.

If this is his power, it overlaps greatly with his anger issues that exist outside of

battle and it is hard to determine the line between the two, but it also doesn't seem

that powerful.

If the adrenaline can't guarantee him a win, he'll still be just as hurt by any

attacks, and the anger he has can make him kill cats he didn't mean to, what benefit

does that power provide?

How is it different from any strong, angry, rampaging warrior doing the same thing?

In my view, at least, it isn't really.

The issue with Lionblaze is that his power was only developed by looking back on what

he had already done and who he already was, so the “superpower” he was described to

have is exactly what any average cat could have as well, making it seem significantly

less like the power of the stars is in his paws.

The opposite problem exists in Jayfeather.

His power was being used from the first book, primarily because it had the most utility.

Letting Jayfeather know what his clanmates thought about him helped to push his isolation

and explain why he didn't care for social niceties, and seeing into other cats' dreams

and memories not only got him his spot as a medicine cat but revealed the prophecy to

himself, the readers, and eventually, Hollypaw and Lionpaw too.

With Jaypaw as a point of view, having Firestar or even Starclan reach out to the three became

unnecessary, and they could become an independent group learning to live with their powers without

guidance.

That said, the utility of mental powers may have also been a detriment, as it caused the

rules and limits of Jayfeather's powers to constantly be stretched over the series,

with various additional elements being added over time.

I left it intentionally vague before, but even what basic power Jayfeather was meant

to have is unclear.

It was either mind reading, where you can hear the thoughts of others around you, or

empathetic abilities, where you can tell what someone else is feeling and sometime's feel

it yourself.

Jayfeather was definitely almost never compelled to feel what another cat was feeling like

Yellowfang was in her super edition, but there are some examples where he did, and he is

consistently able to tell with detailed accuracy what cats around him are feeling.

Yet he is also able to tell exactly what cats are thinking down to the word, hearing them

in his mind as if they were speaking aloud, and is also capable of walking into dreams,

seeing memories, and somehow spiritually entering a cat's mind to speak with aspects of them

separate from who they naturally are.

This all isn't to mention the time travel he was somehow able to accomplish into a past

self's body without any trace of that past self being there, even for the period between

Long Shadows and Sign of the Moon where Jayfeather wasn't back in time at all.

These different abilities do all share the similarity of being mental powers, but that

is a category, not a single power on its own, and Jayfeather might well have access to nearly

all of them, with the exception of those that allow you to control another mind.

Where compiling Lionblaze's different accounts together ends up stripping him of any real

power, compiling Jayfeather's abilities makes him seem overpowered, not in comparison

to a normal cat, but in comparison to the other cats who share his destiny.

The three are supposed to be powerful, and I think Jayfeather is the best example of

that being true, but having so many different abilities seems more unbalanced than they

are supposed to be.

Dovewing is, in my mind, the one who got the best balance of power and consistency, which

makes sense.

Unlike with Jayfeather, Lionblaze, or even Hollyleaf, by the time the Erins got to Dovewing

they had a whole arc of practice behind them, the chance to focus on nothing *but* powers

for Omen of the Stars, and an entire book, The Fourth Apprentice, whose primary purpose

was developing Dovewing as a character in conjunction with the powers they were introducing

to the readers, and her powers are heavily tied into who she is, how the plot progresses,

and how her life and relationships progress.

Dovewing is able to hear, scent, and vaguely see things at extreme distances.

This is a powerful ability and could be useful in a variety of circumstances, which I think

is a good idea for one of the three powers, especially in how normalized it is for Dovewing.

Almost every cat is able to hear, see, and scent things, so she went from birth thinking

that this was perfectly normal.

It is only in seeing how other cats react to her that she comes to understand how different

she is, and that she becomes somewhat isolated as a result.

This is not only a great power because of its utility, but because of the potential

it offers for character, development, and relationships, and while I think some of that

could have been built more upon during the story, Dovewing's novella did a great job

of capitalizing on those feelings once her power was stripped away.

The only issue I have with how it works, is that The Last Hope portrays her as being able

to stretch her senses into the Dark Forest.

The Dark Forest is an afterlife, like Starclan, and both of them have to use magic in order

to reach the living world.

Presumably then, those afterlives are on a different plane of some sort.

No matter how well her senses worked, Dovewing shouldn't have been able to see into the

Dark Forest any more than she could see into the past, or see into any fan's AU of her

world.

But even imagining that the Dark Forest is just a short walk away…somehow, there's

another issue with this, in that it makes Ivypool's already sparse amount of usefulness

in her own story even more obsolete.

Whatever tiny bits of information Ivypool was able to gather while in immense danger

every night and actively hurting certain cats to maintain her cover would be instantly dwarfed

by the information Dovewing could gather by hearing and seeing everything that went on

there every night without a sweat.

Even if none of these powers ended up being of use in the final battle, and none of the

three ended up being pivotal parts of the Dark Forest's defeat, just spending twelve

books with cats who have to deal with superpowers and a looming prophecy could have been and,

in some ways was, very interesting.

But some level of planning, integration, or balancing among the powers would have done

a lot of good in helping the prophesied three to feel like equal pedestals of power, and

could have potentially inspired them to use those powers for what they were destined to

do.

Thank you for watching, and always remember to watch where you step.

You're not indestructible after all.