Perspectives of Cats and What They Did in The Prophecies Begin by Silverbreeze

Silverbreeze takes a look at some of the characters from the first arc.

Warning of spoilers!
Hello, I’m Silverbreeze. This is my first article… Enjoy! 🙂

There are lots of cats in The Prophecies Begin that are either disliked or misunderstood. But what are their perspectives? In this article, we will be looking at some cats from The Prophecies Begin and their side to the story.

1. Leopardstar

Most of us can agree that Leopardstar is not one of the most well-liked cats in the Warriors series. When I first read the Warriors books, I thought of Leopardstar as proud and stubborn. So, let’s take a look at this RiverClan leader’s perspective.

As a kit, she was spoiled. Being the only surviving kit of her litter and her mother dead, she was spoiled by her father, Mudfur. When she was still young, Mudfur told Leopardkit that he had been visited by her mother, Brightsky, in a dream. Brightsky told Mudfur that Leopardkit was special and had a destiny to follow. From then on, Leopardkit was determined to become a great RiverClan warrior whose name would go down in history.

Leopardstar seemed to have a thing against ThunderClan. She was more aggressive towards ThunderClan than she was to WindClan and ShadowClan. When she was Leopardfur, her mentor, Whitefang, was killed by a ThunderClan warrior in a battle. Leopardfur’s best friend Sunfish was badly wounded in the same battle, which led to her death soon after.

As for the battle at the gorge, most readers would say, “It was Leopardstar’s fault. She attacked the ThunderClan patrol, overreacted when Whiteclaw died, and she blamed Greystipe for Whiteclaw’s death when Greystripe had tried to save Whiteclaw.” But is that true?

Whiteclaw was actually the one to attack first without permission. The rest of the RiverClan patrol, including Leopardfur, had no choice but to follow him. Leopardfur had not seen Greystripe trying to save Whiteclaw. She had only looked up in time to see Whiteclaw falling and Greystripe leaning over the edge of the gorge in attempt to save the unlucky RiverClan tom. Leopardfur jumped to conclusions and assumed that Greystripe had pushed Whiteclaw off as he was leaning over the edge. On top of everything, Whiteclaw had been her apprentice as well as Sunfish’s son. Before Sunfish died, Leopardfur had promised Sunfish that she would protect Whiteclaw, who was still an apprentice at the time.

Grief can affect one in a few ways. It can make one want to give up, make one have the urge to seek revenge, or make one determined to prove himself/herself to make things up for what he/she had lost. Grief did the same to Leopardfur. The only different thing was that she did not give up.

When she accepted Tigerstar’s offer to join RiverClan and ShadowClan together to form TigerClan, Leopardstar had assumed that joining a strong Clan would give her a powerful position. But she was wrong — Tigerstar took all of the power for himself. When Tigerstar and Leopardstar were both deputies, Leopardstar admired Tigerclaw for his bravery and his way of thinking. This might have been another reason that Leopardstar joined Tigerstar. Leopardstar was not the only cat to have been tricked by the former ShadowClan leader.

2. Spottedleaf

I have heard from some people that Spottedleaf was ‘perfect’ (aka a Mary Sue) and a ‘stalker’ in Firestar’s dreams… But I disagree.

If you read Spottedleaf’s Heart, you would find that Spottedleaf was not perfect. She ‘foolishly’ fell in love with Thistleclaw for a short period of time without realising how violent he could be. Even after witnessing Thistleclaw and Tigerclaw, then Tigerpaw, mercilessly attacking a kit near the border, she still tried to believe that Thistleclaw meant no harm. Only after she found out that Thistleclaw had been training in the Dark Forest did she stop.

As for her being a ‘stalker’ in Firestar’s dreams, she was just doing her job as a StarClan cat to deliver messages to the living. From what I have read so far, only cats who had played an important or significant role in the cat whom is receiving the message’s life delivers messages to that cat. Spottedleaf joined StarClan at the point when Firestar had just begun to dream with StarClan.

People also seem to dislike Spottedleaf and Firestar’s relationship more than Spottedleaf herself. I myself do not like the whole SpottedleafFirestar thing… But why take it on Spottedleaf? All she had done was fall in love with Firestar the same way his mate Sandstorm had.

3. Yellowfang

There are readers who argue that Yellowfang should not have become a medicine cat and should have stayed a warrior since she loved Raggedstar and love was forbidden if she were to become a medicine cat. They also say that she should not have given Brokentail to another queen. But if you look at it a different way, she did not have much of a choice.

Like Spottedleaf, as a kit she was determined to become a warrior and did not want to become a medicine cat. Yellowfang did manage to become a warrior, but not for very long.

Since she was Yellowkit, she could experience the pain of others around her. In battle, Yellowfang could feel the pain of every cat on the patrol when they were wounded. Yellowfang told Sagewhisker this, who took it as a sign that Yellowfang should become her apprentice. Yellowfang refused the offer at first, but came to consider it later when she realised that having to bear the pain of all her Clanmates would be too much if there was another battle. So Yellowfang became ShadowClan’s next medicine cat.

When she birthed her first litter, the two she-kits died almost immediately. Only the tom remained, and Yellowfang described the expression on his face as so angry that she had never seen anything like it, not even on a full-grown warrior. The ShadowClan medicine cat named her son Brokenkit, not after the bend in his tail, but after how her heart felt when she gave him away.

She did not have a choice. Lizardstripe was the only nursing queen at that time. Lizardstripe raised Brokenkit without the care and love a typical queen would.

Perhaps Yellowfang would have done better.

4. Brokentail(star)

When I read about Brokentail in The Prophecies Begin, I thought that his ‘reign of terror’ was not too bad. How could one cat bring so much death upon all the four Clans? Well, I read Yellowfang’s Secret, and that book proved me wrong!

Lizardstripe, Brokentail’s foster mother, did not treat Brokentail well when he was Brokenkit. She did not even care for her own kits with love. Tanglekit, Runningkit and Deerkit would tease Brokenkit often.

When he was a warrior, he desperately wanted to be deputy. Raggedstar promised Brokentail that it would be his turn once Cloudpelt had died. Maybe that was a wrong choice of Raggedstar’s to make such a promise. It made Brokentail want to be the deputy even more until the point where he was suspected by Yellowfang to have set a trap for Cloudpelt to be killed.

As Brokenstar, he made kits apprentices before 6moons, resulting in many kits deaths. He drove out the elders of ShadowClan, forcing them to survive on their own outside the camp.

Maybe if Brokentail’s littermates had not died, they could have had some positive influence on Brokentail. But then again, Brokentail had been born with an expression of fury written across his face, so maybe it was just his destiny to be evil.

5. Bluestar

Bluestar gave away her kits to protect her Clan, losing one in the process and refused her mate’s offer to come to ThunderClan to be with her. She also went a bit crazy near the end of her life…
But why?

After the death of her mother and sister, Bluestar, then Bluefur, fell in love with Oakheart, a RiverClan warrior. When Bluefur gave birth to Oakheart’s kits, Stonekit, Mistykit and Mosskit, that was around the time when Tawnyspots was ill and Sunstar was considering a new deputy. Sunstar prefered youth to experience, and Thistleclaw and Bluefur were reasonable choices. But Bluefur was a nursing queen at the time.

Bluefur did not want to risk having Thistleclaw chosen as ThunderClan’s deputy. She knew how blood thirsty he could be. But if Thistleclaw was deputy, it may have made him a better cat, as Moonflower stated in Secrets of the Clans. In the end, she did not risk it.

When Oakheart told Bluefur that he could come to ThunderClan to be with her, she refused. Oakheart wanted to be a deputy one day. If he had joined ThunderClan, it was highly unlikely that becoming deputy could have become reality. Half-Clan kits were usually scorned upon, and Bluefur did not want her kits growing up like that. So she refused the offer.

Bluestar had lost so much, so her getting confused and doubting StarClan was understandable. Tigerclaw(star)’s betrayal was like scraping a matchstick on the rough side of a matchbox.

The way most cats behave seems to be greatly affected by littermates, parents, how the cat grew up as a kit and/or apprentice, and grief. I personally find the perspectives of different cats quite interesting, but it is all their choice in the end.