My Top Ten Warrior Cats

Pondfrost lists 10 of her favourite characters of all time.

!SPOILERS! For the Last Hope, Twilight, Bluestar’s Prophecy, and Pretty Much All of Power of Three.

10. Blossomfall
I just feel a lot of sympathy for her, y’know? She’s a relatable character! Everyone except only childs and Oakheart can relate to the idea of your mother loving one of your siblings more than you!
This isn’t Millie hate time, but she was a neglectful parent when it came to Blossomfall and Bumblestripe. (Then again, Graystripe was mostly just sitting into the corner of the camp, twiddling his non-opposable thumbs… but he made the list 🙂 )
Back to Blossomfall. It’s not like she completely betrayed her Clan, like, say, BREEZEPELT, she just honestly thought that she was doing to the best she could to HELP it. I think that even if Ivypool hadn’t been there to stop her, she would have stopped herself. She’s not a bad guy.

9. Cinderpelt
Cinderpelt don’t take NOTHING from NO ONE. She watched her dreams get crushed alongside her leg, and SHE KEPT GOING.
She didn’t pull a Leafpool and fall so in love with her forbidden crush that she was beyond hope, instead she turned away and built herself a new life out of NOTHING.
That’s pretty darn impressive.
I think that she’s probably the cat in that cornier-than-a-cornfield poster that says ‘hang in there’ because she is a flipping clothes-hanger when it comes to ‘hanging in there’. There isn’t ANYTHING that could stop her from going onwards and upwards, except for about three million badgers going ‘huh, that Cinderpelt has lived a long time. Also, everybody likes her. Hmm, let’s kill her’.
And SWEET STARCLAN she went out in a pretty fantastic way. She was DELIVERING KITS while the badger was after her. Wow. She didn’t run for her life, she just sat there and went, ‘huh, a badger? Too-flipping-bad, I’m busy.’ and went about her business.

8. Graystripe
Okay, this guy is mostly just FUNNY.
Tension doesn’t exist around this guy, at least, not when he’s an apprentice.
‘Well, I’M more lopsided than a one legged badger!’
Can anyone honestly say they didn’t snicker, giggle, chuckle, guffaw, laugh, chortle, hoot, snigger, cackle, or titter while reading something that Graypaw/stripe said?
No. Didn’t think so.
I mean, I will say that his choice of rebounds was… poor at best, but Silverstream was pretty awesome. I mean, ‘can’t you drown on your own territory?’ SILVERSTREAM SAVAGE CONFIRMED. Anyway. We’re talking Graystripe, not Silverstream.
He’s also a really good deputy. For the couple heartbeats that Firestar was leader and Graystripe was deputy, man, those were the golden ages of warriors. P.S. Everyone go vote for Graystripe on the warrior cats elections.
He’s funny, a strong leader, a good dad (In Feathertail and Stormfur’s cases), and he was just a generally likeable character.

7. Barley
Okay, technically not a warrior, and probably should be lower on the list, but I like him! He’s friendly enough to be bearable, but not so friendly that he’s annoying. He’s kind to Ravenpaw, and he’s really just a dependable guy.
He’s got the dramatic past, he’s got that air about him that makes you think you could go on a date with him and it wouldn’t ever be awkward. Speaking of dates }:) I will support the Raven X Barley ship until the DAY MY CASKET IS DROPPED INTO THE EARTH. They’re practically canon anyways, in Ravenpaw’s Farewell, doesn’t either Riley or Bella ask if they have kits? And they’re like: ‘That’s not physically possible… so I’mma go with nooooo.’
And I know everyone likes Ravenpaw, but in the manga series that I can never remember the name of, Ravenpaw shows bad judgement and Barley pretty much cleans up his mess.
Probably the only thing about Barley that annoys me is that he’s got something in common with rogues and prologues. What?
THEIR NAMES GET SPELLED WRONG BY THE FANDOM MORE THAN CANON CATS GET HIT BY TREES.
Barely? COME ON. He isn’t barely anything! He reminds me of those books, Island of the Blue Dolphins and Little House on the Prairie series. You know, that kind of ‘eke out a livelihood from what’s around you and everything’s good but not too good’, y’know? No?

6. Goosefeather
You’ve got to love this guy.
I personally love it when books make me cry, and his role in Bluestar’s prophecy made me cry more tears than the lake.
His novella really shed some light on his character, and so his accidental murder/disfigurement of a couple cats can be forgiven. Well, at least, I can forgive him. Bluestar and Oakheart… mebbe not so much, but whatever, my article, my opinion.
It would be HARD to have every dead cat constantly around you. It’s impressive that he managed as long as he did to keep his sanity. He makes for an extremely interesting character to read about.
He’s responsible for a lot of sad scenes in warriors, so I like him. His apprentice just drives me nuttier than… well, Goosefeather…
MID-RANT RANT
I mean, Featherwhisker is a self-righteous little… he reminds me of what Sol would be if he was a medicine cat!
MID-RANT RANT CONCLUDED, THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME.
Back to Goosefeather, I think Bluefur KIND OF FORGOT that it would push him much farther into insanity to be responsible for his sister’s death. I’m sure that Crookedstar and Goosefeather also made their peace in StarClan.
I don’t think Moonflower would blame her brother for her death either. For all we know, he WAS right, and WindClan would have murdered all of ThunderClan. Unlikely, but possible.

5. Mistyfoot
She’s got a lot of trash thrown her way, but she run full on through it and comes out the shiny new RiverClan leader. Leopardstar might have only made her deputy as closure for what she let happen to Stonefur, but she made a good choice, albeit an accidental one.
I do also love the INTENSE awkward cringiness of the scene where the original patrol that went to Midnight plus Mistyfoot go and explore the lake, then Brambleclaw-the-annoying tries to take over. Okay. Appreciate it. But this isn’t Feathertail-the-doormat-of-a-cardboard-box, this is Mistyfoot-back-off-I-have-experience-you-have-bloodthirsty-ambition. You can’t just walk all over her, there are going to be CONSEQUENNIES.
As leader, I can’t think of a single stupid decision she made. Mistyfoot’s omen showed real emotion, and she honestly believed that Mothwing couldn’t serve as medicine cat if she didn’t believe in StarClan. That’s not exactly unrealistic. If you were leader and found out your closest friend was a FRAUD, you would be understandably angry!
She was a good leader, a good friend, and she’s smart! I like her.
I think she’s really one of the best leaders that RiverClan has ever had. With one HUMONGOUS exception.

4. Ivypool
Okay, we’re getting into some of my BIG favourites. Ivypool is just AWESOME!
She’s a good guy, but she’s got RUTHLESS fighting skillz. Like I said about Blossomfall, most of everyone can relate to the feeling of being passed over in favour of your sibling. It HURTS.
But she played those Dark Forest villains like they were kazoos! She figured out their plan before nearly anybody else did.
I don’t know if anyone’s seen the meme about Ivypool, but it’s pretty much just a picture of her with the caption: “Spys on hell in her dreams. Sister whines about prophecy and pointless relationships” and it’s TRUE. Good lord, Dovewing is whinier than a kicked dog!
Anyway, back to Ivypool. A lesser cat might have just stood back and stayed out of the fighting when the final battle came, but Ivypool LED THE REVOLUTION AGAINST THE REVOLUTION. Sure, Lionblaze is one cat that can’t be beaten, Jayfeather can walk in dreams and read minds BECAUSE THAT’S GOING TO HELP IN THE MIDDLE OF BATTLE, and Kickeddog can… hear stuff, but all in all, none of that was going to do jack against the combined forces of every villain ever plus a BUNCH of vengeful and terrified Clan cats. Fear makes dangerous enemies. What’s worse? A half-starved, cornered fox, or a regular, well-fed fox that is just chilling in the forest? You might be saying the well-fed one, but YOU’RE WRONG. If the fox is really starving, it would do ANYTHING to kill something it could eat something.
If Ivypool hadn’t swooped in and convinced everybody that IT’S MAYBE NOT SUCH A GOOD IDEA TO KILL YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY, I somehow doubt that there’s anything Mr. I-Know-What-You’re-Thinking, One-punch man, or Kickeddog could do about it.

3. Mapleshade
I know that a lot of people like her, and I’m definitely one of them.
My reasoning is that Reedshine, or whatever her name was, was Appledusk’s mate before Mapleshade even tried to cross the river. Then when Mapleshade tried to go to her mate, she COULDN’T SWIM (duh) and so her kits drowned. It’s amazing that SHE even survived.
Appledusk deflects the blame onto her, and RiverClan gets hella angry. HARDLY HER FAULT.
And come on, she went to the dark forest?! WHY?! I would probably be okay with her in the dark forest IF ASHFUR WENT THERE TOO.
Their situations are EXACTLY THE SAME. Passed over in favour of another got, they get angry, kill/try to kill three cats, with varying degrees of success. Just because Ashfur’s trash and couldn’t manage to kill Hollyleaf, Lionblaze, and Jayfeather and got majorly psyched out by Squirrelflight doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t have killed them if he could have. Would he have gone to the dark forest then?
Just because Mapleshade actually succeeded when Ashfur completely failed doesn’t mean that they’re SO DIFFERENT that they can’t even be in the same afterlife.
It’s ridiculous.

2. Hollyleaf
For all we want to gripe about how she was obsessed with the warrior code, she WAS AWESOME. After the secret about ol’ squirrels and bramby was out, her ‘DOES NOT COMPUTE’ sequence where she killed Ashfur and tried to force Leafpool to commit suicide was horribly gripping. It was just SO GOOD! Course, then she went and died in a hole.
Her return in Hollyleaf’s Whatever it’s called was really heart-wrenching and I love it! I think that she shouldn’t have been ‘killed off’ just because she didn’t have a power.
If anyone’s watched Tenelle Flowers’s video about how awesome she was, they’ll know what I mean when I say she could have been an AWESOME VILLAIN. And also, an awesome mentor to Ivypaw, amirite?
There isn’t much to say beyond that, I was really disappointed when she died in the last hope, but at least it was for my fourth favourite character, right?

AND NOW. DRUMROLL PLEASE FOR PONDFROST’S FAVOURITE CHARACTER IN THE WHOLE DARN THING:

1. Riverstar
Because I love him. He’s awesome! He’s the best of the original leaders, he’s not weird like Tall Shadow or whiny like Thunder, or hostile like Wind Runner, or just MADDENING like Clear Sky (Sorry Ivyleaf, I don’t like him!)
He’s level-headed, kind, smart, perfect, and HANDSOME.
NOTICE ME SENPAI
Ahem. I think it’s awesome that he was the one who originally came up with the mentoring thing, and how he really cared about his own Clan.
Funny how I have so little reasoning.
But… I love RiverClan SO MUCH and he flipping FOUNDED it.
He’s just the best.
That’s all there is to say!