Post by redlobco on Jul 30, 2016 13:38:12 GMT -5
[ANOTHER old post from my tumblr, this one a bit more disjointed, unfortunately. It's older, but still makes decent points, and I love arguing about Ashfur. The Ashfur discourse brings me life.]
first things first
ashfur did not belong in starclan
no ‘love’ gave him a free pass from his actions
he intended to kill hollyleaf, jayfeather, and lionblaze and he almost succeeded in assisting hawkfrost in murdering firestar
in real life, he would have been sent to jail on those charges, but then again, this isn’t real life, now, is it? it bring up the question: what is morally wrong enough to merit the afterlife spent in the dark forest?
the answer is that there isn’t really one
all we know about the dark forest is that bad cats end up there, depending on how they were judged by starclan
let’s look at darkstripe: a terrible, terrible excuse for a villain. like, wow, did he lose his villian handbook or something? he tried to murder a kit. granted, he failed (how, i have no idea) and then he abandoned his clan, joined another, abandoned that clan, and then joined the bloodclan cats to try to kill firestar
he failed in every single part of everything he tried to do, he couldn’t kill a half-starved cat for goodness sake, and yet, this absolute failure of a villain managed to get himself thrown in the dark forest after doing exactly jack squat
his crimes are pretty comparable to ashfur’s
ashfur tried to kill four cats, betraying his clan at one point to do so, and yet, this doesn’t do anything? and, i’m pretty sure firestar loses a life too, at that point
so.. why is he in starclan?
now on to my actual opinion on ashfur himself
he was not initially a bad cat and he could have redeemed himself
young ashfur/paw was a really good character
he suffered through his mother dying and then had the courage to run alongside his sister to save his clan from the dogs and then he fought fearlessly in the battle with bloodclan
he had been a courageous, kind young cat who was even friends with brambleclaw
and then he fell in love with squirrelflight, got rejected and then several books later he was made a villain for no reason whatsoever
what
i find this amusing, honestly, because in the past, the erins have succeeded in writing a character who coped with this
thrushpelt turned out to be everything ashfur couldn’t be
he acted as a fatherly figure to bluestar’s kits, accepted that she loved someone else, and then remained close friends with her
and, why couldn’t ashfur do this? really, why not? when lionpaw was assigned as his apprentice, he could have treated him as if he were a nephew or something, not as if he was something to project his misguided hate of squirrelflight on
ashfur could have seriously been an amazing character with much more dynamic but he was made into this bad character for no reason, and then put into starclan, reinforcing the idea that his behaviour was acceptable
all in all
i like ashfur as a character, but in the end he was completely ruined by the erins
first things first
ashfur did not belong in starclan
no ‘love’ gave him a free pass from his actions
he intended to kill hollyleaf, jayfeather, and lionblaze and he almost succeeded in assisting hawkfrost in murdering firestar
in real life, he would have been sent to jail on those charges, but then again, this isn’t real life, now, is it? it bring up the question: what is morally wrong enough to merit the afterlife spent in the dark forest?
the answer is that there isn’t really one
all we know about the dark forest is that bad cats end up there, depending on how they were judged by starclan
let’s look at darkstripe: a terrible, terrible excuse for a villain. like, wow, did he lose his villian handbook or something? he tried to murder a kit. granted, he failed (how, i have no idea) and then he abandoned his clan, joined another, abandoned that clan, and then joined the bloodclan cats to try to kill firestar
he failed in every single part of everything he tried to do, he couldn’t kill a half-starved cat for goodness sake, and yet, this absolute failure of a villain managed to get himself thrown in the dark forest after doing exactly jack squat
his crimes are pretty comparable to ashfur’s
ashfur tried to kill four cats, betraying his clan at one point to do so, and yet, this doesn’t do anything? and, i’m pretty sure firestar loses a life too, at that point
so.. why is he in starclan?
now on to my actual opinion on ashfur himself
he was not initially a bad cat and he could have redeemed himself
young ashfur/paw was a really good character
he suffered through his mother dying and then had the courage to run alongside his sister to save his clan from the dogs and then he fought fearlessly in the battle with bloodclan
he had been a courageous, kind young cat who was even friends with brambleclaw
and then he fell in love with squirrelflight, got rejected and then several books later he was made a villain for no reason whatsoever
what
i find this amusing, honestly, because in the past, the erins have succeeded in writing a character who coped with this
thrushpelt turned out to be everything ashfur couldn’t be
he acted as a fatherly figure to bluestar’s kits, accepted that she loved someone else, and then remained close friends with her
and, why couldn’t ashfur do this? really, why not? when lionpaw was assigned as his apprentice, he could have treated him as if he were a nephew or something, not as if he was something to project his misguided hate of squirrelflight on
ashfur could have seriously been an amazing character with much more dynamic but he was made into this bad character for no reason, and then put into starclan, reinforcing the idea that his behaviour was acceptable
all in all
i like ashfur as a character, but in the end he was completely ruined by the erins
