Why I hate Tallstar’s Revenge by Icepaw

Icepaw shares their opinions on Tallstar’s Revenge.

Official art by Wayne McLoughlin

Mega spoilers for Tallstar’s Revenge here!

Okay, I’m going to be honest here. I kinda hate Tallstar’s Revenge. It’s very overrated, but that’s because of how much I hate it. I don’t have a problem with Tallstar, the characters, the plot… oh wait, those last two are the exact reason I hate it!
Basically, there are about four or five things I HATE about this book. One, Shrewclaw. This guy is a jerk until Talltail comes back to WindClan. I hate him. He bullies Tallkit/paw/tail because he claims that he should be a tunneler. Because even though it’s clear that Talltail is claustrophobic and doesn’t want to be a tunneler, Shrewclaw thinks he should because his parents are. And he gets away with it without any punishment for literally attacking Tallpaw at some point with his claws unsheathed! And who gets punished? Only. Tallpaw! The most Shrewclaw got was that his mentor said, “Shrewpaw!” harshly at one point in TR. Nothing else.
Two, Sandgorse. Ok, Sandgorse is a good character. In the first two or three chapters of TR. After Tallpaw is assigned to a moor runner as an apprentice, despite the fact that both of his parents are tunnelers, Sandgorse disowns his only son, and only living kit, because of this one thing that Tallpaw couldn’t even control. Also, he wasn’t able to see that Tallpaw didn’t like the tunnels. He was a horrible father.
Three, the other WindClan cats other than Dawnstripe, Palebird, and Mistmouse’s kits. Honestly, in this book, most of WindClan is either irrelevant, jerks, or say that Talltail has no right to say what he saw happen, and immediately accept Sparrow’s word as correct, with no witnesses. Most of them are fine for most of the book, but honestly, WindClan is still terrible in this book. Also, nobody helps Tallpaw with his father or his bullying issue! however, Dawnstripe and Palebird and Mistmouse’s kits are good. Except when Doespring says that Talltail isn’t allowed to be upset that Palebird, his mom, had kits with another tom when Sandgorse had been dead for like, less than a moon. It’s annoying on Talltail’s behalf, of his mom just moving on from him.
Four, the plot until Talltail leaves WindClan. The main thing of the book until Talltail leaves is that he’s bullied, shunned by his father, and denied a voice in things. When his dad dies, what happens when he tries to contradict Sparrow? Everybody calls him a liar! The WindClan cats, who’ve we’ve established as terrible, automatically believe Sparrow and don’t even consider that Tallpaw/tail may be right! They automatically assume that Sparrow didn’t want to go into the tunnels, but Sandgorse made him. Tallpaw was there when it happened, so he knows what happened! And I don’t think he would get his dad’s voice confused with an accent that I don’t think his dad has. And this brings us to…
Five, Sparrow. Sparrow is the only greenleaf visitor I don’t like. I liked Algernon, or Algie, I liked Bess, I liked Mole, and Reena was great. However, I have serious issues with Sparrow. He was a liar, he lead Sandgorse to his death, he didn’t help Sandgorse, and I know I should be happy that he lead to Sandgorse’s death, but his personality takes away all satisfaction of this horrible cat dying.
Ok, that’s all I have to rant about one of, if not the most popular super edition. Thank you for taking some time to read about all the reasons that I hate a book that you probably love! You’re welcome, and I have no regrets!

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12 comments

Leave a Reply to Silverclaw Cancel reply

  • I agree with you, I think the storyline for Tallstar’s revenge was a bit odd. I think the problem was weird, just because Sandgorse died trying to show Sparrow around shouldn’t be why Tallstar tried to kill him. Cause that’s just evil. If you get what I mean.

    • Agree. If shrewkit,paw,claw got in truoble for once and atleast one person beleived tallstar about sparrow, it woul be better.
      Ps I daydreamed about shrew dying so much

  • I agree that Sandgorse was a total jerk when he was LIVING, but I am fairly certain he gave Tallstar the life of forgiveness when he had his nine lives ceremony, asking for forgiveness for how cruel he was when he was living.

  • TSR is decent, but probably not one of my favorites.
    I don’t really like the whole plot, mostly due to repetitiveness of events. It’s like this cycle: Tall(tail, paw) gets mad at Shrew(claw,paw) – they fight – someone breaks them up. Also, I really don’t enjoy how Talltail’s opinions are disregarded by like everyone.

  • All of these reasons are low key bad reasons. Shrewclaw was supposed to be a jerk. He’s a secondary antagonist! If you hate him so much, that means the authors did a good job! As for Sandgorse, him being a bad father is part of his and Tallstar’s character marks. If you hate him, that once again means that the writers did a great job! WindClan treated Tallstar like an outsider, which was the reason Tallstar left! It’s part of the story. If you hate that they acted like that then you feel how Tallstar feels, meaning the ERINS DID A GOOD JOB! And finally, Sparrow, He’s a jerk because the writers illustrated him that way. WindClan doesn’t believe Tallstar which brings him to leave and get his revenge. This is kind of important to the storyline! Sparrow was rude and dislikable to Tallstar so that Tallstar would be suspicious and have good reason to not trust Sparrow. You have to remember we’re seeing everything through Tallstar’s eyes. If we saw a chapter through any of the other WindClan cat’s eyes, we would probably see Sparrow as a trustable tom and Tallstar as a grieving cat who is looking for someone to be angry at, which is actually what he is. Sparrow DIDNT kills Sandgorse, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You are free to have your own opinion, but quite frankly your opinion doesn’t make any sense to me. Please remember I am looking at this through the eye of an author (Not published, but I love writing!) So I very much love hearing every perspective that people have for every situation presented to me.

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