The Fourth Apprentice is the first book in the fourth Warrior Cats series, Omen of the Stars. It takes place about six moons after the end of Sunrise.
Tropes appearing in this book:
- Backup from Otherworld: Honeyfern shows up from StarClan to save Poppyfrost and Jayfeather from Breezepelt.
- Boring Return Journey: The trip back from the beavers.
- Brick Joke: In the beginning of the book, Jayfeather says that if Mousefur starts acting sweet and kind, he'll know the drought has gotten to her. At the end of the book, this happens to Blackstar!
- Dark Is Evil: Breezepelt, who attempts to murder a ThunderClan queen, is black. And he is working with the equally evil Dark Forest.
- Ensemble Cast: The Omen of the Stars arc features four main protagonists: Jayfeather, Lionblaze, Dovepaw, and Ivypaw.
- Gender Bender: Gorsetail was a she-cat who even gave birth to kits in Power of Three, but is a tom in this book.
- Gender-Equal Ensemble: The group going to investigate the water consists of four toms (Lionblaze, Toadfoot, Tigerheart, and Rippletail) and four she-cats (Dovepaw, Sedgewhisker, Whitetail, and Petalfur).
- Greater Need Than Mine:
- Jayfeather suspects that Longtail is giving his water to Mousefur because he thinks she needs it more.
- When Jayfeather tries to give Dustpelt herbs for his sore back, Dustpelt tells him to save them for cats who really need them, but Jayfeather insists, reassuring him that there's more than enough.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Ivypaw has this towards Dovepaw, because she doesn't know of her sister's powers yet. She gets really tired of living as her sister's "echo", especially when Dovepaw seems to get special treatment (like going on the quest to the badgers, since she's the one who alerted the Clan about them).
- Happy Rain: Happens at the end of the book, signifying the end of the drought.
- Hurt Foot Hop: Berrynose steps on a thistle and hops around on his other three paws.
- I Just Want to Be Normal:
- Dovepaw, who hates the fact that her powers set her apart from the rest of the Clan and that it causes a rift between herself and her sister.
- Lionblaze, to a lesser extent. He even sympathizes with Dovepaw's situation.
- I Thought Everyone Could Do That: Dovewing's ability to sense events from far away, much to the young cat's surprise.
- I Was Having Such a Nice Dream: During a drought, Lionblaze is dreaming about the lake being filled with water when Cloudtail wakes him up.Lionblaze: Did you have to do that? I was having a really great dream!
Cloudtail: And now you can go on a really great patrol. - Kid Hero: Dovepaw is about six moons old - the Clan cats' equivalent of somewhere between 10 and teenage - at the start of this book.
- Killed Offscreen: The start of the book mentions that Firestar lost one of his nine lives to a fox a few days earlier.
- Mundane Made Awesome: The climax of the book, where Jayfeather breaks his stick. It is the most dramatic scene about a cat breaking a piece of wood in half that you will ever read.
- New Season, New Name: This arc has the subtitle Omen of the Stars.
- Ocean Awe: Subverted. Dovepaw's excited to see the lake for the first time after having only been told about it, but at this point the lake is nearly dried up due to one of the rivers feeding it being blocked during a drought. When she finally sees it, she's disappointed and can't believe that this large puddle is what everyone's been talking about.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- Jayfeather invokes this by saying he's glad that the cranky elder Mousefur isn't acting all sweet and kind because that would mean she was getting heat stroke from the recent hot weather.
- Played for laughs later, when Blackstar welcomes the journeying cats into his territory with open arms. Lionblaze responds with a snarky "Who are you, and what have you done with Blackstar?"
- Out-of-Character Moment: Blackstar's moment at the end of the book.
- Panicky Expectant Father: Berrynose of all cats. Of course, being Berrynose, he is this in the most annoying and bossy way possible.
- Pregnant Hostage: Breezepelt does this to Poppyfrost, a heavily pregnant she-cat, and even threatens to kill her to frame Jayfeather. Surprisingly, it's not Poppyfrost's mate who saves her but Jayfeather and a deceased Honeyfern, who was Poppyfrost's sister.
- The Prophecy: This series still follows the "There will be three, kin of your kin" prophecy, but adds another prophecy to point out that the third cat has arrived: After the sharp-eyed jay and the roaring lion, peace will come on dove's gentle wing.
- Quicksand Sucks: The drying lake bed now has several pools of mud, which multiple cats get stuck in. One of them, a RiverClan cat, has so much difficulty with getting out that he has to be brought to the ThunderClan medicine cat den afterward.
- Senseless Sacrifice: Rippletail gets killed fighting the beavers, only for the group to learn that fighting them won't work.
- Series Continuity Error: Jayfeather remembers saving Poppyfrost's life when she was "a tiny kit". In The Sight, she was an apprentice who was in fact older than him.
- Settle for Sibling: Berrynose was in love with Honeyfern, but Honeyfern died of an accident. Moons later Berrynose mated with Honeyfern's littermate, Poppyfrost.
- Ship Sinking: Though it is a crack pairing, JayxStick accumulated quite a fandom. In The Fourth Apprentice, Jayfeather breaks the stick. Vicky said that JayxStick was a romance and therefore it had to be doomed like many other romances in the series.
- Spin-Offspring: Omen of the Stars focuses on the kittens of minor characters Birchfall and Whitewing in addition to continuing the points of view of the third arc.
- Super-Hearing: The main aspect of Dovepaw's power.
- Super-Senses: Dovepaw's special power is that she has super senses - in particular, strong hearing - that allows her to know what cats are doing even all the way across the lake. She is surprised to learn that not everyone is like that.
- Symbolically Broken Object: In a fit of rage, Jayfeather snaps Rock's stick - the stick that represented the lives of many ancient cats, and Jayfeather's own connection to Rock.
- That Satisfying "Crunch!": Jayfeather is so upset that Rock didn't tell him that Leafpool and Crowfeather are his real parents that he decides to break Rock's stick.
- Time Skip: There has been a six-moon gap since Sunrise.
- Title Drop: One for the series - Yellowfang mentions "an Omen of the Stars" (capitalized like a title) in the prologue.
- Vagueness Is Coming: Many prophecies in the series vaguely foretell destruction and danger without actually managing to tell the Clans what exactly is coming. This includes the one in this book: "Beware, Jay's Wing. Storm clouds are gathering on a dark breeze."
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: The heroes are about to have their confrontation with the beavers, but there is still a quarter of the book left. Cue the heroes being on the receiving end of a Curb-Stomp Battle and having to find a different way to defeat the beavers.
