A dive into Onestar’s life and leadership by Shrubpaw

Shrubpaw takes an in-depth look at Onestar.

(MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ONESTAR’S CONFESSION)
Hello, Shrub here! This is my very first article, where I will be analyzing one of my least favorite characters and leaders in Warriors, Onestar. He has always been an interesting yet flawed character to me, which is why he gets his own article today. (What a lucky cat!) Without further ado, let’s cut to the chase!

I’ll start first with Onestar’s kithood and apprenticeship. He was born as Onekit to Wrenflight and Stagleap. Why was he named Onekit? You could first assume that Onekit was named after being an only child. However, this is shown immediately untrue, since Onestar had two sisters, Ashfoot and Morningflower. Another theory is that he had one whisker that was longer than the others, hence his warrior name, Onewhisker. This is the interpretation of James Barry, the illustrator of Winds of Change, or a Warriors comic book with lots of Onewhisker art. But on the cover of Onestar’s Confession, all the whiskers look similar. There isn’t one whisker that is longer and thicker than the rest. I’m not trying to criticize the art; It just invalidates the whisker theory. The best theory, in my opinion, is that Onekit is the only TOM in the litter. As I said before, Ashfoot and Morningflower are sisters to Onestar. That would make him the only male in the litter, so that’s why his parents named him ONEkit. However, this is all speculation and not canon. Take what I say with a grain of salt.

Onepaw was later apprenticed to Deadfoot, the WindClan deputy. Later on, Deadfoot would become mates with Onepaw’s sister. (Weird, am I right?) Onepaw’s apprenticeship was typical until WindClan took in a pair of kittypets to become apprentices: Brushpaw and Tansypaw. This is where I began to dislike Onepaw. Brushpaw and Tansypaw show him the nearby Twolegplace, where he meets Smoke. Because Smoke is young and pretty, Onepaw falls in love with her. Yes, you heard me right. It’s a pretty strange reason, similar to how Firepaw fell for Spottedleaf, but the difference is that Onepaw’s and Smoke’s relationship develops. He starts to create heroic tales of himself to impress Brushpaw, Tansypaw, and Smoke (basically lying to them). Even when Brushpaw dies and Tansypaw returns to being a kittypet, Onepaw (Now Onewhisker, technically) still continues to visit Smoke. They become acquaintances, then friends, then even more than friends.

Then Fireheart arrives, which is where Onewhisker makes his first impression, since Fireheart was our first protagonist. To summarize, they became good friends via Gatherings. One example of this friendship was in Forest of Secrets, where Onewhisker apologizing to Fireheart after the Gathering when Nightstar (or Nightpelt, if you want to call him that) and Tallstar turned on Bluestar and ThunderClan for sheltering Brokentail. Even though Onewhisker and Fireheart came from different Clans, they shared similar ideals. At least, that was the case at the time. Let’s skip to the aftermath of the BloodClan battle. At the time Onewhisker had become mates with Whitetail, who was once his apprentice. At this point you might be thinking two things: One is, why did Onewhisker become mates with his apprentice? It’s as weird as his love for Smoke. And speaking of Smoke, what happened to her? Once Onewhisker became mates with Whitetail, he decided to break ties with Smoke. And to put it shortly, it did not end very well.

Smoke was mad at Onewhisker for this when he told her. She has every right to be! But at the same time, it was partly her fault she continued meeting with him. Onewhisker pretty much disregards Smoke afterwards, until the Clans were preparing to travel to the lake territories. When Smoke learns about this, she tells Onewhisker about their only son, Darkkit, and threatens Onewhisker to make a promise about returning to the Twolegplace, or “I’ll teach Darkkit to hate you, and to hate all the Clans.” Onewhisker falsely promises, and never sees Smoke again alive. Timeskip to right before Tallstar’s death, the WindClan leader makes (in my opinion) one of the worst decisions in his nine lives: To replace Mudclaw with Onewhisker as deputy at the last minute.

I don’t want to delve into Tallstar’s decision too much, but simply speaking, I think Tallstar was wrong to appoint Onewhisker as deputy without telling Mudclaw, BUT telling the leader and deputy of ThunderClan, whom Tallstar knew Mudclaw disliked. Tallstar may be my favorite WindClan leader, but this was not my favorite decision. Tallstar’s reason for the change felt weak, and became anti-climatic as Onestar became a worse leader than Mudclaw probably would have been. Then, Tallstar ascends to StarClan, and Mudclaw is manipulated by Hawkfrost, creating a rebellion, ending in Mudclaw’s death and Onewhisker finally being accepted as WindClan’s true leader. Onewhisker becomes Onestar, who appoints his sister Ashfoot as deputy and receives nine lives from Tallstar, Stagleap, Wrenflight, Sorrelshine, Brushpaw, Windstar, Gorsestar, Gorsepaw, and Mudclaw. You might be thinking, “Well, Shrub, if the founder of WindClan has faith in Onestar, surely he’s somewhat good!” Well, here’s some family tree facts for you.

I’ll start by asking this: Did you know that Onestar is related to Windstar? On the family tree of the official tree, Mistmouse, a she-cat you might not know about, is related to Windstar. Mistmouse had a son, Stagleap, who happens to be Onestar’s father. That means Onestar, Darktail, Ashfoot, Heathertail, Breezepelt, Crowfeather, Tornear, and Mudclaw are related to Windstar. This also means that Heathertail and Breezepelt, who are mates, are distantly related. So this may have all been biased. (GET BACK ON TRACK, SHRUB!)

Anyways, Onestar’s personality seemingly flips after becoming leader. He completely throws away his friendship with Firestar, and the reason he gives for it in his Super Edition feels as weak as Tallstar’s justification for making Onewhisker deputy; that his Clanmates pressured him to not like him. I won’t talk about this too much either, but it makes Onestar seem like a weak leader for falling under his Clanmates’ pressure. Onestar convinces himself that it was the right decision to make, but was it really? Even after the end of their friendship, Firestar continues being friendly and remorseful to Onestar, with Onestar simply turning away from Firestar. Firestar may have been too interfering with the lives of the other Clans, but at least he did it for a good cause, not because his Clanmates told him to. I can’t say the same for Onestar.

Onestar continues being an unlikable leader, all the way to AVoS. But nothing can compare to when Darktail is introduced. In his Super Edition, Onestar is shown to believe that he thinks that Darktail’s wrath was not his fault at all! Additionally, Onestar thinks that even if he had brought Darkkit into WindClan, he would have still become evil. I disagree. Onestar had no proof of what he thought to be true, and still decides to believe it anyway. He does not even stop and second-guess himself about whether Darktail’s evilness may have been partly his fault. And shortly afterwards he kills Darktail, sacrificing himself in the process. He gets accepted to StarClan, and that is the last major appearance he makes in the Warriors timeline.

My thoughts? He should have not been laid off the hook so easily. I don’t think he should have gone to the Dark Forest, but he was treated better than Leafpool and Squirrelflight in StarClan, who had broken the warrior code on StarClan’s command! Onestar should have owned up to his actions and faced the consequences, but instead his sacrifice had let him in StarClan. Come to think of it, StarClan might have done something similar to Ashfur, who while did some terrible things died a horrible death. I don’t think that Onestar was nearly as bad as Ashfur, but both cats require consequences, and the fact that both got away scot-free irritates me.

I’m going to leave my article there, since it is so long. Hopefully it doesn’t get cut off. I hope you liked it, and feel free to post your opinions in the comments! Shrub out!