Lionblaze And Jayfeather In The New Books Make Me Unreasonably Annoyed.

Lionblaze and Jayfeather in the new books make me unreasonably annoyed.

Even under the threat of exile, Jayfeather and Lionblaze still bring up the lie as if their mother and aunt are evil manipulators. I like the three (Holly included) I really do but damn they switched HARD on Squirrelflight. If someone doesn't make an Au where our girl calls everyone who wronged her out, I’ll do it myself. And for kicks she gets to be with Mapleshade. Gotta bond over something.

Seething hot take. Thistleclaw was good…at being a horrible cat who you just wanted karma to whoop him. In my opinion, he was supposed to be a bad cat, one of the worst. But the issue is not only was Spottedleaf’s Heart handling sensitive topics poorly or worse, unknowingly, the Erin’s crossed the thin line between Palpatine and Kylo Ren. Villain who you want defeated badly and a loathesome uncomfortable character you never wanna see again.

Not to mention he gets murked offscreen, which ain’t satisfying at all.

Making it clear, I don’t support his actions but he kinda just…fell flat on his face when it came to being a good villain. Hope he actually gets his ass handed to him in a meaningful scene instead of just kinda lingering about.

Evil cats are fun.

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!!

That escalated quickly did I just summon Warrior cats fans?

Mapleshade’s story mirrors Bluestar’s…but also technically Graystripe’s. Thunder/River relationships between cats who thought they could have their cakes and eat it too.

Wanna add that’s not an insult to any of the cats I mentioned.