Warrior Cats/Headscratchers

• When Rusty first meets the Warrior Cats, Bluestar calls him by his kittypet name. How would she know that his name was Rusty? Also, it is only this one time, and the remainder of the time, it would appear that she does not know his name until she names him Firepaw. However, she clearly does.

"You are an unusual kittypet, Rusty."

• • It's revealed in Bluestar's Prophecy she had been stalking him. Someone might have mentioned his name.
  • In Bluestar's Prophecy, Bluestar meets Rusty/Firepaw/Fireheart/Firestar's father, Jake. He probably mentioned the name at some point.
• Why do the humans cut down the whole forest just to build one road in the "New Prophecy"? It's too much trouble for them, and the environmental groups would like them better for it anyway.
  • Well, there had just recently been a huge fire, maybe they took down the whole forest because it was right up against a twolegplace and the twolegs thought they were in danger from future fires? Also, the only word we have about the thunderpath is from Midnight, and she may have been not entirely informed or just simplifying it. Maybe they were expanding the twolegplace, not just building a new thunderpath.
• OK, so Tigerstar was pretty much a kitty Hitler, blah blah. Do we ever hear a satisfactory reason why the forest should be subdivided into four clans forever? The constant fighting keeps their skills sharp, I suppose, but non-fighters like Barley can still catch prey perfectly well. It just seems very... unnecessary. Tradition and "because StarClan told us so" aren't very good reasons to me, and the Rule of Drama is only a slightly better one.
  • Starclan needs entertainment in the afterlife. Cooperation isn't exciting.
  • Well, look at us humans. With our technologies and brilliant tools that could possibly feed everyone on this planet are still develpoing weapons and practically "wasting" millions of money that could have gone to feed more mouths.
• Why exactly is "forbidden love" so forbidden, anyway? If the cats only bred within their clans, there'd be heavy inbreeding after only a few generations. Not only that, but cross-clan matings can help improve interclan ties--think marriages between royalty in medieval times. Cats who fall for ones from other clans seem to be able to transfer without too much trouble; it worked for Graystripe a few times, after all. All in all, it seems like the whole issue should be much less dramatic and off-limits than how it's portrayed.
  • It leads to conflict if you don't want to transfer Clans, I imagine. You may eventually have to fight against the one you love in a battle, and not wanting to hurt them because you love them could lead to your Clan losing the battle. It's all about loyalty.
  • I sort of saw it as a rule of sexual conduct that all the cats are "supposed" to follow but has been broken by many cats throughout the history of the Clans (kind of like no sex before marriage in many human cultures). It is those that break the rule that keep the Clans from becoming inbred.
    • Agreed. Remember the "you don't have to tell who the father is" rule? That little allowance probably single-handedly saved the necks of dozens of queens.
  • Not mating with cats from other Clans would result in the cats being inbred. But they don't know that. They know squat about genetics. Firestar's clan may ironically become the strongest over time due to all the kittypet blood.
  • This creates lots of problems. Let's say there is a tom from ShadowClan and a queen from Thunderclan who fall in love. There are a few ways this can pan out.
    • 1) Neither switches Clans, they're forced to fight but cannot.
    • 2) One does switch Clans, and therefore must fight their former friends and relatives.
    • 3) They have kits, which forces one parent to fight his/her kits.
    • 4) They have kits, one goes with the father, the other with the mother. The kits are forced to fight each other.
      • All in all, this code makes a lot of sense. The Code Of the Clans gives the origin story, and because of forbidden love, the tom dies.
      • But only because all the cats insist on being unreasonable and fighting each other and insisting on being separate for no good reason. And even if there was a good reason for only mating within your clan, it would be overruled by the fact that the clans would all die out because of inbreeding.
        • As someone mentioned above, the Clans being separate does make sense. Are all humans completely united? Do we try to feed every single other human? Even people in our own country, our "Clan" go hungry and are killed or attacked by others. Also, keep in mind that leaders won't want to give up power; abdicating to attempt to form a single Clan forces them to give up their own lives and the potential nine lives for future leaders. Also, the Clans strongly dislike one another; they think of each other as being weak, pathetic; they mock one another. Only HUGE threats (like Blood Clan, or the journey to the lake) could let them come together, and then it's only for very short times. Combining the four Clans wouldn't work at all. As for why they didn't join together in the beginning, the original founders probably wanted their own power and territories to command, letting their ambition get in the way of making the choice to create a single Clan.
• Does the Warrior Code strike anyone else as being extremely amorphous and difficult to pin down? I mean, it's constantly, casually broken by everyone, but the cats A) act like the wrath of Starclan will destroy them all if they break the rules (cue forbidden love angst) and B) keep talking about how great it is to have honor and uphold the code, even though it's constantly broken all the time by everyone! Apparently, it's okay to break the rules for stuff like killing, trespassing, starving the elders, and lying to the other Clans at the meet (I.E. greed and cruelty), but not okay for things like medicine cats having kits, or for there to be one single united clan (I. E. tolerance, love, and friendship.) The rule that the word of the Clan leader being the warrior code obviously trumps everything else, but that strikes this troper as less a bushido-esque society and more a tyranny. It got to the point where too much of the drama was a direct result of dumb rules that were only invoked for plot convenience.
  • The medicine cat thing is so very true. Cats that never interacted with anyone involved or never minded Thunderclan's easygoing policy on non-Clanborn cats acted like the sky was falling when Leafpool's affair was revealed.
  • The starving the elders thing was VERY much looked down upon when it happened, and killing isn't usually done by the good cats (though Firestar kills at least two characters, one of them was in the second book and the first two books are very questionable to me). Trespassing will probably get you attacked (unless you keep that stupid two fox-lengths rule...god) and the medicine cat thing seems to mostly have been Leafpool (and Hollyleaf) overreacting. A lot.
• Why do the cats care so much about Starclan and put so much stock by their words? Starclan lies consistently, but insists that the rules have to be upheld because they say so. There must be four clans, but not really, because there were 5, and they just decided not to tell you. When you're in trouble and you ask for their advice, they either tell you that they're powerless or give you extremely baffling and unhelpful prophecy that inevitably makes reference to blood and tragedy. You can't confront them with the idea that Clan law is directly responsible for a large amount of angst and psychotic unhappiness, and its forbidden to suggest a more peaceful route outside clan law, because that would just unspeakable.
  • Cats who don't pay attention to Starclan's rules get struck by lightning or crushed by trees. Also, the cats who follow Starclan tend to win more battles against those who don't.
    • Not really. Whether or not the lightning strike was StarClan's doing or just a coincidence is supposed to be ambiguous, and I have no idea where you're getting the battles thing from. As for why the cats put so much faith in StarClan: it's they're religion. Like most religious people, they believe very strongly in the rules of their religon. Of course, rigidly following the rules all the time doesn't hold the answers, which is kind of what the authors are getting at. StarClan is also portrayed as having limited power over the living world to show that, although there is nothing wrong with faith, relying on it to solve your problems gets you nowhere; ie. God doesn't make miracles happen on a daily basis.
• I don't blame Skyclan for turning their backs on Starclan, because how helpful could they have been when all their territory was destroyed? Yet it's treated as this horrible breach of Warrior culture. How? Wouldn't Starclan's law have been that there must be 5 clans? And then what happened to the 4 Clans who refused to give territory to Skyclan? Wouldn't that have been a much bigger breach of the code than Skyclan abandoning their unhelpful ancestors who abandoned them as soon as conflict arose?
  • Erm, 'unhelpful ancestors'? How helpful do they need to be? They sent warnings to the medicine cats of SkyClan, who intentionally kept this a secret because they thought if they didn't tell any cat it wouldn't come true. (This was revealed in an Erin Hunter chat.) It's pretty clear that StarClan don't have much power to control the real world. They can send prophecies like there's no tomorrow, occasionally control the weather to a limited extent, and speak to their loved ones in times of trouble, but not much else. What could they have done, eaten the Twoleg monsters that chewed up the forest? SkyClan turning their backs on StarClan, while understandable, was a breach of the Code because they expected too much of their ancestors and then abandoned them when StarClan didn't come through for them. That said, the other four Clans refusing to help them was, imo, a much worse breach of the Code; they could have tried to keep five Clans in the forest, but instead they made up stupid reasons not to have to give their territory away.
• What exactly does it mean to be a Warrior, anyway? Loyalty? Loyalty to a leader that would rather let their sick/poisoned/starving elders and kits die rather than "admit to weakness?" (Each one has its turn at the clan meets, which appear to be for the purpose of lying to the faces of your enemies.) Loyalty to ancestors who are powerless, ignorant, and not above lying to you? Loyalty to laws that force you to be enemies even in times of peace? Laws that forbid friendship, goodwill, and even love between separate Clans? It's like the Jedi law: It's okay for them to hate, but not to love. God, no. Warriors, if a Clan dies because of tragedy, neglect, and apathy, that's fine. But don't you dare ruin the sacred laws by making friendships that form us all into one big Clan! Too much of the series's drama was one massive Wall banger for this troper, because it became a Logic Bomb. It's a miracle the cats' society even functions at all, and no small wonder that there's so much upheaval and violence among them. The very foundations of their morality and cultural values are mutable.
  • Well, a single government over that much land wouldn't be all that efficient, plus cats are territorial and presumably can't agree on anything. But the fact that there are laws against goodwill is very stupid, and the fanaticism of their upholding is even worse. Also, I don't think 'warrior' means loyalty. Once the vagueness of the Three's parentage is revealed, Hollyleaf suddenly and decisively acts as though she is not a warrior at all, despite the fact that she was born and raised in a Clan.
    • Cats are territorial, but I can't see them caring about anything beyond just that. A feline serving with slavish devotion to anything, let alone an extremely hindering code of "honor", is enough to shatter this troper's suspension of disbelief. What are the perks of being a warrior? What difference does it make if you follow the code or not, save for being scorned by the peers who are changing the rules on you anyway?
  • I think this is meant to be Deliberate Values Dissonance. Cats are, as mentioned, extremely territorial. Feral cats are known to form small family groups in real life, which is reflected in the Clans, but they see other cats as, first and foremost, competition. Humans don't share the same instinctive territory thing, so while it makes sense to us to form a big, unified group, it doesn't so much to the cats because that clashes with their basic instincts. How well the authors pulled this off is, obviously, up for debate, but that's my take on it.
    • The structure of a real feral colony is nothing like that of the clans. If genuine feral behavior had anything to do with how they organized their territories, I imagine that borders would be unstable, leaders would have to fight their way to the top, elders and queens would not be looked after, cats would probably live separately...like Bloodclan, basically. The forest clans organize more like tribal human societies and the characters themselves act human.
• What's with the Lion/Tiger/Leopard thing? Domestic cats are descended from the small African Wildcat. Is it a case of Did Not Do the Research or did the author just think the African Wildcat wasn't cool enough? And even if the cats were descended from Panthera Awesome, how would they know about them? I'm pretty sure the series doesn't take place in Asia.
  • It's just myths. They weren't actually descended from those cats, but it makes for cool stories for elders to tell kits.
  • Yeah, but the question remains: how do the Clan cats even know about Lions and Tigers? The first series supposedly takes place in England, other series seem to be either in North America or England. Leopards, tigers, and lions are all either found in Asia of Africa. The books indicate that the clan cats are not very worldly: they are mostly concerned with their immediate environment. So how could they know about Old World big cats that they never encountered, and not know what a cougar or even a beaver is?
    • Plot Induced Stupidity, perhaps? I don't know about the cougars and beavers, but since domestic cats are believed to have originated in Egypt, I guess that their ancestors could've seen the lions and leopards there and told their descendants about them...I don't know how to explain the tigers, though, unless the Clans were in India at some point.
  • Let's pretend it's translated from Catspeak to english. The cats describe a large spotted/striped/plain cat in their own language - Catspeak - to english. The cats probably thought they had made these things up in their own minds, but they didn't know that there actually is something that fits that description. It's translated from "Meow big-cat-with-spots Meow" to "Leopard", because that is a term we would understand better.
• Am I the only one bothered that Graystripe is a product of outright Brother-Sister Incest? (His parents are Willowpelt and Patchpelt. Adderfang and Swiftbreeze are their parents, though they had Willowpelt and Patchpelt in two different litters.) Even if the series has very questionable moments, it's still found in the "for kids" sections...
  • The family tree's posted on the web have been said by the authors to be completly wrong.
  • Vicky said she didn't realize it until it was too late. So, don't focus on it much.
    • That said, the fact remains that now it's written, it's canon that Graystripe's parents are siblings. This raises the question of what the cats think of things like this.
• How does SkyClan fit into the Clans' history? The origin of the clans only mentions the original four clans and their first leaders, no mention of a Skystar or Skyclan. However in Code of the Clans it shows that Skyclan existed from fairly early on and helped create the warrior code. Also, how could modern Clan cats be familiar with the stories of how the Code came to be but not know of Skyclan since they're mentioned fairly often.
  • The reason there was no mention of SkyClan during the Clans' formation is because that short story was written before Firestar's Quest. Skystar and the rest of SkyClan have been RetConned into that scene by Word of God.
  • As far as the stories about the Code and why no cats remember SkyClan, I would bet money that the cats did a bit of RetConning themselves. I think a lot of cats felt uneasy about abandoning another Clan to possible death, and so tried to sanitize the past a bit by taking them out of stories. The cats that are alive by Bluestar's time are genuinely unaware that SkyClan existed because it would only take a couple generations for every cat who knew to die off.
• How did Bluestar know so much about vets? I know they phrase it like they only know a little, but the phrase "Still a tom" makes it seem like she knows everything about it. Where would she get this knowledge? Pinestar? If he knew that then why did he risk it happening to him? It also seems like the entire clan has heard of the Cutter by Omen Of The Stars.
  • Interaction with kittypets. ThunderClan's old territory directly bordered a suburb, so it stands to reason they'd have some contact with them (stuck-up Clan attitudes toward kittypets notwithstanding). That, and Firestar was born a kittypet, and by Omen of the Stars he has lived with the Clan for quite a while. They'd probably heard of it from him.
  • What bothers me is how the cats mention a few times that going to the Cutter (ie, getting neutered) makes cats fat and lazy. Don't get me wrong, I can certainly see how cats as intelligent as these would object to being neutered, but the idea that spaying/neutering cats makes them fat and lazy is a myth. I mean, I'm sure that sometimes it happens, but I've known enough cats and dogs that have been neutered to know that it's not even all that likely. So why are the cats perpetrating a human myth that they have no reason to know about?
    • 'Since kittypets are lazy, and many kittypet toms have been to the cutter, the cutter makes them fat and lazy' could well be their reasoning, conscious or otherwise, especially since I wouldn't be surprised if they'd never met a neutered non-kittypet.
• Biggest Wall Banger for this Troper: real cats have a gene that keeps them from tasting sweetness. But Clan cats think berries and honeycomb are "treats" (and Crowfeather can pick up on the scent of wildflowers XD). And apparently, the Clan cats can also see in vivd, glorious HD color, instead of confusing red/green/orange like cats usually do (or not caring about color at all, like cats usually do)...Although it would have been hilarious if Firestar was actually some other color and cats just assumed he was red because Bluestar said he was.
  • The first one is later corrected - in The Sight, honey is described as tasteless. The second, on the other hand, is probably just for convenience. Names would be much less varied if they were missing the ability to see some colors.
    • Actually, it's now thought that cats can taste sweetness, though not very well. And green is one of the colors that cats see best, along with blue. Red, orange, and brown, on the other hand, most likely show up as either gray or purple.
  • Well, Firestar and fire are the same color. It's just that for Bluestar and co., the color they both are is green.
    • That might actually explain why some characters have names that don't match up with their pelt colors.
  • Come on, they're sentient cats and it bothers you that they can see in human colors? To me, (since real life cats do not behave this way at all) this series pretty much has to take place in a fantasy world where apparently cats do behave this way, and apparently they can also see in human colors. Simple.
  • For all we know, "red" and "ginger" could be equivalent to words used by the cats only to describe pelt colors, like "brunette" or "blond" in English. They'd perceive them as the same color as leaves, grass, etc. but just calling them differently, just as in English we usually wouldn't describe someone as having "yellow" hair, but "blond".
  • Wait a second. There was a specific retcon to fix the 'cats tasting sweetness' thing, but at one point there is an apprentice named Sweetpaw. I'm just not sure how Translation Convention fits with a concept that is completely alien to them in the first place. Also, the characters not being able to see in the dark really, really annoys me, especially since they specifically mention night-eyes early on. I can understand the Erins missing things that aren't well-known, like the not-being-able-to-taste-sweetness thing, but not being able to see in the dark? Seriously?'
    • As far as Sweetpaw goes, sweet can easily refer to sweetness of personality, not necessarily a sweet taste. And yeah, the night vision bothers me too.
• Okay, sorry if this pisses you off but...I don't get why Crowfeather and Leafpool were together. The only reason I can see is for them to make babies that will be the next protagonists (That could have easily been Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw's actual kits instead). What Word of God says is that Crow/Feather was just high school love, and that Crow/Leaf was the real deal, didn't make much sense to me either. I could easily see Crowfeather and Leafpool's relationship like it would be in human culture. Popular girl sees angsty boy in corner, both fall in love for no reason. They can't be together for reasons already complained about on this page, so they run away. They have G-Rated Sex and girl gets pregnant. Girl gives up kids when they're born, and they go to pretending the other didn't exist. Sounds more like teen romance gone horribly wrong to me.
  • That bothered me too, man. Why can't ANY of the toms stay faithful to their first girl for that matter? Graystripe with Mille, Fireheart with Sandstorm, Crowfeather with Leafpool like you said, and even Tigerstar and Sasha! Yo, what the hell?!
  • Uh, with the exception of Tigerstar (who is not exactly a paragon of virtue), all of the above-mentioned "first girls" (Silverstream, Spottedleaf, Feathertail, etc) are dead by the time the second relationship happens! You expect them to never have a relationship again their entire lives because their first love died?
    • Exactly. Although, it does make you wonder: what happens when your mate dies, you get a new one, and eventually all three of you are in StarClan together? Many awkward moments ensue?
      • Since Star Clan is basically Heaven, let's turn to the Bible...which states that (under the "if one bride marries a bunch of brothers after they all die" rule), no one is actually "married" in heaven, although everyone is connected.
  • Err, original poster here. My question wasn't aimed at faithfulness towards the first mate, it was more questioning the point of Crowfeather and Leafpool's relationship. For me, it came completely out of nowhere, and served no real purpose.
    • It served the purpose of squirting out protagonists for the next series, is what it did. But yeah, their relationship was not exactly believable to me.
• How about Diseases? Where is all the kitty leukemia, F.I.V, and worms?
  • Someone hasn't been paying attention to all those greencough epidemics...
    • According to Word of God, greencough is most similar to cat flu. So we still have an annoying lack of actual cat diseases here. (Though I do roleplay a BloodClanner with feline hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Long story.)
  • Pebblefur in Code of the Clans is said to have died of an agonizing lump in his belly, clearly meant to be a tumor.
  • Leopardstar died of diabetes.
• In The Darkest Hour, Leopardstar tells Firestar that she sent a patrol beyond Highstones to look for a new place to live (if Blood Clan takes over). What happened to those cats? We never find out. (Although they must not have found the lake.)
  • They must have just not found anything worth mentioning.
• What really bothers me is how the heroes of T Po T treated Leafpool after they found out she was really their mother. Teenage angsting aside, they really couldn't find it in their heart to forgive her? I didn't like Leafpool that much until T Po T Book 6, where how her own kits treated her made her The Woobie in my eyes. Because...damn! That poor cat suffered enough as it is, now her own kits gotta give her a hard time over her decision? What the hell, Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, and Jayfeather?! Especially considering Jayfeather is my favorite, I can't believe he'd be like this, too.
  • Yeah, this has always bothered me as well. Yes, Leafpool and Squirrelflight lied, but I would have thought maybe the kits (the sane two anyway) could eventually realize that it just means that they have three loving 'parents' instead of two. Yes, there's the warrior code thing, but the fact that Squirrelflight didn't give birth to the kits she loved and raised seems to also be interpreted as something that can never be forgiven by the kits and by Brambleclaw, who was possibly more wronged than the kits themselves. His reaction was, in my opinion, more justifiable than the kits', though still sad. And Leafpool, well, she clearly always cared for her kits, yet they act like she purposefully hurt them, and can't forgive her. It's all very sad and unreasonable to me.
    • But so far, as of The Forgotten Warrior, Lionblaze is no longer angry at Squirrelflight or Leafpool.
• How come no Warrior Cats movie? It really bugs me!
  • Maybe any interested studios are waiting for Omen of the Stars to end? Considering the fifth series will be a prequel series, it seems pretty likely...
  • According to the authors, they don't feel like a movie would go over all that well, particularly considering the series family-unfriendly violence, and are worried about it being Bowdlerized beyond recognition. If a studio was willing to take the chance and make a somewhat violent picture, then maybe one would be made, but that's rather unlikely considering the Animation Age Ghetto.
  • I'm actually really glad of the lack of movies. Since the violence, complexity, and number of characters would almost certainly never make it into a movie based on books for 9-12 year-olds, it seems like it'd be for the best. Also, you just know they'd edit it and make 3 books in to like 1 film, cutting out a lot of plot. Even then, they'd never do all the books. And they'd probably do some completely idiotic thing like make all the Shadowclan cats manxes just to make it visually clear who the 'villains' are (and of course Shadowclan would lose any semblance of non-villiandom they get in the books.) I just have virtually no faith in movie adaptations of works I love.
• The author has been really cruel to Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight. They went through all the troubles and suspicions to be finally together after the whole Hawkfrost incident and what do they get? They end up splitting up because the kits they were raising aren't theirs, and I read somewhere that Squirrelflight might not able to have kits of her own, which means that they won't ever have kits, even if they somehow got back together again. I feel really sorry for them.
  • Seconded. I'm hoping they'll get back together eventually. My wish is, since it's been confirmed that Brambleclaw will not become leader (meaning he'll die before Firestar does), perhaps he'll forgive Squirrelflight on his deathbed, then she, in rage over his death, will go to avenge him and die doing it. So they'll be together in death.
• Why isn't Firestar dead yet? Every leader of every other clan has been replaced since the first series, usually multiple times. (ShadowClan has a record on that one)
  • As of the end of the first series, Firestar was the youngest leader by a fair bit (Leopardfur and Blackfoot were already full warriors when he joined the Clans, and Tallstar was elderly). It makes sense that his leadership would last a bit longer into the series.
  • According to the timeline on the Warriors Wiki, Firestar is 9 years old as of leaf-fall of Fading Echoes. (And wow, that's very weird when you consider that that's almost a fifth of the entire length of time the Clans have existed!) That Other Wiki says male house cats can live 12 to 14 years, and although feral cats in real life don't live nearly as long, you can assume that cats with human intelligence, the capacity to love and care for one another, and the knowledge of local medicinal herbs give the Clan cats something of a leg up on real life feral cats. So, basically, it isn't crazy that Firestar is still alive, especially when you take into account the fact that no cat or narrative has ever mentioned that he's old or starting to look/act like it.
    • He dies at the end of The Last Hope.
• Why do the Three make such a big deal about hiding their powers? Where does it say in the prophecy that it's supposed to be a secret?
  • They're worried about the reactions from the other cats. If you went around declaring yourself to have magical powers people would probably think you were crazy, extremely arrogant, or both. Even if the Clans did believe them, they would probably face resentment and distance due to being more powerful. Particularly in Jayfeather's case, since he believes that their powers put them above StarClan, which would be blasphemy in the eyes of the Clans. So there's nothing in the prophecy that says they have to be secret, but everyone involved believes it is best to not reveal their abilities unless it's necessary.
• What Yellowfang says about Ashfur in StarClan. "He was only guilty of loving too much." What? He was guilty of trying to kill his leader (which is the equivalent of treason in the cat world), targeting Squirrelflight's innocent loved ones to cause her pain and, on a lesser but still very serious degree, of giving an apprentice in his care a cruel training session because he didn't like the apprentice's mother. StarClan gets to decide who goes to live with them; that's not the problem but don't pretend he wasn't capable of more sinister behaviour than "loving too much." And does this imply that if someone is rejected and goes on a revenge spree, they love that person a whole lot?
  • It's clearly been established that Yellowfang is an idiot. She wants to split up the clans! Also, StarClan are idiots as well. Some fans have theorized he might somehow be a Dark Forest spy.
  • It's not been stated outright or shown that StarClan is wrong about the splitting up the Clans. It's hardly been established. (It's totally true, though.)
  • Correction: she said that his only fault was loving too much. This fault led to him being hurt badly when Squirrelflight left him for Brambleclaw, and this pain spurred the desire for revenge. She was talking about the fault that made him try to do all those things. And it kinda makes sense, because he was a pretty hardworking and brave warrior before he went insane, with no other major character faults.
  • Even though Ashfur is a Jerkass, MANY of his actions were still Flanderized, and he misinterpreted Squirrelflight's actions as advances more than once. In the end, he got the short end of the stick.
• Why is Blackstar being treated as a Karma Houdini? He murdered Stonefur and assisted in so many abominable actions as Tigertsar's deputy and Brokenstar's deputy before without question, not to mention invading ThunderClan as a rogue.
  • I suppose you're asking why he isn't treated as one. The things he did as deputy were committed under Brokenstar's and Tigerstar's orders, and the Warrior Code says the word of the Clan's leader is law. As for invading the ThunderClan camp, half of ThunderClan invaded the WindClan camp in Bluestar's Prophecy. That doesn't make them Karma Houdinis, so why would it make Blackstar one?breach the code.
    • No I know what I'm asking,a regular attack from half of Thunder Clan from Bluestar's Prophecy was a reasonable order from the leader who otherwise did not horrifically Blackstar on the other hand followed Brokenstar's order to steal kits from all clans knowing what Brokenstar would do to them and it's a horrible breach to steal in the first place.Then he went into exile with Brokenstar without any remorse for by association murdering half his own clan by assisting in making Shadow Clan an attack-only clan.Then he helped Tigerclaw in Forest of Secrets and stole prey like a savage,then helped Tigerstar annex River Clan which is arguably an even bigger breach of code and commit genocide against half-Clans. The death of Stonefur is clearly a perfectly placed Moral Event Horizon and the end of Darkest Hour implies this to. And then in the rest of the series,the authors treat him as if he were just some contemptous cat like Tornear or Dustpelt.Are you really gonna compare an assistant to genocide to some regular warriors?
    • We don't actually know whether Blackstar is remorseful or not, because the series never takes a look at his personal feelings. It could be that he is remorseful and is trying to redeem himself. It could be that other characters do hate him for what he did, but they can't challenge his leadership because he is Tigerstar's rightful successor according to clan law. It could also be that whatever crimes he committed are overshadowed by his accomplishments as a leader, so no one says anything.
      • It may not have anything to do with actual remorse at all; maybe he just thinks that the past is in the past and he should just do his best by his Clan in the present.
• Why is Ferncloud still in the nursery, shouldn't she have gotten into menopause by now? And how is it as soon as she became a warrior she did absolutely nothing?
  • Cats don't have menopause.
  • Also, she and Dustpelt got together VERY quickly once Ferncloud actually became a warrior. I think once she was mated, she was content to be a mother/serve her clan by having more future warriors rather than fighting herself. It's up to cats to find their place in the clan: this isn't as simple as just being either a medicine cat, leader, or average warrior. For Ferncloud, being a permanent queen was what she wanted out of life.
• Can female Leaders have kits? Because it doesn't say they can't anywhere and yet at times they act as though they can't.
  • It's probably just a common sense thing. Think about it. A female leader would have to stay in the nursery for moons on bed rest (more or less) and not able to do much. This would weaken the Clan because of their leader not being able to physically do anything for moons.
    • Looking back, I've realized that they are allowed to have kits. The ones that don't probably do it as a personal choice than because of rules.
  • I've always wondered why they avoid this, because it doesn't actually seem all that impractical. Consider that a queen's pregnancy lasts about two months. Kittens are weaned by around a month and a half of age. So, if the kits were babysat by another queen, she would only be occupied for about three months. And that's assuming she stays in the nursery for the duration of her pregnancy. Human women manage to continue working while pregnant, and these are cats we're talking about (I doubt that real feral queens with no-one to look after them would be able to rest for months without having to hunt). So, probably the leader would be able to work regularly during the first six-plus weeks of pregnancy. As she approaches labor, she could turn over the physical duties to the deputy, and run the clan from the nursery. She could even resume duties shortly after delivering the kits, so long as she comes back periodically to nurse them. So why not? Having a pregnant leader take a clan into battle would be incredibly badass.
  • This is addressed pretty thoroughly in Skyclan's Destiny. The impression we get from Leafstar is that Firestar told them female leaders can't have kits. So, even if we ignore Bluestar's whole situation (which is that she gave up her kits in order to be available to be chosen as deputy, not because of a rule against it, but because of practical reasons), I think it may be like the "medicine cats can't have mates and kits" thing: it's a rule kind of, but not part of the Code. Oh, and also, wasn't leadership formerly an inherited thing? There was a short story where that was addressed before the whole deputy -> leader thing came about. So female leaders not having kits couldn't have been a rule then, much less part of the Code.
• On a similar note as the above, why can't male medicine cats have kits? I understand why females can't, but the male thing has bugged me for a while.
  • It's not a rule against kits, it's a rule against attachments. The medicine cat has a duty to StarClan, which it can't appropriately do if it has personal attachments. Sort of like nuns and priests.
• What exactly did Mapleshade do that was so bad that she was placed in the Dark Forest and every cat there (including Tigerstar) is afraid of her? From my understanding, she just left her Clan, and she was punished for that by having her kits killed. The only evil things she did, she did after her death. So how did this happen, exactly? Maybe if she had been allowed into Star Clan, she wouldn't have done it.
  • She says that after that she did plenty of evil things and was placed in the Dark Forest because of that. She also states not to make her a Draco in Leather Pants. Sheesh.
  • I assume it was a choice thing. It's been shown that StarClan cats can physically move from their territory to the Place of No Stars, so perhaps she turned her back on her faith and moved to the PoNS. Alternately, she lived long enough and did enough bad things in the rest of her life that she was not allowed into StarClan.
• Why does the majority of Shadow Clan have to be so "ruthless, evil, power-hungry and ambitious"? Seriously, it's like Slytherin. Surely there has to be more than one or two good cats in that clan, yet Erin Hunter seems to refuse to make any of them likable except for Tawnypelt (who was basically a Thunder Clan cat) and a couple of others.
  • In Night Whispers, they aren't any different from the other Clans.
  • This has always bothered me too. I love Shadowclan, and the way they came back from so much devastation to be so strong. But being a Shadowclan fan makes me feel like those silly kids who think liking Slytherin is 'rebellious' or some foolish thing like that.
• Does the Stoneteller have nine lives?
  • Yes. It says he does in Chapter 12 of Moonrise.
• Why do fans hate the 3-tail-lengths-from-the-shore rule? It's seems reasonable enough to me...
• It is obvious that cats do not share the language with Twolegs. Twolegs "yowl" what cats cannot understand. So how could Twolegs give name to kittypets and the cats all refer to that name?
  • Kittypets do understand what Twolegs say, to an extent. Princess mentioned she understand what her owners speak, and Daisy demonstrated deeper understanding of Twolegs' actions. Figuring out how Twolegs call their cats seem an easy task in comparison.
    • I feel that the OP's main question was: 'why do cats refer to one another by whatever they are named by twolegs?' which is reasonable enough. I honestly don't know. Perhaps she-cat kittypets explain to their kits that they may change their name whenever they change housefolk. Who knows?
• Why is Thistleclaw in the Place Of No Stars? Yes, he was violent cruel, and generally an unlikeable cat, but he was a loyal warrior nontheless. I've read Bluestar's Prophecy twice, and don't remember any heinous deeds other than sicing Tigerpaw on a kittypet. Did I miss something?
  • Well, Word of God did say he was in Star Clan until Bluestar showed up and then chased him to the Dark Forest.
• In Bluestar's Prophecy, Tigerkit/paw/claw/star is shown as an ambitious and blood thirsty cat, with Goosefeather dropping heavy hints about his future, but in the OS, Bluestar completely trusts him, even going gradually insane as a result of his betrayal. What?
  • Maybe she thought he changed when he grew older?
  • Forgive me if I'm misremembering, but I thought we were supposed to get the impression that Goosefeather was crazy by then. Not only that WE were supposed to think that, but that we were supposed to think Bluestar thought so too. So I think by the time he's predicting Tigerkit's evilness, she just shrugs it off. Or maybe she just came to trust him since he was so strong, brave, and well-liked.
• This only just occurred to me, but if Tribe cats are named after the first thing their mother sees after birth, then what would a Tribe cat be named if their mother was blind? Would their father name them or something?
  • I'm pretty sure a blind cat would not last long in such treacherous terrain. If a hawk or eagle didn't get her, a drop would.
    • Not if the tribe was protecting her in the cave.
      • In that case there's be a few cats called "Nothingness" or "Void".
        • Their father could name them, maybe.
  • Tribe names aren't necessarily derived from what a mother sees so much as what she experiences. There is a Tribe cat named Screech of Angry Owl, and you can't see sounds, after all. So a blind cat could still name her kits something like 'Breeze With Scent of Rain' or 'Water that Flows Down the Mountain' or 'Light that Warms Stone' or anything else you can experience without sight.
• What is up with Hailstar? At the start beginning of Crookedstar's Promise he seems reasonable, but then he just lets Rainflower boss him around (changing Crookedkit's name, letting his father mentor him, etc)
  • Rainflower's scary.
• Bluekit and Snowkit (and also Patchkit and Leopardkit, according to their mom) opening their eyes and walking around when only a day old. I don't understand why Bluestar's Prophecy gets the aging rate so wrong when all the other books, so far as I remember, show newborn kits more realistically.
  • It was told from the POV of the kits, and is supposed to be Bluestar's whole life.
    • That doesn't really change anything. The fact is that those four kits opened their eyes and were walking around when they were a day old.
• According to Word of God, in the second arc 'Moon Rise' chapter 9, Stoneteller mentions that the Tribe cats are born into their parts (i.e. cave-guards and pray-hunters). And yet in T Po T, 'Outcast' chapter 21 when Jaypaw and co. are in the mountains, Pebble tells Hollypaw that Stoneteller picks what roll the kits will take in the Tribe. How did that change so easily over the course of about 1-2 years? I know that Brambleclaw mentioned that that would be more sensible but that wouldn't be enough to completely change the way the Tribe of Rushing Water does their thing. Though it may just be that there was a miscommunication or someone Did Not Do the Research on the others book it's still obnoxious.
  • I never thought these things really contradict each other; they are 'born into' their roles in the sense that when they are born, Stoneteller figures out which role they are most suited for and assigns them to it.
• Rereading the OS, it's weird to notice how little cats' parents seem to involve themselves in their lives. For example, Willowpelt and Patchpelt don't ever seem to acknowledge Graystripe as their son. It's like in the OS, once cats are grown up, their parents stop treating them like family. In later series, this isn't the case at all.
  • That's because, at the time, the family trees weren't made yet, and we didn't know who anyone's parents were unless they were still a kit.
  • Yeah, I know, but still, later on in the books (and technically earlier in canon, because of Bluestar and Crookedstar's prequel books) parents acknowledge their children throughout their lives. I was just hoping that someone could come up with a Watsonian explanation, rather than a Doylian one.
    • How's this: Thunder Clan had been grown weak for a while, so most relationships dwindles after a kit leaves the nursery. Firestar, remembering the sadness of being taken away from his family, decided to strengthen the bonds between parent and child, using Leafpool and Squirrelflight as examples. Other clans still cared for their relatives (Crookedstar and Silversteam, anyone?) because they weren't suffering such hardships. More of a WMG, but still...
• One thing seriously bothered me in Bluestar's Prophecy. So, three kits go missing in ThunderClan, and days later two kits with the same names turn up in RiverClan. No one noticed this?
  • Well, usually when a leader announces kits being born at a Gathering, he or she doesn't announce their names, just "Thicktail had 3 kits" or whatever. And apart from the announcements at Gatherings, there wouldn't really be any other way to learn about kits from another Clan. Also, since they were two kits taken from the wild (supposedly) it's possible Crookedstar didn't announce them becoming part of the Clan at all just to avoid any possible scandal. It would be moons later that Stonepaw and Mistypaw would be old enough to go to a Gathering, and by then I bet most cats in Thunderclan would have forgotten about Bluestar's 'dead' kits, or even just forgotten their names. Oh, and it helps that the cat every other cat thought was their mother--Graypool-- was grey like them. As far as RiverClan cats not figuring it out, I doubt any leader would announce kits dying since they never want to sound weak. They want the other leaders to know that their Clan is strong and thriving.
• It was revealed in an Erin Hunter chat that Brambleclaw is named after Tigerstar (what with the -claw suffix) but since Firestar is the one who named Brambleclaw, how does that make sense? It is acknowledged among the Clans that Tigerstar was a great warrior, but considering that Firestar was his greatest enemy, I doubt he would be thinking of Tigerstar's good qualities when naming Tigerstar's son. Additionally, considering that, even by the time he was made a warrior, not all of Thunderclan trusted Brambleclaw, and even Firestar still had doubts, it seems weird that he would want to remind the cats of Brambleclaw's relation to Tigerstar.
  • I think it was the out-of-universe explanation
  • Well you must remember that during the Blood Clan battle, Firstar mourned Tigerstar's death since his strength would've been so helpful toward winning. He was dissapointed with how Tigerstar had misused his ambition, and hopeful that Brambleclaw would have a brighter path, since they were so similar. Brambleclaw was named somewhat soon after the batlle with Blood Clan, so there should be a reason for Fireheart's thoughts about Tigerstar to change yet, since he doesn't know about the Place of No Stars at that time.
• In Bluesta's Prophecy, was Wind Clan planning an attack? At the time, it seems Goosefeather is supposed to be mad, but we later learn that that's not always true. It leaves a big question mark hanging over my head, and it's been bugging me for a while now.
  • I think it's sort of supposed to. I personally think that WindClan wasn't actually planning anything, but there's not any certain evidence either way. I just think it would be fitting, considering how damn depressing Bluestar's book is. Also, regardless of whether the attack was real or imagined, the whole event serves to teach Bluestar a lesson anyway.
• So, just what sorts of wounds -can- the Starclan heal?
  • I'm not sure. I think it depends on the situation. For example, they may have the power to heal a fatal wound in a non-leader cat, but simply choose not to. Or it could be that they can't heal cats that aren't leaders. Or perhaps StarClan can't heal anything by choice. It might be that once leaders have their nine lives, they heal automatically without StarClan actually choosing to heal them. Although, I like the theory that Tigerstar was allowed to bleed to death nine times because his warrior ancestors had realized that he should not be permitted to continue living.
• In The Forgotten Warrior, it looks like Lionblaze finally forgives Leafpool and Squirrelflight for what they did. In The Last Hope, he goes back to hating them and even tells Hollyleaf to blame them to solve her problems. What the hell, Lionblaze?
  • Chalk it up to inconsistent writing. The Erins make a lot of mistakes like that, such as the one with Yellowfang apparently forgetting she had told Jayfeather about the Dark Forest rising.