Millie Rant by Spiritpaw

Spiritpaw shares their opinion on Millie.

Hi again! It’s me, Spiro, back with another article today! Before I begin, I want to ask all of you readers to please be respectful if you comment on this, whether you agree or not. This is only my small opinion in a vast sea of others, so please, feel free to share your thoughts and opinions on this in a respectful manner, because last time I did a rant like this, some people were incredibly impolite.
Anyway, let’s start.

SPOILER WARNING FOR POT, OOTS, AND BRAMBLESTAR’S STORM!!!!!! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let’s begin with why Millie-haters hate the subject herself – she was a neglectful mother to Blossomfall and Bumblestripe. But this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg, my friends – oh, no. There are a lot more terrible things about this kittypet-turned-warrior, I assure you. But I’ll get into that later.
So yes, she was a bit neglectful to her son and other daughter – that may have contributed to Blossomfall training in the Dark Forest, and why Bumblestripe is such a jerk.
Let’s examine Blossomfall first.
We all know why she went to train in the DF – she was jealous of Briarlight, and wanted to get her mother’s attention with her fighting skills that she learned there. Now, ultimately, it was her choice to train in the Dark Forest, and her choice to blame it on Briarlight, which wasn’t fair to her sister, because she had no control over what her mother did or didn’t do. Blossomfall is a very selfish character (in my opinion, and yes, I am planning to do a rant about her as well) and wasn’t a very good sister with poor judgment. At the same time, her dilemma is kinda understandable, but that’s not why we’re here.
So, my point is, even though Blossomfall blamed Briarlight for training in the Dark Forest, it was very much Millie’s fault and not Briarlight’s in the least. Like I just said, Briarlight had no control over her mother whatsoever, and probably didn’t like the fact that Millie was always hanging around her and disregarding her siblings (of course, we don’t know this for sure, which is why she deserves a novella, or better yet, a super edition!).
Millie was the one who was, more or less, driving Blossomfall to go into the DF. Her daughter wanted to impress her, to get some attention and make her mother proud of her and have a reason to start paying attention to her life. And she was the one who was almost constantly doting on Briarlight, which made Blossomfall jealous of her.
So, in short, Millie was a big influence on her other daughter’s poor life choices.
Now it’s Bumblestripe’s turn.
We all know that Bumblestripe was a huge jerk to Dovewing, asking her to be his mate at her friend’s (PURDY’s, R.I.P. good elder. You shall remain in our hearts always 🙁 ) vigil, and kinda sorta forced Dovewing to be his mate for a little while, even though it was very clear that she had no interest in him whatsoever, at least in a romantic way. He probably was aware of this, and instead of apologizing and letting her go, he kind of turned into an Ashfur-type character.
If he had actually cared about and loved Dovewing, he would’ve let her choose who she wanted as a partner, and would have not been such a jerk about this.
So, I hear you asking, what does any of this have to do with Millie?
If she had been there for her son, and helped him through his feelings and helped him to understand that Dovewing needed to choose her own path, perhaps he wouldn’t have been such a jerk. Graystripe could’ve helped too, and this is the reason he sometimes gets on my nerves, because he was a less-than great father to his second litter…. Whatever, we’re not here to rant about him today.
There’s a lot of great mothers in the Warriors Universe that help their kits through their struggles and tough times, like Squirrelflight did with Hollyleaf, Jayfeather, and Lionblaze, even though she knew that they weren’t her real kits.
Millie is not one of those great mothers.
Instead, she hovers over her daughter, who already has more than one medicine cat to look after them. I mean, it was great that she cared, otherwise that would’ve been a huge problem, but thinking your daughter’s life is worthless now, just because she’s paralyzed? It was very good that Millie was with her for the first few months, helping her with her therapy, but for the rest of her life?
You can still help your daughter with her medical needs, but Millie never really moved on. At all. I’m sure Briarlight appreciated the fact that her mother was always there for her, but after years of this, she had to have been annoyed and sad that her mother only ever cared about her. Briarlight was never the kind of cat that would love having all that attention, while she knew that her brother and sister were also having a difficult time.
Millie even said that Briarlight would be better off dead in StarClan, where her legs would still work.
This proves that Millie thought that her daughter’s life was of no use to anyone, therefore making it useless, and proving that she is one of the most ableist characters in Warriors, along with Clear Sky/Skystar.
And in Bramblestar’s Storm, when the camp is flooding, she threatens to never forgive Bramblestar if he doesn’t make sure Briarlight gets out ok, which is no way to talk to your leader! Now, you might be saying, “Spiro, this also proves that Millie also deeply cares about Briarlight!”
But, my friends, if that were true, she’d want her daughter to live to her fullest and she would’ve never said that she was better off dead. I’m not saying she doesn’t not care about Briarlight, I’m just saying that she doesn’t care about her as much as she should.
And I have one more thing to say about her.
You may or may not remember a scene in OOTS (I think it was in OotS?) when Bumblestripe takes Briarlight out into the forest because she asks him too, because she wanted to get away from the craziness and confinement of her life in the camp.
While out in the woods, they encounter a dog (or a fox, I can’t remember,) and it attacks them. Bumblestripe helps Briarlight up the nearest tree as best he can before turning to face the dog, and a blah-blah-blah, and finally a search party finds them, and Millie gets all over-protective-mom on Briarlight, which is fair because she just got attacked by a dog, and goes ballistic on Bumblestripe.
So, why am I bringing this up, you might ask?
Because she doesn’t even seem worried about Bumblestripe in the least, even though he’s the one who’s wounded and doesn’t even seem concerned about him and blames him for putting Briarlight in danger, which is completely fair.
But, the point is, that little incident proves that she has no regard for her son. “But, Spiro, Millie knew that the ThunderClan medicine cats were very skilled and could handle injuries!” I hear you protest. And yes, that is correct, except for one thing: if she really believed that, then she would’ve let them take care of Briarlight after she was sure that they would do a good job of helping her. And instead, in Briarlight’s case, she kept doting on her and keeping her from living the good life.
So, in short, Millie proves that she is a selfish person/cat, is a terrible mother to all three of her kits, and doesn’t care what happens to her son at all. She also proves that she is very, very ableist, and has almost no redeeming qualities (the only two of which are that she’s a good mate and a good warrior and served her Clan well).

Well, that just about wraps it up for this article! Thanks for reading, and have a good day!

Spiro out.

7/17/22

https://www.wattpad.com/894238108-warrior-cats-in-real-life-millie