The Problems With Forbidden Relationships by Mosskit

Mosskit takes a look at forbidden relationships.

Hello, kitties! Today I’m going to talk about the problems with forbidden relationships. We all know that, of course, it’s against the warrior code (is it now, though? I really don’t know-). But there are other problems, too, and I’m going to talk about them.

The cats who mated with a cat from the other Clan usually hides it. Not usually – I don’t know a cat that hasn’t. They always start out hiding it, but some reveal the truth after a while, or at least plan to. But when the Clan figures out, it leads to major punishment and pain. And some cats don’t take this punishment and pain as well as they could, which causes major disruptances in the Clans and even kills cats. Take Mapleshade, for example. Why did she become a murderer? Because she didn’t handle her punishment and grief well. Because she was in a forbidden relationship.
Sometimes the punishment isn’t even given to the cat by the leader, or by any cat, for that matter. Take Silverstream. She died giving birth to half-Clan kits, meaning she was in a forbidden relationship. This may have been a coincidence, yes, but when you take everything Warrior Cats is and the fact that their ancestors can do anything to them pretty much, was it? I doubt it. Even though she was accepted into StarClan, that’s because she truly didn’t have any evil intentions by mating Graystripe, but she still did it, and it was still against the warrior code.
Then there’s the toms, the fathers of all those half-Clan kits. They can’t give the kits milk, therefore the kits that are supposed to be theirs end up only being the she-cats’. This can cause problems too – take Fallowtail and Reedfeather. Their kits were raised in RiverClan until they didn’t need milk anymore. Then Reedfeather came and took them from RiverClan. See the problem here? Which Clan are the kits loyal to? RiverClan or WindClan? So that means the toms have to be left out, have to pretend that they never had kits, when in reality, they did. And if they try to take their kits to their Clan, it can cause war. So it really isn’t worth it, no matter how much those toms want to live with their kits. It isn’t fair, either, but there isn’t any way to fix it besides switching Clans, which can cause more trouble. There’s no way out of it, unless you just let your kits grow up not knowing your their father, which would really suck.
If the cats even try to do something to run away and live together, alone without their Clans, they will always want to come back. It’s just the way they’re raised, to always be loyal. Because of this, they can never leave for long (unless you’re Stormfur – Stormfur’s special) before they return to their Clans and have to pretend they never met. It can even cause rivalry between the mated cats. Take Crowfeather and Leafpool. They loved each other, yada yada, until Leafpool decided to go back to the Clans, and she and Crowfeather were never the same again. In fact, Leafpool even managed to bring Squirrelflight into the entire thing! Not good, and while it made some interesting scenes in Power of Three, still not cool.
Sometimes the rivalry isn’t even between the mated cats. Take Graystripe. He mated two cats, and both times it was against the code. But instead of that creating rivalry between Graystripe, it created rivalry between the two cats he mated, and that’s not good. Silverstream is constantly giving Millie dirty looks, and she’s actively jealous.
Or it can cause problems within the Clan. See, this new addition to the code that says you can mate with cats from another Clan and switch Clans to be with them is causing issues. Like, in River, Fringewhisker moved to ShadowClan to be with Spireclaw, Berryheart is not happy. Not happy at all. She even ropes other cats into the entire thing and tries to turn Sunbeam against Fringewhisker. Even though you don’t really know for sure, I’m betting this is going to be a bigger problem in Sky. More cats just aren’t going to be happy with this change of the code and it’s going to be causing problems within the Clans. Berryheart is going to try to turn poor Spireclaw against his mate, who he obviously loves dearly. It just isn’t ideal.
Plus, at this point it’s just common stuff. It’s a rule that’s been broken time and time again, and at this point forbidden romance isn’t the big drama it used to be. It’s just, well, romance. Making it a giant thing in few series is fine, I’m totally okay with that. But overusing it to the point where it’s just another romance? No. Forbidden relationships have ended in death, anger, sadness, or in a rare circumstance, happiness. But there is always a price to pay. Not only do they hurt their family, they choose a mate over their family and the Clan they have been told so many times they must be loyal too at all costs. When they become a warrior, what do they do? They swear that they will give their life to protect their Clan. When they switch Clans, what are they doing? Either breaking that promise or promising to not be loyal to their new Clan. Again, not ideal.

Anyway, thanks for listening to me rant, I hope you agreed with some of this. Bye~ :3