Warrior Cats Enjoyer

Brokenstar: 2/10. He hates children and old people. He wants to use child soldiers and old people who don’t get tax benefits or healthcare in his government. However. He does have a gay male base of support. It’s mostly Blackstar, who has bad taste in men, but I’ll give Brokenstar a pity point for that small crumb of progressiveness. Although gay henchman killing old ladies is not a win u_u.

Tigerstar: 4/10. Tigerstar does not care what gender or sex you are, as long as you are useful to him. You are a business asset, and Tigerstar does not believe in using bad assets. However, he also is a tyrant who wants to remake the Clans into his own image and achieve his own vision of what greatness is because he is a malignant narcissist who cannot conceive of someone else above him. This is how Scourge got a 1-hit kill. He would totally do corporate pride until it wasn’t profitable. 

Scourge: 3/10. Like Tigerstar, Scourge doesn’t see cats as individuals. They’re pawns. Frankly, I don’t think he cares at all in general, and even less about his group. It’s about power to him, to make himself feel the biggest threat out there. Unfortunately, Scourge is not running a proletariat uprising, but a mafia built on fear and despair.

Hawkfrost: 6/10. Hawkfrost is much like Tigerstar in that he sees cats as pawns, but his style is more psychological. He would use progressiveness as just another tool. It’s no problem for him to use his bisexuality to manipulate toms (like Mudclaw) into recruitment for his ambitions. He doesn’t care if an impressionable minor like Ivypaw develops a crush on him, because he can use those emotions to further his agenda against the Clans. But do I think he would have progressive tendencies? ...If they suited his goals. I think he’s a people (cat?) pleaser, and if the tides went swimmingly (hah), it would be useful for his path to power.

Sol: 5/10. Sol is dangerous in that he is the “so-called” liberal who wants to change the structure of society and rebuild it from the ground up. But this is a bald-faced lie, and the mysterious guy who’s talking about class consciousness you kind of agree with is actually running a cult. This promise of change built on a lie shows the ugly truth that Sol is yet another wannabe dictator who only cares about destroying the institutions so he can become the new institution. This is why you must always beware liberal men. However. He makes a good point with the power structure that StarClan holds over the Clans. And the whole thing with Blackstar. This is because Blackstar has bad taste in men. 

Hollyleaf: 5/10. As a person with a degree in Hollyleaf, I regret to inform you that she’s not as progressive as people want to believe. In fact, I’d liken her stances in PoT to Christian fundamentalist ideology. Do I think she stays this way? No. But she’s not making a hard pivot from far right to far left. She’s a pretty centrist character who builds her beliefs on order and stability. However. I do think she has a capability to embrace major societal change so as long as it abides by those principles of stability. If returning to the status quo means more instability, she will make the radical decision instead (see Dark River and Eclipse). She operates by logic and what makes sense to her.

Ashfur: 2/10. Ashfur is the guy who claims to totally be "woke" to date women, but as soon as they say something to him he doesn’t like, the mask slips off very quickly. He’ll tell you he loves Squirrelflight, except the part where he’s so obsessed with Squirrelflight that he’ll suppress her personality to keep her close. He loves the idea of her, not her as a character. He’d rather possess her than love her. And eventually, that obsession turns to rage, and that rage becomes entitlement. And that entitlement becomes mental instability.

Mapleshade: 3/10. Mapleshade is a classic case of "the victim becomes the perpetrator", and the cycle repeats. I regret to inform people that I don’t think Mapleshade is very progressive. She brutally tortured Frecklewish, Appledusk only died because he was in the way of Reedshine, her true target, and she almost drowned Ivypaw. She is much more malicious towards women in both her story and later books. Just as well, her abuse of Crookedstar as a kit was a form of grooming. Instead, I think she is shaped by the attitudes of her time, and has never grown as a character as she is too stuck in her cycle of abuse and hate to let go. 

Thistleclaw: 1/10. This guy is a fascist. I’m not even being facetious. He is as far right as you can go. I’m trying to think of any point he shows any smidge of progressiveness. Uh,,, he’ll mentor girls and teach them to disembowel their Clanmates. Gooooooo girl power… .

Slash: 1/10. This fucking guy…literally one of his biggest character traits is he wants to kidnap Star Flower because she’s pretty and he’s entitled to her. It’s like they made the most misogynist character possible that yells “I AM VERY EVIL” at periodic occasions. 

Darktail: 5/10. Darktail is a lot like Tigerstar, Hawkfrost, and Sol in how he operates. That is: he has sociopathic traits. I don’t think he sees his group as anything beyond something to maintain hegemony over. He’ll easily turn on them if they become a liability or no longer useful. He’s not above using cats’ affections to manipulate them, such as Sleekwhisker. He’s not above getting his paws dirty either. However, he does have the capability to feel some form of familial affection, such as with Violetpaw, but that affection is quickly lost when Violetpaw is no longer loyal. Darktail strongly values loyalty in his cats, to the point they are all marked the same as a sign of unity (and possession). So any progressiveness from him is likely a strategy to retain his followers and that feeling of loyalty. The ShadowClan apprentices wanted radical change, but Darktail never cared about that. He just wanted to see the Clans perish, and maybe create a pseudo “family” (who can only leave him through death).

Curlfeather: 7/10. The thing about Curlfeather is that her plan was going smoothly, until Splashtail ruined it all. I genuinely think she would have made a good leader, and could implement the change she wanted that wasn’t seen under Mistystar. She’s smart enough to recognize her vices and reign them in to achieve her goals. However, I don’t think this golden age would last long, because of her manipulative tendencies. She sealed her fate to die when she indoctrinated Splashpaw into joining her plan. So yes, she could create a RiverClan utopia. But it would crumble as soon as her subordinate no longer wanted to play her game. She also is unlikely to grow or change as a character because she has no remorse for her actions, only that her plans failed and Frostdawn got hurt.

Berryheart: 3/10. Barbara here is several Republican stereotypes all at once, but what gets me is that she does have a point about Tigerstar. The rest of the Clan really don’t have a say in the leader’s decisions. So even if her decision is as horrible as “I wanna ban foreigners from dating my son”, there is no choice besides Tigerstar’s decision. Her motivations are terrible, but her logic is sound in how the Clans are monarchal in structure. I’m not sure what changed for her to become who she is, but I strongly suspect the events of aVoS, which was led by an outsider cat who led her Clan to ruin. A group she was part of that killed her fellow Clanmates. And it’s tragic, because she had so many chances to change. But she couldn’t let go of her hatred and the trauma of that event. Hurt people hurt people.

Splashtail: 3/10. This guy…he has no values. Nothing. He’s chaos incarnate, a beast unleashed that Curlfeather created that becomes Frostdawn’s problem. He exists as entropy itself, and the only grounding factor against him is death. He doesn’t care about anything or anyone, not power, not glory, not status. At most you could say he doesn’t like to be beneath others or thought lowly of. Progressiveness to him is just a Thing. He wants to be a Hawkfrost, but even Hawkfrost can’t be a Hawkfrost. Darn :(

Morningkit: This is a fetus, she’s too young to vote.

Nobody has parents from the first arc generation. Sandstorm was sculpted from sand. Dustpelt: dust. Ravenpaw: .. .the stork got lost so a raven brought him.

Flipclaw is still at the ToRW with his boyfriend Feather of Flying Hawk.

Moonpaw's moms are Plumstone and Thriftear, not Thriftear and her first cousin Bayshine.

StormClan's Folly

Raggedstar is not a horribly abusive mate and closer to his depiction in the first series

Actually, Yellowfang's Secret whomst

Stumpytail is not in the Dark Forest. Who put him there. I will fight them.

Hollyleaf and Fallen Leaves are a couple of besties with severe codependency problems and not mates in any way whatsoever

Spottedleaf's Heart whomst

Shadowsight is not reduced to a punching bag for the universe in The Broken Code and only Lionblaze is irrational towards him (because he is Lionblaze)

Brambleclaw and Squirrelstar ended their relationship after Squirrelflight's Hope after realizing how toxic the relationship has become

Bumble becomes so big and powerful that she simply eats the other settlers and the Clans never exist. The end.

Redtail's Debt whomst

After realizing how pathetic and sniveling her mate is, Whitetail ends things with Onestar and joins the Sisters

The Darkstripe-Sorreltail-Graystripe half-sibling situationship does not exist. Willowpelt was a first time mother with Sootfur, Rainwhisker, and Sorreltail.

I get a bit annoyed at the fandom as Curlfeather's nuances are often not spoken about in favor of a more clear-cut story. She receives the Draco in Leather Pants treatment, which isn't common with female villains in media and literature. There are countless fanarts drawing Curlfeather as an edgy wronged woman out for revenge that remind me of the Hawkfrost and Scourge fanarts of the 2000s. She's got the anime cat hair and everything.

And you know what? A friend of mine has helped me see that honestly, that's fine. Women in Warriors deserve their moment to be seen as an Ashfur or Scourge, especially a woman who is also a mother in a position of power. Let her be 2026's Warriors tumblr sexyman. I'm rooting for her.

But also, I want to give my thoughts about the nuance of her character, and how her love ultimately destroys her.

She loved RiverClan, and wanted to stop the stagnation that Mistystar had allowed RiverClan to experience. She wanted change, to make RiverClan better. And the reality is that she would have done it. She has the qualities of a good leader.

But her plan entailed removing the obstacles in that path to RiverClan's rebirth. She did not feel regret for her role in assassinating Reedwhisker. This is because she treated Reedwhisker as an object to remove.

She did not feel regret for pulling in Splashpaw to her plans, grooming a teenager to become her right-hand. Splashtail was set up from the beginning to be a tool to "repair" RiverClan.

She did not feel regret for using Frostdawn as a tool to legitimize her position as leader. She groomed her for this position since she was a kit.

She loves her Clan, loves her vision of a better future, and loves her daughter. But what does she love most?

It's her daughter. When she is there, on the path of victory, she is given a choice. Her vision, or her daughter. And she chooses Frostpaw. She gives her the tools she needs to solve her murder and Reedwhisker's murder, but in order to do so, she is treating her daughter like she herself is an object to use.

And therein lies the tragedy of Curlfeather. She loves so deeply and purely, and yet she cannot comprehend or realize how she has hurt the cats around her.

She does not understand Frostdawn's feelings about being used as a pawn, nor does she understand Splashtail's feelings about being seen as a weapon. Her objectification of others is what kills her, and is the obstacle to her place in StarClan. She cannot leave the Dark Forest, because she has no regrets. She cannot see other cats as people outside herself. She loves and loves without understanding that the love she feels is built around possessing things.

She regrets she was killed. She regrets Frostdawn got almost killed. She regrets trusting Splashtail and wants to see him humbled. But she does not regret the emotional trauma she has inflicted by the cause of her actions.

Brambleclaw's final moments were very bittersweet. I think knowing that Cherith's cat, Bramble, whom Brambleclaw was named after, passed away, makes it so much more heartfelt from the writer and a final sendoff to her beloved cat. Old man Brambleclaw was quite lovely, and honestly I think retiring was the best choice for him, mentally and emotionally.

I personally cannot separate the Brambleclaw/Bramblestar I know from the majority of the series and how he was written, but I can appreciate Bramblepaw, one of my favorite characters from The Prophecies Begin, and cool off a little at Brambleold™, who was pretty chill after he no longer had authority over other cats. I think he's more well adjusted outside a leadership position, and perhaps happier.

However. It does not escape me he died of sepsis. He died of poopy foot. That's terribly funny (haha poop) and also terribly realistic. Do not play around with sepsis folks, our ancestors often died of it.

I'm not entirely happy with how a lot of focus shifted to Squirrelstar's faults in their relationship, but I do see the characters themselves making those connections and inferences, and it's poor taste to piss on an old man's corpse (though watch out for Shinepaw). The reality is that the authorial intent was never to make Brambleclaw abusive, the characters don't think it's abusive, and it's good they didn't try to "course correct", but instead just made him stop doing the things that were abusive patterns of behavior. It was the best way they could have handled that, honestly.

However. I have experienced a tad bit of schadenfreude. There is a certain subset of Warriors fan that makes hating Squirrelstar their entire personality. And seeing these melodramatic reactions to a fictional cat's death is really. really. funny.