#i REALLY liked needletail and violetpaws relationship. it was so fascinating

[bramblepaws]

imma be real with you guys. warriors got good again

[halogenwarrior]

In response to the Needletail content I’ve been getting on my dashboard recently: the thing with Needletail is that 99% of the time, I really like and find her fascinating for her flaws and don’t like when people try to “soften” her as a character, except for one part which I would absolutely get rid of if I were rewriting the books, which I think is the main reason she comes off to some fans as less “tragically selfish punk” and more “gratingly selfish punk”. That is, the part in the Apprentice’s Quest where she is the first one to suggest separating Twigkit and Violetkit. This part just doesn’t fit with how she is portrayed, and particularly her relationships with Violetshine and Alderheart, in the later books (and given how Thunder and Shadow, where much of the “inconsistent” stuff appears, was written by a different author than The Apprentice’s Quest, this might even be a case of the author not even being aware of that detail). 

Because the thing is, if you take away that part the relationship between Needletail and Violetshine is very tragic - messed up and not healthy for Violetshine in the end, but genuinely loving and with the society around them also being to blame for why it’s so messed up. If you just take Thunder and Shadow on its own: we have Violetkit, a kit who was wronged by her Clan by treating her as a political tool due to how they don’t care for outsiders unless they can provide some use to them, and you don’t need to love and pay attention to someone for them to be useful... and Needlepaw, who feels alienated by her Clan and rebels against it, also seeing them as not noticing her. If you just take this book alone, Needlepaw having to initially be cajoled by Alderpaw to pay attention to Violetkit doesn’t sound as damning as some Needletail haters make it out to be - she’s a teenager, of course she shouldn’t be expected to be the sole provider to a kit who the Clan has neglected, she’s not mature enough for that and she shouldn’t be expected to be, though the bond she later forms with her is genuine. And she genuinely relates to this kit for having similar disillusionment as her, her caring is completely genuine, but at the same time she is, again, selfish and immature, risking Violetkit’s life just to send a message to Rain and pushing her into joining the Kin (not because she just likes manipulating little kids into bad lifestyles but because she herself genuinely romanticizes them and her chance at finding a purpose through their violence and freedom, and in her mind Violetkit is just a mini Needlepaw, she must want and need the same things as her). The tragedy is that, as I said, she never should have had that responsibility in the first place despite her genuine love and devotion towards Violetkit, and her guilt-tripping and “you will only be happy with me” comes from genuine desperate loneliness rather than machiavellianism, is only reinforced by the outside environment as Rowanstar makes it clear he really doesn’t want or care for Violetkit, when he should have taken a stand agains this kit being left only in Needlepaw’s charge. And the tragedy is further cemented in Shattered Sky where Violetpaw, stuck with a caretaker figure who is not mature enough for the job and is now in the horrible situation of being trapped in a cult-type situation, losing the cats she loves and fearing for her life every day, recognizes Needletail’s immaturity and gets the horrible idea that she has to be Needletail’s caretaker, feeling like must be the martyr for her and even that Needletail would be within her rights to kill Violetpaw. And despite that it isn’t so strange that Needletail would sacrifice herself for Violetpaw, because the love still is genuine! 

All of this is horribly undermined by having Needletail be the one to suggest separating the kits. First of all, it feels especially odd narratively to have this separation moment to set up Rowanstar as being cruel towards outsiders for an out-of-touch idea of political gain to explain why the apprentices are disillusioned, and then show the primary disillusioned apprentice be fully on board with the callous politics game and even having suggested it. Second of all, this is the reason that a lot of people read Needletail’s saying she relates to Violetpaw and they are both alone in the world as lies and manipulation, if she really related to her she wouldn’t be the cause of Violetpaw being alone in the first place and never show any guilt about it or even bring it up. And of course, Alderheart never brings it up either, the narrative treats it as if it didn’t happen and they are just a makeshift family who are trying in their own flawed ways to be a light in the kit’s life beyond the cruel games of their leaders. Having Needletail do that diminishes her character into “one-dimensional abuser who is just bad in every way”, except the narrative forgets she ever did that and does not treat her at all like a one-dimensional abuser, leading to a lot of people being frustrated with how she is treated by said narrative.

I genuinely think if they just got rid of this Needletail would have an argument for being the best-written Warriors character. (Well there would still be the issue of how her bonus story backstory tries to explain her alienation from her Clan with a single “folk-psychology” incident of being forgotten by them once in a way that doesn’t even sound unreasonable of them, rather than it being a more gradual and subtle thing she experiences throughout her life. But that’s another issue...)