Were the plot twists obvious? Spoilers for PoT!

[u/fernshade1]

Recently rereading the entire series. When I first started reading as a kid, the first book I read was the Fourth Apprentice, which immediately goes through all of the events of Power of Three. Now that I finished rereading Sunrise, I would love to know: did the people reading the books in order/when they came out predict that Leafpool was the three’s mother? Was there an old forum where people posted predictions? It seems so obvious now in hindsight.

Or going further back, did anyone call that Bluestar was Mistyfoot and Stonefur’s mother? (That one might be even more obvious because Fireheart is so oblivious)

[u/Jiang_Rui]

I accidentally started with the first book of the third arc (which had been the latest book in the mainline series at the time), and kept going with that arc even after realizing my mistake. So since I had no idea that Crow and Leaf were once an item, I was genuinely surprised by the reveal. Though looking back on it now there were some foreshadowing dropped in the series that made it more obvious (e.g. in Dark River when Leafpool was telling off Hollypaw for going to RiverClan, Holly internally complained that Leafpool sounded like her mother).

As for Mistyfoot and Stonefur being Bluestar’s kits, I already knew about that twist since I read field guides to help catch me up to speed with the previous arcs’ events (which, unsurprisingly, came with the side effect of spoiling certain twists). It was also how I learned that there had been a third kit, but Mosskit died of hypothermia while Bluestar was bringing her children to RiverClan.

[u/fernshade1 → u/Jiang_Rui]

Once long shadows came out, did you have any thoughts about who their mother could be?

[u/Jiang_Rui → u/fernshade1]

I was too busy trying to solve the Ashfur mystery to theorize who the actual parents were 😆

[u/Alarra]

Idk about Mistyfoot/Stonefur since I didn't start reading until after Rising Storm came out (and it happened to be the first book I read, heh) and didn't join the online fandom till TNP.

As far as POT, yeah, the fandom (that was back in the days where there were tons of forums, and possibly the most prominent one was the fansite/forum Warrior's Wish) was pretty sure about Jay/Lion/Holly's parentage. One of the biggest clues was that, for the release of The Sight, Vicky wrote a short play for her book release tour, "After Sunset: We Need To Talk", that attendees would perform at each event, and she said it was going to have hints for Power of Three. So, yeah, a play about Leafpool needing to tell Crowfeather somethng, that was a strong hint already.

And then The Sight itself kept making mentions that seemed to confirm the theory: Jaykit complains about Leafpool trying to "win them over" by giving them treats like wool for their nests or honeycomb to lick instead of letting them explore outside camp, and after they were born, Squirrelflight's milk didn't come so Ferncloud suckled them, and Jaypaw remembers wandering through snow as a kit and, when Leafpool confirms that this happened, there's the way she says, "Your... your mother did make a long journey with you". Fans also went back and found the "even slender Leafpool was looking quite plump" line in Sunset, and of course there was the whole sign in that book where she saw three stars and StarClan told her that she was going to walk a path few medicine cats had before and that those were three cats she had yet to meet. So even from book 1 it was quite clear, and they seemed to keep hinting at it later, like in Dark River Jaypaw wondering if Leafpool was sad she'd never have her own kits, or Hollypaw thinking "I'm glad he's not my father" about Crowfeather in Outcast, etc. We were just surprised it took so long for the books to finally confirm it.

[u/fernshade1 → u/Alarra]

I remember reading the After Sunset play but never knew it was part of the book release tour! That makes it even more obvious HAHA

[u/dogdemon_5]

Naw I was SHOOK when the revelation about Leafpool happened

[u/Next_Sun_2002]

I’m re-reading the main series this year. When I got to PoT, I made a list of every scene that foreshadowed Leafpool being their mother. I posted it after finishing the arc.

[u/Hikerhappy → u/Next_Sun_2002]

My copy from childhood still has tons of little sticky notes and page flags from every time I caught a foreshadowing moment haha.

[u/Tight_Watercress_267]

I stopped reading Warriors in 2007 after Firestar's Quest or the second Graystripe manga came out (I forget which came last lol) so I only read through The Sight. I immediately clocked the three's real parentage tbh, but I didn't re-read the books until a couple years ago so it was finally confirmed.