Analysing Minor Characters 5 – Pouncetail by Maplepaw

Maplepaw takes a look at Pouncetail of RiverClan.

Hey BlogClan !
It’s Maple, back with the fifth minor character article !

This time, we are looking at Battle of the Clans, and a cat from the story A Time for Mercy
If you have amazing knowledge, you may already know this cat as the point of view character of that tale.
His name is Pouncetail, and he is currently a RiverClan elder, a ginger and white tom with a short tail, and as usual wit these article no eye colour………. I’m seeing a theme now
First off, what are some of Pouncetail’s interesting points ? Because I was very stuck with this story, and I may well come back and analyse some of the other characters at a later date.
But anyway, let’s get onto it
Pouncetail has more loyalty to the warrior code then I’ve seen in most cats. He has a chance to kill a ShadowClan warrior, and his clan mates are telling him to do so, actively encouraging Pouncetail to strike the final blow on Spiderfoot. Yet Pouncetail lets the rival warrior go free, and his clan mates are appalled, he had a chance, they could have killed the warrior but they thought they’d give Pouncetail chance to get some glory. However, this tom simply reminds them of the warrior code, and lets Spiderfoot go free.
This shows that Pouncetail is not only loyal to what he has been taught as a kit, but is also morally correct.
The other warriors in his clan show something known a peer pressure, trying to convince him to do it by showing that it is something that they’d do but just think he should have the honour. Pouncetail shows himself to be a strong independent cat by pushing back against this pressure, and ignoring them.

Another that stood out to me about this tom, is his kindness and ability to balance friendships with the clan rivallries in a way we haven’t really seen before.
“It was you, Snaketail, wasn’t it ? You fought well my old friend, and I’ll admit that Reedwhisker got lucky when….”
This quote shows that Pouncetail has friendships outside of the clan, and will complement them on fighting as if a game of football or similar competitive event. It’s admirable that he is able to balance this so well, remaining friends whilst still fighting.
“the name Whitetail flashed through my mind, but this wasn’t a Gathering. Individual warriors didn’t matter in a battle.”
This shows that Pouncetail helps himself come to terms with the fact that he is hurting cats he might call his friend by the fact that he really believes what he is fighting in, and is not fighting against that cat, but against what they are trying to stop him from doing.
I like this idea as too many times we focus on which cat fought who and not what the cause of this battle was. These fights aren’t about individual rivallries, and Pouncetail accepts that. They are about the good of the clan, and what they believe in.
“We came in support of WindClan, believing they has been treated unfairly over the recent border dispute with ThunderClan.”
As we are reading from a ThunderClan point of view, we never see this, but it’s powerful to see that this warrior and his clanmates believe so strongly in something to go and fight.
Pouncetail is also shown to be compassionate, as Dapplenose says “He was pretty much the only cat who brought honour to RiverClan that day.”
This is powerful as it shows how Pouncetail, shown to be a very loyal warrior, doesn’t let his loyalty get in the way of what he believes wrong or right. Too many cats let this happen to them, and are excused because that’s what the rest of the clan are doing, but they shouldn’t be able to do this. Cats have their own minds and just because the leader says something that doesn’t mean that everycat has to agree.

In conclusion, Pouncetail is a brave, loyal and morally good cat, who is compassionate in times of battle, but never forgets that battles are more then just fights between two cats, there is always some deeper reason, which is why he is still able to fight cats he would call friends.

Thanks for reading ! I hope you’ve all been enjoying these articles, and sorry Mods for making you have to find pictures of characters no one knows !