Sunrise is the sixth and final book of the third Warrior Cats series, Power of Three.
Tropes appearing in this book:
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Speckle knew that Sol was a bad guy, but she was hopelessly in love with him and wished he was the father of her kits.
- Attack the Tail: At one point, Toadkit pretends that Jayfeather's tail is a mouse, and pounces on it, grabbing it with his claws. Jayfeather isn't pleased.
- Bittersweet Ending: Hollyleaf is presumed dead, and almost everyone's lives have been ruined, but the prophecy still hasn't been completely fulfilled, and there's going to be another series. From Jayfeather's point of view, the continuation of the series preventing this ending from being final apparently makes all of this less sad.
- Black-and-White Morality: Hollyleaf starts the series out with her absolute trust in the Warrior Code, and believes that all who follow it are good, while those who don't are evil. After using the code to justify most of her actions, she learns that her very birth broke the code, and that someone she had respected had broken one of the code's core principles, but for a good reason. After learning this, Hollyleaf's mind was completely shattered, and she realized that her morality was flawed, leading her to attempt to murder her own mother, then flee from the Clans.
- Break the Cutie: Hollyleaf. A strong young apprentice who wanted to follow the warrior code do the best she could for her Clan and also was one of the Three with a special power... or so she thought. She later learned that Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw weren't her real parents and that she was the product of a doubly-forbidden relationship: her very existence shattered the beliefs she'd held so long about the warrior code. She then murdered a Clanmate before deciding to run away from the Clan, nearly dying in the ensuing tunnel collapse. Also, she was never one of the Three.
- Buried Alive: Hollyleaf is buried by a collapsing tunnel.
- Chekhov's Gun: ThunderClan brings deathberries into the camp to try to kill the snake that had killed Honeyfern. Hollyleaf later uses the same deathberries to try to kill Leafpool.
- Convenient Replacement Character: After the tunnels collapse on Hollyleaf toward the end of the book, two new kits are born. Jayfeather realizes that one of them might be the third cat in the prophecy, and that one ends up replacing Hollyleaf as a POV character in the next book.
- Disposing of a Body: Hollyleaf revealed that she'd attempted to dispose of Ashfur's body by tossing it into the stream: she hoped he'd be swept into the lake, the Clan would think he just mysteriously vanished, and that would be the end of it. Things didn't exactly go as planned.
- Diving Save: Honeyfern dives in to knock Briarkit away from the snake.
- Dogs Are Dumb: One dog in this book is stupid enough to stick his head through a fence and right into the claws of a bunch of cats with a grudge.
- Dream Intro: The first chapter has Lionblaze dreaming and ending up in the Dark Forest, talking to Tigerstar.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Hollyleaf's death. Instead of dying in a battle, she was crushed as the underground tunnel collapsed. Or so they think...
- Enemy Rising Behind: The kits are innocently playing when suddenly Lionblaze notices a snake rearing up behind the unaware Briarkit. He jumps up, but Honeyfern had already noticed, and she knocks Briarkit out of the way just before the snake strikes.
- Ensemble Cast: The Power of Three arc features three protagonists: Jayfeather, Hollyleaf, and Lionblaze.
- Faith–Heel Turn: Hollyleaf, after realizing she's the product of a forbidden relationship, loses her faith in the warrior code, murders Ashfur, and tries to make Leafpool eat deathberries before attempting to run away from the Clan.
- Fallen Hero: Hollyleaf becomes this, when her love of the warrior code makes her turn murderous.
- Family Relationship Switcheroo: Hollyleaf, Jayfeather, and Lionblaze are raised as Squirrelfight's and Brambleclaw's kits. However, Leafpool - Jayfeather's mentor and the sister of Squirrelflight - is their real mother. When this is revealed to the three, Hollyleaf doesn't take it well.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: After a sweet, peaceful moment, Honeyfern is bitten by a snake and dies quickly from the venom, begging for help.
- Fatal Flaw: Hollyleaf's excessive pride led to her downfall.
- Gender Bender: After going from a she-cat in The Sight to male in Dark River, Sedgewhisker is once again a she-cat.
- Gene Hunting: Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf are listening when - after Ashfur tries to kill them out of jealousy that Squirrelflight chose Brambleclaw over him - Squirrelflight tells Ashfur that the three aren't her kits. Hollyleaf thinks Leafpool might know who their real parents are, since she was there at the time of their birth. Leafpool reveals that she is their real mother, which is against the warrior code since she is a medicine cat and medicine cats aren't allowed to have mates.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Learning that her parents broke the Warrior Code, which she'd obsessed over for the majority of her life, pretty much shattered what was left of Hollyleaf's sanity.
- The Hero Dies: Hollyleaf, one of the heroes and point-of-view characters, runs into a tunnel and it collapses on her, and her brothers find no sign that she's alive.
- Heroic Bastard: Lionblaze, Jayfeather and Hollyleaf also count, with them being half-Clan, and their mother a medicine cat.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Hollyleaf gives this as a reason for killing Ashfur in order to prevent him from spilling the secret of her and her siblings' parentage.
- I Have No Son!: When it is revealed to Crowfeather that Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, and Jayfeather are his (illegitimate) kits, he refuses to believe it, saying in front of the whole Gathering that his only son is Breezepelt.
- Killer Finale: Sunrise is the last book in the third arc, and ends with the protagonist Hollyleaf seemingly dying when a tunnel collapses on her.
- Knight Templar: Hollyleaf reaches this state by this book, becoming obsessed with order to the point of attempting to kill her own mother for having an affair with Crowfeather.
- Last Episode, New Character: Dovekit and Ivykit are born at the ending of the book - which is the last in the third series - with Jayfeather realizing that one of them is the third cat in the prophecy. Both of them are main characters in the fourth series.
- Lazy Bum: Sol. He's charismatic enough to convince other cats to do what he wants, but somehow always ends up letting them fight in his place, or having them bring him food.
- Little "No": When Tigerstar asks Lionblaze if he is going to kill him, Lionblaze replies, "No. You're already dead." Lionblaze then leaves the Dark Forest forever, proving to Tigerstar that he wasn't going to let himself fall to the level of the villains.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Hollyleaf flies into a rage and shreds a mouse to pieces until all that remains of it is described as red pulp.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Leafpool tells Jay/Lion/Holly that she's their real mother.
- Luke, You Are My Father: Lionblaze announces to his father, Crowfeather, that he, Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf are Leafpool's kits, not Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw's, and he's their father.
- Meaningful Name: Now that we know who Jay/Lion/Holly's parents really are, it's clear that Hollyleaf and Jayfeather's names are a reference to their parents Leafpool and Crowfeather.
- Missed the Call: Jayfeather believes that Hollyleaf is the third cat of the prophecy because he and Lionblaze are two of the chosen cats and she's their sister. As he realizes at the end of the book, Hollyleaf was completely normal and the real third wasn't even born yet.
- No One Could Survive That!: Hollyleaf in the cave-in.
- Not Actually His Child: Happens to Brambleclaw when Hollyleaf reveals, to every cat attending the Gathering, that he's not her father and Squirrelflight isn't her mother, but that she and her siblings are instead the children of Leafpool, Squirrelflight's sister and the Clan's medicine cat, and Crowfeather, a warrior from a different Clan who had a legitimate son of his own.
- Official Couple Ordeal Syndrome: Leafpool and Crowfeather's relationship was forbidden in two ways - they're in different Clans, and she's a medicine cat, forbidden to take any mate. They ran off together for a while, but when disaster struck her Clan she realized that they needed her more than he did. She secretly had his kits a short time later. He took a mate in his own Clan, though the authors have described that as a "marriage of convenience", and they seem to argue every time they see each other afterward - and he refuses to acknowledge Hollyleaf, Lionblaze, and Jayfeather as his kits. Despite this, they still have some feelings for each other deep down, even though they never get back together.
- One-Word Title: Sunrise.
- Panicky Expectant Father: Birchfall spends much of the book worrying about his mate and unborn kits. When they're finally born, Jayfeather is overwhelmed by the strength of Birchfall's relief.
- Passing the Torch: Leafpool gives up the role of medicine cat, leaving Jayfeather as ThunderClan's official medicine cat.
- Prophecy Twist: "There will be three, kin of your kin, with the power of the stars in their paws" — The "three" does not refer to Firestar's three grandkits Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf - at least, not entirely. Hollyleaf is dropped from the prophecy entirely in favor of one of Firestar's nephew's daughter's kits. And only ONE of the kits.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Hollyleaf freaks out at learning her true parentage and exposes her mother's greatest secret. Then, she attempts to kill her mother, before running away into some tunnels.
- Series Continuity Error:
- Hazeltail tells Smoky and Floss about how Berrynose lost his tail in a fox trap as a kit, and they're shocked and ask if he was badly hurt. However, in Sunset, Berrykit's injury was before Daisy took her kits back to the barn (and a major reason why she did so), so they should already know about it.
- In Eclipse, Sol was tortoiseshell-and-white, but in Long Shadows, he was tabby-and-white. He is still tabby-and-white in the Allegiances of Sunrise, but he is described as both tortoiseshell and as tabby in different places in the text.
- So Happy Together: The young couple Berrynose and Honeyfern are having a sweet moment together, watching the Clans' kits play and talking about how one day they'll have kits like that. Then Honeyfern sees a poisonous snake creeping up behind one of the kits and knocks the kit out of the way, only to receive a fatal bite herself.
- Start My Own: Sol, after parting ways with SkyClan, starts his own Clanlike group of cats.
- Switching P.O.V.: Hollyleaf, Jayfeather, and Lionblaze.
- Tongue on the Flagpole: Hollyleaf has this happen to her, up to the point where she gets playfully teased that she found a new way to get water for the elders. It's thanks to Brambleclaw breathing on the ice that she got free.
- Tonight, Someone Dies: And one more warrior may be lost forever..., which likely referred to Hollyleaf. The word "lost" is probably meant to be taken literally, rather than just being an example of Never Say "Die", since she is indeed lost at the end and doesn't actually die. It could also refer to how she has "lost" her sanity, or "lost" her status as a warrior because she has turned her back on the Clans and the warrior code.
- Treachery Cover Up: When Hollyleaf apparently dies in the tunnels after trying to escape from her Clan and everything that had gone wrong, Lionblaze and Jayfeather cover up her treachery by telling the Clan she had died chasing a squirrel into the tunnel, so that she would be remembered as a brave hunter rather than Ashfur's killer.
- Tuckerization: Ivykit is named after a girl named Ivy Poole. While Ivy herself, as a baby, was too young to have read the books when her name was used, her family went to see the author on every single one of her tours, earning them the nickname "FarDrivingClan" from Vicky, and they had become good friends with her. She decided to name the character after the youngest member of the family. This includes her warrior name, Ivypool.
- Two-Part Trilogy: The first series works well by itself and nicely wraps up the ending. The ending of the second series has a few unsolved puzzles and sequel hooks, but can also work fine as the final ending of the whole book series. However when the third series ended, many plot points were still unresolved and it was clear it was just setting up the stage for the fourth series.
- Wham Line:
- Jayfeather (putting it all together in his thoughts): "Leafpool! Leafpool is our mother!"
- Leafpool (to Hollyleaf) "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone. But first, tell me why. Why did you kill Ashfur?"
- Jayfeather: "There will be three, kin of your kin...Cloudtail is Firestar's kin, Whitewing is his daughter, and now Dovekit and Ivykit...Don't you see? The prophecy isn't over! We aren't the only kin of Firestar's kin. It doesn't matter which of Whitewing's kits is the one. There are still three of us!"
