Ashfur is a poorly-written villain

I kinda agree. I never had much problem with Ashfur being a villain (although I personally thought bringing him back was dumb); for me, the issue is that he felt so one-dimensional in the recent arc. He lacked the necessary depth for his characterization to feel believable. Although, tbf, Warriors is not known for its exceptionally compelling villains.

I'm not entirely sure why it seems that way to me -- I'd need more time to think it over to thoroughly articulate my feelings. I've never waded very far into Ashfur debates before, so I'd need to go back and re-read his scenes.

i've been saying for ages ashfur is a poorly written villain. his motivations in TBC make absolutely no sense and it's a giant leap in logic to go from targeting one cat, to suddenly targeting the entire socieital structure they all live in...like wtf no. ashfur never gave a crap about the code when he was alive, so why would he come back in an arc titled "the broken code"? i could go on and on about how much i hate ashfur being in TBC.

 Is trying to kill your ex and her three children not indicative of a maniacal, unhinged, obsessive incel? Asking for a friend. 

Listen, I don't like Ashfur being the main TBC villain either (would have preferred they choose someone a lot more relevant to the Code discussion), but saying he wasn't crazed and obsessive during Po3 is a new one for me, chief. 

don’t get me wrong, his actions are indeed disgusting and heinous, and he definitely became crazed for sure. to try to explain more clearly since I might of missed the mark in my first post, to shed light on my personal opinion . What I meant is that his actions are more driven by circumstantial incidents as opposed to him inherently having a obsessive, sociopathic, psychologically deranged manipulative etc type disposition imo( like we see in TBC). His actions are more derived imo from grief, heartache and bitterness from Squirrelflight basically using him, albeit unintentional, but considering how the entire scenario plays out, it’s easy to understand how Ashfur or anyone really would feel that way, and obviously he held onto that resentment, bitterness, hatred and begrudge for Squirrelflight and eventually snapped and took advantage of an opportune situation to get retribution for all the
Anguish and bereavement that he blames her for being responsible for. Now don’t misconstrue this as me defending, justifying or excusing any of his horrible transgressions, just giving a different interpretative angle to his motivations and what drove him to make his choices. now maybe I’m being a little too lenient on him or giving him more credit then some people would deem him deserving of, and they may be right. And I know most people tag him as an incel, which in context of TBC I’d agree. But in context of the rest of his character in the other 3 arcs he shows up in, I find it kinda dubious, since incels are generally very resentful towards all women and are very misogynistic, and express cynicism and begrudging of other Males in relationships, which isn’t present iirc, as I don’t remember anytime Ashfur acted out hatefully towards other She-cats or other Toms that had mates, all his animosity is directed at Squirrelflight mostly, and her kits ofc which he sees as a device to hurt her. And just as an FYI I’m not saying that his actions/behavior etc aren’t indicative of a maniacal, unhinged sociopath. Just that it’s not the only possibility or interpretation, and that I personally just don’t view it in that perspective, but it’s perfectly valid for people to associate that with his character.

 That's all fair. I feel like the way you're wording things is getting dangerously close to the whole "if Squirrelflight hadn't rejected him, he'd be fine" argument, which is a yikes take. But I don't think that's what you're actually trying to say, just something to be aware of. The rest of this post seems logical enough, even if we disagree on what "incel" means (I think I was using a much broader definition than you). 

idk man my brain isn't really working right now, sorry

I'm not sure. What does it mean when a thread is anchored?

I haven't read ALitM yet, but from what I've seen so far from TBC Ashfur is practically Tigerstar 2.0 in terms of attitude. In PoT his goals were borderline singular, and all this manipulation mastery of his never existed. A common argument for the codebreaker plot was that he did it to throw suspicion off of him as he went to attack Squirrelflight's kin. If that's so, why be a complete dumbass, acting like some kind of rabid animal to your own Clanmates? You'd think someone with the smarts to manipulate all Clans would have the brain cells to not blow his cover this badly, but no. Even in PoT it was shown Ashfur tried to hide his anger sometimes, but in TBc he just acts like some brute who isn't trying to keep the Clans' trust in him at least long enough eliminate Squirrelflight's kin.

I'm not even going to step into the major powercreep that is his "powers". It was already strange enough that this bozo is the one to block out StarClan and not anyone else in history and manipulate entire Clans despite having none skill shown at all in the previous arcs, but then he has the ability to manipulate ghost cat armies? I remember hearing somewhere that this was never explained in the last book and if that's true, then yeesh.

I don't think his obsession with getting Squirrelflight back and also wanting to hurt her is unrealistic, it seems very sadly realistic that someone obsessed with someone they rejected could simultaneously want to punish them and delusionally hope they will get that person back.

That said, I do think it to be random and implausible for him to decide he wants to make everyone follow the code as a cover for his revenge, why the code exactly? As people had said earlier, it issn't in-character for him to make some 10-step plan with lots of subterfuge to disguise him going after Squirrelflight rather than just possess Bramblestar and go after him directly. And how he acts hypocritically (kicking the elders out, appointing deputies without apprentices) makes it unbelievable that cats follow him out of genuine devotion to the code and believing they need to follow it to get StarClan back, instead of just disagreeing with him but feeling they must follow him because the leader's word is the code (which misses the point since the plot is supposed to criticize the cats' strict following of the code in general, not just the leader law). In general I hate stories where a moral issue is presented but then it turns out one side of the issue doesn't even believe in what they are preaching, it feels like it sidesteps the drama. I think the plot would have been better served if he was part of an overall movement in StarClan to punish codebreakers, the rest of whom legitimately believed in the cause (this would fit with StarClan suddenly being so harsh on Squirrelflight and Leafpool, and Juniperclaw being sent to the DF even though he tried to redeem himself). Maybe there's a conflict within StarClan and the strict group is collectively responsible for shutting down contact with StarClan both to show their disapproval and make sure the rest of StarClan doesn't stop them. Ashfur joins the movement early to try to show himself as redeemed and so he doesn't get targeted himself, and the possession is agreed on by all of these cats. The events of the later books could still play out with Ashfur going rogue using his presence in the physical world to double-cross the rest of the group and go on with his own plan to punish Squirrelflight and her family and be with Squirrelflight, and the rest of the StarClan cats realize how what they have done had allowed things to come to this.

I have mixed feelings on him in TBC overall - there are some times where his portrayal totally gets at the obsession and twisted perspective, like when he says he thinks him defying death to find Squirrelflight means she should love him. But then there are times where he just seems like an unrealistic cartoon villain, when he's going "I am going to make them all pay, all of the Clans, all of StarClan!" even though he is supposed to have only had a grudge against Squirrelflight (and Hollyleaf, though they don't talk about that) and it's not really explained why he would want to punish everyone else too.

I thought the whole attitude change in tPoT was just him being all "sour grapes."
Anyway, point 3 could easily be explained if Hawkfrost initiated the contact between the two as he had done to Mudclaw. Point 4... I haven't read that part in a while, but did he really know about the kids, or was he 'playing by ear' from Squirrelflight's reveal?



I think it's very dangerous behavior to lump together "psychotic" together with "incel." There is overlap between the two, sure, but to imply that every guy out there who can't get a woman is going to go on a murderous spree is almost bullying. More importantly, through inversion it spreads the stereotype that men in relationships are inherently better people that are less likely to act psychologically harmful to their partners. Plenty of domestic abuse cases would argue against that impression.

I think before TBC he was an alright villain but since I'm still annoyed/mad that he was the villain for TBC I won't say much since I didn't read TBC but I hate how he got special powers and didn't get killed by either Squrrielflight or Bramblestar since I would have liked it if they were the ones to kill him.