let's talk: leaders and nine lives

[turtletail]

as the saying goes, 'cats have nine lives'. Warriors took this and ran with it, and lo and behold, when a cat steps up to become a leader of their Clan, they go to their Moon sacred place and receive nine lives from Starclan. now, this seems like a cool concept: until you realize that it's a way for the writers to keep their favorite character living longer (Firestar, anyone? Seriously, that dude lived for four whole book series!) not to mention, it can kill suspense. When a leader dies, they are probably going to come back, after all they were granted nine (possible) lives. and /then/ if you have a tyrannical leader at the head of the clan, (Brokenstar, for example. Although, how ShadowClan ever let him get that far is beyond me...) they seem impossible to defeat, b/c again, nine lives, nine 1-ups.

thoughts? suggestions on how for possible alternative to these nine 1-ups? 

[Honeystorm]

In my world, StarClan picks who to give nine lives to and does so by evaluating the leader-to-be's actions. Also, while StarClan can heal every wound and disease, a cat that dies from old age is considered to have used up any remaining lives. Also, a taken life isn't very obvious because a fatal wound is healed instantly and a fatal disease gets worse for one day before fading away. This leaves some in doubt as to whether leaders actually have nine lives or if they have very good luck.
What do you think?

[Sparrow]

I agree that leaders having nine lives sounds awesome at first, but it tends to lead to uninteresting narratives if taken too literally. I like Honeystorm 's approach of having nine literal lives but having it difficult to confirm that the leader has used a life. This also solves the problem of how dumb atheist cats seem when fatal wounds are getting healed by magic all the time. 

Another approach I like is not having nine literal lives, and instead getting nine wisdoms or stories or somesuch. Grey mentioned something at one point about the possibility of gaining memories from nine StarClan cats, and getting little glimpses of insight or remembering something that happened before. I like this a lot because it offers much more interesting writing possibilities, and also gives StarClan a lot more subtlety, leaving it open to interpretation whether they do actually exist.

[turtletail]

oh, i like your take on it Honeystorm it sounds really cool, plus gives a little bit more suitability to Starclan.

as for the non literal nine lives, i do like that approach as well. i remember Grey mentioning that a cat getting nine memories from Starclan cats, which i really liked.

i have no idea how i want to play around with it in my own clans, but i've been planning a human turned cat story, where Starclan might lean more towards the magical side.

[Foxthroat]

This is definitely a topic that irks me to death in canon. You certainly have excellent points as to why they handle nine literal lives so clumsily.

I have to say, I personally dislike nine literal lives, and have completely removed that from my own world-building. Instead, each leader, if approved and found worthy of the position by the 'pantheon' of cats who appraise them based on their past actions and the like, receives nine advisors-- nine cats from 'Skyclan' (my latest world's version of 'Starclan' in terms of that's where ancestral cats go).

Most typically these cats do have some connection with them, being a parent, a mentor, a greatly admired cat, etc. They almost always include the prior leader's spirit as well. In short, these cats can appear in dreams to offer advice to the current leader. They can't show the future, though they can attempt to predict what /might/ occur based on comparing the current situation to similar past ones (taken from the collective memories of the nine and others among 'Skyclan'.

In the case of nine literal lives, I do indeed feel that having things more vague and difficult to confirm is a great way to go because it adds this sense of 'mystery' regarding the mystical aspects of the story, and does indeed make it more plausible to have non-believing cats because things aren't being blatantly waved in one's face.

[Stormheart]

I do enjoy the concept of nine "dream guides" or spirits, mostly because I love the plot detail that can be derived from just who exactly is giving those lives/the guidance. I also like the thing (I think it's vaguely canon?) where each cat seems to represent a larger archetype of Clan life - the leader, the mentor, the queen, the kit/cat who died early, the elder, the consummate warrior, the medicine cat, a redeemed cat, etc. It sort of shows how to be a good leader, a cat must understand deeply that every cat in a Clan has a place, belong somewhere, and that all ranks are equal in worth - a Clan could not be a true Clan without every member's job. This would translate to the everyday by understanding who's place it is to watch over each task, delegation, and general competent commanding, if that makes any sense.

Honeystorm's mention of good luck also sounds really cool from a storytelling sense. Like, a lot of leaders live abnormally long lives for wild cats, and survive quite a lot of illnesses and injuries. Is it because they really do have nine lives given to them by StarClan, or are they just very smart or incredibly lucky? I enjoy that is it-isn't it StarClan interpretation, where no one is truly sure how much power spirits have over living cats/the world, and the narrator won't give you a solid answer either.

Also, the Clans seem to interpret StarClan has having almost chaos-inducing or -controlling powers, especially over the environment (moving clouds, causing fires/storms/droughts/famines, felling trees) so perhaps a leader is viewed as being tapped in to that sort of power, and therefore both a magnet for freak accidents and also for surviving them. This interpretation could also serve as a comforting factor. So much in wild cats' lives is dangerous and random, like whether and where predators decide to move in, prey availability, etc. But if you put stock in omens, you could pretty well assume that any "weirdness" involving the leader directly is probably related to StarClan, and therefore not so fearful/something that could possibly be altered.

[Ariento/Pinepaw]

I've been toying with an idea for a literal nine lives, but different from canon.

Essentially, when the leader dies, time is reversed to some time before their death. This uses up a life. They can then use the knowledge of how they died to try and avoid dying again. If they die again, they use up another life and try again. Kind of like a video game - and, like NPCs in a video game, the other cats have no idea their leader lost a life (except maybe the medicine cat). In addition, this leaves them with no protection against things like illness or aging.

Not sure whether I want to use it or not, but it's definitely a new spin on things.

[Honeystorm]

I like ariento's take on the nine lives because it's a unique variant of literal nine lives. But I do have a few questions: how much time is reversed? A few minutes, hours, days, weeks, months? Is it different each time?

[Ariento/Pinepaw]

Nov 2, 2016 12:14:41 GMT -6 Honeystorm said:

I like ariento's take on the nine lives because it's a unique variant of literal nine lives. But I do have a few questions: how much time is reversed? A few minutes, hours, days, weeks, months? Is it different each time?

Like I said, I'm still toying with it. I'm leaning towards it being different every time, but maybe an hour at most.

[dewshi]

personally i prefer to see starclan - or a similar figure - as being a real entity, capable of gifting nine lives as well as access to visions of said afterlife's members and their wisdom, but for the lives, i can definitely see the problems and i actually discussed them with a friend recently; for example, if a leader dies and loses a life, how is it calculated whether they only lose one life or multiple? it's canon to the books that leaders can lose multiple lives at once, like tigerstar at the end of darkest hour. my friend suggested that it's a matter of how severe the wound is - something like (gorey language warning) getting your guts ripped open or getting decapitated, something irreversible, would result in insta-death or losing 9 lives at once. another factor is how close a medicine cat is and how equipped they are to handle whatever caused the leader to die.

in a story of mine, bristlestar - leader of cregclan - died by greencough once, but only lost one life because his medicine cat, grebestep, was instantly present to help him. another time, in the same story, otterstar of pineclan died by getting her chest sliced open - i'm uncertain how the death in question would work. would otterstar lose multiple lives due to the severity of her wound, or would her wound heal while she visited starclan in between lives?

still, if a writer wants to follow the books' set canon, they should probably give a leader nine concrete lives, like the book leaders had. it's of course their choice whether they want to or not; perhaps in one story, starclan is a more distant and mysterious figure, who would only grant guidance or memories, but in another canon, it would be more fitting to have the capability of reanimation nine times. it really depends on the level of the spirits' presence in that reality. i like having the nine real lives for the leaders; it gives the feel that they really are the leaders and they have something that separates them from their clanmates. i like the idea that starclan would only grant those lives if they see the leader to be fit, unlike the books, to prevent the rise of leaders like brokenstar, who would plunge their clans - and other clans - into chaos. i also like the idea that starclan would grant memories and guides to visit the leader in their dreams, but that doesn't necessarily rule out the nine lives, in fact, i think it adds to the feel that the leader would truly be their clan's ruler, and have something other members didn't to prove it.

tl;dr: i like the concrete nine lives idea, but each to their own.

[Sleetfoot]

I personally like the idea of StarClan and The Dark Forest being very real forces, able to sparsely grant things such as nine lives, give out prophecies and omens, and, though much, much rarer, grant things such as extrasensory perception. Another idea that I like is the idea that I like is that leaders are granted a star-like shape of nine stripes or spots somewhere on their bodies, and when they lose a life, one of those spots/stripes disappears.
But when it comes to nine lives themselves, I think that when a leader loses a life, StarClan's ability to heal them each time grows weaker. For example, when a leader with nine lives left loses one, the wounds/sickness/amount of blood in the system is fully restored, but when a leader with two lives left loses one, their condition will be almost the same as it was before death, likely causing them to die a second time.

[Honeystorm]

Sleetfoot's idea is cool, because it adds some extra limits to StarClan's power. Also, it allows for leaders to die faster, so that there is a higher turnover rate (no Firestar-type leaders who live for impossibly long amounts of time!).
Does anyone have an idea as to why the Dark Forest can't grant lives? If they're supposed to have the same/similar power to StarClan, then why not this one?