[FadingEchoes]

I haven't read Spotted's book, so that may be why I don't see Thistleclaw as that bad. I think he definitely messed up a whole lot, but Ivypool and Blossomfall also trained in the Dark Forest, and I think it's at least possible Thistleclaw thought it would make him a better warrior for his clan.
As far as Tiny goes, I really blame Tigerpaw for that one, while Thistleclaw definitely could have not let Tigerpaw go so far, teaching your apprentice to chase off intruders, whether they're "harmless" or not, is what warriors are supposed to do. In the first book, when Graypaw is chasing Rusty away, after the fight he says, "You're lucky I'm not a full warrior, or I'd have given you some real wounds to think about."(I'm paraphrasing, I haven't read the books in a while.) And later on in the book Firepaw chases Smudge off before realizing it was his old friend. All in all I certainly don't think Thistleclaw is a saint, but all of his truly Evil actions seemed to have happened after he was sent to the Dark Forest. But again, I haven't read Spotted's book so I'm probably missing a couple things.

Originally Posted by Crow

there was also the whole situation with spottedleaf, which was.. disturbing, even if realistic for cats, as they're essentially humans as they're written in the books.

As far as that goes, I think about Fernpaw and Dustpelt, just because Fernpaw didn't return his advances doesn't make it less weird. Although I do agree that he should have left her alone, their age isn't exactly the problem, consent is.