Having Nine Lives is POINTLESS in Warrior Cats

One of the most frustrating aspects of Warrior Cats lore. One thing I forgot to mention in this video: the nine lives ceremonies are getting to be really boring the more that happen. It was only interesting the first time with Firestar.

Cat art is by Miss Dako!

[axowotlz]

I think the lives idea is pretty misused. The Erin's should treat it more as a 'gift' like many ambitious leaders made it out to be in the first books. Even if all nine lives get wiped out similar to Tigerstar's case, it would still have more interesting plot than 'oh, let's let these guys live for the next four or five series while wiping away all their lives at once even though a cat dies every book and these leaders are completely capable of dying' or 'oh, this guy got possessed, but let's bring him back because he's the ThunderClan leader.' The Erin's are wasting a lot of potential that I would love to see, and I'm hoping ASC brings that new potential.

[sworishina]

Quick note: Sunstar had 8 lives, not 9, because Pinestar wasn't dead.

[shyfoxsky]

I think an important note is that I and many others never considered extra lives to be a way to ensure long lives for leaders. To me and people I talked with when I was still reading the books, the lives were there to allow leaders to sacrifice themselves for their clan over and over with little consequence. Their last life was meant to be one of getting their stuff together, like picking a deputy to succeed them rather than help them, but the other eight were purely for sacrifice. I always saw it more like Bluestar jumping the gorge with the dogs for fireheart or maybe a past leader allowing themself to die to greencough to save herbs for their sick Clanmates with only one life rather than mistystar just pulling through another decade of drama.

[luvulfurz_]

“But I’ll promise you they’ll only have a single life left when they are needed for the story”

The mad man, she predicted River’s whole plot.

[mosspigletslivesmatter]

“But I promise you they (Mistystar and Leafstar) will both have a single life left the moment it’s needed for plot”
This aged well…

[SirAsdf]

The Scourge one-shot thing gets brought up a bit, and I always have the same answer. SCOURGE DID NOT KNOW ABOUT STARCLAN!

He didn’t know about the 9 lives thing and only managed to one-shot Tigerstar because Tigerstar left his belly exposed, Scourge just thought he took longer to die.

Why didn’t he do it again on Firestar? BECAUSE IT'S NOT A FREAKING SUPER MOVE IN A FIGHTING GAME. He thought Firestar was already dead, so he turned his back on him, and got killed because of it.

[ObitoUchiha-qdnw]

1:56 You gotta admit, when Firestar died and came back it really put the fear of Starclan into Scourge for his final moments. I think it was funny cause I imagine Scourge was like "WTF I KILLED YOU" and Firestar just says "Sike you thought" and claps him

[gabrielchastain]

I will disagree on the scourge part
Firestar did come back with 8 lives but scourge being able to oneshot him was still a looming danger

Just because he couldn't get him with the move he got tigerstar with dosent mean there wouldn't be another scenario where scourge could have gotten firestar on his back and expose him to a Oneshot kill

[Jay-gcxp]

Yeah its annoying. They all seem so strong until they get 9 lives, dying the most common ways like Firestar for example. You could give them 1 life to make it more interesting, but it also comes with like making them more wise or something similar to that instead of handing them 9 lives . Giving them 1 life makes it more exciting because the reader is more thrilled to see when they're going to die or scared which is where the drama steps in like for instance a fight between Firestar and Tigerstar. As given to the example the reader would wonder who would die first instead of "oh Firstar already has 9 lives. he'll be fine." Plus, it doesn't even make sense. If Starclan knew Tigerstar was bad, why give him 9 lives? To make him live longer just to kill and be evil? Its misused on wrong cats.

[Gold_Pup]

Raggedstar, like Tigerstar, was another leader who got all of his lives taken from him at once; this was done purely for plot convenience — it let Brokenstar become leader faster, and also added another kill to Brokenstar’s list to make him seem more evil.

[billcipher]

Edit: to add on to the video I think Tigerstar's death was brilliant, it really set up Scourge as a great threat and if he had just one life his death wouldn't be as impactful
Remember even Firestar felt bad to see Tigerstar lose his lives one by one and his death was basically torture, it was horrifyingly exciting
What I believe would make it better (but much more dark) is taking the "life of courage" etc to the fullest
What I mean is imagine that after the ceremony all lives the leader is given are based on what the starclan cat says and their life revolves around it until they lose it
So for example if a leader receives a life of courage during that life they are overconfident, get into unreasonable coflicts easier etc. during a life of love they are so focused on love they don't see the life outside of it etc etc
Why do I think it would make it interesting? That would mean some leaders would purposefully kill themselves/ask to be killed to go through different lives according to the current situation
Yes I'm aware this is screwed up and would never happen but it's interesting to think about

[Ryn.the.weirdo]

I respectfully disagree with this, yes, it is a kind of dumb thing the way Firestar lost his lives, but having nine lives for being a leader is quite helpful. If leaders only had one life, they could just poof out of existence on their first day of being a leader, like if they got into a battle just when they turned into a leader, that would be a VERY risky scenario, especially if they didn't choose a deputy yet. Would you rather that happen? Probably not. With that concluded, I think leaders should have nine lives. I do respect your opinion though. Have a great day!

[maycantdraw]

When Greystripe outlives most of the modern Clan's leaders, you know you're doing something wrong

[gilramanujan]

Within the first chapter flamepaw suggested the idea of changing leaders frequently so maybe that will become a new plot line. But personally for me I don’t mind nine lives just as long as they are consistent with them. And at the time I think that firestar’s nine live ceremony was something very memorable, even bramblestar felt like it had some meaning. But in general, I don’t mind cats having nine lives just as long as they have way of interpreting it and who knows maybe they will have some leaders retiring or stepping down, just a guess.

Ps: here’s how firestar lost his nine lives.
1: killed by Scourge
2: killed by rats in his super Editions
3: confirmed by Vicky to have been died helping Ravenpaw
4: crushed by a tree helping ShadowClan in dawn.
5: killed by a fox trap in sunset.
6: dies of greencough in long shadows
7: killed by a fox.
8: killed by russetfur
9: dies of his wounds from the great battle.

And sunstar only had eight lives since pinestar was still alive.

[silverdragonette]

I think the nine lives idea worked well for the first series not just for Bluestar but for Tigerstar as well. Having the idea that leaders are basically immune to death made their deaths in the first series really impactful. Unfortunately it was never used again in later series for resons mentioned in the video :/

[PixylMawthz]

Nine lives are a good concept but the books do not work hard enough at setting up the world to make it work. The whole point is that during constant war you want a wise leader to be able to keep things stable (which is why each life comes with a blessing). I'd say it's lucky that cats like Mousefur lived so long when others in their generation died, but the death rate has slowed down so much in this series that it's pointless. It should be a sign of a GOOD leader if they're gone soon because they were in the front lines and giving up their lives for clanmates. If the books cycled through cats faster then there'd be enough tension to make the lives work.

[alyssagross]

You forgot that Tigerstar lost all nine of his lives in a single blow, when Scourge ripped his stomach so far open that the damage was irreversible, and caused him all nine deaths in just one part

[PokémonCoordinatorMary]

"All of a sudden, they're on their last life."
SPOILERS FOR RIVER






I actually quite like when we don't know how many lives a leader has left-it adds to the drama and tension. Throughout Omen of the Stars, I just kept thinking "oh God, is this where Firestar dies for Good? How many lives does he have left?" And I think what they did with Mistystar is brilliant in terms of "oh no last life!" She and Duskfur get into an argument over the new code rules-cats can switch clans to become mates with someone in another clan after passing a trial chosen by the clan that cat wants to join, and a leader can be deposed if 75% of the clan, the medicine cats, and all other leaders agree. It was literal actual stress that caused Mistystar to just keel over. We all had a feeling she'd bite it in River, because she was on the cover, there was a described tragedy in RiverClan, it just made sense. Yet the scene itself is like "what the actual heck? Is this real?" I think with a Starless Clan, with how timid Bramblestar is behaving, which makes sense, I think we'll see the new leader rule implemented with him, as ThunderClan cats are concerned with his behavior, and lack of leadership skills. He's suffering from major PTSD, again makes sense. I can see him stepping down as he's much more like his paw self here, or the cats wanting new leadership all together in ThunderClan, as Squilf is also pretty old. I'm definitely getting an old vs young generation vibe theme for this arc. Especially in the ShadowClan and ThunderClan chapters. RiverClan chapters are mostly just SUFFERING CATS.

[Spectorwing]

I've always excused the rapid Loss of lives as leaders being more reckless because death is no longer all that scary, it's something you can survive, it's not permanent like it is for most warriors, those warriors are forced to be more careful and thoughtful because they only have 1 life.

[shadow_ash]

it is pointless but I like seeing some of my fav. leaders get to live longer. The fact a lot of my fav. charecters die quickly and don't get to live for a long time makes me sad
Edit: Thanks for the likes I never got this much before