Analysing Hollyleaf by Loudfern

Loudfern takes a look at Hollyleaf’s character throughout the series. Spoilers ahead!

Hello hello it is me (yet again, yes I do like writing weird articles :p) and in this article I will be analysing a very popular character.

We first meet Hollyleaf (Hollykit) in the nursery. At this point, we know nothing of her character. But the, we had the fox incident. We all know how Lionkit, Hollykit and Jaykit, set off in this little kit party to try and defeat a fox, and I believe it is, not this exact event, but the consequential events that makes this “kit party” so important in building Hollyleaf’s character.

The fox hunt ultimately fails with Jaykit falling down the cliff and this leaves Hollykit to wonder if she’s “cut out to be a warrior”. Even as a kit, she just wants to be the perfect cat and help her Clan. When the RiverClan Medicine cats visit Leafpool, Hollykit bounds up to Willowpaw asking her various questions about how she became a medicine cat. At this point, Hollykit ultimately believes that she wants to serve her clan this way and when Lionkit gets thorns stuck in his pelt, she immediately goes to Leafpool to help him. As Hollykit applies the dock, she flinches every time Lionkit winces.

She goes on to be Leafpool’s apprentice and she struggles. She struggles remembering the herbs, she struggles treating patients. But she persists. This time in her life is a great character building period as we see that she is persistent, and would do anything to help her Clan, no matter how miserable she is.

Leafpool sends Hollypaw out with a border patrol to collect herbs, but during the patrol, Hollypaw is distracted and looking for the herbs is a chore to her. The patrol ends with a battle with ShadowClan and Hollypaw is seen fighting well even though she hadn’t had any battle training. When Leafpool takes Hollypaw out for some basic battle training, she ends up performing more advanced moved with Cloudtail and Cinderpaw and even adding in her own twists to the move. These different moments show us that although Hollypaw insists on being a medicine cat, she is far better at doing “warrior stuff” and enjoys it much more. This again emphasises the point that she would do anything to help her Clan.

Eventually, she realises that she’s not “cut out to be a medicine cat” and starts Warrior training with Brackenfur. She is enthusiastic and we see that she is much happier being a warrior apprentice. She tries her hardest on everything she does and especially tries her hardest to understand the warrior code. One day, she’s talking with Cinderpaw about her training. She wants to organise it more, focus on hunting first, and when she’s perfected that, focus on battle training. Cinderpaw has her doubts and Hollypaw gets defensive. This is a great moment as we see how seriously Hollypaw takes her training.

When Hollypaw found out about the prophecy, she was quite excited, not only because she thought she would be powerful, but because she would be able to help her Clan in the best way possible. However, she does get a little defensive when Lionpaw and Jaypaw mention being more powerful than StarClan. She lashes out, saying that “nothing matters more than the warrior code as it is here to guide us and without it we’d be lost”(or something along those lines).

There are other great moments when Hollypaw becomes a warrior but this article is getting pretty lengthy so I’ll just sum it up a bit more.

As a warrior, Hollyleaf is still trying her best to serve her Clan and her loyalty to the warrior code grows stronger. When Squirrelflight reveals that the Three are not her kits, Hollyleaf goes into shock. The warrior code meant so much to her and it would have been heart breaking to know that the cat she thoughts as her mother had smashed it to pieces.

From here we know she gets full of rage. Her organised, helpful, dedicated character has been crushed by this idea of “the almighty warrior code being broken” turning her into an unpleasant creature full of rage and revenge. She is seen shredding a mouse to pieces and when Hazeltail asks her what she’s doing, Hollyleaf screeches at her, saying that she needs to leave her alone. She has no self control, she seems unable to handle that fact that she has been lied to and this in turn “forces” her to 1. Kill Ashfur, 2. Attempt to kill Leafpool and 3. Reveal her true identity at a Gathering. Her whole life has crumbled and all she wants is to escape the lies.

We know that she runs into the tunnels, ends up spending time with Fallen Leaves (which I would elaborate on) and coming back to ThunderClan, a better version of herself in the Last Hope. (Again, I would elaborate but this article is pretty long, so maybe that’ll be a part two).

So what do you think of Hollyleaf’s character? Why do you think the Warrior Code meant so much to her?

Thanks for reading ^^