Ravenwing- Did He Make the Right Choice? by Mallowpaw

Mallowpaw takes a look at Ravenwing’s actions.

For those who have read Mapleshade’s Vengeance, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of the villainous she-cat’s many victims- Frecklewish, Appledusk, and Ravenwing. So let’s put the first two aside and just talk about Ravenwing, the ThunderClan medicine cat. Most of the time, he’s pushed onto the completely innocent side by the majority of readers, but I don’t agree with that. Hear me out.

Many leeways for Ravenwing include, 1) that he was young, and 2) he was just doing his job. But Ravenwing wasn’t exactly young by the time he discovered Mapleshade’s secret- normal medicine cat training lasts between 6-8 moons, meaning Ravenwing, assuming his apprenticeship was 6 moons, would have been a year old by the time he received his full name. On top of that, his mentor Oatspeckle couldn’t have died right after Ravenwing became a medicine cat, so let’s just give her one moon past that time- and seeing that she died two moons before Mapleshade’s kitting, Ravenwing is now a year and three moons old. By the time Mapleshade was exiled, her kits were three moons old already, so at this point, Ravenwing was a year and a half old, the equivalent of an adult, and had been the sole medicine cat of ThunderClan for almost half a year. By then, he must have gained some experience already, and should be used to being the only cat with full medicine-cat training. He’s not the young, inexperienced cat everyone claims he is. He’s an adult, capable of making his own decisions.

Ravenwing might not have been able to predict the exact fate of Mapleshade and her kits- but come on, he was aware that the kis would suffer, shown in this line:

“These kits will suffer for the lies you have told.”

Meaning that as he snitched on Mapleshade, he knew that kits would suffer- and as a medicine cat, he’s supposed to prevent suffering, not cause it. It doesn’t matter how broad the term ‘suffering’ is, or how vaguely he said it- suffering is still on the negative side. And Ravenwing likely knew how much anger ThunderClan harbored towards Birchface’s killer, Appledusk, as he even stated, Frecklewish had taken the death of her brother as a hard blow, and that knowing that her brother would live on inside Mapleshade’s kits made her feel like life was worth living once more. Same applies to Ravenwing’s knowledge of the rest of the Clan’s grief.

Making things worse, Mapleshade had lied to the Clan by omission as well as exploiting Frecklewish’s grief, suggesting that the consequences wouldn’t be light. But even if Ravenwing couldn’t predict how far Oakstar would go to punish Mapleshade prior to the she-cat’s exile, he had time to stand up for Mapleshade’s completely innocent kits. Instead, he stands by and watches the unfair exile of kits without speaking. He may not have spoken out against Mapleshade or supported Oakstar’s decision, but being a bystander in this kind of situation isn’t okay.

That being said, I don’t justify Mapleshade’s actions, and Ravenwing never deserved his death, not does he deserve the Dark Forest.

Anyhow, what do y’all think about Ravenwing? Did he make the right choice?