[image description: an orange cat with green eyes and dark and light orange markings faces the left at an angle. to the left, a light blue rectangle displays information about the design and an expression headshot of a maniacal grin; "Firestar" is written near the top and coloured splotches indicate the colours used in the design. "Sally -2019 5/2" is signed in the bottom right corner]

‘Debunking’ Cats People Defend by Fluffpaw

Art by Sagutoyas-designs

Fluffpaw provides counterarguments to commonly hated/defended characters

Hello folks! It’s Floof again with another article. Today, I will be ‘debunking’ cats who people defend who I do not believe should be defended. I’m going to be doing basically the opposite of what a lot of folks do in defense articles.
Quick before I begin, I will be going over some Gary/Mary Sue etiquette. Some people believe that there are no Gary/Mary Sues in Warriors, and it is my opinion that this simply isn’t true. Furthermore, when I see someone say that they think someone is a Mary/Gary Sue, someone will often provide one single example of one thing they did wrong in their entire life and say that because of this one thing they are not a Gary/Mary Sue. I just really don’t think one or two mistakes in a cat’s entire lifetime is enough to make them not a Gary/Mary Sue. But without further adieu, let’s begin!
FIRESTAR *Spoilers for The New Prophecy*: This guy gets a lot of hate for supposedly being a Gary Sue, which I believe he is. People try to say that he is not a Gary Sue because he is ‘reckless and makes decisions without thinking.’ Well, this is technically true. He is sometimes a little on the reckless side. However, in the books this is never really portrayed as a true flaw, because his split second, reckless decisions are always RIGHT. I mean, tell me 1-2 times a reckless split second decision he made caused major problems for himself and/or others. They are generally kind, noble acts that as an apprentice or warrior he would sometimes get punished for, but he never really did anything bad, and because of this the punishments always end up being portrayed as unfair, even if they’re not meant to come off this way. The only single time that could be an exception that I remember is when he ate before his clan as an apprentice. However, see my Gary/Mary Sue etiquette above. (And Yellowfang was literally inviting him to.)
DOVEWING: People dislike Dovewing because she is supposedly whiny and/or a Mary Sue. Now, if you defend Dovewing, I don’t see how you can defend her against both of these at the same time. If you don’t think Dovewing is whiny, how can you avoid thinking she’s a Mary Sue? What other flaws does she HAVE? And most of the time when I say I believe she is whiny, someone asks me to ‘give them examples of times she whined outside of her head.’ Why is this a defense? Whining in your head is still whining. And when we get her POV, we still have to hear about it anyways, so what difference does it really make?
MAPLESHADE *Major spoilers for Mapleshade’s Vengeance*: Sooooo… People defend her because they think the cats she killed deserved it, and portray her as the victim instead of the villain. I believe that the true answer is that she is both. A lot of bad stuff did happen to her, but her actions are in no way justified. In many ways, it is her own fault her kits died. She tried to cross a raging river in the middle of a storm instead of:
Using the bridge.
Going through fourtrees instead.
Camping out in fourtrees till the storm was over.
Going back and asking Oakstar if she could stay just still the storm ended.
Of course, she definitely wasn’t in the best state of mind, but she still had better options. And the people she killed/wanted to kill for the most part did little to nothing wrong.
Ravenwing: He got a sign from Starclan telling him to tell the clan about Mapleshade and her kits. He felt obligated to since he believed it was Starclan’s will and he was just doing his job. In fact, he didn’t even want to, just felt like he had to. In the scene where he tells Mapleshade he’s going to tell Oakstar, he is visibly sad and regretful about what he feels to be his duty to the clan. Does he really deserve to be murdered for that?
Frecklewish: So she saw Mapleshade’s kits in the river and didn’t help. However, this does not necessarily make her a heartless monster for several reasons.
She, as a Thunderclan cat, most likely cannot swim and would probably only get in the way.
She saw Riverclan trying to save them and thought that they would be rescued anyways.
Wow, her biggest crime is… not being a selfless Fireclone who would jump in even though she can’t swim and would only get in the way.
Aaaaand Appledusk: Well, this guy kinda sucks. Awful mate. However, y’all Mapleshade defenders who think this guy had it coming… Murdering three people is actually worse than cheating on someone. And some folks she wanted to kill/are hated on by Mapleshade defenders…
Oakstar: So yes, he kicked out Mapleshade. But having kits with someone from another clan is against the warrior code, and he thought they were his late son’s kits. So when the truth is revealed he is understandably, very, very, mad. The guy is not a weatherman. He didn’t have any way of knowing the storm was coming, and I don’t think he could have wanted the kits to drown, even if he hated Mapleshade.
Reedshine: Why did Mapleshade want to kill her?! She did absolutely NOTHING wrong. She just fell in love with the same awful guy as Mapleshade, that’s not her fault. She did NOT know about Mapleshade and most certainly does NOT need to be murdered.
And last but not least, Mapleshade doesn’t even WANT Starclan, she just wants to haunt people and cause more suffering. I think if a cat WANTS DF, chances are they deserve it.
ASHFUR *Spoilers for Power of Three and The Broken Code*: So, people say he only did what he did because he was in love and heartbroken and all that… Well. Squirrelflight tried very gently to friendzone him and he got all revenge-y and tried to cook her children after trying several times to harm Lionpaw/blaze in training. So. Now we compare this to when Bluestar friendzoned Thrushpelt. Thrushpelt kept being super nice and awesome because he’s great like that. Ashfur had no right to react this way. He could have saved everyone (Including himself.) a massive headache if he’d just agreed to be friends. But no. People also say he wouldn’t have actually done it, but… Are you sure? Lionblaze describes his expression as if he ‘looked like he had found a juicy piece of prey.’ You kill prey. Also, as I said above, he did several times attempt to harm Lionblaze while he was his apprentice. Of course it didn’t work, but this shows that he would have had no qualms about inflicting physical harm on them. And then this whole impostor arc which I haven’t actually read and can’t talk about that much… THIS GUY IS NOT A GOOD PERSON.
SPOTTEDLEAF *Spoilers for The New Prophecy*: So people say she is a Mary Sue. Welp. Tell me 2 flaws she has. I think this information is correct. She’s nice, sweet, wise, and all that. And she just like naturally smells good?! Does she roll in some good smelling plant every morning?! That would basically be the only way this does not add to her being a Mary Sue, but it is never really explained so there’s no way to tell. And her relationship with Firestar… YEUCH. They hardly talk at all before her death, but somehow after she’s dead they’re somehow completely in love. And she keeps showing up in his dreams, and occasionally while he is awake and acting all lovey-dovey, even when he already has another mate. And the books don’t even treat this as creepy, even though if you think about it I think you’ll find it kind of is.
And that is all! Hope you enjoyed reading this! :]

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19 comments

  • Although I don’t like Mapleshade, I don’t get why you say “she has better options”. First of all, the bridge. The bridge is likely being flooded too, going through fourtrees instead is likely to attract other clan’s attention by scent (meaning DEATH), camping out in fourtrees till the storm was over is the same reason as well Mapleshade does not know about storms, going back and asking Oakstar if she could stay just still the storm ended is the worst option as Oakstar would try to kill her. Yes, she didn’t make the wisest decision but it is too unfair to say she killed her own kits.

    • I really can’t agree that all other options would result in death. Ok, so maybe the bridge is flooded. Scratch using the bridge. She still should have at least checked. And the other clans would not kill her for camping out in fourtrees. It’s neutral ground, she can be there if she wants. Plus the other clans don’t know about the whole Mapleshade Appledusk incident, and they have no reason to murder some random person camping out in fourtrees with her kits. Also I find it unlikely that they would smell her at all due to the fact that it was raining very heavily and that washes away scent, and no one would want to be out in that anyways. There is no way for me to prove whether Oakstar would try to kill her or not, but I think he would probably just make her leave.

  • Drizz is now an evil munchkin (declared by Moonblaze) ❣︎𝙳𝚛𝚒𝚣𝚣𝚕𝚎𝚙𝚊𝚠/𝚍𝚛𝚘𝚙, 𝚜𝚑𝚎/𝚑𝚎𝚛❣︎ says:

    Great article!

  • I think the problem with Oakstar is that he banished kits, not that he banished Mapleshade. So he did break code #12.

    • I guess he did and I didn’t think of that when I wrote this, but I’m not saying he did nothing wrong, just that he didn’t intend for her kits to drown.

  • First article on 2022! I mostly disagree. I agree on Ashfur and a little of Mapleshade. It is fun to read articles about Mary Sue’s or Gary Stu’s. Other cats you listed are extremely defended by myself! You’ll see it in my future articles!

  • I used to really like Ashfur, I though he was a really well designed villan, but I feel like they ruined him in broken code.

  • I agree completely…But I still love Firestar, like Spottedleaf, don’t mind Dovewing, and feel slightly bad for Mapleshade. Ashfur’s just a terrible person, er, cat.

  • I really like as Ashfur before Squirrelflight made the biggest mistake of her life by becoming mates with Bramblestar. He is such an abusive jerk and honestly Bramblestar could to a long walk off a short cliff. But ashfur becomes a little selfish crazy cat.

    But Mapleshade is the best bad guy in warriors. She doesn’t want power she wants revenge And almost every villain is motivated by power I also feel like the bad guys should win in warriors. Then they could maybe make a series about a few cats that try to take down the tyrants or something

  • When I started reading Warriors I accidently started with PoT and went from there. Afterwards I went back to The Prophecies Begin and The New Prophecy. The whole time I was thinking “how can Ashfur turn bad? He seems so normal right now!” Then her turned evil. But, yeah. Until he went mean I liked him.

  • Nice article! However, I disagree on the Firestar portion.
    In TPB, Firestar receives 4 prophecies. He interprets all of them incorrectly. Well done.
    Throughout his life, he yells and judges Greystripe, breaking their friendship, makes Bluestar super angry, almost let Sorrelkit die because he thought Darkstripe was good, fought ShadowClan in a needless battle because ‘StarClan said so,’ which killed Russetfur and nearly him, makes his and Sandstorm’s relationship break multiple times because of Spottedleaf, and most of all, he makes Smudge sad 😛
    So yeah his reckless decisions have caused lots of problems haha

  • I see where you’re coming from when you talk about these characters! But I think there’s one thing to acknowledge when it comes to Mary Sues/Gary Stus, and it’s if they have things their way. With the characters you mentioned, not everything they wanted was handed to them on a silver platter. Firestar wasn’t immediately trusted by all of Thunderclan, Dovewing couldn’t be honest with Ivypool even though she wanted to, and Spottedleaf didn’t become mates with Firestar (although I don’t think she should’ve).

  • Ashfur-SOOO TRUE!!!!!!!!! And Mapleshade… she did not think out her RiverClan plan. I mean, seriously.

  • I don’t think anyone else commented this but Frecklewish kinda dug her own adder hole there, I mean. She called Mapleshades 3 moon old kits “half clan CREATURES” an hated them for their parentage, something out of their control. Also Reedshine is innocent, she fell in love with a cheater, just like Mapleshade, and Appledusk just, really annoys me, he denies being the kits father and argues against HIS FREAKING MATE staying in riverclan, si yeah. Great article.

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