I Only Like The Idea Of Thistleclaw As A Punkass Of A Cat. An Utter Delinquent Who Never Really Grew

I only like the idea of Thistleclaw as a punkass of a cat. An utter delinquent who never really grew out of his toxic vibes. May have genuinely loved Snowfur but overall enables and brings out the worst in people. Like, Bojack levels of pathetic where after Snowfur dies he keeps making things worse for everyone under the guise that “he’s the only one suffering.” Granted this isn’t CANON. I loathe that bastich. I just think we may be able to do something with this mangy ball of fur without woobifying him, especially after SH.

Does..does that make sense? Like a jerk who cat help being a jerk. Straight up Bojack Cat.

I think my issue with it is that there never seems to be any long lasting consequence to it, or an acknowledgment that their bigotry is bad, anymore. Or at least it happens less. The last strong examples of it not being ok was with the sisters, Scourge, and Darktail, at least to me. But Onestar’s confession kind of damaged the latter. It feels like it would be something interesting to go into; cats outside the clans aware of the prejudice, at least moderately. That aside, you’re entirely right.

Bigotry is not supposed to make sense

That’s what bugs me most about Brushpaw and Melody as additions to the lore. Onewhisker doesn’t need a reason for not accepting kittypets to balance out his respect for Firestar.

Being anti-foreigners is not a position with pros and cons. It is a prejudice. Code and clan culture creates this bias and instills it in the warrior cats, in spite of any evidence to the contrary.

Never in my life have I ever drawn something, and been this afraid of being lynched for it. This poor sap is my protogen oc, DayDream, who was deemed defective and cast out. Don’t expect her to show up much. I’m a little nervous that she’ll get mistaken for a primagen. I really don’t wanna get killed over an accident.

It’s so hard to talk about him or even express interest in Thistleclaw as a villain in Bluestar’s prophecy when Spottedleaf’s heart is breathing on your shoulder. Because he could be really interesting to bring up! I was considering comparing him to Bojack with how much of a bad person he is, but SH completely ruins it. You mention his name once and suddenly it feels like you’re on thin ice. 

Here it is. My hottest take of all; Spottedleaf’s Heart DID ruin Thistleclaw… because it made him the wrong kind of bad.

In Bluestar’s Prophecy, Thistleclaw is well characterized as violent and petulant. He sabotages Bluefur’s hunting, loses his temper constantly, and refuses to ever take responsibility for his actions or influence by pinning blame on others.

He isn’t some master manipulator with a silver tongue. He couldn’t even turn his own son against Bluefur. He’s your racist uncle ranting about RiverClan at the dinner table, the kind of dangerous that rallies other xenophobes and puts bad thoughts into lonely teenagers. When he meets his death in that border battle, it’s only him who dies, because he never got the power to get other cats killed with his short-sighted bloodlust.

So PUTTING ASIDE everything else atrocious about Spottedleaf’s Heart, there was no reason to add pedophilia to this. Now every discussion about Thistleclaw is obviously about this, outpacing every other aspect of his character, when it was not part of his villainy in any capacity before this wretched book.

Now you can’t have interesting discussions about Thistleclaw without this awful elephant in the room, like, “What did ThunderClan admire about him, enough to respect him as a potential deputy? What does this say about clan culture?“ or “Where does StarClan draw the line on violence and xenophobia?“ or “Is Tigerclaw just like Thistleclaw, but with the brains or guts to accomplish his goals? Would Whitestorm have been like him if he didn’t have Bluefur?“ or “Was Thistleclaw truly evil, or just a generally awful person?“

Gone! Out the window! He’s so bad he’s pedo-bad. It adds nothing except incredible discomfort! Thistleclaw didn’t NEED ‘more reasons‘ to be sent to the Dark Forest, he was already a bad guy! COMMIT to the reasons already present! Christ!!

Evil cats are fun.

Hot Take

Tawnyspots kinda sucks. Bluefur grieves the loss of her sis and here he goes saying “What makes you so special?” because she didn’t want to attend the gathering. Had the GALL to say that Thistle’s paying attention to Whitekit. Yeah. He’s a father. That’s his job, training an infant aside. Jeez.