In Defense Of Appledusk by dahliadove

dahliadove explains and defends Appledusk.

Hi, I’m dahliadove (no capitalised first letter), this is my first BlogClan article. I’ve seen too many people hating on Appledusk and a lot of misinformation spreading around about him. Before we get into this, let me explain that it’s very warranted to hate Appledusk! Anyone can hate any character, I’m not gonna get mad if anyone disagrees in the comments. Feel free to make your points. This post is purely informative, to dispel rumours and/or misinformation about his character and his appearances in the Mapleshade’s Vengeance novella. Enough talking, let’s get into it.

1. “He cheated on Mapleshade.”
This is the most common argument I’ve seen as to why you can hate Appledusk. We’re starting off on a rocky one, but there’s no confirmation that he did cheat on Mapleshade though. It’s purely speculation. Someone I discussed this with on the Warrior Cats forums worded this very well; “Right after Mapleshade gets exiled, she comes across a barn and collapses, meets Myler the very next day and immediately leaves the barn, before getting the idea to kill Ravenwing as well as being told about Frecklewish by Nettlepaw all on the same day; Ravenwing dies the next sundown.” That’s three days. Three days after Appledusk officially breaks up with Mapleshade, Reedshine is portrayed as having a barely swollen stomach – she is barely pregnant.
Now, you would think this is confirmation that he’s cheating, right? But when have Warriors pregnancies ever been consistent in timing? He very well could’ve just moved on quickly – which isn’t as bad as cheating, but I still think it’s pretty bad. Whether you think this is confirmation of Appledusk cheating on Mapleshade is pretty much up to your own interpretation. Let me know what you think in the comments.

2. “He never cared about his kits!”
I argue that he did. Him not asking the names of his kits when finding out that they died and him blaming Mapleshade for their deaths and saying he never wanted to see her again; that’s him breaking up with Mapleshade. It’s true, she took their 3 month old kits across a flooding river during a storm despite their protests and the other, far safer options available to her, knowing full well that none of them could swim. It’s her own foolishness that got her kits killed, Appledusk had every right to be angry. Her mistake cost their kits’ lives.
With him not asking their name and “not having a big enough reaction”; people who say this have clearly never experienced grief before. It doesn’t work like that. Not everyone is going to have a god-tier level acting tantrum with screaming and crying. Grief works differently for everyone, but actually a lot of people don’t have that big of a reaction because the reality hasn’t set in yet. Him not asking their names I’d argue was due to the length of novellas and the writers had to speed up the scene, or it was part of his grief. People forget things in the moment when they’re grieving, the shock often overpowers your head and you can’t think.
I’ve seen people saying that he called Mapleshade a monster too; he didn’t. That never happened. I fact-checked it myself, on the e-book.
Also, let me state the obvious here, Mapleshade’s Vengeance isn’t from his point of view. We don’t see Appledusk mourning his kits or thinking about them. He was probably doing that! So don’t call him a bad father or someone who doesn’t care about his kits when he absolutely did, in fact he was showing concern about them when he got them out the river. That’s right – Mapleshade brought her kits to the river beforehand, they were okay swimmers, but Appledusk still had to get them out himself because she couldn’t swim. He told her to lay low for a bit and to not bring the kits to the river anymore because they were only kits and they could barely swim. She was told by her mate and her kits to not bring them to the river and she still did it later on. And yet people blame Appledusk for this?

3. “He was in a forbidden relationship.”
So has 90% of Warriors characters. He’s one of the few that broke up with his mate and realised his mistake. You could argue that he did it to save his own skin when his situation looked bad, but Reedshine was there to defend him. He didn’t need to break up with Mapleshade to stay in the Clan, Darkstar was already convinced because she said later that him losing his kits is punishment enough, and Reedshine was already defending him. He didn’t need to save his own skin when things looked bad for him.

4. “He got Mapleshade exiled.”
Wrong. I’ve seen people saying that Appledusk snitched on Mapleshade and that’s how ThunderClan found out she broke the code, but that’s not true! Ravenwing, the medicine cat at the time, had a prophecy about three reeds at the river. This revealed the truth to him that they were not Birchface’s kits, but Appledusk’s instead. Ravenwing was the one that told Oakstar about Mapleshade’s lie. But definitely don’t blame this on Ravenwing; he was just doing his job. But I do believe he, a medicine cat, someone in a position of power in the Clan, should’ve spoken up against Oakstar exiling three month old kits.

As for him and Mapleshade’s relationship being the reason that she got exiled, people put all the blame on Appledusk for this. Not only does a relationship take two to start, so the blame goes to both of them, but Apple actually realised his mistake and grew from it. Maple didn’t. She killed three people instead of moving on and trying to raise her kits. She should’ve realised that her relationship was a mistake when she was given consequences and kicked out. She shouldn’t have gone back to Appledusk in RiverClan, she should’ve taken her kits to somewhere safe, and not over a river.

To conclude; Appledusk might not have cheated on Mapleshade, he realised his mistake of his half-clan relationship and he grew from it, and he also wasn’t the sole reason for Mapleshade getting exiled.

Thanks for reading, let me know if you liked this article and what you think of Appledusk. Also let me know if I changed your mind on him, or if you have any points to refute mine.