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The Original Series
- When Rusty first meets the warrior cats, Bluestar calls him by his kittypet name. How would she know that his name was Rusty? Also, it is only this one time, and the remainder of the time, it would appear that she does not know his name until she names him Firepaw. However, she clearly does."You are an unusual kittypet, Rusty."
- It's revealed in Bluestar's Prophecy she had been stalking him. Someone might have mentioned his name.
- In Bluestar's Prophecy, Bluestar meets Rusty/Firepaw/Fireheart/Firestar's father, Jake. He probably mentioned the name at some point.
- Where did Rusty's collar go? Is it still just lying in the grass after all these years? Actually, where is Smudge? Is he still alive?
- Most likely, if someone hasn't come along and thrown it away, it just got buried in the dirt. As for Smudge, we don't know, there hasn't been a story on that front. He was mentioned in Graystripe's Vow, but frankly it was in the way that one remembers a myth or a legend. Remember, he was already fully grown in Into the Wild - if he is still alive, he is incredibly old. Like, nearing twenty as of the seventh arc. Possible, especially since he lives a comfy life, but he is not going to be reuniting with anyone on his own accord.
- How did Bluestar know so much about vets? I know they phrase it like they only know a little, but the phrase "Still a tom" makes it seem like she knows everything about it. Where would she get this knowledge? Pinestar? If he knew that then why did he risk it happening to him? It also seems like the entire clan has heard of the Cutter by Omen Of The Stars.
- Interaction with kittypets. ThunderClan's old territory directly bordered a suburb, so it stands to reason they'd have some contact with them (stuck-up Clan attitudes toward kittypets notwithstanding). That, and Firestar was born a kittypet, and by Omen of the Stars he has lived with the Clan for quite a while. They'd probably heard of it from him.
- What bothers me is how the cats mention a few times that going to the Cutter (ie, getting neutered) makes cats fat and lazy. Don't get me wrong, I can certainly see how cats as intelligent as these would object to being neutered, but the idea that spaying/neutering cats makes them fat and lazy is a myth. I mean, I'm sure that sometimes it happens, but I've known enough cats and dogs that have been neutered to know that it's not even all that likely. So why are the cats perpetrating a human myth that they have no reason to know about?
- 'Since kittypets are lazy, and many kittypet toms have been to the cutter, the cutter makes them fat and lazy' could well be their reasoning, conscious or otherwise, especially since I wouldn't be surprised if they'd never met a neutered non-kittypet.
- Another possibility: this "myth" is an urban legend about cats, just like the "cat have nine lives" one. Since it's already evidenced that the latter is true in this universe, perhaps other myths about cats are true too… including this one.
- Cats having nine lives is only true for leaders though.
- In The Darkest Hour, Leopardstar tells Firestar that she sent a patrol beyond Highstones to look for a new place to live (if BloodClan takes over). What happened to those cats? We never find out. (Although they must not have found the lake.)
- They must have just not found anything worth mentioning.
- Rereading the OS, it's weird to notice how little cats' parents seem to involve themselves in their lives. For example, Willowpelt and Patchpelt don't ever seem to acknowledge Graystripe as their son. It's like in the OS, once cats are grown up, their parents stop treating them like family. In later series, this isn't the case at all.
- That's because, at the time, the family trees weren't made yet, and we didn't know who anyone's parents were unless they were still a kit.
- Yeah, I know, but still, later on in the books (and technically earlier in canon, because of Bluestar and Crookedstar's prequel books) parents acknowledge their children throughout their lives. I was just hoping that someone could come up with a Watsonian explanation, rather than a Doylian one.
- How's this: ThunderClan had been grown weak for a while, so most relationships dwindles after a kit leaves the nursery. Firestar, remembering the sadness of being taken away from his family, decided to strengthen the bonds between parent and child, using Leafpool and Squirrelflight as examples. Other clans still cared for their relatives (Crookedstar and Silversteam, anyone?) because they weren't suffering such hardships. More of a WMG, but still...
- Why is it that the name Lostface is so cruel, but Firestar doesn't change the names of One-eye and Halftail?
- Maybe it's because everyone expected Brightheart to die. She was only getting a warrior ceremony so she could go to StarClan with a warrior name, so naming her after the disfiguring injury that killed her seemed a little harsh. Halftail was named after an injury he got at the end of his warrior career, and it was kind of a mark of honor. One-eye was always blind in one eye (her warrior name was White-eye) and so having her name changed to One-eye was probably no big deal.
- Here's another explanation (which more or less builds on the first): Lostface was named so because Bluestar was being unusually mean and cruel, using Lostface's name as a means to get back at StarClan for what she believed was a war against her or her Clan. Fireheart was especially sympathetic in this case because he understood the situation leading to Lostface's name change and this made him all the more determined to change it. Since One-eye and Halftail never mentioned their own name changing ceremonies or never complained about how tragic theirs might have been, Fireheart saw no reason to change theirs.
- Sooooo...no one really stopped to notice that ShadowClan had an awful lot of "apprentices" who looked way too young to be out of camp, let alone on a battlefield, huh? Not one single cat stopped during a battle and said, "Yo, I'm not fighting this kit. They look like they'd be trotting home after this battle to nurse from their mother before they go to sleep tonight, and you expect me to slice them to ribbons? I ain't goin' there, square." Especially when Lionheart pointed out that an apprentice he was talking to appeared to be too young to be attending a Gathering.
- It's probably a matter of self-defense more than anything. Claws and teeth aren't any less sharp just because their owner is young. Forgive me for suggesting the comparison, but child soldiery isn't unknown in our own world...
The New Prophecy
- Why do the humans cut down the whole forest just to build one road in the "New Prophecy"? It's too much trouble for them, and the environmental groups would like them better for it anyway.
- Well, there had just recently been a huge fire, maybe they took down the whole forest because it was right up against a twolegplace and the twolegs thought they were in danger from future fires? Also, the only word we have about the thunderpath is from Midnight, and she may have been not entirely informed or just simplifying it. Maybe they were expanding the twolegplace, not just building a new thunderpath.
- Okay, sorry if this pisses you off but...I don't get why Crowfeather and Leafpool were together. The only reason I can see is for them to make babies that will be the next protagonists (That could have easily been Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw's actual kits instead). What Word of God says is that Crow/Feather was just high school love, and that Crow/Leaf was the real deal, didn't make much sense to me either. I could easily see Crowfeather and Leafpool's relationship like it would be in human culture. Popular girl sees angsty boy in corner, both fall in love for no reason. They can't be together for reasons already complained about on this page, so they run away. They have G-Rated Sex and girl gets pregnant. Girl gives up kids when they're born, and they go to pretending the other didn't exist. Sounds more like teen romance gone horribly wrong to me.
- Well, what's the "point" of any relationship in the series? To create drama, or a good storyline, or because two characters are cute together, etc...the relationship served a lot of purpose storywise because a) we got to see a forbidden relationship through the point of view of a character actually in the relationship (for the first time, anyway), b) we got to the Clans' reaction to a finding out about a medicine cat being in love, c) it helped to give Leafpool some characterization, d) it had a lot of dramatic potential, e) they were just cute together? Regardless of whether you didn't like the couple, it definitely wasn't pointless. And they didn't really pretend the other didn't exist. There's still a lot of tension between them in various scenes throughout Power of Three.
- That bothered me too, man. Why can't ANY of the toms stay faithful to their first girl for that matter? Graystripe with Mille, Fireheart with Sandstorm, Crowfeather with Leafpool like you said, and even Tigerstar and Sasha! Yo, what the hell?!
- Uh, with the exception of Tigerstar (who is not exactly a paragon of virtue), all of the above-mentioned "first girls" (Silverstream, Spottedleaf, Feathertail, etc) are dead by the time the second relationship happens! You expect them to never have a relationship again their entire lives because their first love died?
- Exactly. Although, it does make you wonder: what happens when your mate dies, you get a new one, and eventually all three of you are in StarClan together? Many awkward moments ensue?
- Since StarClan is basically Heaven, let's turn to the Bible...which states that (under the "if one bride marries a bunch of brothers after they all die" rule), no one is actually "married" in heaven, although everyone is connected.
- Err, original poster here. My question wasn't aimed at faithfulness towards the first mate, it was more questioning the point of Crowfeather and Leafpool's relationship. For me, it came completely out of nowhere, and served no real purpose.
- It served the purpose of squirting out protagonists for the next series, is what it did. But yeah, their relationship was not exactly believable to me.
- What in the name of StarClan made the Twolegs think Graystripe, a feral cat, would make a good housepet?!
- He was fat and fluffy.
- They probably thought he was just a stray. People take in strays all the time.
Omen of the Stars, Power of Three, and Bramblestar's Storm
- Ok, So Lionblaze is supposed to be immune to damage or harm. So why in The Sight does Lionkit get hurt from the thorns Mousepaw pushed him into?
- His skin isn't exactly supposed to be impenetrable. I think it's less that he's incapable of getting hurt and more that he just has super senses that make him extremely good at fighting so it's UNLIKELY for him to get hurt, unless he was really trying to. But we do see him bleeding at multiple points during the series. Although...besides that, you'll notice that Lionblaze displays no particular superpowers until Outcast anyway. I don't think the Erins had quite figured out his power yet.
- How is Leafpool able to pass off her kits as Squirrelflight's? Did no one notice that Leafpool looked pregnant and Squirrelflight didn't? Did no one want to be there at Squirrelflight's 'birth'? Including her mate?
- Squirrelflight presumably did not tell anyone that she was "pregnant." She merely came back to the hollow with three kits and said she hadn't expected them to be born so soon. I suppose everyone just assumed they'd been oblivious. I agree it's odd that no one noticed Leafpool looked pregnant. It makes more sense with Yellowfang, but Leafpool is a short-furred toothpick. Not to mention that cats can also recognize pregnancy through scent. But I don't know, maybe if she just stayed away from everyone it could work? It is a bit of a stretch, though.
- this is actually explained in Leafpool's Wish. Too long: didn't read an entirely different book which is only mentioned once on this entire page, it's revealed that she is pregnant but she hides it by telling everyone she's eaten something weird (note: my only source for this summary is Moonkitti's I spoil. video, and not the actual book itself) and the reason why they were the only ones there was because instead of having a normal birth, like any sane she-cat, she decides to run off in to the wilderness with Squirrelflight and tell everyone that she Mothered the kits.
- What really bothers me is how the heroes of TPoT treated Leafpool after they found out she was really their mother. Teenage angsting aside, they really couldn't find it in their heart to forgive her? I didn't like Leafpool that much until TPoT Book 6, where how her own kits treated her made her The Woobie in my eyes. Because...damn! That poor cat suffered enough as it is, now her own kits gotta give her a hard time over her decision? What the hell, Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, and Jayfeather?! Especially considering Jayfeather is my favorite, I can't believe he'd be like this, too.
- Yeah, this has always bothered me as well. Yes, Leafpool and Squirrelflight lied, but I would have thought maybe the kits (the sane two anyway) could eventually realize that it just means that they have three loving 'parents' instead of two. Yes, there's the warrior code thing, but the fact that Squirrelflight didn't give birth to the kits she loved and raised seems to also be interpreted as something that can never be forgiven by the kits and by Brambleclaw, who was possibly more wronged than the kits themselves. His reaction was, in my opinion, more justifiable than the kits', though still sad. And Leafpool, well, she clearly always cared for her kits, yet they act like she purposefully hurt them, and can't forgive her. It's all very sad and unreasonable to me.
- But so far, as of The Forgotten Warrior, Lionblaze is no longer angry at Squirrelflight or Leafpool.
- Yeah, this has always bothered me as well. Yes, Leafpool and Squirrelflight lied, but I would have thought maybe the kits (the sane two anyway) could eventually realize that it just means that they have three loving 'parents' instead of two. Yes, there's the warrior code thing, but the fact that Squirrelflight didn't give birth to the kits she loved and raised seems to also be interpreted as something that can never be forgiven by the kits and by Brambleclaw, who was possibly more wronged than the kits themselves. His reaction was, in my opinion, more justifiable than the kits', though still sad. And Leafpool, well, she clearly always cared for her kits, yet they act like she purposefully hurt them, and can't forgive her. It's all very sad and unreasonable to me.
- The author has been really cruel to Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight. They went through all the troubles and suspicions to be finally together after the whole Hawkfrost incident and what do they get? They end up splitting up because the kits they were raising aren't theirs, and I read somewhere that Squirrelflight might not able to have kits of her own, which means that they won't ever have kits, even if they somehow got back together again. I feel really sorry for them.
- Seconded. I'm hoping they'll get back together eventually. My wish is, since it's been confirmed that Brambleclaw will not become leader (meaning he'll die before Firestar does), perhaps he'll forgive Squirrelflight on his deathbed, then she, in rage over his death, will go to avenge him and die doing it. So they'll be together in death.
- Jossed: Brambleclaw already forgives Squirrelflight before the final battle, Bramblestar becomes ThunderClan's new leader, and he appoints Squirrelflight as his new deputy. Word of God also says that they become mates again.
- Bramblestar becomes leader, forgives Squirrelflight (now his deputy), and a couple years later, they have kits. The kits are the protagonists of the "A Vision of Shadows" series.
- Seconded. I'm hoping they'll get back together eventually. My wish is, since it's been confirmed that Brambleclaw will not become leader (meaning he'll die before Firestar does), perhaps he'll forgive Squirrelflight on his deathbed, then she, in rage over his death, will go to avenge him and die doing it. So they'll be together in death.
- Why isn't Firestar dead yet? Every leader of every other clan has been replaced since the first series, usually multiple times. (ShadowClan has a record on that one)
- As of the end of the first series, Firestar was the youngest leader by a fair bit (Leopardfur and Blackfoot were already full warriors when he joined the Clans, and Tallstar was elderly). It makes sense that his leadership would last a bit longer into the series.
- According to the timeline on the Warriors Wiki, Firestar is 9 years old as of leaf-fall of Fading Echoes. (And wow, that's very weird when you consider that that's almost a fifth of the entire length of time the Clans have existed!) That Other Wiki says male house cats can live 12 to 14 years, and although feral cats in real life don't live nearly as long, you can assume that cats with human intelligence, the capacity to love and care for one another, and the knowledge of local medicinal herbs give the Clan cats something of a leg up on real life feral cats. So, basically, it isn't crazy that Firestar is still alive, especially when you take into account the fact that no cat or narrative has ever mentioned that he's old or starting to look/act like it.
- He dies at the end of The Last Hope.
- Why do the Three make such a big deal about hiding their powers? Where does it say in the prophecy that it's supposed to be a secret?
- They're worried about the reactions from the other cats. If you went around declaring yourself to have magical powers people would probably think you were crazy, extremely arrogant, or both. Even if the Clans did believe them, they would probably face resentment and distance due to being more powerful. Particularly in Jayfeather's case, since he believes that their powers put them above StarClan, which would be blasphemy in the eyes of the Clans. So there's nothing in the prophecy that says they have to be secret, but everyone involved believes it is best to not reveal their abilities unless it's necessary.
- What Yellowfang says about Ashfur in StarClan. "He was only guilty of loving too much." What? He was guilty of trying to kill his leader (which is the equivalent of treason in the cat world), targeting Squirrelflight's innocent loved ones to cause her pain and, on a lesser but still very serious degree, of giving an apprentice in his care a cruel training session because he didn't like the apprentice's mother. StarClan gets to decide who goes to live with them; that's not the problem but don't pretend he wasn't capable of more sinister behaviour than "loving too much." And
does this imply that if someone is rejected and goes on a revenge spree, they love that person a whole lot?- It's clearly been established that Yellowfang is an idiot. She wants to split up the clans! Also, StarClan are idiots as well. Some fans have theorized he might somehow be a Dark Forest spy.
- It's not been stated outright or shown that StarClan is wrong about the splitting up the Clans. It's hardly been established. (It's totally true, though.)
- Correction: she said that his only fault was loving too much. This fault led to him being hurt badly when Squirrelflight left him for Brambleclaw, and this pain spurred the desire for revenge. She was talking about the fault that made him try to do all those things. And it kinda makes sense, because he was a pretty hardworking and brave warrior before he went insane, with no other major character faults.
- Even though Ashfur is a Jerkass, MANY of his actions were still Flanderized, and he misinterpreted Squirrelflight's actions as advances more than once. In the end, he got the short end of the stick.
- Aside from the fact that his "only fault" of "loving too much" was what ultimately caused him to make very stupid decisions (he does have an extremely twisted mind, but Ashfur was not evil), he also never actually killed any cat, purposely or not. Another very likely theory is that StarClan foresaw that he never would've actually gone through with his threat to expose Squirrelflight, and sometime after the confrontation on the cliff, he realized how unfair and horrible he was being to the cat he loved more than anything. Thus, StarClan saw reason to accept him.
- In The Forgotten Warrior, it looks like Lionblaze finally forgives Leafpool and Squirrelflight for what they did. In The Last Hope, he goes back to hating them and even tells Hollyleaf to blame them to solve her problems. What the hell, Lionblaze?
- Chalk it up to inconsistent writing. The Erins make a lot of mistakes like that, such as the one with Yellowfang apparently forgetting she had told Jayfeather about the Dark Forest rising.
- Why did everyone hate Sol so much? Most of what he says and does early on isn't malicious at all, in fact, a lot of it seems pretty logical: teaching everyone basic medicine instead of having a single medic, telling Shadowclan to focus on itself rather than ceaseless border-marking, telling them to make their own destinies and use their own moral judgement rather than listen to the morons in Star Clan. He may be an unsavory character later on, but the initial mistrust seemed pretty uncalled for. Maybe I'm interpreting it wrong way, or maybe it's moral dissonance, I dunno.
- I think it's moral dissonance, yes. He's not a Clan cat, which makes the Clans automatically look down on him. Plus, he may have been acting pretty normal and not really doing anything wrong, but he was bad through and through, and sometimes peoples' instincts can pick up on that, so maybe that's why certain cats didn't like him from the start.
- They couldn't pick up Tigerstar's blatantly obvious plotting, nor Hawkfrost's or Ashfur's. It wouldn't make sense if they could all suddenly "feel" whether or not someone is evil.
- Well, he did essentially tell them to abandon their way of life which they had followed for 80-ish years. You can't exactly expect that to go over well.
- I think it's moral dissonance, yes. He's not a Clan cat, which makes the Clans automatically look down on him. Plus, he may have been acting pretty normal and not really doing anything wrong, but he was bad through and through, and sometimes peoples' instincts can pick up on that, so maybe that's why certain cats didn't like him from the start.
- Back in Sunrise, there was the major storyline of ThunderClan accusing Sol of killing Ashfur, then taking him prisoner. However, why is it that in The Forgotten Warrior, when Sol returns, everyone hates him for supposedly taking the sun away, but they all forgot that he killed one of their warriors in cold blood? Even though he didn't, the only cats who know anything about that would never talk.
- The Fourth Apprentice mentioned that ThunderClan believes Ashfur was killed by a passing rogue. Sol doesn't seem to be a suspect anymore.
- Okay, climax of Long Shadows. Ashfur has announced his intention of murdering Squirrelflight's kits by proxy, and the flames are rising ever higher. It's a desperate time, a time for the strength and cunning warrior cats are bred for, a time when life and death hang on the same precarious moment. Squirrelflight cries the words, "You'll have to do better than that. They aren't my kits!" Ashfur believes her, and leaves the scene, stopping only to spit another vow of revenge-
Wait. WHAT?!
Why the hell would Ashfur believe her? What exactly about "trying to save innocent children from burning to death" screams "I'll be honest to the guy trying to murder them"? This is Ashfur we're talking about. Who tried to murder his leader for no reason. Who jumps on the chance to kill children. Who has spent the last year plotting revenge on Squirrelflight. Who will be exiled, at best, if the Clan discovers his crimes... which he admitted to and attempted in front of four different witnesses. And he just takes Squirrelflight at her word and runs off. It's not like killing all four cats there would have taken any particular effort, what with the fire, and doing so would leave him entirely free of blame or suspicion. Even if he did believe what she said, Ashfur should have killed them all just to be safe. But no, he just leaves and lets them live, giving them the opportunity to tell Firestar about his crimes or, hell, even leave the lake entirely. Squirrelflight points out the classic "I have no reason to lie," but regardless of whether he thought it was a bluff or not, Ashfur's "mercy," as a fangirl would put it, makes no goddamn sense. Talk about a Deus ex Machina...- I can't explain why he believed her, so on to your second point. He kept them alive so he could ruin them by revealing their dark secret and thus making their lives hell thanks to prejudice against half-Clans. Yes, Squirrelflight and the Three could have told on him, but he could just as easily reveal their secret in return (and in Ashfur's eyes, being banished would be worth ruining his former mate). He knew they wouldn't reveal his crimes because he would turn the tables and do the same to them. So Ashfur (thought he) knew he was safe and thus felt okay keeping them alive so they could fulfill his own desires of getting back at Squirrelflight for dumping him. And he was right: Despite dying and thus giving Squirrelflight, Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf freedom to tell the Clans what he did, his crimes were never revealed and the Clans went on believing he died as a loyal Warrior. For the most part, I guess you could say Ashfur is Genre Savvy.
- Okay, thank you. That makes sense. (But still- why did Ashfur believe her in the first place?)
- Squirrelflight does point out that no one saw her give birth, she didn't have any milk, and she didn't stay in the nursery until they were apprenticed. Not to mention none of them look like her or Brambleclaw. If a cat thought about it, it makes complete sense that they wouldn't be hers. Maybe he should have questioned it a bit more given the circumstances, but I don't think it's inconceivable that he would believe her. And she was telling the truth, anyway.
- It's likely Ashfur was arrogant enough that he just didn't doubt his own assessment of Squirrelflight's honesty. Spite isn't usually accompanied by humility.
- I can't explain why he believed her, so on to your second point. He kept them alive so he could ruin them by revealing their dark secret and thus making their lives hell thanks to prejudice against half-Clans. Yes, Squirrelflight and the Three could have told on him, but he could just as easily reveal their secret in return (and in Ashfur's eyes, being banished would be worth ruining his former mate). He knew they wouldn't reveal his crimes because he would turn the tables and do the same to them. So Ashfur (thought he) knew he was safe and thus felt okay keeping them alive so they could fulfill his own desires of getting back at Squirrelflight for dumping him. And he was right: Despite dying and thus giving Squirrelflight, Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf freedom to tell the Clans what he did, his crimes were never revealed and the Clans went on believing he died as a loyal Warrior. For the most part, I guess you could say Ashfur is Genre Savvy.
- Why does ThunderClan adopt Purdy? I know he's an Ensemble Dark Horse, but he never hunts, doesn't care for kits, and only fights when the camp is attacked- if at all. He's old, whiny, and weak, and anyone with a brain could have seen beforehand he'd be The Load. One could argue it was Firestar's Honor Before Reason, but a stray cat who lived that long on the streets can probably take care of himself. Almost every cat finds him annoying, and he takes up food, medicine and bedding that other cats could use. But no, in this series- this series- where natural disasters and food sources are cut off nearly every book, ThunderClan plays nanny to an old, unrelated cat who insists he doesn't need their help and spends most days talking about "the good old days," when he was homeless and fighting for survival. Whatever happened to, "all prey we catch is precious, don't waste it," and, "we can't help every random cat that walks into the forest, they have to help themselves"? Yes, the prey situation has improved since the lake migration, but at what point did starvation stop being a concern for these cats?
- Of course starvation is a concern. However, Firestar has also stated that he will help those who truly need it, and Purdy needed it. He wasn't getting any younger and this was made very obvious when Brambleclaw and the others met him in Sunrise. Purdy was only doing well because Sol was helping him. Without Sol, Purdy probably wouldn't be able to care for himself much longer before starving to death. Annoying as he can be in-universe, he HAS helped the Clans and Brambleclaw (and later Firestar) probably felt that they owed him a debt of thanks.
- Just a guess, but when he first appeared, he basically charged into the camp defending Sol, and so it's possible that Firestar and everyone thought that Brambleclaw brought him back because he had some sort of information about him (remember that their main concern was investigating Sol at that point, and taking Purdy in was probably put on the backburner anyway). Then, after the Sol business was over with, everyone had kind of gotten used to Purdy, and he was friends with Mousefur, who is usually the first to raise objections to anything out of the ordinary. So basically, no one really cared. Personally, I find it funny that no one questioned it. And I honestly don't think almost everyone finds him annoying. There's no implication of that from what I can remember.
- Was there any reason for the Three being reincarnations? In OotS and TPoT there's all this stuff about Jay's Wing and Dove's Wing and Lion's Roar, but what was the significance of those three being reincarnated into Clan cats? As far as I remember, there was literally no point to it, it was all just filler. There's this dramatic reveal that Jayfeather used to be some other cat, but the other cat he used to be did fuck-all of import and didn't have powers or anything, and wasn't related to a prophecy at all. The only important thing that Jay's Wing purportedly did was lead the Ancients to the mountain, but he didn't, that was Jayfeather anyway! We learn that the prophecy of the three has existed for a long time, but so what? It had no impact on the lives of the ancient cats, and the reincarnation thing didn't explain anything like "where does this prophecy come from?" or "why do we have special powers?" I guess it's kinda cool to learn that the Ancients become the Tribe,but again, it's not actually important. Was there any point to it? Am I missing some really obvious fact that would make all the Ancient stuff important?
- It's just supposed to give the Prophecy of Three bit of background and show that "Rock has infinite knowledge about the future" and be a base for DotC.
- What was with the whole Sol-stole-the-sun thing? In TPoT, it was made clear that while Star Clan did not cause the eclipse, Sol didn't cause it either. The big deal over Sol and the sun was the had predicted the sun's vanishing. Fast-forward to OotS and suddenly it's common knowledge (even to Lionblaze, who was there and knows better) that Sol STOLE the sun but gave it back and some cats are scared he might do it again. Just... what. How does that make sense? What gave any cat the idea, including those who were there and know Sol cannot steal the sun, that Sol stole the sun?
- They're cats, for StarClan's sake. They don't know or understand the concept of an eclipse. They know that StarClan wasn't responsible, so they shifted the blame to Sol, who was the only other cat who supposedly knew about the eclipse.
- How did the cats not know about eclipses??? Or that the sun will just come back? Had they somehow never witnessed one before Sol showed up, despite their society having existed for apparently over a hundred years? Shouldn't they have oral history about , or pre-existing mythical explanation for, a phenomenon their society should logically have witnessed at least once or twice in their past?
- They're cats, for StarClan's sake. They don't know or understand the concept of an eclipse. They know that StarClan wasn't responsible, so they shifted the blame to Sol, who was the only other cat who supposedly knew about the eclipse.
- Leafpool is getting plumper, avoiding others, and possibly having changes in her eating habits and/or smelling odd. She and Squirrelflight go on a journey outside the territories for a couple of weeks to look for a herb that StarClan supposedly sent her a vision about. They come back a couple of weeks later with three kits who do not look a thing like Brambleclaw or Squirrelflight. But! Lionblaze and Jayfeather are both tabbies like Leafpool. Lionblaze has amber eyes like Leafpool. Hollyleaf had black fur, just a little darker than Crowfeather-Leafpool says straight out that she's the image of Crowfeather, and even wanted to name her after him until Squirrelflight talked her out of it-and incidentally if they're doing this whole charade to hide whose kits they really are, was she seriously planning on naming her Crowkit? But anyway-and Jayfeather has gray fur, a little lighter than Crowfeather's, and blue eyes, like Crowfeather's. Nobody had known that Squirrelflight was expecting kits. Not even Brambleclaw or Sandstorm. Squirrelflight certainly hadn't looked like she was expecting kits. And yet she went on a journey while expecting! This was explained away as the kits being born very early. But even Brambleclaw didn't know? Squirrelflight had no milk, necessitating the kits being nursed by Ferncloud-what did she tell the Clan they had done for the past couple of weeks while they were in the woods? And she recovered from the birth extremely quickly. And they didn't come back with that herb either! ThunderClan isn't that obtuse. How in the name of StarClan did nobody realize anything?
- This is another Headscratcher entirely, but as a slight counterpoint that doesn’t really answer the question, Leafpool’s litter couldn’t be born to her by real life rules of cat genetics. Ginger fur cannot be carried recessively, so Leafpool and Crowfeather making Lionblaze couldn't happen in real life. Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw parenting a golden tabby, a gray tabby, and a black solid makes sense from a genetic standpoint: she’s red, and he’s a black tabby. (Then again, Warriors has never played by the rules of cat genetics.)
- It’s more likely that somebody did notice something, but kept quiet.
Dawn of the Clans
- What is the Park in the bonus scene of Thunder Rising? It seems like some nice city park or something that just... has loads of free cat food? Why? What park would encourage the presence of feral cats? It's obviously not some kind of home for lost cats because the twolegs don't seem to go to much trouble to round up the cats before bringing in the earth movers.
- I believe the implication was that some kind of local shelter was attempting to catch as many feral cats as possible, in the hope of finding them a good home, before the earthmovers rolled in. In an area known for large populations of strays, calling in the SPCA or Animal Control to try to remove as many cats from the danger zone as possible would not be an unusual decision.
- But like I said above, it doesn't make sense for it to be a shelter, since they just started tearing it down with construction equipment without attempting to round up the cats.
- Where I live, we have a feral cat colony that lives in our local park. People leave food out for them, and as long as the cats don't attack anyone, nobody really has a problem with them. However, since the cats live on public property and not in a privately-owned shelter, they would be screwed over if a decision was made to destroy the part of the park they live in. I interpreted River Ripple's situation as being similar to this.
- In The First Battle we see the first instance of a warrior-type name: Emberkit, Wind's son who dies. But none of her other kits follow that naming pattern, they are all two-word names like the other ancients (Moth Flight, Morning Whisker, Dust Muzzle.) Why is this? And why does no cat think it's weird that she put 'kit' on the end of her kit's name?
SkyClan Saga
- I don't blame Skyclan for turning their backs on Starclan, because how helpful could they have been when all their territory was destroyed? Yet it's treated as this horrible breach of Warrior culture. How? Wouldn't Starclan's law have been that there must be 5 clans? And then what happened to the 4 Clans who refused to give territory to Skyclan? Wouldn't that have been a much bigger breach of the code than Skyclan abandoning their unhelpful ancestors who abandoned them as soon as conflict arose?
- Erm, 'unhelpful ancestors'? How helpful do they need to be? They sent warnings to the medicine cats of SkyClan, who intentionally kept this a secret because they thought if they didn't tell any cat it wouldn't come true. (This was revealed in an Erin Hunter chat.) It's pretty clear that StarClan don't have much power to control the real world. They can send prophecies like there's no tomorrow, occasionally control the weather to a limited extent, and speak to their loved ones in times of trouble, but not much else. What could they have done, eaten the Twoleg monsters that chewed up the forest? SkyClan turning their backs on StarClan, while understandable, was a breach of the Code because they expected too much of their ancestors and then abandoned them when StarClan didn't come through for them. That said, the other four Clans refusing to help them was, imo, a much worse breach of the Code; they could have tried to keep five Clans in the forest, but instead they made up stupid reasons not to have to give their territory away.
- How does SkyClan fit into the Clans' history? The origin of the clans only mentions the original four clans and their first leaders, no mention of a Skystar or Skyclan. However in Code of the Clans it shows that Skyclan existed from fairly early on and helped create the warrior code. Also, how could modern Clan cats be familiar with the stories of how the Code came to be but not know of Skyclan since they're mentioned fairly often.
- The reason there was no mention of SkyClan during the Clans' formation is because that short story was written before Firestar's Quest. Skystar and the rest of SkyClan have been RetConned into that scene by Word of God.
- As far as the stories about the Code and why no cats remember SkyClan, I would bet money that the cats did a bit of RetConning themselves. I think a lot of cats felt uneasy about abandoning another Clan to possible death, and so tried to sanitize the past a bit by taking them out of stories. The cats that are alive by Bluestar's time are genuinely unaware that SkyClan existed because it would only take a couple generations for every cat who knew to die off.
Prequel Super Editions
- In Bluestar's Prophecy, Tigerkit/paw/claw/star is shown as an ambitious and blood thirsty cat, with Goosefeather dropping heavy hints about his future, but in the OS, Bluestar completely trusts him, even going gradually insane as a result of his betrayal. What?
- Maybe she thought he changed when he grew older?
- Forgive me if I'm misremembering, but I thought we were supposed to get the impression that Goosefeather was crazy by then. Not only that WE were supposed to think that, but that we were supposed to think Bluestar thought so too. So I think by the time he's predicting Tigerkit's evilness, she just shrugs it off. Or maybe she just came to trust him since he was so strong, brave, and well-liked.
- What is up with Hailstar? At the start beginning of Crookedstar's Promise he seems reasonable, but then he just lets Rainflower boss him around (changing Crookedkit's name, letting his father mentor him, etc)
- Rainflower's scary.
- Hailstar's a dirt poor leader.
- One thing seriously bothered me in Bluestar's Prophecy. So, three kits go missing in ThunderClan, and days later two kits with the same names turn up in RiverClan. No one noticed this?
- Well, usually when a leader announces kits being born at a Gathering, he or she doesn't announce their names, just "Thicktail had 3 kits" or whatever. And apart from the announcements at Gatherings, there wouldn't really be any other way to learn about kits from another Clan. Also, since they were two kits taken from the wild (supposedly) it's possible Crookedstar didn't announce them becoming part of the Clan at all just to avoid any possible scandal. It would be moons later that Stonepaw and Mistypaw would be old enough to go to a Gathering, and by then I bet most cats in Thunderclan would have forgotten about Bluestar's 'dead' kits, or even just forgotten their names. Oh, and it helps that the cat every other cat thought was their mother—Graypool— was grey like them. As far as RiverClan cats not figuring it out, I doubt any leader would announce kits dying since they never want to sound weak, so Bluestar's killed kits were probably never announced at a Gathering.
- In Bluestar's Prophecy, was WindClan planning an attack? At the time, it seems Goosefeather is supposed to be mad, but we later learn that that's not always true. It leaves a big question mark hanging over my head, and it's been bugging me for a while now.
- I think it's sort of supposed to. I personally think that WindClan wasn't actually planning anything, but there's not any certain evidence either way. I just think it would be fitting, considering how damn depressing Bluestar's book is. Also, regardless of whether the attack was real or imagined, the whole event serves to teach Bluestar a lesson anyway.
- How on God's green Earth do Bluestar's kits not remember her? She left them when they were old enough to walk, talk, and call out her name as she was leaving them, and yet they just sort of accept that Graypool's their mother and always has been.
- I'm honestly just waiting for them to retcon this. It's been proven multiple times that cats remember stuff from even younger ages (Bluestar remembers her first day slice, Jayfeather and associates remember trekking back to the camp when they were little.)
- Since there's no real reason that kits that old wouldn't remember Bluestar, I'm guessing that, because it was traumatizing to them, they blacked out the memories of Bluestar abandoning them.
- I'm honestly just waiting for them to retcon this. It's been proven multiple times that cats remember stuff from even younger ages (Bluestar remembers her first day slice, Jayfeather and associates remember trekking back to the camp when they were little.)
StarClan and the Dark Forest
- Why is it that cats in Starclan and the Dark Forest continue to fade away, even though medicine cats and living cats training in the Dark Forest have memory of them? Memory is what keeps them from fading away.
- There are probably hundreds of cats in each of them. Medicine cats probably only train with the cats they knew or had heard of. Randomcat from Windclan 30 generations back isn't going to have any reason to talk to a medicine cat who they have no connection to. So the Medicine Cat will never meet them and there goes the only living cat who could remember them.
- It might be memory of them as a living cat that counts. Moth Flight is still around by Heatherstar's time because she's famous and what she did in life went down in Clan history. But cats like Thistleclaw aren't known for what they did when they were alive, the only cats who remember them are other dead cats, or living cats who met them when they were in the afterlife already. So I think they need to be remembered 1) by cats who are alive still and 2) specifically be remembered for what they did in life, not after death. It would make sense that after they are dead, they can't do anything to control how fast they fade; they had their chance in life.
- Why do the cats care so much about Starclan and put so much stock by their words? Starclan lies consistently, but insists that the rules have to be upheld because they say so. There must be four clans, but not really, because there were 5, and they just decided not to tell you. When you're in trouble and you ask for their advice, they either tell you that they're powerless or give you extremely baffling and unhelpful prophecy that inevitably makes reference to blood and tragedy. You can't confront them with the idea that Clan law is directly responsible for a large amount of angst and psychotic unhappiness, and its forbidden to suggest a more peaceful route outside clan law, because that would just unspeakable.
- Cats who don't pay attention to Starclan's rules get struck by lightning or crushed by trees. Also, the cats who follow Starclan tend to win more battles against those who don't.
- Not really. Whether or not the lightning strike was StarClan's doing or just a coincidence is supposed to be ambiguous, and I have no idea where you're getting the battles thing from. As for why the cats put so much faith in StarClan: it's they're religion. Like most religious people, they believe very strongly in the rules of their religon. Of course, rigidly following the rules all the time doesn't hold the answers, which is kind of what the authors are getting at. StarClan is also portrayed as having limited power over the living world to show that, although there is nothing wrong with faith, relying on it to solve your problems gets you nowhere; ie. God doesn't make miracles happen on a daily basis.
- Cats who don't pay attention to Starclan's rules get struck by lightning or crushed by trees. Also, the cats who follow Starclan tend to win more battles against those who don't.
- Why is Thistleclaw in the Place Of No Stars? Yes, he was violent cruel, and generally an unlikeable cat, but he was a loyal warrior nontheless. I've read Bluestar's Prophecy twice, and don't remember any heinous deeds other than sicing Tigerpaw on a kittypet. Did I miss something?
- Well, Wordof God did say he was in StarClan until Bluestar showed up and then chased him to the Dark Forest.
- Said Word of God also later said that she was joking about that and that she hadn't expected fans to take the statement seriously.
- Let's not forget that Thistleclaw had been training in the Dark Forest during Crookedstar's Promise. To StarClan, those who trained in the Dark Forest are doomed to stay there.
- I think because he had no reason to do the violent and cruel things he did, except out of sadistic pleasure and dangerous ambition to rule his Clan (which would have been a horrible leadership). StarClan foresaw he would've murdered many cats had he become leader, which means that, to them, he was evil. Plus, of course, he trained with the Dark Forest knowing full well what they were planning, and he enjoyed it.
- Well, Wordof God did say he was in StarClan until Bluestar showed up and then chased him to the Dark Forest.
- So, just what sorts of wounds can Starclan heal?
- I'm not sure. I think it depends on the situation. For example, they may have the power to heal a fatal wound in a non-leader cat, but simply choose not to. Or it could be that they can't heal cats that aren't leaders. Or perhaps StarClan can't heal anything by choice. It might be that once leaders have their nine lives, they heal automatically without StarClan actually choosing to heal them. Although, I like the theory that Tigerstar was allowed to bleed to death nine times because his warrior ancestors had realized that he should not be permitted to continue living.
- I'm pretty sure that StarClan couldn't have healed Tigerstar. I believe one book stated that StarClan cannot heal cats that don't respect the lives they were given. Meaning, for example, if a leader is given a life of mercy, but chooses not to be merciful, StarClan can't heal that cat, because they didn't respect that life's meaning. Thus, they couldn't heal Tigerstar since he didn't respect the lives given to him. I also think that they can probably heal regular cats if they have a reason to do so. It depends on the extent of the would, most likely.
- I'm not sure. I think it depends on the situation. For example, they may have the power to heal a fatal wound in a non-leader cat, but simply choose not to. Or it could be that they can't heal cats that aren't leaders. Or perhaps StarClan can't heal anything by choice. It might be that once leaders have their nine lives, they heal automatically without StarClan actually choosing to heal them. Although, I like the theory that Tigerstar was allowed to bleed to death nine times because his warrior ancestors had realized that he should not be permitted to continue living.
- If StarClan can talk to cats in dreams to give them prophecies, why cant they give them clear, direct advice? It's not like being in StarClan makes you speak in riddles; the prologs often have SC cats talking to each other. Also, if StarClan CAN send down lightening bolts whenever it wants, why the friggin' hell didnt they just nail Tigerstar the moment he left the clan?
- When Spottedleaf talks about being dead, she mentions that she was forced to watch Firestar from afar, and that the glimpses she caught of him were incomplete and foggy. Therefore it's safe to assume that StarClan cats can't always just watch the living Clans on a big HD screen. So maybe that makes it hard to communicate as well, and somehow prophecies resonate through space-time more readily than simple speech. Also, prophecies aren't always what will happen, so much as what could. There isn't always a 'destiny' that will definitely happen, because living cats control their own lives. That's another reason that StarClan might not give explicit prophecies: it denies living cats a choice, and free will is vital. If they say "Here's the deal, you have to mate with Blackfern, not Quietbird, because a kit born to you and Blackfern is destined to lead your Clan in an era of prosperity." it takes away not only a lot of the mystery of life, but the existence of that cat's ability to choose for himself or herself. Also, life would be too easy if you had dead guys constantly telling you what to do. Lastly, I think that StarClan might not be the final, highest power in the land. Perhaps there is something bigger preventing them from communicating directly with their descendants. On the 'why didn't they just kill Tigerstar' topic, I think that 1) StarClan aren't generally in the business of handing out death sentences for any betrayal of the warrior code, and 2) Tigerstar did end up being a strong leader for ShadowClan, which was exactly what they needed, and perhaps StarClan saw that in his future. Of course, I don't think they even could have killed him if they tried. The only time in about fifty years of Clan history that we know of StarClan sending down a bolt of lightning, it didn't actually hit a cat, it hit a tree. It may not even have been StarClan at all.
- According to Erin Hunter, Millie will probably go to Starclan, and last I checked Graystripe does not have any reason to be banished to the Dark Forest. Now, the question is, what happens with Silverstream? The Hunters (or at least one of them) mention Graystripe would probably choose Silverstream, so where does that leave Millie?
- ...OT3? (Please don't hit me.)
- When I got my book signed by Vicky, someone asked about (I think) Fallen Leaves and Hollyleaf getting together post-death and she said "StarClan doesn't work that way". I think we're meant to take from that that there are no mates in StarClan. Everyone is just Clanmates. Which kind of makes sense. Life is usually portrayed as better than the afterlife in fiction. The afterlife is perfect, but boring, while real life is hard but rewarding. Often in the afterlife there aren't things like food and other Earthly pleasures. In StarClan they have food, but I guess they don't have romance or passion.
- I think what she meant by that is that Hollyleaf will be in StarClan and Fallen Leaves remains in the tunnels, so they can't be together. One of the Erins recently said that Bluestar and Oakheart are mates StarClan, so the Silverstream/Millie issue still exists. Personally, I'm with the OT3 suggestion.
- First of all, Fallen Leaves HAS been freed from the tunnels. He was fighting alongside the Ancients in the Dark Forest battle, for StarClan's sake! I think she meant that Fallen Leaves probably spends most of his time in the Ancients' afterlife now, making it hard for him and Hollyleaf to be officially mates. Second of all, I think another Erin said that he'd choose Millie, since they have a more meaningful relationship after all they've been through. However, I think that since mates probably do exist in StarClan (unless StarClan really is like the Bible states about Heaven), it would be possible for a cat with more than one mate to love each of them equally when they get there, and the cats won't get jealous of each other, because their souls are different now that they're "pure" in StarClan.
- Do StarClan kits fade? You'd think kits would fade faster than other cats, since kits die kind of a lot and they didn't have a chance to do great things in life or make friends or get mates or kits of their own or whatever. But Mosskit is still around and kicking in TLH, despite the fact that no cat in ThunderClan probably has any idea of who she is.
- Mosskit has a living sister in RiverClan though. We don't know if Mistystar remembers her or not.
- Also I took the fading as something that takes time. It can happen faster in some than in others, but it's not going to happen within the lifespan of a cat. Even at its fastest it could take multiple generations.
Clan Culture and the Warrior Code
- OK, so Tigerstar was pretty much a kitty Hitler, blah blah. Do we ever hear a satisfactory reason why the forest should be subdivided into four clans forever? The constant fighting keeps their skills sharp, I suppose, but non-fighters like Barley can still catch prey perfectly well. It just seems very... unnecessary. Tradition and "because StarClan told us so" aren't very good reasons to me, and the Rule of Drama is only a slightly better one.
- Starclan needs entertainment in the afterlife. Cooperation isn't exciting.
- Indeed.
- Well, look at us humans. With our technologies and brilliant tools that could possibly feed everyone on this planet are still develpoing weapons and practically "wasting" millions of money that could have gone to feed more mouths.
- That's oversimplification. Humanity is loosely connected worldwide (NATO, UN, Worldwide Trade, Internet). We still have our own identities, but we can still mingle and help one another. The problem with the Clans is that they try to completely isolate themselves. Large loosely allingned groups can work and thrive if they're managed properly.
- It could be that fighting each other is one big thing that ironically helps the Clans to exist. The constant striving against one another keeps them focused on considering the other Clans their enemies, but also makes them trust their own Clanmates, and value them more. Consider the Tribes at the lake: even though the other two Tribes left before Jay's Wing's time (at least, it seems that way, as they aren't ever mentioned) you can still see the proto-Tribe of Rushing Water cats and they way they aren't that united. Sure they all live together kind of, but they don't have one central camp, they don't seem as close to each other as Clan cats, they basically seem like a loose band of rogues. It wasn't until the journey to the mountains that they became forced to rely much more heavily on each other. The way the Clan cats fight each other all the time gives them enemies that they know, can understand, and have the ability to fight, while also uniting them in smaller groups, where a larger, more unwieldy group spread across the rather large forest might divide into small, quarreling bands like the ones that existed before the Clans formed.
- Some cat is asked this question, and replies that cats need to fight, that bloodlust is Inherent in the System.
- Starclan needs entertainment in the afterlife. Cooperation isn't exciting.
- Why exactly is "forbidden love" so forbidden, anyway? If the cats only bred within their clans, there'd be heavy inbreeding after only a few generations. Not only that, but cross-clan matings can help improve interclan ties—think marriages between royalty in medieval times. Cats who fall for ones from other clans seem to be able to transfer without too much trouble; it worked for Graystripe a few times, after all. All in all, it seems like the whole issue should be much less dramatic and off-limits than how it's portrayed.
- It leads to conflict if you don't want to transfer Clans, I imagine. You may eventually have to fight against the one you love in a battle, and not wanting to hurt them because you love them could lead to your Clan losing the battle. It's all about loyalty.
- I sort of saw it as a rule of sexual conduct that all the cats are "supposed" to follow but has been broken by many cats throughout the history of the Clans (kind of like no sex before marriage in many human cultures). It is those that break the rule that keep the Clans from becoming inbred.
- Agreed. Remember the "you don't have to tell who the father is" rule? That little allowance probably single-handedly saved the necks of dozens of queens.
- Not mating with cats from other Clans would result in the cats being inbred. But they don't know that. They know squat about genetics. Firestar's clan may ironically become the strongest over time due to all the kittypet blood.
- This creates lots of problems. Let's say there is a tom from ShadowClan and a queen from Thunderclan who fall in love. There are a few ways this can pan out.
- 1) Neither switches Clans, they're forced to fight but cannot.
- 2) One does switch Clans, and therefore must fight their former friends and relatives.
- 3) They have kits, which forces one parent to fight his/her kits.
- 4) They have kits, one goes with the father, the other with the mother. The kits are forced to fight each other.
- All in all, this code makes a lot of sense. The Code Of the Clans gives the origin story, and because of forbidden love, the tom dies.
- But only because all the cats insist on being unreasonable and fighting each other and insisting on being separate for no good reason. And even if there was a good reason for only mating within your clan, it would be overruled by the fact that the clans would all die out because of inbreeding.
- As someone mentioned above, the Clans being separate does make sense. Are all humans completely united? Do we try to feed every single other human? Even people in our own country, our "Clan" go hungry and are killed or attacked by others. Also, keep in mind that leaders won't want to give up power; abdicating to attempt to form a single Clan forces them to give up their own lives and the potential nine lives for future leaders. Also, the Clans strongly dislike one another; they think of each other as being weak, pathetic; they mock one another. Only HUGE threats (like BloodClan, or the journey to the lake) could let them come together, and then it's only for very short times. Combining the four Clans wouldn't work at all. As for why they didn't join together in the beginning, the original founders probably wanted their own power and territories to command, letting their ambition get in the way of making the choice to create a single Clan.
- Well, no, actually; as mentioned above, the clans being separate makes zero sense. But humans and cats aren't particularly sensible beings.
- Does the Warrior Code strike anyone else as being extremely amorphous and difficult to pin down? I mean, it's constantly, casually broken by everyone, but the cats A) act like the wrath of Starclan will destroy them all if they break the rules (cue forbidden love angst) and B) keep talking about how great it is to have honor and uphold the code, even though it's constantly broken all the time by everyone! Apparently, it's okay to break the rules for stuff like killing, trespassing, starving the elders, and lying to the other Clans at the meet (I.E. greed and cruelty), but not okay for things like medicine cats having kits, or for there to be one single united clan (I. E. tolerance, love, and friendship.) The rule that the word of the Clan leader being the warrior code obviously trumps everything else, but that strikes this troper as less a bushido-esque society and more a tyranny. It got to the point where too much of the drama was a direct result of dumb rules that were only invoked for plot convenience.
- The medicine cat thing is so very true. Cats that never interacted with anyone involved or never minded Thunderclan's easygoing policy on non-Clanborn cats acted like the sky was falling when Leafpool's affair was revealed.
- The starving the elders thing was VERY much looked down upon when it happened, and killing isn't usually done by the good cats (though Firestar kills at least two characters, one of them was in the second book and the first two books are very questionable to me). Trespassing will probably get you attacked (unless you keep that stupid two fox-lengths rule...god) and the medicine cat thing seems to mostly have been Leafpool (and Hollyleaf) overreacting. A lot.
- What exactly does it mean to be a Warrior, anyway? Loyalty? Loyalty to a leader that would rather let their sick/poisoned/starving elders and kits die rather than "admit to weakness?" (Each one has its turn at the clan meets, which appear to be for the purpose of lying to the faces of your enemies.) Loyalty to ancestors who are powerless, ignorant, and not above lying to you? Loyalty to laws that force you to be enemies even in times of peace? Laws that forbid friendship, goodwill, and even love between separate Clans? It's like the Jedi law: It's okay for them to hate, but not to love. God, no. Warriors, if a Clan dies because of tragedy, neglect, and apathy, that's fine. But don't you dare ruin the sacred laws by making friendships that form us all into one big Clan! Too much of the series's drama was one massive Wall banger for this troper, because it became a Logic Bomb. It's a miracle the cats' society even functions at all, and no small wonder that there's so much upheaval and violence among them. The very foundations of their morality and cultural values are mutable.
- Well, a single government over that much land wouldn't be all that efficient, plus cats are territorial and presumably can't agree on anything. But the fact that there are laws against goodwill is very stupid, and the fanaticism of their upholding is even worse. Also, I don't think 'warrior' means loyalty. Once the vagueness of the Three's parentage is revealed, Hollyleaf suddenly and decisively acts as though she is not a warrior at all, despite the fact that she was born and raised in a Clan.
- Cats are territorial, but I can't see them caring about anything beyond just that. A feline serving with slavish devotion to anything, let alone an extremely hindering code of "honor", is enough to shatter this troper's suspension of disbelief. What are the perks of being a warrior? What difference does it make if you follow the code or not, save for being scorned by the peers who are changing the rules on you anyway?
- I think this is meant to be Deliberate Values Dissonance. Cats are, as mentioned, extremely territorial. Feral cats are known to form small family groups in real life, which is reflected in the Clans, but they see other cats as, first and foremost, competition. Humans don't share the same instinctive territory thing, so while it makes sense to us to form a big, unified group, it doesn't so much to the cats because that clashes with their basic instincts. How well the authors pulled this off is, obviously, up for debate, but that's my take on it.
- The structure of a real feral colony is nothing like that of the clans. If genuine feral behavior had anything to do with how they organized their territories, I imagine that borders would be unstable, leaders would have to fight their way to the top, elders and queens would not be looked after, cats would probably live separately...like Bloodclan, basically. The forest clans organize more like tribal human societies and the characters themselves act human.
- We have a trope for this.
- Well, a single government over that much land wouldn't be all that efficient, plus cats are territorial and presumably can't agree on anything. But the fact that there are laws against goodwill is very stupid, and the fanaticism of their upholding is even worse. Also, I don't think 'warrior' means loyalty. Once the vagueness of the Three's parentage is revealed, Hollyleaf suddenly and decisively acts as though she is not a warrior at all, despite the fact that she was born and raised in a Clan.
- Can female Leaders have kits? Because it doesn't say they can't anywhere and yet at times they act as though they can't.
- It's probably just a common sense thing. Think about it. A female leader would have to stay in the nursery for moons on bed rest (more or less) and not able to do much. This would weaken the Clan because of their leader not being able to physically do anything for moons.
- Looking back, I've realized that they are allowed to have kits. The ones that don't probably do it as a personal choice than because of rules.
- I've always wondered why they avoid this, because it doesn't actually seem all that impractical. Consider that a queen's pregnancy lasts about two months. Kittens are weaned by around a month and a half of age. So, if the kits were babysat by another queen, she would only be occupied for about three months. And that's assuming she stays in the nursery for the duration of her pregnancy. Human women manage to continue working while pregnant, and these are cats we're talking about (I doubt that real feral queens with no-one to look after them would be able to rest for months without having to hunt). So, probably the leader would be able to work regularly during the first six-plus weeks of pregnancy. As she approaches labor, she could turn over the physical duties to the deputy, and run the clan from the nursery. She could even resume duties shortly after delivering the kits, so long as she comes back periodically to nurse them. So why not? Having a pregnant leader take a clan into battle would be incredibly badass.
- This is addressed pretty thoroughly in Skyclan's Destiny. The impression we get from Leafstar is that Firestar told them female leaders can't have kits. So, even if we ignore Bluestar's whole situation (which is that she gave up her kits in order to be available to be chosen as deputy, not because of a rule against it, but because of practical reasons), I think it may be like the "medicine cats can't have mates and kits" thing: it's a rule kind of, but not part of the Code. Oh, and also, wasn't leadership formerly an inherited thing? There was a short story where that was addressed before the whole deputy -> leader thing came about. So female leaders not having kits couldn't have been a rule then, much less part of the Code.
- In Secrets of the Clans, there is a passing mention of Windstar having had kits ("Gorsefur was not only her deputy, he was the father of her kits").
- It's probably just a common sense thing. Think about it. A female leader would have to stay in the nursery for moons on bed rest (more or less) and not able to do much. This would weaken the Clan because of their leader not being able to physically do anything for moons.
- On a similar note as the above, why can't male medicine cats have kits? I understand why females can't, but the male thing has bugged me for a while.
- It's not a rule against kits, it's a rule against attachments. The medicine cat has a duty to StarClan, which it can't appropriately do if it has personal attachments. Sort of like nuns and priests.
- Does it seem weird to anyone else that the Warrior Code is never once actually laid out for a character in the canon? The only place we have the Code written all together is in Code of the Clans. We don't see Bluestar sit Firepaw down and say "Now I will teach you all the parts of the Warrior Code. You must learn them well, young apprentice." Even if cats are taught the specifics at some point, why have we never seen or even heard of that happening? A list of the Codes appearing in a main novel would have been very helpful. The cats always talk about the Warrior Code, i.e. 'That's against the Code' or 'Do you promise to uphold the Warrior Code?' but it's not even implied that the exact details of the Code are something cats ever learn. This is probably my biggest problem with the Code. It isn't a bad code for living, but it seems like cats don't keep track of what exactly is and isn't a part of it, which causes confusion. I doubt anyone (fan or warrior) could sit down and list all of the fifteen (is it even fifteen? fourteen?) Codes with all their specifics, no matter how dedicated.
- The warrior code is something that was very likely taught off-screen at a young age. And honestly, no one would want to go through a chapter of a cat explaining every rule with specifics and exceptions to another cat.
- In the Warrior Code it mentions that friendship between clans is allowed, but breeding isn't. So why does every cat act like it's a betrayal of the clan to have friends in another clan?
- Because we didn't actually get a list of the rules of the Warrior Code until Secrets of the Clans. Besides, no one cares if you hang out with cats from other Clans at a Gathering. The problems come when the characters start sneaking out of their Clans to see their friends.
- It might be part of the Code that you are technically allowed friends in other Clans, but I think it's considered a bit taboo. When Bluestar is going to her first Gathering, her mother reminds her not to make friends with cats she may one day have to fight, so although it's not against the Code, it's a bit of an unspoken rule that you don't get too pally with your rivals. Inter-Clan friendships can go wrong, just like romances. Look at how Onestar and Firestar's friendship turned out.
- Does anyone know why non-Clan cats are universally reviled? You would think that after seeing cats like Firestar (kittypet turned Clan cat), Scourge (a rogue), Cloudtail (born a pet), and Brook (Tribecat) kick-ass across the forest they would be more open-minded.
- There's no real logic behind it, just like there's no real logic behind humans hating other humans for looking different or having different styles of dress or language or whatever. That's the point, I think. The Clans think "There's us, and there's them, and we're better than them." Obviously each cat values their Clan the most, but the other Clans are still superior to those filthy, evil rogues, or those backwards Tribe cats, or those soft, spoiled kittypets! ...But really there's no truth in it. It's just ignorant hate like in the real world.
- The only problem with that rationale is that human societies generally integrate rather quickly. Hostility and racism can usually be over come after a few generations of intermingling. American history has many cases of initial disdain of new minorities being squashed fairly quickly. (Irish, Italians, Jews, Hispanics, etc.). The forest cats have been dealing with non-clan cats throughout the series, and they still seem to hate them just as much as they did when Rusty wandered into ThunderClan several years ago. Even ThunderClan seems to forget just how integrated they are.
- Except that we really don't. Example: Europeans didn't integrate with Native Americans, they tried to exterminate them, and the effects of that are still around today.
- That's true, but the Clans aren't integrated with the kittypets, like the Irish or Italians were integrated into American society. They don't live together in the same area, they live near to each other. If they were all forced to live together, they'd probably be totally cool with each other by the time the second generation of kits was adults, but they don't. They're still separate, so they don't get to know each other. And those kittypets or rogues that joined the Clans aren't really kittypets or rogues anymore, they totally convert to Clan life. This means that there's no thought in the back of any Clan cat's head that goes "Hey, she just said kittypets are weak, but I know loads that are great cats!" because nobody thinks of Millie or Firestar as kittypets, which means that kittypets are still just a concept, rather than being real individual cats with strengths and weaknesses.
- There's no real logic behind it, just like there's no real logic behind humans hating other humans for looking different or having different styles of dress or language or whatever. That's the point, I think. The Clans think "There's us, and there's them, and we're better than them." Obviously each cat values their Clan the most, but the other Clans are still superior to those filthy, evil rogues, or those backwards Tribe cats, or those soft, spoiled kittypets! ...But really there's no truth in it. It's just ignorant hate like in the real world.
- Why are the cats so bad at diplomacy? Border crossings are almost never precursors to actual invasions, and when clans are attacking each other they usually attack in sudden, overwhelming force. Accidental crossings by individuals are always treated like malicious incursions, which they never have been to my knowledge. Firestar appears to be only one who recognizes this (probably because he's been responsible for a fair amount of these crossings himself). After 40 years of organized clan life, shouldn't they have learned to be treat crossings with more tact and finesse, rather than blind hostility? It's a piss marker, not the 38th Parallel.
- Maybe part of it is the way they don't seem to think of the other Clans as anything other than terrifying monsters or blundering fools. They don't look at the other Clans as other nations or anything, they're thought of as more cartoonishly evil. If you just figured "oh, it's just human (feline) error that caused a cat to stumble across the border," that requires you to trust that your enemy just made a mistake, as opposed to thinking they're out to get you, which is hard for the cats, especially when a single piece of stolen prey could mean death. Also, there's a lot of ego involved. As a leader, you have to seem strong, which unfortunately seems to often mean fighting stupid, pointless battles, or snarling and snapping where an apology or a word of forgiveness would be more appropriate.
- Does anyone else think it's odd that stories of Lions, Tigers, and Leopards, in addition to the warrior code, could be passed down verbally through generations, while certain things like the true origins of the clans, and the fact that all of the clan cats are, in fact, descended from human pets, just slip through the cracks?
- Yes. I have never bought the fan theory that TigerClan and the rest are from stories handed down. From what? A housecat who actually saw a tiger? Millions of years of evolution?! No way. There is really no good explanation for it; you just have to ignore it. The warrior code being passed down doesn't bother me, though, as it's a way of life, not a piece of information or a story that needs to be told to be remembered. And I think the origins of the Clans may be about to be retconned back into Clan memories. In the Tallstar's Revenge prologue, Jackdaw's Cry and Shattered Ice are both mentioned, and they obviously lived when Wind did. Or maybe only WindClan remembers that far back.
- I would say that kittypets heard of the big cats via seeing them on TV and/or in books and the knowledge of them just passed through various cats, eventually making their way to the Clans. Stories of the big cats were probably created along the way, and each story adapted to a cat's situation (a story of just a group of tigers to a kittypet would be turned in TigerClan when told among the Clans, for example).
- Am I the only one bothered that Graystripe is a product of outright Brother–Sister Incest? (His parents are Willowpelt and Patchpelt. Adderfang and Swiftbreeze are their parents, though they had Willowpelt and Patchpelt in two different litters.) Even if the series has very questionable moments, it's still found in the "for kids" sections...
- The family tree's posted on the web have been said by the authors to be completly wrong.
- Vicky said she didn't realize it until it was too late. So, don't focus on it much.
- That said, the fact remains that now it's written, it's canon that Graystripe's parents are siblings. This raises the question of what the cats think of things like this.
- I think they would ignore it, quietly disprove, or just not realize or care. Or maybe Willowpelt never elaborated on the father, to save her kit from embarrassment. I'm pretty sure telling the identity of the father is optional.
- What's with the Lion/Tiger/Leopard thing? Domestic cats are descended from the small African Wildcat
. Is it a mistake or did the author just think the African Wildcat wasn't cool enough? And even if the cats were descended from Panthera Awesome, how would they know about them? I'm pretty sure the series doesn't take place in Asia.- It's just myths. They weren't actually descended from those cats, but it makes for cool stories for elders to tell kits.
- Yeah, but the question remains: how do the Clan cats even know about Lions and Tigers? The first series supposedly takes place in England, other series seem to be either in North America or England. Leopards, tigers, and lions are all either found in Asia of Africa. The books indicate that the clan cats are not very worldly: they are mostly concerned with their immediate environment. So how could they know about Old World big cats that they never encountered, and not know what a cougar or even a beaver is?
- Plot Induced Stupidity, perhaps? I don't know about the cougars and beavers, but since domestic cats are believed to have originated in Egypt, I guess that their ancestors could've seen the lions and leopards there and told their descendants about them...I don't know how to explain the tigers, though, unless the Clans were in India at some point.
- Let's pretend it's translated from Catspeak to english. The cats describe a large spotted/striped/plain cat in their own language - Catspeak - to english. The cats probably thought they had made these things up in their own minds, but they didn't know that there actually is something that fits that description. It's translated from "Meow big-cat-with-spots Meow" to "Leopard", because that is a term we would understand better.
- Well, think about it this way: the warrior cats are descendants of domesticated cats, that came to whatever country they’re in now with humans. So, this means that their ancestors might have experienced Lions and Tigers and Leopards in other lands.
- Thanks to Code of the Clans, we can see the Warrior Code in full. Nothing in there about medicine cats not being allowed to have mates or kits. Did they forget to put that in there or is it not part of the Code at all?
- The medicine cats are stated a few times to have their own special Medicine Code, which is distinct from the Warrior Code. The rule would probably be found in there.
- In Mapleshade's Vengeance, the whole of ThunderClan seemed to disregard the code stating that "no kit shall be put into danger nor neglected while in danger" given that they banished Mapleshade AND her litter after Mapleshade's rendezvous with Appledusk was revealed. I guess it could be argued that the reason Mapleshade was exiled could be that punishments were harsher in her time, but the rule about kits being protected at all costs was absolutely implanted into the Clans' culture by then. Doesn't this mean that the whole of ThunderClan kinda plays just as much a role in Petalkit, Larchkit, and Patchkit's deaths as their mother does when she had them try to cross the river?
- It absolutely does. In fact, this is explicitly the reason that Frecklewish was sent to the Dark Forest after she died. Were it not for her fierce condemnation of Mapleshade and her kits, they might have been shown mercy by Oakstar. Frecklewish was also there when the kits drowned, and not only didn't try to save them, but watched while it happened. She did not get away with this; Kate confirmed that she was rejected by StarClan after Mapleshade killed her. It also bears mentioning that there's an (albeit minor) fan theory that their treatment of Mapleshade led to StarClan causing the Great Dying that happened some seasons later and killed half the clan.
The Tribe of Rushing Water
- Does the Stoneteller have nine lives?
- Yes. It says he does in Chapter 12 of Moonrise.
- This only just occurred to me, but if Tribe cats are named after the first thing their mother sees after birth, then what would a Tribe cat be named if their mother was blind? Would their father name them or something?
- I'm pretty sure a blind cat would not last long in such treacherous terrain. If a hawk or eagle didn't get her, a drop would.
- Not if the tribe was protecting her in the cave.
- In that case there's be a few cats called "Nothingness" or "Void".
- Their father could name them, maybe.
- Tribe names aren't necessarily derived from what a mother sees so much as what she experiences. There is a Tribe cat named Screech of Angry Owl, and you can't see sounds, after all. So a blind cat could still name her kits something like 'Breeze With Scent of Rain' or 'Water that Flows Down the Mountain' or 'Light that Warms Stone' or anything else you can experience without sight.
- As Rock says, "According to tradition, [kits] are named for the first thing their mother sees when they are born, although to my mind that would lead to a lot of kits being called Roof of Cave or Wall of Cave or Floor of Cave."
- Yes, but 'first thing their mother sees' may be a simplification. In fact, considering the fact that Screech's name is what it is, it's almost certainly a simplification. What I wonder is, how do so many cats have interesting names? Rock brings up a good point, and it seems weird that so many of the Tribe cats were apparently born outside the cave. Brook Where Small Fish Swim? Pebble That Rolls Down The Mountain? Those kinds of names imply that many she-cats aren't in the cave when they give birth, but why on Earth would they leave? The Tribe lives in a harsh environment, I can't see something so foolhardy being a tradition or something.
- I'm pretty sure a blind cat would not last long in such treacherous terrain. If a hawk or eagle didn't get her, a drop would.
- According to Word of God, in the second arc 'Moon Rise' chapter 9, Stoneteller mentions that the Tribe cats are born into their parts (i.e. cave-guards and pray-hunters). And yet in TPoT, 'Outcast' chapter 21 when Jaypaw and co. are in the mountains, Pebble tells Hollypaw that Stoneteller picks what roll the kits will take in the Tribe. How did that change so easily over the course of about 1-2 years? I know that Brambleclaw mentioned that that would be more sensible but that wouldn't be enough to completely change the way the Tribe of Rushing Water does their thing.
- I never thought these things really contradict each other; they are 'born into' their roles in the sense that when they are born, Stoneteller figures out which role they are most suited for and assigns them to it.
- Okay, so Clans most likely won't have to resort to inbreeding thanks to some of them taking in outsiders or mating with outsiders/cats from other Clans. What about the Tribe? The only outsider they've ever really brought in was Stormfur, and that was just recently. The Tribe has been established in Sign of the Moon as being decades old, older than the 30+ years of the Clans. What's worse, in Dawn of the Clans, they actually send away almost half of their number, thus reducing family lines. It doesn't seem like they took in any outsiders during all of that time, and it's known fact that no other cats lived in the mountains, so there's no mating with outsiders either. How would they not have had to start inbreeding at this point? If they HAVE had to start inbreeding, how can they be so healthy? After Dawn of the Clans, it wouldn't have taken long for kin mating with kin to have been necessary, meaning that most if not all (considering how small the Tribe is) of the current Tribe members would be the results of inbreeding by a few generations. Shouldn't there be some health defects among them?
- Okay, let's assume the years quoted by Vicky are correct: twenty years from the Clans forming to SkyClan leaving, and twenty years from then to Firestar joining ThunderClan. And then it was another few years before the Clans met the Tribe. Consider that in a twenty-year period, the Clans entirely forgot that SkyClan ever existed. The Tribe has existed more than twice that length of time by Moonrise, there could have been occasions in the past where groups of cats joined or left the Tribe, increasing the number of cats and expanding the gene pool that were simply forgotten later on. Or maybe they had groups of cats visit regularly like the greenleaf visitors in Tallstar's Revenge.
- Wasn't it mentioned in The Power of Three that the Tribe has never shared their territory with another group of cats before? And how they reacted to The New Prophecy crew made it seem like they didn't get many, if any, outsider cats before. Actually, The New Prophecy made it seem like they've never met ANY outsider cats until the Clan cats came along.
- But that's my point: the Clans can forget things very very easily. Some cats act like Firestar joining the Clan is a big deal, but loads of cats have joined. They forget SkyClan ever existed even after only two decades. The Tribe has been around even longer, and there's no reason to suspect they have a better collective memory than the Clan cats.
- What "loads of cats"? The only cats I recall joining before Firestar are Russetfur and Boulder, and them being former rogues was never a secret. And the cats that join after Firestar was are treated just as poorly as he was if not more so. If you mean half-Clan/half-kittypet cats, I imagine their origins were kept quiet. As for SkyClan, that was most likely done purposely. After SkyClan was booted out, the Clans and StarClan probably decided to pretend SkyClan never existed and may have even told the SkyClan queen that stayed behind to keep her mouth shut about it, too. If they do something like that, of course no future generations will remember SkyClan because no Clan cats would even know they existed. Regarding the Tribe, as strict as they are, I doubt they'd forget outsiders joining their ranks. One outsider, maybe, but one or even two extra cats would not be enough to prevent inbreeding. Also don't forget that Stonetellers live much longer than the other Tribe cats and would have a longer memory.
- Okay, let's assume the years quoted by Vicky are correct: twenty years from the Clans forming to SkyClan leaving, and twenty years from then to Firestar joining ThunderClan. And then it was another few years before the Clans met the Tribe. Consider that in a twenty-year period, the Clans entirely forgot that SkyClan ever existed. The Tribe has existed more than twice that length of time by Moonrise, there could have been occasions in the past where groups of cats joined or left the Tribe, increasing the number of cats and expanding the gene pool that were simply forgotten later on. Or maybe they had groups of cats visit regularly like the greenleaf visitors in Tallstar's Revenge.
Cat Biology and Health
- Biggest Wall Banger for this Troper: real cats have a gene that keeps them from tasting sweetness. But Clan cats think berries and honeycomb are "treats" (and Crowfeather can pick up on the scent of wildflowers XD). And apparently, the Clan cats can also see in vivd, glorious HD color, instead of confusing red/green/orange like cats usually do (or not caring about color at all, like cats usually do)...Although it would have been hilarious if Firestar was actually some other color and cats just assumed he was red because Bluestar said he was.
- The first one is later corrected - in The Sight, honey is described as tasteless. The second, on the other hand, is probably just for convenience. Names would be much less varied if they were missing the ability to see some colors.
- Actually, it's now thought that cats can taste sweetness, though not very well. And green is one of the colors that cats see best, along with blue. Red, orange, and brown, on the other hand, most likely show up as either gray or purple.
- Well, Firestar and fire are the same color. It's just that for Bluestar and co., the color they both are is green.
- That might actually explain why some characters have names that don't match up with their pelt colors.
- Come on, they're sentient cats and it bothers you that they can see in human colors? To me, (since real life cats do not behave this way at all) this series pretty much has to take place in a fantasy world where apparently cats do behave this way, and apparently they can also see in human colors. Simple.
- For all we know, "red" and "ginger" could be equivalent to words used by the cats only to describe pelt colors, like "brunette" or "blond" in English. They'd perceive them as the same color as leaves, grass, etc. but just calling them differently, just as in English we usually wouldn't describe someone as having "yellow" hair, but "blond".
- Wait a second. There was a specific retcon to fix the 'cats tasting sweetness' thing, but at one point there is an apprentice named Sweetpaw. I'm just not sure how Translation Convention fits with a concept that is completely alien to them in the first place. Also, the characters not being able to see in the dark really, really annoys me, especially since they specifically mention night-eyes early on. I can understand the Erins missing things that aren't well-known, like the not-being-able-to-taste-sweetness thing, but not being able to see in the dark? ''Seriously?'
- As far as Sweetpaw goes, sweet can easily refer to sweetness of personality, not necessarily a sweet taste. And yeah, the night vision bothers me too.
- It's been too long since I've read the books, so I don't remember exactly what the scenes in question depict, but cats can't see in total darkness. They are able to see in much lower light than humans, to the point where it might seem like complete darkness, but at least a small light source must be present for cats to be able to see. That's how vision works, after all.
- But I think the books sometimes have cats not being able to see well at night, when there are stars and the moon and things. Obviously they shouldn't be able to see in the tunnels or anything, but it seems like a cat's natural ability to see better in partial darkness than a human can gets mostly ignored.
- The first one is later corrected - in The Sight, honey is described as tasteless. The second, on the other hand, is probably just for convenience. Names would be much less varied if they were missing the ability to see some colors.
- How about Diseases? Where is all the kitty leukemia, F.I.V, and worms?
- Someone hasn't been paying attention to all those greencough epidemics...
- According to Word of God, greencough is most similar to cat flu. So we still have an annoying lack of actual cat diseases here. (Though I do roleplay a BloodClanner with feline hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Long story.)
- Pebblefur in Code of the Clans is said to have died of an agonizing lump in his belly, clearly meant to be a tumor.
- Leopardstar died of diabetes.
- In Rising Storm, the ShadowClan cats become sick because someone accidentally threw an infected rat on the fresh-kill pile.
- Tawnyspots and Shellheart are suspected to have had cancer. There have also been things like ‘kit-cough’ and ‘blackcough’, presumably rarer diseases than greencough and whitecough, mentioned.
- Maybe, but according to word of god, blackcough isn't a thing, it's a mistake in that book.
- Someone hasn't been paying attention to all those greencough epidemics...
- Why is Spiderleg starting to look old, when Firestar, Graystripe, Sandstorm, Dustpelt, and several other cats significantly older than him have never once been mentioned as looking old at all? Sure maybe he just starts to show his age earlier than some cats, but none of the four I've mentioned (who are the oldest cats in the Clan other than Purdy) seem like they're getting old.
- I've noticed this too. "Unimportant" side characters seem to age much more quickly than main characters. I think the authors are just cutting down the character list to make room for new/future Clan members and kits.
- I suppose so. It's especially weird for Blackstar, who was already a full warrior at the beginning of Into the Wild, and who has never had a mention of seeming frail or old or anything as far as I can remember.
- I've noticed this too. "Unimportant" side characters seem to age much more quickly than main characters. I think the authors are just cutting down the character list to make room for new/future Clan members and kits.
- Bluekit and Snowkit (and also Patchkit and Leopardkit, according to their mom) opening their eyes and walking around when only a day old. I don't understand why Bluestar's Prophecy gets the aging rate so wrong when all the other books, so far as I remember, show newborn kits more realistically.
- It was told from the POV of the kits, and is supposed to be Bluestar's whole life.
- That doesn't really change anything. The fact is that those four kits opened their eyes and were walking around when they were a day old.
- It's told from Bluekit's perspective as she remembers it. Unreliable Narrator and Translation Convention is definitely being used here.
- Not to mention that they (and others) are talking with perfect grammar and pronunciation and have words for things they have no way to have experienced (and for that matter, how does Jaykit know what "tortoiseshell" is if he's been blind his whole life?). I get that they're fictional, and real cats aren't sentient language users, but one day to master language seems a bit too quick.
- Jaykit confirms that he always sees in his dreams, which means maybe he just saw tortoiseshells in his dreams.
- It was told from the POV of the kits, and is supposed to be Bluestar's whole life.
- Why is Ferncloud still in the nursery, shouldn't she have gotten into menopause by now? And how is it as soon as she became a warrior she did absolutely nothing?
- Cats don't have menopause.
- Also, she and Dustpelt got together VERY quickly once Ferncloud actually became a warrior. I think once she was mated, she was content to be a mother/serve her clan by having more future warriors rather than fighting herself. It's up to cats to find their place in the clan: this isn't as simple as just being either a medicine cat, leader, or average warrior. For Ferncloud, being a permanent queen was what she wanted out of life.
Out of Universe
- How come no Warrior Cats movie? It really bugs me!
- Maybe any interested studios are waiting for Omen of the Stars to end? Considering the fifth series will be a prequel series, it seems pretty likely...
- According to the authors, they don't feel like a movie would go over all that well, particularly considering the series family-unfriendly violence, and are worried about it being Bowdlerized beyond recognition. If a studio was willing to take the chance and make a somewhat violent picture, then maybe one would be made, but that's rather unlikely considering the Animation Age Ghetto.
- I'm actually really glad of the lack of movies. Since the violence, complexity, and number of characters would almost certainly never make it into a movie based on books for 9-12 year-olds, it seems like it'd be for the best. Also, you just know they'd edit it and make 3 books in to like 1 film, cutting out a lot of plot. Even then, they'd never do all the books. And they'd probably do some completely idiotic thing like make all the Shadowclan cats manxes just to make it visually clear who the 'villains' are (and of course Shadowclan would lose any semblance of non-villiandom they get in the books.) I just have virtually no faith in movie adaptations of works I love.
- I don't understand how any of that is a problem, since PBS managed to make three seasons of Redwall, which is about mice with swords.
- Why do fans hate the 3-tail-lengths-from-the-shore rule? It's seems reasonable enough to me...
- Graystripe's popularity confuses me. He comes off to me as self-centered and a negligent parent. note I'm not here to bitch about Graystripe, but rather to wonder why he's such a Karma Houdini both in- and out-of-universe when equally-negligent parents (including Millie herself in OotS) and disloyal cats catch a lot of flak for it.
- I suppose you could say it's because his relative immaturity made him less suited to a parental role, or that his lack of facetime outside of the OS made establishing a relationship between him and his kits irrelevant to the plot (only a handful of characters even acknowledge their family). But realistically, his popularity is probably because he is, by and large, the only consistently light-hearted character in the entire series. Firestar and a few others used to have similarly magnetic personalities before the third arc, but after that, the entire cast largely became a bunch of humorless stoics. Then again, the Warriors books have had sort of a penchant for odd and face-punchingly incipid Karma Houdinis; Blackstar, Leopardstar, and Ashfur, to name a few
- Why do people keep calling apprentices "children"? I especially commonly see "so-and-so ship is grooming because they met when one was an apprentice and one a warrior!", but there's nothing in the books to suggest that apprentice = child. Especially due to all the positively portrayed apprentice x warrior ships, which also would imply we are supposed to see them both as adults.
- They arent really treated like Adults in the Books. More like Teenagers and thats why the Fandom treats them like Teenagers to.Cats arent fully grown Adults when their only 6 Months. And their is a lot of emphasis how much apprentice grow wich supports this. Their are many Scenes who make them like their Teenagers who go through puberty.
- Probably depends a bit on the series (they seem "younger" in later ones); to me, they always seemed more like, well, apprentice age - As in, one would finish school and then start an apprenticeship at the job you want, which usually makes them around 18.
- Take Spottedleaf’s Heart, a novella entirely focused on a warrior making advances on an apprentice, for example: Vicky Holmes herself described it as “a very young apprentice being approached by a much older warrior” and said it was part of why Thistleclaw was sent to the Dark Forest. Ergo, the authors or at least Vicky consider it morally wrong for a warrior to pursue an apprentice, solidifying apprentices as teenagers. Plus, for books targeted at schoolchildren, it only makes sense for the characters getting their education to be coded as the readers’ ages.
- What about all the other Warrior x Apprentice relationships, though? I know Brambleclaw is divisive in the fandom, but even excluding him, there's still Spottedleaf (Mutual crush on Firepaw), Stormfur (Crush on Squirrelpaw), Feathertail, Dustpelt, Tigerheart, Pinestar, technically Crookedjaw (they're apprentices together for a while, but Crookedjaw is old enough to be a warrior by the time his mate is made apprentice)...
- They arent really treated like Adults in the Books. More like Teenagers and thats why the Fandom treats them like Teenagers to.Cats arent fully grown Adults when their only 6 Months. And their is a lot of emphasis how much apprentice grow wich supports this. Their are many Scenes who make them like their Teenagers who go through puberty.
Miscellaneous
- Why are cats always falling for cats in other clans? When do they get the oppurtunity to interact enough to want to know each other better? Why is inter-clan forbidden love more common than medicine cat forbidden love? Do the authors think that it's harder to avoid romantic/sexual relationships with cats that you're fighting with most of the time than it is to avoid romantic/sexual relationships completely?
- to be fair, most clans usually have ~2 medicine cats and a lot more warriors (somewhere I'd estimate roughly 18) at a time and when you factor in 4 other clans then CCFL (Cross-Clan Forbidden Love) seems a lot less unlikely (especially when compared with MCFL (Medicine Cat Forbidden love) and then there's also gatherings, where Cats get to meet up with their friends from other clans
- also, every case of CCFL I can think of off the top of my head have had an explanation. either they met at a gathering (Bluestar x Oakheart) 1 actually saved another (Silverstream x Graystripe, Bristlefrost x Rootspring) became close on a journey ignoring clan divisions (Dovewing x Tigerstar II) or were to young to have fought already (Heathertail x Lionblaze) the only couple I can think of that doesn't apply to this rule is Leafpool x Crowfeather but that's also a MCFL alongside a CCFL.
- Why is Blackstar being treated as a Karma Houdini? He murdered Stonefur and assisted in so many abominable actions as Tigertsar's deputy and Brokenstar's deputy before without question, not to mention invading ThunderClan as a rogue.
- I suppose you're asking why he isn't treated as one. The things he did as deputy were committed under Brokenstar's and Tigerstar's orders, and the Warrior Code says the word of the Clan's leader is law. As for invading the ThunderClan camp, half of ThunderClan invaded the WindClan camp in Bluestar's Prophecy. That doesn't make them Karma Houdinis, so why would it make Blackstar one?
- No I know what I'm asking, a regular attack from half of ThunderClan from Bluestar's Prophecy was a reasonable order from the leader who otherwise did not horrifically breach the code. Blackstar on the other hand followed Brokenstar's order to steal kits from all clans knowing what Brokenstar would do to them and it's a horrible breach to steal in the first place.Then he went into exile with Brokenstar without any remorse for by association murdering half his own clan by assisting in making ShadowClan an attack-only clan.Then he helped Tigerclaw in Forest of Secrets and stole prey like a savage,then helped Tigerstar annex RiverClan which is arguably an even bigger breach of code and commit genocide against half-Clans. The death of Stonefur is clearly a perfectly placed Moral Event Horizon and the end of Darkest Hour implies this too. And then in the rest of the series,the authors treat him as if he were just some contemptuous cat like Tornear or Dustpelt. Are you really gonna compare an assistant to genocide to some regular warriors?
- We don't actually know whether Blackstar is remorseful or not, because the series never takes a look at his personal feelings. It could be that he is remorseful and is trying to redeem himself. It could be that other characters do hate him for what he did, but they can't challenge his leadership because he is Tigerstar's rightful successor according to clan law. It could also be that whatever crimes he committed are overshadowed by his accomplishments as a leader, so no one says anything.
- It may not have anything to do with actual remorse at all; maybe he just thinks that the past is in the past and he should just do his best by his Clan in the present.
- I suppose you're asking why he isn't treated as one. The things he did as deputy were committed under Brokenstar's and Tigerstar's orders, and the Warrior Code says the word of the Clan's leader is law. As for invading the ThunderClan camp, half of ThunderClan invaded the WindClan camp in Bluestar's Prophecy. That doesn't make them Karma Houdinis, so why would it make Blackstar one?
- What exactly did Mapleshade do that was so bad that she was placed in the Dark Forest and every cat there (including Tigerstar) is afraid of her? From my understanding, she just left her Clan, and she was punished for that by having her kits killed. The only evil things she did, she did after her death. So how did this happen, exactly? Maybe if she had been allowed into StarClan, she wouldn't have done it.
- She says that after that she did plenty of evil things and was placed in the Dark Forest because of that. She also states not to make her a Draco in Leather Pants. Sheesh.
- I assume it was a choice thing. It's been shown that StarClan cats can physically move from their territory to the Place of No Stars, so perhaps she turned her back on her faith and moved to the PoNS. Alternately, she lived long enough and did enough bad things in the rest of her life that she was not allowed into StarClan.
- In Mapleshade's Vengeance, she's shown to have killed three cats to avenge the deaths of her kits, and became a generally unstable cat. Plus, she seemed pretty content to be in the Dark Forest.
- Why does the majority of ShadowClan have to be so "ruthless, evil, power-hungry and ambitious"? Seriously, it's like Slytherin. Surely there has to be more than one or two good cats in that clan, yet Erin Hunter seems to refuse to make any of them likable except for Tawnypelt (who was basically a ThunderClan cat) and a couple of others.
- In Night Whispers, they aren't any different from the other Clans.
- This has always bothered me too. I love ShadowClan, and the way they came back from so much devastation to be so strong. But being a Shadowclan fan makes me feel like those silly kids who think liking Slytherin is 'rebellious' or some foolish thing like that.
- In Yellowfang's Secret they're pretty much just an ordinary clan too. But when Brokenstar becomes leader, he makes all kinds of changes, such as placing a higher value on ruthlessness than honor or friendship. All the cats thereafter either grew up in that environment or are descended from the cats who grew up in that environment - which is why they have such skewed values. It's actually Fridge Brilliance if you think about it. Hopefully enough time has passed by now that they've started to recover from it.
- It is obvious that cats do not share the language with Twolegs. Twolegs "yowl" what cats cannot understand. So how could Twolegs give name to kittypets and the cats all refer to that name?
- Kittypets do understand what Twolegs say, to an extent. Princess mentioned she understand what her owners speak, and Daisy demonstrated deeper understanding of Twolegs' actions. Figuring out how Twolegs call their cats seem an easy task in comparison.
- I feel that the OP's main question was: 'why do cats refer to one another by whatever they are named by twolegs?' which is reasonable enough. I honestly don't know. Perhaps she-cat kittypets explain to their kits that they may change their name whenever they change housefolk. Who knows?
- Maybe kittypets view their owners as their equivalent to a leader, and accept the names they give them.
- Kittypets do understand what Twolegs say, to an extent. Princess mentioned she understand what her owners speak, and Daisy demonstrated deeper understanding of Twolegs' actions. Figuring out how Twolegs call their cats seem an easy task in comparison.
- It was revealed in an Erin Hunter chat that Brambleclaw is named after Tigerstar (what with the -claw suffix) but since Firestar is the one who named Brambleclaw, how does that make sense? It is acknowledged among the Clans that Tigerstar was a great warrior, but considering that Firestar was his greatest enemy, I doubt he would be thinking of Tigerstar's good qualities when naming Tigerstar's son. Additionally, considering that, even by the time he was made a warrior, not all of ThunderClan trusted Brambleclaw, and even Firestar still had doubts, it seems weird that he would want to remind the cats of Brambleclaw's relation to Tigerstar.
- I think it was the out-of-universe explanation
- Well you must remember that during the BloodClan battle, Firstar mourned Tigerstar's death since his strength would've been so helpful toward winning. He was disappointed with how Tigerstar had misused his ambition, and hopeful that Brambleclaw would have a brighter path, since they were so similar. Brambleclaw was named somewhat soon after the battle with BloodClan, so there should be a reason for Fireheart's thoughts about Tigerstar to change yet, since he doesn't know about the Place of No Stars at that time.
- According to Word of God, Thistleclaw was in StarClan but got chased into the Dark Forest by Bluestar. Are we ever going to find out what Snowfur thinks of this? He was her mate and the father of her son, so what were her feelings about Thistleclaw leaving for the Dark Forest? Does she still love him? Does she now hate him? What?
- This was a joke. Thistleclaw was always in the Dark Forest. Someone asked Vicky about him being in the Dark Forest when they thought he was in StarClan, and she replied with that. She was about as serious as when she said that Jake was killed by a meteor while sitting on the fence. That still doesn't explain Snowfur's feelings about Thistleclaw, but Dark Forest Thistleclaw never has any meaningful interactions with the cats he knew in life, so he might as well be a completely different character.
- There's a cat named Flintfang in Battles of the Clans. How do Clan cats (or any cats, for that matter) know what flint is?
- Flint is a naturally occurring rock. If they know what slate, maple, and rose are, why wouldn't they know about flint?
- In the Warriors: The Ultimate Guide, Mapleshade is described as a RiverClan cat even though she was not allowed to stay in RiverClan camp for even one night. How do you explain this?
- Cats call yew berries “deathberries”. But they know what yew is, and that deathberries grow from yew trees… why don’t they just call them yew berries? They don’t have Clan terminology for every other plant or herb.
- Probably to warn their kits against eating them.
