Wolvine wrote:i actually liked longtail, despite his dumb name and ever-changing coat colour? i think its a shame they never went deeper into his character. his mistrust of firepaw was, in my opinion, valid at the start. then he resented him for plot reasons, which was daft, since it would have been easier to have him be angered/ashamed of the fact he got his tail handed to him by a kittypet. er, sorta. his resentment of fireheart could have grown when tigerclaw was revealed, but also this massive sense of betrayal towards the cat he'd seen as a role model his entire life. i really would have liked some exploration of him coming to terms with his emotions about tigerstar/firestar. instead he just got blinded, dumped in the elders den and left to rot into apathy. funny how often that happens.
it seems pretty terrible to me that bluestar chased thistleclaw into the dark forest. i mean, she didn't like him because she thought he'd be a bad leader. fair enough. he didnt become leader though. he stayed a loyal warrior to thunderclan, and never questioned her leadership. its implied he died defending the clan, an honourable death. but when bluestar gets to starclan, she chases him out? nobody questions her? nobody objects to the fact that she's dooming this loyal and honourable warrior to cat hell? what lazy writing.
the alternative is even worse tho. if he went straight to the dark forest simply for being a bit aggressive, that's pretty unforgivable. he was a good warrior for his clan. he never killed anyone for no reason, committed no treason and never broke the code. its stupid that he went to cat hell but ashfur didnt.
I always liked him too. A lot of people seem to prefer drawing him with his fur a sandy, light tan color and black tabby stripes. Canonically, he's a silver tabby (i think, im too lazy to go check). I really enjoyed the character development he went through, like you said about him hating Firepaw and all. I always liked that he and a few others didn't like Firepaw at first. It seemed weird to me that when Firepaw came to the clan, everybody seemed to like and trust him right away. Considering how when Bluestar first met Rusty, she made this whole speech on how soft a life kittypets live and how they don't know how to take care of themselves in the wild. I always thought the clan would have rejected and sort of outcasted him more because he was a kittypet and not a forest-born warrior. So i was really glad there were cats like Darkstripe, Longtail, Dustpaw, and Sandpaw that pretty much bullied him.
But I would have liked to have understood Longtail better. In the later books after they banished Tigerclaw from ThunderClan, I wonder how he coped with the betrayal of a cat he looked up to and respected. There were parts in the first series where Fireheart didn't trust him and it always annoyed me that Fireheart sort of ignored him because Longtail was trying so hard to show Fireheart that he was a loyal ThunderClan cat. And I would have liked to know how close he and Swiftpaw were, considering Swiftpaw was his first apprentice. Longtail must have been angry when Bluestar only made Cloudtail a warrior. He had spent so long training Swiftpaw and raising him to be a good warrior for his clan, and Bluestar just brushed all of them to the side. We could see that Longtail trained Swiftpaw well, though. Swiftpaw was a brave and strong-willed cat, and was sort of like a leader to the other apprentices. I wonder how Longtail coped with Swiftpaw's death. Maybe he felt as though he had let Swiftpaw down, like he didn't try hard enough to convince Fireheart that Swiftpaw deserved to be a warrior.
And when he was blinded and had to retire to the elder's den at a young age. He must have felt kind of like Briarlight, I think. He was still young and fit and could have done so much more to help his clan, but he couldn't because of his injury. I really valued his bond with Mousefur. They were obviously really close, seeing how distraught Mousefur was when Longtail died.
So much wasted potential with Longtail. I would have loved to have gotten to know him better.
Bluestar never liked Thistleclaw. Even when they were kits she thought he was too arrogant. She didn't want Snowfur to be his mate, too. It may be true that Thistleclaw wasn't suited for being a leader. Bluestar herself said that he was too bloodthirsty and proud. She kept making it sound like there wasn't any other choice, and she absolutely had to be deputy so Thistleclaw wouldn't be. But I'm positive that Sunstar wasn't an idiot, and could see that Thistleclaw wasn't the right choice. Mosskit died for nothing because Bluestar was too adamant that Sunstar was going to make Thistleclaw deputy if she didn't do something about it. I wonder if Bluestar really did chase him out of StarClan. As far as we know, when Thistleclaw was alive, he didn't kill another cat, and he did die defending his clan. Though if I do remember, Bluestar said he died in a battle that he started.
But I would have liked to have understood Longtail better. In the later books after they banished Tigerclaw from ThunderClan, I wonder how he coped with the betrayal of a cat he looked up to and respected. There were parts in the first series where Fireheart didn't trust him and it always annoyed me that Fireheart sort of ignored him because Longtail was trying so hard to show Fireheart that he was a loyal ThunderClan cat. And I would have liked to know how close he and Swiftpaw were, considering Swiftpaw was his first apprentice. Longtail must have been angry when Bluestar only made Cloudtail a warrior. He had spent so long training Swiftpaw and raising him to be a good warrior for his clan, and Bluestar just brushed all of them to the side. We could see that Longtail trained Swiftpaw well, though. Swiftpaw was a brave and strong-willed cat, and was sort of like a leader to the other apprentices. I wonder how Longtail coped with Swiftpaw's death. Maybe he felt as though he had let Swiftpaw down, like he didn't try hard enough to convince Fireheart that Swiftpaw deserved to be a warrior.
And when he was blinded and had to retire to the elder's den at a young age. He must have felt kind of like Briarlight, I think. He was still young and fit and could have done so much more to help his clan, but he couldn't because of his injury. I really valued his bond with Mousefur. They were obviously really close, seeing how distraught Mousefur was when Longtail died.
So much wasted potential with Longtail. I would have loved to have gotten to know him better.
Bluestar never liked Thistleclaw. Even when they were kits she thought he was too arrogant. She didn't want Snowfur to be his mate, too. It may be true that Thistleclaw wasn't suited for being a leader. Bluestar herself said that he was too bloodthirsty and proud. She kept making it sound like there wasn't any other choice, and she absolutely had to be deputy so Thistleclaw wouldn't be. But I'm positive that Sunstar wasn't an idiot, and could see that Thistleclaw wasn't the right choice. Mosskit died for nothing because Bluestar was too adamant that Sunstar was going to make Thistleclaw deputy if she didn't do something about it. I wonder if Bluestar really did chase him out of StarClan. As far as we know, when Thistleclaw was alive, he didn't kill another cat, and he did die defending his clan. Though if I do remember, Bluestar said he died in a battle that he started.
