#beetlefoot

Alright so I want to talk a little bit about the main conflicts in the first arc of New Legacy without giving too much away, so I figured the best way to do that would be to explain what I do in general with conflicts in my writing.

Sure, there are cats that one could argue are villains in New Legacy. There's Beetlefoot, who leads a coup in ShadowClan. But most cats in ShadowClan, with the exception of a couple cats that she specifically calls out, like her. There's disdain for Pebblestar and Fangpaw, who very tightly control the Clan. As deputy, doesn't Beetlefoot deserve to be leader?

There's Owltalon, who voices his opinions against Frostpelt. Frostpelt is no good guy, either. He goes against the warrior code at every step. With Ravenstsr sinking deeper and deeper into the sickness, shouldn't a cat that has only ThunderClan in mind be the next leader?

And there's Sootwhisker, who speaks out against Honeypaw and the leniency that she receives. He argues that she should be punished for using her powers to manipulate people, but he's ultimately labeled a bad guy.

All of these cats aren't really villains. They have their own opinions, and they're not outright evil like cats in the Canon series (Tigerstar and Darktail, looking at you). They have proper motivations, and if we weren't looking at the story from our protagonists' perspective, they might be the good guys. Beetlefoot overthrows a controlling regime. Owltalon is only looking out for his sister and her kits, who he worries might be thrown into battle too soon by Frostpelt, like his older brother was. Sootwhisker fairly calls out very poor power structure in RiverClan, that he, even though he's not a senior warrior, thinks he knows how to fix.

It's important to give characters depth like this. No villain is without motivation, and they always think they're the good guys. This is why Leopardstar is such a compelling character in the original books - she's manipulated by Tigerstar, but really thinks she's doing the best for her Clan. And it's why Tigerstar always falls a little flat for me. I genuinely can't see his side of things, no matter how hard I try, and with Fireheart as our only PoV character, we never get a chance to see why Tigerstar might do what he's doing. It's the same with Brokenstar. Why's he like this? Even Yellowfang's Secret doesn't really explain.