Positive aspects of the book/series

[Rolo]

So, like the rest of you, I don't particularly rate the Erins writing abiliities as the best in the world. However, sometimes I do feel that the writing collaborative (because the Erins aren't ONE person, but 4, so you're applying every criticism to several people) gets a bad wrap. People seem to forget that they have written a HUGELY popular set of books that haven't just sold in America but have huge markets worldwide, and that their books are highly regarded by a lot of fans. Popularity does count for something. Just look at the fandom. Like it or not, people are invested in these characters, in these plotlines. Hey, you might suggest that the fandom is stupid, but that, in turn, makes you silly. Because Fourtrees, like it or not, is part of the fandom, so all you intellectuals have enough investment in the series to stick around and talk lengthily on it.

So, here I'd like you to think about why the books are seen as having merit. Put aside the issues, they can be mentioned elsewhere, and employ your analytical skills. Because, frankly, analysing why something has succeeded is an entirely useful skill as a writer/analyser, and can help you market your own work.

Note: If you're coming on here to say 'Popularity doesn't count for anything', just leave. Just leave this thread right now. This is not the point of the thread. I have never claimed that the Warriors series are Shakespeare. However, in a largely negative atmosphere towards the Erins, here is where I want people to critically analyse WHY the books are well-regarded. To think logically about their assumptions that the Erins have no worth or writing skills, even if they're not entirely convinced. I will not allow it to disintegrate into another Erin-negative thread, got it?



Discussion start:
Focusing on the first series, I find quite a lot to praise about them. In terms of the market in which they fit, it's incredibly nice to see an animal-related book for both genders in the older child section. When I found these books, they seemed few and far between.

In addition, structurally, I think they're very appropriate for children and quite sound. Even when the books dip to more mundane stuff, there is always a promise of another plot development around the corner. And twists! Lots and lots of twists. I'd also like to say that the final two books were particularly good in this aspect, and, as a child, Bluestar's downfall was very shocking to me, as I believe it would be to many children. I also found the series conclusion very satisfying.

The books, despite their quite predictable plot line, are also very rereadable. My sister adored them all, and she must have read each of the first series 4 times at least, and the second series a lot also.

[celestialsquared]

Personally, I think the book's popularity boils down to this:

-They're about cats that act exactly like people
I think we can all agree that these cats hardly act like cats at all. They only have one mate, mate for love, and have thought processes that is basically all "human" thoughts. They're essentially humans with fur and four legs.
Because of this aspect, the cats treat females the same as males and are also able to gain high positions of power. I would say that most of the animal world is actually more sexist that this.

-The drama aspect of the books
Even before the Erins made the mistake of writing for the fans the first series had a lot of drama. To the age group it's marketed to, 5th grade to 7th grade, children are generally coming out of the "simple black and white issues" phase into more complicated issues. Issues like medicine cats falling in love and lying for the sake of the clan are issues that are right up this age group's alley.

-The society groups of the cats
This is not your typical book where there's one alpha cat and all other cats do their best to stay out of his way. These cats have structure. Unlike most animal books, their names have meaning and they all have ranks and specialized jobs to do. It's probably the most appealing thing about the books; it spawns many fan-clans and fanfictions because there is an actual structure to be followed.

These are the aspects I think that keeps us loyal, even when we realize that the actual writing style of the books stink.

[mistytail]

In addition to what Rolo and Celestial have said, I think the very thin and flat characters actually give kids a lot of room to play with and interpet the characters in several different ways. There's tons of things for kids (and older fans like us) to theorize about. There's also a pseudo-formality to the language use in the books that can make young readers feel sophisticated and intelligent. The fact the characters never shorten each other's names, kits always address their parents by their names, and how much emphasis is placed on respect for those in positions of power, as well as the ideals of nobility and courage and loyalty, are very appealing to young kids. It makes the experience of reading the books at a young age feel big and cinematic. While we can see through the act, it's a very appealing show for younger readers.

Warriors markets itself well, and the huge amount of books helps this. It keeps the young ones coming back for more.

[leah]

Basically everything Misty said but said by me in simple teenage speak.
Because I agree. :3

[mistytail]

Nov 4, 2012 11:18:48 GMT -6 leah said:

Basically everything Misty said but said by me in simple teenage speak.
Because I agree. :3

I was about to say "But I'm a teenager too!" and then I realized that statement wouldn't be accurate come next April.

God, I'm old.

(also thank you ;w;)

[drheiter]

One thing that I was (and still am) very pleased with is the gender equality in the books. I mean, there is the issue of females losing personality when they become queens, but for the most part females are portrayed as being just as strong/capable as males. When I first read the books I expected to see things like toms defending the she-cats or "going easy on them" in battle, female leaders being a very rare occurrence, female apprentices poking fun at male apprentices for being stronger than them ("Ha ha, you got beat by a girl!" sort of thing), and just generally a lot less expected of she-cats. I was really glad to see that for the most part female warriors aren't dependent on males for support and defense, and I'd have to say this is one aspect the Erins did pretty well.

[Grey]

Because Fourtrees, like it or not, is part of the fandom, so all you intellectuals have enough investment in the series to stick around and talk lengthily on it.

I agree with this entirely. I don't like Erin Hunter's writing, but I have always loved the concept behind Warriors. Debating and discussing the series is my source of entertainment, and I'd be a liar if I didn't say I owe a lot of happiness to the fact Erin Hunter is reasonably dismal at creating a naming system. It allowed me the freedom to do what I like to do, which is create an alternate system and Ailuronymy.

Popularity does count for something.

Bad writing is bad writing, but in this case, it is also popular and successful. My writing professor, who is an author in his own right, once said that there's nothing wrong with being "rotten and rich", as long as you're rich. Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey are pretty good examples of that, I think. They have mass appeal and the authors of both are sitting pretty. I suspect they really don't care if their writing is cutting-edge or brilliant; they were just in it for the "fun".

Not going to comment on that, though.

They're about cats that act exactly like people

To add to this, the fact that they act almost exactly like people means that kids' imaginations aren't contorted or strained. As an older age group, we like to be challenged and think in more obscure ways, but for most kids, I think it would be very difficult for them to enjoy the series if the cats were less anthropomorphised. Their ability to relate or empathise would be dramatically diminished, as well as the fact they probably wouldn't be able to understand why the cats didn't just "work things out" the way people generally do. Books or films with less human characters wouldn't have quite the same kind of appeal as Warriors does, I think. I mean, there's a fair argument that the film of Watership Down is pretty terrifying to most kids.

These cats have structure. Unlike most animal books, their names have meaning and they all have ranks and specialized jobs to do. It's probably the most appealing thing about the books; it spawns many fan-clans and fanfictions because there is an actual structure to be followed.

This is definitely my favourite thing about it. In many ways, the series is a spring-board - you don't have to love canon in order to have fun with it. You can use the concepts in canon to do your own thing; it's very liberating. But without canon, you just wouldn't have that enjoyment, because the inspiration wouldn't even exist.

I am also an enormous advocate of bad writing, if only because it tends to inspire people to write for themselves (although, not always in a good way). I'm a writer, more than I'm anything else. Words mean everything to me, and I think that these kinds of books are a good enough beginning. I knew a girl once who absolutely refused to read anything.

But then Twilight came out, and she jumped on that bandwagon, and discovered she actually liked reading - some things at least. So she went from Twilight to some other vampire series, to another, to something fantasy, and ended up with a collection of things she read. And then she finally read Harry Potter and told me it wasn't "as bad as I thought it would be" (which for her meant it was pretty good). Having seen the effect that a badly-written book can have, I am somewhat in gratitude to Stephenie Meyer and other 'bad' authors.

They're basically grungy "gateways" to reading. I figure that's better than not reading at all. To be fair, a lot of us probably started with Warriors and akin, and look at the difference now.

That's not to say I won't continue to critique Erin Hunter and others, because I think that's also a key step in improvement, but I would never wish for them not to exist.

[Cobalt]

Yes, the structure was definitely the best part of it. Once I understood the ranking system, I was squirming in delight through my first reading of Into the Wild. Another thing that I found very enjoyable at that age was how they didn't come out and tell you everything about the world. They told you a lot, but, for example, it was never explicitly stated anywhere in the first couple books that apprentices took the suffix -paw. You had to notice it, and it made younger me feel smart. And although the writing could be pretty awful at points, the first few books especially did a great job of drawing the reader into the world. And of course, some things have never been answered. From Crookedstar's Promise, I now know that RiverClan cats use different insults than ThunderClanners, and commonly use 'paw as a substitution for apprentice. There's a lot of room for speculation and that really encourages kids to keep thinking things up for themselves.

[mistytail]

So thanks to a lot of drama on Tumblr I felt compelled to write this so petulant children could no longer vagueblog and call me a "dumb hoe" and thought it might be relevant to this thread. It repeats a lot of what is said here but comes more from a perspective on child development. Enjoy uwu

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I was gonna make a video about this since I like talking to the camera machine but hey, why not type so it eats up less time and space (and nobody in the tag has to see my face)?

So in case everyone forgot, the target audience of Warriors (which can be found on the backs of the covers/book jackets) is the 8-12 age group, so I’m going to completely disregard everything that someone from a level of education or maturity higher than that would want from the series and stick only to that age group.

The 8-12 age group, developmentally speaking, has just left the early childhood stage, which lasts from birth to about 7. In the early childhood stage, things have to be concrete and black and white. Children in that stage can’t know something unless they have experienced it first-hand, and they cannot cognitively process moral shades of gray. Because the 8-12 age group is so used to thinking in this way, Warriors is quite an easy and fun read for them: most have them have seen a cat before, so they don’t have to imagine too hard what the characters must look like, and the conflicts in Warriors are relatively black and white, so they don’t have to mentally strain themselves to know who the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are. This in particular is really well-demonstrated with the conflict in the first book between ThunderClan, a Clan of noble and good cats with a kind and just leader, and ShadowClan, a Clan of scheming, wretched scoundrels with an evil and power-happy leader. Children instantly know that ThunderClan is right and ShadowClan is wrong, and they can easily root for ThunderClan and find the characters within ThunderClan likable. However, at this stage, the “bad guys” are also becoming much more interesting and less scary to children, so they may develop a like for ShadowClan simply because they are the “bad guys.”

While the conflicts in Warriors are still largely black and white with very few moral shades of gray (Bluestar’s giving her kits to RiverClan being the only genuine one I can think of at the moment), the conflicts are now presented with much more mature motivations and consequences, which makes the children who read the series feel they are being treated like adults, which they all want. It’s not “Tigerclaw is picking on Ravenpaw because Tigerclaw is mean,” it’s “Tigerclaw is trying to kill Ravenpaw because Ravenpaw will tell everyone else how bad Tigerclaw is.” A very black and white, simple conflict, but with much more adult themes. This allows the children to feel that they are reading something big and grown-up, but in reality it is still very clearly a conflict that suits the intellectual capabilities of young children.

The graphic violence in the series is something some parents have complained about - however, these parents have not noticed that the violence does not particularly affect children within this age group for one reason: It does not affect the characters in a realistic way. While the warrior way is meant to be depicted as tough and harsh, and death is a common happening within Clan life, particularly violent deaths, such as Tigerstar’s death in The Darkest Hour, do not leave deep psychological wounds on the characters the way that they would in real life. Because the narrative does not dwell on the violence in a way that is meant to horrify, but rather uses it as a way to draw out a momentary emotional reaction (be it anger, sadness, grief, or excitement), the reader does not dwell on the violence. (If a child does start to dwell on the violence and rereads passages where characters are being brutally murdered or injured, that child should be evaluated by a licensed psychologist immediately.) Therefore, the child can be exposed to adult material and themes, making them feel more adult, but without the consequences of psychological scarring, which is obviously extremely developmentally harmful to these young children.

The books have a very cinematic feel to them. The way that the narrative is written - purple prose to describe the setting and characters in important moments, but blunt and quick where it needs to be - the books simply have a big and important feel to them. Even if this is only a thin covering over a very simplistic series, it is more than enough to satisfy the needs of young children, and get very quickly sucked into the plot and drama.

The naming style is very unique for this genre of books. Most young children are used to names that are derived from languages outside their vernacular. Alternately, they may get one-word names of objects within their vernacular (in the case of English, names like Rose, Daisy, Princess, Brick, Hunter, etc). Warriors uses two words within the child’s vernacular and uses those to create a singular name. The naming process is often considered one of the most fascinating aspects of the series, and children have a lot of enthusiasm for it. Even if it leads to names that don’t really “fit,” like Foxtrot, Apocalypticdemise, and Tomorrowbanana, the excitement of using this new and unfamiliar naming style is evident in the children’s fanwork.

Lastly, the nature of the Clans’ spiritual ancestors, StarClan, can be loosely translated into the belief system of many children who have grown up in a religious household. StarClan, while it is not worshiped in a religious sense, has many qualities of many religions’ ideas of heaven, hell, and salvation in the afterlife. Children may easily translate whatever religion they have grown up with to the belief system in StarClan, or vice versa. It is an easy to understand spiritual setup, but it has enough mystique (at least in the first two series) to remind children of the confusion they may have surrounding their own religious faith. The series even includes characters that do not believe in StarClan despite many characters around them saying otherwise. While there are only a handful of characters that do not believe in StarClan, even a young atheist can find a way to connect their spiritual beliefs into what they are reading.

Warriors does have a lot of flaws objectively speaking - however, it suits the needs of its target demographic extremely well, which has lead to it being the huge financial success today that it is. Unlike most children’s series, which usually die out within a handful of years, Warriors is approaching its tenth anniversary. If it continues to be the booming success that it is within the realm of children’s media, it may grow to have a sort of legendary cult status within children’s literary circles. Until then, it can only be said that children are extremely eager to take a pawstep into Clan life because if there is one thing the Erins know how to do, it is writing to fit the needs of young children.