The best Warriors journey moments
BY THE EDITOR
While Clan cats spend most of their lives within the confines of their own territory, sometimes it becomes necessary for cats to leave Clan territory and venture into the world beyond. Any journey outside of known territory will always come with its own challenges and new experiences, and can offer experience and llife essons that simply cannot be found by a cat living their whole life within the same stretch of woodland. In honor of the recent release of Ivypool’s Heart, we will be looking at a countdown of our favorite moments from cat journeys throughout the Warriors series!
5 – Strange new creatures
One of the best parts of any Warriors journey is seeing our favorite felines encounter things and creatures they’ve never seen before, and seeing them try to describe and contextualize what they’re seeing through their limited cat knowledge. Riverstar and his patrol navigating their way through a mall, Nightheart stepping onto a pool cover and falling into the water, Tigerheart getting zipped up inside someone’s suitcase and traveling on a train, these things and places are very familiar sights for us as humans, but we see them new through the eyes of cats so much smaller, more vulnerable, and without the words or technical knowledge to contextualize what it is they’re seeing than us.
Our favorite of these moments of new experiences, however, is from the newest release of Ivypool’s Heart. Ivypool and her patrol come across an illegal zoo run by a cruel twoleg hosting all sorts of exotic animals that no Clan cat could ever have hoped to have seen before. Giraffes through their eyes are massive creatures with necks like tree trunks, so huge they have to crane their necks back to see the top of the creature. Zebras are smaller versions of the creatures at Horseplace with strange stripes, honey badgers are a strange combination of weasel and badger, and there are wolves, and snakes far larger than any seen in Clan territory. Most extraordinary of all, of course, are the wildcats – creatures who can speak the language of the Clan cats, but are larger, stockier, and with a far older and wilder bloodline than any Clan cat.
4 – A kit in trouble
Some moments on Warriors are awe-inspiring and poignant, like Ivypool and her patrol encountering a plethora of strange new animals. Others are more humorous. One such moment is this scene from Graystripe’s Adventure. During their journey to find Graystripe’s old home in the forest, they come across a group of loners living in a barn. They had once lived in the twoleg den nearby, but the elderly twolegs who looked after them died, and the new family that moved in chased them and sent their dogs after them. They were forced to hide in the barn, unable to leave during the day lest the dogs catch sight of them, reduced to prisoners in their own home.
While leaving the barn to hunt one day, Graystripe and Millie noticed the youngest of the twoleg family, a very young toddler, wandering the yard alone without her parents anywhere in sight. When Graystripe realized she had wandered too close to the edge of a pond and was in danger of falling in, he did the only thing he could think of – he lured her away from the pond and out of danger by acting as cute as possible. The sight of Graystripe purring at a twoleg kit and looking up at her with huge, kitten-like eyes was amusing enough for Millie to tease him over, but thankfully it was successful – not only in saving the kit from drowning, but also in showing all of the twolegs that cats are good creatures worthy of respect. Graystripe’s act of kindness with the kit softened the twolegs’ attitude towards the barn cats, allowing both groups to finally live together in harmony.
3 – A leader honored
During the journey to find Sol, back when ThunderClan suspected him of Ashfur’s murder, Brambleclaw and his patrol came across a group of loners living in a Twolegplace where dogs terrorized the streets. The loners were led by a former kittypet named Jingo. They had initially been formed by Sol, who had convinced cats from all walks of life to live together in an abandoned twoleg den in a rough imitation of a Clan. When the dogs began terrorizing the cats when they left the den to hunt, Sol organized a battle plan to convince the dogs to leave them alone, but the plan failed horribly and left several cats dead. Sol refused to take any responsibility for the plan failing so badly, and so the furious cats turned on him and forced him to leave the group.
Jingo was one of several kittypets who gave up the comfort and happiness of their kittypet life because they believed in what Sol was trying to build. After Sol was driven from the group, she took up the lonely mantle of leader in his place. As Hollyleaf noted, Clan leaders have the guidance of StarClan and the support of a deputy and medicine cat in leading their Clan – Jingo had no one and nothing. All of the hard choices of keeping her group alive fell solely on her shoulders and left her achingly lonely. And yet, while she could have returned to her twolegs and the happiness and safety she had known there, she chose to stay because she felt a responsibility to her group. Meeting this fiercely dedicated leader clearly had a deep impact on Brambleclaw and his patrol. As they parted ways for the final time, Brambleclaw whispered a final farewell in a moment of deep respect not typically shown by Clan cats to outsiders. “Good-bye, Jingostar. May StarClan light your path.”
2 – A wayward guide
One can hardly talk about journeys in Warrior Cats without discussing the journey that started it all. While the sun-drown quest in The New Prophecy wasn’t the first journey ever taken by Clan cats chronologically, it was the first (besides Fireheart and Graystripe’s brief quest to find WindClan) to ever be depicted in the books in publishing order, and was thus the first introduction readers had to Clan cats experiencing the world beyond their borders. The twisting, maze-like paths of the large Twolegplace Brambleclaw and his friends found themselves in had the young Clan cats hopelessly lost and overwhelmed with the size of all of it. They despaired at ever being able to find their way and complete the quest StarClan had sent them on.
Enter Purdy. This well-meaning but somewhat meandering old loner wasn’t anyone’s first choice of a guide through the labyrinthian Twolegplace, but without any better option available, he’s what the questing cats were stuck with. It wasn’t all bad. While it’s questionable how much of a help he actually was to the questing cats in leading them on an efficient path through Twolegplace, he did help them find food several times, and he helped save them from fierce dogs and swarming rats. The sweetest moment the questing cats shared with Purdy is when they parted in Moonrise, when the Clan cats were readying themselves for their journey through the mountains. While Purdy tried to go with them, ready to face new untold dangers at the side of his new young friends, Midnight gently persuaded him away from it by telling him the young Clan cats would rely too much on his guidance rather than being able to learn and grow on their own if he went with them. A gentle white lie meant to soothe his pride, but the truth of the matter was that the Clan cats had grown fond of their wayward guide, and would miss his long-winded tales and less-than-perfect guidance. Feathertail promised him on their parting that they would never forget Purdy, and it was true – in time, the tom would come to find his home in ThunderClan, but even before then, he was carried in the hearts of the Clan cats who had known him.
1 – Respect for an elder
Our final and favorite moment on this list also features Purdy. This time, it comes from the Power of Three series, when Brambleclaw’s patrol to the mountains encountered Purdy in Outcast. Four young apprentices accompanied the warriors on this journey, and like the foolish young cats they were, they decided they knew better than the adults around them and decided to sneak off to do something foolish and dangerous. Lionpaw, Hollypaw, and Breezepaw snuck off to hunt in a twoleg den they’d been warned away from by the older cats, only to get cornered by three vicious dogs. It was only Purdy’s quick thinking and courage in going back to help the young cats that saved them from a grisly end.
Our favorite moment comes after this flight from the dogs, when Hollypaw chose to show her gratitude and deep respect for the elderly tom who had saved her life. She knew words were not enough to convey her thanks, so she brought the old tom not only prey, but mouse bile to remove his ticks. She tended to him the way any Clan apprentice would tend to an elder, showing the lonely old loner the same reverence as she would one of her own Clan – and one day, though she didn’t yet know it, he would indeed be a Clanmate of hers. Purdy thanked the young cat for the care she’d shown him, and the sound of his contented puring lulled her to sleep as she curled up beside him, giving a perfect end to this particularly heart-warming scene.
