![[a collage of cats from the first print of covers surrounding the Warriors logo]](https://blogclan.katecary.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/warriors-make-your-own-warrior-cat-24531877-800-600.jpg)
Fan ArticlesOwleyes takes a look at the realism of Warriors and why some things should be taken with a grain of salt within the universe.
Why it makes no sense to insist on the toxicity of certain healing herbs in the world of Warriors or to question the behaviour of Warriors
Hello, here is Owleyes. This is my first article. I live in Austria and my mother tongue is German. I’m an elder – a real old elder!
Sorry, Rockpelt, I have to contradict your (very interesting!) article „Why the warrior clans should all be dead“ a bit here.
We have to realize that the world of the Warriors is a purely fictional one.
Consider: In real life, stray or feral cats never would support one another. They would never live together in clans or hunt together. Cats are lone hunters.
Real cats don’t even try to treat their own wounds or illnesses, let alone those of other cats. The only thing they can do is lick a wound and purr for feeling better (it is said that the vibration of purring is able to heal even broken bones, which is great enough!). There are no medicine cats.
A real-life cat-brain can’t deduce. Therefore, no cat is able to seek out healing herbs by try an error. Or discover the healing power of spider webs. The ancient cats (as we learn in DotC) tested new herbs for their healing power.
Cats in true life can‘t even exchange opinions or experiences by „speech“. So it would never be possible passing the acquired healing knowledge from one medicine cat to another as it is done ever since in Warriors (remember DotC‘s Moth Flight and Micah or Jayfeather’s asking Littlecloud for advice treating Briarlight’s injury in OotS).
Water shrews are even poisonous; other shrews (for example white-toothed shrews) give off a musky, bad tasting secretion, why real cats don’t eat them. Warriors eat shrews.
Yarrow isn’t exactly toxic for cats, but cats refuse it. Warriors swallow yarrow, when their medicine cat demands it.
Dandelion is toxic for cats. Warriors use dandelion as painkiller.
With all of this in mind, one has to conclude that all clans must be dead. Or much more: that they never can have existed at all.
If you object to the use of (some) healing herbs, you have to question the whole story of Warriors. It is NOT realistic, Warriors is no story of reality.
Don’t misunderstand me. I love Warriors! I love it for what it is: very good fantasy.
I love the idea of cats living together in clans. Of a clan structure with leaders, deputies, medicine cats, warriors, queens, kits, apprentices and elders. The way the cats work together. In their own clans or if there is any outside danger all of them together.
That’s how you have to take all the stories of the Warriors: as sheer fantasy. When the Warriors live and act in a fantasy-world, acting completely different to real cats, why not use medicines that would be poisonous to true cats? Isn’t it possible that in the Warrior’s world dandelion isn’t poisonous? That water-hemlock-ingestion could be cured by vomiting from ingesting yarrow? Should everything be carried over from the real world into the fantasy world? That would mean: no clans, no talking, interacting cats, no medicine cats, no elders or nursing queens fed by other cats, no bringing prey to camp, no apprenticing young cats, no cat funerals and not least no advice from a Starclan. Should fantasy really end?
I say no! Let the Erin’s Warriors do as they did from the beginning, as the authors put them to act! It is fantasy! Let there be Starclan, cats sharing their prey and first feeding their clans, a Warrior Code, and medicine cats helping queens with giving birth, using healing herbs and contacting Starclan.
Would you rather read a (dry) documentary about cats than an exciting novel?
You should read then for example „Practical Feline Behaviour: Understanding Cat Behaviour and Improving Welfare“, „The Welfare of Cats“ or „Decoding Your Cat : The Ultimate Experts Explain Common Cat Behaviors and Reveal How to Prevent or Change Unwanted Ones“ instead of Warriors!
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cats can form social groups i just searched it up…
Yes, however (If I remember correctly.) the group is generally all from one family and if the ‘leader’ dies the group has a tendency to disband.
yes, but cat colonies are comprised of only females and their kittens! they also don’t hunt together, and each cat has its own territory. they only band together for survival and most certainly don’t have starclan or herbs. so, in other words, warriors is nothing like real life! 🙂
Irl feral cat colonies tend to be one or two dominant males, several females, and those females kittens. They also tend to be between four to fifteen members, and almost all the members of the group are related to each other. The warrior Clans are loosely based off these colonies, but imo not enough to say that the Clans are realistic.
SHHHHH DONT RUIN MY FANTASY (great article btw)
Right tho
❤
Very interesting! Good article. :]
There’s also genetics, too!
According to genetics, Firestar would look like Nutmeg but keep his green eyes.
amazing article owleyes! warriors is fantasy, after all 😉
i’d really like to see a book about realistic cat colonies, though (technically my game rogue is about that but i don’t consider myself that good at writing 😛 ). cat colonies are really interesting, and i do believe you can get good fantasies from real life!
Thanks! ♥️ And yes, it IS fantasy. Wonderful fantasy 🙂
Lovely article
Thank you so much💓