Spotfur as a character hasn't been demolished in the ways that Shadowsight or Bristlefrost were,

and she wasn't suddenly torn from her trajectory like Mothwing or Stemleaf.

But she was, for reasons I will go over in this video, an extremely important character to get right,

and her novella...hasn't done that.

Another warning, as my last sentence might have implied, this episode will conclude with spoilers from Spotfur's Rebellion,

one of the novellas in the pack “A Warrior's Choice” released at the beginning of April.

If you want to avoid spoilers for that, feel free to skip off when I give the spoiler warning and come back when you have read the book.

As I have made abundantly clear already Thunderclan has fallen from grace overtime,

and is now filled with nobodies who have never spoken and whose names we barely remember.

Additionally, deciding to stay in your clan because of your connections to it

is being used as the justification for Bristlefrost and Rootspring deciding to stay apart and continue their pining from a distance.

In this vein, it is imperative that there *be cats with actual connections to the protagonists*

and for that to happen there need to *be actual characters in the protagonists' clans at all.*

It sounds simple, but it's become especially rare in recent books, making the protagonists' declarations of loyalty sound fake.

Going into the Broken Code, and unfortunately putting aside Bristlefrost's entire family that she barely ever talks to,

we only had two characters in Thunderclan who were remotely in the right place to become Bristlefrost's friends,

and reasons for her to believe in and stay in Thunderclan: Stemleaf, and Spotfur.

Stemleaf did have a massive advantage in this regard.

He was already friends with Bristlefrost and they had a pretty big event between them

that could help to define their future relationship:

Bristlefrost confessing her feelings and being let down, since Stemleaf didn't see her that way and liked Spotfur instead.

However, both Stemleaf and Spotfur could have easily been affected by this event and what followed:

where Bramblestar's imposter took over the clan

and both cats joined an inter-clan team who wanted to take him down as prominent members.

This would give both Stemleaf and Spotfur plenty of chances to show off their personalities and develop in opposition to Bristlefrost,

who was working with the imposter for much of the group's formation time.

Later on, they would have the chance to clash directly and reconcile,

quite possibly becoming Bristlefrost's closest friends in the clan (not that they would have much competition).

But...well let's see what actually happened.

Stemleaf was a respected but fairly basic warrior and clearly cared about Bristlefrost, but only as a friend.

Still, since they do care about each other going into The Silent Thaw,

it truly hurt when Bristlefrost took actions that damaged Spotfur,

and with it her relationship with her friend until she joined the rebels herself.

He still didn't show much of a personality beyond “good warrior, likes Spotfur” but it was something.

Then, as we all by now know...in Veil of Shadows he died, rather unceremoniously,

and any potential he might have had as a character or an anchor for Bristlefrost died with him.

Now Spotfur is all that's left, and she had far less to start off with.

In the first book she didn't even spend much time with Stemleaf.

She seemed to only appear once Stemleaf pointed out her existence, which started Bristlefrost's secret jealousy over the other she-cat.

Then in the second book, any small amount of goodwill between them was destroyed

when Bristlefrost targeted her first to receive Imposterstar's ire,

and Spotfur got understandably angry at her and called her a spy.

She also, during this book, somehow began the rebel group.

She tagged along with Stemleaf on missions in Veil of Shadows and saw Stemleaf die,

though we didn't stick around long enough to see her reaction.

Afterwards, though, she was very angry: firmly on the side of killing Bramblestar

and thinking of Bristlefrost as an irredeemable traitor also at fault for her mate's death.

She goes through a lot, but halfway through the arc we still hadn't seen any defining character traits: only reactions,

and even her relationship with Stemleaf had next to no on screen time.

She's a character that's exceptionally important to define and develop, and she has the space in the plot for it,

but the work hasn't been done.

And then of course came Darkness Within, my dreaded nemesis.

Spotfur did get more focus in this book than any before,

as someone grieving the loss of her mate and dealing with the reality that she'll have to raise these kits alone,

and travel and work alongside the cat she still hasn't forgiven for her part in his murder.

Spotfur is closed off and distant, choosing to deal with her emotions herself and suffer even physically alone,

which makes perfect sense considering the alternative is speaking with Bristlefrost.

Bristlefrost acts like nothing is wrong between them, and her lack of personal grief over Stemleaf's death isn't helping them to connect.

A lot of the book ends up being Bristlefrost lecturing Spotfur about how she should learn to move on and take care of the kits,

which is exactly the wrong conversation that should be happening.

Bristlefrost keeps calling Spotfur her friend in her head,

but nothing in Spotfur's behavior makes us believe this is reciprocated,

and whether it was intentional or not, it makes sense.

If any deep conversations happened between them in this book,

it should have been *Bristlefrost* apologizing to *Spotfur* for the significant pain she caused the other she-cat personally,

and Spotfur teaching Bristlefrost to stick with what she knows to be right, even against cats she considers authority.

That could have given them a chance to become real friends,

and for Spotfur to open herself up enough for us to see what...you know, her personality is,

because as compelling as Spotfur's grief over Stemleaf is,

it would be far more so if we knew anything about Spotfur before this reaction

to help us care about her and want to bring her back to her old self,

or if we knew what Stemleaf and Spotfur's relationship was: who either of them were as cats and how they fit in as a couple.

I think I've proven why it's really important, for Bristlefrost in this case but for protagonists in general,

to have genuine, tangible attachments to their clan, and of all of Bristlefrost's theoretical connections,

Spotfur is the one with the most potential and existence in the narrative to actually become that attachment.

So it is vital that, if given the chance of...say, a novella, the writers explore who she is outside of her known events and reactions,

and that we get her side of the relationship with Bristlefrost that could lay the foundations for true friendship between them...

or a hatred that she won't let go of that would prevent any relationship between them but I doubt they would do that.

And that brings us to Spotfur's Rebellion.

As this is the section that will start containing spoilers, I'll give you a few seconds to evacuate if you'd like to read the book yourself first.

I'll start by saying that I honestly don't think this was a bad book.

In fact, of the three novellas, it was probably the best.

It gave more focus to some of the grosely underused background cast in Thunderclan, admittedly not a high bar to clear,

and explored bits of Spotfur's past in her early relationship with Stemleaf.

But it didn't go far enough for what the main arc it branches off from needs.

We did get some completely new content in Spotfur's childhood

as an apprentice who enjoyed the thrill of rebellion and used it to impress her already-crush, Stemleaf.

This is...more characterization than we've ever seen from her,

but I take issue with the picture this presents of present-day Spotfur.

It implies that, at some level, standing up to Bramblestar was a matter of enjoyment

rather than taking a stance against unjust treatment to herself and her clanmates, along with cats from other clans.

She loses some of her implied moral righteousness from the main series.

The alternative is that her rebelliousness is there to show she's someone willing to disregard the rules in favor of...anything else,

which will eventually help her ignore Imposterstar's unjust rules.

But even this case still equates goofing off around the border to impress a crush

to allying with members of rival clans to take down your leader because his current behavior is immoral.

It doesn't leave a good impression.

And other than that small section, the book is just a retelling of events we've already seen

with very little added even in the differing point of view.

This was a problem with all three of the novellas in A Warrior's Choice.

In different ways, they all felt very derivative, more so than Warriors usually is.

In Spotfur's Rebellion's case, there are important things that should have been touched on that just...weren't.

The story didn't tell us how Spotfur formed the rebel group, how cats from other clans were contacted,

if there were any cats she tried but failed to pull in, how the other clans were feeling about it,

or even how most of the clan felt about Bristlefrost when she followed Bramblestar.

In its effort to make the clan seem like an adversary, we didn't get to see anyone but Stemleaf take Spotfur's side,

with even her parents saying Bramblestar is great and we should follow him regardless of what he does.

However, when we saw Bristlefrost's side, she often felt like the whole clan was disappointed in or even scared of her.

You can't have it both ways.

Because so little was added in the plot, we also got very little expansion of Spotfur's character.

Pretty much the only example is her rebellious streak from her childhood,

along with the default nice personality applied to most semi-important characters.

She didn't feel like she led a rebellion at all, despite the title.

The rebels just...happened, in a way we weren't shown, and then faded out as they weren't needed.

And the same was unfortunately true in her relationship.

Spotfur's Rebellion was the chance to give the Broken Code an opportunity to make

good on at least some of its promises and potential...but it didn't use that chance at all.

It didn't degrade the arc either, but with how many holes The Broken Code has in its plot and its characters,

it and Spotfur really needed a boost...one they did not receive.

Thank you for watching, and always remember to

stand up for what you believe in...not just for fun.