Why I hate Twigbranch by Nettlepaw

Nettlepaw shares their opinion on Twigbranch.

Hi! This is Nettlepaw back with her fourth article, and this time I’ll be discussing a cat I feel very strongly about…Twigbranch. I was looking at an article from a few years back, and Twigbranch was actually disliked much more than she is now. In fact, now, she’s a favourite of many BlogClanners. However, I am not one of them, and as this is quite an unpopular opinion, many people will disagree with me. I would love to hear why, so please tell me in the comments!

Twigkit is found with her sister Violetkit, and brought back to the Clans by Alderheart and Needletail. They are separated; Twigkit going to live in ThunderClan, and Violetkit taken to ShadowClan. Twigkit led a privileged life, with an adoring foster mother, good friend and father figure in Alderheart, and doted on by most of the Clan. Meanwhile, Violetkit was being neglected by her foster mother, had no friends and was being ignored by the whole of ShadowClan. This is not why I dislike Twigbranch, in fact, I quite liked Twigkit, and her bubbly personality. However, her advantaged life led to big problems with her character. Even as a kit, Twigkit hated to feel anything less than special. When Jayfeather called her out in the second book, it hurt her so much that she snuck out of camp, and nearly drowned. She also ended up getting away with a lot of rule breaking and disobedience.

When she got apprenticed to Ivypool, it was almost like she had two foster mothers. She loved her mentor, and the feeling was mutual. Despite that, she still longed for her biological parents, and was missing her sister in ShadowClan. This was when I started to feel more annoyed with her. Twigpaw has lots of cats looking out for her, and yet she still doesn’t know that a chosen family can love you just as much, if not more, than your blood family. I appreciate she was missing them, but even when she was much older she continued to express this view. She also wanted to visit her sister, and Ivypool let her, understanding that she needed Violetpaw at this stage of her life. However, this was another time that Twigpaw was allowed to break the rules without punishment.

I continued to dislike her more and more. Her sister, Violetpaw was struggling with the Kin, a group of rogues that had taken over ShadowClan. They were influencing her, and making her do stuff she regretted. Her only friend, Needletail, betrayed her for the Kin, and she got imprisoned later in the series. Violetpaw felt alone and scared. She was in a situation that most cats never had to face, and she had no one to help her through it. For the entire series, Twigpaw had been complaining that she never got to meet her blood family. In spite of all this, her biological sister was facing a group of dangerous cats that threatened the Clans existence, and she didn’t lift a finger. Instead, she did the exact opposite of what she should have done. When ThunderClan finally took action against Darktail, Twigpaw turned the attention back on her by running away, claiming that nobody cared about her.

This is a major flaw in her character. She has a whole foster family looking out for her, and yet she still deludes herself into thinking she has no one. Meanwhile her sister, who actually has no one, is struggling with not just one villain, but a whole Clan of them, and Twigpaw doesn’t bother to take any action at all, until she realises her father is alive.

She asks Bramblestar if she can go and find her family, and he refuses. I think that was a good decision, as there were much more important things that needed his attention than one cat who missed her parents. Twigpaw goes to Alderheart, and pours out all her frustration to him, and he listens. He tells her kindly that she can wait, and maybe after the Kin have been defeated, they can reunite her with her family. Again, Twigpaw fails to see that there are much more important things than her, and she runs away to SkyClan.

What infuriates me is people defend her by saying that ‘she brought SkyClan back to the lake, so she can’t have been that bad.’ I would like Twigbranch more if she did it for a noble reason, like fulfilling the prophecy and saving the Clans from the Kin. Instead, that fell to her suffering sister, who already had enough on her plate. Twigpaw did it for her own selfish gain. She didn’t think about all the Clan cats around the lake that needed her help.

Predictably, she moved to SkyClan to be with her father and sister. In SkyClan, she asked her father to tell her about her mother, Pebbleshine. Violetpaw could clearly see he was still grieving, so why couldn’t Twigpaw? Again, Twigpaw was so wrapped up in herself that she couldn’t see beyond her own troubles to work out why Hawkwing would be unhappy.

Soon after that, however, she abandoned the family she thought she loved, and returned to ThunderClan.

If Twigpaw truly loved her family as much as she said she did, then why did she spend her entire life searching for them and then return to the Clan where ‘everybody hated her.’ Even worse, the reason she went back to ThunderClan was partly because she missed her former Clanmates, and partly because she felt she wasn’t wanted in SkyClan, which was completely untrue. She thought, as usual, she was being neglected because she was jealous Violetpaw was getting more attention. Earlier in this article, I touched on how Twigpaw hated to feel anything less than special. This is a prime example of that.

Even when she returned to ThunderClan, she was still as oblivious as ever. Ivypool, her old mentor, was there for her when she believed no one else was, and when she returns to camp and gets assigned a new mentor, she doesn’t give a word of apology. And when she passed her warrior assessment in River of Fire, Ivypool was waiting to congratulate her, and Twigbranch didn’t even thank her for teaching her when she was an apprentice. Ivypool could have been bitter about Twigbranch ignoring her when she returned from SkyClan, but instead she was happy for her success.

When Twigbranch herself became a mentor, she continued to keep up her woeful attitude. Flypaw, her apprentice, couldn’t focus on many of her tasks, and Twigbranch immediately criticises her. This only makes the situation worse, as Flypaw became discouraged and unhappy the more criticism she received. Instead of working out why she was struggling, as usual, Twigbranch told her things that would only make everything worse.

I will just say now that do not support Finleap when he was asking Twigbranch to have kits. This is awful behaviour, and he couldn’t see past his own longing to realise that having kits is painful and Twigbranch did not want to go through that process. In fact, Twigbranch and Finleap are perfect for each other in the sense that they are so self obsessed.

Overall, I think Twigbranch is a spoiled, arrogant cat with no feeling for anybody else. I know this is a very unpopular opinion, so many of you may disagree with me. Anyway, I would love to hear your thoughts, and may StarClan light your path. Nettlepaw, out!