Warrior Cats / Tropes H to M

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Due to the series' spoiler-filled nature, including Spoiler Titles and even character names, all spoilers aside from the newest main-series book and side book as listed on the main page may be unmarked.

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H

• Hairball Humor: In "Into the Wild", Sandpaw is rude to Firepaw. Graypaw excuses her behaviour by saying, "She must have a hairball somewhere.".
• Half-Breed Discrimination: Cats who are the result of a forbidden relationship between cats from two different Clans are called half-Clan cats. Some characters are more accepting of them, knowing that it's the cat inside and not their blood that determines who they are, but others mistrust them simply because they share the blood of another Clan. A notable example is Jayfeather in the fourth series - everyone trusted him before, but after his lineage is revealed, when he fails to save a drowning cat, he's accused of trying to murder said cat, even with witnesses. He points out that it's only because he's half-Clan that they don't trust him.
• A Handful for an Eye: One RiverClan technique is temporarily blinding a foe with water.
• Handicapped Badass: Brightheart and One-Eye (originally named White-eye) each lost an eye at a young age. This does not stop them from learning how to fight just as well as others (despite having a blind side) and becoming warriors.
• Happily Adopted:
  • Mistyfoot and Stonefur were adopted by the RiverClan cat Graypool, who had just lost her own kits. They grew up believing that she actually was their mother.
  • Brindleface adopts Cloudkit when Cloudkit's mother gives him up to be raised as a Clan cat. Cloudkit was a newborn when given to the Clan, so until Fireheart explained to the kit his parentage, Cloudkit thought Brindleface was his mother. When Fireheart later became Clan leader, he received a life from Brindleface and in the process felt the love she had for her kits, including Cloudtail just as much as her own.
  • In Dawn of the Clans, Gray Wing raises Thunder as his own after Thunder's mother dies and his father abandons him. He also adopts Turtle Tail's three kits, and especially feels protective of them after her death.
  • Also in Dawn of the Clans, a rogue is killed by Clear Sky's cats, and afterward they realize she had two kits. The kits, Birch and Alder, are raised by Petal, one of Clear Sky's cats.
  • In Hawkwing's Journey, after Sandynose and Pebbleshine are captured by Twolegs, Hawkwing develops a platonic relationship with Sandynose's mate Plumwillow. After her kits are born, he fills the father role. Sandynose later finds his way back to the group, and his kits refuse to interact with him at first since they view him as a stranger and Hawkwing as their father. Hawkwing eventually does convince them to build a relationship with their real father.
• Happy Ending Override: The first arc ends on a pure happy ending. The sequel has humans tear down the forest and reveals that the villain is still hanging around from beyond the grave.
• Happy Rain: The end of The Fourth Apprentice, signifying the end of the drought.
• Hate at First Sight: Longtail, Sandstorm, and Dustpelt hate Fireheart the moment he joins the Clan, and the feeling is mutual. Eventually Fireheart saves Sandstorm's life and she falls in love with him, Longtail, without the influence of Darkstripe and Tigerstar, eventually becomes loyal to Fireheart (particularly after Fireheart begins to treat him with more respect), and Dustpelt continues to be a bit of a jerk, but it ultimately becomes more of a friendly rivalry.
• Haute Cuisine Is Weird: Clan cats view cat pellets as bland and disgusting food that only pets like. Sure, kittypets always have food in abundance, but it's gross compared to freshly-hunted prey.
• Have You Come to Gloat?: Yellowfang asks Molepelt this after she kills Brokenstar, since she had been feeling very guilty about it. To her surprise, he says he would never gloat. ShadowClan was his Clan too.
• Healing Herb: Because the characters are cats and obviously wouldn't have access to or knowledge of human medicine, their healers, known as medicine cats, use herbs instead.
• Heal the Cutie: After Cinderpaw is hit by a car, leaving her leg permanently crippled, she slips into a depression, feeling worthless over the fact that she can never become a warrior - she even comments after the camp is attacked that she wouldn't have minded if she'd been killed in the battle. Her spirit recovers after Yellowfang has her help out in the medicine cat den and eventually makes Cinderpaw her official apprentice.
• Healthy in Heaven: This occurs to Clan cats who go to StarClan. In StarClan, cats' illnesses disappear and they're presented as the age they were happiest in life (for instance, Yellowfang appears as the elder she was in ThunderClan, while Bluestar appears in her prime.)
• Hearing Voices: Of the ??? category in Lost Stars. Shadowpaw hears a voice that he thinks is a StarClan cat, and tries to do what it says because he thinks it has the Clans' best interests at heart - even though its advice sounds sketchy. It turns out that it was a StarClan cat, but in fact an evil one: Ashfur was using him to kill Bramblestar so Ashfur could possess the leader's body.
• Heaven: StarClan for Clan cats and The Tribe of Endless Hunting for Tribe cats. However, the cats in these heavens can communicate on rare occasions, and it is possible for a cat to belong to both.
• Heaven Above: StarClan is said to be located within the collection of stars above, locally known as Silverpelt (we'd call it the Milky Way).
• The Heavy: Hawkfrost in the second arc. While his dad Tigerstar is the Big Bad, Hawkfrost's schemes to take over the Clans are the main driving point, partially because his dad is dead and only appears as a Spirit Advisor.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: When Beetlewhisker says that he's going to leave the Dark Forest because he didn't know that they wanted to destroy the Clans, Brokenstar leaps on him and kills him.
• Heel–Face Return: This happened to Hollyleaf. When last seen in Sunrise, she tried to murder her mother and confessed another murder she'd committed. She returns in The Forgotten Warrior as a friendly cat who helps defeat real villain Sol and a potential candidate for the fourth cat in the prophecy. A short story was later released to explain this change.
• Heel Realization: Ivypool realizes what the Dark Forest - which she's been training with and working for - is all about after seeing Tigerstar talking about destroying the forest.
• Heinousness Retcon: During Thistleclaw's first appearances, he's simply a bit of a War Hawk who, despite his aggressive nature, truly loved his mate and son and was loyal to his Clan in his own way. Fans were surprised when he ended up in the Dark Forest, so the authors made a point of explaining why he'd be there: in later books taking place in the same time period, he was depicted training in the Dark Forest while alive and using the illegal moves he learned there, encouraging his apprentice to blind his own son, calling his mate weak and not long after her death trying to persuade a she-cat younger than his son to be his new mate.
• Hell: The Place of No Stars (also called the Dark Forest), a forest covered in fungus, lit only with a Sickly Green Glow, with sludgy rivers, and no prey. Each evil cat is meant to walk the Dark Forest alone, but they haven't exactly been doing that lately.
• Hell Seeker: Mapleshade was this when alive: she hated StarClan and wanted to go to the Dark Forest.
• Help, I'm Stuck!: Played for laughs twice with Squirrelpaw in Midnight. The first time, Brambleclaw finds her tangled in a bramble bush and she explains that she thought there was room to go underneath it, and he points out helpfully that there isn't. The second time, she gets stuck under a wire fence, and while the toms start arguing with each other about what to do, the she-cats Tawnypelt and Feathertail actually help her get out.
• The Hero: Firestar.
• The Hero Dies:
  • The main character of the series, Firestar, dies in The Last Hope, the last book of Omen of the Stars.
  • Hollyleaf, one of the heroes and point-of-view characters, appears to die in Sunrise: during a chapter that isn't from her POV, she runs into a tunnel and it collapses on her, and her brothers find no sign that she's alive. Turns out she survives, but she dies for real as well in The Last Hope.
  • Gray Wing in Path of Stars, the last book of Dawn of the Clans, right after getting a mate and kits.
  • Bristlefrost dies at the end of The Broken Code, giving up her life - and very existence - to ensure Ashfur's defeat. Since she died in the Dark Forest, her spirit is also gone, meaning that she'll never be reunited with her family or her love Rootspring.
• The Hero Doesn't Kill the Villainess: The two main female villains, Mapleshade and Sleekwhisker, both survived their conflicts to continue plotting revenge on the Clans. Meanwhile, their male counterparts like Brokenstar, Tigerstar, Scourge, Hawkfrost, Darktail, and Ashfur all get killed off at the hands of protagonists in their confrontations. Mapleshade is already dead when she first gets introduced in the main series (she dies in the prequel novella detailing her origin story) but she doesn't get killed again to be Deader than Dead like her male allies.
• Heroic Bastard: The series has these in just about every arc. Examples include: Mistyfoot and Stonefur, who are half-ThunderClan-half-RiverClan, with their mother faked as a RiverClan queen. Lionblaze, Jayfeather and Hollyleaf also count, with them also being half-Clan, and their mother a medicine cat. They believe that another relation of theirs is their mother, and the truth does not come out until much later.
• Heroic BSoD: Bluestar suffers a particularly nasty one after Tigerclaw's betrayal. It takes her two entire books to get over it completely... just in time for a Heroic Sacrifice.
• Heroic Lineage: Almost all of the point of view characters in the main series are the descendents of the living legend Firestar, the first hero of the series (Violetshine, Twigbranch, and Rootspring being some notable exceptions). The blurb for The Sight even describes Lionpaw, Hollypaw, and Jaypaw as "children of Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw, two of the noblest ThunderClan warriors, and grandchildren of the great leader Firestar himself".
• Heroic Rematch:
  • In the Ravenpaw's Path manga trilogy, Ravenpaw faces off against Willie in Shattered Peace and gets completely crushed. They fight again in The Heart of a Warrior, and this time it is Ravenpaw who is victorious.
  • In the first Graystripe manga, Graystripe's first fight with Duke ends with Graystripe running away with his tail between his legs. He defeats Duke the second time around, much to Millie's admiration.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Cinderpelt is killed during the badger attack when she places herself between the badger and Sorreltail's newborn kits. This allows time for Leafpool and Crowfeather to arrive and drive the badger off, saving everyone else in the den. A kit is later named after her in memory of her sacrifice.
  • In Shattered Sky, Needletail attacks Darktail's rogues, knowing that they'll kill her, so that Violetpaw can escape.
• Heroic Second Wind: Occurs when Firestar fights Scourge. Scourge actually kills him once, and assumes he's gone forever, but since Firestar has nine lives, he comes back later. Firestar's triumphant return is somewhat of a shock to Scourge, and he comes back apparently fighting with the power of StarClan. However, Firestar's I Surrender, Suckers is the actual deciding factor in the battle.
• Hero of Another Story:
  • There are several times when characters other than the heroes are off on their own quests to save the Clans. There are several such as Yellowfang, who in the first book was organizing a resistance against Brokenstar; Stormfur, who was helping the Tribe become strong enough to defeat the Mountain Invaders; Tigerheart, who spied on the Dark Forest so that he could protect the Clans; and even Jingo, a cat trying to protect her band of former kittypets after their lives were ruined by Sol.
  • In Firestar's Quest, Graystripe is made acting leader while Firestar goes off on his journey. Aside from a short story in Battles of the Clans, the readers wouldn't find out what happened during that time until Graystripe's Vow, a full thirteen years after Firestar's Quest was released.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners:
  • Firestar and Graystripe
  • Ravenpaw and Barley, although pretty much every Warriors fan that doesn't hate slash (and even some who do) believes that Ravenpaw and Barley are more than Heterosexual Life-Partners. It's also worth noting that the author herself said that she envisions them "like a married couple," and that they are perfectly happy with just each other and don't want any girls to boss them around. This is made even more blatant in Ravenpaw's manga trilogy.
  • Tallstar and Jake. Much like the example above, you'd be hard-pressed to find any fan who who doesn't think that they were just friends.
  • Leafstar and Echosong
• High on Catnip:
  • For the most part, the series pretty much averts this. It appears in the books and is used as a medicinal herb to help cats with greencough relax (though Fireheart in the first series remembers it from when he was a kitten and is extremely tempted to bite down on it when carrying some back). The authors have commented that, while they touch upon several serious topics in the series, one that will almost certainly never appear is drugs in any form.
  • In Moth Flight's Vision, it finally gets played straight. Moth Flight, having never used catmint before and no idea what the proper dose is, guesses and ends up giving Rocky too much. The old cat gets high and plays like a kit, and tries hilariously to find any excuse to get some throughout the rest of the book.
• High-Pressure Blood: A few instances, specifically:
  • Tigerstar. Any wound inflicted on him seems to bleed twice as much as a wound inflicted on someone else. And of course, when he bleeds to death nine times.
  • Hawkfrost's death. It just keeps coming and coming...
  • Every fight involving Lionblaze from Outcast onward.
  • Firestar has a few of these moments. In Fading Echoes, he's slipping in a pool of his own blood as it's still gushing out of him.
  • Stick's daughter Red after he accidentally slits her throat.
• The High Queen: Bluestar is treated this way, though Clans have no monarchy so she is officially just their leader. She is a regal blue-furred cat with Icy Blue Eyes who leads ThunderClan with wisdom and dignity. She is a Broken Bird but that doesn't stop her from being the Big Good. That is, until Tigerclaw's betrayal causes her to undergo a Sanity Slippage.
• High Turnover Rate: ShadowClan's leader/deputyship positions before and during the first series, due to bad luck and evil takeovers. Starting with Raggedstar's leadership, his first deputy Foxheart was killed by rats, and second deputy Cloudpelt died in battle with WindClan. His third deputy was his son Brokentail, who shortly afterward murdered his father to take the leadership position. Both Brokenstar and his deputy Blackfoot were exiled when their Clan and ThunderClan rose up against them. Nightpelt took the leadership role, with Cinderfur as his deputy, but both died only half a year later from illness. This is when Tigerstar stepped in and claimed leadership, but he met his end a half year afterward due to his evil scheming. Finally the turnover rate went back to normal after Blackstar became leader.
• High-Voltage Death: In Tree's Roots, Tree's best friend as a kit, Stream, is struck by lightning just feet away from him.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Tigerstar ends up being responsible for a good chunk of other cats' evil deeds throughout series one through four. Despite dying in the first series.
• His Name Is...: Zigzagged. Runningwind is dead and Fireheart sees Whitethroat nearby, who he assumes to be the killer. Whitethroat is hit by a car after Fireheart realizes it wasn't him. Fireheart asks who killed Runningwind, and Whitethroat says who it was but Fireheart can't hear him over the noise of a passing car. Fireheart asks again, but Whitethroat dies just as he's about to say it, however he has a look of horror in his eyes. Then Fireheart turns around and sees the killer right there. In Tigerstar's Fury, when the entire scene and more is written from Tigerclaw's point of view, Tigerclaw notes that this is exactly what Fireheart will think and relishes it.
• Hiss Before Fleeing: Naturally, since the cast are all cats. Usually done to show that the losing side are sore losers or are particularly furious at losing the battle.
• His Story Repeats Itself:
  • In Moonrise, Crowfeather watched the she-cat he loved die before his eyes. In Starlight, the same nearly happens again when Leafpool is in a Literal Cliffhanger, but this time he's able to save her.
  • In Tree's Roots, Tree's father dies when the two of them fight a fox. Several moons later, a fox attacks Tree and Pebbleshine, and he fears that either he'll die (since the fox would have killed him if his father hadn't taken the hit) or that it'll kill Pebbleshine like the last one killed his father. This time, the two of them are able to fight it off.
  • In Mothwing's Secret, Mothwing's brother Tadpole drowned when they were young. Later on, one of her Clanmates gets caught in deep mud, and her mind flashes back to another black cat looking at her desperately. Their Clanmates are able to rescue him, and their care for him inspires her to take the path of a medicine cat.
• Hit-and-Run Tactics: ThunderClan has a technique they call the Lightning Strike where they sneak up on the opponents, attack, flee into the trees, and then attack right away again when the enemies aren't expecting it yet (since "lightning doesn't strike twice in one place").
• Hitler Ate Sugar: A variant with Tigerstar, the series equivalent of Hitler. When apprentice Tawnypaw, Tigerstar's daughter, is slightly late bringing moss to the elder Smallear, Smallear says, "Tigerstar didn't want to serve the elders either when he was an apprentice! You're going to turn out just like him!"
• Hit Me, Dammit!: One of the most common ways of teaching another cat to fight is for the mentor to tell the other cat to attack them, and sometimes it takes some encouragement for them to do it. For instance, in Path of Stars, Thunder is reluctant to attack Star Flower in training. She points out that she's not made out of cherry blossoms and that if she can give birth to three kits then she can certainly teach them some battle moves.
• Hive Queen: Firestar's Quest has a Hive Mind horde of rats led by one that can speak Cat. Firestar actually loses a life in battle with the rats, and then his Spirit Advisor Spottedleaf tells him "Not many, but one." He realizes that this means killing the leader will ensure the cats' victory.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: Pigs aren't said to fly, hedgehogs are. You don't split hairs, but split whiskers. And 'a load of foxdung' and 'Who made dirt in his fresh-kill?' are used as substitutes for... erm... yeah.
• Holy Ground: The Moonstone, and later, Moonpool, are sacred places for the cats to communicate with their ancestors. New leaders are given nine lives there, each new warrior must make the trip there once, and that's where the medicine cats receive omens twice a moon.
• Hometown Nickname: In Night Whispers, the ThunderClan apprentice Ivypaw is kidnapped by a ShadowClan patrol and held prisoner in their camp. There, a group of ShadowClan kits give her the nickname "Thundercat".
• The Homeward Journey: Moonrise. The journey to the sea was hard, but the journey home is just as dangerous (In fact, one of them didn't make it back.)
• Hopeless Boss Fight: In the tabletop game included with a few of the books, if you attempt to fight a Twoleg, it ends like this. The PCs' only options are to attack, which does nothing but damage them, or run away.
• Hopeless Suitor: Word of God has it that Leopardstar loved Tigerstar. However, Tigerstar does not return her affections as he loves Sasha.
• Hot-Blooded: Hollyleaf even pokes fun at this, when she says that Sorreltail is one of the rare cats in ThunderClan who isn't that.
• House Husband: Fernsong. As soon as their kits were weaned, Ivypool went back to her warrior duties, while Fernsong moved into the nursery to take over the primary care of their kits - the only tom in the series known to do so.
• Hufflepuff House: WindClan somewhat serves as this as they are neither the designated villains like ShadowClan, the protagonists like ThunderClan, or the neutral softy like RiverClan. In fact they weren't even in the first book, made almost no appearance in the third and fourth books, and a minor one in the fifth book. Only in the second and sixth books are they important, otherwise before Starlight they were simply "ThunderClan's allies", then Tallstar died, making them the focus one last time, but once Onestar took over WindClan just became RiverClan.
• Humanlike Animal Aging: Averted. Aside from a few inaccuracies, they age and develop just like real cats do. The exceptions to the lifespan rule are the Clan leaders, who have 9 lives. They measure age for kittens as "moons".
• Humans Are Cthulhu: Much of what the Twolegs do is naturally incomprehensible to the cats, and they view Twolegs as one of the greatest threats (especially after their original forest is torn down to make way for a new Thunderpath).
• Humans Are Smelly: The cats believe that humans smell, and even once Fireheart earns his place in the Clan, other cats still occasionally insult him by saying he smells like humans.
• Humans by Any Other Name: Humans are most commonly referred to as Twolegs. They have also been called Nofurs (by Daisy, Smoky, and Floss) and Upwalkers (by Purdy), as well as housefolk and workfolk (by house cats).
• The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: Fireheart thinks of this after Brightpaw and Swiftpaw are attacked by a pack of vicious dogs.
• Hypocrite:
  • Tigerstar is probably the biggest (both literally and figuratively). He absolutely hates traitors and insists they cannot be tolerated...yet he chooses to betray his own Clan for power. He is noted by others as knowing the Warrior Code by heart and often berates those who break it...yet he shamelessly bends, breaks, and twists it himself whenever it suits him. Tigerstar also despises kittypets (house cats) and thinks of them as inferior to Clan cats...yet he mates with one and sires her kits.
  • Hollyleaf believes murder is wrong... yet she murdered Ashfur in cold blood...and after that, she got over it. She also scolds Lionblaze for being friends with a cat from WindClan (Heathertail), yet Jayfeather reminds her that she's friends with Willowshine from RiverClan. When reminded of her punishment for helping RiverClan behind Firestar's back, she defends herself by saying "That was different".
  • Clear Sky repeatedly insists that he doesn't want any cat to starve... and yet when he holds Jackdaw's Cry prisoner, he deliberately starves him just because he can.
  • Despite being all about following the warrior code and punishing those who break it, Impostor-Bramblestar breaks the code himself several times, such as when he appoints a deputy who hasn't had an apprentice twice.
• Hypocrisy Nod: When Jagged Peak runs without looking where he was going, Gray Wing scolds him for it...before doing it himself by accident. He realizes he's being a hypocrite and resolves on not becoming one.

I

• I Am Not My Father: Brambleclaw is determined to get out from under the shadow of being the son of Big Bad Tigerclaw.
• I Am the Noun: Tigerstar tries to declare himself the sole representative of ShadowClan. It doesn't really work out for him...
• I Can't Feel My Legs!:
  • Brokentail says this after Yellowfang feeds him the deathberries; this is when he first starts to realize he's dying.
  • Used with Briarpaw when a tree falls on her. She ends up with her hindlegs paralyzed.
• I Choose to Stay: In Long Shadows, Jayfeather goes back in time to the ancient incarnation of himself. He first sees it just as part of his duty, to make sure he sets certain events in motion so that they affect the future, but then he falls in love. He wants to stay in that time period, but isn't allowed to because he's still needed in the present day.
• Icy Blue Eyes: Both Scourge and Hawkfrost have ice-blue eyes. And they're both villains, the former being a dictator and the latter being an ambitious Manipulative Bastard.
• Identical Grandson:
  • In Firestar's Quest, Firestar realizes that Tigerstar and Spottedleaf are distantly descended from SkyClan when, during Leafstar's nine lives ceremony, he sees the kits of an ancient SkyClan leader that look identical to them.
  • A female example with Sparkpelt, who is described as being a clone of her grandfather, Firestar. The author wanted her name to be Sparkfire to honor that, but she did not get to decide her name.
  • Tigerheart looks exactly like his grandfather, the original Tigerstar.
• I Did What I Had to Do:
  • Hollyleaf gives this as a reason for killing Ashfur in order to prevent him from spilling the secret of her and her siblings' parentage.
  • This is how Squirrelflight feels about lying to her Clan about Hollyleaf, Jayfeather and Lionblaze's parentage; to protect them and their mother (and Squirrelflight's sister) Leafpool from being punished for the latter's violation of the warrior code.
• Idiot Hero: Deconstructed with Foxleap, whose stupidity inadvertently causes the death of another cat and causes him to start feeling immense pain.
• If I Can't Have You…: Averted with Ashfur. He wants Squirrelflight to suffer, so he plans to kill her kits in front of her and let her live with the horror.
• If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You: All healing herbs taste disgusting, whether it's to cure a sickness or to stave off hunger for the start of a long journey.
• If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: In Omen of the Stars Ivypaw goes undercover in the Dark Forest after finding out they're using her, only to find out that she's up to her final loyal Dark Forest warrior test - murder Flametail. Made funny by the fact that Flametail is an actual CAT, albeit not a kitten.
• I Got Bigger: Tigerstar had been the runt of his litter until getting older. Not only did he get older and bigger, but he also became a giant among the Clan cats. It appears that his sons Bramblestar and Hawkfrost share their father's growth spurt as well.
• I Have No Son!:
  • Rainflower renames her son Crookedkit and disowns him after he badly breaks his jaw, because she can't see past his disfigured face.
  • When it is revealed to Crowfeather that Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, and Jayfeather are his (illegitimate) kits, he refuses to believe it, saying in front of the whole Gathering that his only son is Breezepelt.
  • Yellowfang and Raggedstar encounter the father of the latter and Scorchwind: a kittypet named Hal. When they tell them this, he rejects anything having to do with mating with a wild cat.
  • A brotherly example is with Dustpelt and Ravenpaw. According to Word of God, Dustpelt was embarrassed of Ravenpaw's personality and refused to admit they're brothers, and often bullied and distanced himself from Ravenpaw in hope that the Clan would forget that they were related.
  • When Quiet Rain hears all Clear Sky had done to get the others to hate him, she disowns Clear Sky and refuses to forgive him, but on her deathbed, she finally forgave him.
• I Just Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
  • Thrushpelt is in love with Bluestar (Bluefur back then), but she doesn't like him back in that way. When he finds out that Bluestar was pregnant with Oakheart's kits, what does he do? He offers to pretend to be the kits' father, and he shows great love for them even if he's not their real father, even grieving for them as any father would.
  • Spottedleaf towards Firestar. She sees that Sandstorm is his mate... and it doesn't bother her at all. In fact, she admitted that the relationship between her and Firestar wouldn't have worked out since she was a medicine cat (and medicine cats can't have kits). In fact, when Mapleshade almost kills Sandstorm because she "stole" Firestar from Spottedleaf, the latter of them says that there was nothing left to steal and that Sandstorm made him happy. Mapleshade ends up killing Spottedleaf for this. Word of God says that Spottedleaf died again so that Firestar wouldn't have to choose between her and Sandstorm when he died.
  • Feathertail with Crowfeather. While Crowfeather fell in love again with Leafpool after her death, Feathertail supported their relationship because she didn't want Crowfeather unhappy. This stretched out further when Crowfeather had kits with Leafpool and Feathertail cared about them as if they were her own.
  • Feathertail's mother Silverstream was also like this towards Graystripe after he got another mate and kits. When Millie and Briarkit were deathly sick, Silverstream in StarClan viciously protested this, saying that Graystripe couldn't bear any more heartbreak.
• I Just Want to Be Normal:
  • Dovewing, who hates the fact that her powers set her apart from the rest of the Clan and that it causes a rift between herself and her sister. She even says the phrase exactly in Fading Echoes.
  • Lionblaze, to a lesser extent. He even sympathizes with Dovewing's situation in The Fourth Apprentice.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Ivypool, who is extremely jealous of her sister's power and the attention she's getting - to the point that she trains with the Dark Forest, hoping that she'll become good enough to be noticed too.
• I'll Kill You!: Played for laughs in River of Fire. Alderheart assigns a young Motor Mouth kittypet to be grumpy Jayfeather's assistant while Jayfeather is ill...
  Alderheart: Fuzzball will be looking after all your needs from now on. Thorns in your nest? Need your bedding fluffed? Ask Fuzzball. Need water? Ask Fuzzball!
  Jayfeather: I don't believe this! What are you meowing about?
  Fuzzball: Are you blind? What's it like being blind? How did it happen? Was it in a fight with a badger? Or a dog? Did the dog die? Is your belly hurting? How bad? Would you like me to rub it?
  Jayfeather (to Alderheart): When I get better, I'm going to kill you.
• Immediate Sequel: Some of the most notable examples are:
  • The end of Rising Storm and beginning of A Dangerous Path - Rising Storm ends with a cliffhanger, and A Dangerous Path picks up at the same moment. In fact, you could stick the first line of chapter 1 of A Dangerous Path after the last line of Rising Storm, and not know that there was meant to be a break.
  • Starlight begins minutes (at the longest) after Dawn ends - the Clans arrive at the lake just at the beginning of dawn, and Starlight's first page describes how they're staring down at the water, and it still describes it as very early dawn.
  • Twilight and Sunset have a bit of a cliffhanger as well - Twilight ends at the end of a battle, with Brambleclaw seeing two characters he never thought he'd see again, and Sunset begins with him walking over to them.
  • The seventh arc particularly likes doing this:
    • Lost Stars ends with Rootpaw running from Bramblestar's ghost, who calls after him, "Wait! You have to help me! Please!" The Silent Thaw starts at the same moment, repeating Bramblestar's line.
    • Veil of Shadows takes place just minutes after the end of The Silent Thaw.
    • Veil of Shadows ends with Squirrelflight about to announce the identity of the impostor at a Gathering. Darkness Within begins at that same Gathering, with Squirrelflight telling everyone who the impostor is.
    • Darkness Within ends with Ashfur dragging Squirrelflight into the Dark Forest via the Moonpool. The prologue of The Place of No Stars picks up at this moment from her POV, and the book itself opens at roughly the same time.
    • The Place of No Stars ends with Ashfur forcing Rootspring and Snowtuft to fight to each other. A Light in the Mist - both the prologue and the first chapter - opens at this exact moment.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Sharptooth and Hawkfrost.
• Improvised Bandage: the Clans - being feral cats and without access to modern medicine - use cobwebs as bandages, which was inspired by the real-life historical use of spiderwebs in wound treatment. In Tigerclaw's Fury, when Tigerclaw is unable to find the usual cobwebs to bandage his wounds, he has to look for anything in the forest that will work to staunch the bleeding: first he searches for moss, and ultimately settles for leaf mulch.
• Incompatible Orientation: In Tallstar's Revenge, Reena seems to like Talltail/star and is obviously flirting with him. The only problem is, Talltail is gay, so her advances don't even show up on his radar. Reena later complains to Shrewclaw about it.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Many cats die of greencough, or, less frequently, whitecough throughout the series. Notable examples include Leopardstar's siblings and mother, and Tigerstar's siblings. Firestar and Bluestar even lose one of their lives this way.
• Inertial Impalement: At the climax of Sunset, Brambleclaw is fighting Hawkfrost. He'd just saved Firestar from a fox trap by digging up the stake holding it in the ground, so he picks up the stake in his mouth and swings it around. Hawkfrost lunges at him and impales himself on the spike. Brambleclaw is shocked and gasps "Hawkfrost! I... I didn't want this."
• Inescapable Net: In Battles of the Clans, one cat told a story about how his ancestor got chased through an old rabbit warren by some kind of terrier. He dashes out of one of the tunnels, only to get caught in a net and be at the mercy of the human and the dog.
• Inevitable Waterfall:
  • This happens in Moonrise. The traveling Clan cats end up having trouble in bad weather, fall into a mountain stream, and go over a waterfall, landing in a pool of water at the bottom. Fortunately, there is a Tribe of cats that lives in a Cave Behind the Falls, so even though the Clan cats are pretty battered, they are able to recover because the Tribe takes them in for a little while.
  • In The Apprentice's Quest, Alderpaw and Needlepaw fall into a river when crossing it on a tree branch, and go over a waterfall; they both survive, but are separated from the rest of their group.
• Inevitably Broken Rule: The Warrior Code is a collection of rules that all clan cats must follow. Yet almost all of these rules have been broken at least once:
  • The rule forbidding mating outside of one's clan is one of the most commonly broken, as many of the main characters over the course of the series have done it. Perhaps the most dramatic case is the mating of Leafpool (the ThunderClan Medicine Cat) and Crowfeather (a WindClan warrior). Leafpool's transgression actually breaks two rules, as medicine cats aren't allowed to mate at all. It gets to the point that when the warrior code gets a revamp at the start of series 8, they decide to allow cross-Clan relationships, provided that one of the cats joins the other's Clan.
  • The rule requiring unquestionable obedience to the Clan leader is broken by good characters such as Firestar when their leader was being unjust, and they were usually portrayed as being in the right. In contrast, evil characters usually follow this rule, if only as a means to earn their leader's trust.
  • Brokenstar broke the rule forbidding training kits under six moons old in the first book, so ShadowClan could be the strongest in the forest. However, he subjected kits to such harsh training that some of them actually died. This was, of course, a serious crime, and it was one reason his clan drove him out.
• Inferred Survival: Fans had strong suspicions that Hollyleaf survived because of the way her "death" was presented - we "see" it from the POV of a blind character who merely hears rocks caving in and automatically assumes that No-One Could Have Survived That without even trying to dig her out. The characters keep using the word "lost" instead of "died". When the other characters finally realize that she might still be alive since they Never Found the Body, they finally dig through the rubble... and find nothing, so they know she must be out there somewhere. She does return later that book.
• Informed Flaw: In The First Battle's finale, proto-StarClan shows up to tell both the protagonists and the antagonists what horrible people they are for fighting. The fact that the Moor Group were fighting to protect themselves from being slaughtered by the Big Bad, who they had unsuccessfully tried to reason with before, is never really acknowledged.
• Initiation Ceremony: Of the pleasant type - joining the Clan requires taking an oath of loyalty in front of the Clan, and adopting a Clan-suitable name.
• Innocent Inaccurate: A not so horrific example is used in Crookedstar's Promise. As a kit, Crookedstar sees two warriors in the midst of a forbidden relationship, but assumes that they are on a secret mission.
• Innocently Insensitive: Gray Wing from Dawn of the Clans tries (poorly) to comfort Wind Runner by saying that her son Emberkit was in a better place. This, however, makes Wind Runner angry at him, yelling at him that the best place for a kit was at its mother's belly and wishing him grief, saying that he's as bad as Clear Sky and she'll throw that comment back at him. But when Turtle Tail dies, she apologizes to him.
• Innocuously Important Episode: Dark River is one of these. At first it seems to be an interesting romp based on forbidden love, but looking back on it with Omen of the Stars and Dawn of the Clans completed it's far more important than it first appeared. It introduces the Ancients (the shared root of the Tribe and the Clans), Rock (who is revealed in The Last Hope as the cat who gave StarClan the prophecies), Dark Forest cats entering the real world, and the Tunnels (a massive Chekhov's Location).
• Insane Troll Logic: Played for laughs in Bramblestar's Storm, when the apprentices bunk in with the warriors temporarily. Dewpaw says that they must be warriors now since they were in the warriors' den.
• Insidious Rumor Mill: In "Into The Wild", Tigerclaw began to spread lies about his apprentice, Ravenpaw, being a potential and likely traitor at a time when ThunderClan was under great stress. This meant that Ravenpaw couldn't easily share the truth about Tigerclaw's own treachery, and it kept him ostracized and distrusted by many of his fellow Clanmates.
• Instant Leech: Just Fall in Water!: Part of the medicine cats' standard examination of a cat who has fallen into a stream/river is to check for leeches.
• Instant Oracle: Just Add Water!: Well, the medicine cats do have to touch their nose to, or drink from, the Moonpool in order to receive dreams from StarClan...
• Insult Backfire: In The Sight, Blackstar starts going on and on about how generous ThunderClan was to give up a piece of territory, and how much good use ShadowClan has been getting out of it as a hunting ground, using the concession as an opportunity to mock ThunderClan for weakness. Firestar, who had simply not thought the piece of territory important enough to fight for, responds: "I am pleased to hear that you are getting so much out of a piece of land prey-poor by ThunderClan standards." Blackstar is not amused.
• Insult of Endearment: Clan cats often tease each other by affectionately call each other "mouse-brain", "fish-breath", or some other variety of that. Squirrelflight, for example, is well-known for calling Bramblestar "mouse-brain". It's the harsher insults like "crowfood-eater" or "fox-heart" that they have to watch out for.
• Intangible Time Travel: Rock can travel through time like this. And he can also interact with time travelers.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Apprentices almost always end up being good friends with their mentors. Fireheart also becomes good friends with Yellowfang, the medicine cat old enough to be his mother or grandmother.
• Intergenerational Rivalry: Fireheart becomes arch-enemies with Tigerclaw, who is old enough to be his father. Tigerclaw occasionally uses Fireheart's relative inexperience to try to spread doubt about the younger cat's credibility; meanwhile, Tigerclaw's established reputation in the Clan means that it's hard for Fireheart to make the Clan leader believe that Tigerclaw is a traitor.
• Interim Villain: In Power of Three, Sol is an interim villain, meant to carry the story (and introduce massive changes) while Tigerstar and Brokenstar gathered their power to rise up in Omen of the Stars. Ashfur then becomes an interim villain for Sol's time as Big Bad: he causes Hollyleaf's Face–Heel Turn, before being murdered and causing the characters who didn't know of Ashfur's villain status to bring Sol back to the lake and try him for Ashfur's murder.
• Internal Reveal:
  • In the Original Series Bluestar reveals to her grown up kits that she is their real mother, something the reader (and Fireheart) found out about a while ago.
  • Bluestar telling Firestar about SkyClan in Firestar's Quest, which the reader saw in the prologue. Although some of the information was new. Similarly, Sol mentions it to Hollyleaf and Dovewing in The Forgotten Warrior, and by the time Bramblestar learns about it in Bramblestar's Storm, readers had known about SkyClan for seven years. Sandstorm reveals it to Alderpaw and he later reveals it to the rest of his patrol in The Apprentice's Quest, and then it's finally revealed to all the Clans in Shattered Sky, a full ten years after the readers had known about it.
  • In the third and fourth series, the prophecy du jour (known to the readers, Firestar, and Jayfeather) is revealed at least three times. Once to Jayfeather's siblings, once to Dovewing, and once to Brambleclaw, Leafpool, and Squirrelflight. Not to mention Jayfeather finally telling Firestar he knows about the prophecy.
  • Any cat training in, or being trained by a member of, the Dark Forest. The readers know it's bad news, and the characters eventually find out that they're being trained by evil cats who want to use them to destroy the Clans. Notable examples include Ivypool in series four, and Crookedstar in his Super Edition.
  • A couple times regarding Mothwing's lack of faith in StarClan: The readers have known this since at least Sunset, but in Mistystar's Omen it's a huge reveal to Mistystar and provides the main drama of the book. In Lost Stars, published 7 years later, it's revealed to all the Clans when Jayfeather accidentally blurts it out while upset, and while cats are shocked it doesn't go much farther than that.
• Interquel: A majority of the Expanded Universe is made of interquels.
• Interspecies Adoption: In Hollyleaf's Story, Hollyleaf attempts this for a day or so with a fox cub lost in the tunnel, finding it and caring for it before later bringing it back outside. She encounters it a year later and happily greets it, only to find that it does not remember her and it attacks her.
• Intimate Hair Brushing: Cat equivalent. Cats regularly groom with their friends and loved ones. This is called "sharing tongues".
• Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: ShadowClan stealing ThunderClan's kits in the first book.
• Ironic Echo:
  • When Sandpaw and Dustpaw get to go the Gathering but Graypaw doesn't, Sandpaw tells him to have a "nice quiet evening". Later, when Graypaw gets to go but Sandpaw doesn't, he mentions that he told her to have a "nice quiet evening".
  • In Beyond the Code, "Why do things like this always happen to me?" First it's Sol's mother, Cinders, in a flashback after her mate leaves her because she complained too often, and Sol was devastated. Later, in the present day, Sol says it himself when he wants to be made a warrior at the Gathering and he thinks Leafstar deliberately tried to embarrass him by refusing for the time being.
  • And in Tallstar's Revenge, Talltail uses the harsh nickname "Wormcat" against Shrewclaw, the cat who always tormented him with that name.
• Ironic Name:
  • The prefix Petal is usually for a soft-spoken and kind she-cat. But as for Petal from Dawn Of The Clans...as Thunder says: "Which cat named her 'Petal'? There's nothing soft about her!"
  • Quick Water hates water, much to the amusement of Turtle Tail.
• Irony:
  • In Outcast, thinking about Crowfeather, Hollyleaf thinks "I'm glad he's not my father!" Three guesses what gets revealed three books later.
  • And in Night Whispers, Flametail snaps at Lionblaze that he was happy he wasn't related to a murderer (referring to when Lionblaze accidentally killed Russetfur.) Yet Flametail himself is related to a murderer: his infamous grandpa Tigerstar. Not to mention that Lionblaze and Flametail are actually related; they're distant cousins and part of a very complicated family tree.
• Island Base: RiverClan's camp in the old forest is located on an island. Also, in Dark River, they are temporarily forced to shelter on the Gathering Island while they deal with Twolegs attacking their camp.
• Is That a Threat?: In SkyClan's Destiny:
  Skipper: "I've seen Red around a lot lately. Next time, it might be a tuft of her fur that's left beside a dead Twoleg pet."
  Stick: "Leave Red out of this. And don't make threats you can't keep."
  Misha: "Oh, they're not threats. They're promises."
• I See Dead People: Tree has the power to see ghosts who have not ascended to StarClan due to Unfinished Business. He can even let others see the ghosts, though he can only do this for a short time. His son Rootpaw ends up inheriting that same ability, and this becomes important when he is the only cat who can see Bramblestar's ghost.
• I Surrender, Suckers:
  • Firestar has used this trick on several occasions to great effect, defeating opponents that otherwise had the advantage.
  • This also is used by other cats. According to Secrets of the Clans, this is a tactic taught to apprentices.
  • Lampshaded in The Forgotten Warrior when Antpelt uses it on Ivypool, then expresses exasperation at how she fell for a "tired old trick".
• It Gets Easier: In The Rise of Scourge, it is shown that Scourge, the leader of BloodClan, started innocent but found it easier to kill as time went on.
• It Has Been an Honor: Whitestorm. "I’ve been proud to serve as your deputy."
• I Thought Everyone Could Do That: Dovewing's ability to sense events from far away, much to the young cat's surprise.
• It's All About Me: Hawkfrost, since it seems his main motivation in trying to rule the forest, is the fact that he believes that he, and only he, is capable of leading the Clans properly, also how he constantly addresses the crowd at Gatherings, even though he has no right to.
• It's All My Fault:
  • Foxleap does this in Sign Of The Moon when his plan to save the rogue cats gets a Tribe cat killed.
  • Mousefur also goes through this when Longtail dies in Fading Echoes. She believes that if she hadn't stopped to complain about her missing meal, Longtail would not have run off and went to fetch it. This sends her into depression.
  • Firestar also blames himself for making Squirrelpaw run away in Midnight because of an omen.
  • Jayfeather blames himself for Briarlight's death in River of Fire.
• It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time:
  • StarClan thought it was a good idea to hide the secret about their parents from Hollyleaf, Lionblaze, and Jayfeather. It wasn't.
  • The SkyClan medicine cats thought that it was a good idea to keep the prophecy about their Clan being destroyed someday a secret for fear that it wouldn't actually happen. It does.
• It's Not You, It's Me: Dovewing dishes this out on Bumblestripe in Bramblestar's Storm. She broke up with him because she still loved her last mate, Tigerheart, and legitimately felt bad for stringing him along for so long.
• It's Probably Nothing: In The Forgotten Warrior, Tigerheart warns Dovewing that Dawnpelt believes that Jayfeather killed Flametail, but she brushes it off as nothing several times. Near the climax of the book, Dawnpelt accuses Jayfeather of the murder at a Gathering, causing an uproar and making many Clan cats hate Jayfeather.
• It's Raining Men: The "Skydrop" move that SkyClan developed and that ThunderClan later uses.
• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: StarClan might tell you you can't have a mate or kits, or maybe the magical powers you have alienate cats around you, maybe you don't get to be a warrior at all, maybe all the cats you love will die, but regardless, it definitely sucks. Great StarClan, does it.
• I Was Having Such a Nice Dream:
  • Cats occasionally dream they were just about to catch a mouse when awakened.
  • During a drought in The Fourth Apprentice, Lionblaze is dreaming about the lake being filled with water.
  Lionblaze: Did you have to do that? I was having a really great dream!
  Cloudtail: And now you can go on a really great patrol.
  • In Dawn, Squirrelpaw is talking to a spirit-cat in her dream, and is about to be told how she can save her sister, when Shrewpaw wakes her up.
  • Ivypool is spying on the Dark Forest. She's just about to hear the plans for the final battle when Dovewing awakens her.
  • In Fading Echoes, Dovepaw wakes Jayfeather up and fears that she interrupted him while he was having an important dream from StarClan. Then Jayfeather says he was just about to catch a mouse, and Dovepaw is amused that he has normal dreams like every other cat.
• I Was Named "My Name":
  • We see in Barley's backstory that he always had the name Barley, even when he lived in the city; the name didn't initially come from the humans who own the farm he lives on. However, in the Ravenpaw's Path graphic novel trilogy, one of the humans calls him "Barley", so we can assume that they just happened to name him his actual name.
  • Dovewing's name as a ThunderClan warrior is almost exactly the same as when she was an Ancient.
• I Will Fight No More Forever: Mudfur loses his taste for battle and decides to become a medicine cat after his mate and all but one of his kits die the day they are born. He announces it after representing RiverClan in a Combat by Champion fight (and winning).
• I Will Find You:
  • The SkyClan leader Cloudstar and his mate Birdflight are separated for good when SkyClan is forced to leave the forest and Birdflight stays behind as a ThunderClan cat because her kits are too young to travel. The two promise to find each other in the afterlife, and they eventually do, after many years.
  • Ravenpaw says this to Barley with his dying words.
• I Will Wait for You:
  • Though it's just best friends and not a romantic example, Firestar and Graystripe do this. In the Super Edition Firestar's Quest, Firestar goes away on a quest that leads him far out of the forest, leaving the Clan in Graystripe's care. Graystripe promises "I'll wait for you as long as it takes." Firestar, of course, makes it back safely. In the second series, when Graystripe is captured by Twolegs and the Clans leave the forest for good to find a new home, Firestar refuses to give up hope that Graystripe will return, leaving the deputy position open, even though most of the cats believe that Graystripe is dead. He even cites Graystripe's waiting for him as a reason why he should continue to wait. Eventually, several moons later, pressure from many other cats and the need for a deputy forces him to accept that Graystripe probably won't come back, and he appoints Brambleclaw as a deputy. Over half a year later, Graystripe finally finds his way to the Clan.
  • This is the very line Half-Moon says as the last sentence in Sign Of The Moon to Jayfeather.
  • Silverstream's spirit says this word for word to Graystripe in The Last Hope.
  • Subverted with Firestar and Spottedleaf. After Spottedleaf dies, she promises that she will wait for Firestar in StarClan, but she is killed again just a while before Firestar dies.
  • Again, Ravenpaw to Barley as he dies.
• I Wished You Were Dead: Lionblaze to Heathertail at the end of Eclipse. She doesn't actually die, but Lionblaze spends the majority of the rest of the book being tortured by nightmares about killing her.

J

• Jackass Genie: One of the Clans' mythology stories features a young LionClan warrior named Sunpelt defeating Mouthclaw, a giant, extremely toxic snake. In exchange for sparing her life she grants him a wish: he wishes that she would shrink down to the length of a cat's tail. She does just that...by turning herself into thousands of smaller, equally poisonous snakes.
• Jerkass: Spiderleg.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Graystripe catches Darkstripe feeding Sorrelkit deathberries and reports him to Firestar. On being questioned, Darkstripe growls that of course Firestar will always take Graystripe's word. Even Firestar admits to himself that it's true: although he trusts Graystripe, he believes Darkstripe has a point and has to find solid proof to make sure Graystripe wasn't lying.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Jayfeather. Not the friendliest cat in the world to be around, although that's hardly surprising, considering his father is Crowfeather, but still always does his best to help his Clanmates whenever and however he can.
  • Crowfeather could also count, but Feathertail and Leafpool are the only ones who have actually seen his good side. It's worth a mention that Crowfeather was a lot more of a pleasant cat before his first love, Feathertail, died.
  • Dustpelt. He was always portrayed as strict and confrontational, but had great respect for his peers and especially showed his soft side to his mate Ferncloud and their kits.
  • Cloudtail, to an extent. He was hot-headed and quick to jump into arguments, though he did mellow out a bit when he got older. He always had undying loyalty and a strong sense of what was right despite his prickly exterior.
  • Pretty much all of ShadowClan after the first series.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Several of Tigerclaw's followers in ThunderClan were generally jerks, but they remained in the Clan when his treachery was revealed: Dustpelt and Longtail proved to be loyal warriors and grew to treat Fireheart with respect. Darkstripe, however, only refused to join Tigerclaw because Tigerclaw hadn't told him about conspiring with Brokenstar, and later continued to work for him while still in ThunderClan, until he was caught and exiled himself. After Tigerstar's death, Darkstripe joined up with Tigerstar's killer, Scourge, to destroy the Clans.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Power of Three and Omen of the Stars. They gradually revealed the significance and origins of the Three, as well as The Dark Forest and their plans, etc.
• Job Title: Most of the characters are "warriors".
• Join or Die: How Tigerstar operates. One particularly notable moment is when his son defied him:
  Bramblepaw: Join you? After everything you've done? I'd rather die!
  Tigerstar: Are you sure? I won't make the offer twice. Join me now, or you will die.
  Bramblepaw: Then at least I'll go to StarClan as a loyal ThunderClan cat.
  Tigerstar: Fool! Stay, then, and die with these other fools.
• Joker Immunity: Tigerstar takes this to the logical extreme, since he keeps appearing even though he died in the first series. However, his limited interaction with the living world makes him much less of a threat than when he was alive, and his involvement in the earlier books of tPoT was somewhat lacking. Eventually - after four series - they do manage to finally make him Deader than Dead.
• Just Between You and Me: Hawkfrost does this at the end of Sunset. His plan wasn't particularly complicated, but before trying the strike the killing blow, he felt the need to tell Brambleclaw that he was just testing him. And of course, after Brambleclaw impales him, he remembers something else important and says a little extra as he bleeds to death.
• "Just So" Story: There are stories in Secrets of the Clans that explain how tigers got stripes and how adders came to be.

K

• Kangaroo Court: In The Darkest Hour, Tigerstar holds what he calls a "trial" for his prisoners. It's really nothing but whipping up hatred for the half-Clan cats so that their own Clanmates would mistrust them enough to want them driven out or killed.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Blackstar. He was one of the minions of two different Big Bads, killed a ThunderClan elder while trying to kidnap some kits, and murdered the RiverClan deputy in cold blood in front of the entire Clan. He then goes on to be Clan leader, and Firestar lets him off with what can best be described as a stern warning. None of this is ever mentioned ever again.
  • Ashfur. After four counts of attempted murder in order to get back at the cat who rejected him, he makes it to StarClan with the excuse of "his only fault was to love too much".
• Kavorka Man: Berrynose. He has no tail, but he does have a huge ego. And she-cats love him.
• Keeping Secrets Sucks:
  • When Leafpaw is the only cat who knows where the traveling cats went, she feels the strain of being loyal to both her sister and to her father.
  • Sandypaw in the SkyClan And The Stranger manga feels bad about a secret: he and the other apprentices (and a young warrior) were getting food from Twolegs. In fact, he says that keeping secrets is wrong and he doesn't want to be a part of it anymore. When they get reminded about never taking food from Twolegs, they look ashamed...and Sandypaw is seen smirking at them.
• Keeping the Enemy Close: In The Darkest Hour, Firestar thinks that Darkstripe will be less of a threat in ThunderClan - where Firestar can keep an eye on him - than he would be if he left to join Tigerstar. This doesn't last long, however: just a few days later, Darkstripe attempts to poison a kit that saw him scheming with Tigerstar's deputy, Blackfoot.
• Keeping the Handicap: Scars mostly are looked upon as a sign of toughness, so young cats often refuse to let the medicine cat treat their wounds to let the scars form.
• Keystone Army: In Firestar's Quest, there's a large horde of Hive Mind rats. Once Firestar kills the leader, they're too confused to fight because they have absolutely no idea what to do now, and those who aren't killed scatter.
• Kiai: In the first book, Firepaw tends to use "Gr-aaar!" every time he attacks something.
• Kick the Dog:
  • There's one cat that The Last Hope really wants you to know is an evil bastard, and it's not Brokenstar or Tigerstar. It's not even Shredtail. It's Hawkfrost. Sure, Brokenstar murdered Beetlewhisker, but Hawkfrost made it personal when he kicked the corpse and smugly mocked Beetlewhisker. Then, he goes on to nearly kill fan-favourite Ivypool, and actually succeeds in killing Hollyleaf, another fan-favourite (admittedly without Ivypool's absurd levels of popularity). Then, he spends the rest of his screentime rubbing it in to Ivypool and Brambleclaw that he killed Hollyleaf. He really has his death coming.
  • Clear Sky does a couple of these in Thunder Rising. He bullies Jagged Peak when he was suffering from self-esteem problems, embarrasses one of his cats to make Thunder look good, beats up Nightheart's brother when he was already defeated, sends Frost out to die even though he can still hunt, and throws his own son into the path of an attacking fox.
• Kid Hero: Several of the heroes are apprentices when we first see their points of view - the feline equivalent of 10-18 years old - and some POVs start even younger.
• Kid Hero All Grown-Up: The kits and apprentices from the first books are adults in the later series. The third-series kits/apprentices are also young adults in the fourth series.
• Kidnapping Bird of Prey:
  • Snowkit gets kit-napped by a hawk despite his mom, Speckletail, trying to get him back. Not being able to hear anything was also not a good sign.
  • In Sign of the Moon, Jayfeather acts as bait for an eagle to steal, so that the Ancients can learn how to hunt them. As well, at the end of the book, Swoop, a Tribe cat, is taken by an eagle while saving one of the Tribe Invaders.
  • In the first Dawn of the Clans book, The Sun Trail, it even happens to an adult cat, Bright Stream, while travelling through the mountains. It didn't help that she was pregnant.
• Kids Are Cruel:
  • Brokenstar had been revealed to be picked on by Runningnose and his siblings (who enjoyed taunting him about his mysterious mother) and they called him "badger-stinky". They keep this up until Yellowfang finally yells at these kits to stop picking on him. They try it again (except Runningnose, who learned his lesson), but they end up being pushed back by Brokenkit.
  • Socks and Ruby bullied Scourge (once named Tiny), believing he was too weak to fend for himself. Karma catches up with them when their Twoleg owners abandon them and Scourge refuses to take them into BloodClan.
  • Shrewkit constantly taunted Tallkit and called him names for being the son of two tunnelers. This continues into their apprenticeship.
• Killed Off for Real: Leaders have nine lives, so when they're killed they get resurrected, but when they lose their last life, they're dead for good.
• Killed Offscreen: Happens fairly often, mainly due to diseases. One of the biggest examples is Crookedstar, who dies rather abruptly in A Dangerous Path from greencough.
• Killer Rabbit: Longtail has to retire at a young age because a rabbit he was chasing scratched his eyes, and the resulting infection blinded him.
• Kill on Sight: Occasionally a leader will order that if a particular cat is found in their Clan's territory, they should be killed on sight: this includes when Tigerclaw is exiled from ThunderClan for murder, and when Graystripe is exiled from RiverClan for betraying them during battle to save Fireheart's life.
• Kill the Cutie: Happens pretty often in the series.
• King on His Deathbed: In The New Prophecy, WindClan leader Tallstar is ill for a long time, and his deputy Mudclaw has been doing most of the leader's duties, and looks forward to becoming leader himself. When Tallstar dies, naming Onewhisker his successor, Mudclaw thinks that some scheming has been going on behind his back, not believing Tallstar would have wished that.
• Kirk Summation: Firestar does one to Tigerstar before the final battle.
• Kissing Cousins: Seeing as they're cats, and clans that don't allow intermixing, this is kind of inevitable. Word of God also confirmed one pairing that turned out to be Brother–Sister Incest. It wasn't on purpose because she didn't realize that they had the same parents (they were in different litters, a couple seasons apart), but she decided to just leave it once she found out.
• Klingon Promotion: Clan law dictates that the Clan deputy becomes leader if the leader dies. In the first series, Tigerclaw attempted to murder his leader, Bluestar; he, as ThunderClan's deputy, would have inherited her position if he had succeeded. Before that he did succeed in killing the deputy, Redtail, with the intent on becoming deputy, though he was initially passed over and the next deputy, Lionheart, died in an unrelated battle leading to Tigerclaw taking the position.
  • Done successfully by Brokentail, who killed his own father and leader of the Clan after being made deputy himself.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Jayfeather doesn't believe in the way the Clans work, the ideals of StarClan, or the Warrior Code. Despite this, he vows to fight for the Clans until long after the day he dies, will never give up on saving anyone, and devotes his whole life to protecting his Clan.
• Knight Templar: Hollyleaf reaches this state at the end of the third arc, becoming obsessed with order to the point of attempting to kill her own mother for having an affair with Crowfeather. Later on, she has a Heel Realization while hiding by herself and returns much more sane and mature.
• Kudzu Plot: The second series makes you wonder who was working with Hawkfrost, and what exactly was going on with Brook and Stormfur coming back to the Clans, and the state of Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw's relationship, as well as a few minor things. The third series was worst about this: they still don't know why they have the prophecy, it wasn't clear where Sol went, we don't know what exactly Tigerstar was up to, and we've just learned that Hollyleaf isn't the Third after all. We didn't even know if Leafpool had stayed with the Clan because the authors forgot to mention her again for the several chapters after she leaves her den. The fourth series wraps things up a bit better, but still left a couple things open because the authors thought it would break the mood to say "so-and-so chose this cat as her mate" after the battle of battles.

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• Large and in Charge: Tigerstar is described as a very large and muscular cat with very long, hooked claws. Inverted with Scourge of BloodClan, who is so tiny that most characters wonder what the heck he's doing sitting next to Bone, who is enormous (and Scourge's Dragon). Scourge quickly proves that his small size gives him speed and agility, which coupled with his ruthlessness make him one of the most lethal combatants in the series.
• Large Ham: Tigerstar and Brokenstar both qualify. It helps that there's a meeting every month where they can give hammy speeches, but when they die and go to the Dark Forest, they feel obliged to hold these meetings, just so their trainees know that a ham is in charge. And Hawkfrost. "We shall taste victory soon!" just speaks for itself...
• Laser-Guided Karma: Tigerstar has been manipulating events for a while in order to become ThunderClan's leader. He got set a trap for Bluestar at the edge of the Thunderpath with the intention of killing her, but Cinderpelt ended up investigating the Thunderpath and getting hit by a car, which permanantly damaged one of her legs and dashed her hopes of ever being a Warrior. Before that, in Into The Wild, he killed Redtail, ThunderClan's deputy at the time. Not many moons after that, he learned that Ravenpaw, his apprentice saw what happened, and Tigerstar tries to turn the clan against Ravenpaw, and planned to kill him to make sure he stayed silent. In Forest of Secrets, he led a group of rouges in an attack against ThunderClan, and he surely would've killed Bluestar if Firestar hadn't been present. In A Dangerous Path, he led a pack of dogs to Snakerocks, which ended up killing one apprentice and disfiguring another as well as killing another cat to give the dogs a taste for cat blood. It all came to a head In Darkest Hour when he wanted to unite the clans as one(which is a lot worse than it sounds) under his leadership. He managed to get RiverClan to join "TigerClan" and tried to get Graystripe's kits killed by having Stonefur, Bluestar's son, to kill them. When Stonefur refused, he sic'd Darkstripe on him, and when it looked like Darkstripe was going to lose, Tigerstar got another one of his followers to kill Stonefur. And after his betrayal, Bluestar completely lost her mind, which made her stop caring about her Clan. While his death at the hands of Scourge wasn't one that any sane cat would wish on another, you have to admit that after all that happened he really deserved to die. In fact, Tigerstar was so despised, that his son carried the suspicions of his Clanmates.
• Last Episode, New Character:
  • Dovepaw and Ivypaw are born at the ending of Sunrise (the last book in the third series), with Jayfeather realizing that one of them is the third cat in the prophecy. Both of them are main characters in the fourth series.
  • In the manga at the end of Bramblestar's Storm, it is revealed that Lionblaze and Cinderheart have three kits, and that Squirrelflight is pregnant. Their kits all appear in the sixth series and Squirrelflight's kit Alderheart is the main character of the sixth series.
• Last of His Kind: Before SkyClan's rebuilding, Skywatcher is the only cat descended from the old Clan that still tried to live a life following the warrior code - in fact, he was the only cat in the area that even knew about the Clan.
• The Last Title: The Last Hope.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • This page's policy of not hiding most spoilers should be a perfect example: even names can be spoilers. For instance, Fireheart becoming Firestar and Tigerclaw becoming Tigerstar are major spoilers for the end of the first series, but Firestar and Tigerstar are the names that fans typically use. Several of the books' titles contain major spoilers as well.
  • The series' own website assumes you've already read far into the series; for instance, it lists Bluestar, Firestar, and Hollyleaf as being in StarClan, which would be huge spoilers for anyone reading through from the beginning.
• Lawful Stupid: Hollyleaf was turning into this before her disappearance. Even Jayfeather had thought in Dark River that Hollyleaf was so into Black-and-White Morality that she believes that those who follow the warrior code are good and those who don't are evil.
• Lazy Bum: Sol. He's charismatic enough to convince other cats to do what he wants, but somehow always ends up letting them fight in his place, or having them bring him food. Barley's brothers are also freeloaders that insist they need Ravenpaw to "show" them how to hunt and prepare sleeping areas.
• Lazy Neutered Pet: Almost all neutered toms in the series become lazy. Kittypets are already known for being plumper than their forest-dwelling brethren, but neutered ones are especially so.
• Leader Wannabe: Many young cats claim they want to be leader someday, though most of them are just happy to be warriors when they become older. The most notable example of a cat wishing to become leader is Tigerstar: he attempts to secretly kill Bluestar in order to become leader himself, and after his exile he decided that becoming ShadowClan leader was almost as good.
• Led by the Outsider:
  • The protagonist of the first arc, a kittypet, ends up rising through the ranks and becoming the first kittypet-born Clan leader in the Clans' memory despite all the prejudice he faced along the way.
  • During the first arc, after ShadowClan loses their leader and deputy to a sickness, they welcome the exiled ThunderClan deputy Tigerclaw as their leader. Normally an exile would be looked upon with suspicion, but nobody in ShadowClan was in any state to lead the Clan at the time. Although he does help rebuild the Clan's strength, Tigerclaw's real intent is to use his new Clan to take over the entire forest and get revenge on ThunderClan.
• Leeroy Jenkins: In Sign Of The Moon, Foxleap decides to save the rogues from an eagle attack, so the Clan and Tribe cats drive the eagle off, but it results in one Tribe cat getting taken away by a hawk. Foxleap feels guilty about this, but as one Tribe cats puts it when scolding him, the damage had been done.
• Left-Justified Fantasy Map: The Great Journey map has the sea to the southwest.
• Legend Fades to Myth:
  • In The Sun Trail, Shattered Ice and Jackdaw's Cry figure out tunneling after Gray Wing saves Rainswept Flower from falling into a rabbit hole and guess that it will work because Gray Wing told them about Wind's tunneling technique. By the time of Tallstar's Revenge, the story has been hilariously skewed so that Shattered Ice is an action hero who saves all of WindClan (which hadn't even been formed when tunneling was invented) from starvation by digging a hole in the middle of a blizzard.
  • The start of the Clans' origin story in Secrets of the Clans even says that stories change and details are lost in the retelling. The book has the story that is told in the modern Clans nowadays, in which the forest settlers fought at Fourtrees, and after Thunder, Wind, River, and Shadow try to lay claim upon leadership, the spirit-cats tell them that they must split into Clans, each of the four leading one. While there was a battle like that at Fourtrees, and the spirit-cats did visit them there and guide them into splitting up, it didn't happen like the story told it, and the cats split apart more gradually over time.
• The Legend of X: Legends of the Clans, a trio of novellas about three significant characters that take place before the main series: Spottedleaf, Pinestar, and Thunderstar.
• Legion of Doom: The Dark Forest is a villainous group made up of the past enemies of the Clans, and some new ones.
• Let's Just Be Friends: Squirrelflight tells this to Ashfur to end his romantic relationship with him. While she honestly wants to remain his friend, he still doesn't take that too well.
• Let the Past Burn: Toward the end of Rising Storm, a dry summer and young humans messing around results in a forest fire, badly burning ThunderClan's territory, including their camp. Three of the Clan are killed in the fire, and while the Clan does return, it takes a long time to recover and rebuild.
• Life Will Kill You: Leopardstar is an ambitious and occasionally antagonistic cat who first appears in the second book and is one of the more prominent RiverClan characters, especially after becoming its leader. She ends up living long (more than 10 years, which is amazing for the setting) and dying of diabetes.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • The graphic novels (aside from The Rise of Scourge), compared to the main series: they tend to have more comedic parts, the plot is usually less fighting-focused, and violence is usually bloodless and sometimes even accompanied by goofy sound effects.
  • Power of Three starting out Lighter and Softer and ending Darker and Edgier makes this a one arc long case of Cerebus Syndrome.
• Light Is Not Good: Especially with Sol.
• Like a Son to Me:
  • Yellowfang tells Fireheart that he was like this to her - that he's more like her son than the cat she gave birth to, Brokentail.
  • As Leopardstar dies, she tells Mistyfoot that she would have been proud to call Mistyfoot her daughter.
• Like Parent, Like Spouse: Thunder tells Clear Sky that Star Flower is his mate only because he's like her father, One Eye.
• Line-of-Sight Name: Tribe cats are named for the first name their mother sees when they are born. Lampshaded by Rock in Cats of the Clans, when he wonders why Tribe cats aren't all therefore named "Wall of Cave" or "Roof of Cave" or "Floor of Cave".
• Literal Cliffhanger: In Starlight, Leafpool accidentally gets knocked off the edge of the cliff at the top of the quarry. She's only holding on by her claws hooking over the edge. Just as she slips, Crowfeather grabs her scruff and pulls her to safety.
• Literal-Minded: The ditzy kittypet Fuzz, who appeared in a short story in Secrets of the Clans. He asks Barley's name, and Barley, taken by surprise, responds, "Er... Barley." Then when he calls him "Erbarley", Barley says "No. Just Barley." So Fuzz proceeds to call him "Justbarley" for the rest of the story.
• Literal Soapbox Speech: After the Clans arrive at the lake, Blackstar jumps up on a nearby tree stump to address all four Clans. At one point, three of the leaders stand on it together and the fourth clearly won't fit, and Squirrelpaw remarks that they'll need to find something else for the leaders to sit on at Gatherings.
• Little "No": In Sunrise, when Tigerstar asks Lionblaze if he is going to kill him, Lionblaze replies, "No. You're already dead." Lionblaze then leaves the Dark Forest forever, proving to Tigerstar that he wasn't going to let himself fall to the level of the villains.
• Living Is More than Surviving: In Firestar's Quest, Leaf uses this as a reason as to why they should join the new SkyClan.
  "Yes, I'll join," Leaf assured him. "If the Clan really works how you say it will, then cats will have a purpose. We'll be more than just rogues, just living to stay alive."
• Living Relic: In Firestar's Quest, Firestar and Sandstorm are on a mission to rebuild SkyClan, which left the forest and subsequently split up years ago. They find Sky, the only remaining SkyClan descendant who has any knowledge of the Clan. His grandmother was born into the Clan, and he was named after the lost Clan and taught its traditions, and still tries to cling to them, despite younger area cats believing him crazy. He is able to teach them about SkyClan's life in the gorge.
• The Load: Clovertail and Daisy (in Firestar's Quest and the second series, respectively) wanted to join the Clan for protection but had no interest in giving back to the Clan by hunting and fighting. Clovertail eventually got over it and became a warrior; Daisy (who was a bit of a Scrappy for it) instead contributed by becoming a Team Mom and helping all of the Clan queens raise their kits.
• Lonely at the Top: Mapleshade knows that Crookedstar will become Clan leader, so she aims to get his entire family killed and make his life this. Her plan fails when Crookedstar explains that once his time is over, everyone he cares about will be waiting for him in the afterlife.
• Long-Running Book Series: 2003-present, still ongoing, with 44 main books, 5 Field Guides, 16 Super Editions, 21 novellas, and 16 manga volumes as of November 2022.
• Look Both Ways:
  • In Bluestar's Prophecy, Bluestar's sister Snowfur tries to chase some ShadowClan warriors across the road, but a car comes by and hits her.
  • In Warrior's Return, Graystripe gets hit by a car when he isn't paying attention to where he's going. Fortunately he survives, but his shoulder is injured pretty badly.
  • In Midnight, Sorrelpaw gets hit by a car while trying to hunt a squirrel. She ends up with her shoulder injured, and her warrior ceremony is delayed as a result.
• Looking Busy: Cats commonly do this when they're up to something. For example, at one point the POV character wants to eavesdrop on a conversation and sits nearby at the fresh-kill pile, pretending that they're trying to decide what they want to eat.
• Loser Son of Loser Dad: Brambleclaw and Tawnypelt are treated poorly by their Clanmates in early books for this reason. Who's their dad? Tigerstar.
• Lost in Transmission: Whitethroat is injured, and Fireheart questions him about Runningwind's death. But just when Whitethroat opens his mouth and begins to speak, a monster roars past so Fireheart can't hear him, and when Whitethroat tries to speak a second time, he dies.
• The Lost Lenore:
  • Spottedleaf to Fireheart. After being killed in the first book, she serves as something of a Spirit Advisor for him (and later his descendants), and his ongoing feelings for her make him unaware of Sandstorm's affection for him until Cinderpelt tells him outright. Even then, it takes Spottedleaf giving her blessing twice before he feels free to love Sandstorm and be sure that he's not "betraying" his love for Spottedleaf.
  • Graystripe's mate Silverstream: after a short forbidden romance, she dies while giving birth to his kits. He leaves ThunderClan for a while to raise their kits in her Clan, RiverClan, which has a big impact on his best friend Fireheart. Although Silverstream's death affects Graystripe for a long time, he eventually does find love again a few years later between the second and third series, and Silverstream herself supports the new relationship as it means he's happy again.
• Love Across Battlelines: Happens several times. Inter-Clan romances are banned specifically because they lead to the conflict of loyalty to Clan vs. loyalty to mate in a battle, but this doesn't stop these relationships from forming.
• Love Be a Lady: When a new leader gains their nine lives, each is given by a different cat, and each life comes with a gift. One gift that nearly all receive is love, and it invariably always comes from a she-cat.
• Love at First Sight: Storm and Clear Sky can't help but stare at each other throughout their first meeting, and become mates not long after.
• Love Confession: In Starlight, Crowfeather saves Leafpool's life and then confesses that he's loved her for a while.
• Love Dodecahedron:
  • Let's start with the main character, shall we? Cinderpelt (who seems to have some chemistry with Littlecloud) was in love with Firestar, who never knew. Firestar and Spottedleaf liked each other for the brief period of time that she was alive, and they continue to meet in dreams even after her death, much to the chagrin of Sandstorm, his mate, who previously was friends with Dustpelt, who thought it was something more. Dustpelt eventually became the mate of Ferncloud. Now skip ahead about six books, and you'll find that Cinderpelt has been reincarnated as Cinderheart after her death. Cinderheart falls in love with Lionblaze, Firestar's grandson. Lionblaze used to be 'friends' with Heathertail, who hates him because he broke up with her, but she eventually became mates with Breezepelt.
  • Tigerstar. First off, Word of God confirmed in an author chat that Leopardstar loved Tigerstar, though he probably didn't feel the same way. He's had children with both Sasha (his true love, according to Erin Hunter) and Goldenflower.
  • The New Prophecy is great with this. Stormfur, Ashfur, and Brambleclaw all liked Squirrelflight. Stormfur knew that he didn't have a future with her, and eventually ended up with a Tribe cat named Brook. For a while it seemed as if Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight would become an Official Couple, but fell out because of Brambleclaw wanting to be friends with his half-brother (it makes a bit more sense in context), whom some fans say he had Ho Yay with, and Squirrelflight went to Ashfur. However, she never truly loved him, and later left him for Brambleclaw once more. This drove Ashfur insane, to the point of betraying his Clan, abetting in almost murdering Firestar, and trying to kill Squirrelflight along with her 'kits'. This forced her to admit that they weren't hers, and were in fact the children of Leafpool and Crowfeather. Crowfeather had previously been in love with Feathertail (who died), had a brief affair with Leafpool (which produced Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf), and then took Nightcloud as a mate in WindClan solely to prove his loyalty and have a kit with her (Breezepelt). The revelation that Squirrelflight's kits weren't hers (and therefore not his) caused Brambleclaw to break up with her. He later had some feelings for Jessy, a kittypet that stayed with the Clan for a while, before getting back together with Squirrelflight and actually having kits together (Alderheart and Sparkpelt).
  • Spiderleg became Daisy's mate, but they broke up after having two kits. Prior to this, Daisy had an unrequited crush on Cloudtail, who was already with Brightheart. Daisy's previous mate was Smoky (who also had kits with Daisy's sister, Floss, who he liked better, according to Daisy) and he fathered Mousewhisker, Hazeltail, and Berrynose. Berrynose hooked up with Honeyfern, but she died. He later mated with Honeyfern's sister Poppyfrost.
  • Graystripe was Silverstream's mate, and later had kits with Millie. Graystripe's mother, Willowpelt, went through quite a few mates: Tawnyspots, Whitestorm, and Patchpelt (who is her own brother, though that was an accident with the author forgetting they were siblings since, though they have the same parents, they were born in different litters).
  • Bluestar had a brief relationship with Oakheart and had his kits. Thrushpelt had a crush on her, though she didn't return his feelings, and he pretended to be the father of her kits in order to help her out (since they were the result of a forbidden inter-Clan relationship).
  • In OOTS, Dovewing fell in love with Tigerheart, but broke up with him when he used her to get herbs and she realized he was training in the Dark Forest. She later became closer to Bumblestripe, but broke up with him later. She and Tigerheart got back together and had kits. Rosepetal had a crush on Bumblestripe, but was later rejected.
  • In the prequels, Clear Sky and Bright Stream were mates, Gray Wing had a crush on the latter, while Turtle Tail had a crush on him. After Bright Stream's death, Gray Wing started to have stronger feelings for Storm, who liked Clear Sky, who liked her back, and Storm and Clear Sky became mates. Turtle Tail, feeling hurt that Gray Wing liked Storm, meanwhile, left the group and became mates with Tom briefly before she realized how abusive he was, and had his kits. Storm dies shortly after producing Thunder. Eventually, Gray Wing started to return Turtle Tail's feelings, and they become mates. Meanwhile, Clear Sky is implied to have feelings for Petal, while Acorn Fur (according to Word of God) had a crush on Thunder, who had some Ho Yay with Lightning Tail. Thunder develops feelings for Star Flower. After Turtle Tail's death, Gray Wing moves on to Slate and she has his kits. Star Flower breaks up with Thunder (who still likes her), and gets together with Clear Sky (his father), instead. Thunder eventually moves on to Violet Dawn.
• Love Hurts: In this series, falling in love is likely to get you broken-hearted, insane, and/or killed.
• Love Informant: Cinderpelt tells Fireheart that Sandstorm loves him (and that it's obvious to everyone else).
• Love Is a Weakness: Crookedstar is afraid that having a loved one will make him soft. This is further pushed by his spirit mentor Mapleshade, who tries to convince him that his relationship will turn him weak, and push him away from his great destiny, and so this trope becomes one of the central conflicts for Crookedstar.
• Love It or Hate It: In-universe, the characters either tend to adore fish or despise it.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Ashfur. After being dumped by Squirrelflight, he attempts to kill her father, and later her (adopted) children, to make her feel the same pain he did. When another cat questions how he made it to StarClan after that, Yellowfang's response is "his only fault was to love too much".
• Love Makes You Evil: Again, Ashfur. The only reason he attempted murder was because he fell in love and got dumped.
• Love Revelation Epiphany: Fireheart starts falling for Sandstorm after Cinderpelt tells him everybody can see that Sandstorm is very much into him.
• Love Triangle: The series loves these. They're mostly detailed under Love Dodecahedron above, but to summarize:
  • Firestar/Spottedleaf/Sandstorm: Firestar loved Spottedleaf until her death, then fell in love with Sandstorm and became her mate while Spottedleaf still visited him in his dreams. Spottedleaf supported the relationship, ultimately sacrificing her spirit to save Sandstorm's life so that Firestar would be happy.
  • Squirrelflight/Brambleclaw/Ashfur: Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw were good friends, but then after arguing, Squirrelflight became close to Ashfur, who wanted to be her mate. She rejected him, made up with Brambleclaw, and became Brambleclaw's mate, leaving Ashfur extremely bitter. Before all this Stormfur had some feelings for Squirrelflight as well but never spoke of it to the others or acted on it.
  • Crowfeather/Leafpool/Feathertail/Nightcloud. Crowfeather and Feathertail fell in love, but Feathertail died. Crowfeather later ran off with Leafpool (which Feathertail, in StarClan, supported), but Leafpool ultimately decided that her Clan needed her more. To prove his loyalty, Crowfeather hooked up with a cat from his own Clan, Nightcloud, and had a kit with her.
  • Cinderheart/Lionblaze/Heathertail. Lionpaw and Heatherpaw were friends and had feelings for each other as apprentices, though they later broke it off and moved on. Lionblaze would take Cinderheart as a mate, while Heathertail would take Breezepelt as a mate. Lionblaze and Heathertail would later have two litters of kits with their respective mates.
  • Tigerheart/Dovewing/Bumblestripe. Tigerheart and Dovewing would fall in love and begin a forbidden relationship, but they break up and Dovewing begins to develop feelings for Bumblestripe. It seems like they'll become mates while Tigerheart is forced to move on, but Tigerheart and Dovewing later get back together and become mates, with Dovewing having his kits and moving to ShadowClan.
  • Thrushpelt loves Bluestar, who only liked him as a friend. She and Oakheart fall for each other instead. Thrushpelt accepts it, though: once Bluestar gets pregnant with Oakheart's kits, Thrushpelt says that he understands and offers to claim her kits as his own if she can't share who the real father is (which the Clan would believe, knowing of their friendship and his feelings for her.)
  • Happens twice to poor Gray Wing. First he likes Bright Stream, who becomes mates with Gray Wing's brother Clear Sky instead. Later on, some time after Bright Stream's death, Gray Wing meets Storm and falls for her — a lot more strongly than he had with Bright Stream. She and Clear Sky end up falling in love at first sight.
• Lower-Deck Episode: Ravenpaw's Path and Tigerstar and Sasha are this, focusing on minor characters outside the Clans amidst the Clan wars.
• Low Fantasy: Although a series about talking cats may sound like High Fantasy, Warriors has some very distinct Low Fantasy qualities, with its dark tone, Gray-and-Grey Morality, increasingly dysfunctional characters, and minimal involvement of supernatural forces.
• Ludicrous Gibs: In Sunrise, Hollyleaf falls into a rage and shreds a mouse to pieces, until all that remains of it is described as red pulp.

• Luke, You Are My Father: Hollyleaf announces not only to her father, Crowfeather, but to the whole Gathering of cats that Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf are actually Leafpool's kits, not Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw's, and he's their father.

M

• Mad Oracle: Goosefeather was often seen as this, and indeed, many of his prophecies and signs seem rather questionable. The problem is that there are some actual premonitions in there too, so everyone ignores him when he starts getting really bad feelings about Tigerkit's future.
• The Magnificent: The Clans remember Gray Wing as "Graywing the Wise".
• Make It Look Like an Accident:
  • Tigerclaw attempted this a couple of times: first the Thunderpath trap to try and get Bluestar to run onto the Thunderpath, and then when he told Fireheart to cross a branch over a flooded stream and then knocked it loose. Even Fireheart wasn't sure whether it was an accident or not until he noticed the way Tigerclaw was looking at him later.
  • Darkstripe gave Sorrelkit deathberries to eat; if Graystripe hadn't seen what happened, every cat would have just assumed she found the berries and didn't know what they were.
• Make Way for the New Villains: In The Darkest Hour, Scourge rips Tigerstar apart, killing him many times in one blow. Scourge goes on to become the villain of the book.
• Malicious Misnaming:
  • Firepaw calls Darkstripe "Dirtstripe", for all his obstructive behavior.
  • When Fireheart is punished by having to temporarily live like an apprentice (having a warrior supervise him at all times and sleep in the apprentices' den), Longtail doesn't miss the opportunity to mock Fireheart and calls him by his apprentice name, "Firepaw".
  • Apprentices occasionally will insult each another by using their kit name instead of their apprentice name.
• Mama Bear: Queens will do anything to protect their kits. When Firestar is receiving his nine leader's lives, Brindleface gives him a life with the love a mother has for her kits. He expects this life to feel warm and comforting, but is surprised by the ferocity of it.
• Manipulative Bastard: Tigerstar.
• Market-Based Title: The series is sold as Warrior Cats in the UK and Warriors in the US.
• Marriage of Convenience: Crowfeather and Nightcloud's relationship has been described by the authors as one: he knew that with a mate and kits he'd be trusted more by his Clan again, and Nightcloud figured that he was a strong young cat that was going to be "going places".
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Ivypool and Fernsong. Ivypool is a she-cat and one of the toughest fighters in the Clan, who survived literal Training from Hell, while Fernsong is a gentler tom. Ivypool wasn't certain about having kits since she didn't want to spend a whole six moons in the nursery, but they decided that once the kits were weaned, Fernsong would move into the nursery to take over their care until they became apprentices. His name is also often considered feminine by fans, since both halves of it have been used more often for female characters.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: Ferncloud and Dustpelt have 7 children. Every kit in Daisy's first litter has at least 5 siblings, counting half siblings. Firestar has four siblings, along with three half-siblings. Cloudtail has four siblings. Bramblestar has 5 named siblings/half-siblings, but if you count the rest of Goldenflower's litter that disappeared after the first book the number shoots up higher. Snowbird and Scorchfur have 9 kits.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: There are often long chains of apprentice to mentor. This can get really convoluted when cats switch Clans, seeing as the more recent ThunderClan medicine cats can trace their roots back to early ShadowClan. Also, there are other funny coincidences:
  • Since medicine cats always mentor one another, the chains can be traced back all the way to the prequels.
  • Bramblestar, the current leader of ThunderClan was mentored by Firestar, the previous leader, who was mentored by Bluestar, the leader before him, who was (partially) mentored by Sunstar, the leader before her, who was mentored by Pinestar, the leader before him. The best part is, it's all purely coincidental. In The Silent Thaw, Bramblestar's apprentice Berrynose is made deputy of ThunderClan, adding even more to this coincidence. The chain is finally broken in the seventh arc. Berrynose dies without having mentored an apprentice himself, then Squirrelflight becomes acting leader for a while with Lionblaze as acting deputy, and afterward, Bramblestar resumes his leadership, unlikely to mentor another apprentice.
  • Dustpelt trained both Squirrelflight and Ashfur. Ashfur hates Squirrelflight with his entire being, and he would later mentor Squirrelflight's son Lionblaze.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
  • In Starlight, lightning strikes a tree, causing it to topple over and form a bridge to a nearby island (which would then be used as important neutral ground for the four Clans). It also crushed the cat attempting to usurp WindClan's leadership. The cats (and some of the fans) see this as far too convenient to be coincidence, and believe that StarClan directed the lightning. On the other hand, the cats have seen StarClan's influence in things they had nothing to do with before, and StarClan have also stated that they have a strict non-interference policy.
  • In the first series, it's arguable whether or not StarClan exists at all. Maybe Scourge really is so strong that he can drain a Clan Leader's 9 lives in a single kill...or maybe everyone only gets 1 life, and the only difference is that a Clan Leader is harder to kill because of his or her experience and talent.
• May–December Romance:
  • Pinestar and Leopardfoot: he's already a leader nearly on his last life when she's born.
  • Downplayed with Spottedleaf and Firestar. Though she's his Lost Lenore he thinks about constantly throughout the first series, she's more than four years older than him while he's barely older than a kit. This may have been something of a continuity issue, as Spottedleaf is only described as "young" in the books, especially in comparison to Darkstripe in the first book, whereas official canon materials put her as being older than Darkstripe.
• May It Never Happen Again:
  • The cat possessing Bramblestar spends the seventh arc, The Broken Code, using the warrior code to tyrannically persecute those who break it and getting away with it because he is believed to be the Clan leader, and the Code says the leader's word has the force of law. He especially targets cats who had forbidden lovers in other Clans, which includes two of the arc's main characters, Bristlefrost and Rootspring. The difficulty of making an illegal relationship work delays the two from getting together, and in the end Bristlefrost dies before they have a chance. The arc ends with the Clans changing the Code to avoid such a thing happening again. Now leaders can be deposed if enough of the Clan votes to have this happen, and there is a legal way for cross-Clan lovers to switch Clans and be accepted into a new one.
  • In Code of the Clans, One-Eye and Dappletail nab some fish from RiverClan out of curiosity. Hailstar and Pinestar try to talk them out of it, but they stubbornly insist on trying it. The two find out too late that they can't stand the taste of fish and beg the higher-ups not to make them finish it. After that, they decide never to eat fish again.
• Meaningful Funeral: The Clans hold one every time someone dies, in which the body is prepared with scented herbs, the leader and/or medicine cat speak, and then the cats who were closest to the deceased sit vigil overnight, with the Clan elders burying the body at dawn. Especially significant ones include Bluestar's in the first arc and Russetfur's in Omen of the Stars.
• Meaningful Name:
  • A Clan cat's name is an indicator of their rank in the Clan hierarchy: kits' names end in -kit, apprentices' in -paw, leaders' in -star... the more unique names belong to warriors and medicine cats. Further, many cats have names that reflect some aspect of their appearance: Firestar got his name from his oft-mentioned "flame-colored pelt", and as for Halftail and One-eye... isn't it obvious?
  • And outside of the Clan naming conventions, there is also Sol, who is named after the Roman god of the sun, which makes sense because he predicts a total solar eclipse. Although, he hasn't done anything sun-related since Eclipse...
  • Jayfeather and Hollyleaf. Their suffixes are references to their real parents, Leafpool and Crowfeather, and Jayfeather's prefix is a further reference to his father, since jays and crows are different species of bird within the same family (though he was named for his blue eyes, like the color of a jay's wing). Leafpool also wanted to name Hollyleaf after Crowfeather, but Squirrelflight wanted a say in the kits' names and chose Hollykit for the dark color of holly bark. Lionblaze was named because he resembled a lion.
  • Violetshine and Twigbranch. Violetkit was named because she smelled like violets when Alderpaw and Needlepaw found her, and Twigkit was named because she was as tiny as a twig. As for suffixes, Violetshine was named after her mother Pebbleshine and Twigbranch was named for her character growth, like how a twig becomes a strong, sturdy branch.
• Meaningful Rename:
  • Names are changed quite often, usually indicating change of status (promotion to apprentice or warrior), more rarely because of some physical change, e.g. Halftail, One-Eye, Lostface or Crookedkit.
  • Brightpaw has her name changed to Lostface after she got mauled by the dogs.
• Meanwhile, in the Future…: The chapters of Graystripe's Vow are separated into two sections: "Then" and "Now". The "Now" chapters take place after Veil of Shadows, while the "Then" chapters take place during Firestar's Quest. The two plots are interspersed alongside each other.
• The Medic: Medicine cats, of course.
• Medical Monarch: The leader of the Tribe of Rushing Water is called the Tribe-Healer (or just Healer). They serve as leader, spiritual leader, and medic for the Tribe.
• Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty: Despite taking place in a society where she-cats are allowed to be warriors and leaders on an equal footing with toms, the naming system reflects these stereotypes; only she-cats are ever given the name suffix "flower", an object known for its beauty, while the suffix "claw", referencing a body part used for fighting and being tough, is almost always given to toms.
• Mentor Archetype: Although she isn't his mentor in the sense the series usually uses the word (training the character to be a warrior or medicine cat), Yellowfang serves this role to Fireheart; she's the elderly, dear friend he always goes to for advice. She later becomes Cinderpelt's actual mentor (training her to be a medicine cat) and does the same for her, and they both remember her wisdom after her death.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Bluestar, Lionheart, Yellowfang, Cinderpelt, Whitestorm... Mentor figures in the series in general can probably be expected to die (then again, given the series in question...), but it still usually manages to be quite the Tear Jerker every time.
• Mercy Kill: ShadowClan medicine cats use deathberries to save dying cats from pain. Leafpool refuses to use them or teach Jaypaw how to use them, feeling that it's up to StarClan to decide when to take a cat.
• Metaphorically True: Fireheart and Graystripe are caught coming back onto ThunderClan territory after sneaking away to check on RiverClan (who are suffering because the river is flooded). When asked to explain themselves, they claim that they wanted to see how far the floods went, which was true, but not the whole truth.
• Mighty Glacier: ThunderClan and RiverClan cats are described as being large and powerful, but slow.
• Mighty Whitey: Rusty, a kittypet, joins ThunderClan because their leader Bluestar thinks he has talent. He is renamed Firepaw and goes on to become the leader of that group (his name then becomes Firestar), despite the strong prejudice feral cats have against tame ones.
• The Migration:
  • The plot of Dawn is about the cats moving from the doomed forest to the lake.
  • Long Shadows reveals that the Ancients went through this, as they used to live at the lake but moved to the mountains and became the Tribe of Rushing Water.
  • In Dawn of the Clans, about half of the ancient Tribe of Rushing Water left the mountains to find a new home in the forest.
• Miles Gloriosus:
  • Scourge used to be one, claiming to have killed foxes and ripped teeth out of the mouth of dogs. Then he Took a Level in Badass and was actually able to do the stuff he claimed to be able to do.
  • In Onestar's Confession, Onepaw exaggerates stories of his life in the Clan, making it sound like one full of battle and excitement where he's a brave hero. (For instance, an incident where ShadowClan accidentally crossed the border and the patrols only unsheathed their claws was spun into a tale about a fierce battle where Onepaw saved Deadfoot's life.)
• Mind Screw: Jayfeather's visions in Night Whispers. You can't even tell they're visions until they're over.
• Mirror Character:
  • The majority of the plot for the second half of The New Prophecy is about how similar Brambleclaw is to Hawkfrost and how they are, in turn, like their father.
  • Firestar has been compared to Tigerstar (since they are both somewhat ambitious) and Scourge (Since they are unknowingly related, and the author's note at the beginning of Rise of Scourge talks about how the author wanted to take a character born with the same gifts as Firestar and give him a more negative upbringing).
• Mirrored Confrontation Shot:
  • The cover◊ of A Dangerous Path, which shows two angry Clans yowling at each other.
  • Two versions◊ of the Chinese-language editions of The Darkest Hour have Firestar and Scourge facing each other; in the first they're just looking forward, while in the second they're ready for battle.
  • The cover of The First Battle◊, which depicts Clear Sky and Gray Wing and their groups facing each other in front of the Great Rock at Fourtrees.
• Misplaced Wildlife: The series was first set in an English forest, with appropriate flora and fauna. However, as the series went on, it began introducing more and more New World animals, culminating in the cats encountering a cougar in the mountains. The authors have since joked that the series takes place on a fictional island on which both British and American wildlife are present. That said, escaped cougars have been seen in Britain.
• Missed the Call:
  • During the story arc of the three, Jayfeather believes that Hollyleaf is the third cat because he and Lionblaze are two of the chosen cats and she's their sister. As it turns out, Hollyleaf was completely normal and the real third wasn't even born yet.
  • Also, in the second arc, the Tribe thinks Stormfur is the chosen "cat with a silver pelt" who was going to save them from Sharptooth because the real silver-pelted chosen one was covered in mud at the time, hiding her fur color.
• The Missing Faction:
  • SkyClan, who were forced to leave the forest after losing their territory. Eventually, however, they were lost from the memory of the living Clans. They would later return to the lake in A Vision of Shadows.
  • WindClan was this for a time in the first series, after ShadowClan drove them out while under the rule of Brokenstar. RiverClan and ShadowClan are pleased at the extra hunting territory at first, but Bluestar convinces the other leaders that it's wrong and gets them to agree that the Clan should be brought back.
• Mistaken for Brooding: In River of Fire Alderheart goes to sit outside when he can't sleep. The usually grumpy Jayfeather comes up to him and, thinking that Alderheart's lovesick for Velvet and considering leaving the Clan, starts praising Alderheart and telling him how much the Clan needs him. Alderheart tries to interrupt several times, and finally at the end explains that he had no intention of leaving and that he was simply deciding how to say goodbye to her. Jayfeather awkwardly thanks him and goes back to bed.
• Mistaken for Insane: Mad Oracle Goosefeather was treated like a lunatic by the rest of ThunderClan, in part due to his old age and erratic behavior. Despite that, however, a lot of his premonitions came true- including the one about Tigerkit being evil.
• Mistaken for Thief: In A Dangerous Path, ThunderClan finds evidence of prey being killed on their territory. Bluestar assumes it's being stolen by WindClan (to the point of accusing them publicly at a Gathering), due to her paranoia/dementia and the fact that one particular example of the prey was the remains a rabbit found on that end of the territory. Fireheart knows that it's likely a dog catching the prey due to other evidence, and arranges for Bluestar to meet with WindClan's leader to discuss it before she can lead an attack on them.
• Mister Big: Scourge. A tiny cat barely larger than a kitten, but also the leader of BloodClan and universally feared by all who know of him, and for good reason. No one is either brave or stupid enough to joke about his size, particularly since he uses it to great effect in combat, by slipping out of holds and generally being faster than his opponent.
• Mister Muffykins: These appear a couple times. It's a relief to the cats to be facing such a small dog, since they often can scare it away, as opposed to the much larger dogs that local humans usually own.
• Mondegreen Gag: In Crookedstar's Promise, barn cat Fleck mishears Crookedkit and thinks that the Moonstone (a place where warriors communicate with their ancestors) is the Foodstone. Prompts the hilarious line "Is there a Foodstone as well as a Moonstone?"
• Monster Brother, Cutie Sister: Mothwing is a pretty and kind she-cat who becomes a medicine cat, while her brother Hawkfrost is noted as looking dangerous as soon as he first appears in the books. It's later revealed that he wishes to follow in their evil father's pawsteps, and to do this he manipulates her to use her position to his advantage and plans a coup.
• The Mole: Ivypool becomes one of these after she learns that the Dark Forest, a place where she is training, is plotting to destroy the Clans. She stays with the Dark Forest so that she can give their information to Jayfeather, Lionblaze and Dovewing. Tigerheart was also a spy against the Dark Forest all along.
• Monster Is a Mommy: The badger and her cubs in Twilight, and the dead fox and its cubs in The Sight.

• More Insulting than Intended: In "Into the Wild", Firepaw the former housepet and newbie warrior gets into a fight with a grumpy, elderly cat named Yellowfang. Yellowfang tells Firepaw that he's "dithering like a kittypet!", which makes him fear that she smells human scent on him. She realises she's offended him (but doesn't realise why) and keeps teasing him by mentioning housepets.
• Most Writers Are Human:
  • The cats have such human-like qualities and intelligence that they can do dexterous actions like splinting a broken leg. The cats also live in Clans (unlike real cats) and the bad guys are racist. The author even says she doesn't think about cats when coming up with ideas, giving them more humanity-based themes.
  • Poppy seeds are used in the series as a sedative/painkiller. While poppy is sometimes used in painkillers for humans, it's actually poisonous to cats.
  • A more obvious example: Firestar's most distinguishing feature is his red pelt and an entire prophecy revolves around it. In Real Life, cats can't see red.
• Motor Mouth: Crookedstar's apprentice Sedgepaw. The narration even describes her as "chattering like a blackbird".
  Crookedjaw's head was spinning. "Slow down," he meowed.
  "Sorry!" Sedgepaw flattened her ears. "I know I talk too much but I just want to be the best apprentice. I'm so glad you're my mentor. You're the strongest cat in RiverClan, except Rippleclaw, but he's old - not an elder or anything - but you're younger and you remember what it's like to be a 'paw. And I'm going to listen to everything you tell me..."
• The Mourning After:
  • Fireheart has a crush on Spottedleaf. The two never talked about having a relationship while she was alive, but after she dies, he mourns her for a long time. Whenever he sees her in his dreams, it's mentioned that he always feels the pain of her death as if she's just died. It's only after seasons later, when other cats tell him to open his eyes up to the present - and Spottedleaf herself visits him in his dreams and gives her blessing for him to have another relationship - that he falls in love with Sandstorm.
  • This also happens to Graystripe and Silverstream. After she rescues him from drowning, Silverstream and Graystripe start to sneak off to see each other, and fall in love. Silverstream later dies giving birth to his kits. Graystripe never really gets over this, even when he got a new mate, Millie, he admits that he's still in love with Silverstream, and that he dreams about her frequently; and wishes that he didn't have to wake up from those dreams.
• Multi-Animator Project: Has its own page.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Rock. Is he the Guardian of the Tunnels from the Ancients, the first Stoneteller, an immortal cursed to be unable to save the Clans from their fate, a ghost, the Keeper of the Prophecies, the Creator of The Three, or some combination of these things? Not even Word of God can decide.
• Mundane Made Awesome:
  • The climax of The Fourth Apprentice, where Jayfeather breaks his stick. It is the most dramatic scene about a cat breaking a piece of wood in half that you will ever read.
  • Scourge saying his name in The Rise of Scourge is probably the most badass shot of a cat introducing himself you'll ever see. It even turns up the awesome by using random flashbacks.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Dovewing has Super-Senses that allow her to see pretty much the entirety of the lake territories. She often uses them so that she knows when her crush is leaving for their meetings and can beat him there. Just to mess with him.
  • Leafpool at one point uses her Twin Telepathy with Squirrelflight to check the weather outside.
• Murder by Inaction:
  • Tigerclaw attempts to murder Fireheart in this way at least two times: in Fire and Ice, Tigerclaw lets Fireheart nearly be killed by Leopardfur; in Forest of Secrets, Fireheart falls in a river and nearly drowns while Tigerclaw watches, but Longtail saves him.
  • In Mapleshade's Vengeance, Mapleshade believes the deaths of her kits to be this: Frecklewish was watching to make sure Mapleshade left the territory when exiled, saw them swept into the river, and left. Frecklewish said she'd seen RiverClan warriors on the other side, and assumed that they'd be saved and she never wanted them to die; this is also what she told her own Clan. It's not clear if Frecklewish was lying or not, as we're limited to Mapleshade's POV and she was only aware of RiverClan once they pulled her out of the water.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: This is generally what the majority of the characters seem to think is the best solution to everything. Oddly enough, the fans tend to agree with them. Notable in that this is never played for laughs.
• Murder Makes You Crazy: Hollyleaf goes mentally downhill after killing Ashfur to preserve the secret of her true parentage, though part of this is her feelings of betrayal and being born a crime stemming from that parentage reveal. By the end of her breakdown, she ends up revealing the secret to everyone despite killing to keep it.
• Mutual Kill:
  • In A Dangerous Path, Bluestar hurls herself at a dog to knock it over the edge of the gorge, where it'll drown. She lands safely on the edge, but the dog grabs her leg and pulls her in afterward as it falls, where she drowns as well.
  • An odd example occurs in the climax of The Darkest Hour. Firestar, the protagonist, is killed by the villainous Scourge. However, Firestar literally has nine lives, and he gets back up to continue fighting. With the warriors of StarClan at his side, Firestar realizes that Scourge does not believe in StarClan, and only has to die once. Thus Firestar is able to defeat and kill Scourge. So both combatants die, but one is okay.
  • In one of stories told in Code of the Clans, ShadowClan's new leader died before receiving her nine lives and before naming her successor. To solve this problem, two cats called Jumpfoot and Mossfire fought over the leader position. Unfortunately, they both died of the wounds they received while fighting each other, and the medicine cat had to take action to choose ShadowClan's next leader. This resulted in a law being added to the warrior code that the new deputy must be named before moonhigh.
  • At the end of The Last Hope, Firestar confronts the vengeful spirit of his archnemesis Tigerstar. Firestar manages to destroy Tigerstar's spirit, ridding the Clans of him once and for all. However, Firestar dies from the wounds Tigerstar inflicted on him during the battle.
  • In The First Battle, brother and sister, Jackdaw's Cry and Falling Feather, end up fighting and killing each other.
  • At the end of Shattered Sky, Onestar and his son Darktail fight each other further and further out into the lake until eventually both of them go under and neither one surfaces.
  • Shadowstar and Quick Water both kill each other during a fierce battle between the two.
  • At the end of A Light In The Mist Bristlefrost pulls Ashfur's sprit into the Dark Forest waters, erasing them both from existance.
• Mutually Unequal Relationship: Bluestar believed Tigerclaw to be her faithful deputy despite Fireheart's warnings that he was evil. Tigerclaw just saw her as a weak leader who needed to be disposed of to get himself the leadership.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: Most main characters will end up appearing with StarClan (or in Tigerstar and Hawkfrost's case, the Dark Forest) at some point after they die. The best example of this trope is Spottedleaf, who has appeared in almost every single book in the series(at least before her fading away in The Last Hope), even though she died in the very first book.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Lionblaze does this a lot in the latter half of Power of Three, usually after he loses control of himself, or during one of his homicidal Nightmare Dreams.
  • Brambleclaw also thinks this when he accuses Leafpool of revealing the badger attack to the other medicine cats. Bonus points for realizing that he made things worse by telling Hawkfrost, who told ShadowClan in return. Because of this, he couldn't apologize to Leafpool or else he would reveal he and his brother were visiting Tigerstar.
  • Clear Sky gets this at the end of The First Battle, realizing that his fear of others dying had made him a monster, obsessed with order and borders. He, along with the other founders, promises to make things right after the battle at Fourtrees.
• My Instincts Are Showing: The Clan and Tribe cats have complex societies and mythology, but they're still governed by their instincts. They're a Proud Warrior Race precisely because they have the instincts to protect their territory and family, even from peers. They also have a natural drive to hunt and fight, aside from a few cats (predominantly ones who end up becoming medicine cats).
• My Master, Right or Wrong: Leaders have supreme authority, and their orders are followed, no matter how insane or evil they are. It is, in fact, one of the laws of the warrior code.
• My Secret Pregnancy:
  • Leafpool hides her pregnancy from everyone but Squirrelflight, who then raises the kits as her own. Justified in the sense that Leafpool was a medicine cat and could not have kits. Also, the father was from WindClan.
  • Yellowfang also hides her pregnancy from the rest of her Clan, but not from the father, Raggedstar. Then again, she was also a medicine cat.
  • Dovewing hides her pregnancy from her Clan in the sixth series, since the father is from another Clan.
• Mysterious Past: Rock and Midnight. They pretty much say that they've been around since the beginning of time, but it's not revealed exactly what they are.
• Mystical Cave:
  • The cave Mothermouth houses a giant crystal below a hole in its roof. At moonhigh, a beam of light illuminates the crystal; if cats touch it during this time, they fall asleep and their souls wake up in StarClan, where they can receive visions and messages from their ancestors. While the Clans still lived in the forest, it was traditional that every apprentice make the (day-long) trek to Mothermouth before they became a full warrior. Of course, humans only see Mothermouth as a derelict old mine.
  • SkyClan, being distant from the forest, has its own sacred place. The Cave Of Whispers, so called because of the faint voices that echo off its walls, serves both as a place where medicine cats can meet StarClan and a source of oddly glowing moss (valuable for bandaging wounds and carrying water to invalids). Only when someone falls asleep in the cave do the voices become loud enough to recognize- they're of SkyClan ancestors.
  • The Tribe of Rushing Water lives in a waterfall cave among mountains. Most of the cave is set aside for mundane purposes (dens, storage, etc), but at the back there's a small hidden room where water forms a still pool. The Tribe's leader sees omens in this pool.

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