r/WarriorCats

We all truly love this series; which is why I’m making this discussion. I recognize these books are mostly written for a younger audience, but given the intense themes they explore and the longevity of the series, I think we really need to acknowledge that the lack of cohesion and consistency is ruining the series. Most of the discussions here are about the authors literally forgetting entire plot lines and characters. I do recognize it’s a lot to keep track of, but with multiple authors, editors, etc - I’m struggling to understand how the authors haven’t made an an acknowledgment of that, or at least attempted to correct it. Their direction with art is a huge plus, but I worry it’s going to stop there. We as fans should be pushing for more cohesion, considering what the series offers to future generations.

So I'm currently rereading TNP, and I came across a rather peculiar line in the book referencing an illness I've never heard before nor since to my memory. Blackcough.

To quote: "...weakened by hunger, the Clan would be in danger of greencough and deadly blackcough even more than usual."

Except, to my memory, Blackcough has never been mentioned before in any of the books. It doesn't come up in the first series, and so I'm left scratching my head about this one. I haven't read the books in some time until now, but if memory serves, these are the only diseases mentioned in any of the books, and for the heck of it, my theories on what they actually are.

Whitecough - likely a bronchitis of some sort

Greencough - more than likely pneumonia

The unnamed plague that ravaged ShadowClan and killed Nightstar - This is without a shadow of doubt a reference to the bubonic plague and it actually turns out that cats are very vulnerable to it, which is sorta ironic.

Poison - The illness that killed several Windclan cats during TNP. This is just straight up poison but I'll add it here anyways. Also as an aside, I'm not 100% sure, but I'm fairly certain that this isn't the same thing that forced Mousefur to retire to the Elder's den. It's similar, but it doesn't seem Mousefur was in mortal danger, iirc.

But now we have Blackcough, which to my knowledge no cat in the books is reported to have contracted, but from this single line of text we can assume it is probably one of the most consistently deadly illnesses that the Clans face... So what is it? My best guess is that it is feline tuberculosis. The name Blackcough hints at it clearly being a respiratory disease, and considering the emphasis that the book puts on a disease we've never heard of before in the series, it is clearly significantly worse than greencough, which we've already established is most likely pneumonia. But inadvertently, the book may have actually confirmed this as true by accident. As stated, this disease never comes up in any book prior to Moonrise. Now, while this could just be the Erins upping the stakes to show how screwed the forest is by this point, it also could hint at this disease being so rare that it's not seen often. And indeed, Feline Tuberculosis irl is incredibly rare to see, and it is difficult to treat, requiring intensive care and powerful antibiotics to treat to have even a chance of a cat pulling through. So in Clanlife, this disease would be almost guaranteed to be fatal most cases, which could potentially explain why it's called Blackcough, because it's an illness that is simply just associated with death to most medicine cats. To an extent that could also explain why it's not mentioned prior to this book; because it's a disease no cat wants to risk having to encounter in their lifetime, so it's best to not say it often.

With that said, that is just a theory. I don't know if the Erins have ever actually openly explained or shed much light on the illnesses of the Clans, but I saw Blackcough mentioned and I got hung up on it. Thanks for reading this theory!

??????

Okay, so I've been getting back into Warrior Cats, and I've been wondering; where to Kittypet's go when they die? Do they still go to some sort of afterlife like StarClan, or do their ghosts just wander around?

Probably a stupid question here, but I just got back into reading for fun after remembering how good Brandon mulls stuff is. I remember hearing a lot of good things this series but never gave it much interest at the time. After looking it up I’m intrigued by the subjects it handles but intimidated by how many there are. Without spoilers, which I’d inevitably run into looking it up the alternative ways, would it be an enjoyable read for me?

So, with StormClan’s Folly, we have now seen two (failed) attempts at a merging between two Clans - Stripestar and Galestar unifying ThunderClan and WindClan to create StormClan, and Tigerstar I and Leopardstar unifying ShadowClan and RiverClan to create TigerClan (with plans of integrating WindClan and ThunderClan into TigerClan as well). Both of those merged attempts ended in disaster, and StarClan specifically ordered that StormClan never be mentioned again lest future generations try to create something like it. But this does make me wonder - both StormClan and TigerClan were a disaster, but is there any way that two Clans could successfully merge into a long-standing singular Clan? If so, how?