Who is Possessing Bramblestar? by Lilyleap

Lilyleap asks: who exactly is possessing Bramblestar?

Hi, I’m Lilyleap and this is my first article, so please bear with me.
Who is the cat possessing Bramblestar? Theories have pointed to two cats- Ashfur and Hawkfrost.

Ashfur
Why would Ashfur try to hurt Squirrelflight MORE after he witnessed her life spiral downward? I mean he is in Starclan and we saw that Squirrelflight and Leafpool both went through trials to get into Starclan, so that means Ashfur did as well because of his actions, and therefore deemed worth enough to enter. So, this rules out Ashfur.

Hawkfrost
Hawkfrost died in the Great Battle against the clans. We see his ghost disappear, so there is no way he can be the one to possess Bramblestar. We know that ghosts cannot reappear again after the cat has died as we have seen with Spottedleaf and Antpelt.

We know that Bramblefake is targeting Squirrelflight, Lionblaze, Jayfeather, and Twigbranch of ThunderClan. Dovewing of ShadowClan, Tree of SkyClan, Crowfeather of WindClan, and Mothingwing of RiverClan. However, these are not the only cats that have broken the code. Tigerheartstar has run away from ShadowClan but has not been “punished” for it. If the imposter is targeting half-clan cats, why not target Mistystar, Lightleap, and Pouncestep (we already know that Shadowsight has been targeted by a mysterious cat)?

This leads me to believe that the imposter is a neighboring clan cat, but for the sake of this article I will be discussing ALL possibilities.

Clan 1- ShadowClan
We know that ShadowClan shares the same StarClan and Dark Forest as the rest of the original clans (meaning all but SkyClan), and we already know that most of their StarClan cats fought in the battle against the Dark Forest. Their Dark Forest cats have very little access to StarClan (cats from StarClan could protect the border or what not), so they could not get into StarClan and prevent them from speaking to the rest of the cats. This leads me to believe that the cat possessing Bramblestar is a ghost that died at the hands of Darktail. However, the cats that have died were “good” with the exception of some, and if the cat were a ShadowClan cat, they would target Tigerheartstar.

Clan 2- SkycCan
And since Skyclan was kicked out of the forest, they have had to make their own Starclan and Dark Forest. This leads me to believe that Bramblefake is a Skyclan cat. The reasons why are simple: Skyclan may still carry the resentment towards the other clans for not helping them in their time of need, many Skyclan cats died at the paws of Darktail in the gorge; and Skyclan cats were lost when journeying to the lake territories. However, this still does not answer the question of why the imposter is targeting mostly half-clan cats.

Clan 3- WindClan
So far, we know of no WindClan that has felt any terrible resentment towards the clans except for maybe two- Onestar and Darktail (if he counts). We can rule out Onestar because the imposter is targeting Crowfeather, and Onestar himself said that he would trust Crowfeather to be deputy of WindClan when the time came. We can rule out Darktail as well because Darktail does not seem to believe in StarClan, so how could he have the power to block them out completely? This evidence rules out WindClan almost completely.

Clan 4- RiverClan
RiverClan plays almost no part in lake territories anymore- except for maybe having the oldest cat ever. This would make a great plot twist in the books if no one expects unimportant RiverClan to be the one to possess Bramblestar. RiverClan does have a good motive however, they had to shut down their borders after the terrible reign of Darktail and were still disrupted by the other clans when they were trying to rebuild. But why would they target their senior medicine cat? This makes no sense, but maybe a RiverClan cat knows about Mothwing’s secret her lack of faith in StarClan, or perhaps they are targeting her for being a half-clan/ rogue cat. This option seems to make the most sense as the cats seem to be targeted for their cross-clan relationships or even being a product of a cross-clan relationship.

Clan 5- ThunderClan
This seems to make the most sense because most of the targeted cats are from ThunderClan. There is not one cat that I can think of who hates cross-clan relationships more than Tigerstar and Darkstripe. But these two cats are ruled out for two reason- Tigerstar’s ghost is dead and Darkstripe is a coward. So ThunderClan seems to be ruled out as well.

This being said, I think the cat most likely possessing Bramblestar is either from RiverClan or SkyClan. The other clans seem to hold no resentment towards the others, or maybe the ones that do have no power to take control over Bramblestar. The other option I have considered is the Sisters because of their ability to see ghosts, but they have already left, and they have no belief in StarClan.

Thanks for sticking with me until the end of this sort of long article
-Lilyleap