#this is mostly something for my pseudo-au but also my opinion on Frostdawn killing Splashtail

[unauthorized-author]

I see all over Warriors media people celebrating Frostdawn killing Splashtail and, for me (in my opinion (scary I know))... why the fuck did Frostdawn kill Splashtail? I get it was for empowerment or whatever, to symbolize that she was overcoming the abuse and manipulation he put her through, but like... symbolization means jackshit when the reality is Frostdawn would've been fucking dead lmfao.

She trained for a medicine cat for a majority of her life (and still ended up as a med cat by the end of the arc) and trained as a warrior for VERY MINIMALLY under Harelight and what training we did see on the page, she struggled. Splashtail, on the other hand, has been a warrior since River. SPLASHTAIL LITERALLY KILLED HER MENTOR IN ONE HIT?? Splashtail fucking slashed Harelight's throat or something and he died. You could argue that they made Splashtail overpowered or that Splashtail wouldn't reasonably be able to do that since he's still like a year old, OR that Splashtail caught Harelight off-guard, but the fact is that it happened. And with that last point, it shows that Splashtail knows how to take advantage of an opportunity. The reason Frostdawn won is because Harelight spoke to her from StarClan or something telling her how to fight.

IF THAT ISN'T THE MOST BULLSHITTY-

Even with the dead cat coaching, Frostdawn STILL nearly died from her wounds from her fight with Splashtail. She spent like half of the book dead/in limbo until she was sung back to life (Tree I hate you). Like, Squilf didn't have to confront Ashfur and kill him, even though she maybe could; I don't power scale these cats. The symbolism of THAT was so much better: you don't have to confront your abuser head-on to move forward. Squilf wasn't involved in the final battle against Ashfur at all, and I LOVED it because his goal was to hurt her and Graystripe was right, "Stay home in camp, don't show him that he won." (something like that, I forgot what exactly he said) And Squilf moved on without stepping a single paw near that battle. Why did Frostdawn have to kill Splashtail? She's already dealing with enough shit from Curlfeather? Curlfeather was literally grooming Frostdawn to be a med cat her entire life, died the first book in ASC, and Frostdawn was dealing with the fallout and trust issues that it gave her upon learning Curlfeather used and manipulated her. Sure, Frostdawn and Squilf's situations are vastly different, but the message could've still been the same: you don't NEED to confront your abuser head-on to move forward. Hell, even SHADOWSIGHT didn't really fight Ashfur. I personally think it would've been cool as shit if Frostdawn had tried to kill Splashtail because her emotions were running high. She's been through a lot in ASC, like getting exiled, nearly being killed like three times, etc. And she has grown from the meek people-pleaser she was as Frostpaw at the beginning of the arc. But she's still just a cat at the end of the day y'know? One that has trained as a med cat for her entire life, and one that was missing from the Clans for most of the arc. So she might attack Splashtail in fury or something, BUT he's still the more experienced one out of the two of them, so it could be a fake-out of a conclusion. Frostdawn's the protag, she should kill Splashtail, yada yada- NO. She nearly dies bc she was impulsive when she was literally taught how to meditate or something by the Park Cats (my memory is really shitty).

Someone else probably kills Splashtail, and I personally don't think that takes away from Frostdawn's arc in ASC. The cold hard reality is that sometimes the abuser IS bigger than you, but the light in said reality is that there are people who can help you. I think that'd be really neat if Frostdawn came to this conclusion while she was in StarClan for the latter half of Star. She CHOOSES to come back (and not get sang back to life wtf) because she wants to help RiverClan because they have helped her. Literally saved her life from being murdered by Splashtail.

AND Frostdawn was also distrusting of everyone for a good chunk of ASC (I personally think it should've been longer but whatever) because of her trauma with Curlfeather manipulating her and Splashtail, the cat she had previously looked up to in the beginning and even wanted to be mates with, being SO cruel.