Echoes of the War Lyric Meme - Main Characters

I saw 's lyric meme for her Lion King comic Echelon earlier, and was inspired to try my hand at making one for Echoes of the War. EOTW has rather a lot of characters, and I have a few more in mind, so I think I'll end up making another one of these then as well. Though this one took forever. o.o It was harder than I thought, coming up with songs for all of these guys. A few of them came to mind easily, but the rest took a lot of thought and a lot of scrolling through my music on my phone. (I'm a huge Broadway nerd, can you tell?)

I'm not even sure I picked the most fitting song for each cat, so if anyone has any suggestions for these and for other EOTW cats, I'd love to hear them. I tried to think of lyrics that fit the spirit of each cat's story arc, or their personality, or such. I don't think the whole song fits each cat, for some of them it's just the lyrics I've shown, but for some the whole song fits well enough. I'll explain my reasons for each song chosen below. This is based on 's original lyric meme, which can be found here: LINK I had to make it smaller than the original image, since my art program couldn't work with an image that large, and I wanted it small enough that I could only fit a headshot of each character in the slots, but large enough that you could still read the print without it looking blurry or pixelated or anything.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR ALL BOOKS OF ECHOES OF THE WAR BELOW!!!

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Choice #1

Character: Silentstorm
Song: Skyfall
Source: Adele

This is one of the ones that took me a while to figure out. I wasn't sure which part of Silentstorm's story arc I should try to cover, her fight to become a warrior despite her blindness and her Clan's doubts, her rebellion against the strict divisions between Clan and Clan, her fear as she worried over her destiny and the prophecy, and so on. But finally, I remembered the song Skyfall, and it reminded me of Silentstorm's fears over letting her closest friends know about the danger she was going to face, and how she finally came to trust them with the truth, only to be rewarded with them standing beside her in the final battle, finally affirming her faith in her friends and her belief that she could always rely on them to stand beside her. I imagine these lyrics best fit her thoughts when her friends came to fight beside her in the Silent Battle, when she affirmed for herself once and for all that she would always stand strong beside her friends, and they beside her, when the greatest dangers came to confront them. So these lyrics were picked to represent that part of her character arc in particular

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Choice #2

Character: Blazeheart
Song: This Is Where I Belong
Source: Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmarron

This one took me a bit as well. But I was finally reminded of one of the last chapters of Faded Boundaries, when Blazeheart thought to himself that no matter what Silentpaw decided, he knew exactly where he belonged, and it was with ThunderClan and the family he had there. While he struggled with his ideas of the divisions between Clans throughout the books, unlike Silentstorm or some others, his loyalty to ThunderClan and his sense of belonging with them never wavered for an instant. He felt a closeness with them that even Silentstorm didn't always have, as she was often closer with her friends outside of the Clan, while for Blazeheart, his family was always his Clan. I felt this song fit that very well. Plus, I've always been a big fan of Spirit, and have always felt that it's a highly underrated film. I always take the opportunity to share my love of the film. ^^

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Choice #3

Character: Lightfoot
Song: Helpless
Source: Hamilton: An American Musical

I'm not sure I think this entire song fits Lightfoot, but this line stood out to me as fitting him rather well, at least in terms of personality. Lightfoot was always very shy and introverted, he never liked having attention drawn to himself, or anything like that. But he loved Silentstorm deeply, and was always willing to stand by her and her friends, proving that he had as much courage and loyalty as any warrior, even if he didn't seem to connect as easily with his Clanmates as other warriors because of his shyness. Knowing myself, it was inevitable that a Hamilton song would make its way onto this list. At least I limited myself to two.

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Choice #4

Character: Ambertalon
Song: Half-Truism
Source: Offspring

It took a while to figure out a song for Ambertalon. I wanted a song that showed her willingness to fight for her Clan and her family, and her ferocity and courage. When I thought of this song, these lines stood out to me as showing Ambertalon's sort of mindset in terms of how she lives her life. She isn't weighed down by thoughts of prophecies or worries about the far-off future like some of the other characters. Her concern is living her life the best way she can while she can, fighting like hell to protect the cats she cares about, and if she dies protecting the ones she loves, then it'll be a good way to die as far as she's concerned. She knows life is short, and makes living her life while she has it her main concern. These lines seemed to fit that pretty well.

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Choice #5

Character: Specklefoot
Song: No One Is Alone
Source: Into the Woods

I think this one was the hardest pick. These lines don't even cover her arc in the main books of EOTW - this has more to do with a novella I'm contemplating writing, about Specklefoot's youth and how she dealt with the revelation of her father's treachery (her father is Redwillow, the cat Blackstar killed in the Dark Battle, for those who've forgotten). I don't want to give too much away, but these lines are supposed to touch on how she's sort of come to realize that she's based too many of her decisions on her father's betrayal, and that she's made her own mistakes and wants to make things right with the cats that matter. I've also always had the sense that she never had many close friends in ShadowClan besides Dewfrost and sorta isolated herself after Redwillow's betrayal, and didn't realize she was lonely until she finally found close friends in the form of Silentstorm and her group. That's why I included the "no one is alone" bit, for Specklefoot's realization that there are other cats out there that she can feel close with other than just her Clanmates, and her sort of being content in the realization that no one has to be alone or just confine themselves to the cats in one Clan. That's why I sorta cheated on this one and included lines that weren't all next to each other in the song. This one is probably the biggest stretch out of all of them, but oh well, I couldn't think of a better-fitting song for her.

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Choice #6

Character: Darkbreeze
Song: Touch The Sky
Source: Brave

This one I've had written down in my notes as a fitting song for Darkbreeze for a while. It just has a very bright, optimistic tone to it, and it sort fits Darkbreeze's friendly, adventurous spirit. She always faced whatever came her way with a cheerful optimism, and never doubted in the loyalty of the friends she had surrounded herself with. Not much else to say about this one, I feel like it kinda speaks for itself.

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Choice #7

Character: Nightfern
Song: It's Quiet Uptown
Source: Hamilton: An American Musical

This one came to mind fairly easily. Poor Nightfern, I made her go through so much in the series. Her suffering had such a big impact as her as a character, so I knew I had to pick a song that dealt with that. In this case, the lines in the song wouldn't just be referring to the death of a child, but a child's death that the mother herself caused, though by accident. Nightfern was responsible for her own son's death, and as a result felt a suffering "too terrible to name," because being responsible for killing her son would be too terrible for her to speak of, it's "the unimaginable." The forgiveness in the song would deal not with forgiving a cheating partner, but Nightfern's struggle to forgive herself for killing her own son. But through the support and forgiveness of Wetwhisker, and the rest of her family, she was slowly able to heal.

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Choice #8

Character: Eeltooth
Song: Drink With Me
Source: Les Misérables

This one took me a while to think of, but I finally settled on Drink With Me. I wanted to capture Eeltooth's closeness with his friends, and how he trusts them and depends on them, and his willingness to fight and die beside them when the issue of the prophecy and the battle to come comes up. It seemed fitting, as the song sung by the barricade boys about the strength of their friendship and loyalty to each other, sung while facing down the battle to come and the high possibility that they could die for their cause in a few short hours, but how they're willing to stand beside each other no matter what. That sorta fits with Eeltooth's stance as he ran into the Silent Battle.

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Choice #9

Character: Finstar
Song: Stars
Source: Les Misérables

This is another one where I don't necessarily think the whole song fits her, but these lines sorta captured what I was trying to portray about Finstar, which was how she felt about the divisions between the Clans and how Clan life should work in general. She has a very traditional view about Clan boundaries, and is very suspicious and mistrusting whenever something threatens the borders that stand between Clan and Clan. She simply thinks it is easiest for everyone, and for cats to know where they belong and to remain loyal, when the divisions between Clans are not challenged. She worries about Eeltooth's close friendships outside of the Clan, because she doesn't want to see her brother suffer from worrying over his divided loyalties, she just wants him to be happy, same for the rest of her Clanmates. These lines seemed to capture that, as they talk about Javert's admiration of the stars for their sense of order and knowing their place and such.