The cats all live in a structured system,

which is fun and interesting for somebody who's new to the series.

but after 40 to 60 books, you start to notice that

not only are all the clans the same, but they also have no reason to be separated in the way they are.

You start to get more exhausted by clan borders and romance rules than interested by them.

Along with, that the structure isn't utopian. It's not quite dystopian either, but it's flawed.

It's unfair, it's harsh to outsiders and it goes unexplained as to why their society thrives over others.

I mentioned that it's not utopian, specifically because these characters within warrior cats think that it is.

They seem to be under the impression that their way of living is the only way of living,

and it's backed by not only their in-universe religion,

but also the writing of the books themselves.

Up until the most recent series, and I expect through the most recent series,

despite it being called "The Broken Code",

the cats have always found that they are living in the best possible society,

despite constantly breaking its rules and exploiting its flaws.

So what I want to happen is that it gets... changed up a little!

For a while, their current structure worked fine because no other cats were in a society.

This group was isolated, and on some level

it was implied to be just how wild cats operated in general.

The warrior cats world seemed much, much bigger in the first arc than it did in the arcs to follow.

But then they introduced something terrible...

The Tribe of Rushing Water.

Introducing another group of cats living separately from the clans,

along with the concept that cats do not naturally live in clans, kinda stabs a hole in the warrior cats system,

because it makes me less forgiving of the flaws that it has.

In Warrior Cats, introducing another group is usually proving how much better the Warrior Cats clans are,

and a lot of the time the warrior cats are trying to force their culture on the other group.

It's part of the whole concept where the narrative is pushing that the best way for these cats to live

and the only way for cats to live is in the clans.

On top of that, the Tribe is boring!

If we every have to go back to the mountains again in this series, it will be too soon.

It always feels like filler,

even when Jayfeather is going back in time, establishing something or guiding the original tribe cats,

it all feels like an abstract distraction from the main plot.

And more importantly than that, as I said before, it feels like the tribe can't properly take care of themselves.

Repeatedly, they need to be helped, to be taught how to defend themselves,

to be taught how to be a society, even though they're older and more established than the Clans are,

to the point where they're being driven out by a ragtag group of young people and outcasts.

Going to visit the Tribe cats, in every book where they are visited, is treated like a chore.

They're written as if they're stupid and incompetent,

along with being so stubborn that they never actually listen to the advice of the Clan cats until it's too late.

They are written, in the books, as being inferior. They are not the only ones.

Single cats are considered inferior,

stray cats, kitty pets, along with any and all other groups.

The warrior Clans are considered the height of society, the perfect and infallible society,

both by the narrative and by the characters.

Every cat they come across either needs to be fixed by them, or treated with disdain,

and they do it to every single cat they meet,

every single group they meet!

Heck, Tigerheart's Shadow seems like it's going to be a book

where Tigerheart learns that forcing his culture on another group of people is wrong,

but it doesn't really accomplish that. Instead Tigerheart brings half the cats back with him

to go live in what he's convinced them is a perfect society.

Firestar literally goes five miles south to establish a new Clan after some dead cats beg him to,

and convinces like thirty people, far disconnected from the Clans, to become one.

Despite everything, this group of people doesn't immediately fall apart.

But despite the fact that they seem to be trying to convince us

that warriors are living in their best lives in the best possible system, it's clearly flawed.

First of all, there's five Clans, all separate, all constantly fighting,

not to defend themselves in any normal way, but in theory to fight the other Clans.

But for what? All events that threaten an entire Clan have always been resolved peacefully.

We've never had a severe starvation event,

and all mass sicknesses have either been resolved by being gifted or stealing herbs from another Clan,

seemingly with little repercussions.

It seems like we haven't had a fight that was actually treated as being a normal thing

since we had Sunningrocks in the first series,

and that was fighting over a rock that the RiverClan cats wanted to sit on!

And you'd think that with the danger and conflict between Clans being

non-existent for such long periods of time,

having a death toll of zero for books and books and books,

people wouldn't be so tense and worried all the time about stolen squirrels!

But they are, because it's Warrior Cats!

They keep themselves separate and fight over territory and resources for little to no reason,

especially after learning multiple times that the lesson [is] that

they need to stay together and defend themselves from outside threats as a unit.

Not only do they live in a separated, aggressive community, but they believe in this separation.

But...

...why?

Every time they try to live as a unit or dissolve a Clan, God intervenes.

Ok, not God, but the warrior cat ancestors,

which I've gone over specifically how little sense they make in the video 'StarClan',

so check that out if you like me talking aimlessly about cat books.

Anyway, they seemingly don't have a higher knowledge of events or the way things should be,

and there's a sense that the Clans are supposed to be the way they are for some reason of fate,

but it's really unclear as to what fate is in the first place or why.

They have prophecies sent from a higher power,

a higher power seemingly even [than] the dead cats,

about what's going to happen, all concerning this one group,

and seemingly because of just how special the warrior Clans are.

But here's the thing.

Recently, it's been kind of showcased that different cats live in different ways,

and interact with kitty culture and the afterlife in different ways.

The Tribe never counted for this because they basically had the exact same afterlife the Clans had.

But there's lore now!

The series has recently implied that dead cats just kind of wander aimlessly around as ghosts after they die.

All dead cats that aren't in the clans, anyway.

Why? Who knows? Who knows..

But this does prove that an afterlife isn't exclusive to the Clans,

so that's like a start, I guess, in the direction of humanizing outside groups and cats.

Anyways, we've seen that other cats, specifically the new group, the Sisters,

have a unique and functioning society outside of the Clans.

They have a [pseudo] leader. Ooh, I can't say 'sway-do', that's a fake word.

They have a pseudo leader, they have a proper religion,

and, although silly, their own way of doing things.

[imitating Moonlight] "Get out of my house, son."

"I never want to see your dumb face again!"

But I feel like just the Tribe of Rushing Water and other past groups kind of closed the door on how cats work.

The sisters opened one. The clans don't need to be the way they are!

They're not set in stone by laws of the universe.

They could be more like the Sisters!

Or maybe they shouldn't be more like the Sisters, but they could be more like something else!

The warrior cats, of course, think that the way that the Sisters do things is super weird and awful,

but to be honest with you, the way the Clans do things is also weird and awful!

Fighting for no reason, living in five separate groups that are barely distinguishable from each other,

having absurd rules against certain people having babies,

and certain people having babies with certain other people,

and it's really just not that far off from whatever nonsense they're constantly judging other cats for!

So what I want, and what I hope will develop from the introduction of other cultures

that are treated a little bit more evenly, is that the warrior cats will stop and think:

"Wait a minute. What are we doing here?"

Obviously this sort of thing has been briefly gone over in the series before,

but, every time, something goes wrong... morally.

Despite being of a human level intelligence,

the cats somehow don't have the level of thought required to separate religion from morality.

They also somehow cannot pick out the merits of individual rules without damning the entire code.

For example, when Sol wanders in and convinces ShadowClan to give up on their religion,

They also give up on important elements of the warrior code, along with elements of their culture as warriors.

[imitating Sol] "Hmm, no more religion? This means we should stop feeding the children!"

But their religion isn't what needs to go.

Despite the ambiguity of the warriors' ancestors,

and their borderline-untrustworthy manipulative elements, they are real.

What does need to go, in my opinion, is Clan borders, kitty xenophobia,

and all those silly rules about who you can't or can have a baby with.

The complete separation is nonsense.

Four Clans, five Clans, it doesn't matter at all that they're separated.

They work together 90% of the time anyways,

They could still live in separate groups with their own leaders and camps,

hell, even have their own hunting groups and rules about them.

What I'm proposing would change very little about the Warrior Cats universe beyond the fact that, logically,

They wouldn't be fighting over which side of the border a squirrel was caught on, or where an herb was gathered,

when every Clan has an obligation to feed everyone in the first place.

Essentially, it would work like this: The Clans recognizing that they are one entity, that's step one.

In theory, the territories, hunting grounds, and population is [are] too large to live in any one area or one camp,

especially with a big lake in the middle, so they cannot live all together and probably wouldn't want to.

But an understanding that everyone should be fed and defended equally should be carried by every Clan,

in an added-to-the-warrior-code sort of way.

If RiverClan's dying because the river is frozen,

there's no reason for them not to be able to spread out and hunt elsewhere,

or at the very least, seek help from other groups, or stash their elders or queens away in a healthier camp.

It's already in the warrior code to care for elders and kits first.

If the cats were to have a problem with a rule like this, they have a problem with the warrior code already.

Obviously it would be a strain in leaf-bare for them to be taking in these extra cats,

but the Clans, or at least ThunderClan, participate in this sort of sheltering for kittypets and strangers

all the time already, despite things being tight,

and they have never been shown to actively suffer from it

to any dangerous level within the books.

Despite what the complaining of a cat like Spiderleg or Dustpelt might lead you to believe.

Additionally, I feel like the Clans should be treated a little bit more like categories.

If a cat feels like they would find themselves more useful in WindClan than in SkyClan,

they should be able to have the option to Twigbranch themselves over.

Clan loyalty in a world where the Clans are a cooperative entity would be loyalty to all the Clans anyways.

This could be used to focus on the different leadership styles and strictness of any given group,

along with our vaguely boring contrasts between hunting styles and battle moves.

Obviously, much like Hogwarts houses or the sports team your dad likes,

the Clan that you were born into might be a point of pride.

Rivalry might still be a thing, along with your peers being put off with it if you decide to switch,

but no longer that rule that you need to pick one and keep it.

Along with that, the idea of half-Clan cats or relationships would no longer be a problem.

Like someone in another clan? Go there! Have them come here! Don't want to do that? Don't worry about it!

Come visit ThunderClan just to check up on everything, bring a couple mice for the fresh-kill pile, and say hi.

I also like the idea of there being groups of cats who go from Clan to Clan.

Young people being warriors for whatever Clan needs it.

Staying wherever they like when times are easy,

but traveling about if there's an outside threat, a fox to fight,

or a Clan who just needs a little help accomplishing something.

I also think that the medicine cats should be even more interconnected with each other than they are,

sharing their knowledge of herbs, sharing the herbs themselves,

coming to each other immediately when there's a disease or injury they don't know how to handle,

and, most importantly, being able to temporarily move a medicine cat

from one Clan to another if there's some sort of problem.

The Clans obviously already do basically all of these things when it comes to medicine cats,

just unofficially, under the radar as if it's against the law.

I would make a couple of changes, though.