Warrior Cats, despite generally being listed in the children's section of most bookstores, is not really meant for kids, as stated by Word of God from Erin Hunter. Nightmare Fuel just doesn't always cover it.
For Nightmare Fuel from Dawn of the Clans, see below.
WARNING: Spoiler tags are off per Moments subpage policy.
open/close all folders
The Prophecies Begin
- Brokenstar training ShadowClan kits when they're still too young leads to some heartbreaking and terrifying results. The Clan once lost three kits in a single day. Even worse, after he's emptied the nursery, he reasons that the kits must be dying because they're too weak, and tries to kidnap ThunderClan's kits.Brokenstar: Those kits were weak. They would have been no use to ShadowClan. If I hadn’t killed them, some other warrior would have.
- In Forest of Secrets, Fireheart has a dream vision of a faceless silver queen who fades away, leaving her two kits crying helplessly in the darkness. He thinks it is about Mistyfoot and Stonefur losing their mother as kits, but it also turns out to be foreshadowing of Silverstream's fate.
- Silverstream's death. Death by Childbirth isn't particularly rare in literature, but when Jayfeather was walking in Graystripe's memories, his narrative described her body as being surrounded by blood. In Long Shadows the words were, "Her lifeblood gushing onto stones as she gave birth to a pair of tiny kits." High-Pressure Blood and Death by Childbirth isn't a pleasant combination...
- After Tigerclaw's betrayal, Bluestar starts to descend into paranoia and madness, starting to see all of her Clan as traitors. Every terrible thing that happens to ThunderClan causes her to suffer further Sanity Slippage. She tries to declare war on WindClan and accuse them of stealing prey based on finding scraps of rabbit in their territory. When Fireheart goes behind her back to talk to WindClan in hopes of resolving the situation peacefully, Bluestar sees it as a betrayal by the last cat she trusted.Bluestar: I need to punish you, Fireheart. Tell me a good punishment for a traitor.
Fireheart: I don’t know, Bluestar.
Bluestar: But I do. I know the best punishment of all. I’ll do nothing. I’ll let you be deputy still, and leader after me. Oh, that should please StarClan—a traitor leading a Clan of traitors! May they give you joy of it, Fireheart. Now get out of my sight! - Brightpaw and Swiftpaw being brutally mauled by a pack of dogs. We don't even know what attacked them at first, but Brightpaw is left mutilated and Swiftpaw is torn to pieces. When Brightpaw finally wakes from her coma, she's stuck repeating the same four words: "Pack, pack. Kill, kill."
- It turns out that Tigerstar is training the dogs to hunt cats—ThunderClan, his own former Clan. He kills Brindleface to give them a taste for cat blood, with the intention of luring them to the ThunderClan camp and having them massacre every cat there.
- When Sorrelkit sneaks out of camp, she comes across Darkstripe talking to Blackfoot. To keep her quiet, he tricks her into eating deathberries. Even though Firestar and Graystripe find her in time and are able to get her treatment, she still nearly dies.
- A hawk attacks the ThunderClan camp, which is exposed to the air because of the recent fire that burned away the protective growth. It grabs Snowkit, a deaf kit who couldn't hear his mother Speckletail calling for him. Despite Speckletail's efforts to save her kit, Snowkit is carried away by the hawk and presumably eaten.
- When Tigerstar takes over ShadowClan and RiverClan, combining them into TigerClan, he turns Mistyfoot, Stonefur, Featherpaw, and Stormpaw into prisoners, forcing the combined Clan (half of which consists of their own Clanmates) to denounce them as half-Clan filth. He gives Stonefur a choice to prove his "loyalty" to TigerClan: kill Featherpaw and Stormpaw, or die himself. Stonefur dies protecting them from Darkstripe and Blackfoot, while TigerClan cheers triumphantly.
- As the centerpiece of his new Clan, Tigerstar constructs the Bonehill, a vast structure made of prey bones and stinking of carrion. Does anyone blame Firestar for freezing in terror when he sees the thing? Not to mention the scene that follows...
- Also note that the Bonehill in Firestar's dream apparently had some cat bones in it. Now think about that for a second - where did they get them? They couldn't have raided the graves of long-dead cats because they don't mark where they bury other cats, and if they were buried underground, they would have turned brown, and the book described them as "sun-bleached", meaning that they were left above ground and either picked clean by cats or eaten by other creatures. Thank StarClan the real thing was comprised only of prey bones.
- Tigerstar getting ripped open by Scourge's claws and writhing in agony as he bleeds to death nine times in a row. Every Clan cat watches in horror as he spasms on the ground, with TigerClan fleeing in terror.
- Whitestorm's death. He's mauled by Bone, and described as being so coated in blood that at first Firestar can't tell what color his fur is supposed to be, before realizing it's his deputy.
The New Prophecy
- The poisoned rabbits left on Clan territory, which when eaten cause the cats to seize up and die. Not even their own food is safe.
- Sharptooth, a mountain lion that feasts on the cats in the Tribe of Rushing Water. Every attempt the Tribe makes to drive it away results in slaughter, and Sharptooth just keeps killing them. His first in-book appearance describes him as being covered in blood, and when one caveguard tries to distract Sharptooth long enough for some of their tribemates to escape, Sharptooth simply throws them off into a wall without stopping its rampage, which is implied to have killed them from the force of the blow. As it's leaving Feathertail spots a mother cat desperately trying to escape its jaws, before it disappears with a flash of lightning, leaving the tribe terrified, wounded, and scattered. Until now Sharptooth has been played as a nebulous threat, something lurking in the shadows but not an immediate danger, but its invasion of the Tribe's home cements it as unironically one of the most terrifying enemies in the series.
- The destruction of ShadowClan camp. The cats can't fight back against the monsters, and are forced to run as their world is literally torn apart around them. Just when they think they're safe, a huge tree nearly crushes Onewhisker and a kit, and Firestar makes a Heroic Sacrifice to shove them out of the way.
- Longtail's blindness in general, but especially during the destruction of the forest. The poor guy could only hear the trees being torn down, feel the ground being ripped open, and smell the fumes from the Monsters. As far as he could tell all hell was breaking loose around him and he had no way of knowing what was happening.
- The battle with the badgers. ThunderClan's home is invaded and its warriors are attacked by hulking, angry badgers, who themselves are fighting for revenge against the cats that drove their kin from their sets. Sootfur's death is particularly nasty- his back legs are broken, and even as Squirrelflight tries to rescue him he's delirious from pain and blood loss, unable to climb or stand, and just barely managing to swipe at a badger that approaches. He dies terrified, in pain, and alone.
- "Before there is peace, blood will spill blood and the lake will run red..." Out of all the Nightmare Dreams in the series, this one is probably the bloodiest and most traumatizing, and it keeps coming back.
- The scene where Firestar is slowly being strangled to death in the fox trap. He's foaming at the mouth, twitching, unable to fight back as Hawkfrost gloats about how he and Brambleclaw are going to kill him. When Brambleclaw refuses to kill his leader and starts trying to free him, it quickly turns into a desperate struggle of brother against brother, and Brambleclaw accidentally impales Hawkfrost with the wooden stake of the fox trap. His last moments describe blood pouring quickly out of Hawkfrost's wound, so much so that it becomes a large pool on the ground and flows down to the lakeshore. He speaks cryptic warnings to Brambleclaw that this isn't over, which causes the blood to pour even faster, while also coughing up blood clots. In the end, he collapses into the lake, but his spirit still lingers. Yikes.
Power of Three
- In The Sight, the idea of Lionblaze and Breezepelt, two apprentices at the time that the authors describe as teenagers, being buried alive in an abandoned badger set.
- In Dark River, Lionblaze has a dream where Hollyleaf transforms into a fox and brutally murders him.
- Rock. Just... Rock. He's a hideous bald cat with bulging blind eyes and curled, untrimmed claws. Not to mention the fact that he oversees a test that involves navigating through a complex underground maze in complete darkness. Oh yeah, and if it rains, the tunnels flood and you drown. Good luck.
- He has revealed that he is doomed to live forever, aware of every bad thing that will happen, but completely powerless to change things. Yeesh.
- The nightmares Tigerstar sends Lionblaze of himself slaughtering Heathertail over, and over again. One features a river running with her blood, and in another dream, he slices open her throat and blood comes pouring out until he is completely drenched in it. In yet another one, it sounds almost like he tore her open.
- The eclipse, from the cats' perspective. They have no idea what's happening- as far as they know, the sun has been snuffed out. It also leaves room for Sol to weasel his way in and assume partial leadership of ShadowClan.
- Ashfur's slow and steady devolution into a bitter and resentful tom unable to let go of Squirrelflight after she breaks up with him. We watch as he becomes colder and more irrational towards Lionpaw and his clanmates, his quiet anger that seems to bubble just underneath the surface, all culminating in the fire scene in Long Shadows. The only reason that the Three survived the fire was due to Squirrelflight revealing the truth, but even that wasn't enough to quell his anger, as he threatened to tell everyone how she had lied. In a series full of villains, Ashfur stands out as one not motivated by ambition or greed, but by revenge and a desire to own the woman who rejected him.
- In one scene, Hollyleaf imagines a mouse as Leafpool and violently tears its body to shreds, reveling in the feeling of ripping the life out of her. When she's done, the remains are described as a red pulp.
- In Sunrise, Jayfeather looks into Hollyleaf's mind and sees her murder of Ashfur. She treats him like a piece of prey to be killed for her Clan.
- The ending of Sunrise. A combination of Hollyleaf's insanity, including trying to murder her own mother, Leafpool being pretty much suicidal, Sol in general, or the feeling of despair that emanates from it makes it pretty unnerving.
Omen of the Stars
- Jayfeather's vision of Dark Forest cats massacring all of ThunderClan but Ivypaw.
- In Night Whispers, Rock is the last thing that Flametail sees before he dies, terrified as he drowns beneath the ice. Sweet dreams.
- Most of the training in the Dark Forest. Highlights include Mapleshade holding Ivypaw underwater until she almost drowns, Thistleclaw killing Antpelt, Ivypool's final assessment ending with her eviscerating Antpelt's spirit, and Brokenstar testing Ivypaw by urging her to kill Flametail.
- The way the Dark Forest cats train themselves in death blows: violently killing each other in front of an audience, repeatedly . In one particularly jarring scene from Omen of the Stars, the chapter suddenly cuts off with Jayfeather gagging as he hears one of these unlucky cats screaming in agony when his belly is slit open.
- When the entrance to the tunnel opens up in Sign of the Moon, Lionblaze imagines Dovewing and Icecloud falling to the ground and finding Hollyleaf's decaying corpse.
- Jayfeather's dream about Hollyleaf in Sign of the Moon.
- In one part of The Last Hope, Rock gathers up all the Ancients to ask the Three why they have been abandoned. If the perpetually sweet Half Moon screaming like a maniac isn't enough to terrify you, Rock starts trying to bury the Three alive.
- Not to mention the river starts flowing with blood.
- Beetlewhisker's fate in The Last Hope. It involves Brokenstar lifting him up from the ground by his throat while the poor cat begs for help, until his neck snaps. It's heavily implied that due to him dying in the Dark Forest, StarClan can't reach him, forcing his spirit to linger in the Dark Forest for eternity. Thankfully this is retconned when Vicky later confirmed that he was allowed to join Starclan, but his death is still horrific.
- Spirit death. As if death wasn't horrifying enough in the series, spirits can be killed too, essentially erasing a cat's entire existence. Deader than Dead indeed.
- This is what happens to Spottedleaf in The Last Hope. She is slain by Mapleshade, and Firestar is forced to watch as the spirit of his first love, who had been visiting him time and time again over the arcs, fade away into nothingness.
A Vision of Shadows
- Yellowcough, the disease that strikes ShadowClan in Thunder and Shadow, sounds a lot like feline distemper. Distemper is actually pretty friggin' scary, not to mention deadly.
- Everything about Darktail. He combines Tigerstar's brutality with Sol's cunning and Affably Evil attitude.
- His execution methods. It's implied that Darktail killed every ShadowClan cat who left the rogues by drowning them.
- Needletail's fate. Darktail locks her in an unhygienic cave full of prisoners and starves her in a humiliating fashion. Later, he slowly drowns her in order to punish her best friend, only to change his mind at the very last moment and tries to force her to kill said friend. Needletail's death combines Heroic Sacrifice with Last Stand and perhaps even Karmic Death as she orders Violetpaw to run for her life.
- The Kin is a terrifyingly realistic depiction of a cult. Members are manipulated into praising Darktail as their leader and doing his biddings, pledging loyalty to the group, and whoever resists or questions the Kin's function is usually killed or held prisoner. Some kittypets are even essentially kidnapped and forced to join, with the Kin promising them a great life only to never let them leave when they want to.
- When Sleekwhisker and the Kin remnants kidnap Tawnypelt and Yarrowleaf's kittens, Tawnypelt threatens to go down fighting, to which Sleekwhisker promises that she'll kill Yarrowleaf's kits if they don't cooperate. Poor Yarrowleaf can do nothing as her kits are threatened, and while she gets them back in the end, it's not without losing Rowanclaw.
- Not only that, but Yarrowleaf's former mate and Flaxkit and Hopkit's father, Nettle, kidnaps the kits in response to Yarrowleaf ending their relationship and deciding to raise her kits in ShadowClan, snarling viciously that the kits are just as much his as they are hers. To make matters worse, when Hopkit and Flaxkit try to run to their mother upon seeing her come for them, Nettle cruelly slashes them with his claws and screeches at them to keep away, as they're going to live with him as rogues now. Thankfully the two are successfully reunited with Yarrowleaf and returned to ShadowClan, but the whole thing plays out like a nightmarish parental abduction
.
- Not only that, but Yarrowleaf's former mate and Flaxkit and Hopkit's father, Nettle, kidnaps the kits in response to Yarrowleaf ending their relationship and deciding to raise her kits in ShadowClan, snarling viciously that the kits are just as much his as they are hers. To make matters worse, when Hopkit and Flaxkit try to run to their mother upon seeing her come for them, Nettle cruelly slashes them with his claws and screeches at them to keep away, as they're going to live with him as rogues now. Thankfully the two are successfully reunited with Yarrowleaf and returned to ShadowClan, but the whole thing plays out like a nightmarish parental abduction
The Broken Code
- Bramblestar being possessed. ThunderClan slowly becomes more and more polarized as "Bramblestar" turns on his clanmates, punishing them for non-crimes and becoming more self-aggrandizing and paranoid. Even worse, the other clans are drawn into his act, with RiverClan and WindClan gladly exiling their codebreakers on his word.
- If the Kin are a scarily accurate depiction of a cult, the impostor is a scarily accurate depiction of a dictator turning Clan life into a fascist state. At first he introduces new, strict rules with the "reassurance" it's just until they appease StarClan, but over time he turns that into an excuse to twist the warrior code however he likes and punish anyone he deems a codebreaker. Highlights include forcing the elders to eat last and actually striking one when Graystripe speaks out against him; throwing Squirrelflight off the Highrock; forcing an apprentice to sleep in the forest because she "supported stealing"note ; and worst of all, setting a pack of dogs on Sparkpelt because she snuck off to visit Lionblaze.
- The description of life in ThunderClan in Veil of Shadows. Every cat is afraid of saying or doing anything that could get them labeled a codebreaker, the impostor has spies reporting everything to him, and the Clan has no competent healer because both Jayfeather and Alderheart were exiled.
- Shadowsight is jumped in the darkness, critically wounded, and thrown into a gorge. His body is left to rot for several days before he's eventually found by Rootpaw. His spirit is unable to reach StarClan, and as he waits for his body to heal he learns more and more about what's happening in the clans. Special mention goes to when he visits Bramblestar, only for the Imposter to leave Bramblestar's body and address Shadowsight directly, taunting him about his failure and gloating about how he's the one who killed Shadowsight.
- Berrynose. The poor warrior just wanted to be loyal to his clan and his leader, only to end up eviscerated. The description of it is bone-chilling as well- we're not shown any blood, just told that "[he] let out a shriek and collapsed, withering." Nothing Is Scarier, indeed.
- In Darkness Within, Rootspring and the Sisters attempt to speak with the cats who haven't yet departed to StarClan. Instead of what's happened normally, we're treated to a scene where Rootspring describes the writhing, screaming, and angry spirits of the cats who haven't been able to go to StarClan, trapped in a Fate Worse than Death until the clans can figure out a way to get rid of Ashfur. It's something straight out of a horror movie.
- The way the impostor/Ashfur manipulates Shadowsight and Bristlefrost. He sets himself up as a trustworthy figure in their lives, makes them out to be "special" (Shadowsight as The Chosen One, entrusting Bristlefrost with important duties), and then preys on their fears to get them to do what he wants. They were isolated, manipulated, and groomed by someone they thought they could trust, without any of their family or friends realizing it.
- Especially creepy is the scene where he praises Bristlefrost for being such a loyal, hard-working cat before saying in the same breath that it would be just terrible if it turned out she wasn't.
- In Darkness Within, even though Shadowsight knows Ashfur is evil and just used him as an Unwitting Pawn, Ashfur is still able to manipulate him. He switches between being apparently genuinely pleased to see him and cruelly prodding at his insecurities, which deepens the wedge he created between Shadowsight and the rest of ShadowClan: they see Ashfur treating him like a friend and distrust him further, while Shadowsight's own doubts and frustrations make him increasingly isolated from everyone but Ashfur.
- Willowshine's death scene. She peacefully goes to sleep to try entering the Dark Forest...until Rootspring sees her spirit emerge from her body, and realizes she's dead. Then her spirit starts shrieking in terror and yelling "let me go!" before being dragged into the Moonpool by something. After a bit of shaken discussion, everyone realizes that it was almost certainly Ashfur, which means that he knew she was there and killed her literally seconds after she arrived.
- The Dark Forest is portrayed in a much more eerie and frightening manner than it was in past books. It's mentioned that cats who spend too much time there slowly grow as twisted as it, it seems to eat memories (as Snowtuft doesn't recall what he did to get there, or much of anything about his life other than he was born and raised in ShadowClan and wasn't the most virtuous cat), and then there's the scene where Rootspring and Squirrelflight try to flee the Ashfur-controlled Stemleaf: it's foggy and no matter how fast they run, whenever they glance back, he's right behind them.
- There's also Mapleshade's bloodthirsty speech to Silverhawk; with blood-chilling glee she talks about the idea of possessing the body of a young she-cat and using it to brutally kill other cats. Rootspring, who overhears it, fears she will choose Bristlefrost as her new body.
- What Ashfur has done to the spirits of the cats who have died since the beginning of the series, and his plans for them. With the power of his mind, Ashfur has turned the spirits, once free, noble warriors, into blank-eyed slaves that mindlessly obey his every command. He intends to use them as an unwilling army against the Clans. Imagine that. Imagine being forced to attack your own friends and family! What makes it worse is the high possibility that their true selves are still in there and may be aware of exactly what they are being forced to do.
- Following the scene where Rootspring and Squirrelflight are trying to escape Stemleaf, they think they hear Bramblestar's voice. Instead, four of Ashfur's puppet-cats step out of the fog and, speaking in unison, speaking in Bramblestar's voice, say "there you are!"
- Ashfur is arguably the most terrifying villain in the entire series. He's a vicious fighter, a sly, calculating manipulator, and an Omnicidal Maniac willing to destroy everything just to force Squirrelflight to be his mate.
Expanded Universe
- At the end of Rise of Scourge, the picture of Tigerstar there and Scourge crawling all over his body.
- In the manga at the end of Crookedstar's Promise, the Slasher Smile Mapleshade has makes her look like a demon.
- This is comparatively small next to the others, but in Skyclan's Destiny, in the prologue, the cats couldn't carry the dead bodies of two warriors back to the gorge for fear of being killed themselves. One of the elders gets upset at this, and responds by hobbling off towards a cliff face. Spiderstar stops him and tells him "We've lost enough warriors tonight." This implies that the elder was going to commit suicide.
- The story in Code of the Clans about how Code #14 (a warrior does not need to kill to win battles) came to be. The medicine cat is visited in her dream by a very young apprentice, essentially a child, who was killed in battle the day before. It's eerie enough with him reminding her that he's dead, and speaking with a wisdom beyond his age. But then he fades away (his eyes being the last thing to disappear), giving us this line as he fades: "That WindClan warrior didn't need to kill me. I knew I was beaten. If he'd let go of me, I'd have run away. He didn't have to keep biting me, harder and harder..."
- Floss waking up to find that the Twolegs, who own the barn where she lives, took her kits while she was asleep. That's bad enough by itself, but her kits were newborns — as in, too young to survive without their mother, which strongly suggests that they took the kits away to have them euthanized.
- Mapleshade's Vengeance in particular is a bit darker than the average Warriors book. After she and her kits are exiled, she struggles to save her kits as the river floods, and they end up drowning with her powerless to save them. It's also revealed that Frecklewish was watching and did nothing to help. Mapleshade decides to get revenge by murdering three cats, one for each kit. The medicine cat Ravenwing's is particularly dark: she murders him at the Moonstone—the equivalent of killing a priest at church—and after the other medicine cats bury him, she exhumes him so that the hawks can feast on his corpse. Frecklewish doesn't get away unscathed, either: Mapleshade lures her to Snakerocks, and an adder spits venom in her eyes.
- The same book also illustrates the dangers of mob mentality and Misplaced Retribution, with ThunderClan's horrific treatment of Mapleshade's kits after their father is revealed to be Appledusk of RiverClan, who killed two ThunderClan cats. Oakstar sentences them to exile along with their mother. Mapleshade's former mentor Bloomheart coldly agrees that they don't belong in ThunderClan. Frecklewish screeches at them, calling them "half-Clan creatures" and shouting for them to be driven out (especially jarring, considering how much she loved them when she thought they were her brother's kits). Not one cat speaks up for them or their mother. Not one cat realizes that they're just kits, that they shouldn't be held responsible for what their parents did. Blinded with fury, the Clan drives Mapleshade and her kits out—and when the dust has settled and ThunderClan's anger has stilled, possibly enough to come to their senses, it's too late to make amends, because the kits have drowned in the river while trying to cross to RiverClan.
- Pretty much the entirety of Spottedleaf's Heart. It is the only page on the Warriors Wiki that comes with a content warning; not for gore or pure fear, but because, as Moonkitti put it, "it's scary because we had a Warrior Cats book about a child predator".
- Spottedpaw, a young child, is groomed by Thistleclaw, a senior warrior with a son her age and a respected member of her community. For those who are unaware, child grooming is a process in which an adult establishes a close relationship with a young child, and often their family, in order to isolate them, discourage them from seeking outside help, and often sexually abuse them. Unlike many other works that tackle the subject which frame the perpetrator as Obviously Evil, no one ever suspects Thistleclaw of anything- he's a valuable warrior with many friends, who's allowed to see Spottedpaw when she's still in the nursery, by the kit's own mother, meaning that Spottedpaw has no one to confide in or turn to when she's unsure except for her abuser.
- Perhaps the most frightening part for any adult reader is when, after a fight over Thistleclaw's brutality, he corners her alone near Sunningrocks, plies her with food, compliments her, and then says that they could have a future together. While she is initially hesitant, he becomes angry and defensive when she denies him, and she eventually agrees to meet him in the woods. At night. Alone. He ends up taking her to the Dark Forest, but the implications of what could have happened are terrifying.
- Even worse is the fact that Spottedpaw is surrounded by trusted adults and family while Thistleclaw manipulates and isolates her. And no one in Spottedpaw's life, from her parents to her mentor to her leader, picks up on any of this, meaning Thistleclaw stays a respected and beloved member of his community during and after his abuse of her. Thistleclaw may not have ended up in a relationship with Spottedpaw, but the fact remains that he tried to start a romantic relationship with a child and faced no consequences, serving as a chilling parallel to real-life predators in positions of power. note
- The worst part of all of this? Because we are presented with this story from the victim's perspective, Thistleclaw's relationship with Spottedpaw comes off as a genuine romance instead of the insidious process that it is. The only problems in the story that are addressed as serious issues are Thistleclaw's ruthlessness and his willingness to kill, because Spottedpaw is too young to realize that she's being abused and groomed, meaning that Thistleclaw is never acknowledged in-universe as what it is- pedophilia. And this is in a book aimed at children.
- Unrelated to the grooming taking place, Thistleclaw brings Spottedpaw to the Dark Forest, where he proceeds to brutally maul one of his fellow trainees. When Spottedpaw returns a second time to tell Thistleclaw that she wants to be with him, she arrives to witness him murder another cat, and despite doing everything she can, the she-cat dies in front of Spottedpaw. Worse, when Spottedpaw shows terror and horror at Thistleclaw murdering the cat, the Dark Forest immediately turns on her, with Mapleshade threatening to kill the apprentice if Thistleclaw doesn't "get rid of her".
- Spottedpaw, a young child, is groomed by Thistleclaw, a senior warrior with a son her age and a respected member of her community. For those who are unaware, child grooming
- Crowfeather's Trial:
- Crowfeather has a nightmare about the Great Battle, wherein Breezepelt blinds him and leaves him helpless. All Crowfeather can do is press up against Hollyleaf's (aka his daughter's) dead body and shake as he waits for the next blow.
- He later has another nightmare where he sees the cats of the Dark Forest encircle him and call out for him to join them.
- Sparkpelt going through labor in Squirrelflight's Hope. It isn't the labor that's very terrifying; rather it's the circumstances. Her mate, Larksong, gets prey sickness and only gets worse, and Sparkpelt goes through so much stress that she begins kitting early, as her mate dies in front of her. To make it worse, Larksong dies just as Sparkpelt finishes giving birth, and one of their kits ends up being stillborn. It's so traumatizing that Sparkpelt begins to experience depression and neglects her surviving kits.
- The pike attack scene in Leopardstar's Honor. While the idea of a trained warrior being ambushed and seriously injured by a fish of all things may sound like a silly idea, here's a casual reminder of how big pikes can get. It's nothing short of a miracle that Blackclaw survived.
- For an extra helping of terrifying, an even larger pike lunges out of the water mid-scuffle to eat the pike that was attacking the cats. The whole scene plays out like a sea monster movie.
- Secrets of the Clans includes a side story about Barley's early life in BloodClan and how he came to escape. No cats in BloodClan are allowed to live together for fear they might challenge Scourge, with kits having to leave their mothers at a year old. Barley breaks the rules by living with his sister Violet to protect her, but they are found out. To punish them, Scourge has Snake and Ice—who are Barley and Violet's own brothers—slash open Violet and leave her with a massive wound, while Barley is Forced to Watch. She only survives because Barley is able to drag her to the house of a Twoleg who helped him before.
- Code of the Clans had two RiverClan kits, Minnowkit and Wildkit, bouncing around Graywing after she witnessed three WindClan kits fall to their deaths in the river asking disturbing questions about the incident. Thankfully their mother Hayberry stops them.
- "Did you really watch those kits drown?""Were they all wet and horrid looking?""Did their eyes fall out?"
