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Why I Hate Flamepaw by Brightmoon

Fan Articles
July 12, 2022
41 comments
3 min read

Brightmoon states her opinions on Flamepaw.

Art by mischief-and-lava (tumblr)

*CAUTION! SPOILERS! This article includes spoilers for the newest warrior book “A Starless Clan 1# River.” Turn back now if you haven’t read it.*

Hi! It’s Brightmoon. This is my first article and I hope you like it and it goes well. Today I am going to discuss Flamepaw and why I do not like him.

The Flamepaw I am talking about is Sparkpelt and Larksong’s son, not Rowanclaw and Tawnypelt’s son. That Flametail fell through the ice RIP. So, in “A Starless Clan 1# River” Flamepaw is one of the main characters. He failed his warrior assessment two times before he became a warrior. The first one time he failed was basically his fault.

He was hunting in the forest and he knew that Lilyheart was watching him and guess what he did when he came across a decent mouse. HE REFUSED IT!!! He decided that a mouse wouldn’t be impressive enough and continued on his way. I mean what kind of mouse-brain would do that? Even if it was just a mouse it would have kept a starving apprentice alive a few more days.

He turned down three perfectly good pieces of prey and when he came across a fat juicy squirrel he finally decided to catch something. But OF COURSE he had to get it using the most impressive way possible and ended up with a mouthful of leaf litter and no squirrel. At the end he hadn’t caught anything to show for so he had to watch his littermate get her warrior name. The second time he was trying to get any prey he came across but couldn’t find any. Then he finally saw a thrush but a hawk was eyeing the small bird as well.

Since he was desperate and thought that Lilyheart (and Squirrelflight who was standing in for Bramblestar) would be impressed if he used his speed and skill to get to the thrush first. He decided to go for it. He successfully caught the thrush and the hawk did not come after him but Squirrelflight still FLAT OUT FAILED him! That time it was not his fault and I was mad at Squirrelflight for doing that. I felt bad for him.

He passed the next time and I was happy for him but what he did next made me SO ANGRY! He hadn’t had the best relationship with his mother and had never known his father. He was struggling under the weight of Firestar’s (Firestar is his Great Grandfather) legacy. He was mad about his name because it didn’t describe him or something. So when Bramblestar named him Flameheart, which was part of Firestar’s warrior name, he finally snapped and REFUSED HIS WARRIOR NAME!

I was so mad and so was Squirrelflight and Sparkpelt that he refused his name. Then Flamepaw/heart explained that he wanted his own name, not an echo of Firestar’s, something about how he didn’t look like his name. Then Bramblestar renamed him Nightheart. Who refuses their warrior name?! Young cats these days.

That is why Flamepaw/Nightheart is now on my least favorite characters list. I do feel a little sympathy towards him. I just don’t like his actions. I will NEVER get used to calling his Nightheart so I am sticking with Flamepaw. Many of you will most likely disagree with my opinions but anyway have a good day!

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41 comments

  • Nightheart is his warrior mane. Why wouldn’t you call him his warrior name? You call Crowfeather Crowfeather, not crowpaw. He chose his name. You call Crookedstar Crookedstar, not Stormkit. He got his name changed. Why wouldn’t you want to call Nightheart Nightheart, just because he refused a name that didn’t fit his looks or personality at all. It’s not that serious, it’s so easy to just call him Nightheart.

    Reply

      • I don’t think that’s the reason because Brightmoon already put a spoiler alert and put a lot of other spoilers in there too. Also she/he/they said they weren’t used to it so they would call him Flamepaw

        Reply

    • Crowfeather chose his name to honor a cat which is kind, Crookedstar couldn’t change his name and he didn’t throw a fit about it while Nightheart was acting like Ugh I hate my name why did you name me this I am very special listen to me do what I want call me Nightheart so because of that he is super annoying, and he SNAPPED at the leader. Other cats that changed there name like Lostface kindly asked firestar to change her name, and he wanted to catch more harder to catch prey. If he caught that mouse he would have let cats have more prey even if it was a small change. I think he is a Selfish, mouse brained cat that is as bad as fox dung. Also I get mad very easy.

      Reply

      • A warrior name is very important to every cat who became one, so imo, it’s pretty understandable that Nightheart didn’t want to merely be a shadow of Firestar, he wanted to be his own cat.

        Reply

      • He, throughout the book as he was called FlamePaw, constantly felt that his clanmates only saw him as a carrier for FireStar’s legacy. SparkPelt and LarkSong named him after Spark’s grandfather, (respectable I suppose, you see many other cats with legacy names) FireStar. But he’s fully named after FireStar. BrambleStar names him FlameHeart, almost the exact same thing as FireHeart. FlameHeart has always been trying to be different from his great-grandfather, always trying to be his own person, but BrambleStar has completely disregarded him as a person and saw only his legacy as who he was. (side note tho, you shouldn’t be mad that he insisted on a name change. That’s something that happens irl, people change their parental-given names. Basically the same thing. The thing you should be mad about is that NightHeart whines about being black and not orange like FireStar, and he doesn’t care that he’s still named after FireStar, (FireHEART, NightHEART) even though that’s the entire point of the name change.) He’s not selfish, he wants an identity. INCREDIBLY different. Also, BrightHeart didn’t ask for a name change politely. She didn’t even ask. It was CloudTail who DEMANDED that she have her name not be LostFace, and BlueStar simply obliged. Additionally, the point of an assessment isn’t (mainly) to feed your clan, but to convince your mentor to allow you to transcend to your warriorship. It was a mouse, and he wanted something that would make him a warrior. Plus, he was super young, and probably wasn’t thinking about feeding his clan. He was (most likely, probably) thinking about his warrior ceremony, and graduating with his sister. also it wasn’t FireStar who changed BrightHeart’s name lol, I think he was only just made deputy by then. (P.S. he had a right to snap at BrambleStar. He’s been ignorant of his grandson’s issues for ages. That and also he needs to be yelled at by someone other than SquirrelFlight once in a while lol)

        Reply

  • Interesting article! I also dislike him thus far. He seems like he could have potential and I can see how people find him relatable, but for me at least his angst felt overdone and got annoying very fast.

    Reply

  • I pretty much agree with everything here except the name thing; I’m fine with cats choosing their own name, but what I didn’t like about that is that it seemed so out of character for every cat to be pressuring him (and him specifically, not any other descent of Firestar) to be like Firestar, just for plot. I honestly felt like that was out of character for, like, everyone. I don’t really like Flamepaw, though, and I agree with everything else in the article.

    Reply

  • Good article! But I don’t agree. You never understand someone unless you walk in their skin and live their life. Unless you can really relate to his parent problems or ideas, you can’t really say how unjust his actions are. Nightheart is right to want to be his own cat, and not an echo of someone he’s never met. And he’s not the only warrior to reject his own name. Just because he did a mousebrained thing doesn’t mean that he’s hateful because everyone does stupid things. They wouldn’t be realistic if they didn’t. I don’t really love Nightheart either, but his story is interesting.

    Reply

  • Nice article,but I do not agree.The name Flameheart does not fit him.And I think Nightheart should be himself,not Firestar.He is not the ehco of Firestar.I think what Nightheart had done is right, and he made the right choise.

    Reply

  • SPOILERS (Do not read if you don’t want River to be spoiled)

    So I just read River and I’ll tell you what happened. Flamepaw didn’t catch the mouse because he knew it wasn’t impressive if he caught it but his want to impress Lillyheart made him catch something else but he failed. The second time I can agree with Brightmoon. When he refused his name I’ll tell you. When he said it he made it sound like he didn’t want to be Firestar’s kin and Firestar is an amazing cat so I understand why people might dislike him for refusing his name. Still overall I like Nightheart but he can be annoying sometimes. But still like Sunbeam from river said “Right now you have every right to be angry.” while the other cats were acting like its your fault and made him feel like HE WASN’T PART OF THE CLAN so that could have made him upset. And even though I didn’t like the part where he refused his name he deserved his new name for all the shame he got.

    Reply

  • Listen, I understand that you think Nightheart sucks. But he really, REALLY doesn’t. He’s just a poor little misunderstood kitty! And that prey thing, well, everyone makes mistakes. He isn’t just Firestar’s shadow. He is Nightheart. And if you ask me, you should all cut that cat some slack. How would you feel if you were treated like someone else who isn’t even
    like you?
    Please, respect him.
    My favorite characters are Squirrelflight, Bluestar, and Nightheart

    Reply

  • Sighh… Kids these days LOL! I do feel kind of bad for him, it seems like everything he does is just WRONG, so I do sympathise with him. I don’t really get why y’all hate him though…

    Reply

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