Strong female characters

Over the past few years I have devoted a lot of time towards talking about Ivypool. I stopped after a while because I felt like I was just repeating myself and it didn’t seem like my message was sinking in. However I recently was browsing the forums and I realized I haven’t done my job well. Since all of my old essays on this topic are of low quality and I haven’t made them in a while. So I feel driven to write about this now.

I hate Ivypool. A lot. However, the point I really want to make here today is not that you should hate Ivypool because I do. The point I want to make is that Ivypool is not a good character. She doesn’t deserve praise. The best analogy I can make is to Frozen. Lots of people like Frozen and its story but many will agree that the story is flawed and in some parts very weak. Particularly in the exposition. But they still like it. You can like Ivypool. But that isn’t going to make her good. In my opinion, how poorly and manipulatively written Ivypool is makes her unbearable.

Let’s start at the beginning. What starts Ivypool’s subplot is the fact that Dovewing is better than her at their warrior training. Dovewing excels at fighting and hunting, she is popular with her peers, and gets attention from the entire clan, including their leaders. Due to the fact Ivypool along with her sister are the youngest in their generation, Ivypool’s more average rate of exceling sticks out like a sore thumb and she grows frustrated. Her peers start to bully her for not being as good as her sister which makes her angry. This turns into jealousy and Hawkfrost eventually lures Ivypool into the Dark Forest by feeding her jealousy. Ivypool grows angrier and starts being cruel to Dovewing due in part to how long her resentment lasted and the fact the cult she just entered naturally makes her more aggressive and angry.

This plot bugs me for a number of reasons. For one, it’s irritating that the reason this happened is really contrived. Had Lionblaze and Jayfeather let Dovewing tell Ivypool about the powers none of this would have happened. I get that the two are oblivious but is it that hard to connect the dots? The Dark Forest is a cult. They prey on the cats weaknesses like with Breezepelt. They make the warriors very powerful in regards to training as seen by Lionblaze. Both Dovewing and Cinderheart approached them about Ivypool’s growing depression and resentment about not being as good as her sister. How many red flags do you need? More importantly, the plot is a cliché. It is the jealousy plot seen in so many Highschool movies and is one of the easiest plot tropes to write. Before reading The Fourth Apprentice I predicted that we would have a plot like this and after the Dark Forest cult was introduced I already predicted what would happen. Needless to say I wasn’t excited and I was right about my prediction. I’m fairly certain others predicted it too. This doesn’t necessarily make the plot bad, but it does kill the suspense and it kills investment. What does make this bad is that the plot does not surprise us, it doesn’t do anything new. The fact this is stretched over 3 books it boring to sit through. It’s made worse by the fact that both Dovewing and Ivypool are imbeciles. Their conversations are always filled with logical fallacies. It makes it hard to respect either of them when all they do is bend the truth, insult one another, and then walk out rather than deal with the problem. This is problematic for Ivypool because it is her main plot in the first three books. It is very defining or her as a character. However all it does is either illicit annoyance, boredom, frustration, or all of the above. This makes me feel very little for Ivypool’s conflict. Which is very damaging for her.

Ivypool’s subplot for the final three books is spying on the dark Forest for the three while the Dark Forest gets ever more violent. There are a few problems with this plot that need to be discussed separately. We will first start with Ivypool as a spy. She is objectively an awful spy. For three books Ivypool refused to pass on information to the three. It’s true she didn’t get the Dark Forest’s battle plan till the end however there was other things she could have passed on. She could have shown some updated battle moves to Lionblaze. He spent most of the arc training Thunderclan how to fight. He already knew Tigerstar and Hawkfrost’s battle moves, he could have trained everyone how to fight while Ivypool showed him some moves from the Dark Forest he didn’t know. She knew who was in the Dark Forest. She could describe who they were to the three. The implied reasons she didn’t are painfully incompetent on her part. The first is that the clan would persecute the dark forest recruits. This is true but it does not justify Ivypool’s actions. What did she expect to gain by not saying anything? The three are reasonable. They can be reasoned with despite initial anger. They could form a plan to deal with the recruits without hurting them. The Dark Forest is a pseudo terrorist group and a cult. Doing nothing helps no one except the dark forest. Yes when they are eventually outed it’s going to be nasty. But it had to done. Allowing the Dark Forest to continue growing in power without creating a plan put everyone in jeopardy. There was no plan to deal with the recruits during and after the battle. No one knew who was an enemy or ally except in Thunderclan creating confusion. After the battle there was no plan to deal with the clan’s anger with who they perceived as traitors and it’s all Ivypool’s fault.

The second is that the dark forest is always watching her. Ignoring all of the Dark forest’s other problem’s, it is clear that they were not constantly watching Ivypool. If they were, they would have confronted her after all those times the three bugged her about them and she said nothing to report. We also know that the dark forest cats train by day so they are busy. Or they could be doing this in this spoof I highly recommend forums.warriorcats.com/...es-a-standlone-spoof . Furthermore this really shouldn’t matter. When you are spying there is always the risk of being caught. Why are you spying if you don’t intend to take that risk?

Over all Ivypool is an awful spy. It’s made worse by the fact all of this is implied or just glossed over. Barely anytime is dedicated to why Ivypool isn’t doing her job. Even in Ivypool’s thoughts she never thinks about either of these road blocks. Which is incredibly frustrating because this is her main plot. We are supposed to think she is really cool for being a spy however we never see her be cool and the reason why we don’t is never explained. This always made me incredibly frustrated with her story and it took away any enjoyment or investment I had in her in the second half of the arc.

To expand upon why Ivypool stayed if she wasn’t going to do anything is made worse by the fact the Dark Forest makes no sense. There is no continuity. Outside of Omen of the Stars it is shown that the living can leave the Dark Forest when they want to. The Dark Forest cats can’t keep them there. Tawneypelt and Jayfeather both left by themselves. Crookedstar and Bramblestar left after an extended period of time. Lionblaze left after four months of being tortured. By this logic Ivypool should have been able to leave too. But she couldn’t. Beetlewhisker was executed for daring to. You could reason that the Dark forest being organized increased their power. But wasn’t the Dark Forest organized to a degree in Crookedstar’s promise? And how does that explain Sunset? What is canon and what is not? All of these things always took away from the experience. All of these questions take you out of the moment because it’s not clear what is going on ruining the spectacle. It casts doubt on Ivypool because it’s impossible to tell how much control the Dark Forest has over her life. It’s made worse by the fact that the characters are not interesting. Blossamfall is kind of interesting and Mapleshade is interesting due to how intimidating she is, but the rest are background characters or just evil. Which isn’t that interesting.

All of this together makes Ivypool’s spy plot very hard to sit through. Ivypool’s inaction is confusing and frustrating because it is done out of dumb reasons and is hardly ever touched upon. The setting is confusing and uninteresting due to the lack of continuity and the boring characters. This makes my distaste for Ivypool skyrocket.

The part that makes Ivypool fall from mediocre to awful as a charcter is her personality. Ivypool doesn’t have a lot of character traits. She’s rather silent and is introverted. She is also not very smart as evidenced by her implied reasoning behind not passing information and her inability to argue properly. I find this dull but I know why she is this way. This is on purpose because Ivypool is a blank slate. Anyone can relate to her and anyone can imprint what they want on her. She is a skin anyone can put on and get lost in the story with. This not a bad thing. However it doesn’t work when the story is boring. Ivypool’s story is not interesting so it can not distract from her empty character.

What makes me insulted though, is what all of this put together means. Ivypool is a blank slate character written into the jealous girl teenager cliché. This cliché is easy to write and can very easily illicit emotion. How it’s done here is sloppy and boring and completely contrived. It adds nothing new to keep the audience interested. The second half of the story is a poorly written spy plot. The entire thing feels cheap to me. It’s like the writers thought that just making Ivypool an underdog and then making her a spy would make her a good character. They think that just having these elements makes Ivypool likable. They think that just having this means that they don’t have to even try with Ivypool. They think don’t have to write a good story or write a good character, they just have to use good marketing techniques to get people to like Ivypool and everything will be ok. But that is not how it works. A story can be manipulative, but that doesn’t excuse it for being bad. There is so much that could have been done with Ivypool and the rest of the story had she been written better. We could have explored the psyches of the Dark Forest Members and recruits through Jayfeather. We could have seen their everyday life through Dovewing. We could have seen true battle mobilization through Lionblaze. Maybe in the beginning the erins could have made Ivypool smart. Had she argued with intelligence with Dovewing there could have been something respectful about her. Maybe her reluctance to speak up could have been explained and had some grounding in logic. Anything would be better than a bland boring character that could have been written out of the books entirely.

Overall Ivypool is a bland boring character in a bland boring manipulative story. She’s cheap and designed to sell and the writers expect us to buy into her without putting any effort into creating her. The worst part is it didn’t have to be this way. The recipe is here for a good character. The fact it looks like the writers didn’t try to make her a good character makes Ivypool loathsome. Which is why I do not like her.

"There may be only one eye between us but we aren't idiots!" -Jayfeather's best quote

“Get off her!” Hollyleaf yowled.

Ivypool’s world spun as the black warrior slammed into Hawkfrost and sent him reeling into the gorse. Free from Hawkfrost’s claws, Ivypool turned on Thistleclaw and Snowtuft. She began slashing with her front paws, remembering in a crystalline moment every moon of training. Hollyleaf reared up beside her, matching her blow for blow, as though she instinctively knew where Ivypool would strike next. Blood sprayed the forest floor as Ivypool sliced Snowtuft’s muzzle and tore Thistleclaw’s nose.

Turning, she kicked out with hind legs and knocked Thistleclaw backward, then sank her teeth into Snowtuft’s neck. The white warrior screeched and ripped free from her jaws. Ivypool tasted his blood as he hared away through the bracken. She met Thistleclaw’s gaze. Fear sparked in his eyes as she spat out a bloody clump of Snowtuft’s fur. “Run,” she hissed. “Because if you stay, I will kill you.” Mouth open, Thistleclaw fled, disappearing through the gorse.

A shriek exploded behind Ivypool. She turned and saw Hollyleaf swipe at Hawkfrost’s muzzle. The force of the blow sent the Dark Forest warrior crashing away. He dropped with a thump and scrabbled to his paws. Blood dripping from his cheek, one eye swollen shut, he glanced at Hollyleaf and tore his way through the gorse.


Ivypool stared at the black she-cat. “You saved my life!” Hollyleaf staggered and fell to the ground. “Hollyleaf!” Ivypool darted to her side and saw blood pulsing from a wound in her neck. Panic formed a hard lump in Ivypool’s belly. Grasping Hollyleaf’s scruff in her teeth, she began to half drag, half carry her Clanmate toward the ThunderClan border. Jayfeather would know what to do.

“I’ll get you home,” Ivypool growled through gritted teeth. “I promise I’ll get you home.”