THE crowfeather enjoyer

would estrogen have saved crowfeather

Crowfeather is only like that cuz the clans don't have cat cigarettes (cigarettes for cats).

crowfeather isn't a bad character just because he's a scumbag cat, he's a bad character because he is a scumbag cat that gets rewarded by the misogynistic narrative

erin hunter never dug deeper than half an inch into the emotions of their characters but one of the most conceptually gut wrenching scenes for me in the books is honeyferns death, where leafpool is staring at cinderheart hoping, praying, that some bit of cinderpelts wisdom and guidance will surface and tell her what to do so she can save honeyfern, and cinderheart is staring back at leafpool wondering why she can’t save her sister

The thing is I think Crowfeather can be interesting, if you see his issues less as "my girlfriend died and I'm sad" and more as a deconstruction of traditional hero fellowship coming of age stories. He has his whole arc of being a haughty (as per semi canon materials) child of Important Cats in WindClan learning to work together with cats from other clans and show his soft side, but unlike how most of these stories go he's unable to live in a self-actualized way with his changed perspective because the society he returns to after his journey is still the same biased, insular thing it has always been, refusing to change and learn its own lesson even with all the events of TNP. Unlike how most of these stories go, he can't change the world with his cool new self, because he's still just one cat. He's separated from those who were once familiar to him, unable to share in their historical narrative of suffering starvation and the forest's destruction together when he wasn't there for most of it, and unable to have them share in the bonds he formed and the griefs he himself suffered. And this isolation leads him to self-destruct, alternately trying to get back the feeling of comradeship where the world would match how he now sees it and trying to violently reject it and fit in again, but he can never go back. And then using his feelings of superiority for being more "progressive" as a tool of abuse for his son, who he sees as emblematic of the conservative Clan that doesn't understand (i.e. when they see Tribe cats and Breezepaw is being xenophobic, saying that he just doesn't understand what loyalty means), while being oblivious to how the side of him that tries to disown his past and act "respectable", spouting xenophobic things himself, is a big part of why Breezepaw is the way he is. The execution isn't amazing like most things in Warriors (using too much telling and not showing for Crowpaw's initial more stereotypical arc in the first half of TNP that's supposed to get you attached to him, for example), and it certainly could have been told without killing off Feathertail for his angst, but I do think there's more going on with him than just "sad about girlfriends dying and breaking up with him", and what is going on is a great contrast to stories where the protagonist learning their lesson in tolerance is just able to conveniently change society around them or never have trouble with the friction of returning to the "old life".