Introduction

Most people floating around the fandom areas of the

Internet have probably heard of Warrior Cats. This past
post about some of the franchise's drama does a fantastic
job of explaining how the series and its fandom work, but
I'll provide another summary for those of you who don't
enjoy clicking links.
Warrior Cats (or simply "Warriors" depending on where
you live) is a nearly two-decade old children's fantasy
series about "Clans" of dozens of wild cats who live
according to a code of honor. Originally just a single six-
book plot, its success spawned countless sequels,
prequels, and standalone stories. There are over 80 books
in the series now, including six full main story arcs of six
books each—and they're not slowing down any time soon,
with five more books releasing just this year and the
seventh arc currently underway. The series was created by
author Victoria Holmes, while the books themselves are
ghostwritten by two other authors, all collectively sold
under the pen name "Erin Hunter." Plots in these books
typically revolve around bloody battles between the
different Clans, mystical prophecies received from the
spirits of cats who have died (known as StarClan), and, of
course, mountains upon mountains of romantic drama
and love triangles.
To quote the other post: "Are the books any good? Well…
no, but that’s irrelevant." Some of them are quite good,
but most are mediocre at best—and in any case, it's not
the books per se that draw in legions of twelve year-old
fans. The world Warriors created has generated a massive
online fandom of kids, teens, and young adults earnestly
designing their own cats and entire fan-made Clans for the
sake of fanfiction, roleplay, fanart, and more.
Ashfur: The Origin
In 2007, while writing the draft for Warriors's third main
story arc, Vicky Holmes had one thing in mind: Ashfur. This
third arc, titled "Power of Three," was about a trio of
cats—siblings—who each possessed a superpower that
they were destined to use to save the Clans. But that was
only window dressing for Vicky's true goal. It was no secret
that she had... a fondness, shall we say, for tragic
scenes dripping with drama, and she'd had one of these in
mind ever since beginning to brainstorm PoT's plot: A
mother's children are threatened, and the only way she
can save them is to reveal the shocking truth: They are not
hers. From this one kernel of drama came everything else.
And so Power of Three, a story about young cats with
superpowers, was entirely structured around a scene
unrelated to that idea. At the end of book five, a fire
breaks out in the forest, and our three heroes are trapped
by the flames. Their mother, Squirrelflight, tries to clear a
path for them to escape, but her way is blocked by
Ashfur—a cat who was a rival for her romantic affections
in the previous story arc, in which Squirrelflight was a
main character, before she chose her fellow protagonist
Brambleclaw as her mate. The scene that follows is widely
considered the most recognizable and iconic moment in
Warrior Cats, featured in countless pieces of fan art and
animated videos: Surrounded by the fire, his eyes aglow
with hatred and madness, Ashfur raves about how
he's never forgiven Squirrelflight for being "faithless" to
him. In a speech rivaling General Hux from The Force
Awakens for its intensity and anger, he echoes incels
worldwide and recounts just how badly he's been
wronged because this woman wouldn't go on a date with
him. He utters the infamous line: “Upset? I’m not upset.
You have no idea how much pain I’m in. It’s like being cut
open every day, bleeding onto the stones. I can’t
understand how any of you failed to see the blood. . . .”
He even reveals that he secretly helped the villain of the
previous arc attempt to murder Squirrelflight's father, just
as he's now going to let her children burn to death—all to
get revenge for being turned down.
We now skip ahead to book 4 of the following story arc.
One of our protagonists visits StarClan (the cat heaven) in
a vision, and notices Ashfur present among them.
Shocked, they ask another StarClan cat—a wise mentor
figure—why Ashfur was allowed into StarClan, instead of
being sent to the Dark Forest, the cat hell, for his crimes
and attempted murders. Serenely, speaking with Vicky
Holmes's full intent, the mentor figure replies: "His only
crime was to love too much."
Ashfur: The Fandom
It is impossible to overstate just how big of a deal Ashfur
became in the Warriors fandom for years to come. Now,
naturally, in a series with hundreds of named characters
and plenty of other drama-filled stories to go around, the
fandom had lots of things to talk about... but Ashfur was
constantly near the top of the list.
It'll come as no surprise to anyone who's spent time in a
fandom with lots of young teenagers that there was a
large movement viewing Ashfur as... "Misunderstood." He
became practically idolized by lots of young fans—
particularly young female fans—as a symbol of romantic
tragedy. Contrasting this were fans who, rightfully,
wondered what the hell Vicky was thinking when she
wrote that line about "loving too much" and pointed out
that Ashfur was both a misogynist and a murderer... etc,
etc, etc. The Ashfur wars raged for years across every
fandom platform—Tumblr, Youtube, forum boards—
spurred on in large part by two factors.
The first is easy: Kids don't really have a good perspective
of what a healthy relationship looks like. Trying to murder
a woman's children because you want her that badly... can
seem beautiful, in a twisted way. And it helps when the
books themselves end up confirming this interpretation
for you.
The second factor is a phenomenon that affects nearly
every aspect of the Warriors fandom: A lot of fans... don't
really read the books. Remember, the books themselves
aren't the draw! The world is the draw. Kids want to make
their own unique cats with names like Darknesstalon and
Furyscythe (those names definitely wouldn't fit into the
world of the books, if it's unclear). They don't care what
happened in some new book that released this year. For a
lot of people, the world of Warriors is a purely creative
one—and a lot of kids actually found their way into the
fandom solely through fan content, without ever touching
an actual book. So when your whole knowledge of Ashfur
is based on fan animation videos that show off the tears in
his eyes as he pleaded with Squirrelflight to love him
back—
You get the picture.
Working Partners
Around 2013, following the conclusion of the fourth arc,
Vicky Holmes passed on her torch. Though she still retains
some involvement with the series, the books' plots are
now created by a team of writers called Working Partners,
while still being ghostwritten by the same two authors
from before. WP's involvement with the fifth arc onwards
has produced a number of changes in the writing and
decisions made about how to handle characters, some
negative, some positive.
This brings us to the seventh and current story arc, "The
Broken Code," which began releasing in spring 2019. In
writing this arc, the new team by all appearances took
note of a number of common fan complaints about the
series that had existed for years. This included a number
of questions about the series's status quo that the books
themselves typically ignore, such as "Why do the cats
arbitrarily segregate themselves into different Clans when
they all have the same culture and almost always have to
unite to fend off outside threats?", "Why aren't medicine
cats allowed to have children, that's a stupid and
unnecessary rule?", or "Why do none of the characters
seem to notice or care that their leaders always promote
their relatives to positions of power?" (This last one is of
course because characters in positions of power are
almost always protagonists, and protagonists usually end
up being relatives of other protagonists.) Every indication
from TBC so far is that questions like these will be
addressed in the series itself, possibly ending with lasting
systemic change for the Clans.
Even more than any of those questions, the new team
became aware of one particular fan complaint: Ashfur. By
now the Warriors fandom had been around long enough
to become somewhat more mature—though Ashfur stans
still existed, the general consensus was totally aware that
he was an outright villain who was in no way a dreamy
misunderstood boyfriend. And so the time came that
Working Partners, in planning out The Broken Code, had a
brilliant idea: Make Ashfur the villain. Bring him back, as a
sinister Big Bad for the seventh arc, and satisfy the fandom
by showing once and for all that he's not some relatable
lovestruck sadboi. More than that, retcon his placement
in StarClan as a trick all along—Ashfur lied his way into
heaven and has been plotting his revenge ever since.
"But, wait, isn't he... dead?" you ask, confused. Yes, but
this is Warrior Cats, and death is kinda irrelevant. The
entire plot of the fourth arc was about evil dead cats
returning to fight a final battle and getting killed again,
this time for good. If the new team could come up with a
convincing way to make Ashfur insert himself back into
the plot as a spirit, there would be nothing stopping them
from reusing him.
This would have made shockwaves among the fandom no
matter what, but the discourse was set into motion even
before the release of TBC's first book. Kate Cary, one of
the series's two ghostwriters, confirmed on her blog that
a "controversial character" would be returning for arc 7.
She gave no details beyond that, but most fans assumed
this meant a villain, and speculation began. Could it be this
character? Or this one? Or what about this other one...?
And Ashfur's name, of course, came up a lot.
And then the rumor started. Ashfur. Leaked to the fandom
from an unknown source came the whispers that it was
Ashfur—it was Ashfur big time. Ashfur, the rumor said,
was going to possess and take over the body of a living
character and wreak havoc. Plenty of people believed it.
Plenty of other people likewise dismissed it—the writers
would never do something like that.
Heh.
The Broken Code
The first book of The Broken Code released in April 2019
and kicked things off with a bang. StarClan has gone totally
silent for unknown reasons and isn't communicating
prophecies and wisdom to the living cats like they
normally do. Over the course of the book, one of our new
young cat protagonists is spoken to by a mysterious
unseen spirit. You see, Squirrelflight's mate
Brambleclaw—now the leader of his Clan and named
Bramblestar—is ill, and this spirit knows how to cure him.
Acting on its instructions, the protagonist convinces all the
cats to bury Bramblestar in snow to bring his fever down.
He dies.
Then he comes back to life! All the characters cheer.
Bramblestar shakily gets up... looks around... and then
walks over to Squirrelflight. "Greetings," he says in a deep
voice. "It's good to be with you again."
Heh.
The book ends with another one of the protagonists on a
walk through a totally different part of the forest, when
he suddenly encounters... Bramblestar?? But it's a ghost.
The ghost-Bramblestar runs towards him, yelling "Help!
Please help!" The protagonist flees in terror. The
atmosphere of the scene is excitingly horror-esque in a
way that no Warriors book before has been.
Things only escalate in books 2 and 3, with each passing
book amping up both the intense ominous feeling of the
story and the chilling menace of the living "Bramblestar's"
actions. In book 2, "Bramblestar" spends all his time with
Squirrelflight, creepily fawning over her and insisting she
approve all her actions with him. At the same time, he
uses his position as the respected leader of a Clan to push
for aggressive punishment for cats who commit minor
infractions. He argues that he knows why StarClan has
gone silent—it's because the Clans aren't obeying their
Code strictly enough. In book 3 he pushes the other Clans
to join him in a war against the cats that refuse to bow to
his new regime, a war that ends near book 3's conclusion
with him beaten and captured by the heroes and their
allies.
As this goes on, the fandom starts to realize something.
The impostor pretending to be Bramblestar... is
an incredible villain. His writing hits notes of darkly
intimidating behavior rarely seen in this mediocre kids'
series, whether it's publicly threatening other cats for
disobeying him, trying to murder a protagonist in the dark
of night, or even—in one scene—privately gloating to one
of the protagonists about how successful his plan to fool
everyone has been. And all of this contrasts beautifully
with the other side of his personality that emerges
whenever Squirrelflight's name comes up: an obsessive,
unhealthy, pathetic interest in her. He makes dumb
mistakes and is easily tricked whenever another character
leads him to believe he might get to spend more time with
her. He drops everything and forgets all his other priorities
if she's involved. He's a simp. And the two styles of
behavior blend perfectly in the scenes where
his true personality comes out—when Squirrelflight
begins to push him away, knowing that something is
wrong, he becomes violent and brutal, verbally abusing
her and at one point bodily throwing her off a small ledge.
It's a thorough, shockingly cold and real portrayal of a man
obsessed with owning a woman. In a children's fantasy
book about anthropomorphized cats.
Of course, most of the fandom knew it was Ashfur. The
rumors and leaks helped, but even from the first book of
the arc it was obvious. His main goal being "habe sex w/
Squireflit" is more than enough to prove that, but there
were other hints too. In book 1, a protagonist has a vision
of the cats' territory being suddenly set aflame—and of
flakes of ash falling into his fur. (Yes, the book uses those
words.) In book 2, the impostor references specific past
events that Ashfur would be overly concerned with, and is
clueless as to significant events that happened shortly
after Ashfur's death. In book 3, in the scene where the
"horror" vibe peaks, the impostor's spirit emerges
temporarily from Bramblestar's body and menacingly
threatens a protagonist—and though its appearance is
smoky and indistinct, the protagonist can see its eyes are
a bright blue, just like Ashfur's.
That book (which released earlier this year) ends with the
impostor captured and Squirrelflight about to announce
to all the cats that she believes she knows who he really
is—but by that time the cover of book 5 had already been
revealed. This is the cover, and this is official artwork of
Ashfur.
Ashfur: The Fandom, Redux
I hope you were all anticipating this last part, because our
story wouldn't be complete without it. Despite all the
hints above and more I didn't mention... the fandom, as
always, had diehard holdouts who refused to believe it
was Ashfur at all costs. Thus did the last 1.5 years in the
fan community become a strange rebirth of Ashfur wars,
with many of the same elements of the original ones.
Because, you see, one of the chief arguments the Ashfur
deniers used was that Ashfur would never do these things.
He would never try to murder other cats. He would never
wreak havoc and turn the Clans against themselves. He
would never hurt Squirrelflight like that!
I assume I don't need to provide counter-arguments.
Other arguments came from a variety of places. Some
fans, as always, clearly had no idea what was actually
going on in the current books, and were arguing from a
place of ignorance. Some latched onto theories that the
impostor was instead whoever their personal favorite
villain was. Some argued that, while Ashfur was evil and
murderous, he would never take the actions that the
impostor had and try to manipulate all of the Clans,
because he only cared about Squirrelflight. These people
were essentially in denial, since anyone who follows the
news knows that men can do absolutely horrific things to
unrelated people when acting on anger about being
rejected.
At one point I encountered a post suggesting that
Mothwing—a still-living, female, non-blue-eyed atheist—
was the impostor and that all the Ashfur theories were
ignoring the obvious truth... though it was probably a troll.
Even when the book 5 cover was revealed, the holdouts
for the most part insisted there was no proof that the cat
on the cover was Ashfur and not another cat with a similar
appearance. And when all else failed, they had one
argument they could always fall back on: It doesn't matter
whether it is Ashfur, it matters whether it should be
Ashfur. Ashfur coming back as a villain, they argued, would
be a stupid twist. It would ruin the story and there was no
hope of the books being good if it really was him. Massive
positive fan response to TBC and adoration for its new
characters tended to disagree.
The Reveal
And now we come to the close. With book 3 having ended
on a cliffhanger like that, most fans eagerly began the wait
for the release of book 4 this November. While it seemed
like Squirrelflight was seconds away from saying Ashfur's
name, most fans were hesitant to assume that would
happen. After all, this is Warriors, a series famous for its
meandering plot and refusal to let characters
actually figure out the mysteries before the last book of an
arc. Everyone prepared to be disappointed when they
opened book 4 and found Squirrelflight saying "I know
who the impostor is... but I can't tell you yet!!"
Nope! A couple weeks ago, a small preview of the book
was released online. In chapter 1, Squirrelflight says "It's
Ashfur." In chapter 2, the characters trick Ashfur into
saying "Yes, I am Ashfur" to Squirrelflight—complete with
two fantastic villain monologues, one where he talks
about his lust for her, and one where he rages at the other
characters that he still has more plans and they haven't
beaten him yet.
With any luck, the remaining three books of the arc are
going to be fantastic, and all because teen girls in 2010
had the hots for an angsty murdering incel wHosE oNLy
CriMe WaS tO LoVe ToO mUcH.
TLDR: Woman writes children's fantasy cat books where
a man tries to burn a woman's children alive because she
wouldn't go out with him. Online fandom argues for
years over whether he was actually evil or just a sexy
misunderstood bad boy. New writing team takes over cat
books a decade later, sees online controversy, and
decides to bring the character back as a villain again,
leading to fantastic books with chilling villain scenes and
transforming the incel into one of the best-written
characters in the series.