Ranking Warriors Villains by how Progressive They Are
Is this a bad idea? Absolutely. Is this shitpost bound to backfire? Absolutely. Is analyzing progressivity through the lens of several different Warriors villains who veer hard right kind of fun? ...Absolutely.
Shitpost (sort of) taken seriously at an attempt at character analysis. Spoilers for the entire series below the cut.
Brokenstar: 2/10. He hates children and old people. He wants to use child soldiers and old people who don’t get tax benefits or healthcare in his government. However. He does have a gay male base of support. It’s mostly Blackstar, who has bad taste in men, but I’ll give Brokenstar a pity point for that small crumb of progressiveness. Although gay henchman killing old ladies is not a win u_u.
Tigerstar: 4/10. Tigerstar does not care what gender or sex you are, as long as you are useful to him. You are a business asset, and Tigerstar does not believe in using bad assets. However, he also is a tyrant who wants to remake the Clans into his own image and achieve his own vision of what greatness is because he is a malignant narcissist who cannot conceive of someone else above him. This is how Scourge got a 1-hit kill. He would totally do corporate pride until it wasn’t profitable.
Scourge: 3/10. Like Tigerstar, Scourge doesn’t see cats as individuals. They’re pawns. Frankly, I don’t think he cares at all in general, and even less about his group. It’s about power to him, to make himself feel the biggest threat out there. Unfortunately, Scourge is not running a proletariat uprising, but a mafia built on fear and despair.
Hawkfrost: 6/10. Hawkfrost is much like Tigerstar in that he sees cats as pawns, but his style is more psychological. He would use progressiveness as just another tool. It’s no problem for him to use his bisexuality to manipulate toms (like Mudclaw) into recruitment for his ambitions. He doesn’t care if an impressionable minor like Ivypaw develops a crush on him, because he can use those emotions to further his agenda against the Clans. But do I think he would have progressive tendencies? ...If they suited his goals. I think he’s a people (cat?) pleaser, and if the tides went swimmingly (hah), it would be useful for his path to power.
Sol: 5/10. Sol is dangerous in that he is the “so-called” liberal who wants to change the structure of society and rebuild it from the ground up. But this is a bald-faced lie, and the mysterious guy who’s talking about class consciousness you kind of agree with is actually running a cult. This promise of change built on a lie shows the ugly truth that Sol is yet another wannabe dictator who only cares about destroying the institutions so he can become the new institution. This is why you must always beware liberal men. However. He makes a good point with the power structure that StarClan holds over the Clans. And the whole thing with Blackstar. This is because Blackstar has bad taste in men.
Hollyleaf: 5/10. As a person with a degree in Hollyleaf, I regret to inform you that she’s not as progressive as people want to believe. In fact, I’d liken her stances in PoT to Christian fundamentalist ideology. Do I think she stays this way? No. But she’s not making a hard pivot from far right to far left. She’s a pretty centrist character who builds her beliefs on order and stability. However. I do think she has a capability to embrace major societal change so as long as it abides by those principles of stability. If returning to the status quo means more instability, she will make the radical decision instead (see Dark River and Eclipse). She operates by logic and what makes sense to her.
Ashfur: 2/10. Ashfur is the guy who claims to totally be "woke" to date women, but as soon as they say something to him he doesn’t like, the mask slips off very quickly. He’ll tell you he loves Squirrelflight, except the part where he’s so obsessed with Squirrelflight that he’ll suppress her personality to keep her close. He loves the idea of her, not her as a character. He’d rather possess her than love her. And eventually, that obsession turns to rage, and that rage becomes entitlement. And that entitlement becomes mental instability.
Mapleshade: 3/10. Mapleshade is a classic case of "the victim becomes the perpetrator", and the cycle repeats. I regret to inform people that I don’t think Mapleshade is very progressive. She brutally tortured Frecklewish, Appledusk only died because he was in the way of Reedshine, her true target, and she almost drowned Ivypaw. She is much more malicious towards women in both her story and later books. Just as well, her abuse of Crookedstar as a kit was a form of grooming. Instead, I think she is shaped by the attitudes of her time, and has never grown as a character as she is too stuck in her cycle of abuse and hate to let go.
Thistleclaw: 1/10. This guy is a fascist. I’m not even being facetious. He is as far right as you can go. I’m trying to think of any point he shows any smidge of progressiveness. Uh,,, he’ll mentor girls and teach them to disembowel their Clanmates. Gooooooo girl power… .
Slash: 1/10. This fucking guy…literally one of his biggest character traits is he wants to kidnap Star Flower because she’s pretty and he’s entitled to her. It’s like they made the most misogynist character possible that yells “I AM VERY EVIL” at periodic occasions.
Darktail: 5/10. Darktail is a lot like Tigerstar, Hawkfrost, and Sol in how he operates. That is: he has sociopathic traits. I don’t think he sees his group as anything beyond something to maintain hegemony over. He’ll easily turn on them if they become a liability or no longer useful. He’s not above using cats’ affections to manipulate them, such as Sleekwhisker. He’s not above getting his paws dirty either. However, he does have the capability to feel some form of familial affection, such as with Violetpaw, but that affection is quickly lost when Violetpaw is no longer loyal. Darktail strongly values loyalty in his cats, to the point they are all marked the same as a sign of unity (and possession). So any progressiveness from him is likely a strategy to retain his followers and that feeling of loyalty. The ShadowClan apprentices wanted radical change, but Darktail never cared about that. He just wanted to see the Clans perish, and maybe create a pseudo “family” (who can only leave him through death).
Curlfeather: 7/10. The thing about Curlfeather is that her plan was going smoothly, until Splashtail ruined it all. I genuinely think she would have made a good leader, and could implement the change she wanted that wasn’t seen under Mistystar. She’s smart enough to recognize her vices and reign them in to achieve her goals. However, I don’t think this golden age would last long, because of her manipulative tendencies. She sealed her fate to die when she indoctrinated Splashpaw into joining her plan. So yes, she could create a RiverClan utopia. But it would crumble as soon as her subordinate no longer wanted to play her game. She also is unlikely to grow or change as a character because she has no remorse for her actions, only that her plans failed and Frostdawn got hurt.
Berryheart: 3/10. Barbara here is several Republican stereotypes all at once, but what gets me is that she does have a point about Tigerstar. The rest of the Clan really don’t have a say in the leader’s decisions. So even if her decision is as horrible as “I wanna ban foreigners from dating my son”, there is no choice besides Tigerstar’s decision. Her motivations are terrible, but her logic is sound in how the Clans are monarchal in structure. I’m not sure what changed for her to become who she is, but I strongly suspect the events of aVoS, which was led by an outsider cat who led her Clan to ruin. A group she was part of that killed her fellow Clanmates. And it’s tragic, because she had so many chances to change. But she couldn’t let go of her hatred and the trauma of that event. Hurt people hurt people.
Splashtail: 3/10. This guy…he has no values. Nothing. He’s chaos incarnate, a beast unleashed that Curlfeather created that becomes Frostdawn’s problem. He exists as entropy itself, and the only grounding factor against him is death. He doesn’t care about anything or anyone, not power, not glory, not status. At most you could say he doesn’t like to be beneath others or thought lowly of. Progressiveness to him is just a Thing. He wants to be a Hawkfrost, but even Hawkfrost can’t be a Hawkfrost. Darn :(
Morningkit: This is a fetus, she’s too young to vote.
The moral of the story: Blackstar has horrible taste in men.
The idea of “no one” supporting Ashfur in TNP after Squirrelflight dumps him makes me wonder if it’s a time thing because if he lived to throw the same fit in OOTS would Bumblestripe and everyone who harassed Dovewing be like “yeah Squirrelflight you NEED to date Ashfur he’s a nice guy” or the modern clans where he could’ve probably rallied like 12 apprentices to “fix” it😭😭
Yes tbc exists but that’s already crazy and dead Ashfur not the seemingly well adjusted to everyone else actual deputy candidate Ashfur in TNP
Ashpaw & Fernpaw designs I made a while ago for my WCA application. + Lil animation of them playing because I love baby kitties acting like such. I refined this concept with more recent character pages that I will post someday.
