Hijacking this particular post to jump into the "Spottedleaf Retcon" conversation happening on the dash right now, because I want every word I add to be prefaced by This.
While Firepaw essentially had a crush on Spottedleaf from the first minute he sees her, I do think the mutual return of those feelings was a "retcon" in some way. It's one of these two things;
The writer didn't initially have them in mind when first having Spottedleaf interact with him, but added them after she had already died during the course of TPB.
The writer had them in mind all along, but didn't properly set them up in Book 1 during Spottedleaf's brief life, and so was made to add them later.
She dies in the first book to provide an emotional loss for Firepaw, so that he and you as a reader have a personal connection to the dead cats of StarClan. Her absence then provides a "place" for Yellowfang as the new medcat of ThunderClan, and her presence as a ghost guides the main character through the story's supernatural elements.
This was her role as a character, her purpose as a narrative element.
(and, personally, it's why im obsessed with her in my personal fanwork. characters who spend more time in the narrative dead rather than alive make me go feral.)
Misogyny in media isn't typically entirely black and white, "bad" and "good" writing, The Right Choice for the story and the Wrong Choice for the story, they're simply connected. The poem Matsuda wrote is uninterested in the quality-- maybe that "plot twist" did pay off. Maybe that was the "very best idea" anyone could think of. At the end of the day, the boy is brimming with life and the girl is dead and it isn't shocking because we've seen this many times before.
Misogyny is mostly about trends.
In WC, important women characters are always given a story involving romance and/or children. Even Hollyleaf, Ivypool, and Twigbranch ended up with male love interests, in spite of their "main" plot being non-romantic-- no matter how nonsensical, sudden, lacking in chemistry, or pointless (fallen leaves) that choice was.
Erin Hunter (as a collection of writers, both pre and post Vicky) are obsessed with women as romantic interests.
So Canon!Spottedleaf, to me, is another great example of that.
She dies and the way they think is optimal for you to miss her is as dead possible love interest. They're not interested in the fact she was groomed by Thistleclaw (if they even realized it before the backlash), or that there's something grim in her seeing a teenager the way her predator once saw her. The irony of her life ending bloody in spite of her running to the role to escape violence isn't even on their radar.
A woman character who dies early in the series and becomes a spiritual guide to the POV... and what the writers find the most fascinating about this concept is how stupid and idiotic she is for loving the wrong men.
Not only is she nothing but a vessel for mutual pining, they disrespect her for it.
So... unlike some others in my orbit, I can understand "the hate" as annoyance with the constant romance that gets dragged onto the screen when she, as a character, is present. They're narrative tools, after all, not real people.
But man, when I think about Canon!Spotty I just get really sad. I can't get angry at her, just the generally misogynistic writing of the series.
jacobvanloon
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