Mapleshade and appledusk are to blame for breaking the code, and i agree she shouldn't have lied, but Oakstar shouldn't have punished the kit's for their mothers mistakes, and the kit's probably would have stayed with their mother not knowing the truth if raven hadden ratted maple out, and what apple did to maple, completely putting all the blame on her wasn't right...
I wrote this from Frecklewish's POV ages ago, but it does apply to Oakstar as Birchface's father from an emotional standpoint and mentions him briefly at the end.
Imagine waking up one day to find someone you loved very dearly was killed, alongside another dear friend of yours who perished trying to save them.
It's a sudden strike to the heart. You never had a chance to say goodbye. It was.. unpreventable, but you are under the impression they were both murdered and that the killer gets to live everyday without repercussions for taking your loved ones away.
And then one of your friends is pregnant.. and you're excited! You don't know who the father is but you are stuck in the throes of grief, and you jump to the assumption that maybe-- your loved one is the father! Your hope is raised when your friend doesn't deny your guess.. and soon enough, your entire community thinks your deceased loved one is the father of her children.
This goes on for months. You're allowed to feed into this lie that your loved one lives on in these children! You're excited-- even if your loved one is no longer here, you feel like.. you're close to a part of him, and it helps feed some closure to his dramatic death. For once, you have hope that a part of him will live on.
But then it's discovered you were lied to. The children.. you thought were your family, are actually the children of the individual who KILLED your loved one. You're disgusted, angry.. you feel betrayed as a whole; a community.
The children were innocent but in your angry grief, you do not care. Their entire lives were a lie and you cannot stomach looking at the spawn of The Murderer. You cast them and their deceiving mother out.
* The regret of the choice comes at a later time, in the form of your father once everything is said and done. Outside of his clouded mind, he recognizes his misjudgment and wishes he hadn't sent those kittens away. * At the time I wrote this in 2020, the Warriors Wiki included a source stating he regretted sending the kits away. This has been removed from his page, I'm unsure if it was ret-conned or not.
Regardless, Oakstar made a decision fueled by his anger at being deceived and raising the children of his son's killer, and his grief at essentially losing the last piece of his son he believed he still had... While it wasn't the right call, I think it's important to keep this in mind when looking at how ThunderClan reacted to Mapleshade's betrayal.
I'd be curious to see how the situation would've played out if Mapleshade hadn't added fuel to the fire or if she apologized and owned up to her actions, her decision to stamp her foot down and act indignant toward the Clan after all the pain she caused them won none of her family any favors.
She's not evil, she became cruel because she felt betrayed by her clanmates, her lover, starclan and the warrior code. She lost everything and all that remained her was the wish to get vengeance. She's an evil character made out of pain. Her story is very tragic...
Mapleshade could have used the twoleg bridge. Or given her kits to RiverClan. Or some other clan. She could have also raised them on her own or with a new mate. She could have taken the Twoleg bridge to RiverClan.
I believe that instead of killing Ravenwing, Oakstar should have been chosen. Mapleshade blamed Ravenwing for her kits being exiled, despite him not being very experienced as a medicine cat. I understand Oakstar was grieving, but exiling kits for what their father did was not the right thing to do, especially since Appledusk didn’t intentionally kill Birchface and Flowerpaw. Appledusk could have tried to save Birchface or at least prevent Flowerpaw from jumping in to save him so that it wouldn’t lead to the deaths caused by Mapleshade’s Vengeance.
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"Do you and Barley have kits?" - Bella
Yes, she killed 3 cats. Ravenwing and Frecklewish were pretty much innocent. While yes Appledusk was a horrible mate, she should have gone after Oakstar since he was the most responsible for all of it but she went after two random cats instead of the jerk who actually exiled her and her kits
Disclaimer: im not attacking anyone elses beliefs in the matter!
Now: i believe that Frecklewish; yes, was relatively rude to mapleshade to cast her out like that but I can understand why she did those things. Yes I believe frecklewish did watch the death of her kits (I think it was stated in the books) Frecklewish in my opinion shouldnt have done what she did but I believe she deserves a place in starclan.
AppleDusk: Theres lots I have to say about AppleDusk, I personally believe he deserved his fate because if you truely loved someone you'd take that fall of admitting they were your kits. Also cheating on MapleShade was low, they had kits and yet he still chose what happened.
OakStar
I think he should have gone to the dark forest, he killed mulitiple cats heartlessly and damaged many others, he definetly deserved a worse death then what he had
RavenWing
RavenWing did go through moons of training to gain his role and interpret starclans warnings etc. yet he still got this wrong, thats where I believe RavenWing had messed up but he never deserved death but I understand why mapleshades upset there.
Re: Was Mapleshade really evil?
