#With the bulk of the Kin being made of ex-Clan cats

[bonefall]

How will you handle the breakup of ShadowClan? While the rebellious apprentices made sense always felt that Darktail should have done more to actively help the rest of ShadowClan and appeal to them as a better leader choice, because in canon it seems they completely arbitrarily decide that they like him as a leader better without explaining why the older cats are going against their xenophobic culture. 

@halogenwarrior

I don’t have a STRONG direction for ShadowClan breaks yet besides knowing that every problem ShadowClan faces, should be related in some way to WindClan refusing to help them. I have strong ideas for how it ends, but the rising action is a bunch of puzzle pieces I haven’t put together yet.

But I DO know that there is a specific problem I want to fix with the rise of the kin; that the ShadowClan apprentices were completely inconsistent.

Darktail first courts them with ANTI-xenophobia, then, a book later, those same apprentices were totally on board with the usual Evil Atheist messaging that WC keeps doing; not feeding elders, training kits, killing indiscriminately, blah blah blah.

One could argue that’s because he started them off on something good, then lead them to bad ideological positions... but I think that’s a stretch. It was weak writing. It’s more of the narrative propping up the Warrior Code as this bizarrely infallible guideline that, without which, cats descend into total lawlessness.

So... what AM I thinking?

WELL, I think I actually want to start the apprentices out as being completely right. Their grievances are probably rash, DEFINITELY not well-spoken, but they ARE born out of compassion. A hard bend towards the Fire Alone ideology. They’re sick of not helping other clans, and of not being helped in turn. When Darktail shows up, he exploits this compassion to get the power he wants.

And by EXPLOIT I mean that he never believed this in the first place. He tells them he named The Kin for being an antithesis to Clans and their emphasis on bloodlines, when he only did that for his own daddy issues. He doesn’t want to take care of the weak and vulnerable. He just needs more cats for his army.

A bunch of cats with similar grievances from other clans join him. Ex-DF trainees, half clan cats, even outsiders who previously would have been excluded from Clan society... and, of course, find themselves unable to leave.

So, many of his ex-followers, like Berryheart, end up taking away the WRONG message here. That outsiders are dangerous. That their institutions will fail them unless they re-commit to their old traditions, reviving the popularity of Thistle Law and setting the stage for The Broken Code.

(and on that note several ex-kin members will probably end up joining the various clans, I do want to try to be clear the problem in this case WAS Darktail and his enforcers, NOT a systemic issue... barring that Onestar’s utter failure created him of course)