There will be spoilers!

This is going to be a difficult one. Honestly? I like this series. There was probably once a time where I would've said I loved it— but at this point, it's just a guilty pleasure. There is so much I want to talk about, so I will split it into two parts. This part will end before I talk about Darkness of Dragons— book 10, the book that made me go on a rampage and kill the global population, but then I revived it because things got boring.

First Arc (Books 1-5)

All right, so I never really had much of a problem with the first arc. I do think that Glory ended up succeeding a bit too much when she became the queen of two different tribes, and I don't like how three of the five protagonists end up becoming royalty. However, I loved the world that Tui T. Sutherland (the author) had created. I loved all the different tribes, I loved how humans ('scavengers') are barely focused on (until later, that is...) I loved the twist in The Dark Secret that the prophecy was made up. I loved how the dragons acted like dragons, and how their society is so much more different from humans— death and killing is much more accepted (this becomes important later on). Sometimes there were jokes in the wrong places (which was annoying), but they were nowhere near as bad as they have gotten.

So where did it start to go downhill for me? Spoilers: the second arc.

Book 6: Moon Rising

Book six was actually pretty good. It sets up the new storyline really well, I loved to see the world through the eyes of a character who could read minds, and it also gave the introduction to Darkstalker, one of my favourite characters in the series. Moonwatcher was a great protagonist as well (this changes soon)— I was able to connect to her reserved nature, and her need to be alone.

All right, one thing I don't like about this series began to crop up around here— there is a scene where Moonwatcher goes to the prey centre, and dragons are (obviously) chasing around all these animals to kill and eat them. Then, a scavenger (human) appears, and while she can't read it's thoughts, she can feel its emotions. This rubbed me the wrong way— why can Moon feel the emotions of a human, and not a non-human animal? The implication here is that humans are capable of emotions, and animals are not... okay? Look, I'm a massive animal lover, so this honestly really annoyed me, probably a lot more than it did other people— but there are so many studies that conclude that animals feel pain, and a wide range of emotions, just like we do. So, logically, she should either feel the emotions of all the animals there, or be unable to feel emotions of anything that isn't a dragon. Generally, I don't like how the main characters tend to see scavengers as oh so special, when as a misanthropist, I would much prefer if humans were not put on a pedestal.

Book 7: Winter Turning

I don't remember much about book 7. I didn't like it as much as book 6, I thought it was a little too uneventful, but it did go into Winter's mind, and at the time, he was my absolute favourite character in the series. Yes, I shipped Winterwatcher, and I absolutely wanted him to end up with Moon (his rival was Qibli, and honestly? I wouldn't mind if he ended up with Qibli. They share a level of chemistry. Alas, however, the final choice was not a good one...). I wished we saw more of the Ice Kingdom.

Book 8: Escaping Peril

Book 8, Escaping Peril. This is where things start to go noticeably downhill.

Peril was another of my favourite characters. She was manipulated from a young age to believe that her only purpose in life is to kill for the entertainment of her Queen Scarlet. Her gradual realisation that killing isn't the only thing she can do— that she has a choice in who she can be-- is something I like. Here, she has some charming moments— I liked how she, much like before, wasn't too good at talking to others without sounding a little weird. However, there was this change in her personality. Now, she's significantly more obnoxious, and also her speech involves a noticeable amount of caps... I don't like the way she was handled. This change was quite sudden, considering before she had been quite brooding. Also, she isn't the best example of a socially awkward character (this is coming from someone who is considered socially awkward. I think how she was in the first book was better at conveying it). She says that the last dragon she will ever kill is Scarlet— but, personally, I think it would be much more powerful if she decides to stop Scarlet through pacifist means. Maybe she can start off wanting to kill her, but as she develops through the book, she could decide that she won't even take Scarlet's life, because she doesn't want to be a killer anymore. She wants to show the world that dragons can change. This book could have explored Scarlet much more, maybe even redeem her, which would have been fascinating.

So, here's one issue that is merely a precursor for what comes in later books: Queen Scarlet, a main antagonist who appeared in the very first book, appears and throws at the characters of the first arc what they believe is the decapitated head of their friend (and fellow protagonist), Glory. This should be a serious scene— after all, the author is writing a moment where the reader is lead to believe that one of the major characters have been offed. But no! It's time for a comedic moment where Sunny cries about how Glory had 'magical death spit'. Really? REALLY?  This removed all of the tension— and don't you dare come at me saying that comedy is used to relieve tension. There are appropriate and inappropriate times to use comedy, and this is the latter. Wings of Fire did have a bit of humour sprinkled throughout the series— which wasn't appealing to me, but it wasn't to the point where it literally made me want to jump out a window. But this scene is just the beginning of things to come...

Prince Cliff is yet another terrible part of this book. He is literally so obnoxious, and I am greatful  that he has not appeared in any of the other books. Constant caps, constant loudness, he was just unbelievable. He only existed for 'comic relief', having no impact on the story whatsoever, and a very negative impact on myself, the reader. He just added nothing good. I know some people like him, but I can't see his appeal.

Now, we come to the second-most insulting part of this book... the death of Queen Scarlet.

Just. Wow. I never expected it to be this bad. An antagonist built up for eight books, who killed almost her entire family to get to the throne, who manipulated Peril into believing her only purpose in life is to kill, who forced dragons to kill each other to fulfill her sadistic needs— she dies in the most anticlimactic and badly written scene imaginable. Firstly, her death is mixed in with an exposition scene. Oh? The most important scene in the book is happening? Too bad! Time for exposition! The humour being used in this scene was also terrible, and the fact that her death is literally glossed over is just... seriously? She dies from having her neck snapped by her boring, boring flat tire of a daughter, with much less charisma than her mother. 

The language in this book also begins to point to a future of badly written dialogue— they talk like modern teenagers, swapping out timeless language for characters saying 'like' and 'totally' (this occasionally happened before— it was annoying when it occurred, but it wasn't at the level it is now). I just can't take it seriously when that's how these characters talk. The first arc of Warrior Cats, as well as subsequent books, managed to use much better language that didn't stoop down to use childish language that will probably become dated in a decade or so (a literal quote is 'You're like eighteen thousand different kinds of untrustworthy').  There really isn't any excuse for this. The further you go in this series, the more quality is lost. The first book didn't have any crap like this, not from what I remember. What the hell happened? Tui T. Sutherland is a part of the Erin Hunter team! Dammit, even if Warriors has gone down in quality (or so I heard, haven't read all the books), at least the cats don't walk around using modern vernacular, saying 'Like, I am SO done with being kidnapped. So TOTALLY DONE'. I'm going to write about this in the next part too, since it gets... really bad.

Legends- Darkstalker

My favourite book of the series, because of the plot, and seeing Albatross and Darkstalker. Certain moments with badly written language, but I can look past that because it did a nice job of creating a (somewhat?) complex, sympathetic antagonist. Could've been better, but also a whole lot worse.

Except one scene that pissed the ever loving crap out of me. When Prince Arctic, in the climax of the novel, is forced to disembowel himself in front of a huge crowd of dragons. Now, previous books in Wings of Fire did not shy away from violence— you have scenes of acid eating away at faces, a terrified dragon committing suicide to avoid a slow death, flying over the aftermath of a battle where bodies are littered as far as the eye can see. So, how is this death handled?

In one. Goddamn. Sentence.

Summarised, it basically says 'it took a long time, and was very messy'.

Thing is, you don't necessarily have to go in a lot of grisly detail to make a death effective. You can omit some of the violence, but still write it in such a way that you effect the readers in such a way that they will never forget the scene, because it is so well executed. For me, my favourite death in Warrior Cats is Tigerstar's— it also involves disembowelment, much like Arctic— yet it's a much more powerful scene than anything I have read in Wings of Fire. The sentence here doesn't leave any lasting impact, except the acknowledgment that this event occurred. It just feels lazy.

Book 9: Talons of Power

I actually liked this one more than the last one. Okay, so the language didn't improve. And there is the most pointless romance that appears out of nowhere (between Turtle and Kinkajou. This series has a really bad problem with shipping it's own characters with literally everyone. The only POV character without a love interest is Sunny). But... it did a really good job of setting up the final book of the second arc. There was one genuinely touching moment, where Darkstalker laments the fact that he will never be able to see his beloved Clearsight again. I just... felt so much sympathy towards him in that scene. If the tone of that scene was the tone of the series— serious, almost philosophical even— it would be a much better series than it is now. The cliffhanger left me really excited for the final book. I thought, with such a set-up, the only direction this series could take was up!

Boy, was I wrong...

See ya at part 2. Probably.