The History of ShadowClan Throughout the Arcs by Moonpaw

Moonpaw looks at ShadowClan throughout the series.

Hiya! Moonpaw here with my first article! In this article, I will track ShadowClan’s history, from “The Prophecies Begin” to “A Vision of Shadows”! (And a bit of “The Broken Code”!) I’ve only read up until then!
*WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!*

In “The Prophecies Begin”, ShadowClan are pretty much the villains of the whole arc, until “The Darkest Hour” at least, until Tigerstar dies and Leopardstar and Blackfoot take over. Honestly, ShadowClan is a great clan! But this whole impression of ShadowClan being antagonistic only originated from the rule of Brokenstar, as far as I know. Let’s talk about Brokenstar for a while. Brokenstar, born from Yellowfang and Raggedstar, was fostered by Lizardstripe, but Lizardstripe was a terrible mom, and he soon headed down the path of darkness, driven by his hunger for attention and envy. He soon decided to kill Raggedstar to become leader himself, and that’s when ShadowClan spiraled a bit out of control. Plus, the strongest warriors in the whole clan were on his side! Brokenstar’s leadership started to make ShadowClan the antagonists.

After Brokenstar and his warriors were defeated, Nightstar rose to power, but only for about a moon or less. He wasn’t well known, and he was only leader for like a book or two.

Then we got Tigerstar. Oh StarClan. Tigerstar. The original bad boy. He took over ShadowClan while it was still weak, and ShadowClan respected him. He brought Brokenstar’s rogues with him, and they supported him just as much as they supported Brokenstar. Then came things that were even worse. Tigerstar’s power hungry ambition pushed him so far he tried to combine ShadowClan with RiverClan. We all know how that went. Tigerstar seized control of the new TigerClan. The rest of the clans knew that it wasn’t ShadowClan’s fault in entirety, but Tigerstar’s leadership destroyed it’s reputation nonetheless.

We all know that Blackfoot became leader after Tigerstar, becoming Blackstar. He was probably the first leader after Brokenstar’s rule who wasn’t a jerk to everyone. Being one of the rogues who supported both Brokenstar AND Tigerstar, it was definitely a bit hard for him to earn his reputation as we know him. In “Blackfoot’s Reckoning”, we learned that he had made himself a promise, not to make any of the mistakes that the leaders before him had made. Blackstar’s leadership led ShadowClan to a step in the right direction. Before long, ShadowClan returned to the state that it was in before. Blackstar’s deputy, Rowanclaw, was ideal. He was a great deputy, until “A Vision of Shadows”.

We learn that Blackstar had died in “Bramblestar’s Storm”, if I remember correctly. Honestly, I thought that Rowanclaw would make a good leader while reading this part. When reading about him before, he seemed like a loyal, strong warrior who would be up to be leader, and frankly, I liked him. But then come the apprentices. (Honestly, some of my LEAST favorite characters are in this group. *cough cough* Sleekwhisker… *cough cough*…) They’re troublesome, disrespectful, and overall just really naive. They chose to follow a random rogue (Darktail) who was pretty much the enemy of all the clans at that point, instead of being loyal to their clan and staying put. Since most of the clan was just really naive young warriors or apprentices, they had a lot of influence in the clan, and pretty much were just manipulating the other sensible warriors into joining Darktail’s group. I’m pretty sure that the only reason Rowanclaw didn’t attack Darktail’s rogues was because a lot of the young cats, who had a lot of potential, were in it. Any good warrior would also be worried about that. Rowanclaw was a good cat, but the clan itself was just really mousebrained. Totally ruined it’s reputation again.

Then we got Tigerstar the second. He was a good cat. I love Dovewing too, and I loved his character in “Tigerheart’s Shadow”. He brought ShadowClan back to it’s old self. I really like him. After Shadowsight pretty much killed Bramblestar though, and nearly ended all the clans, ShadowClan was kinda reverted back to its “A Vision of Shadows” rep, but after the imposter’s defeated, hopefully everything will go back to normal. I don’t want to keep you here too long, so I won’t say anymore on that!

That’s it! That’s my opinion so far! Honestly, after writing this article, I am feeling an appreciation for ShadowClan! It’s my favorite clan! If you don’t agree, that’s fine! Please comment if you have any feedback! Moonpaw out!