Thoughts on Ashfur?

He's awful
And if this is him, I hope Squirrelflight kills him in the worst way.

I never thought of this before but that makes sense. I'd like to see what made he this way.

Yeah that makes sense.

Yep.

I love how as a villain, but I can't stand him as a cat.

That's cute that he and Whitestorm had a few scenes together, and that is also true about fathers not being very close to their kits in the first arc, which sucked, but families weren't established yet

he sucks. but i think he's a better written villain than people give the erins credit for and i cant stand "they just made him evil for no reason" discourse. i mean, deciding to make characters evil is usually a choice that every author makes.

I like him a lot, definitely an interesting character to read about.

I see... I honestly never thought about his past as an influence on his arc three performance.

Either way tho, he still was not the greatest cat if that was his reaction, breaking point or not.

He kinda really sucks and I'm happy Hollyleaf committed deletus on him

There's actually a PMV that shows Ashfur from start to finish as a character, and it's pretty interesting.

Ashfur is definitely a character that at some point probably hit a breaking point.

He was born into a time of change for the clans a has experienced a great war along with participating in it. As pointed out, he didn't have a father figure growing up, meanwhile, his mother is later murdered and used for dog bait. It's also implied his mentor paid more mind toward his sister than him. When you look at younger Ashfur he was definitely a significant second-gen apprentice, to be honest. I still think about the time he let out a battle cry after he and the other apprentices took down Bone, he was fighting to avenge his mother and protect his clan. It's almost as significant as Morningflower chanting her son's name, Gorsepaw while fighting to avenge him after he too was a victim of Tigerstar's cruelty.

He and his sister also led the dogs along the path, they were young, and they didn't have to do it, but they did. They were proud to be clan cats and earned their names appropriately. Ashfur also had a good friendship with Bramble despite the circumstances of their family. And Squirrelflight, as much as people probably don't want to acknowledge it, at one point or another had a good relationship with him as well, almost on an intimate level. She considered the idea of him, and was trying to figure out her feelings, but in the end, she chose Bramble, his best friend which was probably a hit to the gut.

Think of it this way. Your love interest, in the end, doesn't choose you and instead gets with one of your best friends, the same guy that happened to be the son of the person that murdered your mother. There are also several references to the fact that he indeed looks a lot like Tigerstar, even Firestar was suspicious of him when he was only a kit. And really that's just probably paranoia. But Ashfur also had similar feelings, he started becoming suspicious of Bramble before Squirrel even turned him down (which is ironically close to the truth since he was actually training with his father in the DF and meeting with Hawkfrost). Then there's the fact that Bramble became deputy in such an odd way, straight to deputy status without and apprentice, which is also ironic cause some cats consider him possibly becoming deputy one day too. But Bramble, who is Squirrel's mate, and her sister is a medicine cat, claims that he should be the next deputy...how peculiar.

But for some reason he doesn't stop there, it still makes me wonder why in the world Firestar thought it was such a good idea to make Ashfur the mentor of one of Bramble and Squirrel's supposed kits?? Does he just like drama? In what world was that a good idea, who knows. So Ashfur is left alone and stuck with his ex's kid to teach while his sister is happy with a big family and has her own thing going. There was Whitewing's sympathy toward him, but that didn't go anywhere much since she had a mate too.

It's a bit tragic. He goes from having everything, the girl, the aim toward's deputy, losing his best friend, being a proud hero and warrior, then slowly takes a downfall. Day by day, with a constant reminder. Before he finally hit that breaking point. And drove him to the point where he wanted to hurt Squirrelflight, as she supposedly hurt him.

But then when he finds the opportunity it either failed, or he changed his mind. The first being Hawkfrost's offer, but that obviously didn't go well and in the end, hurt only Bramble instead and put him in an even better spot in the clan. The other was the fire, it wasn't planned in the least like the assassination attempt. No. But it was a good chance he wanted to take. If not for Squirrel revealing the truth he probably would have burned her and her kits in the fire, and probably himself as well, who knows. But he had nothing else to lose at this point. But she gave him something more delicious as ammo so he let them go.

In the end, he is killed by Hollyleaf, although she doesn't have as many sins on her shoulder as Ashfur, it still doesn't change that he wasn't her's to kill. And that she shouldn't have taken the law into her own paws. It also left his blood on her conscious, along with when she tried to kill her own mother as well. But unlike Ashfur she gets the opportunity to atone for what she did, Ashfur didn't.

However, where the plot leads right now is even more interesting. If it does turn out the cat in Bramble's body right now is Ashfur, then that would be pretty impressive imo. It means the Erins have probably been leading up to this for some time and it would also explain why he got into StarClan, or at least...how.

Ashfur is a well-written villain because he can be very realistic, especially when his goals weren't stereotypical and more down to earth. His hatred was well hidden and cleverly played into the story. Sadly, his arc gets dismissed so easily because of the "nice guy" tm argument, just like how Breezepelt's abuse gets brushed under the rug too. It's a shame really.