#wc analysis

[maribii]

squirrelstar's lowkey that one grandparent who says to her grandchildren "whatever you do, DON'T get with man. focus on your education and career. dont even look at them. promise me" i love her

[bearfrosts]

Okay I didn't want to put this on the art post so I'm making a new one bc I actually like Needlepaw's arc and this is a shallow analysis that doesn't take into account the nuance of the character beyond a single scene. @needlefail

Needlepaw was absolutely, in part, responsible for splitting Twigkit and Violetkit. She wasn't the final arbiter of the decision, of course, but we can glean some information the authors were trying to convey about her intentions through the way she is presented at the Gathering and in the aftermath.

The two paragraphs above tell us that Needlepaw is 1) surprised, concerned, or upset that the kits are with Alderpaw, and 2) unwilling to communicate with Alderpaw. At this point, we can only speculate as to why that is, until the Gathering begins.

Rowanstar brings up the quest immediately, which only Needlepaw could have explained to him. Alderpaw reacts to him in relief specifically because Needlepaw didn't bring up SkyClan. However, it's clear that she brought up the kits, and it's clear she in some way made it seem like she was responsible for them. This tracks with her earlier and later behavior, in which she WAS responsible for the kits, and her desire to make a name for herself within the clan.

This is re-established here, where Rowanstar explicitly reveals his knowledge of Needlepaw's role in finding the kits and that she had a part in caring for them.

From here, the Gathering devolves, and Needlepaw of course says nothing (the leaders are arguing; I don't expect apprentices to be saying anything). She is nowhere near Alderpaw at the time so we have no scope of her actual feelings on this until...

This. Alderpaw's speculation based on Needlepaw's behavior comes to a close in these paragraphs. We can infer a few things from this.

First, Needlepaw is loyal to ShadowClan. Obviously we see struggles with this as she gets older, and this series of events likely affected that. She clearly explained the whole quest to Rowanstar—which, of course, I'm not blaming her for in the slightest, that's reasonable—and embellished her own actions.

Second, she could be upset, or she could be angry with herself here for inadvertently helping separate the kits. This is something we don't get an answer for in this book, so let's head on over to the next, when Alderpaw meets Needlepaw again in ShadowClan.

Now we can see that she is proud of her actions and what she did. She doesn't care about splitting the kits up (literally not even a little bit) based on her words here, and she has not actually continued to care for Violetkit in the time she's been back at ShadowClan. In fact, it appears she has little concern for Violetkit outside of how it benefits her own reputation within the clan—

—and with Alderpaw.

This paragraph solidifies what we inferred about how Needlepaw saw Violetkit by showing us how Violetkit is behaving. In their separation, Twigkit has become well adjusted due to the support and care she received from both Lilyheart and Alderpaw, in a clan that fully supported her. Violetkit, however, received the bare minimum care from Pinenose, a queen who has little interest in treating Violetkit as a rightful member of her nest, and saw no additional support from Needlepaw, who brought her to the clans in the first place.

This confirms that Needlepaw wasn't obscuring much with her words in the prior excerpts, which could have absolutely been a possibility, considering this is all in Alderpaw's POV.

I could certainly go on about Needlepaw and Violetkit as this book continues, and how their relationship evolves through Needlepaw's immature selfishness and Violetkit's deep loneliness, leading to their unhealthy bond, but I'll stop here.

Needlepaw was not responsible for splitting the kits up directly, but her actions absolutely led to it, and she expressed no remorse over the situation in the way Alderpaw did. It is absolutely the fault of Rowanstar and Mistystar for choosing to separate the kits, but remember that Rowanstar knew nothing of the quest before Needlepaw communicated the events to him, and again, we can infer that her story was embellished and that she likely presented it as she consistently does through these books—she found a Special Kit for ShadowClan. That absolutely does not mean that Rowanstar should have taken her word and decided that separating two kits was a good idea. I don't necessarily even believe Needlepaw would have insisted upon it had the concept not been suggested, though even if she did, again, she was functionally a child at this time as well and her outlook should have been understood as immature by the leaders.

Tl;dr I don't think Needlepaw was directly responsible for it, but I also think it's a bit silly to act like she wasn't involved. She is a deeply interesting character, and the way the fandom seems to wide-brush paint her as a generally benevolent older sister figure to Violetkit erases so much nuance to her and her actions.

[loulou3010]

I've always wanted to talk about the leafpool and starclan controversy so i made this fanart and therefore i wanna analyse it .the cat in the drawing is leafpool ,her eyes are being covered by starclan cats (the paws covering her eyes) .This is refering to starclan manipulating her and basically forcing her two give the three to squirrelfight . Honestly i wanted to depict that cause it's such an important plot to the story .I always hated how the treated her . Leafpool is honestly one of my favourite characters and she deserved so much better

[nightly-ruse]

Sorry I don’t like Brambleflower as a fix for canon Bramble. I just can’t separate the canon Bramble from any fanon bettered version for him. I get why he’s even named flower as a nod to his mother instead of father but it just does not suit him at all for me.

(Pretty long idc read if you want just know this is a Bramble hate post and I mean every word in here.)

To me honestly while I hate this character with a burning passion his character and what he does expands every cat around him a lot.

What he does to Squirrelflight is sickening but it builds her story, shows clear abuse from a husband and powerful figure which can then be twisted into her realizing this and overcoming him. She finally breaks after being screamed at by her own daughter about Bramblestar’s abuse and forces him to step down. She makes him retire, clawing him down ever life he has till he’s nothing but a old fool. Before taking leadership for herself and truly bringing Thunderclan into a golden age.

His children. The three love him, he’s their dad they look up to him a lot so much so they don’t see the little things he does to their mom. Until the secrets revealed. Hollyleaf feels shame crawling under her pelt every time she tries to meet his eyes until at last she tells him the truth. He goes cold and draws back. Blaming Squirrelflight first as always and the two concoction a plan to reveal it at the gathering to show everyone what liars Leafpool and Squilf are. When it is revealed Bramble strips Squirrel of her deputyship, breaks off their partnership, and denounces their children as ever his. He never treats any of three as his own family again even being quite horrible to them.

Now his Children by blood are different. He knows they are his he can see it clearly but he can’t love them. They don’t feel like his and they never will. While he nitpicks every thing that Squirrelflight does around them he barley even visits them. He pushes his son into the healer role because he doesn’t think he’s strong enough. And while he loves his daughter for being a natural talent he pushes her hard to be even better. Eventually cracking into the whole family split to side with their mother and begging her to end her partnership with Bramble. Even if he’s their dad he’s never felt like one truly certainly not like how she’s always been their mom.

And honestly it’s not just his family who are effected. He makes rash spiteful decisions fully fueled by emotions all the time as well as leaving so much onto his deputy. He’s a horrible leader, a horrible father, a horrible mate, and a selfish cat by heart. He likes to control others even if he doesn’t know it. He’s possessive and can’t let anyone leave him, refusing to let Squilf out of his claws, grabbing onto any trace of family he believes he has in Hawkfrost’s case even refusing to listen to anyone when they are clearly right.

This is far too long and I also have a splitting headache so take that into mind as I cut myself off here even though I have so many more thoughts I’d like to say. This isn’t a hate to the whole concept of ‘Brambleflower’ it’s just how I see it and his character. In my best case scenario to me, Squilf drags him down out of power and out of TC with the help of her real support system, he’s gone and while he does realize his mistakes he also pities himself for them. He’s never truly good and never can be, good Bramble died in that fire as a apprentice and what’s left is a charred toxic husk that’s there to blister anyone who tries to stand too close, or those he refuses to let go.

[cheesepaw]

blackclaw is such a hater and it’s so funny cause he’s like that til he dies

-stubborn enough to be rude towards fireheart and graystripe after they save the lives of his kits and accuses the two of stealing them, even though riverclan is literally flooding and both fire and gray are soaking wet

-protests against windclan wanting to drink water and accuses them of wanting to steal riverclan prey (despite nobody from the three other clans knowing how to fish)

-helps hawkfrost spread rumors about mistyfoot behind her back (she’s his mate btw)

-thinks that brook should be exiled from riverclan because she chased a squirrel over the shadowclan border

-yells at mistyfoot for voicing her opinion

-thinks that onewhisker and ashfoot should die so mudclaw can become leader

-tries to get pouncetail to kill an innocent shadowclan warrior

karma is real though cause he chokes on mud in mothwing’s secret 😭

[sp1resong]

idk if this is an unpopular opinion but jayfeather x half moon has always rubbed me the wrong way,, like the concept isn't awful but like. she fully thought that this was a guy she grew up with, and not his reincarnation from the future who has no memory of her. i would've been neutral/somewhat-positive-but-it-clashes-with-my-hcs on the ship if he'd actually told her about the time-travel situation, but as it stands it's just. weird

[mandareeboo]

I know you're not doing the unpopular opinions thing anymore, but I still feel the need to share mine: I really think that the Warriors series should've ended with Omen of the Stars (Dawn of the Clans and Bramblestar's Storms notwithstanding, as the former is a prequel series and the latter acts as a sort of epilogue to OotS). (1/2)

I mean, while I'll still read them when they come out, I feel like A Vision of Shadows and The Broken Code really seem like the Erins are scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of plot. They just feel like asspulls to me. While they could still write supplementary materials to expand on characters and such, I really do feel like they should've done what they did with Seekers and Survivors and ended the series where it seemed natural for it to end (the literal battle between Heaven and Hell) 

Oh, big mood. Like I love a lot of the characters in the newer stories- I’m not into Broken Code yet, but Alderheart and Needletail and co are really good!- but the plotlines themselves are so boring. 

And, honestly, I wish SkyClan had stayed in the gorge? It gave them such a special history and setting.

[maribii]

i always loved squirrelstar btw. loved her when she was a "know-it-all" apprentince, loved her when she was a warrior and i loved her when she became a leader. i believe that squirrelstar was more of a mother to hollyleaf than leafpool would ever be but that is not her fault. i believe leafpool would have been the best mother if she could, but she did the best she could have as an "aunt." I did not hate squirrelstar when she was an "annoying" child because she was a child. instead i hate how firestar treated her when she got close to brambleclaw like it was his fault his father was who he was. warrior cats has a running theme of blaming children for the actions of their parents when they could disect that bias and teach the children right from wrong and mistakes from unjustified actions. and it also has a running theme of making those children the shadow of their parents, not the same but not much different, either. i didnt just start liking squirrelstar when she became more "mature" as a leader, i loved her head-strong attitude and her ambition to help people beyond the set rules. that is what makes her like her father and firestar knew it.