#Wind Runner. The.

[bonefall]

In BB, a Park cat's name changes over time. Born nameless, the first name they wear is of their mentor; Mentor's (dominant) Paw.

The Wind Runner's name was self-given. Many cats of the River Kingdom yearned for the freeness of the moor just beyond the river, and yet, found themselves embroiled in border dispute over their loose homesteads. She became the authority, uniting them under the Wind Coalition.

Her name refers to how she keeps these winds running. Like a ringleader, she is their arbitrator and their enforcer. In exchange for their services when she demands, the Wind Runner ensures that peace is kept between the smaller territories, and that they come together in times of need.

She is ambitious, calculating, and BRUTAL. A ferocious enemy, and a selfish ally. What she does, she does for herself, her family, and the Wind Coalition in that order.

It is a reputation she's proud of. She WANTS for you to fear her grudges, and stay in her good graces. A truly powerful cat is not one who has to command; they are one for whom others move willingly.

[velo-cats]

Gorsestar

[midzukishino]

My cards for the series "winter is…" and "spring is…" (like "love is…") For the vk wc group

[warriors-official-russian-art]

"Secrets of the Clans", icons

[vogels]

moth flight and the broken strings of fate - (5 year redraw)

[everybody-loves-purdy]

With a bit of inference, Moth Flight’s Vision is an accidental tragedy about generational trauma.

Moth Flight’s Vision is a book which tries to justify the medicine cat abstinence rule, and it fails at this. This is mainly due to the exceptional circumstances Moth Flight was in when she gave up her kits. And obviously you have the fact she was a very young mother with four children in a time before a nursery system and when Moth Flight herself was also navigating being the first ever medicine cat. But I want to bring up another aspect of Moth Flight’s Vision that heavily influences our titular character’s decision to give up her children and bar all medicine cats from ever having mates or kits: Trauma.

And I want to stress that at no point so I think the Erins wanted to make this a story about trauma. But boy did they accidentally make a pretty compelling story about generational trauma. You need to squint a little though but trust me, it’s there. Accidentally put in the narrative like some of the best stuff in warrior cats often is.

So the trauma I am referring two comes from two cats in her life, her mother Wind Runner/ Windstar and her mate Micah.

So if we start with the former, Wind Runner at the start of Moth Flight’s Vision is very critical of Moth Flight. She has no patience for Moth Flight getting distracted and her lack of hunting skill, and voices how she dislikes Moth Flight’s lack of prey contribution to the clan, and frequently insults her and makes snide remarks to her. Such as you can see in just this one example.

All this leaves Moth Flight feeling inferior and feeling like she is wrong.

All this cumulates in an argument in which Wind Runner lists how irresponsible she believes Moth Flight to be tells Moth Flight she is a danger to her clan. And Moth Flight believes her, and runs away.

Now after this once Moth Flight returns as a medicine cat we don’t really get anything like this from Wind Runner again but the damage is done. Now here’s where the inference has to start coming in a bit. Who wouldn’t be left with a complex after this? Who wouldn’t be left with the need to prove themselves however they can? Moth Flight certainly sets out to please Wind Runner and prove she can be useful to her clan in the early part of the book when she’s receiving this abuse. So why would it just evaporate later when she actually finds something she’s good at and can be of great use to her clan doing? Just put a pin in that for a moment.

Also while we’re talking about Wind Runner; Moth Flight has a conversation with her dead siblings about how she wishes she could please Wind Runmer, which leads to her dead siblings saying that the reason Wind Runner is so harsh towards Moth Flight is because of the trauma she experienced when she lost her kits. Wind Runner’s trauma is ultimately what is causing her to inflict trauma onto Moth Flight.

And now we move onto the second inflicter of trauma in Moth Flight’s life: Micah. Don’t worry, unlike Wind Runner, Micah didn’t inflict any trauma on Moth Flight through his own actions. Unless you count dying in a tragic accident right in front of Moth Flight. In which case yeah, his actions did inflict trauma on her. At least it was an accident.

Micah’s death deeply traumatises Moth Flight. She cannot bear to be in WindClan due to it, she lives in ShadowClan for a moon, avoiding going home due to her grief, and then only travels back once she realises she is pregnant, and decides she wants to be with kin.

The stage is set. The Erins have a young cat set up about to have four kittens that she’s going to give away and change the medicine cat code forever. What they do not realise is that the trauma they have influenced on this character can most definitely be inferred to have an effect on her actions surrounding her children from this point forward, ultimately being perceived as a large push as to why she gives them up.

The book wants us to believe that she gives up her kittens because it is just inherently impossible to be a medicine cat and have mates and children. Which isn’t true as cats such as Leafpool and Yellowfang have since proven wrong. And obviously there are the exceptional circumstances Moth Flight herself has been subjected to during this period. But her trauma can also be perceived to pay a huge part in her feeling like she cannot balance her duties and her children.

To start off with. The first moon of her kits life is fine. Moth Flight steps back from medicine cat duties and lets the very knowledgeable Reed Tail take primary healer duties for the clan. The book skips over the first moon with her kits and therefore we can assume nothing important happens, and no issues come from Moth Flight raising her kits for this first moon. Moth Flight does reflect that how she did on occasion try and do checkups but her kits always called her away. And here, while Moth Flight is reflecting on this, we get this paragraph:

So here we learn two things:

She feels ready to stop having Reed Tail help her when her kits are a moon and a half (6 weeks) old.

Moth Flight does not want to let go of her kits for any amount of time. She equates Slate saying that she can leave the kits for short periods to them not having a mother figure in their lives. And she thinks her kits can only receive adequate love from her.

So with point 1, Moth Flight’s kittens are still little babies. And she feels that she should go back to being a full time medicine cat when they’re still that young despite having Reed Tail to hold the fort, and dismissing him as her helper entirely after this point. And here I’m going to bring back the idea of inference. I feel that this could stem from Wind Runner’s abuse at the start of the book. Wind Runner left her daughter feeling so compelled to be useful to her clan that she’s throwing herself back into her work far too early in order to keep her mother happy and be of use to the clan in the only way Moth Flight feels she can be. Is any of this written in the book? Hell no. But I feel that you can absolutely infer that Moth Flight’s drive to get back to work so soon is due to the lasting trauma and insecurities her mother had imposed on her.

Point 2 is a lot to unpack and here, and this is a point that comes up again, how Moth Flight feels compelled to take care of her kits personally rather than hand them off to babysitters due to their lack of a living father.

So if we use some of that inference here, we can infer that Micah’s death has left Moth Flight insecure about leaving her children alone. She feels that she is the only one who can properly take care of them in her clan. And, undoubtedly by accident, this idea comes back. There are two incidents with her leaving her kits to be babysat and irresponsible babysitting causes the kits to get hurt. The first is where she goes to a gathering and Rocky encourages three of the kits to climb a rock but tells the fourth she’s not ready. So the very next day she climbs the rock. She falls, she gets hurt. And not once does Moth Flight get angry at Rocky for encouraging her children to climb a big rock, oh no, she blames herself.

There isn’t one second where she thinks about how it’s Rocky’s fault this situation arose. She entirely blames herself for it, and the situation is never even discussed with Rocky.

And then something similar happens later on. Storm Pelt is supposed to be watching the kits while Moth Flight goes to RiverClan. And then all four kits end up following her and one of them falls in the river. She doesn’t blame Storm Pelt for any of this. She doesn’t have a single word of blame to say to him about him allowing all four of her children to follow her to RiverClan. And from that we can infer (even though again, the book doesn’t say) she feels the blame lies with herself. This inference can be strengthened given that this is the incident which causes her to feel she should give up her kits.

On top of her feeling wholly responsible for her kits at all times no matter who is looking after them, the main other way they distract her from her medicine cat duties is when she suddenly becomes paranoid that some horrible tragedy has befallen them while she isn’t watching them. And I think all of this paranoia and heightened sense of responsibility regarding her kits all comes down to Micah.

He died traumatically in front of her eyes. She feels extra protective of her children because they no longer have a father. And we can infer that her paranoia of them meeting a gruesome fate has come from her witnessing the painful death of her beloved Micah.

And where does this leave us? All this trauma stemming from both her mother and beloved? Well, Moth Flight decrees that medicine cats must not have mates or kits. She then inflicts trauma onto her own children by separating them and forcing them all to live apart. The trauma that Wind Runner and Moth Flight experienced can now be inferred to have trickled down to both Moth Flight’s kits, and many, many medicine cats for decades to come. The book wants you to believe this is because kits can distract from medicine cat duties, that they can pull a medicine cat away from important duties. But that only happens in Moth Flight’s Vision due to poor babysitters or mainly Moth Flight becoming paranoid that her kits are going to die horribly like their father once they’re out of her sight.

Is this all a stretch? Absolutely. I have no doubt this was absolutely not the intention of the Erins at all. But in the words of Todd Chavez:

Isn’t the point of art less what people put into it and more of what people get out of it?

And thats what I get out of Moth Flight’s Vision. A story about how tragic trauma can be, not only for an individual, but also for others if it becomes generational.

[crowesfood]

Wind Runner (Windstar, Wind)

Note: These designs are free to use for non-commercial purposes with credit! But if you appreciate my work, I have a [ Tip Jar ] and [ Lineart Base Shop ] !

[hazelwhisker-designs]

Jagged Peak

[artaintfartwarriors]

CAN YOU PLEASE PLEASE DRAW SLATE FROM DOTC 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Sure!!

[marmosetpaw]

[pigeonclaw]

I'm starting to think SkyClan getting their home destroyed before anyone else was just karma at this point. Skystar did nothing with his life (lives?) but cause problems and issues huh.

[bonefall]

.. opinions on wind runner? i feel like im one of the only ones that genuinely hates her sometimes

If you feel like the only one who genuinely hates her, I think you need to look around more. Wind Runner is a very widely disliked character, because she's often used within the story as a small antagonist who "threatens" the authority of Tall Shadow. Gray Wing dislikes her. Thunder is openly cat-racist to her. She spends several books trying to break through the moor cats' xenophobia to join a group that came to HER LAND.

Then, when Moth Flight is old enough to be a relevant character in Forest Divided, Wind Runner is turned into Yet Another mean mom the very moment Moth displays ADHD. She's contrasted to her mate Gorse Fur, who is a Soft And Good Dad, and ultimately MASSIVELY punished with the harrowing events of Moth Flight's Vision (even though, for most of that book, she's completely right.)

Ask yourself why they're especially harsh on WIND RUNNER for being mean to her child, in the arc with Tom the Fucking Wifebeater and his redemption death, plus Thunder being forced to stop being mad at his abuser Clear Sky, please.

To me, Wind Runner is an intense, ambitious woman who's demonized for it in a way that men just aren't. She's subject to several misogynistic trends within WC, plus a huge helping of xenophobia that goes absolutely unexamined. If DOTC cared at all about women, it would have treated her with the nuance she deserves.

Wind Runner is treated with nearly endless suspicion by Gray Wing through books 1 - 3, while he's bending over backwards to suck Clear Sky's toes.

Her wanting to join the group that came TO HER HOME and being a bit pushy about it earns a stronger reaction from Gray Wing than Clear Sky murdering people.

She's pressured into changing her name "to fit in," and it's still not enough. She wanted to join the group so bad she changed her name, at the request of the Mountain Cats, for a chance of being better accepted

This came after she'd already saved Jagged Peak's life when a burrow collapsed on him. She's plenty trustworthy.

She keeps doing shit to try and prove herself to this group of assholes. Remember Bumble being dragged back to her domestic abuser? Gray Wing interprets this as a power struggle, when WIND RUNNER WAS NOT EVEN PART OF THE GROUP AT THE TIME.

From Wind Runner's POV, she did something that the Moor cats wanted done. It was fucking evil. It was committing violence against another member of the out-group the cats see her as.

But who actually has the power here? Tall Shadow does.

Gray Wing said it himself that she could have come up with some excuse for Bumble to stay, and she didn't. In fact, any cat could have spoken up. No one did.

and still. STILL. Wind Runner gets nothing. Her reward is Gray Wing surmising that actually, her doing their sick dirtywork was a political move.

It's more consistent as a motivation with how Wind Runner wants to join their group. The thing she's been doing.

She only actually gets to join the group after Thunder starts publicly hurling slurs at her for suggesting they need to be ready for Clear Sky to attack them. "What do you know about peace? Last time I was here you were NOTHING BUT A ROGUE WITH A ROGUE'S NAME"

Gray Wing even starts purring when she gives birth, because her ambition goes away briefly and she "stops bossing everyone around." this is treated like a sweet thing. god forbid women retain their personalities when they have kids

She loses her first premature child to a seizure and Gray Wing starts proselytizing his religion to her. "Maybe it's a good thing your weakest child died because Jesus has them now" I want to beat him with a hammer

When her second child gets sick, Clear Sky has a bright idea that involves killing it. I refer to this as his "reverse leper colony" suggestion. He only develops a sense of humanity towards the sick when his brother's pregnant wife is in danger. Wind Runner and her kitten barely seem to clock as people to him.

It's only after her SECOND baby succumbs to a horrible, painful death that she decides the moor cats are assholes, and she goes to start her own group. It's LONG overdue. I was extremely excited to see it.

Now. Listen.

I've been treated just like Moth Flight before. I've practically heard the scolding in Book 6 Chapter 3 verbatim. I'm not downplaying anything about Wind Runner being harsh to her; being yelled at like that never fixed the problem.

What I'm saying is that this is the SAME arc that summons the hollowed-out ghost of Storm to coo that Clear Sky "never drove anyone away" with his abusive behavior and gives Tom the Wifebeater a heroic redemption death.

So why is the scolding from Wind Runner treated as unambiguously harsh? What's the difference between her and them?

Why is it that outside of this little bubble of the community, you can get buried in a flood of people crying about how "Clear Sky made Summisteaks Butt he thought it was the right thing :((( He feels bad about shoving Thunder's face in a weeping, pus-filled wound and trying to kill him :((((" but Wind Runner is mean about Moth Flight not catching a rabbit and she should be skinned alive

Why is WIND RUNNER held responsible for the death of Clear Sky's child in Moth Flight's Vision, WHEN IT WAS COMPLETELY HIS OWN FAULT??

So, why should I hate her? Because she's mean to the idiot protagonists? Because she's Yet Another Bad Mom whose actions ARE treated as Bad in the story, in the arc famous for openly weeping whenever someone's mad at their abusive dad?? When she has this whole horrific, unexamined story about how incredibly bigoted The Settlers are towards her and the extremes she goes to in order to please them?

I'm glad she's mean, actually. She should have been even meaner. I think she should have a gun

[velo-cats]

Windstar

[wc-confessions]

I refuse to believe that Windstar is tiny. My personal interpretation is that she’s large and long, and that Gorse Fur is the small one

.

[lampette]

Have some Warriors. Some kitties from Dawn of the Clans

[endlesscats]

"I know. I led my Clanmates into battle for no good reason. I'm sorry. […] With this life, I give your heart the grace to forgive all cats, however weak or wrong they may be." — Willow Tail