Hoooookay, so, “defanging Clan culture”. This is something I’ve noticed pervasive in a lot of people’s propositions for “a better Clan culture” (and by extension, other societies like the Tribe and the Sisters). They see the unfairness either consciously or unconsciously built into the societies and go, “That’s bad,” and reactionarily erase it from their own work. The Clans forbid medicine cats from having families for stupid reasons, so these medicine cats can have families. Adoption is treated weirdly by canon, so these Clans have Correct™ ways of viewing adoption. I could go on.
However, the end result is an unrealistically utopic society. The code is designed to be free from abuse; not a single bad thought enters the head of a character unless The Plot Demands So; toms, mollies, and jacks have nothing stopping them from filling any role; everyone regardless of age, gender, ability status, background, sexual orientation, mental status, etc, is happy because this society welcomes and accepts all.
I’ll take my leave before the flowers start singing.
Now, if you just want to experiment with an idealized Clan culture with zero shades of darkness, more power to you.
But I think something a lot of people are misguided on is that a well-built setting doesn’t necessarily mean a utopic one. Many stories have unfair aspects to their fictional societies, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with depicting these or having a protagonist who believes in something counter to what we do, even if said protagonist never changes their opinions on it by book or series’ end (especially in adult media, and to a lesser extent in YA).
What I think is more constructive and elevates worldbuilding is instead to work out the “why is it like this” and the “how did it come to be like this” and delve further into the “what if it was…”. Take medicine cats not having families, for instance: canon’s “why” and “how” are very similar, “a medicine cat couldn’t be a mom and a doctor and so forbade anyone else from having a family.” Most of us find that very stupid. A reactionary approach would just go, “a medicine cat can have a family,” but a reconstructive approach would integrate medicine cats’ celibacy into the culture by instead going, “medicine cats cannot build families for a religious reason; they are to be as detached from the moral realm as possible so they can remain attuned to their warrior ancestors, and this attunement is muddied by indulging in earthly things like raising a family.” Unfair? Yes, but it’s good worldbuilding.
Before someone puts words in my mouth, what I’m not saying is, “I think the Clans need to be grimmdark,” but what I am saying is, “think about how the Clans (or Tribe or Sisters or whatever) would realistically view X or Y and how they interconnect with other aspects of their culture.” It’s okay for a society to still need growing up to do; aren’t we all like that?
Side-note before I finish: while thinking about this in relation to canon Warriors, it came to me that part of the reason why we as the readers are so miffed at why the code hasn’t been changed to alleviate inter-Clan relationships despite constant drama surrounding them (ignoring the aspect that the authors love forbidden romance), is because it keeps getting shoved in our faces so often and constantly abused for drama. Had forbidden relationships not be used so often as instigators of drama, I don’t think we would’ve spurred the Erins into addressing it in TBC and ASC.
