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- Abandon Shipping: Twigbranch/Finleap, which was once considered as one of the best parts in an incredibly divisive and panned arc, was not as well-liked in The Raging Storm, where Finleap became a huge asshole who tried to pressure Twigbranch into starting a family. Granted, he apologized and they reconciled, but the damage had already been done.
- Alternate Character Interpretation: Breezepelt and Heathertail having kits. Is it a Crowfeather and Nightcloud situation, or do they genuinely love each other? Crowfeather's Trial ends the ambiguity, though: they love each other.
- Ass Pull: The Reveal of Onestar being Darktail's father may have generated a Broken Base, but there's no denying the...suddenness of this twist, which wasn't foreshadowed at all.
- Violetshine being pregnant with Tree's kits, which wasn't even hinted at. Granted, Tree and Violetshine were in love, but at no point did they mention that they mated (something which Warrior Cats does bring up).
- Base-Breaking Character:
- Sparkpelt, almost immediately. At first, due to her appearance, there was worry that she would just be a Firestar copy. The preview chapters of The Apprentice's Quest reveal that she's instead similar to Squirrelflight, causing some to worry that she's just going to be a derivative of her mother, while others enjoy her characterization and/or are sure she'll take a different path.
- Needletail was initially an Ensemble Dark Horse, until Thunder and Shadow happened, and she took some levels in jerkass, and obtained Manipulative Bitch status. Although most of the fandom seems to have been okay with her Heel Realization and Heroic Sacrifice in Shattered Sky, others still hate her for her actions in the previous book.
- Broken Base:
- Ivypool x Fernsong becoming canon in Darkest Night. Some are ecstatic because of the hinted potential of a male queen and the breaking of gender roles, while others find this annoyingly shoehorned into story, arguing that there are no gender roles to be broken in the first place in Clan society. And that's not even going into the upheaval about whether Ivypool should have a mate in the first place.
- The revelation that Onestar is the father of Darktail. Some fans think that this is a brilliant twist that no one saw coming, while others think it was a senseless twist thrown in at the last minute to cause drama. Many feel that it contradicts Onestar's early characterization, as well.
- Contested Sequel: Compared to the other arcs, A Vision of Shadows falls into this. People who like it do so for having interesting characters, an expanded focus on Clans beside ThunderClan, SkyClan's return to the lake, and a legitimately exciting first half. People who hate it do so for the massive let-down that was the second half, the C-List Fodder growing out of control, Alderheart's POV, and questionable plot decisions.
- Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Fernsong has been pretty much universally loved since the allegiances for The Apprentice's Quest came out.
- Puddleshine, the new ShadowClan medicine cat, is really loved, thanks to his Iron Woobie nature (he was forced into being a medicine cat and had to handle an outbreak of a terrible disease, after having very rushed training, at eight moons old) combined with how dedicated to his work he is, even though it wasn't what he originally wanted, and his naturally sweet personality.
- Crowfrost shot up in popularity once Thunder and Shadow showed him to be an honorable and reasonable cat with good leadership material. Many were disappointed he was killed off near the end of the book.
- As the new WindClan deputy and leader, Harespring/Harestar is beloved for being a nice, Reasonable Authority Figure atoning for his past in the Dark Forest, which is a breath of fresh air after Onestar's hypocrisy, racism and overblown anger for three arcs.
- Epileptic Trees:
- Spiderleg being absent from the second version of the Allegiances caused wild speculation. Is he dead, did he leave, or is something else going on? Or is it just an error? According to the preview of Thunder and Shadow, Spiderleg has died of greencough. Very disappointing.
- Before the preview chapters, there were lots of theories about Leafpool, including one that she was dead and Lilyheart's daughter Leafkit was named after her. There are still tons of wild theories, since unless there's a twist, ThunderClan will have three medicine cats. Harsher in Hindsight as of the release of Squirrelflight's Hope, as she dies in that book after her Starclan trial.
- Some have theorized that Sleekwhisker is pregnant by Darktail after she displayed jealousy over his favoritism and was shown to be rather possessive toward him. Many think that she will give birth to his kits à la Zira.
- Moral Event Horizon:
- Darktail either crosses it when he murders a defenseless SkyClan warrior named Mistfeather or in Hawkwing's Journey, where he leads his rogues to attack the gorge and personally kills Hawkwing's father Sharpclaw.
- There's also Darktail's successor, Sleekwhisker, whose crossing was serving as The Mole for the rogues and killed her grandfather.
- Narm: This line, while heartbreaking, is also rather laughable:This is where I go to hunt with StarClan. Oh Violetpaw, how did we end up like this? Are you really going to strike the blow that kills me?
- Never Live It Down: Finleap shall forever be known as "That one tom who tried to pressure his best friend into having children". Seriously, if you go somewhere, and you see someone ask "Who's the worst mate in Warriors?", a few people are bound to say Finleap.
- The Scrappy: Sleekwhisker was an already unpopular character before Shattered Sky came out, but now she's become one of the most loathed characters in the entire series (which is really saying something). This is probably justified, since she seems intent on conquering the Clans, is heavily possessive, a bully, and happily murders her former close friend on her leader's orders. Also, she was shown to be rather indifferent toward the death of her parents.
- What's interesting is that many of these fans had been begging for a female antagonist for years. At least they got what they wanted...
- Seasonal Rot: The second half of the arc is agreed to be extremely weak, after a strong start; many fans state that Darktail died too soon, and the last three books meander about with no real villain and weak writing. River of Fire is considered the worst offender, as despite its ominous name and the many dangers in it, only one ThunderClan cat dies, which fans complain about since they're bloated with C-List Fodder and old cats who should by all rights be dead or retired. Even worse, nothing really happens plot-wise. It's essentially Filler as everyone waits for Tigerstar II to come back.
- Strangled by the Red String: Tree/Violetshine has gotten some stink-eye for this. They meet in Darkest Night and have some Belligerent Sexual Tension, but aren't super close. Then in River of Fire, she's suddenly terrified he'll leave her and acting like their relationship is far closer than it actually is, with nothing to indicate what caused this shift in her opinion on him.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
- Needletail is meant to be seen as heroic for helping to try to stop Darktail and sacrificing herself to save Violetpaw, but many readers point out that she only does it after Darktail kills her mate Rain, thus making her actions seem selfish (prior to Rain's death she never shows any problems with Darktail's cruelty and brutality). Not helping matters is that, even after she is accepted into StarClan, Needletail lays ShadowClan's problems all on Rowanstar and never takes any responsibility for her part in shattering the Clan. Even Yellowfang and Shadowstar point out how absurd her way of handling it is.
- There's also the way Smoke raised Darktail. While she's supposed to be seen as a mother who's upset that her mate abandoned her, her handling of the situation is definitely not easy to see in a positive light. She raised Darktail to loath and want to destroy all the Clans... Just because Onestar left them. Partly out of genuine concern for their safety. Yup, totally reasonable.
- Then there's Finleap. Good fucking StarClan, Finleap. He was initially an Ensemble Dark Horse who became a popular character to ship Twigbranch with. Then Raging Storm turned him into a huge asshole, who is quite manipulative, ignoring Twigbranch when she refuses to bear his children. He then accuses her of liking her sister's mate, and he ignores her for the rest of the journey again, only to apologize out of nowhere. The readers are expected to forgive him, but his actions caused most fans to hate him, practically turning him into The Scrappy.
- Vanilla Protagonist: Alderheart was liked well-enough in The Apprentice's Quest, but most fans grew tired of him halfway through the arc and would've preferred if his PoV chapters would have been scrapped completely to let the other main characters Violetshine and Twigbranch, who fans found to be more compelling, get more chapters in their point of view.
- The Woobie:
- Violetshine, goodness. Nothing seems to go right for the poor thing. She's already a Broken Bird at less than a year old.
- Twigbranch, as well.
- Needletail combined Iron Woobie and Jerkass Woobie during Shattered Sky.
