A Question As Old As Time: Who Will Crowfeather Choose in StarClan? by Blossompaw

Blossompaw analyzes Crowfeather and his relationships

Hello and welcome! My name is Blossompaw and this is my very first article. Today, I am going to present my look on the ancient debate: who will Crowfeather choose in StarClan, or who did he love the most?
I know, I know, you’ve seen hundreds of those. And I’ve already emphasised my opinion on this. But now, without the comment’s word limit bothering me, it’d be easier to present all of the points, and I’m in my mood for some good Crowfeather article. So without further ado, let’s go to the article!

(I decided to make it all about Leafpool and Feathertail and fully cut out Nightcloud because she obviously won’t be the one Crowfeather will pick. She was possessive of him, even hurting him physically once, and none of the two loved the other. Plus she’s alive and in his clan, so if he loved her and she loved him back, they’d be back together by now. They aren’t, because they didn’t love each other and they parted. They even said in his SE that they shouldn’t be mates again.That’s simple)

Who do I think will Crowfeather choose?

I myself strongly believe it will be Leafpool.
Yeah, Crowfeather did truly love Feathertail, I do not deny it, he even chose his name after her, and Kate stated that “he will pick her over Leafpool because first love always wins”. Why do I still think it’s Leafpool? Erins keep stating separate fact disreeing with each other and it can’t really be confirmed that Crowfeather will choose one of them once it isn’t hinted in the books. And is Leafpool becoming the one hinted in the books? Ohhh, yes. Totally yes.
The first story I have for you is from Secrets Of The Clans, a short story called “Crowfeather Speaks: A Forbidden Love”. I managed to search through my whole gallery (the wonderful @MissyDakota sent screens on Polish Warriors Wiki Discord server) and I found it. Here goes a fragment.

“[…] Feathertail understood me, and she listened to me. Her eyes were the clear blue of her river home. She died saving us all from Sharptooth (originally Sharpclaw, but it’s a mistake anyway). After that, I wanted only to serve my clan to the limits of my strength, and then to join Feathertail in StarClan.
But then I met Leafpaw. She was kind and patient. Her voice was like water flowing over pebbles, and her scent had hints of wildflowers in it.
What was happening to me? How could I fall in love with anyone – let alone a ThunderClan cat?”
Crowfeather Speaks: A Forbidden Love

In this story, we see very clearly that Crowfeather didn’t just take Leafpool as a mate to move on, as a replacement for Feathertail. Throughout the plot, he doesn’t want a mate, he wants to dedicate his life to his Clan, and he’s actually ashamed and guilty that he had fallen in love so soon, which shows in his final confession as well:
“Don’t you know how I feel about you? And how much I hate myself for feeling this way about another cat so soon after Feathertail died? I loved her, I really did! How can I love you too?”
Crowfeather definitely loves her. And he loves her enough to start forgetting Feathertail, who in my opinion he sort of idealizes, begins to think of her more as a goddess than a cat. He’s trying to remind himself of Feathertail, trying to remind himself of the fact that him and Leafpool can never happen, but he loves her anyway. That alone gives Leafpool the better hand in the ranking. She’s able to make Crowfeather fall in love so soon after Feathertail dies, even against his own will. “If you love two people, choose the second because if you truly loved the first one, you wouldn’t have fallen in love with the second”. I don’t think this sentence is always right, but it does turn out true sometimes, and I think it is here.
It’s also a proof that Crowfeather didn’t love her because she resembled Feathertail. He speaks of them as two separate beings, even uses them as a contrast. He’s only comparing them because he blames himself for “betraying” his old love. And they are similar, but people have preferences. Crowfeather just likes a certain type of girls, it doesn’t mean he was looking for another Feathertail. He doesn’t consider them the same. Another fragment is:

“I could see how much she cared for me too. I’d seen the same look in Feathertail’s eyes… but this was different. This was more dangerous, more forbidden”
Crowfeather Speaks: A Forbidden Love

Crowfeather thinks of this feelings being more serious now, now noticing that Feathertail was different, more a gentle, friendly way of loving. And Leafpool is a fiery, wild love he can’t in any way control. When he sees Feathertail hanging on the cliff’s edge, it’s all the hidden emotions and his guilt, not that he only saw her in Leafpool. It was also symbolic, meaning his feelings for Feathertail replaced by a new, stronger and more mature feeling towatds Leafpool, and the fact that Leafpool and him could go further than his old crush on Feathertail ever did.

Well, the later relationship in Twilight is not going to play a major part here. They ran away, they met Midnight, Leafpool wants to come back. They say goodbye to each other. Crowfeather suffers. He reaches out to her once again in Leafpool’s Wish, saying he misses her. Then he starts to grow bitter and hides his sadness behind being cold, emotionless and hateful. He denies having feelings for her, or ever being mates. Yet, he loves Leafpool, and this shows all the time. There is a lot of easter eggs of their love in Power Of Three, and some scenes in OOTS. Jayfeather sees his memories with her pop up in his head after he is informed that he has kits with her. In The Last Hope, he says he doesn’t regret anything. But there’s another scene I’d like to show.

“Leafpool’s high pitched shriek shattered the freezing air as she plunged through the bracken with Cinderpaw and Dovepaw behind her. “How can you watch your sons fight?” she screeched at Crowfeather.
[…] Breezepelt crouched down. Lionblaze could see his muscles bunching beneath his pelt, ready for another attack.
“Stop!” Leafpool shot between them.
Breezepelt’s lunge hit her square in the side. His claws tore his pelt as he dragged her to the ground. Another jet of blood sprayed the snow. Lionblaze stared in shock. Before he could reach for Breezepelt, Crowfeather had crossed the ditch and hauled his son off Leafpool.”
Night Whispers

Crowfeather is able to control his emotions and just calmly stare as his sons fight, but when Leafpool is in danger, he immediately jumps to help. After the Three drama, when his relationship with Nightcloud and Breezepelt is so intense, and so is his life in the Clan which he needs to convince that he’s a loyal warrior, all because of his runaway with Leafpool, he feels obligated to protect her, even from his own kit, because he still loves her, though he tries his hardest not to show it by the famous “You chose your Clan, remember?”, also the pain still shows in the little dialogue they have after he pushes Breezepelt away.

And finally. Our most important scene. Squirrelflight’s Hope.
When Leafpool gets stuck in a cave, Crowfeather is desperate to find her, and Squirrelflight thinks that “their feelings never completely went away” in Chapter 30, this fragment appears:

“Beside her, Crowfeather was staring ahead, grimly silent, as though fighting back emotion. She saw his pelt ripple and felt a twinge of pity. Had he loved Leafpool all the time?”
Squirrelflight’s Hope

Yeah. That scene put in the book that reminds us of the lack of borders in StarClan is definitely an easter egg. But I want to focus on another thing. Crowfeather and Leafpool have led separate loves for seasons now. They have split, they have had hundreds of fights, they have went through jealousy, crissises, intense scenes, they have had the Three drama and had to prove their loyalty, and they still love each other. This is an act of real, absolute and undeniable LOVE. FeatherCrow can’t be really compared to it, it was a gentle, cute first crush.

NOTE: Feathertail also seems to have nothing against Crowfeather’s feelings towards Leafpool. She gives the she-cat her own blessing, basically ordering her to tell Crowfeather “come on, be with her, you can’t grieve forever”. She watches over LeafCrow’s kits as her own, as revealed in The Fourth Apprentice. She gives him advice to “follow his heart” in his own SE, and he decides to go to Leafpool. In my opinion she may just resign of being with him. Feathertail most likely wouldn’t be his mate anyway, even if alive. She knew very well how dangerous a cross-clan romance is – I’d be surprised if she didn’t – and she had just found a place when she belonged, she wouldn’t be very eager to be with him when push comes to shove. She’s walking on two skies now, in the afterlife, too, and her relationship with her mate, if she took one, would be very loose. And it’s been years since she died. Crowfeather wasn’t the same cat anymore, he had a mate and family, even two, many things changed. The fiery love that led him as Crowpaw could just melt into a sweet feeling of “loving and being loved once”. She probably knows it.

But then there is Crowfeather’s Trial, and the famous “love has faded”. I haven’t read it, so I searched through the Internet and I found this quote.

“Leafpool hadn’t loved him for seasons, and if he was honest, his love for her faded, too. If anything, he missed the way he felt when he had loved her – how young and foolish and hopeful they had been.”

He also, after wondering if he still loves Leafpool, says that he feels no ache now when he sees her, but only admiration and hope that she’s happy. The thing is throughout the Super Edition, he’s thinking about Leafpool many times. He feels his pads “tingle with excitement” at the thought of meeting her, he thinks about how she understood him and how he trusts her, and even (I sadly couldn’t find the scene’s context) thinks of Leafpool being able to help immediately when Feathertail comes to him in a dream and says to be “true to himself” when it comes to some issue, even though there’s the Feathertail he missed & loved in front of him, Leafpool’s still his first thought. In fact, the way he thinks about Leafpool being “love that faded” sounds quite defensive. He’s also alone preparing himself to meet Leafpool then, at least when he thinks about the “no ache” thing, and it seems like the good old trying to convince yourself of something reasonable. It doesn’t really change a thing. And Crowfeather seriously thinks of her and their possible life “if they could” quite often, at least from what I saw. Overall, I still believe it is Leafpool.

Yeah, this is the end! We finally made it!
Before leaving, I want to credit Bright Guardian Akira, who made a video about this issue, and a rant by warriorcatlover345 that I found searching for Crowfeather’s Trial information and it turned out they had similar points to this article. This rant is a wonderful source of fragments from this Super Edition, really.
Ah, and also. I am not really a FeatherMoth shipper, I just like Ursiday’s art so that’s why it’s on my profile pic. But I AM a FeatherTawny stan, so you can now say this was all biased, I allow you to do so.
Sorry for any possible mistakes and have a nice day!