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« on: June 30, 2016, 06:11:42 PM »
I. I've thought a lot about StarClan, sorry if this goes long.
Honestly, I think StarClan as it is in the books could be good, if the concepts were handled better. I see their future powers as something like Garnet/Sapphire's Future Vision in Steven Universe- if you don't watch the series, basically the power means they can see the future in near infinite iterations, and see what things are likely to happen or unlikely to happen if a certain person does or doesn't do something. Basically, seeing what's possible in the future and being able to predict some, or guide other things towards a probable good future.
Another series that has entities like this is DMFA, a webcomic. They have Phoenix oracles that can see all possible futures in this way as well-- and thus when people come to ask them advice, give very vague answers, to guide the people to basically, better probabilities of finding their answers, since they can't just tell them exactly what will happen- anything could happen, it's just probabilities.
That series also has something happening to the oracle's abilities in the current timeline that messes with it- called a void event. Basically, something more powerful than them is clouding out a point of time in the future from their sight- as that time gets closer, their predictions get less accurate, since they can't see into the void event itself.
I think what happened with StarClan in the third and fourth series, where people usually complain that they stopped being mysterious and started being mundane and not able to do things they used to be able to, was the authors were trying to depict something like a void event. The Power of Three prophecy wasn't from them, and they couldn't see what would happen at the end of the fourth series, or what would happen after it, so their power of foretelling wore thin and their ability to see the clans wore down as well, as mentioned in the books themselves.
There's also good hints to their version of foresight being like the examples I described- I seem to recall one of the leader ceremonies (brokenstar or tigerstar's?) they warn the new leader that they could bring their clan to greatness or ruin depending on their choices- meaning starclan has some ability to see alternate futures.
I honestly like StarClan with these powers- I just wish the later series wrote the crisis in StarClan better, or didn't have it, because while I like them having the power of foreseeing various futures, and trying to push the clans towards a better future with their prophecies, the mystery and degree of separation they had from the viewer made them seem more awesome or worthy of respect- whereas in later series they seemed just like normal cats, bickering in the sky. Which is sorta uninteresting to read about, and feels a bit disappointing.
Especially it annoyed me when they depicted in the latest book Firestar recieving a prophecy from another cat- where are the prophecies even supposed to be coming from? Depict Firestar having a vision of the possible futures or something, that would be way cooler.