[a realistic and primarily black-furred design of Mapleshade walking with her head low]

Why Mapleshade deserves to go to the Dark Forest by Aspenclaws

Aspenclaws shares their opinion of Mapleshade.

Artwork by Lithestep

Hello, I see so many “Defending Mapleshade” articles, so today, I will discuss why you SHOULDN’T defend Mapleshade (Feel free to disagree in the comments)

Alright, first point. Let me state the obvious. None of this would’ve happened if she hadn’t of mated with Appledusk. I know people say “True Love is Irresistible” but that is false. She could’ve made a better choice of mate.

1. She let the clan believe Birchface was the father. And I will say, she never explicitly said that her mate was Birchface, but she never denied it either. She could’ve told Oakstar immediately and things could of gone differently. This is not for certain, but there is a chance. ON TO THE NEXT!

2. She met with Appledusk on ThunderClan territory, and yes, she didn’t know that Appledusk would be there, but still. She could’ve left. This is a some-what short/minor reason, but it is worth mentioning.

3. She begs Ravenwing not to tell the clan. That makes him want to tell even more. When we were kids, our parents would say something like, “Don’t touch _____” and you would touch it. It was like that with Ravenwing. The more she protests, the more he’ll want to tell.

4. She goes to the river. She could’ve gone to fourtrees which, I admit, might have had problems, but a lot less than a flooding river! There were many bridges she could have crossed to get there safely. It is foolish to believe that a kit, even a RiverClan kit, could swim in overflown rapids. Think about it….

5. She kills 3 cats. I saw a bunch of people saying that “She killed them out of grief so it doesn’t count”, but that is not how the global justice system works. SHE LITERALLY MURDERED A HELPLESS MEDICINE CAT! And I know people are going to get mad, but i’ll discuss the Frecklewish/Appledusk/Ravenwing thing later.

6. After she kills them, she had no remorse. She killed 3 cats, and didn’t even care. Enough said.
Also, don’t forget.
Mapleshade was killed by an out-of-shape fat apprentice…..

The Freckle/Raven/Apple/Oak/Dark situation.

1. Ravenwing: Any medicine cat would’ve told the clan leader. However, if it was Cinderpelt or someone else, y’all wouldn’t feel the same way.

2. Frecklewish: She could’ve handled it better, same with Oakstar, (More on him shortly). People say she was bad because she didn’t save Patchkit, Petalkit and Larchkit, but why would she risk her life to save the kits of the cat she hates? And, she thought that the RiverClan cats had rescued her kits.

3. Appledusk: Can you people stop saying he deserves the Dark Forest??? He realized his mistakes and corrected them. Mating with Reedshine was just him restarting. He DID feel sad about PK, PK 2, and LK, but had another family to care about at the same time. He became loyal again. He deserves StarClan in some ways, but the whole cheating problem was terrible.

4. Oakstar: You can’t get mad at him. How would you feel if your son is killed, and you think that a woman might be the carrying the rebirth of your son’s legacy, only to find out that the father is the murderer of your son. Anyone would banish her, to be honest, he could’ve done a lot worse, but chose not to.

5. Darkstar: You can’t say he told his warriors not to help the kits like I keep seeing. RiverClan warriors tried, and failed to help them. And why would he take in a ThunderClan warrior? Keep in mind, RiverClan and ThunderClan were arch-enemies.

So that is my reasoning on why MS should be in the DF.

Fan Articles

36 comments

Leave a Reply to 🥝Prismpaw probably exists🥝 Cancel reply

  • Wolves howling after Mindnight (Used to be Yowls heard after Greenleaf) (Wolfpaw/Wolfstorm/Greenpaw/Greenyowl) says:

    Oh wow, I used to defend her, but wow… oof. i regret it now.

  • Good job! I found your point about if Ravenwing had been Cinderpelt very interesting! Never something I’ve seen before in a Mapleshade not-defense article.

  • Great article! Mapleshade definitely deserves the Dark Forest and more; she actually killed 4 grown cats, as she was a major role in Rainflower’s death (she was a horrible mother, but she didn’t deserve to die).

  • As much as I think that Mapleshade should be in the Dark Forest, points 0 and 3 are… well, they don’t really make sense?

    The code is very unfair. Cats who are in love should not be forbidden from meeting each other, and the Clans don’t even need to have some rivalries at all. And Mapleshade and Appledusk, even if they were both quite bad as mates (Appledusk was cheating on two she-cats and Mapleshade was obsessive), had simply fallen in love. You don’t think clearly when you’re in love, or infatuated. You don’t want “better choices” and even if you try to tell yourself that you do, you want that one person anyway.

    Also, she was desperate, of course she’ll beg Ravenwing to not do anything. And as much as “I want to tell it” is a human (cat?) thing, if Ravenwing felt an urge to do this, the problem is with him and not Mapleshade.

  • Great article! I feel like Blogclan has gone from overrating her to overhating her.

  • First, I admit, I never thought Mapleshade would deserve StarClan, but some points aren’t really good.

    To Frecklewish: Why she would save them? The code. I understand she doesn’t want to, but not saving them certainly wasn’t okay – what if Patchkit/Petalkit/Larchkit would’ve been Lionblaze/Hollyleaf/Jayfeather? Maybe the clans won’t exist now.

    To Ravenwing: From all the cats Mapleshade killed, he was the one who deserved it least. He just got a sign from StarClan and figured out what it meant. Also, people tend to forget that he was a young medicine cat and didn’t know much about signs and omens. But he should have stood up for the kits and maybe help them get out of the territory or something like that.

    • To be fair, Frecklewish states she didn’t want the kits to die. She also, as a Thunderclan cat, cannot swim and would probably only get in the way.

  • I love Mapleshade’s and I agree she should go to the DF
    And that is what makes her AMAZING
    In my option she IS evil and is NOT innocent and that is why she is brilliant.
    This is why most people love villains. For their darkness and I think that Mapleshade shouldn’t have to be hated for that

  • I’ve always been so… torn apart when there’s all the discussions about Mapleshade. I strongly believe that she is unjustifiable and clearly deserves the Dark Forest, but I really don’t like villains that absolutely cannot be defended. It’s just so unrealistic to me. So far, every reason to love Mapleshade has been turned down. Then, you know what happens to villains that are impossible to defend? They become sympathized by the crowd of Warriors fans, who say that she was an amazing villain. While this is true, I’m not talking about her as a role in the story, but her as a very developed character herself, because… Well, all the reasons that she had for doing all the bad things were already turned down, so she has absolutely no reason to keep up with the cruel work she started. Yet, she kept going anyways.

    So, this led me to the theory that the Dark Forest has some… strange effects on the cats in it. Think about it. Tigerstar was cruel for the *sake of being cruel*. Mapleshade was cruel for the *sake of being cruel*. Hawkfrost was cruel for the *sake of being cruel*. Whenever I think about this, it leads me to wonder, do the cats in the Dark Forest turn evil because of their surroundings? At some point, I always compare the Dark Forest to a rebellion of prisoners. Think about it. StarClan had always managed to turn away from the evil warriors and lock them up in the Dark Forest, as though they were prisoners. Yet, in the Dark Forest, cats such as Tigerstar and Mapleshade somehow managed to find the other cats and lead a rebellion against the StarClan cats! ~ Cloudy

  • Mapleshade was killed by an out-of-shape fat apprentice…..
    I believe they are just a normal apprentice and its because she was already near passing out after killing those other cats.
    I think that she should go to the dark forest but she is my favorite villan

  • I agree! Some of the points you made I find to not really matter (such as number 3 and 2), but the rest were very strong arguments. Great article. 🙂

  • I love Mapleshade and so I disagree with literally everything. Mapleshade is judged so harshly and I think its unfair. You have some good points though.

    • She did murder 3 cats, so it’s not like people are going to sugarcoat things.

Latest Art

More BlogClan Art