Why Starclan is Wackier than you Think it Is by Fluffpaw

Fluffpaw takes a closer look at StarClan.

I know this is a really long title but it is certainly accurate. In this article I will be exploring Starclan’s kind of wacky decisions and the times those decisions were really, really bad. After you read this article, I predict that you will think very differently about Starclan and I hope you will join me in my opinion that they’re a little wacky sometimes.
The first scenario I will be talking about is… Tigerclaw. The way he turned out isn’t completely Starclan’s fault, but they definitely played a very large role in making him evil. I will also be exploring Pinestar and Leopardfoot’s roles in creating Warriors’ first villain.
Starclan’s role in this is fairly obvious. They visited Pinestar in his dreams telling him to kill his own son. What did they expect? As is noted in the Pinestar novella, he does not want to kill Tigerkit (Duh), but Starclan’s words make him fear the unborn kit. This made him distant with Leopardfoot and not very involved with her pregnancy. On top of that, Mistkit and Nightkit both died shortly after being born, meaning young Tigerkit and Tigerpaw had no siblings to support him that might have steered him off the dangerous path he was on, or just prevented him from being on it in the first place, something that Pinestar wouldn’t have been able to do as he was distant with Tigerkit after he was born as well, still scared of what Starclan told him he would become. This caused him to spend more time in the twolegplace which eventually led to him missing an entire battle with Riverclan and leaving to become a kittypet, leaving Tigerkit with no father at all.
Now let’s look at Leopardfoot’s role in this. She couldn’t have been a warrior for more than a year based on the timeline. Assuming it takes about a year to become a warrior from birth, she was born in the Leafbare of 7 YBF (Years before Firestar), which means she’d become a warrior sometime in the Leafbare of 6 YBF. Tigerstar was born in the greenleaf of 5 YBF, so she was definitely a warrior for less than a year before having kits, probably about 9 moons. So she was a pretty young mother when Mistkit and Nightkit died, leaving her with only Tigerkit, who she became overprotective of and spoiled. Rosetail says to Bluefur in Bluestar’s prophecy: “You know Leopardfoot. She thinks Tigerkit can do no wrong.”, which shows that this is accurate. This raised him with less respect for his superiors and the rules, which we can definitely see in The Prophecies Begin The next issue I’m looking at is that they reincarnated Cinderpelt, but not some other candidates who are definitely deserving. Two ones especially come to mind: Badgerfang and Mosskit. Badgerpaw should have still been a kit when Brokenstar forced him into battle against Windclan, which caused him to die. Badgerfang deserved a much longer life and should have been able to enjoy his whole kithood before having to be an apprentice. On top of that, his death casted doubt on Brokenstar’s rule and helped lead to him being overthrown. Did he not deserve to be reincarnated? And Mosskit died even younger than him, freezing to death on Bluestar’s dumb expedition to give her kits to Riverclan. I personally believe that there were SO MANY other solutions to that that would have worked MUCH better and would have prevented that, but I could write a whole other article on that. Besides I’m sure that article has already been written a hundred times. Anyways, why shouldn’t she have been reincarnated?
And while Cinderpelt didn’t exactly live the life she wanted, she lived a full life and is therefore arguably less deserving of being reincarnated than Badgerfang and Mosskit. Cinderpelt was born in the Newleaf of Year 1 during the time of Firestar. She died in the Newleaf of Year 5 in the time of Firestar, meaning she lived for about 4 years. While she could probably have lived longer if she hadn’t been killed by a badger, she lived for much longer than many other cats, and much, much, longer than Badgerfang and Mosskit. She grew into her position as medicine cat and learned to deal with it. She got to train an apprentice. Mosskit and Badgerfang never got to have an actual important position in the clan, or train any apprentices. Are they not more worthy of being reincarnated? Along with all those other cats who died as kits, like Mistkit and Nightkit in my previous argument? Why didn’t any of them get reincarnated?
The next topic is something that seems essential in Starclan’s Starclannyness: Talking in cryptic prophecies no one understands. What use is telling the clans something they won’t understand until after it comes true? There’s one hilarious scene in Omen of the Stars where Raggedstar asks Yellowfang: “Can’t we just tell them?”. Yellowfang says that “It would only cause unnecessary panic.”, or something like that. Sooooo naturally, I give them a cryptic prophecy that something terrible is going to happen that they won’t understand until it happens, and somehow that won’t cause as much panic as just telling them the dark forest is coming to kill them all and they need to prepare? This topic is really simple. Why must Starclan talk in cryptic prophecies instead of just telling the clans what they need to do?
My fourth issue is letting Ashfur into Starclan but considering not letting Leafpool in. I haven’t actually read up to the point where they consider keeping Leafpool out of Starclan, but I hear they did because of her illegal romance with Crowfeather. (That rule has been broken so many times it’s not even surprising anymore.) So this paragraph won’t really have anything to do with that exact conversation, just comparing Leafpool and Ashfur’s crimes. When Jayfeather sees Ashfur in Starclan, Yellowfang tells him that: “His only crime was loving too much.”. I disagree very strongly with that. Here’s what loving too much is: Thrushpelt. Perfect example. Bluefur rejected him and he devoted himself to trying to change her mind. He even agreed to pretend to be the father of her kits to hide the truth without asking any questions, even though she denied him a lot of fatherly rights. This is another topic I could write a whole other article about, Bluestar crushing Thrushpelt’s hopes and dreams over and over again for Oakheart, who she talks to like twice before deciding that she wants to be his mate. But anyway, Thrushpelt is an example of loving too much. Ashfur loved too much and then devoted his life to revenge and tried to cook Squirrelflight’s children. Compared to that, Leafpool’s crimes are rather insignificant, agreed? If Ashfur’s only crime was loving too much, Tigerstar’s only crime was being too ambitious.
My fifth topic is about the nine lives leaders receive. Why did Starclan hold only one life against Sunstar for Pinestar’s one remaining one, and then not give Nightstar any lives at all? I have a theory that when leaders become leaders, they rent one set of nine lives that their clan has and Starclan couldn’t give Sunstar nine lives because Pinestar was still using one. That still doesn’t explain why Nightstar didn’t get any lives. We know for a fact that he wasn’t still using all nine, because as he loses three lives between the first and third books, that means he lost six lives before then, meaning I don’t even have to figure out when Nightstar took command. There was no way Brokenstar was using all nine lives, even if my theory is true.
My sixth topic also involves Brokenstar: What a terrible idea it was to punish Yellowfang with him, because it is confirmed that Brokenstar was Yellowfang’s punishment for an illegal romance. At one point she says: “The punishment wasn’t that the others died, it was that he survived.”. Now, imagine if all the medicine cats who had illegal romances were punished with a cat like him. The warriors world would have been run into the ground by now because almost all of the important medicine cats have an illegal romance! It seems as though Starclan may have learned from their mistake the first time… But anyways it was just a terrible idea because Brokenstar caused the deaths of innocent apprentices who should have been kits! (And as far as we know none of them got reincarnated by the way!) Not cool, Starclan!
The next thing I will be talking about is Goosefeather’s powers. Why did Starclan give them to him? It seems that whenever he tries to prevent something he sees in the future, something causes it to happen anyways. For example, in the great famine when he has Thunderclan bury their food in the snow, it rains and the food spoils and a bunch of people starve anyways. And as he got older, you can tell that it drove him a little nuts and made him see omens in everything, like the ‘omen’ that caused Thunderclan to attack Windclan and Moonflower to die. Whether that actually was an omen or not, I don’t think it was very nice of Starclan to make him bear such a burden like that.
Remember when I talked about Sunstar and Nightstar? Well, whether my theory about that is true or not, it still means Starclan is capable of refusing to give a leader nine lives as Sunstar received eight and Nightstar didn’t receive any. And we’ve had some pretty evil leaders. Tigerstar?(The first one.) Brokenstar? Was giving Brokenstar nine lives part of Yellowfang’s punishment? Even if that is so, that was really dumb of Starclan. (And all the kits whose blood is on their hands should have been reincarnated by the way!) And why Tigerstar? Why give a murderous tyrant nine lives? Or maybe they gave him a defective set of nine lives since Scourge was able to kill him all nine times in one… But the book said that the wound was just too great to be healed, and we probably would have been told by now, so that’s probably not what they did.
I am on my last issue now. So you remember when they dropped a tree on Mudclaw? Mudclaw kind of needed a tree dropped on him. Before I begin, I’d really like to analyze the whole conundrum from Mudclaw’s perspective. He was deputy to a dying leader and had to take charge for most of the great journey because Tallstar was ill. Then Tallstar suddenly decides that Onewhisker is deputy on his deathbed. The only other people there to witness this were Onewhisker and Firestar. Now the Thunderclan leader and his best friend are telling Mudclaw that Onewhisker is the leader now instead of him. Do you see how this could totally look like a power grab by Thunderclan from his perspective? But anyways, they dropped a tree on him. But, Mudclaw was a fairly minor villain. All he did was get tricked by Hawkfrost into starting one battle, in which be died by a tree. Why couldn’t they drop a tree on Tigerstar? Brokenstar? Scourge? Hawkfrost? Mapleshade? They were all more dangerous and committed more crimes than Mudclaw. Mudclaw got to go to Starclan. If you can drop a tree on someone you’re going to let into Starclan, why can’t you drop a tree on any of the major villains?
I hope you enjoyed reading this article and can now join me in pondering the sheer bizarreness of some of the things they do and don’t do. I apologize for any Starclan screwups you think should be in here but aren’t, but I’ve only read as far as Bramblestar’s storm as of now. Compiling a list of a bunch of wacky stuff Starclan did and didn’t do has been super fun and I hope you had fun reading it!