Mostly agreed but I think what you said could be summed up to three things since you don't seem to really elaborate too much (No offense,because I agree)
1.What you call the characters becoming jerks or hollow can better be described as Flanderization or CharacterDerailment.The former mostly applies to background characters like Cloudtail,Daisy,Ferncloud,or Berrynose,the later applies to main characters at one point such as Ashfur,Leafpool,or the Tribe. All of this is mostly becuase there simply are too many characters now. It's outright impossible to have deep characters when they aren't the protagonists
2. What you call the plot taking over,I call once again too many characters and Star Clan and their prophecies having more influence on what happens than before. Instead of something straightforward such as Tigerstar trying to take over,or Star Clan choosing cats to take action,you now have Star Clan sitting and worrying and the ancients and the Dark Forest,and their battle while dealing with stuff on Cat Earth.There simply are too many subplots and Filler which has been a problem since Sunset. The Super Editions do not have Filler
3. What really needs to happen is the Erins should take more time to write out the stuff and stop with the Expanded Universe [which I have to admit are much better.The Field Guides are pretty interesting,and The Super Editions have less Filler and more flexibilty] to focus more on good characterizations and a straightforward plot. For example getting rid of the Ancient Tribe would leave more room for the Dark Forest conflict and characters directly affected.
Hmm... I agree almost completely. I don't think that characters who aren't protagonists cannot be deep. *cough*Snape*cough*. While Character Derailment is abundent, I find that most of the characters you list as flanderized were either pretty simple to begin with, or have actually grown more complex, i.e. Berrynose's becoming a father making him a bit less of a jerk. I honestly want the Expanded Universe to take the main focus, which is why I'm so glad that the next series is going to be a prequel... as long as the ending is planned out before hand.
Well I'm not sure it's ever going to recover, even with everything slowed down
My apologies for what seemed to be out of context.I never meant to say that secondary characters can't be deep or complicated,I'm just saying when you have 800 characters,and 20 protagonists and you only have so much room and you want the 20 to be focused on,there isn't much room
Harry Potter did not have so many protagonists or characters overall,so it was easier to flesh out recurring characters,but I disagree with the assertion that Snape was deep. He switched sides to whatever fit his needs best,most of them concerning Lily
Dumbledore on the other hand,.......
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Rapidly Becoming a Franchise Zombie
This won't be an in-depth review, seeing as I actually have a Chapter-by-Chapter review series on the Warriors Official Forum, (actually, a lot of this review is repeat of what I said there) but I wanted to do an overall review of the series, so... here I go.
I first got into Warriors when I was 9 years old. Frankly, I loved the series- it got me through the wait for the last two Harry Potter books, and I really got into the characters. The Original Series was great, and I personally thought that the first half of New Prophecy was even better. Around Starlight, though, I started to have to put down whatever book I was currently reading every few chapters, and by the time I reached Power of Three and, later, Omen of the Stars, I was doing it EVERY chapter. Why? Because I kept feeling like characters who were once basically good were being forced down a dark road, and my then-10-year-old brain immediately started thinking up scenarios of what I thought the characters should be doing in their situations. At the time, I credited it to my overactive imagination and my overpowering optimism, but now I'm not so sure.
It was only when I recently finished doing a review of Night Whispers that I realized what the problem was. The characters had taken a back seat to the plot. When you have a series without a set ending in mind, having characters take a back seat to a plot that has only been planned 3 or 4 books in advance is not a good idea. It forces characters that the Erins had set up and made the readers like become total jerks or make illogical decisions just to push the plot along to the point they want it to go. If Warriors wants to continue going on and on indefinitely, the Erins either need to start planning further ahead, or make the characters more important then the plot. At least, I think so. I'm no literature student, so maybe I'm wrong.
That said, I really do like Warriors. I deeply care about the characters, the themes are mature, the prose is pretty darn good, and the Super Editions (due mostly to the fact that they are self-contained stories with planned out plots) are very, very good. The Erins just need to clean up some things before Warriors really becomes a Franchise Zombie.