Forbidden romance in Warriors
The true test of a warrior
BY KATE CARY
Whether you love them or hate them, forbidden romances are an unavoidable fact of Clan life. From time to time, one of our characters is bound to spy a pretty pelt or a pair of wide, green eyes across the border and be smitten by a cat far smarter or cuter than anyone in their own clan.
I love writing forbidden romances because they allow us to test our characters to their very limit. How? Because, when we let them fall in love with a cat from another Clan, we force them to ask questions they’d never ask if they fell in love with their Clanmate.
Is love more important than loyalty?
Would you ever abandon your Clan?
Could you hurt a former Clanmate in battle?
And, when we make a character ask questions, we make you ask questions too – about love and loyalty and what it means to be a true warrior. Let me explain.
When Bluestar gave up her kits to become the deputy of ThunderClan, was she being a true warrior? Is it nobler to give up your kin for your Clan, or your Clan for your kin? This is something we let you decide for yourselves, but I will always believe that Bluestar’s heart-breaking decision makes her one of our most heroic characters ever. I’m not so sure about Leafpool’s decision. Asking Squirrelflight to pretend to be mother to her kits allowed Leafpool to remain ThunderClan’s medicine cat, but it always felt like a compromise – that she tried to hide her love rather than own it, that she failed to commit either to Crowfeather or her kits. And yet, I can’t condemn her for it because it’s her flaws that make her such an endearing character.
But we don’t just use forbidden romance to ask questions. It allows us to turn the drama in a Warriors story up to eleven. I bet you still remember Graystripe crouching next to Silverstream as she died giving birth to his kits. And Tigerclaw’s horror at finding them. “What – these are your kits?…They’re half-breeds. No Clan will want them!” In that single, tragic scene, we witnessed Graystripe’s loyalty, Silverstream’s courage and Tigerclaw’s deep evil. Even while he was being outraged, we all knew how secretly delighted our darkest warrior must have been to find Firestar’s best friend in such a compromising position.
And do you remember Feathertail’s romance with Crowfeather? Lionblaze and Heathertail? Yellowfang and Raggedstar? I hope so. They were relationships where every moment left us wondering what would happen next and what decisions our beloved characters would eventually make. And it’s being uncertain about the decision we want them to make that keeps us holding our breath. Should they choose their love over their Clan, or their Clan over their love?
To add to the drama, forbidden romance has tension built in; there is always the fear that they will be discovered. I can still feel the anxiety of Tigerheart and Dovewing’s secret meetings. Would they be caught? And if they were, could their love survive across a border littered with obstacles? And the yearning and conflict a forbidden romance brings will stay with every Warriors reader long after they’ve finished the books in a way an uneventful domestic romance can’t. Firestar’s courtship of Sandstorm may have been sweet, but there was never enough jeopardy to make us hold our breath and wonder whether there could ever be a happy ending. How much better we remember his secret crush on Spottedleaf, a medicine cat he could never be with.
Should they choose their love over their Clan, or their Clan over their love?
Dovewing (bless her blue/green eyes) gives us a chance to see what happens when a cat does choose their love over their Clan. She breaks the warrior code and follows Tigerheart to ShadowClan. I think she was incredibly brave – you might think she’s foolish – to live among cats who might never entirely trust her. Not only is she from ThunderClan, ShadowClan’s bitterest rival, but she has proved that she is capable of abandoning her birth-clan. ShadowClan might well think that, if she couldn’t stay loyal to the Clan who raised her, how could she stay loyal to the Clan she’d joined? They might wonder how hard she’d fight in a battle against her former Clanmates and whether she could ever harm warriors who are kin. And yet they might also see that she is prepared to sacrifice everything out of loyalty to a ShadowClan cat. Her dedication to Tigerheart and to her kits has outstripped ties of birth. She chose ShadowClan. Doesn’t that mean she wants to be there more than a warrior who is simply born into the Clan?
What would you choose? Love or loyalty? Clan or kits? These aren’t questions an apprentice has to answer in order to earn their warrior name. Their mentor only assesses their fighting and hunting skills. We test more than that. By letting our characters’ hearts wander across borders, we force them to examine their deepest feelings and beliefs in order to work out what it means to be a true warrior.
