The jaypaw brightheart situation is so messed up and full of nuance not even just in a meta way but was intended to be that way in the text by the authors (in part) and it’s so often completely dumbed down to “grrr jaypaw was mean to Brightheart I hate him forever!!1!1” and it drives me fucking nuts. Like the culture of ableism in the clans that has raised Jaypaw to hate brightheart and cats like her (read: himself) is so potent in those first couple chapters and for once it is genuinely the intent of the authors for us to pick up on that. We are frustrated alongside Jaykit when his Clanmates constantly baby him or pity him or just in general treat him different from his siblings, which arguably Includes brightheart btw (“Brightheart paused from her washing. “How are you today, Jaykit?” … “I’m fine, of course,” he meowed. Why did Brightheart have to make such a fuss over him? He’d only been sleeping in the nursery, not out raiding ShadowClan territory!”) I know you can read this as Jaykit overreacting about Brightheart just being friendly, but I still think it supports the idea that after everyone is constantly treating him like this, yeah, small comments WOULD make him defensive because the history of behavior is frustrating! And it’s behavior that Brightheart herself has absolutely had to go through herself! And we know that even though she’s “proven” herself that culture of ableism is still rampant because of how Jaypaw treats her like a lesser warrior BECAUSE OF HOW HES BEEN RAISED and is angry that she’s his mentor. And I think a lot of people just assume this is the misogyny and like. Yeah, it is, because this is warriors, and it touches everything, but when people are just like oh Jaypaw hates brightheart bc he hates women and is ableist it’s like oh my god!! Maybe it’s because a) the authors hate women and are ableist and b) everyone in the clan has treated him like he’s useless and different and that Different cats are inherently Not as good so the internalized ableism is telling him Oh This Cat Isn’t As Good c) he hates himself!! Because it’s what he’s been TAUGHT to do by a clan (cough author team) that hates disabled cats! And you know what! To a certain degree I understand why he’s upset that Brightheart is his mentor! In the sense that I too would be upset if someone assumed just because there was someone else that is disabled means that she Understands my situation. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be blind! The stuff she could teach him—how to rely more on his other senses—is stuff Jaypaw says he already knows! He even notes that Longtail has a completely different lived experience than him because he was born with his sight and had to adjust while Jaypaw was born blind! Like not all disabled people are the same! Not even all blind people are the same! and I don’t think Jaypaw should have to just be nice and sweet and happy about his genuinely shitty situation! AND OF COURSE before people get mad I’m not saying it was Good and Fine of him to be terrible to brightheart. NO! She is a victim of this system too, she’s just learned to cope in a very different way and is trying her best to do what she can with what she’s been given! All I’m saying is that there’s all this tense difficult muddled shit to walk through and I hate how much it gets completely ignored in favor of brrr jaypaw mean for no reason he should die
