#a3c5e6
Name Colour
𝓣𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓿𝓲𝓮𝓵
Warrior Fanatic
All hail me, the flower-flushing queen of Prague
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Post by 𝓣𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓿𝓲𝓮𝓵 on Dec 18, 2022 16:27:07 GMT -5
I tend to like Squirrelflight more, though my opinion on Bramblestar usually ranges from either neutral (most of the time) to dislike (SqH). The only time I've ever actually liked him was in TPB. On the topic of her not trusting Hawkfrost, though, to say that it wasn't because of Tigerstar isn't entirely true, but I think it's worth mentioning that it also started before his father's identity was even revealed. She technically gives her reasons in the very next book, but as far as Brambleclaw is concerned (especially since he doesn't know about her telepathic connection to Leafpool), she's just spouting nonsense at this point in time.
So take this as you will, I guess? Overall, everything about this plotline felt horribly contrived to me. dang, I stand corrected. It seems more like a semi-unconscious bias she's trying to overcome, but girl...at least firestar had the excuse of ptsd! you didnt even know him bruh. you of all people should do better at not judging people by the circumstances of their birth. although she gets over this by sunrise, when bramble overhears her talking to ashfur. This carries over to the next book as well:
It's heavily implied that Squirrelflight didn't trust Hawkfrost largely because Leafpool already didn't (as she had already witnessed his dark side several times up to this point), but there's also no reason for why the former's own distrust of Brambleclaw had to extend this far, either. The worst Brambleclaw even does besides continuously take Hawkfrost's side is act bossy, nor does she ever find out about his Dark Forest training, either (something Leafpool doesn't even discover until after her sister thinks about Tigerstar for the last time), so all of this just makes her come off as paranoid. That said, I don't blame you for forgetting about this, either. It's pretty easy to overlook or to even think of it as odd, especially since Squirrelflight either outright denies it whenever it gets brought up or never actually says it aloud, and since TNP also gave us Brambleclaw training with his evil father despite already rejecting him as an apprentice... Yeah, this arc was weird when it came to characterization. I'm not even sure if this makes it worse, but Squirrelflight even gets offended when Brambleclaw and later Ashfur speak negatively about Daisy and her kits on the basis of them not being Clanborn, what with her of course being half-Clan herself. There was also no reason why Leafpool or even Sorreltail couldn't have talked to Brambleclaw about Hawkfrost much sooner, either. Whether or not he would've been more cautious afterwards is a different story, but at least he would've had a second or third opinion at all and an attempt to properly communicate would've been made. And honestly, if there absolutely had to be relationship drama of any kind at all, I kinda wish it had been between the sisters instead, with their telepathy perhaps even permanently waning in the process since it never gets used in any significant way after Midnight anyway.
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Post by starlightstoryteller on Dec 18, 2022 17:35:25 GMT -5
dang, I stand corrected. It seems more like a semi-unconscious bias she's trying to overcome, but girl...at least firestar had the excuse of ptsd! you didnt even know him bruh. you of all people should do better at not judging people by the circumstances of their birth. although she gets over this by sunrise, when bramble overhears her talking to ashfur. This carries over to the next book as well: It's heavily implied that Squirrelflight didn't trust Hawkfrost largely because Leafpool already didn't (as she had already witnessed his dark side several times up to this point), but there's also no reason for why the former's own distrust of Brambleclaw had to extend this far, either. The worst Brambleclaw even does besides continuously take Hawkfrost's side is act bossy, nor does she ever find out about his Dark Forest training, either (something Leafpool doesn't even discover until after her sister thinks about Tigerstar for the last time), so all of this just makes her come off as paranoid. That said, I don't blame you for forgetting about this, either. It's pretty easy to overlook or to even think of it as odd, especially since Squirrelflight either outright denies it whenever it gets brought up or never actually says it aloud, and since TNP also gave us Brambleclaw training with his evil father despite already rejecting him as an apprentice... Yeah, this arc was weird when it came to characterization. I'm not even sure if this makes it worse, but Squirrelflight even gets offended when Brambleclaw and later Ashfur speak negatively about Daisy and her kits on the basis of them not being Clanborn, what with her of course being half-Clan herself. There was also no reason why Leafpool or even Sorreltail couldn't have talked to Brambleclaw about Hawkfrost much sooner, either. Whether or not he would've been more cautious afterwards is a different story, but at least he would've had a second or third opinion at all and an attempt to properly communicate would've been made. And honestly, if there absolutely had to be relationship drama of any kind at all, I kinda wish it had been between the sisters instead, with their telepathy perhaps even permanently waning in the process since it never gets used in any significant way after Midnight anyway. squirrel and bramble in a "judging people for the circumstances of their birth" contest huh
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Post by Hailfrost on Dec 19, 2022 16:27:59 GMT -5
I dislike Bramblestar very, very much.
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Post by ❅Maplefrost❅ on Dec 19, 2022 19:33:55 GMT -5
The incident with Brambleclaw and Leafpool, what's the point of that exactly? It's literally Brambleclaw acknowledging his flaws for trusting his own brother, and giving him the benefit of the doubt over Leafpool. Him thinking Leafpool was the reason for the attack isn't farfetched, she DID tell Littlecloud how Cinderpelt died. But either way Firestar agreed that it was Blackstar's choice in the end for thinking he could take advantage of that. However, Brambleclaw didn't expect for his own blood to tell ANOTHER clan something like that so casually, especially not ShadowClan. So yes, that is on Brambleclaw, but I don't see how he's in the wrong for thinking that of Leafpool at first. Especially when Leafpool was thinking so little of him in return merely because she thought he was going to betray his clan, so it's quite ironic. She even thinks he actually does this when she and Squirrelflight believe Ashfur's words, and run off to find Firestar.
Same thing applies for the situation over Mudclaw, who by their logic was a traitor, and Hawkfrost did save his own skin by throwing Mudclaw under the bus. Hawkfrost claiming he genuinely thought Mudclaw was the right leader and believed what he was doing was for the good of the clans but then apologized for falling for it (where as we as the readers know that isn't true). Brambleclaw chooses to believe his brother, protesting to defend him, even against Tawnypelt (which is ironic cause she also abandoned him in ThunderClan moons ago). I don't see anything wrong with Brambleclaw clinging to his newly found kin in some way he could, even if it was in a worse light later on. I think people seem to forget that even if he was cautious of Tigerstar, he still wanted to try and reach out to his own brother, because he felt that he understood what it was like living with the weight of his father's terrible legacy.
Even if you claim it doesn't make sense for Squirrelflight to be suspicious of Hawkfrost, literally she still had NO basis for her reasons prior to the Mudclaw rebellion. And was especially aggressive over those times against Brambleclaw. And when he did argue with her and bring up him being Tiger kin she stopped avoided or denied his claim. We as the reader, again, know that that's probably not Squirrelflight's intention, but she does do and say this to take unnecessary jabs at Brambleclaw, even in front of Leafpool. It was also one of the main focuses of Brambleclaw's character and his struggles while he was being developed in that arc, to deny it's a theme is nonsensical imo.
It's weird that you're blaming Brambleclaw for Firestar dying in the final battle, when Hawkfrost was going to try and kill him regardless of Brambleclaw's involvement. Ashfur helped him, and he did what he did to get back at Squirrelflight, even if you take Brambleclaw out of this scenario, Hawkfrost would still try and kill Firestar for Tigerstar. He just didn't finish him off and left him for Brambleclaw as the test. Also, again, even Hawkfrost wasn't with Tigerstar from the start, he molded into what his father wanted him, while Bramblestar was more cautious and only there for him.
Tawnypelt abandoned him when they were still young and left him to face his clan's judgement on his own. While Mothwing was a medicine cat, she chose that path, and the possibility that they would have crossed their paths as often as he would with Hawkfrost is incredibly slim regardless of plot convenience.
In the passages of the novella, Squirrelflight was still adamant on not going through with the lie and the kits. It's not until she personal meets them after they were kitted does she change her mind. Before that she wasn't going to do it regardless of what StarClan said. Squirrelflight's reasoning was for Leafpool, and Leafpool alone, not because of StarClan, let alone the prophecy. And when she says Feathertail was right, she was referring to her loving the kits, which is true.
Never recieved permanent consequences?? He Brambleclaw was constantly judged for his father's legacy, and literally had to kill his own brother, whom he genuinely did care about despite the path he chose in the end. He lost the only kin he desperately wanted to reach out and connect with in the hardest times of his life?? Not to mention he had to still deal with the shadow of his father and now his brother over his shoulders until the Last Hope, so for moons. He didn't walk out of that situation at all unscathed. Heck, even RiverClan and the other clans were suspicious of him and ThunderClan of possibly murdering Hawkfrost unjustly, despite them making it clear he was a traitor. Yet another cat in his bloodline deemed as one.
My point over the kits is that NOTHING is stopping Squirrelflight from telling him the truth. She used him as father fodder. When did Brambleclaw ever use Squirrelflight in the way she used him? She lied to him about his own children for years. And even when faced with the truth at the gathering she still wouldn't say the truth, neither her or Leafpool, so Hollyleaf had to continue to tell everyone after calling them cowards. And when he does ask her why, she can't even give him a proper answer. He has the right to be angry that his mate, whom he trusted, broke the sanctity of their relationship, and used him. StarClan said nothing about her having to lie to her own mate, especially a mate that would have helped her. And when was Brambleclaw harassing Squirrelflight while she was with Ashfur?? She literally, again, kept taking jabs at him, because she hated him being around Hawkfrost, and then ran off to Ashfur as escapism, using him as well???
The clan have been following their rules for moons, if you have an issue with the code, then it's the code, not the cats following it. That's more of a writing thing if anything. And even then, it was Tigertwo that started all the trouble in the books in the first place, antagonizing neighboring borders, and threatening other clans. The sister are also not exactly saints either, they're aggressive misandrist that also abandoned their children at a young age in the middle of the night. While treating them like trash if they ever show back up again, regardless of their kin, there's a reason why Tree holds contempt towards them. At the end of the day, they held Bramble's mate/deputy hostage, and also injured and held a SkyClan leader hostage, he has no reason to trust them.
Even if you see it as immoral, he was in the position of leader, and his decision of helping her was now something he got saddled with because his deputy, again, went behind his back and made decisions that she wasn't supposed to be making. In other cases when a cat is brought to camp, the cats either make them wait at a border, especially outsiders. If they're brought into a camp, it's a much different situation. And this is after the Sisters are seen as aggressive trespassers, why on earth should they want to help them and risk getting involved with their enemies and staring clan fights?
Also the comparison makes no sense. The clans have established themselves in their homes for ages at this point, while the Sisters are quite literally known for not staying in the same spot long. They're rogues, cats outside of the code, why should they care about them? Seriously? Because if I were in the position of leadership and had to choose with chasing our rogues or fighting other trained warrior clan cats, I'm going to choose to chase out the rogues. It's quite literally the situation of a leader choosing his clan over others.
Alright, logically, what if Bramblestar didn't send a patrol. Squirrelflight and Leafpool would STILL sneak out and still help the sisters. The sisters would still be stubborn and won't leave, WindClan and ShadowClan would still show up and a fight would still break out. Squirrelflight would still be accused as a traitor, and Tigertwo would still corner Moonlight and still get her kill, if not worse. WindClan and ShadowClan would have not held back and made the situation much worse, if not for ThunderClan being there. And then lol and behold Squirrel and Leaf BOTH possibly die too, or just Leaf, and how does that go down for Bramblestar when he finds out?
Sometimes people need to make choices better with their mind over their heart. Just because you think doing something is morally good, still doesn't make it a good decision and could easily make the situation worse.
Again, senile, old man, with PTSD, and dementia. Do you genuinely think he's really thinking properly and making proper choices right now under his declining condition? honest to god, I don't think I am going to get anywhere with this, but i love exercises in futility, so the point of the leafpool thing is that it's beyond cruel to accuse someone of being disloyal for telling their friends that their mentor died, especially when barkface already knew. furthermore, he has no right to accuse anyone of being disloyal when he's consorting with a riverclan cat and a shadowclan cat, which [from the pov of the clans, not mine] is clearly worse than accidentally letting something slip with friends after your mentor dies. My point with the leafpool thing is that even before the later arcs, he is kind of a douchebag. My problem with your responses is that you use warrior's flawed morality to judge her , but excuse brambleclaw's even more heinous violations by looking at his behavior from a human perspective [being lonely so he takes up with his kin that are from different clans and he has ample reason to be suspicious of, number one being that hawkfrost was Training With His Evil Dad In Hell.] You make excuses for brambleclaw's traitorous behavior ['he was cautious, he was only there for his brother' but it becomes amply clear as time goes on that hawkfrost has harmful ambitions and tigerstar just because brambleclaw ignores the advice of everyone he's close to on the matter of hawkfrost doesn't mean he's not complicit.]
my second problem with these responses is that you are ignoring the evidence i have provided or dismissing it. you say squirrelflight had no reason to mistrust hawkfrost until the onestar thing [ignoring that the onestar thing is a pretty huge red flag right there. like even brambleclaw acknowledges that there was no good reason for him to be meeting with mudclaw in a war that had jackshit to do with him.] You say it's a big theme of the arc that mistrust of him due to his heritage is a thing, and i agree--but the point is that most of his insecurities are all in his head, because he's a young warrior still developing in a hostile world. squirrelflight says to him she is not doing this because hawkfrost is tigerkin (and again, it should be obvious considering she was bffs with brambleclaw and friendlh with tawnypelt! he is unfairly projecting onto her!) and brambleclaw's narration insists that she is.
you say squirrel's lie had nothing to do with starclan but i provided a direct quote, with chapter citations, saying that yellowfang told her to lie to everyone--yes, including brambleclaw. StarClan was the only reason she decided to do it, in the end. She was heavily pressured by their society's gods, and might've been fearing punishment for noncompliance she kept secret from Leafpool because Leaf was a medicine cat.
It's also funny because before you insisted hawk tried to kill fire as a 'test' but when i pointed out that meant it was still bramble's fault for meeting with him rather than rejecting him you changed your tune.
By 'never received permanent consequences' I mean he didn't get the shame and ostracization that squirrel and leaf got, what he rightfully deserved. Nobody ever discovers the true extent of his disloyalty save Leafpool, and the other clans never mention it again by PO3. Meanwhile you still have BREEZEPELT, of all people, calling squirrel disloyal as late as sqh. He is never challenged for this, and bramblestar only has a generic 'that was moons ago' to offer rather than 'you continued to train in hell despite knowing they wanted to kill everyone who the heck are you to call anyone disloyal', because the narrative continually being pushed is that this was some nigh-unforgivable sin.
You say she 'used him as father fodder' but genuinely, what the heck does that even mean??? In warriors society, having a father is genuinely not necessary for a kit's development considering their children are raised communally, and daisy and ferncloud were there for additional parenting if squirrel got tired. in the first books fathers didn't really raise kits, and this had zero effect on the queen's workloads. Squirrelflight didn't 'use him', she just lied to him. You try to draw arbitrary distinctions between squirrel's lies and bramble's, but they're both lies.
squirrelflight couldn't defend herself properly, because she was panicked and under stress.
re: brambleclaw harassing her and ashfur, as well as a source for brambleclaw acknowledging his brother's behavior is suspicious as heck: imgur.com/a/AfI5rhV . the images are from Bramblestar is Worse, a video i don't agree with on all its points (it's definitely pretty harsh on him, although moon does have legitimate grievances imo), but is convenient for source purposes due to its copious amounts of quotes. re: everything about the sqh situation. you are again judging him from a warriors morality standpoint, and my point with her disobeying him is that they fundamentally didn't have the time. sunset would've died. The sisters are not lesser because they are rogues, and some clan cats are able to recognize this. Just because bramblestar judges cats by the circumstances of their birth (oh the irony) doesn't mean squirrelflight is disloyal for not doing that. Saying 'they're rogues why should they care' is buying into the clan's violently xenophobic culture without critically examining the biases you may have picked up. It is a bad thing that the clans do not care for the wellbeing of any cat born outside the clans. And my point was they didn't need to fight other clan cats to help sunrise because there is no way they'd find out if bramblestar simply ordered his clan and the sisters to not say anything. And saying 'well they won't stay there long' is. a moot point. They're there now so that Moonlight can have a safe place to kit, and this in fact makes the patrols worse because they couldn't wait one moon. You have no evidence that thunderclan not being there made things worse. And furthermore, if Bramblestar had simply said "I know this is messed up but I'm going to try and broker peace" don't you think squirrelflight would've understood? She went behind his back because she had a premonition of innocent kits being in danger. also re: the sisters not being perfect. of course they aren't. no society is. but the clans' sins are far heavier than the sisters, what with how they literally got their start driving out/murdering or converting all the cats who already lived in the forest, they continually start wars over borders instead of sharing territory, they demonize all outsiders. The Sisters do the 'abandoning children' thing because it's in their religion, and the clans have done many terrible things in service of StarClan's omens. Not to mention the fact that the clans are incest-heavy messes precisely because they do not do what the Sisters do--real-life cats chase off their male young to prevent inbreeding. The Sisters treat their prisoners far better than the clans, and ultimately they only took them hostage to prevent an invading force driving out a pregnant cat. Furthermore, if not for the sisters sparkpelt would've died. You'd think Bramblestar would be a little thankful.
I'd like to say in advance, that underlining a bunch of lines and paragraphs does make reading it more difficult. Not trying to be rude anything by that, just saying it is harder for me to read your replies that way. I'm not sure if they were supposed to be links? But they didn't work when I clicked them. I decided to just go through the Starlight, Twilight, and Sunset in the end: - Hawkfrost wasn't previously training with Tigerstar when his father is finally able to connect his dreams to the Dark Forest. Hawkfrost arrives around the same time as him, and he becomes the reason why Brambleclaw stays, again, not Tigerstar. And interestingly enough, prior to this finally happening, him and Squirrel were already arguing, as shown in the quotes in the thread. Squirrelflight was notably being more frustrated and jealous at Brambleclaw for just showing interest in Hawkfrost, evening insulting him. Which again, isn't the approach that Squirrel should have took, but definitely did push Bramble away more. Then there's the other time, where Squirrel lashed out at him and accused him of being disloyal just because he merely questioned Onewhisker's choices, not even in a hostile manner mind you, but the way she did it was enough to make him upset, and he just walks off. It's only after that does Tigerstar meet with him. It's easier for Dark Forest cats to connect with and target troubled cats, it's how they prey on them, and lead their dreams into the Dark Forest. There's a reason why Tigerstar was eventually able to connect with all of his children there eventually, save for Mothwing, who doesn't have that type of connection in general. A few other things to keep in mind in Starlight: -Several times Bramble was in situations where he was judged for his heritage, both internally and externally -When he first met Tigerstar again, it's noted his dream turned into what he deemed a "nightmare" and he was unsure on how to go about their interactions. And the setting was the old ThunderClan home. -Bramble questioned if StarClan sent Tigerstar, and also this is the FIRST instance of him hearing there's "other skies" besides StarClan. The Dark Forest wasn't a properly established thing in the main series narrative yet until TNP. -When Tigerstar leaves he turns to Hawkfrost, and tries to stop him from leaving, because he wanted to speak more but this is when he wakes up. -And when he does wake up he questions about the "other skies" situation again, wondering what that meant. -When Bramble goes back to sleep, the one he's thinking about seeing again is Hawkfrost and wonders if it really is possible for kin to share dreams, but he does feel guilt because he's a RiverClan cat. -And whereas he wanted and longed to be with Squirrelflight and wanted her affections, he knew he couldn't confide in her about Hawkfrost because of her biased dislike to him prior to all of this. So he has considered it. Here's an interaction between Bramble, Squirrel and Hawk at a gathering:
Quite literally, the situation with Bramble is that Squirrel was basically saying it's either me or him pretty much. And again, Bramble wasn't even training in the Dark Forest yet, he didn't even know if his dream was real until this point, and still was just trying to get to know Hawkfrost. When it comes to the Mudclaw situation, its a matter of the readers being aware of something thanks to perspective, but not the characters. Squirrelflight believed Mudclaw, because she already had that bias against him. While Brambleclaw wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially after Hawkfrost openly admitted that he was wrong but he was doing what he did because he genuinely thought it was right, by the ways of the code. Thanks to confirmation, through Mudclaw's perspective (which is crazy cause this is a debate on it's on that lasted for years), we know that Hawkfrost was a manipulator. But as far as Bramble believes, that's not the case, and this can be applied to any other cats that were involved in the rebellion. Or cats that chose to forgive the ones who got involved. For Squirrel and Bramble specifically though, it's just worse by pov. Because when we see Bramble and Hawk talk things out, and Brmable wants to do the same with Squirrelflight, she doesn't give him the chance.
This all happens in Starlight in general by the way, before the second dream ever happens, it was basically just Squirrel and Bramble's relationship taking a nose dive and him feeling more isolated in his own clan. The wild thing about this is that Leafpool (or paw at the time I'm pretty sure) actually had the most level-headed takes about all of this. Even though she had more than enough of a reason NOT to trust Bramble because of the omen she had of blood spilling blood. Starlight (After the gathering argument):
Twilight (The very next book after the Mudclaw situation):
And then even after this, Bramble does show signs of wanting to speak with Squirrel to work things out, but because she's notably spending more time with Ashfur, he veers away. The complete shutdown and rejection she kept hashing out at him, especially in Starlight, and pretty much "ending" what they had going on between them previously, made it harder for them to talk at all. I understand that Squirrelflight doesn't like Hawkfrost, but as Leafpaw points out, she is being unreasonably from an outsider perspective. Whereas we the readers DO find out Squirrel happened to be right in the end, it doesn't mean how she behaved prior, to was right. Then following the events of Starlight this pretty much goes into a reaction situation in most of Twilight. Squirrelflight realizes she was being unreasonable, but still continues to take jabs at Brambleclaw regardless. And then gets defensive when he counters back of is cold to her, which is...?? Upon rereading some of their arguments, there was a moment where Squirrelflight was with a moment of notably attacking Brambleclaw even, and from her own pov (I counted at least 2 or 3 instances in Twilight alone). Then again, it wouldn't be the first time either, because she has swung at him before when she was still an apprentice I believe, over an argument. Some other things: -Squirrel immediately thinks Bramble is like Tigerstar just because he wants to be deputy -Several times in Twilight she does this actually, and not just because of him wanting to be deputy, but because of his heritage too -The next time we do see Bramble in the DF with Tiger and Hawk is through Leafpool's perspective half way through the book -Notably in this dream, the only thing that was happening was Tigerstar teaching his sons to be "good warriors" by his standards -It's noted that Leaf could only see Hawkfrost and his enthusiasm and expressions, but not Bramble's who's back was to her -When she does wake up and run into Bramble, he's genuinely concerned about her, and she is was uncertain, about him and the dream, whether it was real or not. -There's no confirmation on how often Bramble and Hawk have been seeing Tiger at this point, by Leafpool's pov -She notes she can't tell Fire or Cinder about the dream because they'd take it seriously, and how this dream feels notably different. -^^ This is also the extent of what we get of the dreams and Tigerstar in Twilight by the way.
-As for Squirrelflight, besides her very heated arguments with Bramble, she notably goes out of her way to challenge Bramble even when Fire puts him in charge. -It's to the point where Ashfur of all cats is the voice of reason and tries to "calm" down her flare because she's not helping the situations. -At one point Bramble asks her to feed to elders, and out of spite she refuses, and runs off to hunt instead. -Squirrel is so caught in her frustration that Ashfur has to call out to her to stop, because she almost runs into a fox. -It's Bramble that has to save her, and he and Ashfur fight side by side to chase off the fox. -Despite that, just because it's the mere fact that it's Bramble that helps save her, she feels the need to argue with him, and even internally says she can't "back down".
-There's also the turn in Squirrel and Ashfur's relationship. Where cats outside of the relationship are noting Squirrel's behavior. -For example, when Squirrel crossed the ShadowClan border, and Bramble stopped her, but Ashfur jumped to her defense. Sandstorm says Squirrel can stand up for herself. -Sand is also surprised at how furiously she's looking at Bramble, and Ashfur isn't making the situation better, because now he's become overly protective of Squirrel at this point, due to how she behaves toward Bramble. -I always found these indications to be interesting tbh? But that's an debate for another day. -She sees Ashfur getting Birchpaw as his apprentice as a way of thwarting Brambleclaw -Sandstorm has to talk with her about the situation at the ShadowClan border -There's more times Bramble scolds her for neglecting her warrior duties (to which Squirrel does admit) -Another classic move of Squirrel promising Tawny that they'd send a patrol to help with kittypets before it was even approved -At this point her and Ashfur, still very much a thing.
-The tension between them starts to chill when Leafpool goes missing and Bramble offers to help her -The reason is because Squirrel understands he knows what it's like to lose a littermate to another another clan (Tawnypelt) -^^And this is under the assumption that Leafpool went to join WindClan -(If I had a nickel for every time Squirrel had to have a tail put over her mouth because she kept speaking out of turn...) -Squirrel seeks comfort in Bramble over Leaf's disappearance after WindClan and them can't find either her or Crowfeather -And this is where she suddenly starts to question if she'd give up everything for Ashfur or Bramble?? In the span of like...2 chapters? -Not much happens here but she gets comfort from her parents, and a bit from Bramble who says that if she HAD said something it might have just made things worse tbh (which they do agree, it would have driven her further away. It's rather ironic because this is exactly why the wedge between her and Bramble got so bad). -Bramble walks off before Ashfur comes over. -Ashfur literally comforts and lulls Squirrel to sleep in a den nest together -And then following this is the Badger battle, but all she thinks about his Bramble?? The events of Twilight are just....a whirlwind. And as for Sunset...ehh... -The opening of the book is Tigerstar and Darkstripe discussing Bramble and Hawk and Dark asking how he'll get them to do what he wants, and mainly to get revenge against Firestar for him. -Tigerstar notes that Hawkfrost is doing "well" under his advice, and there's no doubt who he sides with. But Bramble is more wayward and questionable. -Tigerstar literally notes that Bramble's loyalty to Firestar is a weakness, and why he's not as prime as Hawkfrost in his eyes. -Inner monologue of Bramble being relieved Ashfur is okay, and also being concerned for Firestar when he lost a life, and vowing to stay by his side to the very end. -The badger attack is the main reason Bramble and Squirrel suddenly hit it off again, after two full on books of animosity. -Most of the chapters after the badger fight is Bramble being on edge and protective of ThunderClan and his clanmates -Bramble is also the one who goes to apologize to Squirrel first, notably. -Since we are seeing Bramble's pov again (after not seeing it for the most part in Twilight) we do see just how differently he is from his perspective. How he has a lot of moments of longing for Squirrelflight, respect, worry, and even how fondly he speaks of her to other cats. Part of me wonders if it was intentional that he didn't get a pov in Twilight because they wanted him to come off as unreasonable, unlikable, or antagonizing, from Squirrel's pov? -"They didn’t even have to apologize; they could just look forward to all the moons ahead of them." - Something Bramble thinks after him and Squirrel made up. And it's when he went to apologize first but she stops him and assures him she knows. -Leafpool's faith in Bramble was shaken only because of the strange dream she had in Twilight.
-Leafpool has a dream where it shows Bramble and Squirrel are destined to be together (and my guess is because they were supposed to be the actual parents of the three) -Squirrel finally speaks with Ashfur, about how she wants to be with Bramble, and just kinda dumps him?? But offers to still be friends. -What's interesting is that Ashfur, who is feeling crossed at this point, brings up the things that she personally used in arguments against Bramble in Starlight and Twilight. So it kinda just...?? -Bramble even feels sympathy for Ashfur until he brings up his heritage. -“I’ll judge Brambleclaw by his own actions,” she retorted hotly, “not by something that other cats did long before I was born.” Squirrel saying she's going to look at Bramble for how he acts and not based on his heritage is quite noted, which is true because this happens later in the book concerning Firestar. -Leafpool does tell Squirrel about her vision of her and Bramble, to which Squirrel is happy about
-What's interesting about Bramble going to the DF again, it's been a while since the Badger attack -Bramble notes that he can't tell Squirrel about it because she still believes he's loyal to his clan but still wanted to see his kin -When Hawkfrost asks him, he tells him about the Badgers (this does bite him back later) -It's noted that when Hawkfrost sees his wound, his eyes softened and he's concerned for his brother. -Tigerstar actually gives the exact time frame and says Bramble hasn't been there for since a quarter moon -Bramble DOES note that Hawk is listening to him recount the badger attack to Tigerstar, and doesn't fully tell them how devastating the damage was because he acknowledges that Hawk is still from a rival clan. So as far as Hawk knows, there was just a badger attack in general, not how severely damaging it actually was. -When Tigerstar insists his bravery is good for when Firestar chooses a deputy, Bramble thinks the opposite, and how he was doing what he did for his clanmates, not for power. -They discuss advice again, like their previous meetings. At one point Bramble brings up and defends Firestar, to which Tigerstar grows angry. Tigerstar also reveals that Stormfur returned to the lake, something Bramble didn't want Hawk to know. -And it's HERE do we actually finally see things escalate, because Tigerstar suddenly hits Brambleclaw. Calling it "training" and forcing Bramble to defend himself. -It's noted they have done normal training before, but this one was different because they Tigerstar was much more ferocious, much to Bramble's surprise and was literally ripping into him. -Notably it's Hawkfrost who jumps between them and fights Tigerstar off when he tries to attack Bramble again while he's down. -After this they break apart, and end the meeting, leaving Bramble with his previous advice. -Bramble then wakes to his wounds from the dream for the first time ever. -^^(Imo I don't think this is talked about enough, but this is literally manipulation and abuse from Tigerstar's end. Lulling his sons into false sense of security, and then escalating when he's angry. Especially towards Bramble, whom he's aware is very loyal to Firestar still)
-He doesn't tell Squirrel about his meetings because he worries they'll lose everything they've gained and built up again. And that she'll just resort back to how she felt about him so vehemently in the past. -Notably Squirrel has tried several times at this point to explain to Ashfur about their relationship, but it doesn't work. And even just wants to stay friends, but even Bramble can see he'll never be comfortable with that. -Leafpool starts to do more of her own investigating on Bramble, trying to enter into the DF, but instead runs into StarClan -She also notably spies on him in the waking world when he leaves camp to be by himself to just think -She gets caught through and he stares at her until she leaves him in peace -Her trust in Bramble is notably going down hill mostly because of the reminder of the blood omen again too. He's some inner thoughts from Bramble's perspective when he was out by the lake:
Continuing: -There's the Berrykit incident -Storm and Brook going to RiverClan -Them running into ShadowClan trespassing and a fight happens -Bramble does accuse Leafpool, but this is rebuked AND he does apologize to her.
-Bramblestar does feel guilty about accusing Leafpool, and realizing he's the one that told Hawkfrost, and Hawk is the one that ran his mouth about the badgers. -Blackstar says he did what he did because they need more territory thanks to Twolegs, and Leopardstar also needs territory, both Onestar and Firestar refuse. And this causes more arguments in the gathering. -Hawkfrost brings up a good point, but also antagonizes the other clan cats -Tawnypelt notably doubts Hawkfrost, to Brambleclaw, who is a bit disturbed by that. But also he doesn't side with Hawk when he shows defiance against Firestar. -Cats from all clans square up, but it's ShadowClan that starts the fight, to Bramble's horror. -Brambleclaw notably tries to stop the fighting cats -The fight settles, but we see Hawkfrost abusing Mothwing, and even about to strike her before leaving -Halfway into Sunset, only NOW does Tawnypelt's dream finally get connected to Tigerstar. -Brambleclaw sees her reject Tigerstar's "training" which is unsurprising, she saw his behavior first hand while he took over ShadowClan and RiverClan, and this IS noted when she scolds Bramble. -Bramble is having internal struggles with his own personal beliefs and ambitions even more. -They go find Daisy and her kits and bring her back -Notably, Leafpool's dream that StarClan chooses Bramble to be the deputy, also talks about his DF training.
-Bramble is made deputy, and even Bramble is surprised and protests -Cats protests in general claiming it's against the code and he can't be trusted -Leafpool brings up her vision -And the only cat to argue is Ashfur, whom Bramble had to stop before she ripped into him. -In the end no cat agreed with Ashfur, and congratulated Bramble -When Bramble goes to the DF to tell Tiger and Hawk, he's happy and excited, saying StarClan chose him -Hawk is notably jealous, and Tiger says he earned the position because of him and their training -Tiger also gets mad when Bramble reminded his clan he didn't have an apprentice yet -It's at THIS point that Tigerstar talks about them ruling the forest, Hawk is elated at this, but Bramble takes a step back -Bramble notably argues with Tiger's new plans, and Tiger continues to try and sweep him up in his vision -Bramble doesn't agree to anything though, and wants to think things through, but is disturbed by his brother and father's words -Hawk suggests they take over during a gathering, to which Bramble out right refuses and is upset about -He finds it hard to do anything under the gaze of Tigerstar and asks to meet Hawk in the waking world instead
-Bramble was going to talk Hawk out of Tiger's plan -Hawkfrost suggest they meet on his territory -While he's spending time with Squirrelflight he thinks about his meeting planned with Hawk.
-When Bramble goes to meet with Hawkfrost he genuinely tries to convince his brother against their father's plans
Continuing from here: -Hawkfrost dismisses him, and says that they'd make better leaders and tries to convince him -Bramble thinks about it for a moment and how he wouldn't have personally left a kit to suffer in a trap -He hears a cat cry in help, Hawk tries to tell him it's nothing, but he insists and goes to investigate -Bramble finds Firestar in the trap, immediately tries to help but gets knocked aside by Hawkfrost -He's shocked at Hawk saying this is his opportunity -He puts two and two together as to why Hawk smells of a ShadowClan cat when Firestar utters why he was there -(^^Something to note is how Hawk was trying to dismiss all of this so much when it came to his scent being of ShadowClan, and when they heard the cry for help, and then him stopping Bramble from intervening. It could imply he was trying to kill Firestar regardless of Bramble's involvement) -The voice in his head tells him to kill Firestar, and Hawkfrost shoves him over to finish the job, but Bramble is frozen on the spot (This is similar to how Lionblaze was influenced by Tiger's voice in POT)
-Meanwhile back at the camp, Ashfur tells everyone what happens and feigns fear -(^^ Planning to frame Bramble, and even possibly Hawkfrost) -Leafpool thinks that her fears have come true and that Bramble has succumbed to the darkness of Tigerstar's ambition while she and Squirrel hurry to find them -Meanwhile back at the fox trap, Firestar's gaze wasn't pleading but a burning question of: "What will you do, Brambleclaw? It’s
your choice." -All the while his father is literally the devil on his shoulder and telling him to kill Firestar now. -Bramblestar refuses to do it in the end. And honestly the rest of the chapter speaks for itself here.
Last overview on Sunset: -Hawkfrost was planning to kill Brambleclaw if he didn't go through with the plan from the start
-The idea was Tigerstar's because of how Brambleclaw was still loyal to Firestar
-Brambleclaw didn't want to hurt his own brother, and even told him to leave
-Hawkfrost refused because he has no gripe with killing his own kin for power
-Bramble kills Hawkfrost but never wanted this
-When he waits for Firestar, he believes he's deserving of exile like his father, but that doesn't happen
-Firestar trusts and understands how hard this all was for him, and keeps him as deputy.
-Leafpool and Squirrelflight arrive, Leafpool thinks she was right in thinking Bramble is a traitor
-Turns out she was wrong, but she is shocked that Bramble was the one to stop Hawkfrost in the end
-Bramble is still somewhat in a state of dissociation that he didn't even notice Squirrel at first when she thanks him
-And then the omen is mentions and that's about that, it's the end of that arc And this is just...from the last three books alone?? Not much happens in POT, but it's noted on several times (even if it's a foreshadowing) how good of a father Bramble is, and how proud Holly, Jay and Lion were to be his children. Along with the reputation he has at that point. There's a reason why Bramblestar gets listed a lot as one of the most notable fathers in the series overall next to Gray Wing or Shellheart, etc. The reason I find how Squirrel behaves to be much more condemning is again, there really is NO reason for her not to tell Bramble. And if there actually was, she didn't exactly tell him when he openly asked her why.
What's interesting about Leafpool's Wish is that she and Brambleclaw do talk about his meetings in the Dark Forest. And although she had her doubts, she did listen to him, and he assures her that she can trust him. He wanted nothing else to do with Tigerstar, and felt the guilt of killing his own brother. He vowed his loyalty to ThunderClan, but it made Leafpool remember her own disloyalty because of her kits. When Squirrelflight and Feathertail do talk about the kits, she agrees that Feathertail is right, she does love the kits, and Leafpool, but keep in mind what was important as Feathertail put it, is that the kits needed to be raised as ThunderClan cats, with a proud family. When she decides to adopt them, she's also making that decision for not only her, but for Brambleclaw as well, without his consent. That is the issue. Yellowfang literally says to her at one point that they can't make her do anything she doesn't want to. There really is no reason for Squirrelflight not to tell Brambleclaw, heck even Firestar, at least about the kits. Because he'd be understandable, especially if StarClan is involved. Bramblestar telling Squirrelflight about his meetings in the Dark Forest, genuinely wouldn't add to anything anymore at this point in time. It was over and done with, he was no long going there, he killed Hawkfrost, and now he's looking towards the future, and peaceful life he wanted to live with Squirrelflight. But when it comes to Squirrel and Leaf, it's a matter of how Squirrel put it, she would be lying to him for the rest of his life. And considering that they're STILL alive now, it would be a lie that would go on for quite a long time compared to the conclusion his arc came to in Sunset, that only lasted three books. StarClan, even if you say they're being manipulative, it's for a good cause as far as they're concerned, while Tigerstar was manipulating his sons with a malicious intent. They're not the same, and not even comparable imo, but if you think otherwise, agree to disagree. I just don't see any reason for Squirrel and Leaf to not include Bramble on something like that, and choose for him. Since this is long enough, I won't bother much with the SqH points, because I just genunely don't care for Squirrelflight's character in that book. It just felt like Squirrelflight from TNP again, if not worse because she was in a position of power and abusing that, while also involving even her biological children into mess. The Sisters aren't respectable as far as I'm concerned. I don't see how abandoning children, and being sexists in any way is respectable, but that's my opinion on it. The clans aren't perfect, but they definitely aren't as terrible to the degrees of the Sisters (or the initial Tribe introduction), and I'll leave it at that.
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Post by ❅Maplefrost❅ on Dec 19, 2022 19:42:53 GMT -5
After going back through the last three books, I'm actually genuinely surprised...because I remembered that Squirrel was pretty bratty...but I didn't realize just how much worse she was until rereading the books. I think that Bramble's characterization in TNP and POT was good, but Squirrel was noticeably worse in TNP. She kinda bounces back in POT, but then the three plot happens and it's kinda....and I don't really care for her much in OotS either. So I don't know...I feel like this kinda just made me dislike her character more after going back to look at old books.
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Post by starlightstoryteller on Dec 19, 2022 19:45:21 GMT -5
honest to god, I don't think I am going to get anywhere with this, but i love exercises in futility, so the point of the leafpool thing is that it's beyond cruel to accuse someone of being disloyal for telling their friends that their mentor died, especially when barkface already knew. furthermore, he has no right to accuse anyone of being disloyal when he's consorting with a riverclan cat and a shadowclan cat, which [from the pov of the clans, not mine] is clearly worse than accidentally letting something slip with friends after your mentor dies. My point with the leafpool thing is that even before the later arcs, he is kind of a douchebag. My problem with your responses is that you use warrior's flawed morality to judge her , but excuse brambleclaw's even more heinous violations by looking at his behavior from a human perspective [being lonely so he takes up with his kin that are from different clans and he has ample reason to be suspicious of, number one being that hawkfrost was Training With His Evil Dad In Hell.] You make excuses for brambleclaw's traitorous behavior ['he was cautious, he was only there for his brother' but it becomes amply clear as time goes on that hawkfrost has harmful ambitions and tigerstar just because brambleclaw ignores the advice of everyone he's close to on the matter of hawkfrost doesn't mean he's not complicit.]
my second problem with these responses is that you are ignoring the evidence i have provided or dismissing it. you say squirrelflight had no reason to mistrust hawkfrost until the onestar thing [ignoring that the onestar thing is a pretty huge red flag right there. like even brambleclaw acknowledges that there was no good reason for him to be meeting with mudclaw in a war that had jackshit to do with him.] You say it's a big theme of the arc that mistrust of him due to his heritage is a thing, and i agree--but the point is that most of his insecurities are all in his head, because he's a young warrior still developing in a hostile world. squirrelflight says to him she is not doing this because hawkfrost is tigerkin (and again, it should be obvious considering she was bffs with brambleclaw and friendlh with tawnypelt! he is unfairly projecting onto her!) and brambleclaw's narration insists that she is.
you say squirrel's lie had nothing to do with starclan but i provided a direct quote, with chapter citations, saying that yellowfang told her to lie to everyone--yes, including brambleclaw. StarClan was the only reason she decided to do it, in the end. She was heavily pressured by their society's gods, and might've been fearing punishment for noncompliance she kept secret from Leafpool because Leaf was a medicine cat.
It's also funny because before you insisted hawk tried to kill fire as a 'test' but when i pointed out that meant it was still bramble's fault for meeting with him rather than rejecting him you changed your tune.
By 'never received permanent consequences' I mean he didn't get the shame and ostracization that squirrel and leaf got, what he rightfully deserved. Nobody ever discovers the true extent of his disloyalty save Leafpool, and the other clans never mention it again by PO3. Meanwhile you still have BREEZEPELT, of all people, calling squirrel disloyal as late as sqh. He is never challenged for this, and bramblestar only has a generic 'that was moons ago' to offer rather than 'you continued to train in hell despite knowing they wanted to kill everyone who the heck are you to call anyone disloyal', because the narrative continually being pushed is that this was some nigh-unforgivable sin.
You say she 'used him as father fodder' but genuinely, what the heck does that even mean??? In warriors society, having a father is genuinely not necessary for a kit's development considering their children are raised communally, and daisy and ferncloud were there for additional parenting if squirrel got tired. in the first books fathers didn't really raise kits, and this had zero effect on the queen's workloads. Squirrelflight didn't 'use him', she just lied to him. You try to draw arbitrary distinctions between squirrel's lies and bramble's, but they're both lies.
squirrelflight couldn't defend herself properly, because she was panicked and under stress.
re: brambleclaw harassing her and ashfur, as well as a source for brambleclaw acknowledging his brother's behavior is suspicious as heck: imgur.com/a/AfI5rhV . the images are from Bramblestar is Worse, a video i don't agree with on all its points (it's definitely pretty harsh on him, although moon does have legitimate grievances imo), but is convenient for source purposes due to its copious amounts of quotes. re: everything about the sqh situation. you are again judging him from a warriors morality standpoint, and my point with her disobeying him is that they fundamentally didn't have the time. sunset would've died. The sisters are not lesser because they are rogues, and some clan cats are able to recognize this. Just because bramblestar judges cats by the circumstances of their birth (oh the irony) doesn't mean squirrelflight is disloyal for not doing that. Saying 'they're rogues why should they care' is buying into the clan's violently xenophobic culture without critically examining the biases you may have picked up. It is a bad thing that the clans do not care for the wellbeing of any cat born outside the clans. And my point was they didn't need to fight other clan cats to help sunrise because there is no way they'd find out if bramblestar simply ordered his clan and the sisters to not say anything. And saying 'well they won't stay there long' is. a moot point. They're there now so that Moonlight can have a safe place to kit, and this in fact makes the patrols worse because they couldn't wait one moon. You have no evidence that thunderclan not being there made things worse. And furthermore, if Bramblestar had simply said "I know this is messed up but I'm going to try and broker peace" don't you think squirrelflight would've understood? She went behind his back because she had a premonition of innocent kits being in danger. also re: the sisters not being perfect. of course they aren't. no society is. but the clans' sins are far heavier than the sisters, what with how they literally got their start driving out/murdering or converting all the cats who already lived in the forest, they continually start wars over borders instead of sharing territory, they demonize all outsiders. The Sisters do the 'abandoning children' thing because it's in their religion, and the clans have done many terrible things in service of StarClan's omens. Not to mention the fact that the clans are incest-heavy messes precisely because they do not do what the Sisters do--real-life cats chase off their male young to prevent inbreeding. The Sisters treat their prisoners far better than the clans, and ultimately they only took them hostage to prevent an invading force driving out a pregnant cat. Furthermore, if not for the sisters sparkpelt would've died. You'd think Bramblestar would be a little thankful.
I'd like to say in advance, that underlining a bunch of lines and paragraphs does make reading it more difficult. Not trying to be rude anything by that, just saying it is harder for me to read your replies that way. I'm not sure if they were supposed to be links? But they didn't work when I clicked them. I decided to just go through the Starlight, Twilight, and Sunset in the end: - Hawkfrost wasn't previously training with Tigerstar when his father is finally able to connect his dreams to the Dark Forest. Hawkfrost arrives around the same time as him, and he becomes the reason why Brambleclaw stays, again, not Tigerstar. And interestingly enough, prior to this finally happening, him and Squirrel were already arguing, as shown in the quotes in the thread. Squirrelflight was notably being more frustrated and jealous at Brambleclaw for just showing interest in Hawkfrost, evening insulting him. Which again, isn't the approach that Squirrel should have took, but definitely did push Bramble away more. Then there's the other time, where Squirrel lashed out at him and accused him of being disloyal just because he merely questioned Onewhisker's choices, not even in a hostile manner mind you, but the way she did it was enough to make him upset, and he just walks off. It's only after that does Tigerstar meet with him. It's easier for Dark Forest cats to connect with and target troubled cats, it's how they prey on them, and lead their dreams into the Dark Forest. There's a reason why Tigerstar was eventually able to connect with all of his children there eventually, save for Mothwing, who doesn't have that type of connection in general. A few other things to keep in mind in Starlight: -Several times Bramble was in situations where he was judged for his heritage, both internally and externally -When he first met Tigerstar again, it's noted his dream turned into what he deemed a "nightmare" and he was unsure on how to go about their interactions. And the setting was the old ThunderClan home. -Bramble questioned if StarClan sent Tigerstar, and also this is the FIRST instance of him hearing there's "other skies" besides StarClan. The Dark Forest wasn't a properly established thing in the main series narrative yet until TNP. -When Tigerstar leaves he turns to Hawkfrost, and tries to stop him from leaving, because he wanted to speak more but this is when he wakes up. -And when he does wake up he questions about the "other skies" situation again, wondering what that meant. -When Bramble goes back to sleep, the one he's thinking about seeing again is Hawkfrost and wonders if it really is possible for kin to share dreams, but he does feel guilt because he's a RiverClan cat. -And whereas he wanted and longed to be with Squirrelflight and wanted her affections, he knew he couldn't confide in her about Hawkfrost because of her biased dislike to him prior to all of this. So he has considered it. Here's an interaction between Bramble, Squirrel and Hawk at a gathering:
Quite literally, the situation with Bramble is that Squirrel was basically saying it's either me or him pretty much. And again, Bramble wasn't even training in the Dark Forest yet, he didn't even know if his dream was real until this point, and still was just trying to get to know Hawkfrost. When it comes to the Mudclaw situation, its a matter of the readers being aware of something thanks to perspective, but not the characters. Squirrelflight believed Mudclaw, because she already had that bias against him. While Brambleclaw wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially after Hawkfrost openly admitted that he was wrong but he was doing what he did because he genuinely thought it was right, by the ways of the code. Thanks to confirmation, through Mudclaw's perspective (which is crazy cause this is a debate on it's on that lasted for years), we know that Hawkfrost was a manipulator. But as far as Bramble believes, that's not the case, and this can be applied to any other cats that were involved in the rebellion. Or cats that chose to forgive the ones who got involved. For Squirrel and Bramble specifically though, it's just worse by pov. Because when we see Bramble and Hawk talk things out, and Brmable wants to do the same with Squirrelflight, she doesn't give him the chance.
This all happens in Starlight in general by the way, before the second dream ever happens, it was basically just Squirrel and Bramble's relationship taking a nose dive and him feeling more isolated in his own clan. The wild thing about this is that Leafpool (or paw at the time I'm pretty sure) actually had the most level-headed takes about all of this. Even though she had more than enough of a reason NOT to trust Bramble because of the omen she had of blood spilling blood. Starlight (After the gathering argument):
Twilight (The very next book after the Mudclaw situation):
And then even after this, Bramble does show signs of wanting to speak with Squirrel to work things out, but because she's notably spending more time with Ashfur, he veers away. The complete shutdown and rejection she kept hashing out at him, especially in Starlight, and pretty much "ending" what they had going on between them previously, made it harder for them to talk at all. I understand that Squirrelflight doesn't like Hawkfrost, but as Leafpaw points out, she is being unreasonably from an outsider perspective. Whereas we the readers DO find out Squirrel happened to be right in the end, it doesn't mean how she behaved prior, to was right. Then following the events of Starlight this pretty much goes into a reaction situation in most of Twilight. Squirrelflight realizes she was being unreasonable, but still continues to take jabs at Brambleclaw regardless. And then gets defensive when he counters back of is cold to her, which is...?? Upon rereading some of their arguments, there was a moment where Squirrelflight was with a moment of notably attacking Brambleclaw even, and from her own pov (I counted at least 2 or 3 instances in Twilight alone). Then again, it wouldn't be the first time either, because she has swung at him before when she was still an apprentice I believe, over an argument. Some other things: -Squirrel immediately thinks Bramble is like Tigerstar just because he wants to be deputy -Several times in Twilight she does this actually, and not just because of him wanting to be deputy, but because of his heritage too -The next time we do see Bramble in the DF with Tiger and Hawk is through Leafpool's perspective half way through the book -Notably in this dream, the only thing that was happening was Tigerstar teaching his sons to be "good warriors" by his standards -It's noted that Leaf could only see Hawkfrost and his enthusiasm and expressions, but not Bramble's who's back was to her -When she does wake up and run into Bramble, he's genuinely concerned about her, and she is was uncertain, about him and the dream, whether it was real or not. -There's no confirmation on how often Bramble and Hawk have been seeing Tiger at this point, by Leafpool's pov -She notes she can't tell Fire or Cinder about the dream because they'd take it seriously, and how this dream feels notably different. -^^ This is also the extent of what we get of the dreams and Tigerstar in Twilight by the way.
-As for Squirrelflight, besides her very heated arguments with Bramble, she notably goes out of her way to challenge Bramble even when Fire puts him in charge. -It's to the point where Ashfur of all cats is the voice of reason and tries to "calm" down her flare because she's not helping the situations. -At one point Bramble asks her to feed to elders, and out of spite she refuses, and runs off to hunt instead. -Squirrel is so caught in her frustration that Ashfur has to call out to her to stop, because she almost runs into a fox. -It's Bramble that has to save her, and he and Ashfur fight side by side to chase off the fox. -Despite that, just because it's the mere fact that it's Bramble that helps save her, she feels the need to argue with him, and even internally says she can't "back down".
-There's also the turn in Squirrel and Ashfur's relationship. Where cats outside of the relationship are noting Squirrel's behavior. -For example, when Squirrel crossed the ShadowClan border, and Bramble stopped her, but Ashfur jumped to her defense. Sandstorm says Squirrel can stand up for herself. -Sand is also surprised at how furiously she's looking at Bramble, and Ashfur isn't making the situation better, because now he's become overly protective of Squirrel at this point, due to how she behaves toward Bramble. -I always found these indications to be interesting tbh? But that's an debate for another day. -She sees Ashfur getting Birchpaw as his apprentice as a way of thwarting Brambleclaw -Sandstorm has to talk with her about the situation at the ShadowClan border -There's more times Bramble scolds her for neglecting her warrior duties (to which Squirrel does admit) -Another classic move of Squirrel promising Tawny that they'd send a patrol to help with kittypets before it was even approved -At this point her and Ashfur, still very much a thing.
-The tension between them starts to chill when Leafpool goes missing and Bramble offers to help her -The reason is because Squirrel understands he knows what it's like to lose a littermate to another another clan (Tawnypelt) -^^And this is under the assumption that Leafpool went to join WindClan -(If I had a nickel for every time Squirrel had to have a tail put over her mouth because she kept speaking out of turn...) -Squirrel seeks comfort in Bramble over Leaf's disappearance after WindClan and them can't find either her or Crowfeather -And this is where she suddenly starts to question if she'd give up everything for Ashfur or Bramble?? In the span of like...2 chapters? -Not much happens here but she gets comfort from her parents, and a bit from Bramble who says that if she HAD said something it might have just made things worse tbh (which they do agree, it would have driven her further away. It's rather ironic because this is exactly why the wedge between her and Bramble got so bad). -Bramble walks off before Ashfur comes over. -Ashfur literally comforts and lulls Squirrel to sleep in a den nest together -And then following this is the Badger battle, but all she thinks about his Bramble?? The events of Twilight are just....a whirlwind. And as for Sunset...ehh... -The opening of the book is Tigerstar and Darkstripe discussing Bramble and Hawk and Dark asking how he'll get them to do what he wants, and mainly to get revenge against Firestar for him. -Tigerstar notes that Hawkfrost is doing "well" under his advice, and there's no doubt who he sides with. But Bramble is more wayward and questionable. -Tigerstar literally notes that Bramble's loyalty to Firestar is a weakness, and why he's not as prime as Hawkfrost in his eyes. -Inner monologue of Bramble being relieved Ashfur is okay, and also being concerned for Firestar when he lost a life, and vowing to stay by his side to the very end. -The badger attack is the main reason Bramble and Squirrel suddenly hit it off again, after two full on books of animosity. -Most of the chapters after the badger fight is Bramble being on edge and protective of ThunderClan and his clanmates -Bramble is also the one who goes to apologize to Squirrel first, notably. -Since we are seeing Bramble's pov again (after not seeing it for the most part in Twilight) we do see just how differently he is from his perspective. How he has a lot of moments of longing for Squirrelflight, respect, worry, and even how fondly he speaks of her to other cats. Part of me wonders if it was intentional that he didn't get a pov in Twilight because they wanted him to come off as unreasonable, unlikable, or antagonizing, from Squirrel's pov? -"They didn’t even have to apologize; they could just look forward to all the moons ahead of them." - Something Bramble thinks after him and Squirrel made up. And it's when he went to apologize first but she stops him and assures him she knows. -Leafpool's faith in Bramble was shaken only because of the strange dream she had in Twilight.
-Leafpool has a dream where it shows Bramble and Squirrel are destined to be together (and my guess is because they were supposed to be the actual parents of the three) -Squirrel finally speaks with Ashfur, about how she wants to be with Bramble, and just kinda dumps him?? But offers to still be friends. -What's interesting is that Ashfur, who is feeling crossed at this point, brings up the things that she personally used in arguments against Bramble in Starlight and Twilight. So it kinda just...?? -Bramble even feels sympathy for Ashfur until he brings up his heritage. -“I’ll judge Brambleclaw by his own actions,” she retorted hotly, “not by something that other cats did long before I was born.” Squirrel saying she's going to look at Bramble for how he acts and not based on his heritage is quite noted, which is true because this happens later in the book concerning Firestar. -Leafpool does tell Squirrel about her vision of her and Bramble, to which Squirrel is happy about
-What's interesting about Bramble going to the DF again, it's been a while since the Badger attack -Bramble notes that he can't tell Squirrel about it because she still believes he's loyal to his clan but still wanted to see his kin -When Hawkfrost asks him, he tells him about the Badgers (this does bite him back later) -It's noted that when Hawkfrost sees his wound, his eyes softened and he's concerned for his brother. -Tigerstar actually gives the exact time frame and says Bramble hasn't been there for since a quarter moon -Bramble DOES note that Hawk is listening to him recount the badger attack to Tigerstar, and doesn't fully tell them how devastating the damage was because he acknowledges that Hawk is still from a rival clan. So as far as Hawk knows, there was just a badger attack in general, not how severely damaging it actually was. -When Tigerstar insists his bravery is good for when Firestar chooses a deputy, Bramble thinks the opposite, and how he was doing what he did for his clanmates, not for power. -They discuss advice again, like their previous meetings. At one point Bramble brings up and defends Firestar, to which Tigerstar grows angry. Tigerstar also reveals that Stormfur returned to the lake, something Bramble didn't want Hawk to know. -And it's HERE do we actually finally see things escalate, because Tigerstar suddenly hits Brambleclaw. Calling it "training" and forcing Bramble to defend himself. -It's noted they have done normal training before, but this one was different because they Tigerstar was much more ferocious, much to Bramble's surprise and was literally ripping into him. -Notably it's Hawkfrost who jumps between them and fights Tigerstar off when he tries to attack Bramble again while he's down. -After this they break apart, and end the meeting, leaving Bramble with his previous advice. -Bramble then wakes to his wounds from the dream for the first time ever. -^^(Imo I don't think this is talked about enough, but this is literally manipulation and abuse from Tigerstar's end. Lulling his sons into false sense of security, and then escalating when he's angry. Especially towards Bramble, whom he's aware is very loyal to Firestar still)
-He doesn't tell Squirrel about his meetings because he worries they'll lose everything they've gained and built up again. And that she'll just resort back to how she felt about him so vehemently in the past. -Notably Squirrel has tried several times at this point to explain to Ashfur about their relationship, but it doesn't work. And even just wants to stay friends, but even Bramble can see he'll never be comfortable with that. -Leafpool starts to do more of her own investigating on Bramble, trying to enter into the DF, but instead runs into StarClan -She also notably spies on him in the waking world when he leaves camp to be by himself to just think -She gets caught through and he stares at her until she leaves him in peace -Her trust in Bramble is notably going down hill mostly because of the reminder of the blood omen again too. He's some inner thoughts from Bramble's perspective when he was out by the lake: Continuing: -There's the Berrykit incident -Storm and Brook going to RiverClan -Them running into ShadowClan trespassing and a fight happens -Bramble does accuse Leafpool, but this is rebuked AND he does apologize to her.
-Bramblestar does feel guilty about accusing Leafpool, and realizing he's the one that told Hawkfrost, and Hawk is the one that ran his mouth about the badgers. -Blackstar says he did what he did because they need more territory thanks to Twolegs, and Leopardstar also needs territory, both Onestar and Firestar refuse. And this causes more arguments in the gathering. -Hawkfrost brings up a good point, but also antagonizes the other clan cats -Tawnypelt notably doubts Hawkfrost, to Brambleclaw, who is a bit disturbed by that. But also he doesn't side with Hawk when he shows defiance against Firestar. -Cats from all clans square up, but it's ShadowClan that starts the fight, to Bramble's horror. -Brambleclaw notably tries to stop the fighting cats -The fight settles, but we see Hawkfrost abusing Mothwing, and even about to strike her before leaving -Halfway into Sunset, only NOW does Tawnypelt's dream finally get connected to Tigerstar. -Brambleclaw sees her reject Tigerstar's "training" which is unsurprising, she saw his behavior first hand while he took over ShadowClan and RiverClan, and this IS noted when she scolds Bramble. -Bramble is having internal struggles with his own personal beliefs and ambitions even more. -They go find Daisy and her kits and bring her back -Notably, Leafpool's dream that StarClan chooses Bramble to be the deputy, also talks about his DF training.
-Bramble is made deputy, and even Bramble is surprised and protests -Cats protests in general claiming it's against the code and he can't be trusted -Leafpool brings up her vision -And the only cat to argue is Ashfur, whom Bramble had to stop before she ripped into him. -In the end no cat agreed with Ashfur, and congratulated Bramble -When Bramble goes to the DF to tell Tiger and Hawk, he's happy and excited, saying StarClan chose him -Hawk is notably jealous, and Tiger says he earned the position because of him and their training -Tiger also gets mad when Bramble reminded his clan he didn't have an apprentice yet -It's at THIS point that Tigerstar talks about them ruling the forest, Hawk is elated at this, but Bramble takes a step back -Bramble notably argues with Tiger's new plans, and Tiger continues to try and sweep him up in his vision -Bramble doesn't agree to anything though, and wants to think things through, but is disturbed by his brother and father's words -Hawk suggests they take over during a gathering, to which Bramble out right refuses and is upset about -He finds it hard to do anything under the gaze of Tigerstar and asks to meet Hawk in the waking world instead
-Bramble was going to talk Hawk out of Tiger's plan -Hawkfrost suggest they meet on his territory -While he's spending time with Squirrelflight he thinks about his meeting planned with Hawk.
-When Bramble goes to meet with Hawkfrost he genuinely tries to convince his brother against their father's plans
Continuing from here: -Hawkfrost dismisses him, and says that they'd make better leaders and tries to convince him -Bramble thinks about it for a moment and how he wouldn't have personally left a kit to suffer in a trap -He hears a cat cry in help, Hawk tries to tell him it's nothing, but he insists and goes to investigate -Bramble finds Firestar in the trap, immediately tries to help but gets knocked aside by Hawkfrost -He's shocked at Hawk saying this is his opportunity -He puts two and two together as to why Hawk smells of a ShadowClan cat when Firestar utters why he was there -(^^Something to note is how Hawk was trying to dismiss all of this so much when it came to his scent being of ShadowClan, and when they heard the cry for help, and then him stopping Bramble from intervening. It could imply he was trying to kill Firestar regardless of Bramble's involvement) -The voice in his head tells him to kill Firestar, and Hawkfrost shoves him over to finish the job, but Bramble is frozen on the spot (This is similar to how Lionblaze was influenced by Tiger's voice in POT)
-Meanwhile back at the camp, Ashfur tells everyone what happens and feigns fear -(^^ Planning to frame Bramble, and even possibly Hawkfrost) -Leafpool thinks that her fears have come true and that Bramble has succumbed to the darkness of Tigerstar's ambition while she and Squirrel hurry to find them -Meanwhile back at the fox trap, Firestar's gaze wasn't pleading but a burning question of: "What will you do, Brambleclaw? It’s
your choice." -All the while his father is literally the devil on his shoulder and telling him to kill Firestar now. -Bramblestar refuses to do it in the end. And honestly the rest of the chapter speaks for itself here.
Last overview on Sunset: -Hawkfrost was planning to kill Brambleclaw if he didn't go through with the plan from the start
-The idea was Tigerstar's because of how Brambleclaw was still loyal to Firestar
-Brambleclaw didn't want to hurt his own brother, and even told him to leave
-Hawkfrost refused because he has no gripe with killing his own kin for power
-Bramble kills Hawkfrost but never wanted this
-When he waits for Firestar, he believes he's deserving of exile like his father, but that doesn't happen
-Firestar trusts and understands how hard this all was for him, and keeps him as deputy.
-Leafpool and Squirrelflight arrive, Leafpool thinks she was right in thinking Bramble is a traitor
-Turns out she was wrong, but she is shocked that Bramble was the one to stop Hawkfrost in the end
-Bramble is still somewhat in a state of dissociation that he didn't even notice Squirrel at first when she thanks him
-And then the omen is mentions and that's about that, it's the end of that arc And this is just...from the last three books alone?? Not much happens in POT, but it's noted on several times (even if it's a foreshadowing) how good of a father Bramble is, and how proud Holly, Jay and Lion were to be his children. Along with the reputation he has at that point. There's a reason why Bramblestar gets listed a lot as one of the most notable fathers in the series overall next to Gray Wing or Shellheart, etc. The reason I find how Squirrel behaves to be much more condemning is again, there really is NO reason for her not to tell Bramble. And if there actually was, she didn't exactly tell him when he openly asked her why.
What's interesting about Leafpool's Wish is that she and Brambleclaw do talk about his meetings in the Dark Forest. And although she had her doubts, she did listen to him, and he assures her that she can trust him. He wanted nothing else to do with Tigerstar, and felt the guilt of killing his own brother. He vowed his loyalty to ThunderClan, but it made Leafpool remember her own disloyalty because of her kits. When Squirrelflight and Feathertail do talk about the kits, she agrees that Feathertail is right, she does love the kits, and Leafpool, but keep in mind what was important as Feathertail put it, is that the kits needed to be raised as ThunderClan cats, with a proud family. When she decides to adopt them, she's also making that decision for not only her, but for Brambleclaw as well, without his consent. That is the issue. Yellowfang literally says to her at one point that they can't make her do anything she doesn't want to. There really is no reason for Squirrelflight not to tell Brambleclaw, heck even Firestar, at least about the kits. Because he'd be understandable, especially if StarClan is involved. Bramblestar telling Squirrelflight about his meetings in the Dark Forest, genuinely wouldn't add to anything anymore at this point in time. It was over and done with, he was no long going there, he killed Hawkfrost, and now he's looking towards the future, and peaceful life he wanted to live with Squirrelflight. But when it comes to Squirrel and Leaf, it's a matter of how Squirrel put it, she would be lying to him for the rest of his life. And considering that they're STILL alive now, it would be a lie that would go on for quite a long time compared to the conclusion his arc came to in Sunset, that only lasted three books. StarClan, even if you say they're being manipulative, it's for a good cause as far as they're concerned, while Tigerstar was manipulating his sons with a malicious intent. They're not the same, and not even comparable imo, but if you think otherwise, agree to disagree. I just don't see any reason for Squirrel and Leaf to not include Bramble on something like that, and choose for him. Since this is long enough, I won't bother much with the SqH points, because I just genunely don't care for Squirrelflight's character in that book. It just felt like Squirrelflight from TNP again, if not worse because she was in a position of power and abusing that, while also involving even her biological children into mess. The Sisters aren't respectable as far as I'm concerned. I don't see how abandoning children, and being sexists in any way is respectable, but that's my opinion on it. The clans aren't perfect, but they definitely aren't as terrible to the degrees of the Sisters (or the initial Tribe introduction), and I'll leave it at that. apologies! i didnt mean to underline all that it was kind of a surprise! i understand your points now. i still like squirrel and dislike bramble, and i still think the sisters are a better society than the clans, but everyone;s entitled to their opinions.
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Post by vectoring34 on Dec 19, 2022 20:11:17 GMT -5
After going back through the last three books, I'm actually genuinely surprised...because I remembered that Squirrel was pretty bratty...but I didn't realize just how much worse she was until rereading the books. I think that Bramble's characterization in TNP and POT was good, but Squirrel was noticeably worse in TNP. She kinda bounces back in POT, but then the three plot happens and it's kinda....and I don't really care for her much in OotS either. So I don't know...I feel like this kinda just made me dislike her character more after going back to look at old books. Join the club. My TNP reread made me really dislike Squirrelflight. Brambleclaw isn't great in it either, but at least he has the cushion of TPB to fall back on
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Post by ❅Maplefrost❅ on Dec 19, 2022 21:39:33 GMT -5
After going back through the last three books, I'm actually genuinely surprised...because I remembered that Squirrel was pretty bratty...but I didn't realize just how much worse she was until rereading the books. I think that Bramble's characterization in TNP and POT was good, but Squirrel was noticeably worse in TNP. She kinda bounces back in POT, but then the three plot happens and it's kinda....and I don't really care for her much in OotS either. So I don't know...I feel like this kinda just made me dislike her character more after going back to look at old books. Join the club. My TNP reread made me really dislike Squirrelflight. Brambleclaw isn't great in it either, but at least he has the cushion of TPB to fall back on What I found the most surprising was that Bramble completely had no pov in Twilight, at all. And all we got of him was from Squirrel and Leaf's perspectives. From Squirrel's pov she completely sees him in an antagonizing light, even in situations where he literally saves her life, or just genuinely looking out for her. And when he does respond coldly because of how she treated him in Starlight, she got defensive?? I was baffled. What's even worse is that Ashfur of all cats was more levelheaded than her on several occasions, but starts to become protective of Squirrel because of how she treats Bramble. Thinking that he's being as antagonistic as she believes he's being, when he's not. And we know this enough just from his pov in the previous book, where he's just the opposite. It was just...utterly strange. Then there's the badger attack, and suddenly she's back together with Bramble in the very next book, and he has a pov again??? After two books of animosity and treating him like a scratching post. Twilight literally felt like a mini version of SqH tbh.
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Post by starlightstoryteller on Dec 19, 2022 23:35:58 GMT -5
honest to god, I don't think I am going to get anywhere with this, but i love exercises in futility, so the point of the leafpool thing is that it's beyond cruel to accuse someone of being disloyal for telling their friends that their mentor died, especially when barkface already knew. furthermore, he has no right to accuse anyone of being disloyal when he's consorting with a riverclan cat and a shadowclan cat, which [from the pov of the clans, not mine] is clearly worse than accidentally letting something slip with friends after your mentor dies. My point with the leafpool thing is that even before the later arcs, he is kind of a douchebag. My problem with your responses is that you use warrior's flawed morality to judge her , but excuse brambleclaw's even more heinous violations by looking at his behavior from a human perspective [being lonely so he takes up with his kin that are from different clans and he has ample reason to be suspicious of, number one being that hawkfrost was Training With His Evil Dad In Hell.] You make excuses for brambleclaw's traitorous behavior ['he was cautious, he was only there for his brother' but it becomes amply clear as time goes on that hawkfrost has harmful ambitions and tigerstar just because brambleclaw ignores the advice of everyone he's close to on the matter of hawkfrost doesn't mean he's not complicit.]
my second problem with these responses is that you are ignoring the evidence i have provided or dismissing it. you say squirrelflight had no reason to mistrust hawkfrost until the onestar thing [ignoring that the onestar thing is a pretty huge red flag right there. like even brambleclaw acknowledges that there was no good reason for him to be meeting with mudclaw in a war that had jackshit to do with him.] You say it's a big theme of the arc that mistrust of him due to his heritage is a thing, and i agree--but the point is that most of his insecurities are all in his head, because he's a young warrior still developing in a hostile world. squirrelflight says to him she is not doing this because hawkfrost is tigerkin (and again, it should be obvious considering she was bffs with brambleclaw and friendlh with tawnypelt! he is unfairly projecting onto her!) and brambleclaw's narration insists that she is.
you say squirrel's lie had nothing to do with starclan but i provided a direct quote, with chapter citations, saying that yellowfang told her to lie to everyone--yes, including brambleclaw. StarClan was the only reason she decided to do it, in the end. She was heavily pressured by their society's gods, and might've been fearing punishment for noncompliance she kept secret from Leafpool because Leaf was a medicine cat.
It's also funny because before you insisted hawk tried to kill fire as a 'test' but when i pointed out that meant it was still bramble's fault for meeting with him rather than rejecting him you changed your tune.
By 'never received permanent consequences' I mean he didn't get the shame and ostracization that squirrel and leaf got, what he rightfully deserved. Nobody ever discovers the true extent of his disloyalty save Leafpool, and the other clans never mention it again by PO3. Meanwhile you still have BREEZEPELT, of all people, calling squirrel disloyal as late as sqh. He is never challenged for this, and bramblestar only has a generic 'that was moons ago' to offer rather than 'you continued to train in hell despite knowing they wanted to kill everyone who the heck are you to call anyone disloyal', because the narrative continually being pushed is that this was some nigh-unforgivable sin.
You say she 'used him as father fodder' but genuinely, what the heck does that even mean??? In warriors society, having a father is genuinely not necessary for a kit's development considering their children are raised communally, and daisy and ferncloud were there for additional parenting if squirrel got tired. in the first books fathers didn't really raise kits, and this had zero effect on the queen's workloads. Squirrelflight didn't 'use him', she just lied to him. You try to draw arbitrary distinctions between squirrel's lies and bramble's, but they're both lies.
squirrelflight couldn't defend herself properly, because she was panicked and under stress.
re: brambleclaw harassing her and ashfur, as well as a source for brambleclaw acknowledging his brother's behavior is suspicious as heck: imgur.com/a/AfI5rhV . the images are from Bramblestar is Worse, a video i don't agree with on all its points (it's definitely pretty harsh on him, although moon does have legitimate grievances imo), but is convenient for source purposes due to its copious amounts of quotes. re: everything about the sqh situation. you are again judging him from a warriors morality standpoint, and my point with her disobeying him is that they fundamentally didn't have the time. sunset would've died. The sisters are not lesser because they are rogues, and some clan cats are able to recognize this. Just because bramblestar judges cats by the circumstances of their birth (oh the irony) doesn't mean squirrelflight is disloyal for not doing that. Saying 'they're rogues why should they care' is buying into the clan's violently xenophobic culture without critically examining the biases you may have picked up. It is a bad thing that the clans do not care for the wellbeing of any cat born outside the clans. And my point was they didn't need to fight other clan cats to help sunrise because there is no way they'd find out if bramblestar simply ordered his clan and the sisters to not say anything. And saying 'well they won't stay there long' is. a moot point. They're there now so that Moonlight can have a safe place to kit, and this in fact makes the patrols worse because they couldn't wait one moon. You have no evidence that thunderclan not being there made things worse. And furthermore, if Bramblestar had simply said "I know this is messed up but I'm going to try and broker peace" don't you think squirrelflight would've understood? She went behind his back because she had a premonition of innocent kits being in danger. also re: the sisters not being perfect. of course they aren't. no society is. but the clans' sins are far heavier than the sisters, what with how they literally got their start driving out/murdering or converting all the cats who already lived in the forest, they continually start wars over borders instead of sharing territory, they demonize all outsiders. The Sisters do the 'abandoning children' thing because it's in their religion, and the clans have done many terrible things in service of StarClan's omens. Not to mention the fact that the clans are incest-heavy messes precisely because they do not do what the Sisters do--real-life cats chase off their male young to prevent inbreeding. The Sisters treat their prisoners far better than the clans, and ultimately they only took them hostage to prevent an invading force driving out a pregnant cat. Furthermore, if not for the sisters sparkpelt would've died. You'd think Bramblestar would be a little thankful.
I'd like to say in advance, that underlining a bunch of lines and paragraphs does make reading it more difficult. Not trying to be rude anything by that, just saying it is harder for me to read your replies that way. I'm not sure if they were supposed to be links? But they didn't work when I clicked them. I decided to just go through the Starlight, Twilight, and Sunset in the end: - Hawkfrost wasn't previously training with Tigerstar when his father is finally able to connect his dreams to the Dark Forest. Hawkfrost arrives around the same time as him, and he becomes the reason why Brambleclaw stays, again, not Tigerstar. And interestingly enough, prior to this finally happening, him and Squirrel were already arguing, as shown in the quotes in the thread. Squirrelflight was notably being more frustrated and jealous at Brambleclaw for just showing interest in Hawkfrost, evening insulting him. Which again, isn't the approach that Squirrel should have took, but definitely did push Bramble away more. Then there's the other time, where Squirrel lashed out at him and accused him of being disloyal just because he merely questioned Onewhisker's choices, not even in a hostile manner mind you, but the way she did it was enough to make him upset, and he just walks off. It's only after that does Tigerstar meet with him. It's easier for Dark Forest cats to connect with and target troubled cats, it's how they prey on them, and lead their dreams into the Dark Forest. There's a reason why Tigerstar was eventually able to connect with all of his children there eventually, save for Mothwing, who doesn't have that type of connection in general. A few other things to keep in mind in Starlight: -Several times Bramble was in situations where he was judged for his heritage, both internally and externally -When he first met Tigerstar again, it's noted his dream turned into what he deemed a "nightmare" and he was unsure on how to go about their interactions. And the setting was the old ThunderClan home. -Bramble questioned if StarClan sent Tigerstar, and also this is the FIRST instance of him hearing there's "other skies" besides StarClan. The Dark Forest wasn't a properly established thing in the main series narrative yet until TNP. -When Tigerstar leaves he turns to Hawkfrost, and tries to stop him from leaving, because he wanted to speak more but this is when he wakes up. -And when he does wake up he questions about the "other skies" situation again, wondering what that meant. -When Bramble goes back to sleep, the one he's thinking about seeing again is Hawkfrost and wonders if it really is possible for kin to share dreams, but he does feel guilt because he's a RiverClan cat. -And whereas he wanted and longed to be with Squirrelflight and wanted her affections, he knew he couldn't confide in her about Hawkfrost because of her biased dislike to him prior to all of this. So he has considered it. Here's an interaction between Bramble, Squirrel and Hawk at a gathering:
Quite literally, the situation with Bramble is that Squirrel was basically saying it's either me or him pretty much. And again, Bramble wasn't even training in the Dark Forest yet, he didn't even know if his dream was real until this point, and still was just trying to get to know Hawkfrost. When it comes to the Mudclaw situation, its a matter of the readers being aware of something thanks to perspective, but not the characters. Squirrelflight believed Mudclaw, because she already had that bias against him. While Brambleclaw wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially after Hawkfrost openly admitted that he was wrong but he was doing what he did because he genuinely thought it was right, by the ways of the code. Thanks to confirmation, through Mudclaw's perspective (which is crazy cause this is a debate on it's on that lasted for years), we know that Hawkfrost was a manipulator. But as far as Bramble believes, that's not the case, and this can be applied to any other cats that were involved in the rebellion. Or cats that chose to forgive the ones who got involved. For Squirrel and Bramble specifically though, it's just worse by pov. Because when we see Bramble and Hawk talk things out, and Brmable wants to do the same with Squirrelflight, she doesn't give him the chance.
This all happens in Starlight in general by the way, before the second dream ever happens, it was basically just Squirrel and Bramble's relationship taking a nose dive and him feeling more isolated in his own clan. The wild thing about this is that Leafpool (or paw at the time I'm pretty sure) actually had the most level-headed takes about all of this. Even though she had more than enough of a reason NOT to trust Bramble because of the omen she had of blood spilling blood. Starlight (After the gathering argument):
Twilight (The very next book after the Mudclaw situation):
And then even after this, Bramble does show signs of wanting to speak with Squirrel to work things out, but because she's notably spending more time with Ashfur, he veers away. The complete shutdown and rejection she kept hashing out at him, especially in Starlight, and pretty much "ending" what they had going on between them previously, made it harder for them to talk at all. I understand that Squirrelflight doesn't like Hawkfrost, but as Leafpaw points out, she is being unreasonably from an outsider perspective. Whereas we the readers DO find out Squirrel happened to be right in the end, it doesn't mean how she behaved prior, to was right. Then following the events of Starlight this pretty much goes into a reaction situation in most of Twilight. Squirrelflight realizes she was being unreasonable, but still continues to take jabs at Brambleclaw regardless. And then gets defensive when he counters back of is cold to her, which is...?? Upon rereading some of their arguments, there was a moment where Squirrelflight was with a moment of notably attacking Brambleclaw even, and from her own pov (I counted at least 2 or 3 instances in Twilight alone). Then again, it wouldn't be the first time either, because she has swung at him before when she was still an apprentice I believe, over an argument. Some other things: -Squirrel immediately thinks Bramble is like Tigerstar just because he wants to be deputy -Several times in Twilight she does this actually, and not just because of him wanting to be deputy, but because of his heritage too -The next time we do see Bramble in the DF with Tiger and Hawk is through Leafpool's perspective half way through the book -Notably in this dream, the only thing that was happening was Tigerstar teaching his sons to be "good warriors" by his standards -It's noted that Leaf could only see Hawkfrost and his enthusiasm and expressions, but not Bramble's who's back was to her -When she does wake up and run into Bramble, he's genuinely concerned about her, and she is was uncertain, about him and the dream, whether it was real or not. -There's no confirmation on how often Bramble and Hawk have been seeing Tiger at this point, by Leafpool's pov -She notes she can't tell Fire or Cinder about the dream because they'd take it seriously, and how this dream feels notably different. -^^ This is also the extent of what we get of the dreams and Tigerstar in Twilight by the way.
-As for Squirrelflight, besides her very heated arguments with Bramble, she notably goes out of her way to challenge Bramble even when Fire puts him in charge. -It's to the point where Ashfur of all cats is the voice of reason and tries to "calm" down her flare because she's not helping the situations. -At one point Bramble asks her to feed to elders, and out of spite she refuses, and runs off to hunt instead. -Squirrel is so caught in her frustration that Ashfur has to call out to her to stop, because she almost runs into a fox. -It's Bramble that has to save her, and he and Ashfur fight side by side to chase off the fox. -Despite that, just because it's the mere fact that it's Bramble that helps save her, she feels the need to argue with him, and even internally says she can't "back down".
-There's also the turn in Squirrel and Ashfur's relationship. Where cats outside of the relationship are noting Squirrel's behavior. -For example, when Squirrel crossed the ShadowClan border, and Bramble stopped her, but Ashfur jumped to her defense. Sandstorm says Squirrel can stand up for herself. -Sand is also surprised at how furiously she's looking at Bramble, and Ashfur isn't making the situation better, because now he's become overly protective of Squirrel at this point, due to how she behaves toward Bramble. -I always found these indications to be interesting tbh? But that's an debate for another day. -She sees Ashfur getting Birchpaw as his apprentice as a way of thwarting Brambleclaw -Sandstorm has to talk with her about the situation at the ShadowClan border -There's more times Bramble scolds her for neglecting her warrior duties (to which Squirrel does admit) -Another classic move of Squirrel promising Tawny that they'd send a patrol to help with kittypets before it was even approved -At this point her and Ashfur, still very much a thing.
-The tension between them starts to chill when Leafpool goes missing and Bramble offers to help her -The reason is because Squirrel understands he knows what it's like to lose a littermate to another another clan (Tawnypelt) -^^And this is under the assumption that Leafpool went to join WindClan -(If I had a nickel for every time Squirrel had to have a tail put over her mouth because she kept speaking out of turn...) -Squirrel seeks comfort in Bramble over Leaf's disappearance after WindClan and them can't find either her or Crowfeather -And this is where she suddenly starts to question if she'd give up everything for Ashfur or Bramble?? In the span of like...2 chapters? -Not much happens here but she gets comfort from her parents, and a bit from Bramble who says that if she HAD said something it might have just made things worse tbh (which they do agree, it would have driven her further away. It's rather ironic because this is exactly why the wedge between her and Bramble got so bad). -Bramble walks off before Ashfur comes over. -Ashfur literally comforts and lulls Squirrel to sleep in a den nest together -And then following this is the Badger battle, but all she thinks about his Bramble?? The events of Twilight are just....a whirlwind. And as for Sunset...ehh... -The opening of the book is Tigerstar and Darkstripe discussing Bramble and Hawk and Dark asking how he'll get them to do what he wants, and mainly to get revenge against Firestar for him. -Tigerstar notes that Hawkfrost is doing "well" under his advice, and there's no doubt who he sides with. But Bramble is more wayward and questionable. -Tigerstar literally notes that Bramble's loyalty to Firestar is a weakness, and why he's not as prime as Hawkfrost in his eyes. -Inner monologue of Bramble being relieved Ashfur is okay, and also being concerned for Firestar when he lost a life, and vowing to stay by his side to the very end. -The badger attack is the main reason Bramble and Squirrel suddenly hit it off again, after two full on books of animosity. -Most of the chapters after the badger fight is Bramble being on edge and protective of ThunderClan and his clanmates -Bramble is also the one who goes to apologize to Squirrel first, notably. -Since we are seeing Bramble's pov again (after not seeing it for the most part in Twilight) we do see just how differently he is from his perspective. How he has a lot of moments of longing for Squirrelflight, respect, worry, and even how fondly he speaks of her to other cats. Part of me wonders if it was intentional that he didn't get a pov in Twilight because they wanted him to come off as unreasonable, unlikable, or antagonizing, from Squirrel's pov? -"They didn’t even have to apologize; they could just look forward to all the moons ahead of them." - Something Bramble thinks after him and Squirrel made up. And it's when he went to apologize first but she stops him and assures him she knows. -Leafpool's faith in Bramble was shaken only because of the strange dream she had in Twilight.
-Leafpool has a dream where it shows Bramble and Squirrel are destined to be together (and my guess is because they were supposed to be the actual parents of the three) -Squirrel finally speaks with Ashfur, about how she wants to be with Bramble, and just kinda dumps him?? But offers to still be friends. -What's interesting is that Ashfur, who is feeling crossed at this point, brings up the things that she personally used in arguments against Bramble in Starlight and Twilight. So it kinda just...?? -Bramble even feels sympathy for Ashfur until he brings up his heritage. -“I’ll judge Brambleclaw by his own actions,” she retorted hotly, “not by something that other cats did long before I was born.” Squirrel saying she's going to look at Bramble for how he acts and not based on his heritage is quite noted, which is true because this happens later in the book concerning Firestar. -Leafpool does tell Squirrel about her vision of her and Bramble, to which Squirrel is happy about
-What's interesting about Bramble going to the DF again, it's been a while since the Badger attack -Bramble notes that he can't tell Squirrel about it because she still believes he's loyal to his clan but still wanted to see his kin -When Hawkfrost asks him, he tells him about the Badgers (this does bite him back later) -It's noted that when Hawkfrost sees his wound, his eyes softened and he's concerned for his brother. -Tigerstar actually gives the exact time frame and says Bramble hasn't been there for since a quarter moon -Bramble DOES note that Hawk is listening to him recount the badger attack to Tigerstar, and doesn't fully tell them how devastating the damage was because he acknowledges that Hawk is still from a rival clan. So as far as Hawk knows, there was just a badger attack in general, not how severely damaging it actually was. -When Tigerstar insists his bravery is good for when Firestar chooses a deputy, Bramble thinks the opposite, and how he was doing what he did for his clanmates, not for power. -They discuss advice again, like their previous meetings. At one point Bramble brings up and defends Firestar, to which Tigerstar grows angry. Tigerstar also reveals that Stormfur returned to the lake, something Bramble didn't want Hawk to know. -And it's HERE do we actually finally see things escalate, because Tigerstar suddenly hits Brambleclaw. Calling it "training" and forcing Bramble to defend himself. -It's noted they have done normal training before, but this one was different because they Tigerstar was much more ferocious, much to Bramble's surprise and was literally ripping into him. -Notably it's Hawkfrost who jumps between them and fights Tigerstar off when he tries to attack Bramble again while he's down. -After this they break apart, and end the meeting, leaving Bramble with his previous advice. -Bramble then wakes to his wounds from the dream for the first time ever. -^^(Imo I don't think this is talked about enough, but this is literally manipulation and abuse from Tigerstar's end. Lulling his sons into false sense of security, and then escalating when he's angry. Especially towards Bramble, whom he's aware is very loyal to Firestar still)
-He doesn't tell Squirrel about his meetings because he worries they'll lose everything they've gained and built up again. And that she'll just resort back to how she felt about him so vehemently in the past. -Notably Squirrel has tried several times at this point to explain to Ashfur about their relationship, but it doesn't work. And even just wants to stay friends, but even Bramble can see he'll never be comfortable with that. -Leafpool starts to do more of her own investigating on Bramble, trying to enter into the DF, but instead runs into StarClan -She also notably spies on him in the waking world when he leaves camp to be by himself to just think -She gets caught through and he stares at her until she leaves him in peace -Her trust in Bramble is notably going down hill mostly because of the reminder of the blood omen again too. He's some inner thoughts from Bramble's perspective when he was out by the lake: Continuing: -There's the Berrykit incident -Storm and Brook going to RiverClan -Them running into ShadowClan trespassing and a fight happens -Bramble does accuse Leafpool, but this is rebuked AND he does apologize to her.
-Bramblestar does feel guilty about accusing Leafpool, and realizing he's the one that told Hawkfrost, and Hawk is the one that ran his mouth about the badgers. -Blackstar says he did what he did because they need more territory thanks to Twolegs, and Leopardstar also needs territory, both Onestar and Firestar refuse. And this causes more arguments in the gathering. -Hawkfrost brings up a good point, but also antagonizes the other clan cats -Tawnypelt notably doubts Hawkfrost, to Brambleclaw, who is a bit disturbed by that. But also he doesn't side with Hawk when he shows defiance against Firestar. -Cats from all clans square up, but it's ShadowClan that starts the fight, to Bramble's horror. -Brambleclaw notably tries to stop the fighting cats -The fight settles, but we see Hawkfrost abusing Mothwing, and even about to strike her before leaving -Halfway into Sunset, only NOW does Tawnypelt's dream finally get connected to Tigerstar. -Brambleclaw sees her reject Tigerstar's "training" which is unsurprising, she saw his behavior first hand while he took over ShadowClan and RiverClan, and this IS noted when she scolds Bramble. -Bramble is having internal struggles with his own personal beliefs and ambitions even more. -They go find Daisy and her kits and bring her back -Notably, Leafpool's dream that StarClan chooses Bramble to be the deputy, also talks about his DF training.
-Bramble is made deputy, and even Bramble is surprised and protests -Cats protests in general claiming it's against the code and he can't be trusted -Leafpool brings up her vision -And the only cat to argue is Ashfur, whom Bramble had to stop before she ripped into him. -In the end no cat agreed with Ashfur, and congratulated Bramble -When Bramble goes to the DF to tell Tiger and Hawk, he's happy and excited, saying StarClan chose him -Hawk is notably jealous, and Tiger says he earned the position because of him and their training -Tiger also gets mad when Bramble reminded his clan he didn't have an apprentice yet -It's at THIS point that Tigerstar talks about them ruling the forest, Hawk is elated at this, but Bramble takes a step back -Bramble notably argues with Tiger's new plans, and Tiger continues to try and sweep him up in his vision -Bramble doesn't agree to anything though, and wants to think things through, but is disturbed by his brother and father's words -Hawk suggests they take over during a gathering, to which Bramble out right refuses and is upset about -He finds it hard to do anything under the gaze of Tigerstar and asks to meet Hawk in the waking world instead
-Bramble was going to talk Hawk out of Tiger's plan -Hawkfrost suggest they meet on his territory -While he's spending time with Squirrelflight he thinks about his meeting planned with Hawk.
-When Bramble goes to meet with Hawkfrost he genuinely tries to convince his brother against their father's plans
Continuing from here: -Hawkfrost dismisses him, and says that they'd make better leaders and tries to convince him -Bramble thinks about it for a moment and how he wouldn't have personally left a kit to suffer in a trap -He hears a cat cry in help, Hawk tries to tell him it's nothing, but he insists and goes to investigate -Bramble finds Firestar in the trap, immediately tries to help but gets knocked aside by Hawkfrost -He's shocked at Hawk saying this is his opportunity -He puts two and two together as to why Hawk smells of a ShadowClan cat when Firestar utters why he was there -(^^Something to note is how Hawk was trying to dismiss all of this so much when it came to his scent being of ShadowClan, and when they heard the cry for help, and then him stopping Bramble from intervening. It could imply he was trying to kill Firestar regardless of Bramble's involvement) -The voice in his head tells him to kill Firestar, and Hawkfrost shoves him over to finish the job, but Bramble is frozen on the spot (This is similar to how Lionblaze was influenced by Tiger's voice in POT)
-Meanwhile back at the camp, Ashfur tells everyone what happens and feigns fear -(^^ Planning to frame Bramble, and even possibly Hawkfrost) -Leafpool thinks that her fears have come true and that Bramble has succumbed to the darkness of Tigerstar's ambition while she and Squirrel hurry to find them -Meanwhile back at the fox trap, Firestar's gaze wasn't pleading but a burning question of: "What will you do, Brambleclaw? It’s
your choice." -All the while his father is literally the devil on his shoulder and telling him to kill Firestar now. -Bramblestar refuses to do it in the end. And honestly the rest of the chapter speaks for itself here.
Last overview on Sunset: -Hawkfrost was planning to kill Brambleclaw if he didn't go through with the plan from the start
-The idea was Tigerstar's because of how Brambleclaw was still loyal to Firestar
-Brambleclaw didn't want to hurt his own brother, and even told him to leave
-Hawkfrost refused because he has no gripe with killing his own kin for power
-Bramble kills Hawkfrost but never wanted this
-When he waits for Firestar, he believes he's deserving of exile like his father, but that doesn't happen
-Firestar trusts and understands how hard this all was for him, and keeps him as deputy.
-Leafpool and Squirrelflight arrive, Leafpool thinks she was right in thinking Bramble is a traitor
-Turns out she was wrong, but she is shocked that Bramble was the one to stop Hawkfrost in the end
-Bramble is still somewhat in a state of dissociation that he didn't even notice Squirrel at first when she thanks him
-And then the omen is mentions and that's about that, it's the end of that arc And this is just...from the last three books alone?? Not much happens in POT, but it's noted on several times (even if it's a foreshadowing) how good of a father Bramble is, and how proud Holly, Jay and Lion were to be his children. Along with the reputation he has at that point. There's a reason why Bramblestar gets listed a lot as one of the most notable fathers in the series overall next to Gray Wing or Shellheart, etc. The reason I find how Squirrel behaves to be much more condemning is again, there really is NO reason for her not to tell Bramble. And if there actually was, she didn't exactly tell him when he openly asked her why.
What's interesting about Leafpool's Wish is that she and Brambleclaw do talk about his meetings in the Dark Forest. And although she had her doubts, she did listen to him, and he assures her that she can trust him. He wanted nothing else to do with Tigerstar, and felt the guilt of killing his own brother. He vowed his loyalty to ThunderClan, but it made Leafpool remember her own disloyalty because of her kits. When Squirrelflight and Feathertail do talk about the kits, she agrees that Feathertail is right, she does love the kits, and Leafpool, but keep in mind what was important as Feathertail put it, is that the kits needed to be raised as ThunderClan cats, with a proud family. When she decides to adopt them, she's also making that decision for not only her, but for Brambleclaw as well, without his consent. That is the issue. Yellowfang literally says to her at one point that they can't make her do anything she doesn't want to. There really is no reason for Squirrelflight not to tell Brambleclaw, heck even Firestar, at least about the kits. Because he'd be understandable, especially if StarClan is involved. Bramblestar telling Squirrelflight about his meetings in the Dark Forest, genuinely wouldn't add to anything anymore at this point in time. It was over and done with, he was no long going there, he killed Hawkfrost, and now he's looking towards the future, and peaceful life he wanted to live with Squirrelflight. But when it comes to Squirrel and Leaf, it's a matter of how Squirrel put it, she would be lying to him for the rest of his life. And considering that they're STILL alive now, it would be a lie that would go on for quite a long time compared to the conclusion his arc came to in Sunset, that only lasted three books. StarClan, even if you say they're being manipulative, it's for a good cause as far as they're concerned, while Tigerstar was manipulating his sons with a malicious intent. They're not the same, and not even comparable imo, but if you think otherwise, agree to disagree. I just don't see any reason for Squirrel and Leaf to not include Bramble on something like that, and choose for him. Since this is long enough, I won't bother much with the SqH points, because I just genunely don't care for Squirrelflight's character in that book. It just felt like Squirrelflight from TNP again, if not worse because she was in a position of power and abusing that, while also involving even her biological children into mess. The Sisters aren't respectable as far as I'm concerned. I don't see how abandoning children, and being sexists in any way is respectable, but that's my opinion on it. The clans aren't perfect, but they definitely aren't as terrible to the degrees of the Sisters (or the initial Tribe introduction), and I'll leave it at that. i must say, though, i really don't understand your views on the sisters in comparison to the clans. we just had a debate about how bramblestar leaving sunrise to die was perfectly reasonable from a clan perspective because she was an outsider and outsiders are dehumanized (well. decatized) to a horrific extent furthermore, the whole 'abandoning children' thing isn't as bad as it would be for an equivalent clan cat--sisters-blooded cats have the ability to speak to spirits and communicate with the earth. its still bad, obviously, but considering at the same age (6 moons) clan kits are gearing up to fight and die in an endless war machine they do not have any room to talk but somehow the sexism is worse? there are examples of casual but subtle sexism in the clans in addition to the other glaring issues in their society [sunstar point-blank says blue can't be deputy bc she has babies even tho by the time they were given away they'd been weaned. nearly every time a female pov is in a position of power they angst abt if they can have a mate or kits while male leaders never worry about this]. The sisters aren't worse than the clans. If we saw their pov from every book and then saw the horrific violence of the clans from the pov of. idk, snow or something, we'd be losing our minds over how awful the clans are. just because the sisters' societal flaws are more 'in your face' obvious and the clan's violent xenophobia is less obvious without critical thinking doesn't mean they aren't both societies in dear need of reform.
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Post by ❅Maplefrost❅ on Dec 19, 2022 23:58:11 GMT -5
I'd like to say in advance, that underlining a bunch of lines and paragraphs does make reading it more difficult. Not trying to be rude anything by that, just saying it is harder for me to read your replies that way. I'm not sure if they were supposed to be links? But they didn't work when I clicked them. I decided to just go through the Starlight, Twilight, and Sunset in the end: - Hawkfrost wasn't previously training with Tigerstar when his father is finally able to connect his dreams to the Dark Forest. Hawkfrost arrives around the same time as him, and he becomes the reason why Brambleclaw stays, again, not Tigerstar. And interestingly enough, prior to this finally happening, him and Squirrel were already arguing, as shown in the quotes in the thread. Squirrelflight was notably being more frustrated and jealous at Brambleclaw for just showing interest in Hawkfrost, evening insulting him. Which again, isn't the approach that Squirrel should have took, but definitely did push Bramble away more. Then there's the other time, where Squirrel lashed out at him and accused him of being disloyal just because he merely questioned Onewhisker's choices, not even in a hostile manner mind you, but the way she did it was enough to make him upset, and he just walks off. It's only after that does Tigerstar meet with him. It's easier for Dark Forest cats to connect with and target troubled cats, it's how they prey on them, and lead their dreams into the Dark Forest. There's a reason why Tigerstar was eventually able to connect with all of his children there eventually, save for Mothwing, who doesn't have that type of connection in general. A few other things to keep in mind in Starlight: -Several times Bramble was in situations where he was judged for his heritage, both internally and externally -When he first met Tigerstar again, it's noted his dream turned into what he deemed a "nightmare" and he was unsure on how to go about their interactions. And the setting was the old ThunderClan home. -Bramble questioned if StarClan sent Tigerstar, and also this is the FIRST instance of him hearing there's "other skies" besides StarClan. The Dark Forest wasn't a properly established thing in the main series narrative yet until TNP. -When Tigerstar leaves he turns to Hawkfrost, and tries to stop him from leaving, because he wanted to speak more but this is when he wakes up. -And when he does wake up he questions about the "other skies" situation again, wondering what that meant. -When Bramble goes back to sleep, the one he's thinking about seeing again is Hawkfrost and wonders if it really is possible for kin to share dreams, but he does feel guilt because he's a RiverClan cat. -And whereas he wanted and longed to be with Squirrelflight and wanted her affections, he knew he couldn't confide in her about Hawkfrost because of her biased dislike to him prior to all of this. So he has considered it. Here's an interaction between Bramble, Squirrel and Hawk at a gathering:
Quite literally, the situation with Bramble is that Squirrel was basically saying it's either me or him pretty much. And again, Bramble wasn't even training in the Dark Forest yet, he didn't even know if his dream was real until this point, and still was just trying to get to know Hawkfrost. When it comes to the Mudclaw situation, its a matter of the readers being aware of something thanks to perspective, but not the characters. Squirrelflight believed Mudclaw, because she already had that bias against him. While Brambleclaw wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially after Hawkfrost openly admitted that he was wrong but he was doing what he did because he genuinely thought it was right, by the ways of the code. Thanks to confirmation, through Mudclaw's perspective (which is crazy cause this is a debate on it's on that lasted for years), we know that Hawkfrost was a manipulator. But as far as Bramble believes, that's not the case, and this can be applied to any other cats that were involved in the rebellion. Or cats that chose to forgive the ones who got involved. For Squirrel and Bramble specifically though, it's just worse by pov. Because when we see Bramble and Hawk talk things out, and Brmable wants to do the same with Squirrelflight, she doesn't give him the chance.
This all happens in Starlight in general by the way, before the second dream ever happens, it was basically just Squirrel and Bramble's relationship taking a nose dive and him feeling more isolated in his own clan. The wild thing about this is that Leafpool (or paw at the time I'm pretty sure) actually had the most level-headed takes about all of this. Even though she had more than enough of a reason NOT to trust Bramble because of the omen she had of blood spilling blood. Starlight (After the gathering argument):
Twilight (The very next book after the Mudclaw situation):
And then even after this, Bramble does show signs of wanting to speak with Squirrel to work things out, but because she's notably spending more time with Ashfur, he veers away. The complete shutdown and rejection she kept hashing out at him, especially in Starlight, and pretty much "ending" what they had going on between them previously, made it harder for them to talk at all. I understand that Squirrelflight doesn't like Hawkfrost, but as Leafpaw points out, she is being unreasonably from an outsider perspective. Whereas we the readers DO find out Squirrel happened to be right in the end, it doesn't mean how she behaved prior, to was right. Then following the events of Starlight this pretty much goes into a reaction situation in most of Twilight. Squirrelflight realizes she was being unreasonable, but still continues to take jabs at Brambleclaw regardless. And then gets defensive when he counters back of is cold to her, which is...?? Upon rereading some of their arguments, there was a moment where Squirrelflight was with a moment of notably attacking Brambleclaw even, and from her own pov (I counted at least 2 or 3 instances in Twilight alone). Then again, it wouldn't be the first time either, because she has swung at him before when she was still an apprentice I believe, over an argument. Some other things: -Squirrel immediately thinks Bramble is like Tigerstar just because he wants to be deputy -Several times in Twilight she does this actually, and not just because of him wanting to be deputy, but because of his heritage too -The next time we do see Bramble in the DF with Tiger and Hawk is through Leafpool's perspective half way through the book -Notably in this dream, the only thing that was happening was Tigerstar teaching his sons to be "good warriors" by his standards -It's noted that Leaf could only see Hawkfrost and his enthusiasm and expressions, but not Bramble's who's back was to her -When she does wake up and run into Bramble, he's genuinely concerned about her, and she is was uncertain, about him and the dream, whether it was real or not. -There's no confirmation on how often Bramble and Hawk have been seeing Tiger at this point, by Leafpool's pov -She notes she can't tell Fire or Cinder about the dream because they'd take it seriously, and how this dream feels notably different. -^^ This is also the extent of what we get of the dreams and Tigerstar in Twilight by the way.
-As for Squirrelflight, besides her very heated arguments with Bramble, she notably goes out of her way to challenge Bramble even when Fire puts him in charge. -It's to the point where Ashfur of all cats is the voice of reason and tries to "calm" down her flare because she's not helping the situations. -At one point Bramble asks her to feed to elders, and out of spite she refuses, and runs off to hunt instead. -Squirrel is so caught in her frustration that Ashfur has to call out to her to stop, because she almost runs into a fox. -It's Bramble that has to save her, and he and Ashfur fight side by side to chase off the fox. -Despite that, just because it's the mere fact that it's Bramble that helps save her, she feels the need to argue with him, and even internally says she can't "back down".
-There's also the turn in Squirrel and Ashfur's relationship. Where cats outside of the relationship are noting Squirrel's behavior. -For example, when Squirrel crossed the ShadowClan border, and Bramble stopped her, but Ashfur jumped to her defense. Sandstorm says Squirrel can stand up for herself. -Sand is also surprised at how furiously she's looking at Bramble, and Ashfur isn't making the situation better, because now he's become overly protective of Squirrel at this point, due to how she behaves toward Bramble. -I always found these indications to be interesting tbh? But that's an debate for another day. -She sees Ashfur getting Birchpaw as his apprentice as a way of thwarting Brambleclaw -Sandstorm has to talk with her about the situation at the ShadowClan border -There's more times Bramble scolds her for neglecting her warrior duties (to which Squirrel does admit) -Another classic move of Squirrel promising Tawny that they'd send a patrol to help with kittypets before it was even approved -At this point her and Ashfur, still very much a thing.
-The tension between them starts to chill when Leafpool goes missing and Bramble offers to help her -The reason is because Squirrel understands he knows what it's like to lose a littermate to another another clan (Tawnypelt) -^^And this is under the assumption that Leafpool went to join WindClan -(If I had a nickel for every time Squirrel had to have a tail put over her mouth because she kept speaking out of turn...) -Squirrel seeks comfort in Bramble over Leaf's disappearance after WindClan and them can't find either her or Crowfeather -And this is where she suddenly starts to question if she'd give up everything for Ashfur or Bramble?? In the span of like...2 chapters? -Not much happens here but she gets comfort from her parents, and a bit from Bramble who says that if she HAD said something it might have just made things worse tbh (which they do agree, it would have driven her further away. It's rather ironic because this is exactly why the wedge between her and Bramble got so bad). -Bramble walks off before Ashfur comes over. -Ashfur literally comforts and lulls Squirrel to sleep in a den nest together -And then following this is the Badger battle, but all she thinks about his Bramble?? The events of Twilight are just....a whirlwind. And as for Sunset...ehh... -The opening of the book is Tigerstar and Darkstripe discussing Bramble and Hawk and Dark asking how he'll get them to do what he wants, and mainly to get revenge against Firestar for him. -Tigerstar notes that Hawkfrost is doing "well" under his advice, and there's no doubt who he sides with. But Bramble is more wayward and questionable. -Tigerstar literally notes that Bramble's loyalty to Firestar is a weakness, and why he's not as prime as Hawkfrost in his eyes. -Inner monologue of Bramble being relieved Ashfur is okay, and also being concerned for Firestar when he lost a life, and vowing to stay by his side to the very end. -The badger attack is the main reason Bramble and Squirrel suddenly hit it off again, after two full on books of animosity. -Most of the chapters after the badger fight is Bramble being on edge and protective of ThunderClan and his clanmates -Bramble is also the one who goes to apologize to Squirrel first, notably. -Since we are seeing Bramble's pov again (after not seeing it for the most part in Twilight) we do see just how differently he is from his perspective. How he has a lot of moments of longing for Squirrelflight, respect, worry, and even how fondly he speaks of her to other cats. Part of me wonders if it was intentional that he didn't get a pov in Twilight because they wanted him to come off as unreasonable, unlikable, or antagonizing, from Squirrel's pov? -"They didn’t even have to apologize; they could just look forward to all the moons ahead of them." - Something Bramble thinks after him and Squirrel made up. And it's when he went to apologize first but she stops him and assures him she knows. -Leafpool's faith in Bramble was shaken only because of the strange dream she had in Twilight.
-Leafpool has a dream where it shows Bramble and Squirrel are destined to be together (and my guess is because they were supposed to be the actual parents of the three) -Squirrel finally speaks with Ashfur, about how she wants to be with Bramble, and just kinda dumps him?? But offers to still be friends. -What's interesting is that Ashfur, who is feeling crossed at this point, brings up the things that she personally used in arguments against Bramble in Starlight and Twilight. So it kinda just...?? -Bramble even feels sympathy for Ashfur until he brings up his heritage. -“I’ll judge Brambleclaw by his own actions,” she retorted hotly, “not by something that other cats did long before I was born.” Squirrel saying she's going to look at Bramble for how he acts and not based on his heritage is quite noted, which is true because this happens later in the book concerning Firestar. -Leafpool does tell Squirrel about her vision of her and Bramble, to which Squirrel is happy about
-What's interesting about Bramble going to the DF again, it's been a while since the Badger attack -Bramble notes that he can't tell Squirrel about it because she still believes he's loyal to his clan but still wanted to see his kin -When Hawkfrost asks him, he tells him about the Badgers (this does bite him back later) -It's noted that when Hawkfrost sees his wound, his eyes softened and he's concerned for his brother. -Tigerstar actually gives the exact time frame and says Bramble hasn't been there for since a quarter moon -Bramble DOES note that Hawk is listening to him recount the badger attack to Tigerstar, and doesn't fully tell them how devastating the damage was because he acknowledges that Hawk is still from a rival clan. So as far as Hawk knows, there was just a badger attack in general, not how severely damaging it actually was. -When Tigerstar insists his bravery is good for when Firestar chooses a deputy, Bramble thinks the opposite, and how he was doing what he did for his clanmates, not for power. -They discuss advice again, like their previous meetings. At one point Bramble brings up and defends Firestar, to which Tigerstar grows angry. Tigerstar also reveals that Stormfur returned to the lake, something Bramble didn't want Hawk to know. -And it's HERE do we actually finally see things escalate, because Tigerstar suddenly hits Brambleclaw. Calling it "training" and forcing Bramble to defend himself. -It's noted they have done normal training before, but this one was different because they Tigerstar was much more ferocious, much to Bramble's surprise and was literally ripping into him. -Notably it's Hawkfrost who jumps between them and fights Tigerstar off when he tries to attack Bramble again while he's down. -After this they break apart, and end the meeting, leaving Bramble with his previous advice. -Bramble then wakes to his wounds from the dream for the first time ever. -^^(Imo I don't think this is talked about enough, but this is literally manipulation and abuse from Tigerstar's end. Lulling his sons into false sense of security, and then escalating when he's angry. Especially towards Bramble, whom he's aware is very loyal to Firestar still)
-He doesn't tell Squirrel about his meetings because he worries they'll lose everything they've gained and built up again. And that she'll just resort back to how she felt about him so vehemently in the past. -Notably Squirrel has tried several times at this point to explain to Ashfur about their relationship, but it doesn't work. And even just wants to stay friends, but even Bramble can see he'll never be comfortable with that. -Leafpool starts to do more of her own investigating on Bramble, trying to enter into the DF, but instead runs into StarClan -She also notably spies on him in the waking world when he leaves camp to be by himself to just think -She gets caught through and he stares at her until she leaves him in peace -Her trust in Bramble is notably going down hill mostly because of the reminder of the blood omen again too. He's some inner thoughts from Bramble's perspective when he was out by the lake: Continuing: -There's the Berrykit incident -Storm and Brook going to RiverClan -Them running into ShadowClan trespassing and a fight happens -Bramble does accuse Leafpool, but this is rebuked AND he does apologize to her.
-Bramblestar does feel guilty about accusing Leafpool, and realizing he's the one that told Hawkfrost, and Hawk is the one that ran his mouth about the badgers. -Blackstar says he did what he did because they need more territory thanks to Twolegs, and Leopardstar also needs territory, both Onestar and Firestar refuse. And this causes more arguments in the gathering. -Hawkfrost brings up a good point, but also antagonizes the other clan cats -Tawnypelt notably doubts Hawkfrost, to Brambleclaw, who is a bit disturbed by that. But also he doesn't side with Hawk when he shows defiance against Firestar. -Cats from all clans square up, but it's ShadowClan that starts the fight, to Bramble's horror. -Brambleclaw notably tries to stop the fighting cats -The fight settles, but we see Hawkfrost abusing Mothwing, and even about to strike her before leaving -Halfway into Sunset, only NOW does Tawnypelt's dream finally get connected to Tigerstar. -Brambleclaw sees her reject Tigerstar's "training" which is unsurprising, she saw his behavior first hand while he took over ShadowClan and RiverClan, and this IS noted when she scolds Bramble. -Bramble is having internal struggles with his own personal beliefs and ambitions even more. -They go find Daisy and her kits and bring her back -Notably, Leafpool's dream that StarClan chooses Bramble to be the deputy, also talks about his DF training.
-Bramble is made deputy, and even Bramble is surprised and protests -Cats protests in general claiming it's against the code and he can't be trusted -Leafpool brings up her vision -And the only cat to argue is Ashfur, whom Bramble had to stop before she ripped into him. -In the end no cat agreed with Ashfur, and congratulated Bramble -When Bramble goes to the DF to tell Tiger and Hawk, he's happy and excited, saying StarClan chose him -Hawk is notably jealous, and Tiger says he earned the position because of him and their training -Tiger also gets mad when Bramble reminded his clan he didn't have an apprentice yet -It's at THIS point that Tigerstar talks about them ruling the forest, Hawk is elated at this, but Bramble takes a step back -Bramble notably argues with Tiger's new plans, and Tiger continues to try and sweep him up in his vision -Bramble doesn't agree to anything though, and wants to think things through, but is disturbed by his brother and father's words -Hawk suggests they take over during a gathering, to which Bramble out right refuses and is upset about -He finds it hard to do anything under the gaze of Tigerstar and asks to meet Hawk in the waking world instead
-Bramble was going to talk Hawk out of Tiger's plan -Hawkfrost suggest they meet on his territory -While he's spending time with Squirrelflight he thinks about his meeting planned with Hawk.
-When Bramble goes to meet with Hawkfrost he genuinely tries to convince his brother against their father's plans
Continuing from here: -Hawkfrost dismisses him, and says that they'd make better leaders and tries to convince him -Bramble thinks about it for a moment and how he wouldn't have personally left a kit to suffer in a trap -He hears a cat cry in help, Hawk tries to tell him it's nothing, but he insists and goes to investigate -Bramble finds Firestar in the trap, immediately tries to help but gets knocked aside by Hawkfrost -He's shocked at Hawk saying this is his opportunity -He puts two and two together as to why Hawk smells of a ShadowClan cat when Firestar utters why he was there -(^^Something to note is how Hawk was trying to dismiss all of this so much when it came to his scent being of ShadowClan, and when they heard the cry for help, and then him stopping Bramble from intervening. It could imply he was trying to kill Firestar regardless of Bramble's involvement) -The voice in his head tells him to kill Firestar, and Hawkfrost shoves him over to finish the job, but Bramble is frozen on the spot (This is similar to how Lionblaze was influenced by Tiger's voice in POT)
-Meanwhile back at the camp, Ashfur tells everyone what happens and feigns fear -(^^ Planning to frame Bramble, and even possibly Hawkfrost) -Leafpool thinks that her fears have come true and that Bramble has succumbed to the darkness of Tigerstar's ambition while she and Squirrel hurry to find them -Meanwhile back at the fox trap, Firestar's gaze wasn't pleading but a burning question of: "What will you do, Brambleclaw? It’s
your choice." -All the while his father is literally the devil on his shoulder and telling him to kill Firestar now. -Bramblestar refuses to do it in the end. And honestly the rest of the chapter speaks for itself here.
Last overview on Sunset: -Hawkfrost was planning to kill Brambleclaw if he didn't go through with the plan from the start
-The idea was Tigerstar's because of how Brambleclaw was still loyal to Firestar
-Brambleclaw didn't want to hurt his own brother, and even told him to leave
-Hawkfrost refused because he has no gripe with killing his own kin for power
-Bramble kills Hawkfrost but never wanted this
-When he waits for Firestar, he believes he's deserving of exile like his father, but that doesn't happen
-Firestar trusts and understands how hard this all was for him, and keeps him as deputy.
-Leafpool and Squirrelflight arrive, Leafpool thinks she was right in thinking Bramble is a traitor
-Turns out she was wrong, but she is shocked that Bramble was the one to stop Hawkfrost in the end
-Bramble is still somewhat in a state of dissociation that he didn't even notice Squirrel at first when she thanks him
-And then the omen is mentions and that's about that, it's the end of that arc And this is just...from the last three books alone?? Not much happens in POT, but it's noted on several times (even if it's a foreshadowing) how good of a father Bramble is, and how proud Holly, Jay and Lion were to be his children. Along with the reputation he has at that point. There's a reason why Bramblestar gets listed a lot as one of the most notable fathers in the series overall next to Gray Wing or Shellheart, etc. The reason I find how Squirrel behaves to be much more condemning is again, there really is NO reason for her not to tell Bramble. And if there actually was, she didn't exactly tell him when he openly asked her why.
What's interesting about Leafpool's Wish is that she and Brambleclaw do talk about his meetings in the Dark Forest. And although she had her doubts, she did listen to him, and he assures her that she can trust him. He wanted nothing else to do with Tigerstar, and felt the guilt of killing his own brother. He vowed his loyalty to ThunderClan, but it made Leafpool remember her own disloyalty because of her kits. When Squirrelflight and Feathertail do talk about the kits, she agrees that Feathertail is right, she does love the kits, and Leafpool, but keep in mind what was important as Feathertail put it, is that the kits needed to be raised as ThunderClan cats, with a proud family. When she decides to adopt them, she's also making that decision for not only her, but for Brambleclaw as well, without his consent. That is the issue. Yellowfang literally says to her at one point that they can't make her do anything she doesn't want to. There really is no reason for Squirrelflight not to tell Brambleclaw, heck even Firestar, at least about the kits. Because he'd be understandable, especially if StarClan is involved. Bramblestar telling Squirrelflight about his meetings in the Dark Forest, genuinely wouldn't add to anything anymore at this point in time. It was over and done with, he was no long going there, he killed Hawkfrost, and now he's looking towards the future, and peaceful life he wanted to live with Squirrelflight. But when it comes to Squirrel and Leaf, it's a matter of how Squirrel put it, she would be lying to him for the rest of his life. And considering that they're STILL alive now, it would be a lie that would go on for quite a long time compared to the conclusion his arc came to in Sunset, that only lasted three books. StarClan, even if you say they're being manipulative, it's for a good cause as far as they're concerned, while Tigerstar was manipulating his sons with a malicious intent. They're not the same, and not even comparable imo, but if you think otherwise, agree to disagree. I just don't see any reason for Squirrel and Leaf to not include Bramble on something like that, and choose for him. Since this is long enough, I won't bother much with the SqH points, because I just genunely don't care for Squirrelflight's character in that book. It just felt like Squirrelflight from TNP again, if not worse because she was in a position of power and abusing that, while also involving even her biological children into mess. The Sisters aren't respectable as far as I'm concerned. I don't see how abandoning children, and being sexists in any way is respectable, but that's my opinion on it. The clans aren't perfect, but they definitely aren't as terrible to the degrees of the Sisters (or the initial Tribe introduction), and I'll leave it at that. i must say, though, i really don't understand your views on the sisters in comparison to the clans. we just had a debate about how bramblestar leaving sunrise to die was perfectly reasonable from a clan perspective because she was an outsider and outsiders are dehumanized (well. decatized) to a horrific extent furthermore, the whole 'abandoning children' thing isn't as bad as it would be for an equivalent clan cat--sisters-blooded cats have the ability to speak to spirits and communicate with the earth. its still bad, obviously, but considering at the same age (6 moons) clan kits are gearing up to fight and die in an endless war machine they do not have any room to talk but somehow the sexism is worse? there are examples of casual but subtle sexism in the clans in addition to the other glaring issues in their society [sunstar point-blank says blue can't be deputy bc she has babies even tho by the time they were given away they'd been weaned. nearly every time a female pov is in a position of power they angst abt if they can have a mate or kits while male leaders never worry about this]. The sisters aren't worse than the clans. If we saw their pov from every book and then saw the horrific violence of the clans from the pov of. idk, snow or something, we'd be losing our minds over how awful the clans are. just because the sisters' societal flaws are more 'in your face' obvious and the clan's violent xenophobia is less obvious without critical thinking doesn't mean they aren't both societies in dear need of reform. Hmmm... Apprentices are trained by mentors and also have the support group and protection of their whole clan. It isn't the same as straight up abandoning a young cat in the middle of the night and leaving him to fend for himself. In Tree's novella that's literally what happened. Tree's novella showed how he was neglected and treated differently just because he was a tom, compared to his littermates. And even when he begged and wanted to stay with them, they insisted it had to be done, and he woke up to a cold morning alone. He would have died on his own if not for Root finding and saving him. Even turning out to be his father, he expressed anger over what the Sisters did to his son. While Tree grew up with a disdain toward his birth group.
Imo there's no justification for that, and I don't see how it's comparable to Bluestar not being considered for a overworking role when there's another capable and readily option there, even if he's not the preferred one. The idea of making a Queen deputy, when her kits are barely over a moon, is nonsensical. And honestly the Bluestar situation in general is a whole mess on it's own considering it's Goosefeather's fault, and on top of that Bluestar did break the code. She's not the best example and never will be tbh.
So no, I highly doubt my views on the Sisters would change regardless of them being a POV or not. I'd still find their actions gross and unjustifiable. If the clan cats were kicking out cats at apprentice age and making them fend for themselves based off them being toms or she-cats, then sure.
Also the clan's are rooted from the Tribes. In DotC they came from the Tribe and were the early settlers in the forest. And learned to to survive in different areas, and have survived since because of that. Them wanting to protect their way of life from outsiders, imo, isn't as black as white as you're making it out to be. They're called "clans" for a reason. But on another note, again, agree to disagree, this isn't necessarily the thread for a discussion like this.
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Post by vectoring34 on Dec 20, 2022 0:34:03 GMT -5
I'd like to say in advance, that underlining a bunch of lines and paragraphs does make reading it more difficult. Not trying to be rude anything by that, just saying it is harder for me to read your replies that way. I'm not sure if they were supposed to be links? But they didn't work when I clicked them. I decided to just go through the Starlight, Twilight, and Sunset in the end: - Hawkfrost wasn't previously training with Tigerstar when his father is finally able to connect his dreams to the Dark Forest. Hawkfrost arrives around the same time as him, and he becomes the reason why Brambleclaw stays, again, not Tigerstar. And interestingly enough, prior to this finally happening, him and Squirrel were already arguing, as shown in the quotes in the thread. Squirrelflight was notably being more frustrated and jealous at Brambleclaw for just showing interest in Hawkfrost, evening insulting him. Which again, isn't the approach that Squirrel should have took, but definitely did push Bramble away more. Then there's the other time, where Squirrel lashed out at him and accused him of being disloyal just because he merely questioned Onewhisker's choices, not even in a hostile manner mind you, but the way she did it was enough to make him upset, and he just walks off. It's only after that does Tigerstar meet with him. It's easier for Dark Forest cats to connect with and target troubled cats, it's how they prey on them, and lead their dreams into the Dark Forest. There's a reason why Tigerstar was eventually able to connect with all of his children there eventually, save for Mothwing, who doesn't have that type of connection in general. A few other things to keep in mind in Starlight: -Several times Bramble was in situations where he was judged for his heritage, both internally and externally -When he first met Tigerstar again, it's noted his dream turned into what he deemed a "nightmare" and he was unsure on how to go about their interactions. And the setting was the old ThunderClan home. -Bramble questioned if StarClan sent Tigerstar, and also this is the FIRST instance of him hearing there's "other skies" besides StarClan. The Dark Forest wasn't a properly established thing in the main series narrative yet until TNP. -When Tigerstar leaves he turns to Hawkfrost, and tries to stop him from leaving, because he wanted to speak more but this is when he wakes up. -And when he does wake up he questions about the "other skies" situation again, wondering what that meant. -When Bramble goes back to sleep, the one he's thinking about seeing again is Hawkfrost and wonders if it really is possible for kin to share dreams, but he does feel guilt because he's a RiverClan cat. -And whereas he wanted and longed to be with Squirrelflight and wanted her affections, he knew he couldn't confide in her about Hawkfrost because of her biased dislike to him prior to all of this. So he has considered it. Here's an interaction between Bramble, Squirrel and Hawk at a gathering:
Quite literally, the situation with Bramble is that Squirrel was basically saying it's either me or him pretty much. And again, Bramble wasn't even training in the Dark Forest yet, he didn't even know if his dream was real until this point, and still was just trying to get to know Hawkfrost. When it comes to the Mudclaw situation, its a matter of the readers being aware of something thanks to perspective, but not the characters. Squirrelflight believed Mudclaw, because she already had that bias against him. While Brambleclaw wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially after Hawkfrost openly admitted that he was wrong but he was doing what he did because he genuinely thought it was right, by the ways of the code. Thanks to confirmation, through Mudclaw's perspective (which is crazy cause this is a debate on it's on that lasted for years), we know that Hawkfrost was a manipulator. But as far as Bramble believes, that's not the case, and this can be applied to any other cats that were involved in the rebellion. Or cats that chose to forgive the ones who got involved. For Squirrel and Bramble specifically though, it's just worse by pov. Because when we see Bramble and Hawk talk things out, and Brmable wants to do the same with Squirrelflight, she doesn't give him the chance.
This all happens in Starlight in general by the way, before the second dream ever happens, it was basically just Squirrel and Bramble's relationship taking a nose dive and him feeling more isolated in his own clan. The wild thing about this is that Leafpool (or paw at the time I'm pretty sure) actually had the most level-headed takes about all of this. Even though she had more than enough of a reason NOT to trust Bramble because of the omen she had of blood spilling blood. Starlight (After the gathering argument):
Twilight (The very next book after the Mudclaw situation):
And then even after this, Bramble does show signs of wanting to speak with Squirrel to work things out, but because she's notably spending more time with Ashfur, he veers away. The complete shutdown and rejection she kept hashing out at him, especially in Starlight, and pretty much "ending" what they had going on between them previously, made it harder for them to talk at all. I understand that Squirrelflight doesn't like Hawkfrost, but as Leafpaw points out, she is being unreasonably from an outsider perspective. Whereas we the readers DO find out Squirrel happened to be right in the end, it doesn't mean how she behaved prior, to was right. Then following the events of Starlight this pretty much goes into a reaction situation in most of Twilight. Squirrelflight realizes she was being unreasonable, but still continues to take jabs at Brambleclaw regardless. And then gets defensive when he counters back of is cold to her, which is...?? Upon rereading some of their arguments, there was a moment where Squirrelflight was with a moment of notably attacking Brambleclaw even, and from her own pov (I counted at least 2 or 3 instances in Twilight alone). Then again, it wouldn't be the first time either, because she has swung at him before when she was still an apprentice I believe, over an argument. Some other things: -Squirrel immediately thinks Bramble is like Tigerstar just because he wants to be deputy -Several times in Twilight she does this actually, and not just because of him wanting to be deputy, but because of his heritage too -The next time we do see Bramble in the DF with Tiger and Hawk is through Leafpool's perspective half way through the book -Notably in this dream, the only thing that was happening was Tigerstar teaching his sons to be "good warriors" by his standards -It's noted that Leaf could only see Hawkfrost and his enthusiasm and expressions, but not Bramble's who's back was to her -When she does wake up and run into Bramble, he's genuinely concerned about her, and she is was uncertain, about him and the dream, whether it was real or not. -There's no confirmation on how often Bramble and Hawk have been seeing Tiger at this point, by Leafpool's pov -She notes she can't tell Fire or Cinder about the dream because they'd take it seriously, and how this dream feels notably different. -^^ This is also the extent of what we get of the dreams and Tigerstar in Twilight by the way.
-As for Squirrelflight, besides her very heated arguments with Bramble, she notably goes out of her way to challenge Bramble even when Fire puts him in charge. -It's to the point where Ashfur of all cats is the voice of reason and tries to "calm" down her flare because she's not helping the situations. -At one point Bramble asks her to feed to elders, and out of spite she refuses, and runs off to hunt instead. -Squirrel is so caught in her frustration that Ashfur has to call out to her to stop, because she almost runs into a fox. -It's Bramble that has to save her, and he and Ashfur fight side by side to chase off the fox. -Despite that, just because it's the mere fact that it's Bramble that helps save her, she feels the need to argue with him, and even internally says she can't "back down".
-There's also the turn in Squirrel and Ashfur's relationship. Where cats outside of the relationship are noting Squirrel's behavior. -For example, when Squirrel crossed the ShadowClan border, and Bramble stopped her, but Ashfur jumped to her defense. Sandstorm says Squirrel can stand up for herself. -Sand is also surprised at how furiously she's looking at Bramble, and Ashfur isn't making the situation better, because now he's become overly protective of Squirrel at this point, due to how she behaves toward Bramble. -I always found these indications to be interesting tbh? But that's an debate for another day. -She sees Ashfur getting Birchpaw as his apprentice as a way of thwarting Brambleclaw -Sandstorm has to talk with her about the situation at the ShadowClan border -There's more times Bramble scolds her for neglecting her warrior duties (to which Squirrel does admit) -Another classic move of Squirrel promising Tawny that they'd send a patrol to help with kittypets before it was even approved -At this point her and Ashfur, still very much a thing.
-The tension between them starts to chill when Leafpool goes missing and Bramble offers to help her -The reason is because Squirrel understands he knows what it's like to lose a littermate to another another clan (Tawnypelt) -^^And this is under the assumption that Leafpool went to join WindClan -(If I had a nickel for every time Squirrel had to have a tail put over her mouth because she kept speaking out of turn...) -Squirrel seeks comfort in Bramble over Leaf's disappearance after WindClan and them can't find either her or Crowfeather -And this is where she suddenly starts to question if she'd give up everything for Ashfur or Bramble?? In the span of like...2 chapters? -Not much happens here but she gets comfort from her parents, and a bit from Bramble who says that if she HAD said something it might have just made things worse tbh (which they do agree, it would have driven her further away. It's rather ironic because this is exactly why the wedge between her and Bramble got so bad). -Bramble walks off before Ashfur comes over. -Ashfur literally comforts and lulls Squirrel to sleep in a den nest together -And then following this is the Badger battle, but all she thinks about his Bramble?? The events of Twilight are just....a whirlwind. And as for Sunset...ehh... -The opening of the book is Tigerstar and Darkstripe discussing Bramble and Hawk and Dark asking how he'll get them to do what he wants, and mainly to get revenge against Firestar for him. -Tigerstar notes that Hawkfrost is doing "well" under his advice, and there's no doubt who he sides with. But Bramble is more wayward and questionable. -Tigerstar literally notes that Bramble's loyalty to Firestar is a weakness, and why he's not as prime as Hawkfrost in his eyes. -Inner monologue of Bramble being relieved Ashfur is okay, and also being concerned for Firestar when he lost a life, and vowing to stay by his side to the very end. -The badger attack is the main reason Bramble and Squirrel suddenly hit it off again, after two full on books of animosity. -Most of the chapters after the badger fight is Bramble being on edge and protective of ThunderClan and his clanmates -Bramble is also the one who goes to apologize to Squirrel first, notably. -Since we are seeing Bramble's pov again (after not seeing it for the most part in Twilight) we do see just how differently he is from his perspective. How he has a lot of moments of longing for Squirrelflight, respect, worry, and even how fondly he speaks of her to other cats. Part of me wonders if it was intentional that he didn't get a pov in Twilight because they wanted him to come off as unreasonable, unlikable, or antagonizing, from Squirrel's pov? -"They didn’t even have to apologize; they could just look forward to all the moons ahead of them." - Something Bramble thinks after him and Squirrel made up. And it's when he went to apologize first but she stops him and assures him she knows. -Leafpool's faith in Bramble was shaken only because of the strange dream she had in Twilight.
-Leafpool has a dream where it shows Bramble and Squirrel are destined to be together (and my guess is because they were supposed to be the actual parents of the three) -Squirrel finally speaks with Ashfur, about how she wants to be with Bramble, and just kinda dumps him?? But offers to still be friends. -What's interesting is that Ashfur, who is feeling crossed at this point, brings up the things that she personally used in arguments against Bramble in Starlight and Twilight. So it kinda just...?? -Bramble even feels sympathy for Ashfur until he brings up his heritage. -“I’ll judge Brambleclaw by his own actions,” she retorted hotly, “not by something that other cats did long before I was born.” Squirrel saying she's going to look at Bramble for how he acts and not based on his heritage is quite noted, which is true because this happens later in the book concerning Firestar. -Leafpool does tell Squirrel about her vision of her and Bramble, to which Squirrel is happy about
-What's interesting about Bramble going to the DF again, it's been a while since the Badger attack -Bramble notes that he can't tell Squirrel about it because she still believes he's loyal to his clan but still wanted to see his kin -When Hawkfrost asks him, he tells him about the Badgers (this does bite him back later) -It's noted that when Hawkfrost sees his wound, his eyes softened and he's concerned for his brother. -Tigerstar actually gives the exact time frame and says Bramble hasn't been there for since a quarter moon -Bramble DOES note that Hawk is listening to him recount the badger attack to Tigerstar, and doesn't fully tell them how devastating the damage was because he acknowledges that Hawk is still from a rival clan. So as far as Hawk knows, there was just a badger attack in general, not how severely damaging it actually was. -When Tigerstar insists his bravery is good for when Firestar chooses a deputy, Bramble thinks the opposite, and how he was doing what he did for his clanmates, not for power. -They discuss advice again, like their previous meetings. At one point Bramble brings up and defends Firestar, to which Tigerstar grows angry. Tigerstar also reveals that Stormfur returned to the lake, something Bramble didn't want Hawk to know. -And it's HERE do we actually finally see things escalate, because Tigerstar suddenly hits Brambleclaw. Calling it "training" and forcing Bramble to defend himself. -It's noted they have done normal training before, but this one was different because they Tigerstar was much more ferocious, much to Bramble's surprise and was literally ripping into him. -Notably it's Hawkfrost who jumps between them and fights Tigerstar off when he tries to attack Bramble again while he's down. -After this they break apart, and end the meeting, leaving Bramble with his previous advice. -Bramble then wakes to his wounds from the dream for the first time ever. -^^(Imo I don't think this is talked about enough, but this is literally manipulation and abuse from Tigerstar's end. Lulling his sons into false sense of security, and then escalating when he's angry. Especially towards Bramble, whom he's aware is very loyal to Firestar still)
-He doesn't tell Squirrel about his meetings because he worries they'll lose everything they've gained and built up again. And that she'll just resort back to how she felt about him so vehemently in the past. -Notably Squirrel has tried several times at this point to explain to Ashfur about their relationship, but it doesn't work. And even just wants to stay friends, but even Bramble can see he'll never be comfortable with that. -Leafpool starts to do more of her own investigating on Bramble, trying to enter into the DF, but instead runs into StarClan -She also notably spies on him in the waking world when he leaves camp to be by himself to just think -She gets caught through and he stares at her until she leaves him in peace -Her trust in Bramble is notably going down hill mostly because of the reminder of the blood omen again too. He's some inner thoughts from Bramble's perspective when he was out by the lake: Continuing: -There's the Berrykit incident -Storm and Brook going to RiverClan -Them running into ShadowClan trespassing and a fight happens -Bramble does accuse Leafpool, but this is rebuked AND he does apologize to her.
-Bramblestar does feel guilty about accusing Leafpool, and realizing he's the one that told Hawkfrost, and Hawk is the one that ran his mouth about the badgers. -Blackstar says he did what he did because they need more territory thanks to Twolegs, and Leopardstar also needs territory, both Onestar and Firestar refuse. And this causes more arguments in the gathering. -Hawkfrost brings up a good point, but also antagonizes the other clan cats -Tawnypelt notably doubts Hawkfrost, to Brambleclaw, who is a bit disturbed by that. But also he doesn't side with Hawk when he shows defiance against Firestar. -Cats from all clans square up, but it's ShadowClan that starts the fight, to Bramble's horror. -Brambleclaw notably tries to stop the fighting cats -The fight settles, but we see Hawkfrost abusing Mothwing, and even about to strike her before leaving -Halfway into Sunset, only NOW does Tawnypelt's dream finally get connected to Tigerstar. -Brambleclaw sees her reject Tigerstar's "training" which is unsurprising, she saw his behavior first hand while he took over ShadowClan and RiverClan, and this IS noted when she scolds Bramble. -Bramble is having internal struggles with his own personal beliefs and ambitions even more. -They go find Daisy and her kits and bring her back -Notably, Leafpool's dream that StarClan chooses Bramble to be the deputy, also talks about his DF training.
-Bramble is made deputy, and even Bramble is surprised and protests -Cats protests in general claiming it's against the code and he can't be trusted -Leafpool brings up her vision -And the only cat to argue is Ashfur, whom Bramble had to stop before she ripped into him. -In the end no cat agreed with Ashfur, and congratulated Bramble -When Bramble goes to the DF to tell Tiger and Hawk, he's happy and excited, saying StarClan chose him -Hawk is notably jealous, and Tiger says he earned the position because of him and their training -Tiger also gets mad when Bramble reminded his clan he didn't have an apprentice yet -It's at THIS point that Tigerstar talks about them ruling the forest, Hawk is elated at this, but Bramble takes a step back -Bramble notably argues with Tiger's new plans, and Tiger continues to try and sweep him up in his vision -Bramble doesn't agree to anything though, and wants to think things through, but is disturbed by his brother and father's words -Hawk suggests they take over during a gathering, to which Bramble out right refuses and is upset about -He finds it hard to do anything under the gaze of Tigerstar and asks to meet Hawk in the waking world instead
-Bramble was going to talk Hawk out of Tiger's plan -Hawkfrost suggest they meet on his territory -While he's spending time with Squirrelflight he thinks about his meeting planned with Hawk.
-When Bramble goes to meet with Hawkfrost he genuinely tries to convince his brother against their father's plans
Continuing from here: -Hawkfrost dismisses him, and says that they'd make better leaders and tries to convince him -Bramble thinks about it for a moment and how he wouldn't have personally left a kit to suffer in a trap -He hears a cat cry in help, Hawk tries to tell him it's nothing, but he insists and goes to investigate -Bramble finds Firestar in the trap, immediately tries to help but gets knocked aside by Hawkfrost -He's shocked at Hawk saying this is his opportunity -He puts two and two together as to why Hawk smells of a ShadowClan cat when Firestar utters why he was there -(^^Something to note is how Hawk was trying to dismiss all of this so much when it came to his scent being of ShadowClan, and when they heard the cry for help, and then him stopping Bramble from intervening. It could imply he was trying to kill Firestar regardless of Bramble's involvement) -The voice in his head tells him to kill Firestar, and Hawkfrost shoves him over to finish the job, but Bramble is frozen on the spot (This is similar to how Lionblaze was influenced by Tiger's voice in POT)
-Meanwhile back at the camp, Ashfur tells everyone what happens and feigns fear -(^^ Planning to frame Bramble, and even possibly Hawkfrost) -Leafpool thinks that her fears have come true and that Bramble has succumbed to the darkness of Tigerstar's ambition while she and Squirrel hurry to find them -Meanwhile back at the fox trap, Firestar's gaze wasn't pleading but a burning question of: "What will you do, Brambleclaw? It’s
your choice." -All the while his father is literally the devil on his shoulder and telling him to kill Firestar now. -Bramblestar refuses to do it in the end. And honestly the rest of the chapter speaks for itself here.
Last overview on Sunset: -Hawkfrost was planning to kill Brambleclaw if he didn't go through with the plan from the start
-The idea was Tigerstar's because of how Brambleclaw was still loyal to Firestar
-Brambleclaw didn't want to hurt his own brother, and even told him to leave
-Hawkfrost refused because he has no gripe with killing his own kin for power
-Bramble kills Hawkfrost but never wanted this
-When he waits for Firestar, he believes he's deserving of exile like his father, but that doesn't happen
-Firestar trusts and understands how hard this all was for him, and keeps him as deputy.
-Leafpool and Squirrelflight arrive, Leafpool thinks she was right in thinking Bramble is a traitor
-Turns out she was wrong, but she is shocked that Bramble was the one to stop Hawkfrost in the end
-Bramble is still somewhat in a state of dissociation that he didn't even notice Squirrel at first when she thanks him
-And then the omen is mentions and that's about that, it's the end of that arc And this is just...from the last three books alone?? Not much happens in POT, but it's noted on several times (even if it's a foreshadowing) how good of a father Bramble is, and how proud Holly, Jay and Lion were to be his children. Along with the reputation he has at that point. There's a reason why Bramblestar gets listed a lot as one of the most notable fathers in the series overall next to Gray Wing or Shellheart, etc. The reason I find how Squirrel behaves to be much more condemning is again, there really is NO reason for her not to tell Bramble. And if there actually was, she didn't exactly tell him when he openly asked her why.
What's interesting about Leafpool's Wish is that she and Brambleclaw do talk about his meetings in the Dark Forest. And although she had her doubts, she did listen to him, and he assures her that she can trust him. He wanted nothing else to do with Tigerstar, and felt the guilt of killing his own brother. He vowed his loyalty to ThunderClan, but it made Leafpool remember her own disloyalty because of her kits. When Squirrelflight and Feathertail do talk about the kits, she agrees that Feathertail is right, she does love the kits, and Leafpool, but keep in mind what was important as Feathertail put it, is that the kits needed to be raised as ThunderClan cats, with a proud family. When she decides to adopt them, she's also making that decision for not only her, but for Brambleclaw as well, without his consent. That is the issue. Yellowfang literally says to her at one point that they can't make her do anything she doesn't want to. There really is no reason for Squirrelflight not to tell Brambleclaw, heck even Firestar, at least about the kits. Because he'd be understandable, especially if StarClan is involved. Bramblestar telling Squirrelflight about his meetings in the Dark Forest, genuinely wouldn't add to anything anymore at this point in time. It was over and done with, he was no long going there, he killed Hawkfrost, and now he's looking towards the future, and peaceful life he wanted to live with Squirrelflight. But when it comes to Squirrel and Leaf, it's a matter of how Squirrel put it, she would be lying to him for the rest of his life. And considering that they're STILL alive now, it would be a lie that would go on for quite a long time compared to the conclusion his arc came to in Sunset, that only lasted three books. StarClan, even if you say they're being manipulative, it's for a good cause as far as they're concerned, while Tigerstar was manipulating his sons with a malicious intent. They're not the same, and not even comparable imo, but if you think otherwise, agree to disagree. I just don't see any reason for Squirrel and Leaf to not include Bramble on something like that, and choose for him. Since this is long enough, I won't bother much with the SqH points, because I just genunely don't care for Squirrelflight's character in that book. It just felt like Squirrelflight from TNP again, if not worse because she was in a position of power and abusing that, while also involving even her biological children into mess. The Sisters aren't respectable as far as I'm concerned. I don't see how abandoning children, and being sexists in any way is respectable, but that's my opinion on it. The clans aren't perfect, but they definitely aren't as terrible to the degrees of the Sisters (or the initial Tribe introduction), and I'll leave it at that. i must say, though, i really don't understand your views on the sisters in comparison to the clans. we just had a debate about how bramblestar leaving sunrise to die was perfectly reasonable from a clan perspective because she was an outsider and outsiders are dehumanized (well. decatized) to a horrific extent furthermore, the whole 'abandoning children' thing isn't as bad as it would be for an equivalent clan cat--sisters-blooded cats have the ability to speak to spirits and communicate with the earth. its still bad, obviously, but considering at the same age (6 moons) clan kits are gearing up to fight and die in an endless war machine they do not have any room to talk but somehow the sexism is worse? there are examples of casual but subtle sexism in the clans in addition to the other glaring issues in their society [sunstar point-blank says blue can't be deputy bc she has babies even tho by the time they were given away they'd been weaned. nearly every time a female pov is in a position of power they angst abt if they can have a mate or kits while male leaders never worry about this]. The sisters aren't worse than the clans. If we saw their pov from every book and then saw the horrific violence of the clans from the pov of. idk, snow or something, we'd be losing our minds over how awful the clans are. just because the sisters' societal flaws are more 'in your face' obvious and the clan's violent xenophobia is less obvious without critical thinking doesn't mean they aren't both societies in dear need of reform. Sunrise picked a fight with a clan patrol and rather than be taken back to the Sisters, foists this problem upon Thunderclan and makes a situation difficult because now Thunderclan is harboring Shadowclan enemies. It's not xenophobia being the main problem here. I think Bramblestar handled the situation poorly, but it's because he was indecisive. The Sunstar thing is just not true. He thinks that she would prefer to do mothering fulltime rather than be a deputy, but he never says she can't be deputy. Moreover, he outright tells her later that he never was going to pick Thistleclaw anyway. As far as violence goes, I'd argue that casually kidnapping and holding hostage high ranking community members of areas you want to move into as your first line of diplomacy is probably a bit more problematic.
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raincloud33
victorian novel version of greencough is brain-fever
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Post by raincloud33 on Dec 20, 2022 0:55:11 GMT -5
I have an attachment to Bramblestar. Note I haven't read these cat books in years, I just in general like him. I don't hate Squilf though. I feel like, the impression that other readers give me, the characters are toys to whatever plot is being written or author is writing. This makes them inconsistent and one of the reasons I am no longer currently reading. (Although tbh the main reason currently is my seething hatred for the df plotlines and the possession by Ashfur arc.)
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Post by starlightstoryteller on Dec 20, 2022 1:26:13 GMT -5
i must say, though, i really don't understand your views on the sisters in comparison to the clans. we just had a debate about how bramblestar leaving sunrise to die was perfectly reasonable from a clan perspective because she was an outsider and outsiders are dehumanized (well. decatized) to a horrific extent furthermore, the whole 'abandoning children' thing isn't as bad as it would be for an equivalent clan cat--sisters-blooded cats have the ability to speak to spirits and communicate with the earth. its still bad, obviously, but considering at the same age (6 moons) clan kits are gearing up to fight and die in an endless war machine they do not have any room to talk but somehow the sexism is worse? there are examples of casual but subtle sexism in the clans in addition to the other glaring issues in their society [sunstar point-blank says blue can't be deputy bc she has babies even tho by the time they were given away they'd been weaned. nearly every time a female pov is in a position of power they angst abt if they can have a mate or kits while male leaders never worry about this]. The sisters aren't worse than the clans. If we saw their pov from every book and then saw the horrific violence of the clans from the pov of. idk, snow or something, we'd be losing our minds over how awful the clans are. just because the sisters' societal flaws are more 'in your face' obvious and the clan's violent xenophobia is less obvious without critical thinking doesn't mean they aren't both societies in dear need of reform. Sunrise picked a fight with a clan patrol and rather than be taken back to the Sisters, foists this problem upon Thunderclan and makes a situation difficult because now Thunderclan is harboring Shadowclan enemies. It's not xenophobia being the main problem here. I think Bramblestar handled the situation poorly, but it's because he was indecisive. The Sunstar thing is just not true. He thinks that she would prefer to do mothering fulltime rather than be a deputy, but he never says she can't be deputy. Moreover, he outright tells her later that he never was going to pick Thistleclaw anyway. As far as violence goes, I'd argue that casually kidnapping and holding hostage high ranking community members of areas you want to move into as your first line of diplomacy is probably a bit more problematic. re: sunstar. he does stop considering blue for a bit because she had kits. evidence here: re: kidnapping. clans hold cats hostage all the time. they literally kidnapped sol because of a vague suspicion he killed ashfur for no other reason than the lols. they hold cats they find suspicious All The Time, including yellowfang, an old woman. also it wasnt 'areas they want to move into'. they were ALREADY THERE. that was the whole point of why they held them hostage--to keep them from getting driven off while moonlight was still pregnant. it was a pragmatic move. the sisters didn't seriously harm their hostages, and treated them better than thunderclan treats their prisoners. and one instance of kidnapping that is later offset by helping save squirrelflight's daughter is not at all equivalent to the systemic violence the clans are built on. the clans literally got their start by a bunch of tribe cats coming down from the mountains and dragging everyone into "clear sky wont go to therapy so he's making it everyone else's problem instead". The cats already living there were either assimiliated, killed, or marginalized by being pushed off of Their Land and labeled 'rogues'. (Gee, doesn't that sound familiar?) This is a pattern in the history of the clans. they continually do violence to outsiders, lack empathy for those who lack clan blood, and try to convert others to their hyperviolent ways. a few examples: *tigerheart converts the healers in tigerheart's shadow. *the patrol tries to convert the tribe in outcast because apparently a group that literally fights eagles is unable to fight off a bunch of teenagers without the help of a few edgy teens and their parents. Even hollypaw points out that the Clans would be pissed if a bunch of strangers came in and started telling them what to do, but is completely ignored. *basically everything abt DOTC and how the clans grew. The loners repeatedly point out how things weren't as tense before the mountain cats came and they even used to share prey with random loners sometimes, and yet thematically speaking this is never followed up on. The clans repeatedly show that they think their system is superior and the only correct way to be a cat. and they do have some things right--they feel their vulnerable. but that is not unique to the clans, and the clans also fight pointless wars over territory they could easily share because...because. I understand why the clans are seperate, but them not just having open borders doesn't make sense. "Oh, they could take our prey when they're hungry!!" it goes both ways, my dude. the clans' territory wars are completely pointless and only serve for needless bloodshed. They throw their young apprentices at enemies in battle, death from battles is not uncommon, and when enforcing the code the one about not having babies with the wrong people is more shameful than killing people as long as you kill the 'right' people: cats from other clans, or better yet, a rogue. Think about it. Furthermore, their law about the 'leader's word' is absolutely nonsensical and cant be defended in any reasonable capacity. This has been used to justify countless atrocities, including nearly murdering teenagers for circumstances completely beyond their control, mass slaughtering of kittens, etc. The Sisters, for all their faults, do not do things like that, because that is not Lionblaze killing Russetfur hasn't been mentioned since the end of OotS. leafpool and squirrelflight's issue is still brought up to sqh. nobody challenged tigerclaw supposedly killing oakheart. its heinous. [also sorry for the rambling its the autism. i have analyzed the ins and outs of the hyperviolence of warriors society to a perhaps unhealthy degree.] this will be my LAST POST on the subject i promise. but i just want to say one more thing. (dk i@phoenix : I've read dawn of the clans. I don't really understand ur point abt the fact that they came from the Tribes legitimizing the crimes the Clans have committed. 'Protecting your way of life from outsiders' is blatant xenophobic propaganda. What would happen, really, if other cats learned the way of the clans? If other cats 'learned' to beat each other up over nonsense and feed their queens and elders and make ridiculous rules about who to have babies with? The clans are so ridiculously paranoid that when Milkfur saw Mapleshade's kits swimming in the river she honestly thought they were sending TWO MONTH OLD KITTENS to invade. The clans didn't just 'learn' how to survive. They were settlers from the Tribe and learned how to live on the land from outsiders. In DOTC they commit terrible crimes against those same outsiders, decry outsiders as 'untrustworthy' despite the fact that they were the ones who stirred the pot. They were the invaders, the kind of cats that the modern clans stereotype every passing rogue as. They were not the heroes, they did not own the land, they had zero right to do what they did to the cats already there. It is not 'protecting your way of life' to heartlessly leave someone to die when you could have saved them. It is not 'protecting your way of life' to continually deny empathy and compassion towards cats who 'don't have clan blood' (cough cough RUSSETFUR cough cough). When Cloudkit was brought to the clan, some cats seriously suggested leaving him out in the cold to die. If a society is driving out and threatening/intimidating pregnant cats because they couldn't be minorly inconvenienced for a moon, there is something seriously wrong with that society.also i sincerely do not understand how you excuse the clans' terrible behavior as 'well, its the code, not the cat' but when the sisters also have an ancient law they are not allowed to break for fear of the ancestor's wrath coming upon them its the fault of the sisters somehow? I'm not saying this isn't bad. I just don't understand the double standard. if either of you would like to discuss this further i can make a thread bc i have So Many Thoughts abt this edit: maplefrost i dont understand your point about 'well bluestar broke the code so she;s not a rolemodel'...ethicality of the code aside, that has literally nothing to do with the point at hand, which is in-universe sexism. sunstar didn't know that, so it has zero bearing on his behavior. furthermore, bluefur's kits were eating solid food by the time they had to leave. there was no reason she couldn't have left day-to-day stuff with the other queens, or even thrushpelt. the clans raise their kits more communally than people.
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Post by ❅Maplefrost❅ on Dec 20, 2022 1:52:50 GMT -5
starlightstoryteller I'm saying you should probably look up the proper definition of what a clan is and why that ties into indigenous cultures. And I'm saying that as an indigenous person myself.
And if you want to claim that Amazonians are similar case because of the Sisters, please keep in mind that they were deemed as a myth for the longest time until recently, just a few years ago. And even then actual Amazonian culture centered around equality between genders as warriors, and protecting their young. The Sisters are based off the myth, the clans are based off of actual cultures. Just to make that clear.
The Maplehsade incident is not even comparable. In fact I quite literally (of all people actually) despised how that situation was treated. And have said many times that what happened went against the code in the first place. Oak, Raven and Freckle should have all been held accountable for how they treated Mapleshade and her kits, period. But again, that's an entirely different debate. Same with the Russetfur incident. And I said what I already said about the Bluestar situation, so I'm not going to bother with it again.
No cat had claimed the land when the Tribe cats migrated from the mountains. And the code isn't even established yet, as well as the territory they settled on. Both Tribe cats, rogues, loners, kittypets, etc all came together eventually to form the very first establishments of what is known as the Clans. And Tribe cats even in this modern day STILL have connections to the Clans, and ancestors that can travel through one another's skies. One of the biggest main issues at the start was literally cats wanting borders, while others disagreed. But when it came to the change of situations and circumstances, it became a necessity.
The Sisters are quite literally a society built on sexism, child neglect, and relationship manipulation. I don't approve of that period, and that isn't comparable to the odd one out of situations with WarriorClans. Also quite literally how outsiders are dealt with is up to the Clan leaders at the time, and this is reflected many times in the series over all. Whereas with the sisters it's the same absolute cycle. They use a tom from outside of their clan, slink off when they're pregnant, have kits only to neglect and abandon their sons, and aggressively treat them like outsiders if they ever see them again. And not just their own kin, but other toms as well. I fail to see how that's double standards imo.
Either way, I'm going to say this again. This isn't the thread for this type of discussion, and I also said agree to disagree three times now.
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Rainbow
appleteeth
none of you understand squirrelflight like i do
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Post by appleteeth on Dec 20, 2022 9:33:27 GMT -5
the amount of people here who like bramblestar is honestly appalling and even a little disgusting considering how many of the female characters you guys hate. what did finchlight do to you? what did sparkpelt do to you? any of you? i think you all need to ask yourself what makes you like this character who has been known as abusive, controlling, and hypocritical for over 10 years, and why you hate the other characters. is it because they make bramblestar look worse? maybe you need to ask yourself why you’re so caught up on defending him. you guys are all sick. squirrelflight is one of the few female characters with a personality that isn’t quiet and undemanding. she’s interesting that way. she loves her family so much and would do anything to get them back. she helped her sister for her sake when she was having the three. she couldn’t of told anyone, the code forbids it. she was aleady trapped. brambleclaw has constantly belittled squirrelflight, from when she was suspicious about hawkfrost, when she was trying to help out the sisters, and after the reveal of the three’s parentage. he downright stopped talking to her entirely, and made her do apprentice tasks because he was upset. don’t you get how wrong that is? the recent books characterizing squirrelflight as rude and brash is entirely the erin’s fault, and i think instead of arguing on who’s right or wrong, you need to ask yourself why the erin’s are writing their characters like this.
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Heterosexual
#64c1a0
Name Colour
𝙵𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚙
𝙼𝚘𝚘𝚛 𝚁𝚞𝚗𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚜 𝚜𝚞𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚛.
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Post by 𝙵𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚙 on Dec 20, 2022 9:36:30 GMT -5
the amount of people here who like bramblestar is honestly appalling and even a little disgusting considering how many of the female characters you guys hate. what did finchlight do to you? what did sparkpelt do to you? any of you? i think you all need to ask yourself what makes you like this character who has been known as abusive, controlling, and hypocritical for over 10 years, and why you hate the other characters. is it because they make bramblestar look worse? maybe you need to ask yourself why you’re so caught up on defending him. you guys are all sick. squirrelflight is one of the few female characters with a personality that isn’t quiet and undemanding. she’s interesting that way. she loves her family so much and would do anything to get them back. she helped her sister for her sake when she was having the three. she couldn’t of told anyone, the code forbids it. she was aleady trapped. brambleclaw has constantly belittled squirrelflight, from when she was suspicious about hawkfrost, when she was trying to help out the sisters, and after the reveal of the three’s parentage. he downright stopped talking to her entirely, and made her do apprentice tasks because he was upset. don’t you get how wrong that is? the recent books characterizing squirrelflight as rude and brash is entirely the erin’s fault, and i think instead of arguing on who’s right or wrong, you need to ask yourself why the erin’s are writing their characters like this. People are allowed to like/dislike whatever characters they want.
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Rainbow
appleteeth
none of you understand squirrelflight like i do
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Post by appleteeth on Dec 20, 2022 10:15:18 GMT -5
i know. i think i should be allowed to ask the question “why” too. it just comes off as frankly misogynistic when people don’t have a single male character on their least favorite list, and then have a large amount of openly awful characters such as nightheart, brambleclaw, and crowfeather.
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Post by Sphinxwhisker on Dec 20, 2022 10:21:54 GMT -5
the amount of people here who like bramblestar is honestly appalling and even a little disgusting considering how many of the female characters you guys hate. what did finchlight do to you? what did sparkpelt do to you? any of you? i think you all need to ask yourself what makes you like this character who has been known as abusive, controlling, and hypocritical for over 10 years, and why you hate the other characters. is it because they make bramblestar look worse? maybe you need to ask yourself why you’re so caught up on defending him. you guys are all sick. squirrelflight is one of the few female characters with a personality that isn’t quiet and undemanding. she’s interesting that way. she loves her family so much and would do anything to get them back. she helped her sister for her sake when she was having the three. she couldn’t of told anyone, the code forbids it. she was aleady trapped. brambleclaw has constantly belittled squirrelflight, from when she was suspicious about hawkfrost, when she was trying to help out the sisters, and after the reveal of the three’s parentage. he downright stopped talking to her entirely, and made her do apprentice tasks because he was upset. don’t you get how wrong that is? the recent books characterizing squirrelflight as rude and brash is entirely the erin’s fault, and i think instead of arguing on who’s right or wrong, you need to ask yourself why the erin’s are writing their characters like this. Not to start an argument. But it’s explicitly clarified at the beginning of OoTS that Brambleclaw never punished Squirrelflight in any way after the secret was revealed. More or less their relationship is reduced to merely professional and unless otherwise needed, he refrains from interacting with her. And only time Squirrelflight was stuck with apprentice duties was during the latter half of TNP and Leafpool’s Wish because Firestar mandated the youngest warriors to assist with there being too few apprentices to handle the current workload, so how exactly would Brambleclaw be responsible for that?. And Brambleclaw never belittled Squirrelflight over the Hawkfrost situation, moreover he challenged her reasoning for being distrustful of him, with her being incapable of providing any real answer or evidence to her accusations. And it’s Squirrelflight that resorts to guilt-tripping strategies by claiming that Brambleclaw doesn’t love her because he wants to get to know his kin, and doesn’t immediately believe her accusations. And Squirrelflight 100% could of told Brambleclaw about the 3, neither Yellowfang or Feathertail said she’d be unable to, that’s a conclusion and decision made entirely by herself. The secret was only required to be kept from the 3 and the other clans. And don’t get were your saying people hate female characters? Finchlight’s not hated from what I’ve seen. Some people are unhappy with her few lines in Sky. And Sparkpelt? People don’t dislike her because she’s female, but because she’s a colossal butthead.
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#a3c5e6
Name Colour
𝓣𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓿𝓲𝓮𝓵
Warrior Fanatic
All hail me, the flower-flushing queen of Prague
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Post by 𝓣𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓿𝓲𝓮𝓵 on Dec 20, 2022 10:22:07 GMT -5
he downright stopped talking to her entirely, and made her do apprentice tasks because he was upset. I'm not particularly fond of Bramblestar either, but where are you getting this from? In fact, OotS, for all its flaws, makes it a point to state early on that that's not what he's done. In fact, for the entirety of the fourth arc, he's just cold towards her and there's at least one occasion one can interpret in which he sides against her because he's still angry with her, but there's nothing about having her do apprentice tasks as well. Nor does this happen in TNP or SqH, either. The closest thing I can think of is when she's collecting moss with Ashfur in Twilight, and even then, that was more Sandstorm's idea than anything.
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Post by vectoring34 on Dec 20, 2022 10:31:51 GMT -5
i know. i think i should be allowed to ask the question “why” too. it just comes off as frankly misogynistic when people don’t have a single male character on their least favorite list, and then have a large amount of openly awful characters such as nightheart, brambleclaw, and crowfeather. Why are you assuming people don't have any male characters on their least favorite list?
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Heterosexual
#64c1a0
Name Colour
𝙵𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚙
𝙼𝚘𝚘𝚛 𝚁𝚞𝚗𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚜 𝚜𝚞𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚛.
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Post by 𝙵𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚙 on Dec 20, 2022 10:34:21 GMT -5
i know. i think i should be allowed to ask the question “why” too. it just comes off as frankly misogynistic when people don’t have a single male character on their least favorite list, and then have a large amount of openly awful characters such as nightheart, brambleclaw, and crowfeather. I feel like this is kind of a stretch? Going through a couple of “what are your least favorite cat” lists, most people seem to have a similar amount of toms/she-cats on their list. Don’t know if you’re talking about it specifically as a problem here though. also sorry if I misunderstood what you were saying there lol
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Rainbow
appleteeth
none of you understand squirrelflight like i do
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Post by appleteeth on Dec 20, 2022 10:51:30 GMT -5
kind of curious how do you think sparkpelt sucks? she’s written as having ppd
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Aroace
#ffa100
Name Colour
𝕱𝖑𝖚𝖙𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖋𝖆𝖑𝖑
Villain Enjoyer
Taking a break from the forums because my cat died. Will probably be back mid to late October.
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Post by 𝕱𝖑𝖚𝖙𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖋𝖆𝖑𝖑 on Dec 20, 2022 11:03:43 GMT -5
the amount of people here who like bramblestar is honestly appalling and even a little disgusting considering how many of the female characters you guys hate. what did finchlight do to you? what did sparkpelt do to you? any of you? i think you all need to ask yourself what makes you like this character who has been known as abusive, controlling, and hypocritical for over 10 years, and why you hate the other characters. is it because they make bramblestar look worse? maybe you need to ask yourself why you’re so caught up on defending him. you guys are all sick. squirrelflight is one of the few female characters with a personality that isn’t quiet and undemanding. she’s interesting that way. she loves her family so much and would do anything to get them back. she helped her sister for her sake when she was having the three. she couldn’t of told anyone, the code forbids it. she was aleady trapped. brambleclaw has constantly belittled squirrelflight, from when she was suspicious about hawkfrost, when she was trying to help out the sisters, and after the reveal of the three’s parentage. he downright stopped talking to her entirely, and made her do apprentice tasks because he was upset. don’t you get how wrong that is? the recent books characterizing squirrelflight as rude and brash is entirely the erin’s fault, and i think instead of arguing on who’s right or wrong, you need to ask yourself why the erin’s are writing their characters like this. As a Bramblestar fan who also still loves Squirrelflight at the same time (but never BrambleSquirrel as a ship), I do not excuse his behaviour (especially not in SqH). That being said, I also don't agree with every point that was made in the "Bramblestar is Worse" video because some of the interpretations of the text Moonkitti had, I'm interpreting differently. And that is within my right to do. You calling everyone who still likes Bramblestar "sick" means you're part of the problem of this issue still going on in the fandom. Because instead of discussing things in a civil manner you instead choose to insult and generalize a group of fans who like the same problematic character (most of them are aware he is anything but perfect). Consider yourself reported for that. Sand 🎃 please take care of this.
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Post by Midnightcacoon loves Sunbeam on Dec 20, 2022 11:05:15 GMT -5
appleteeth You might want to start a separate thread for that since it’s not really relavent to this one(but maybe you can’t due to being new, I forgot how it works haha) I personally just never liked how she was portrayed in AVoS or ASC. She’s mean to twigbranch when she becomes her mentor(I think it was either due to her changing clans or being a SkyClan cat) and was really mean to SkyClan in general during AVoS. I also didn’t like how she acted towards Nightheart getting a new name. I don’t hate her or anything, I just don’t really agree with her opinions or actions. Idk what her having ppd would do with me not like her character though. I could probably make a thread for you if you wanted to discuss it further and couldn’t do to your account being new.
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Post by Sand 🎃 on Dec 20, 2022 11:22:42 GMT -5
appleteeth You might want to start a separate thread for that since it’s not really relavent to this one(but maybe you can’t due to being new, I forgot how it works haha) A member only needs 5 posts to make a thread. Appleteeth appears to be at 14 posts, so I think it’s possible for them to make their own thread. (Unless I’m remembering it wrong and it’s like 10 posts.)
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Aroace
#ffa100
Name Colour
𝕱𝖑𝖚𝖙𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖋𝖆𝖑𝖑
Villain Enjoyer
Taking a break from the forums because my cat died. Will probably be back mid to late October.
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Post by 𝕱𝖑𝖚𝖙𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖋𝖆𝖑𝖑 on Dec 20, 2022 11:29:06 GMT -5
kind of curious how do you think sparkpelt sucks? she’s written as having ppd That lowkey reads as if you're just trying to start an argument for no reason, especially since it's directed at no one and without anything leading up to it. This thread was originally in regards to finding out whose more popular, Bramble or Squirrel? It's not about baiting people into a debate about Sparkpelt.
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Post by Hailfrost on Dec 20, 2022 11:41:39 GMT -5
I dislike Bramblestar and I slightly like Squirrelflight, sooo Squirrelflight.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 20, 2022 11:52:57 GMT -5
I greatly dislike Bramblestar and as of the end of TBC I've started disliking Squirrelflight, especially in ASC. I am so tired of their drama in the series, they're both bad mates for each other.
That being said, I personally dislike Bramblestar much more.
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Post by ❅Maplefrost❅ on Dec 20, 2022 13:08:28 GMT -5
I'm baffled at how liking male characters suddenly mean you dislike all female characters. Or I suppose, in this case, thinking liking Bramblestar and disliking Squirrelflight, suddenly means you're misogynistic??
Gender quite literally has nothing to do with it, and any character, regardless of their gender, is capable of just being a good character or a downright nuisance of a jerk.
I used to be a Squirrelflight fan. When I was younger, but after re-reading the series a few times, added in with the newer books, 17 years is plenty of time for me to fall out of love with a character because of how they're written. The same literally applies to Bramblestar, because I used to dislike him, the only difference is that my opinion of them switched, and that's simply because of me reevaluating the books.
My literal favorite characters are Ivypool, Gray Wing, Daisy, and Cinderpelt?? And some of my least favorite characters are Appledusk, Clear Sky, Sleekwhisker, and Onestar??
It's wild to make assumptions about people, especially baseless ones.
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Post by MadameDelune on Dec 21, 2022 1:37:38 GMT -5
Bramblestar all the way. I’d love to see more fan content of him.
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