Darktail's Judgement

darktails judgement just came out on the 8th! and oh my god. this book is truly crazy. however, i've seen a lot of people just.. taking the wrong message from it. or not seeing that there is a message at all.

ill preface this by saying i liked this book. a warrior cats book will never be great, but i dont think this one is bad. 

a villain pov book, especially one like darktail, is obviously going to be brutal. horrific, even. ive seen people say that the message was just 'dont be evil or whatever' but.. no?? i think it's very clear that the main thing to take away from this is that its okay to be angry about unfair situations, the world is unfair, but if you just let it fester and never learn to grow past it, you will end up hateful and alone. 

ive also seen "the brutality doesnt have a point beyond shock value" but like... what did you expect? darktail is one of the villains in warriors who has killed the most. we already knew that. obviously a book just about him is going to include a lot of fucked up shit. pick up watership down or something this book is not that bad man

SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON!

the point of it is to really drive home how far gone he is. time and time again he is given a chance to turn his life around, to fix things, but his anger and fixation on onestar consumes his every thought and thus, he dives deeper into the hole he's dug himself. you are not supposed to feel bad for him, necessarily, but you are supposed to understand what has lead him here. in his early life hes been repeatedly lied to and given false promises, in which he held onto like a lifeline. a lifeline that never came. his father never came back for him like he promised, because he never intended to at all. up until around apprentice age he believed it, even though DUDLEY (what a dick) kept rubbing it in his face that he was never going to be a clan cat and that onestar was never going to come for him. 

over time, he becomes aggressive and reactive. his mother Smoke, knowing they can't stay in this house, takes him with her away from twolegplace. where shes hit by a car. yeesh. darktail at this point becomes wayyy more sad and upset and angry at the world. he then meets sol. this is before the eclipse i assume, as sol only mentions skyclan, not the other clans which darktail is looking for.

sol takes him under his wing. teaches him how to manipulate people to do things for him as he hardly knows how to hunt. sol is revealed to have a love interest. its not really explicitly stated if they are MATES but sol "might be in love with her". (yes, her. WHAT??) 

darktail is not fucking happy. sol is spending more time with her. giving her more attention than him. i find this really interesting. darktail seems to have this awful fear of being alone, or rather being abandoned like he was by onestar. 

despite his fear of abandonment and his anger at sol for fucking off for this shecat, darktail, after receiving a vision/dream where he gets two options- one where he is happy with a mate and kits in a sun-kissed field, and the other where he is angry and alone, surrounded by death- he doesn't change his ways. 

rather, after feeling confused and lost and vulnerable- he goes and SLOWLY TORTURES AND KILLS A RABBIT. when found by his potential love interest marigold, hes just like 'oh yeah lulz at least i didnt kill a cat. that would be crazy right?'

dot dot dot

then he kills marigold because, first of all, she said their relationship wasnt gonna work because he didnt want kits. second of all, she confronts him about his past MURDER and how he RIPPED A RABBIT TO PIECES ALIVE!!! 

im gonna cut it off here because.. i think it speaks for itself.
if you dont know much about warrior  cats, after a lot of manipulating people to join his murder cult to go kill his dad, a lot of killing people who left his murder cult, he confronts onestar and reveals to everyone that theyre related. and they drown each other and both die. the only thing hes thinking at this time isnt 'oh shit im gonna die', its 'what if this isnt his last life and ive done this all for nothing?' reminiscing on the people who actually cared about him. his mother, rain, marigold..

So what is there to take away from this?

Can anything really be taken away from this?

Sure.

But should there be anything taken away from this? The entire book is basically Darktail killing and/or torturing other cats and small animals because he wants control. His motive is clear, kill his father for his abandoning of him. It's said that that's his only intention, but hurting other for fun isnt really.. showing of that. 

I feel like a lot of things went unsaid in this book. Or rather, people can't think critically about it. It's not senseless shock value. It's shown that Darktail struggles with his control of himself and his own life, and thus seeks it out by manipulating and physically harming others. 

There's no defending him. But I think it's important to see it.

And I do think there's a moral, as stated previosuly.

You will never be happy if you live out of hatred. There are things that are unfair, and things you can't control, and you can be angry. You're allowed to be angry.

But you can't change if you don't let yourself. It'll just take over your life and ruin everything. Your relationships, your friendships, your family, and your future.

guhh im sooooo deeeeeepp!!!!!
i should psychoanalyze him later maybe

AND ITS NOT A BAD BOOK FOR FUCKS SAKEEE EDGY DOES NOT EQUAL BAD WRITING 

-kas