Lost Stars is the first book in the seventh Warrior Cats series, The Broken Code. It takes place roughly six moons after the last book in A Vision of Shadows, The Raging Storm, and about three moons after the Super Edition Squirrelflight's Hope.
Tropes appearing in this book:
- All Love Is Unrequited: Rootpaw loves Bristlefrost, who loves Stemleaf, who loves Spotfur, who does reciprocate his affection.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: The reason why Rootpaw resents his father Tree: he's different from everyone else in the Clan, doesn't follow tradition, and has unconventional methods to doing things.
- The Bully: Kitepaw and Turtlepaw bully Rootpaw because of how much their mocking gets to him.
- Character Shilling: The prologue consists of a StarClan cat heavily praising Shadowpaw and his great future destiny. However, the cat giving that praise might not have the purest motivations himself...
- Cliffhanger: The book ends with Rootpaw seeing Bramblestar's ghost desperately begging for help, revealing that the Bramblestar we see is actually an imposter possessing him.
- Convulsive Seizures: Shadowpaw has convulsive seizures that seem to come with prophetic visions.
- Cosy Catastrophe: The book is set during a very harsh winter, but unlike some of the earlier series' harsh winters, no one starves or is too threatened by it.
- Danger — Thin Ice: Rootpaw falls through ice over the lake and almost drowns.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Shadowpaw, a very dark colored ShadowClan cat with a name based on that fact, who is a good cat (though being manipulated by someone evil).
- Dead Guy Junior: Violetshine and Tree's kits. Their daughter Needlepaw is named after Violetshine's friend Needletail, while their son Rootpaw is named after Tree's father Root.
- Denied Food as Punishment: If a cat is assigned to hunt and eats his catch rather than sharing it with the kits and elders of the Clan first, they have to give their share of fresh-kill for the elders and go hungry until the next day. Blazefire and Cinnamontail give in to their hunger and scavenge leftovers from Twoleg trash cans, so Tigerstar punishes them with this.
- Disability Superpower: Shadowpaw, who has seizures and has a close connection with StarClan (though the latter is not horribly unusual in this universe).
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: An unintentional version with Leafpool, who is apparently killed suddenly between books. She does get a proper, dramatic death scene in Squirrelflight's Hope, but that book was published after this one, leading to it seeming like this trope.
- Ensemble Cast: The Broken Code features three main protagonists: Bristlepaw, Rootpaw, and Shadowpaw.
- The Faceless: The prologue is from the viewpoint of a character referred to only as "a warrior of StarClan".
- Good Parents: Dovewing and Tigerstar are caring parents to Shadowpaw.
- Grade Skipper: Bristlefrost earns her warrior name early, before her littermates.
- Grand Theft Me: Bramblestar is possessed by an unknown cat.
- Hearing Voices: Of the ??? category, though revealed to the reader by the end that it's probably an evil voice. Shadowpaw hears a voice that he thinks is a StarClan cat, and tries to do what it says because he thinks it has the Clans' best interests at heart - even though its advice sounds sketchy. While it is not revealed at that point who exactly the voice is and the advice seems to work, it actually resulted in Bramblestar losing a life and an impostor taking over his body.
- Holy Ground: The Moonpool is a sacred place for the cats to communicate with their ancestors, and usually ordinary warriors aren't allowed there, so this causes a stir when the Clans try to forcibly break through the ice to try to reach StarClan. Some of them believe it's only a special place when they can contact StarClan there, while Tigerstar for instance felt that the attempt was a desecration.
- Kid Hero: The three protagonists are all young cats. Rootpaw, at six moons old, is the Clan cats' equivalent of somewhere between 10 and teenage, while Shadowpaw and Bristlepaw are more comparable to older teens.
- Killed Offscreen: Millie died of unknown causes between Squirrelflight's Hope and Lost Stars.
- Like Brother and Sister: Things become awkward when Bristlefrost confesses her feelings to Stemleaf, and it turns out that he views their relationship this way (he even describes her as being like a littermate to him); he has feelings for Spotfur instead.
- New Season, New Name: This arc has the subtitle The Broken Code.
- Oblivious to Love: Bristlefrost doesn't realize that Rootpaw has a crush on her, just briefly noting how it's weird that he's so nice to her due to being fixated on her crush on Stemleaf.
- Relative Ridicule: Tree is considered weird by many cats due to his non-Clan name, the fact that he can see and speak to ghosts, and the fact that he doesn't have a normal Clan role but rather holds the role of "mediator", which was created specially for him (and which means he doesn't contribute much during peace times). Kitepaw and Turtlepaw bully Tree's son Rootpaw by mocking Tree, and by comparing Rootpaw to him (which Rootpaw finds embarrassing).
- Rescue Romance: Rootpaw gets a crush on Bristlefrost after she saves him from drowning.
- Saying Too Much: Jayfeather accidentally says in front of the other Clans in a fit of anger that Mothwing doesn't believe in StarClan. He also snaps about how trying to break the ice on the Moonpool didn't work... in front of Tigerstar, who hadn't been invited and is shocked.
- Series Continuity Error: Beetlewhisker of RiverClan appears once again in the Allegiances, despite having been killed in The Last Hope.
- Sneeze Interruption: Bristlefrost and Snaptooth decide to spy on Mousewhisker and Berrynose to find out what was so important that they had to sneak away from the hunting patrol to talk about it in secret. Unfortunately, Snaptooth sneezes, alerting the pair and interrupting the conversation.
- Spin-Offspring: The Broken Code follows Bristlepaw and Shadowpaw, who are kits of the series 4 protagonists Ivypool and Dovewing, as well as Rootpaw, the kit of the series 6 protagonist Violetshine.
- A Storm Is Coming: Shadowpaw's attempt to visit the Moonpool alone is accompanied by thundersnow, a rare type of snowstorm that includes lightning. It doesn't mean anything good, of course.
- Switching P.O.V.: Shadowpaw, Bristlefrost, and Rootpaw.
- Time Skip: There's been a roughly 6-moon gap since The Raging Storm.
- To Be Lawful or Good: Shadowpaw has to choose between ignoring a StarClan cat's edict to make sure his Clan follows the law or telling everyone, thus implicating several cats, including his own mother, to potentially severe punishment.
- Trapped on the Astral Plane: After Bramblestar loses a life, he is unable to return to his body since some unknown being has begun to possess it, leaving his spirit stuck and running desperately around the territories, visible only to Rootpaw.
- Unwitting Pawn: The voice in Shadowpaw's head convinces him to recommend medical treatment for Bramblestar that gets him killed, allowing Bramblestar to be possessed. He also convinces Shadowpaw to name the codebreakers, giving the fake Bramblestar legitimacy.
