45 pages • 1-hour read
Fire and Ice
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Chapters 12-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness and injury.
Cinderpaw immediately lies, telling Tigerclaw that she fell into the river and that Graystripe got soaked while saving her. Fortunately, Tigerclaw seems to believe this story. Only a few days later, Tigerclaw orders Fireheart to take the two apprentices (Cinderpaw and Brackenpaw) on a hunting expedition in order to assess their skills. Fireheart is relieved to see that both of them are well on their way to becoming strong hunters.
Chapter 13 Summary
Fireheart is pleased to report that both apprentices are doing well, but he’s increasingly confused and worried about Graystripe’s strange behavior. Although Graystripe is supposedly recovering from a chill he caught after falling into the river, he seems to be secretly slipping away from the camp, and Fireheart worries that his friend may be venturing into RiverClan territory. He secretly follows Graystripe, who indeed heads to the river: More shockingly, Graystripe shares an affectionate meeting with Silverstream (the cat who saved his life).
Chapter 14 Summary
Fireheart confronts Graystripe and Silverstream; the latter slips away after admitting that she’s the daughter of the RiverClan leader. As Fireheart and Graystripe return home, Fireheart urges his friend to stop seeing Silverstream immediately. Graystripe, however, refuses, citing his love and deep bond with her: “We share the same thoughts; it’s as if we were born into the same Clan” (181). Later, Fireheart decides to try to find Silverstream and ask her to end the relationship. Upon entering RiverClan territory, he catches sight of her and several warriors from her clan; he desperately tries to hide.
Chapter 15 Summary
Silverstream locates Fireheart. She explains that she caught his scent but distracted the other two warriors so that he wouldn’t be caught. She refuses to end her relationship with Graystripe. In addition, she explains that prey has grown scarce in RiverClan territory and the clan risks starving. Fireheart realizes that this is why many members of RiverClan didn’t want WindClan to return to their traditional territory. Their conversation is cut short when members of RiverClan draw close, and Fireheart must flee. When he gets back to camp, he hears worrying news from the medicine cat: A disease called whitecough is spreading, and Bluestar has fallen ill.
Chapter 16 Summary
The next day, Tigerclaw goes on patrol with some experienced warriors. He sends an urgent message back to camp, stating that he has found evidence of ShadowClan invading their territory. He wants Bluestar to join him immediately, but she’s too sick to do so. Fireheart is given two missions: to fetch some herbs that might help Bluestar, and to carry a message to Tigerclaw (explaining that Bluestar can’t join him). As Fireheart sets off, Cinderpaw suggests that she could help by carrying out one of the missions, but he tells her to stay in camp.
After fetching the herbs, Fireheart doesn’t see Cinderpaw in the camp. Not wanting to alert others, he thinks of asking Graystripe to look for his apprentice, but he can’t find Graystripe either. He hurries off to meet Tigerclaw and convey the message but is horrified when he comes upon Cinderpaw lying injured and unconscious next to the Thunderpath.
Chapter 17 Summary
Tigerclaw comes across the injured Cinderpaw at the same time as Fireheart. Fireheart rushes the injured apprentice back to camp. As the medicine cat begins to treat Cinderpaw, she tells Fireheart to go and sit with Bluestar, who is now gravely ill. After some time, Bluestar loses a life: As a clan leader, she has nine lives, so upon losing her life, she begins to recover. However, she now has only one more remaining. In the morning, Fireheart learns that Cinderpaw may recover, but her injuries mean that she’ll never be a warrior. Amid these upsetting events, the threat of a potential attack from ShadowClan hangs over the camp. When Fireheart runs into Graystripe, the latter is very angry: Graystripe learned that Fireheart tried to persuade Silverstream to end their relationship and feels betrayed. At this point, Fireheart is too worried and overwhelmed to care about his friend’s illicit relationship.
Chapters 12-17 Analysis
Fireheart quickly notices that Graystripe is behaving strangely: Because the two cats are such close friends, Fireheart is attuned to any change in Graystripe’s behavior. In addition, because Fireheart is guarding his own secret (his meetings with Princess), he’s doubly suspicious of others’ secretive behavior, which develops The Dangers of Secrecy as a theme by implying that once Fireheart is keeping a secret, he becomes less trusting of others. Fireheart’s suspicions prove correct, and he’s shocked to realize that Graystripe is violating clan rules by pursuing a relationship with Silverstream. Fireheart shows that he’s still somewhat emotionally immature because he sees the situation in rigid, black-and-white terms. To Fireheart, it’s clear that Graystripe should immediately end the relationship, and he has no empathy for Graystripe’s emotional appeal that “we share the same thoughts” (181). Fireheart’s rigid reaction is particularly interesting because he’s hiding his own secret, but this information doesn’t make him any more empathetic. Fireheart does show some loyalty to his friend by keeping the secret, but he’s deeply unhappy about the situation, which shows his conflicted loyalty and introduces the theme of Loyalty to Community Versus Individual Destiny.
Depictions of forbidden love typically include the perspectives of the lovers themselves, but in Fire and Ice, readers have access only to Fireheart’s thoughts and feelings. They hear the perspectives of Graystripe and Silverstream only when the cats try to advocate for themselves in their arguments with Fireheart. This narrative technique potentially makes it easier for readers to sympathize with Fireheart and makes the novel less morally ambiguous; it may also be more suitable for the target young audience, who can likely relate to feeling conflicted over loyalty to a friend more strongly than to feeling romantic love and desire.
While the plotline about forbidden love lingers in the background, this section features increasing tension and suspense about the power dynamics within ThunderClan. This heightens The Dangers of Secrecy as a theme because Fireheart is the only cat (other than the medicine cat Yellowfang) who knows that Bluestar has only one life left. The idea that the clan leaders have nine lives (while ordinary cats have only one) reflects a popular superstition and transposes it into the novel’s cosmology. While the novel generally depicts Bluestar as a strong leader and a beacon of reason and good judgment, even she keeps secrets. This implies that she may not significantly differ from more sinister cats like Tigerclaw and Brokenstar. In the novel’s world, it’s hard for anyone to know who’s fully trustworthy, and the more that Fireheart matures, the more he confronts these moral complexities and ambiguities.
The onset of winter weather and the presence of snow introduces pathetic fallacy (a literary technique in which the external environment mirrors the inner world of a character). The future looks increasingly hopeless and bleak to Fireheart—and for the clans in general as they confront disease, conflict, and hunger. The harsh winter environment both contributes to these obstacles and mirrors Fireheart’s disappointment. He had high hopes for his life as a warrior, but the morally dubious behavior he witnesses around him and Cinderpaw’s injury increasingly lead him to despair.
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