Thoughts on Heatherstar and old WindClan? (Tallstar's Revenge).

So really quick if you haven't read Tallstar's Revenge please do. It's honestly a really good book in my opinion and it's fascinating seeing how Tallstar grew up into one of the greatest leaders in the Four Clans.

With that out of the way the book has also made WindClan one of my favorite Clans in general, because I really like the idea that in a way, WindClan sort of held some traditions from the Tribe of Rushing Water (granted not Cave Guards or Prey Hunters), by having two groups within the Clan, the tunnelers and moor runners. It is honestly a really cool idea that old WindClan structured themselves like that and it makes me really wish the other Clans had something similar.

And then we get to Heatherstar. Personally, I do like the character because I feel like she's meant to be polarizing. But as a Leader I don't honestly know how to feel about her. Now right away the book doesn't cover the full breadth of her time as Leader, but it does give us several events that have occurred during her reign. And a lot of those events make me really dislike her as a leader.

While she was leader there was significant strife between moor runners and tunnelers. And she very much leaned in favor of moor runners, and goes out of her way to screw over the tunnelers several times (primarily through denying them apprentices, though granted one mother had requested her kits all become Moor Runners due to a traumatic incident), which is fine but she then outright breaks a promise she makes to the Tunnelers by making Tallpaw a moor runner, despite his family being tunnelers, before finally announcing an end to the practice following Sandgorse's death. Now yes tunneling did have its dangers, but now knowing that practice existed I have to wonder if a lot of what happens to WindClan in TPB could've been prevented if the practice had been maintained. Because that decision certainly did unify WindClan but it also significantly weakened the Clan as well. At least in my opinion.

She also is shown to not be overly concerned with the interpersonal issues within WindClan. She generally ignores most of the friction and tension between Tunnelers and Moor Runners, only ever intervening in ways that just seem designed to make relations worse. Things get especially problematic when Tallpaw and Shrewpaw are shown to generally dislike each other at best and outright hate each other at the very worst. Occasionally she intervenes, but she has never stepped in enough to prevent bloodshed, like when their problems escalated to the point that Tallpaw very nearly murdered Shrewpaw (granted it was kinda deserved but still). There were absolutely no repercussions against Tallpaw, even though he knew he was in the wrong. She does eventually tell Talltail that he can talk to her about anything, but that's only after she makes him a warrior and honestly I think most other leaders would've stepped in and intervened well before it ever got to that point, especially if their mentors were failing to reign in their behavior towards each other.

So, I feel really conflicted about Heatherstar. On one hand I do think she is an interesting character, but I do believe that as a leader she heavily mismanaged WindClan. I'm curious how other people feel about Old WindClan and Heatherstar in general. I am still reading Tallstar's Revenge, for any curious.