#and the later arc where he's trying to squeeze the prophecy out of StarClan as they treat him with contempt

[bonefall]

So, with the Holly thing you had me thinking. You said you were considering having her be the tunnel friend haver instead of Lion but I'm wondering if you have something else in mind for Lion in Dark River to replace that. One of the things that made Dark River my fave of the Po3 books on my reread recently was the fact Holly and Lion's stories about leaving behind a friend from another Clan and being emboldened in their attitude that ThunderClan is all they ever would need were so symmetrical. So the thought that some of that may be lost by consolidating the Hollypaw and Willowpaw and the Heatherpaw and Lionpaw storylines only onto her character leave me wondering if you're deliberately leaving this theme parallelism on the choping block to make space for something else with him.

Hollyleaf

The way I’m approaching Po3 is that Hollyleaf is its protagonist, and Lionblaze and Jayfeather are secondary ones. Like I mentioned, Bonefall Po3 is a big slice-of-life breather story to draw out the world, and show the Clans settling at the lake.

So I think Hollyleaf is the one who tells this story the best. As apprentice of the deputy Brackenfur, she’s dealing a lot with the ideal of Clan Loyalty vs the reality that the Fire Alone ideology changed a lot about Clan Culture. She goes out with him on a lot of missions and learns to play politics with leaders and senior warriors who are sort of ‘fighting the tide.‘

She’s a LOT like Firestar and idolizes him, subscribes to his ideology, but is reckoning it with the fact it’s based on breaking the very flawed code. I don’t have a clear line to the end yet, but that’s my premise.

Lionblaze

So Lionblaze’s story is going to be a lot simpler in comparison. I actually want the journey to the Tribe to really be where his ‘finds his way‘, and it’s a much simpler arc. THAT’S the moment where he realizes what a Clan is really all about, about how important family is, and that the purpose of strength is for protecting what you love.

So basically; the Tribe Protection Arc is COMPLETELY his. He bonds with a lot of tribe cats, learns about the history of the Forest territories, and how to really appreciate his own culture through respecting others. He’s also drawn to a very interesting figure in Tribal folklore; Lion’s Roar.

Of course... he doesn’t become a perfect person here. He becomes VERY willing to apply force to every problem, eventually shoving his own children at problems they’re too small to handle in OotS.

But TL;DR You’re right that Lionblaze is getting consolidated in the rewrite, but I promise I’m giving him something good too.

(Plus, his role in OotS is massive where Hollyleaf is gone during it, so I want to make sure she gets love while she’s here.)