字幕列表 影片播放 列印英文字幕 Last Tuesday, on June 6th, the newest graphic novel was released: A Thief in Thunderclan. It's the latest in a long line of Warriors graphic novels written by Dan Jolley with art by James L. Barry. Starting back during the release of Power of Three, several graphic novel arcs were published in groups of three smaller portions, but once Omen of the Stars ended they entered into a long hiatus, seemingly replaced with the novellas instead. However, since 2020, in the middle of the Broken Code arc, they have begun again, this time in longer releases but all in one book. So far in the modern graphic novels we've had A Shadow in Riverclan, focused on Feathertail, Winds of Change, focused on Mudclaw, and Exile from Shadowclan focused on Nightpelt. Considering the last of the old manga arcs was focused on Skyclan, many fans were already predicting that the next graphic novel would be a Thunderclan one, and by golly we were right. I'll have you know that the day I found out this new graphic novel would follow Brightheart, I. Was. ECSTATIC! I sure wasn't the only one either, as Brightheart is a very popular character within the fandom thanks to her unique and sympathetic story, mostly-functional relationships, kind personality, and honestly, lack of any focus in the narrative. Warriors fans tend to thrive on material that hasn't been touched enough yet. The book was likely going to be set in a clan we know well in a time we're already aware of, so there was the chance that there is with every piece of retconning supplemental material that we would know all of the plot beats already, the story would be constrained by or contradict what we already know had to have happened, or the characters wouldn't be able to engage with the plot at all since another, previous main character, is filling that role. Even knowing that, this is a rare occasion where I was hopeful because I would be totally happy just watching Brightheart live her life in any time period and seeing how a new (to her) author interprets her personality, struggles, desires, and relationships, especially considering how much a lot of that was glossed over in the main series. Plus, uh, it's not a secret that the modern graphic novels have often been more well-structured and genuinely entertaining than the super editions or even main series books…except for Exile From Shadowclan but they were tossed a truly awful hand in trying to make the already-told stories of Yellowfang's Secret and Into the Wild work with the lore they had literally just introduced for their main series. Anyway, where A Thief in Thunderclan is concerned, since I will be covering it here, I can tell you right away that I will be spoiling almost all of it, so if you would like to go read it for yourself with just the premise to go on, I encourage you to leave now. Without saying much, I actually really enjoyed this book and I think it's well worth your while. So go read it if you're interested and come back when you're done. … Now that they're gone, let me just give a quick rundown for those of you who are still watching without reading the book. Yes, I see you, and I like how you live dangerously. There are two main threads through this book: one external, plot-driven, and the other very much internal and character-driven. As is done in good writing though, these two threads are intertwined, with the external conflict giving an arena in which the main character can explain, explore, and alleviate their internal conflict. The external conflict here is what the book is named for: there's a thief in Thunderclan. Over the course of several nights, Thunderclan's prey pile is continuously emptied, rapidly, and always while at least one warrior is guarding the camp. No one ever sees the prey being stolen, and a series of warriors are openly accused early on because of their proximity to the prey or their behavior being deemed suspicious around the time of the thefts, which leads to not only some conflict, but some mystery as more incidents occur and more clues are noticed. Through it all, Firestar of all cats is distant and spending an increasing amount of time exhausted and / or out of camp, leaving him with little time or sense to give cats coming to him for advice or with reports of the incidents. (For the record, that particular thing is because this is the period of Firestar's Quest and he is in the process of being called by Starclan to find and rebuild Skyclan.) Because of this, though, Brightheart feels it is left up to her to find the true culprit, along with enough proof to make her accusations, whatever they may be, seem like more than personal biases getting in the way. And since I'm already dipping my toes into it a little, let's now explore the *internal* conflicts of this book. I'll fully admit, this is the main thing I'm here for. This is the part I dug into so deeply and it is the primary reason I found this book so entertaining. After her injury, Tigerstar's associated plots, and the uphill journey she had to earning other cats' respect, Brightheart at this point finds it difficult to trust in her clanmates and has an impulse to do everything herself or with Cloudtail so she can “prove” herself to be better, and even with Cloudtail she sometimes feels inadequate, like when he got an apprentice over her. Cloudtail is a loving mate and does try to include her as Rainpaw's second mentor, but I can't imagine that makes the sting entirely go away. Of course all of this is heightened by her becoming pregnant with kits and slowly losing a lot of her mobility and freedom, making her want to prove even more that she's capable despite her physical hangups. At least she can still jump well, almost as well as a Skyclan cat, and she now holds the honor of being the only cat in the clans to ever sing so how can you possibly not love her? Within universe, though, the true result of these feelings first appears when she sees Longtail and Bramblepaw meeting with Oakfur and Tawnypaw of Shadowclan. She knows that she wants to and to an extent does trust her clanmates, but she trusted Tigerstar in the past too, and that ended badly for every cat. With this in mind, and the fact that Longtail was recently guarding the camp when the prey was taken, Brightheart brings to Firestar an idea that they could be responsible for the stolen prey. Firestar, both out of exhaustion and the trust that he grew during the end of the original arc, encourages Brightheart to seek out proof of who, if any cat, was stealing prey before accusing them. This puts Brightheart on the track to believe that she should gather definitive proof before she tells any cat, whether that's Firestar or Graystripe or any warriors on guard. Brightheart's personal journey through this book, which she needs to cross in order to solve the external conflict, is finding a way to trust and rely on her clanmates without feeling as useless as she did when she was first injured. Despite progressing so much and having support in some close friends, Brightheart clearly still feels inadequate in comparison to her clanmates and does everything she can to get concrete proof that she measures up to them in every way she can think of. Even her desire for an apprentice stems from this, as it would mean the clan trusts her enough to entrust a future warrior to her. I love this. I have biases already, of course, because Brightheart is my third favorite character and I have imagined this sort of character arc happening in the background for years, but even pretending that I didn't care about this character before, it's a good execution of a great concept for a character arc. In the original arc, Brightpaw was an obedient and quiet apprentice, one who probably wouldn't stand out even if Bluestar wasn't paying attention to anyone other than Cloudpaw. While they didn't go into any of Brightpaw's reasons explicitly, we know Swiftpaw wanted to go after the dogs as a way to stand out and get the recognition they needed to become warriors, and it's likely that Brightpaw felt the same way since she agreed to join him. Rather than having that desired fulfilled, though, she was brutally injured and her friend was killed, leaving her in the care of Cinderpelt and Cloudtail as she drifted through days of pain and unconsciousness while, outside, Bluestar skipped past a normal warrior ceremony and branded her with a name that would only bring to mind her injuries. With both Cloudtail and Cinderpelt's help, and the task of taking care of Speckletail, she did recover enough to learn new ways to hunt and fight in time for the Bloodclan battle, which was a great achievement. But even then, she became a warrior and a fighter on the recommendations of peers who had to care for her and not because anyone found her extraordinary or even proficient. Brightheart, at this stage, has no way of knowing if she could be a successful warrior or be seen as one on her own merits and without being “good enough considering what she's been through.” In other words, she has no idea if she is good enough in comparison to her non-injured clanmates. That's the sort of insecurity that makes perfect sense to fuel into a character arc, because the solution is realizing on her own how capable she is, and that her clanmates do know that. She doesn't *have* to prove anything to them. Now, personally, I would add in the ability to grow confidence as a mentor at some point in this arc to show categorically that this is something the clan trusts her to do, rather than just having them say they trust her, and I would also want to add in some reference to and resolution for Cloudtail's tendency to *always* stick up for and help her. While comforting, that is also the sort of thing that might make a cat like Brightheart less sure of her capabilities on her own and it might even make the clan trust her as an individual less. But what we have in this book is a fine version, especially for being so early in her journey, before she has had Whitewing, met Daisy, tried to help out in the medicine den to escape Cloudtail and Daisy, or briefly taken on Jaypaw as a mentor. It's a great arc to have for Brightheart, and a very sweet and relatable one as well. Brightheart is not a perfect cat, which is important in making sure we can believe in her as a real character who we can then understand and potentially relate to. Her initial bias against Longtail and Brambleclaw is a great example of this. As she was so closely hurt by Tigerstar, and because of her existing problems with easily trusting her clanmates, she thinks at different points that each of them may be taking Thunderclan's prey or that they might be doing something nefarious with the cats across the border in Shadowclan. She doesn't *want* to distrust either of them but can't know for sure who they are, or see them as like herself. However, importantly, this is also the period in which Longtail loses his vision because of infected rabbit scratches, an injury and recovery that we now get to see first-hand. When Longtail is injured, he doubts himself, considers this the end for him, and has trouble seeing any more worth in his existence. At that point, Brightheart can't see the former-friend of Tigerstar that she once did. Instead she sees herself. She feels empathy for him, and it is this turning point that she uses to believe in him, and in more of her clanmates, and seek out real answers as to who Thunderclan's thief could be. Willowpelt's death and her seeing Rainpaw's grief over his mother also helps this as she finds the words to comfort him by saying he can rely on his clanmates, and doesn't have to be totally strong on his own. As Graystripe points out later, these are obviously words Brightheart herself needs to internalize, but it is often easier to advise someone than to take advice yourself. That said, by the end of the story, Brightheart puts her trust in Firestar and Sandstorm despite not knowing anything about their journey, convincing the clan to do the same, and understands how much earlier she should have involved her clanmates in the search for who took their prey. She finishes by designing and helping her clan to construct a trap to catch the thief, a hawk who has been swooping down to the open prey pile, and jumping out to save Rainpaw from them when it tries to carry him away too. The clan is able to keep their prey safe from then on, knowing what the problem is, and Brightheart is, for that night, a hero. It's honestly super sweet. As I said earlier, there are some elements that I believe Brightheart could still come into conflict with in the future, but this is a great stepping stone for her and it's really nice to see her cross this barrier into trusting and being recognized by her clanmates. Going back to the plot for a minute, I'd like to discuss the overall mystery. We're first introduced to it when Ashfur accuses Thornclaw of taking the big squirrel he caught while he was on duty the previous night, and Thornclaw is absolutely insistent that he didn't ever touch a squirrel. Cloudtail brushes it off as a bad morning argument and we are quickly thrown off course by Brightheart feeling sick and realizing she'll be having kits but that seed is planted for us as the readers to guess that something might be wrong. This combined with Longtail and Oakfur talking extensively while Brambleclaw and Tawnypelt meet leads Brightheart, and us, to believe that something could be wrong there too, and that perhaps these events are connected. Days mostly go on as usual, but one night, right before Brightheart and Cloudtail go to sleep, the camera passes very deliberately over the full prey pile rather than either of our characters speaking, and when Brightheart gets up in the middle of the night, she sees Longtail on guard and the prey pile completely empty. Brightheart accuses him openly, and thinks he may have dragged Brambleclaw into it, but Longtail denies all of her accusations and affirms his loyalty. Knowing what Longtail was like at the end of the original arc and who he later became, we as readers are poised to believe him too. It's actually Firestar who may read as the most suspicious, for blowing off cats trying to talk to him about it, seeming so exhausted as if he stayed up through the night, and leaving the clan so much, but as soon as a reader realizes that he has spent a night at the Moonstone or with a kittypet, they may get a hint of the truth: that this is the period in time where Firestar is being asked to go find Skyclan. Brightheart never discovers this herself but the text gives us enough clues to deduce it ahead of time if we are sharp and remember the details of Firestar's Quest. We also get a fair amount of focus on various potential thieves and looks at the scratches that keep being left behind. Brightheart even thinks to compare those marks to the clawmarks of each of her clanmates, and we learn through this that the scratches are too thick and deep to be made by any of the cats she tests. The text never spells it out explicitly or gives clues so obvious that we can rule out all but one option, but it does give us some accurate information to go off of, which can make this an engaging mystery to think about as you read. In the end, it was just a hawk stealing the prey, which is less sensational than many of our and Brightheart's earlier guesses might have been, but that might be the point, as it ties into the central emotional conflict. Thunderclan can trust each other, and even to a point, they can trust the other clans as well. Longtail really was just talking with a fellow warrior, Brambleclaw really was just talking to his sister, Firestar was just helping another clan with his ancestors' blessing, and Thornclaw really was just guarding camp. In this case, it was worth it for these cats to work together and put their trust in each other. Sometimes there isn't a huge conspiracy and none of your friends are murderers. This whole book is honestly just so charming. Because it only spends a few scenes loosely crossing over with the beginning of Firestar's Quest and none at all in the past sections of Graystripe's Vow, it mostly just gets to tell its own story about one warrior's self worth and place in the clan shown through the lens of a minor conflict that was easily passed by and yet curious to dig into. We get some really beautiful framing in several shots, little funny and cute moments for a huge number of the Thunderclan cast, and scenes that I'm sure will be iconic for their drama, love, or cuteness factor for years to come. This might well be my favorite of the graphic novels at this point. It was really a joy to read and it dug into the arc of a cat who sorely needed the extra time and resolution after what she got in the main series. If you haven't picked it up yet, despite me spoiling the whole plot here, I would encourage you to check it out. Perhaps for once, when it comes to Warriors, I doubt you will be disappointed. Thank you for watching, and always remember that all the love in the world being around you won't matter until you let yourself feel it inside.
B1 中級 美國腔 A Thief In Thunderclan (新寵貓戰士漫畫) - Sunny's 演講 - 貓戰士分析(A Thief In Thunderclan (New Favorite Graphic Novel) – Sunny's Spiel | Warriors Analysis) 7 0 WarriorsCatFan2007 發佈於 2024 年 02 月 18 日 更多分享 分享 收藏 回報 影片單字