#idk dotc discussions just... tire me out or bore me

[harriertail]

Can you elaborate on your opinions on gray wing?? I’ve only ever seen ppl describe him as a good dad who couldn’t breathe and I never read him entirely as that so I’d love to know your thoughts!!

(long) Well i don’t know.

I don't dislike him but i don't like him (skip to bottom for TLDR if you care) I can't really discuss Grey Wing without also Clear Sky so. There is an opinion of him being 'good dad can't breathe uwu he made starclan' which I used to just accept but re-reading DoTC (parts of) its kinda... not true. The DoTC cast are flawed characters, they are mean (to each other, to strangers) they are pretty fucking stupid, and overall opinions tend to be (exaggerated) 'Clear Sky worst man ever, Grey Wing did nothing wrong', or 'Grey Wing is actually awful, Clear Sky did what he thought was right he's actually super nuanced' even tho there are a lot of smaller moments of awfulness from the both of them that show their awfulness.

I feel a lot of CS/GW opinions hinge on rejecting Thunder and the First Battle/borders thing > 'smaller' scenes of awfulness > Clear Sky and Thunder especially, theres scenes in TR and BS/AFD (so even post 'redemption') of Clear Sky trying to 'one up' Thunder and show off while hunting or traversing the forest, the killing of Misty, Jagged Peak, letting Tom sod off with TTs kits and lying about it, trusting One Eye, the whole Micah and Willow Tail thing, etc, so i definitely see Clear Sky as bad guy and not 'morally grey' or whatever, he's only really good to his new family with Star Flower or cats when they threaten to leave him (AFD). He disowns Jagged Peak and Thunder because they aren’t useful to him, but SF constantly boosts his ego and his new kits don’t give him trouble so he likes them. He doesn’t really get a redemption, beyond being leader of SkyClan. I can’t really see any ‘nuance’ to him, he’s not evil evil he’s just a generic dickhead (with a splattering of murder) and doesn’t really do anything by APoS/MV to make him not a dickhead. I like the idea that SkyClan’s removal from the forest was due to Clear Sky’s wickedness, and the dreams the med cats had of SkyClan being exiled came with whispers of ‘you brought this onto yourself’. I think Quiet Rain was right to disown him (and the fucking 'i forgive you' come on, very ooc, QR was fucking vicious all her life and definitely were i think Clear Sky got it from- I think the mountain cats all got their occasionally horrible personalities from their harsh environment and constant suffering in the mountains but) // I also don’t buy the whole ‘Clear Sky did bad things he knew others thought were bad but he had to do it he was suffering so much making those decisions, it was for Thunder/Jaggeds/insert character’s own good’ idea like, he knows he’s a dick, he knows he’s in the wrong. I wish his POV went more into the suffering in the mountains (Quiet Rain, Fluttering Bird, his dad) and how that directly affected him (nightmares? flashbacks? comparing everything to the mountains? we only get a few ‘ive seen cats starve’ lines like okay u had a rough childhood stop killing people; all of your friends are telling you this is a bad idea wth)

Onto Grey Wing (lol) > i think the 'uwu soft' opinions come from the old trope of 'evil sibling, good sibling' repeated in warriors (Hawk and Bramble, Ivy and Dove etc). His moments of awfulness are probably less obvious as he is the first POV so like... subconsciously we probably take his 'word' for more (same way people see Squirrel as annoying becoz Brambles POV introduces her as annoying), but most of his interactions with Turtle Tail and Bumble either come from a complete fucking socially-inept idiot who is too harsh and doesn't realise, or a really mean guy. I don’t know why Tall Shadow made him leader in TR and I don’t know why he got a ‘second chance’ with Slate. He can be pretty rude to Thunder but its nothing major, its just a sign that he’s got the familial dickhead streak. Um where was I going with this? Oh yeah, my opinion. IDK. The whole ‘good dad’ i don’t get because he just like, oversaw Turtle/Hawk Swoop raising her kits/Thunder and didn’t really, raise them; TT’s kits are basically plot devices, especially Pebble Heart. anyway. I think a lot of DotC conversation (including this) is pointless because not only is the overall arc flawed in terms of plot and character consistency, but because Clear Sky and Grey Wing make a lot of bad decisions and say/do some bad things that the narrative kinda expects us to just be like ‘and then they were good leaders’ in the end (I have a few ideas for a dotc rewrite but). I don’t like either of them, but I don’t hate them. I dislike the way their characters (in a writing sense) continued after TFB, and i think both of them becoming (in the narrative) leaders and founders kinda softens our perception of them being.. not good people. But i also just tune out any ‘grey wing good clear sky bad’ discussion because i don’t really care either. The more I think about DoTC now the more mediocre i think it was lol. The last chapter of APoS was good tho. 

TL;DR - I think Clear Sky is a major dickhead, and i think Grey Wing is a lesser spotted dickhead. I don’t really care for DoTC after more than 5 minutes of thinking about it. All the characters have room temperature IQs. Grey Wing needs a different personality because he’s very all over the place to me, and Clear Sky could have been something.