Are Squirrelflight and Bramblestar lying?

Due to the storm interrupting their first attempt and Nightheart running off with Frostpaw during the second one that was seemingly successful but thus neither him nor us readers got to see Brambleclaw and Squirrelstar (still need to get used to typing that instead of the other way around regarding their Clan status) right after they woke up from communicating with StarClan, which probably would've revealed how it went based on their facial expressions/mannerisms, I think something is definitely up.

Although I'm not so sure that it's an exact Nightstar situation but we'll see.

Either way, I still hope Squirrelstar will step down and let Ivypool take over by the end of ASC.

But I just had a thought, what if there is a war between the Clans (because even though Squilf said she didn't want one it can still happen and is just likely) and they kill her off which then would reveal that she didn't have nine lives that way?!

Not that I'm hoping it would actually happen (same with the for now debunked dog theory) because I want Squirrelstar to also retire peacefully like Brambleclaw. But I could see the authors trying to go for a dramatic reveal like that if BrambleSquirrel lying about the ceremony was truly the case.

Then again, Squirrelstar knew that Nightheart was safe and StarClan had called him somewhere and I don't think she could lie about that because she'd just not know about it without StarClan telling her.

I absolutely 100% believe they are lying. The storm stopping them the first time and Nightheart conveniently having to dip before the end of the ceremony so we can't see the real outcome is too much to be coincidence.

I think they're lying to be honest. It's just so odd they don't go into the ceremony much and also made so many foreshadowings leading up to it. On top of that, I guess it's because they already have too many Clan troubles going on right now. Considering ShadowClan is occupying a leaderless RiverClan, and also Bramblestar's declining health, and Squirrelflight is just as old as him, it makes sense they'd hide it if that's the case. Plus Ivypool's upcoming SE is closely worked in with the same timeline of events, and further after. This can also be how they prevent "spoilers" of IvH too.

Really? It seemed odd for the whole thing with the clouds to happen. Was that nothing more than just an excuse to visit SkyClan and get Tree involved?

Is it possible that she did not obtain nine lives, but she received a message about Nightheart regardless?

Everything about the announcement just felt very weird, so I won't be surprised if they did indeed pull a Nightpelt, likely out of desperation, both for Brambleclaw's own health and because of the Tigerstar situation.

That said, consistently inconsistent series aside, it's still weird StarClan would reject them, seeing as how Sunstar was still made leader when Pinestar stepped down, albeit with eight lives instead of nine. And if it was just a case of Ivypool being Bramblestar's true successor, then why keep it a secret? Everyone in ThunderClan clearly trusts her, unless letting her be deputy for a little bit is meant of be some kind of test (deputies are technically apprentices to leaders, after all). Logic has also never really been this series' strong suit and we know how vague StarClan can be at even the most inconvenient times, so yeah, I really think it could go either way, but no matter what happens, I really don't see Squirrelstar lasting that long anyway.

i mean, i suppose we have seen her make a lot of mistakes. instead of evil/tyrannical maybe just constantly pushing her clan into everyone else’s business and pointless wars? then she gets voted out or something’s revealed that makes everyone see that she wasn’t the true leader, yk? js theories