Sandbox / Warrior Cats: Ashfur

Due to the nature of this character, all spoilers will be unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

"It's like being cut open every day, bleeding onto the stones. I can't believe you failed to see the blood."^{Image source} Ashfur in The Ultimate Guide

"I have no quarrel with Brambleclaw. I couldn't care less about Brambleclaw. It's not his fault he fell for a faithless she-cat. I know you think I've never forgiven Brambleclaw for stealing you from me, but you're wrong, and so is every cat that thinks so. My quarrel is with you, Squirrelflight. It always has been."

Squirrelflight's Romantic False Lead in The New Prophecy. When she chooses Brambleclaw, he doesn't take it well. To be more precise, he tries to make her feel the same amount of emotional pain that he felt when she turned him down by killing some of her family members. When that doesn't work out, he tries to publicly humiliate her.

He is also the true imposter possessing Bramblestar and the main antagonist of The Broken Code.

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Tropes A-M

• Always Second Best: To Brambleclaw. Passed over for Squirrelflight's affections, passed over for the deputyship...
• Ascended Extra: He becomes part of Squirrelflight's Love Triangle in The New Prophecy. Then he becomes the Big Bad of the seventh arc! Not bad for someone who was just a minor character in the first arc.
• Asshole Victim: Threatened to kill three cats of his own Clan, one of whom was his own apprentice, just to hurt their mother, because she never returned his romantic feelings. And he gloated about it. Then he turns up dead, so the response is more 'wow, who did it?' than 'oh, poor Ashfur!'
• Ax-Crazy: Driven out of his mind by Squirrelflight's rejection, he helps Hawkfrost plan to kill Firestar, and tries to kill Hollyleaf, Lionblaze, and Jayfeather. And that's not even getting into what he does in The Broken Code.
• Bad Boss: During his reign of ThunderClan while possessing Bramblestar's body, Ashfur takes full advantage of Bramblestar's status as leader and abuses the position, placing his life above the whole Clan, going out of his way to bully and abuse its members. It's made apparent he doesn't care for any of them (with the exception of Squirrelflight), but still expects them to follow his leadership blindly on the basis that he is Clan leader, something he emphasizes frequently. During Shadowsight's time in ThunderClan's camp as a ghost in Veil of Shadows, he notes that every cat had a wary and scared look, very clearly not wishing to draw attention from their leader.
• Bed Trick: A G-rated, but still dark and creepy, version. He possesses Bramblestar's body in The Broken Code so he can finally be Squirrelflight's mate. She's justifiably furious when she finds out.
• Best Served Cold: His prologue in A Light in the Mist details how he spent years gathering information, secretly digging a tunnel to the Dark Forest by himself, concentrating power, and patiently biding his time in StarClan, before he found an opportunity to catapult himself back into the living world and punish Bramblestar and Squirrelflight.
• Big Bad:
  • In The Power of Three, the climax of the arc comes when Ashfur stands in the way of the three escaping a forest fire, with the intent to make Squirrelflight suffer by watching her children die.
  • In The Broken Code, after being dead for many years, he possesses Squirrelflight's mate's body with the intention of making her have no choice but to be his mate, and acts as a cruel leader to ThunderClan while acting as Bramblestar.
• Blaming the Victim: He blames Squirrelflight, the target of his obsession, and eventually everyone else he mistreats, for anything he does to them.
• Break the Cutie: He first appeared as a timid but determined apprentice who soon had his mother brutally murdered by Tigerstar, then years later lost the cat he thought would be his mate (Squirrelflight) to the son of Tigerstar (Brambleclaw), and then had to mentor their son. The Squirrelflight thing stuck with him the most.
• The Bus Came Back: After several generations of absence, he reveals himself as the main villain of the Broken Code arc.
• Children as Pawns: This seems to be a favorite tactic of Ashfur's. For example:
  • He uses his apprentice, Birchpaw, to deliver the message about Firestar being in danger to Brambleclaw, as part of his and Hawkfrost's plan to goad him into killing Firestar. At the time of New Prophecy, this was one of the only clues as to Ashfur being Hawkfrost's accomplice at all.
  • He manipulates Shadowpaw, a young and inexperienced medicine cat apprentice, into causing Bramblestar's death so he can possess his body. After Shadowpaw barely becomes Shadowsight, Ashfur continues to manipulate him, eventually convincing him to help him escape the ShadowClan camp.
  • He manipulates Bristlefrost, a young and inexperienced warrior, into being his spy.
• Commander Contrarian: In Graystripe's Vow, Dustpelt comments that Ashfur has always argued about and questioned everything for no apparent reason.
• Control Freak: As the impostor in The Broken Code while possessing Bramblestar's body. He becomes extremely strict on enforcing the rules, not only within ThunderClan but the other Clans as well, and begins to exile any cat who speaks against his behavior. He even starts checking on what his Clanmates are doing at all times and butting in on private conversations just to make sure they're not doing anything he doesn't want.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: He was willing to murder four cats (one of whom was his own apprentice) to hurt Squirrelflight — who had rejected him two years ago. To say nothing of him possessing her mate's body and later dragging her into the Dark Forest so they could be together.
• Deader than Dead: In A Light in the Mist, he's gone forever due to being drowned by Bristlefrost as a spirit.
• Demonic Possession: In The Broken Code arc, Ashfur manipulates events to kill Bramblestar and then possesses his corpse in an attempt to be with Squirrelflight.
• Did Not Think This Through:
  • In The Silent Thaw, Ashfur banishes Squirrelflight from ThunderClan for trying to rally the other Clans against him and then lying to his face about it. In the next book, Veil of Shadows, he reveals that he expected her to return sooner or later and beg to be allowed back; he never considered that she would instead seek sanctuary in ShadowClan.
  • Ashfur actually didn't seem to expect that cats would leave the Clan after getting tired of his poor leadership. When he exiles both Graystripe and Sparkpelt, several other cats join them in leaving the Clan, and Ashfur's response afterwards seems to indicate he wasn't anticipating that.
  • While a prisoner of the Clans in Darkness Within, Ashfur knowingly prods and antagonizes his captors and even goads a few of them into attacking him, but knows full well that they won't really kill him because they need Bramblestar's body. However, what Ashfur doesn't account for is that just about everyone is tired of him and his constant gaslighting and antagonizing has made everyone pretty much okay with having him die at the cost of losing Bramblestar. When the Clans hold a vote on whether to kill Ashfur or not, the majority wants him dead. When Ashfur catches wind of this, he actually begins to panic when he realizes he underestimated how much the Clans hate him.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The girl he likes chooses another guy over him, while gently saying she still wants to be friends. Ashfur's response is to try to murder her father and later her adopted children. And years later, he possesses her mate's body, drives the Clans into conflict, and drags her into cat-hell. Disporportionate doesn't begin to cover it.
• Dissonant Serenity: The ceremony to summon the ghosts of the dead in Darkness Within calls forth a bunch of writhing, howling cats who immediately horrify the Sisters and Rootspring...and then there's Ashfur, walking among the scene with complete calm.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Him demanding that Alderheart give him more poppy seeds to dull his "pain" after Squirrelflight's banishment and later her alleged death is reminiscent of someone abusing drugs to cope with their emotional issues. In fact, poppy seeds have opiate properties, so it would be like abusing perscription painkillers.
• Domestic Abuse:
  • Ashfur is probably the most glaring example of this in the series. He desperately and pathetically wants to be Squirrelflight's mate, but he's not above hurting her, emotionally or physically, when she doesn't go along with it. Whenever she rejects him or does things he doesn't like, his first response is to attempt to manipulate her with guilt-trips, and when that fails, he resorts to hurting her loved ones or Squirrelflight herself. This is probably best shown in The Silent Thaw, while Ashfur is possessing Bramblestar's body; he tries to keep Squirrelflight by his side at all times, slowly strips away her power as deputy, either shuts her down or belittles her whenever she disagerees with him, tries to get her daughter killed when she stands up to him, and when she finally realizes he's not her real mate and speaks out against him, he throws her off a ledge in anger and then exiles her.
  • His mentorship with Lionblaze counts as this, bordering on if not outright emotional abuse. Ashfur, while believing that Lionpaw was Squirrelflight's and Bramblestar's son, constantly switched between praising and belittling his apprentice, growing to the point where Lionpaw was unsure how Ashfur would react to anything he did. Jayfeather even makes a mental note that Ashfur and Lionblaze never shared the usual bond as mentor and apprentice. Both Jayfeather and Lionblaze mention to themselves that when Ashfur praised Lionpaw, there was never any warmth or genuine enthusiasm. In fact, on two occasions during training (the latter being when Lionblaze was a recently made warrior), Ashfur lets his hatred get ahold of him, and the two end up drawing blood.
  • Also, in a broader sense, there's what he does in The Broken Code to ThunderClan as a whole, during his time as the false Bramblestar. Ashfur mistreats ThunderClan, despite it being his birth Clan and has several living family members still there. He verbally abuses several members, emotionally manipulates others, and even outright assaults two of them.
• The Determinator: Probably the most villainous example of this in the series. Absolutely nothing, not even his own death, has deterred his goal to have Squirrelflight for himself, or make her suffer for rejecting him.
• The Dragon: Even before his role as the Big Bad in the third arc, he has a villainous role in The New Prophecy, serving as this to Hawkfrost, even going as far as to help Hawkfrost lead Firestar into a fox trap.
• Elder Abuse: He rakes his claws across Graystripe's nose in Veil of Shadows after Graystripe tells him off for his poor leadership. He also made the Clan stop letting the elders get first pick from the fresh-kill pile, and later outright stopped the Clan for caring for them, despite Ashfur having known the elders (Graystripe, Brackenfur, Brightheart, and Cloudtail) when he was alive. Cloudtail was even his foster brother, and the two were close before Ashfur's death.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Deconstructed. Ashfur claims over and over again that he loves Squirrelflight, but his refusal to accept her decision to become mates with Bramblestar, and the outrageously Disproportionate Retribution he tries to inflict on them both, makes that statement ring hollow. While his reaction to her supposed death is a definite sign that he at least cares about her existence, Ashfur's actions show that he ultimately doesn't care one bit if Squirrelflght is happy or not; he only cares about having her for himself and if he can't then he will make her suffer. Ultimately, Ashfur's dark and twisted obsession for Squirrelflight is nothing more than an insanely childish and abusive relationship.
• Entitled to Have You: He feels this way about Squirrelflight, even speaking of Brambleclaw "stealing" her from him, despite the two never being mates.
• Evil All Along: A variation. Ashfur wasn't always evil per say, but Graystripe's Vow heavily implies that, for all the virtues he once had, Ashfur always had the arrogance and sense of entitlement that led to his obsession with Squirrelflight. Throughout Graystripe's Vow, Ashfur spends most of his time constantly (and ultimately needlessly) arguing with other cats, especially Graystripe, and more or less trying to make them agree with him. When Graystripe reveals this to Dustpelt, Ashfur's former mentor, Dustpelt claims that Ashfur was always like that; as an apprentice, he would always argue with Dustpelt's decisions even if there was absolutely no good reason to do so, and he seemed (and still seems) incapable of understanding a simple fact of life; you can't always get your own way. Dustpelt resolves to tell Ashfur off for his continued arrogance, and while we don't see it happen, if Dustpelt did go through with it, it gives the reader the impression that Ashfur merely suppressed and/or hid his arrogance and sense of entitlement, until Squirrelflight's rejection made it come out again.
• Evil Counterpart: To Bristlefrost. They're both pale gray cats with blue eyes and start out as energetic apprentices eager to serve their Clan. They both suffer the tragedy of falling in love with a cat who doesn't return their feelings and ultimately passes them over in favour of another, leaving Ashfur and Bristlefrost understandably heartbroken. However, whereas Bristlefrost accepts Stemleaf's decision and eventually finds the strength to move on, Ashfur refuses to accept Squirrelflight's decision and ultimately allows his pain and bitterness to consume him to the point that he is willing to destroy everything if he can't have her. To really drive it home, Bristlefrost sacrifices herself to defeat Ashfur.
• Evil Gloating: Engages in some good old-fashioned evil taunting of Hollyleaf, Lionblaze, and Jayfeather in Long Shadows, while keeping them trapped in a forest fire.
• Evil Is Petty: Ashfur is, without a doubt, the most petty, vindictive and needlessly cruel character in the entire series. He tries to murder his own Clan leader, burn alive three innocent cats (including his former apprentice), destroy all the Clans, and obliterate the afterlives just because Squirrelflight refused to be his mate. Not even Tigerstar can compare with that sheer level of pettiness.
• Face–Heel Turn: Starts out kind and considerate, though a bit arrogant and condescending. Turns into an insanely jealous warrior after Squirrelflight turns him down and then descends into an attempted murderer. Then, in The Broken Code, this goes even further as his years in StarClan have made him even more bitter and sociopathic.
• Fallen Hero: As even his abused apprentice, Lionblaze grudgingly acknowledges, Ashfur, for all his faults, was once a genuinely loyal warrior who was willing to risk life and limb for his Clanmates. Sadly, his obsession with wanting Squirrelflight as a mate destroyed his loyalty to ThunderClan, and ultimately any and all redeeming qualities he ever possessed.
• Family Extermination: Played With. After Squirrelflight turns him down, Ashfur's response is to try and kill Firestar, who is Squirrelflight's father, and later tries to kill Squirrelflight's adopted children. He also tries this in The Broken Code arc, where he lists Lionblaze and Jayfeather as codebreakers for their half-clan heritage and later exiles them for it. He targets Squirrelflight's biological children, Sparkpelt and Alderheart, by trying to kill the former and verbally abuses the latter, exiling both of them from ThunderClan during his reign while possessing Bramblestar's body. He also makes veiled threats to Sparkpelt's children, Flamepaw and Finchpaw, and even yells at Finchpaw before also exiling her from ThunderClan later on.
• Fantastic Racism: Ashfur has made xenophobic remarks towards non-Clan cats, and especially towards those with mixed heritages.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • His obsession with Squirrelflight led to his death. This continues even as a spirit; while Ashfur is considerably more cunning, efficient and powerful than he was in life, his judgment becomes severely clouded whenever Squirrelflight is involved. His loss in the climax of Veil of Shadows is directly caused by him stopping in the middle of battle to gape at her when she reveals she was Faking the Dead, while in Darkness Within she is easily able to trick him into exposing himself by pretending to love him.
  • Also, in a broader sense, Ashfur's one-track mind and willingness to do anything to achieve what he wants has led to his downfall on several occasions, as he's too hyperfocused to pay attention or consider anything else. His plan to expose Squirrelflight's secret at the gathering? That ended up with Hollyleaf killing him out of desperation, despite Ashfur getting threats from Jayfeather and Lionblaze and was practically begged by Squirrelflight and Hollyleaf to not do it. In The Broken Code, Ashfur is so deadset on destroying the afterlives and the living Clans that he doesn't bother to stop and consider the full extent of what he's doing.
  • In A Light in the Mist, Ashfur abandons the final battle to try and kill Shadowsight again. Ashfur is so focused on throwing the medicine cat into the eerie waters of the Dark Forest that he fails to notice Bristlefrost tackling him off the edge until it's too late.
• Faux Affably Evil: Acts kind to everyone but Squirrelflight, Brambleclaw, Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, and Jayfeather. But by the end of The Power of Three, you know it's an act.
• Foreshadowing: There are several hints in The Broken Code arc as to him being the identity of the imposter possessing Bramblestar's body.
  • Lost Stars:
    • As an unnamed StarClan spirit talking to Shadowpaw, the imposter reveals his contempt for Bramblestar by mocking him. Ashfur ended his friendship with Bramblestar back in the second arc when Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight got together, and has hated him ever since.
    • After possessing Bramblestar's body, Ashfur remarks how good it was to see Squirrelflight again. In the following book, the imposter notes how he missed her "fire", and is extremely clingy to her, almost as if he hadn't seen her in years.
  • The Silent Thaw:
    • The imposter mistakenly calls Dewnose "Dewtail" and thought that Flipclaw was Dewnose's apprentice (Dewnose had Flipclaw's sister, Thriftear). After Dewnose corrects him, the imposter snaps that he knew that. Ashfur had died several years before Dewnose's birth and therefore wouldn't have known Dewnose in his life. It's also worth mentioning that Dewnose was one of the first warriors that the real Bramblestar made back in his early days of leadership, something that would have certainly stuck with the real Bramblestar.
    • Bristlefrost observes that the imposter was inspecting ThunderClan's camp as if it were unfamiliar (Bristlefrost calls his interest "intriguing") to him despite knowing Squirrelflight quite well. While Ashfur had known the lake camp in his life, it had gone through several changes prior to the start of The Broken Code.
    • While the imposter doesn't care for, if not outright dislike, ThunderClan, it becomes increasingly obvious that he holds a special hatred for Lionblaze, Jayfeather, Alderheart, and Sparkpelt, for apparently no reason at all. However, considering that Ashfur in life targeted Squirrelflight's children to kill them, it makes sense that he would do the same to the four of them while possessing Bramblestar's body. Ashfur is verbally abusive to Alderheart, tried to kill Sparkpelt, and bends over backwards to humiliate and berate Lionblaze and Jayfeather. In fact, Ashfur made sure to exile all of them during his reign of ThunderClan.
    • It's revealed that the imposter set up a trap for Sparkpelt in an attempt to kill her. The trap? Luring a pack of dogs with bloodied prey to a place on ThunderClan territory. It's alarmingly similar to how Tigerstar killed Brindleface, Ashfur's mother, back in the first arc.
  • Veil of Shadows:
    • The imposter is noted to have dark blue eyes by Shadowsight. Ashfur is the only male cat in the series to be described with them. Bristlefrost later comments to herself that "Bramblestar's" eyes flashed blue briefly.
    • After he's been deposed of and exposed as a fake, the imposter croaks out to Squirrelflight that he came back for her specifically. This is the final clue that Squirrelflight needed to deduce his true identity.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Ashfur lost his mom in an absolutely horrible way while he was still a young apprentice, and then later lost the she-cat he loved to the son of the cat who murdered his mom, but not a single one of the cats he hurts considers this to be justification, with Jayfeather even being incredulous that StarClan did. After Ashfur is revealed to be the imposter, virtually everyone agrees that Squirrelflight rejecting him absolutely does not justify bringing so much pain and suffering on all the Clans. In A Light in the Mist, Shadowsight mentally and verbally lampshades this.
  Shadowsight's thoughts: How could that be an excuse for the kind of malice Ashfur had inflicted on the Clans? A true warrior accepted defeat and moved on. Protecting their Clan was more important. But Ashfur had let his bitternes grow until it tainted his whole life. He must have nursed it in StarClan so that it poisoned his mind even after his death. And now he was determined to make all the Clans suffer, and all because Squirrelflight had chosen Bramblestar instead of him.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He went from a fairly average and affable apprentice, to an attempted murderer of ThunderClan's then-leader and his family due to his daughter's romantic rejection of him, and then to a supernatural threat even greater than Tigerstar.
• Hated by All: When the true nature of his death and motivations are revealed in The Forgotten Warrior, any positive opinions of him held by other cats quickly diminish. By The Broken Code, Ashfur is universally despised by the living and the dead, with the only cats who, at best, tolerate him are his Dark Forest lackeys.
• Hero Killer: He kills the Rebel Leader Stemleaf, The Medic Willowshine, and The Atoner Snowtuft. Indirectly, he even inflicts the wounds that finally kill first-arc hero Graystripe, although Graystripe doesn't succumb to these injuries until after Ashfur is gone.
• Hidden Villain: Conspires with Hawkfrost to kill Firestar in Sunset, but this isn't revealed until five books later, in Long Shadows.
• Hypocrite:
  • In The New Prophecy, Ashfur is shown to be distrustful of Hawkfrost and later outright claims that no one related to Tigerstar can be trusted, but Long Shadows reveals that he willingly conspired with Hawkfrost to kill Firestar. Heck, before he said the above line, he and Brambleclaw were established as good friends. Ashfur ended their friendship after Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw got together.
  • Throughout The Broken Code, Ashfur goes on and on about the warrior code and punishing those who break it, but he breaks the code himself several times, such as when he insists upon eating before the elders, and appoints Berrynose and later Bristlefrost, both of who have never had an apprentice, as deputy.
  • The Place of No Stars:
    • Ashfur insists that he loves Squirrelflight and doesn't want to hurt her... but then minutes later he mind-controls Bramblestar and later Stemleaf into attacking and physically hurting her (the latter is described as beating her). He also conveniently forgets that he has already hurt Squirrelflight, both emotionally and physically.
    • Ashfur berates Squirrelflight for "forcing" him to hurt her and the Clans, despite the obvious fact that he is willingly choosing to do it all and is currently planning to force the innocent spirits under his control to attack and kill their loved ones against their will.
  • In A Light in the Mist, Ashfur claims that Clan cats are "arrogant" and "full of themselves" and criticizes them for it, but these are two of his most prominent personality traits.
• I Reject Your Reality: By The Broken Code, Squirrelflight has been mates with Bramblestar for years, had kits with him, and given Ashfur increasingly-vitriolic tongue-lashings for his actions and obsession. He continues to think she'll be convinced to be with him, going so far as to drag her into the nearly-deserted Dark Fores.
• Icy Blue Eyes: Ashfur's blue eyes are one of his most striking details, and accurately reflect his cold and calculative behavior. This detail is also a hint as to him being the imposter.
• It's All About Me: He is such an entitled, obsessive and psychotic brat that he is willing to steamroll every cat, living and dead, and threaten the very planes of the afterlives to get Squirrelflight.
• Karma Houdini: In-universe, Jayfeather doesn't buy Yellowfang's explanation that Ashfur made it to StarClan because "His only fault was loving too much", despite his numerous murder attempts on himself, his siblings, and Firestar. This is later deconstructed, as him getting let off the hook allows him to return as a vengeful, lustful ghost who possesses Bramblestar, cuts off StarClan from the Clans, and throws the Clans into chaos and battle. Even StarClan asks themselves what they were thinking after that.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Throughout The Broken Code he mistreats the elders, many of whom were apprentices with him and one of whom is his foster brother.
  • In The Silent Thaw, he sets Sparkpelt up to be killed by dogs, which by itself would qualify for this, but context makes it even worse. Sparkpelt is a young, single mother whose two kits are new apprentices. Ashfur tries to get a cat in the same situation as his mother killed the exact horrible way his mother was.
• Knight of Cerebus: Ashfur is arguably the darkest villain the Clans have ever faced. Up until his reveal in Long Shadows, the Power of Three arc had been rather episodic and slice-of-life. The rest of the book and Sunrise have much more somber tones in comparison. Additionally, his reign as the antagonist of The Broken Code ushers in the darkest arc in the franchise, with a Genre Shift to supernatural horror, a dystopian regime, Domestic Abuse, the grooming and manipulation of two of the protagonists, the dead being Barred from the Afterlife and brainwashed, and the return of a much scarier Dark Forest. The ending is also the darkest and most bittersweet ever in the series, and leads into an overhaul of the warrior code for the first time.
• Light Is Not Good: Because he was accepted into StarClan, he has stars in his fur, which he retains even as the Big Bad of The Broken Code.
• Love Makes You Crazy: He went mad almost solely because Squirrelflight didn't return his feelings, and he swings back and forth between wanting to inflict that pain onto her, and wanting to convince her to give in and be with him.
• Love Makes You Evil: After being dumped by Squirrelflight, he attempts to kill her father and adopted children to make her feel the same pain he did.
• Loves the Sound of Screaming: When the Sisters perform a ceremony to call upon the Clan ghosts in Darkness Within, Rootspring spots Ashfur among them, listening to their anguished cries with satisfaction.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • He could rival Hawkfrost in this department. Ashfur tricks Shadowsight into murdering Bramblestar by pretending to be a noble StarClan warrior, which lets him possess the poor tom's body; coaxes and threatens Bristlefrost in equal measures into spying for him; and, even when he knows Ashfur's manipulating him, is still able to prod at Shadowsight's insecurities, feed him praise, and persuade him to release him from ShadowClan's camp.
  • Moreover, he's able to prod at Lionblaze when his former apprentice confronts him, able to get Lionblaze worked up enough to try killing him in a rage, despite Ashfur still being in Bramblestar's body. He displays a similar tactic when Hawkwing and Tigerstar try to interrogate him. Ashfur is purposefully difficult and elusive to their questions, even gaslighting Hawkwing into attacking him. His refusal to answer questions also causes Tigerstar to join in on attacking him, until both of them are stopped by Shadowsight.
  • When he was alive and infatuated with Squirrelflight, upon learning she had become mates with Brambleclaw, he unsuccessfully tried to manipulate her into choosing himself instead. In The Broken Code, while possessing Bramblestar's body and feigning his identity, Ashfur strips away her power as deputy and even prevents her from leaving camp, telling her that she needs to stand by him as "mates". He continues to do this throughout The Silent Thaw, though most notably he was able to touch a nerve when he pressed about why she lied about Leafpool's kits, getting angry with her and making Squirrelflight upset.
• Mass Hypnosis: In Darkness Within and The Place of No Stars, Ashfur is revealed to have the power to mind-control other spirit cats into obeying his every command; even attack their family and friends. He is able to control all the innocent spirits he has imprisoned in the Dark Forest at the same time.
• The Mole: He's Hawkfrost's mole in ThunderClan.
• Moral Myopia: Ashfur has made it clear, time and time again, that he believes Squirrelflight hurting him by refusing to be his mate is absolutely unacceptable and completely wrong, despite the fact that she rejected him politely and gently, and never meant to hurt him. Yet, he sees nothing wrong with him trying to hurt her, and countless other cats, on purpose.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Eventually decides the best way to be with Squirrelflight is to possess her mate's body after manipulating Shadowsight into killing Bramblestar.
• My Way or the Highway: In Veil of Shadows he, in Bramblestar's body, gives an ultimatum: that any cat who doesn't like his orders can leave the Clan.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In Veil of Shadows, Ashfur is genuinely heartbroken when Squirrelflight fakes her death and blames himself for it because he exiled her. It's his one moment of something halfway approaching decency, but he immediately goes right back to shucking responsibility and hurting others.

Tropes N-Z

• Never My Fault: The Broken Code makes it apparent that Ashfur feels no remorse or responsibility for any of his own evil deeds. In Darkness Within, he outright tells Shadowsight that he "never feels guilty". In The Place of No Stars, Ashfur asks Squirrelflight why she is "forcing him to do this", to which Squirrelflight rightly points out that she isn't "forcing" him to do anything and Ashfur has no one to blame but himself. In A Light in the Mist, Ashfur silently blames Squirrelflight for "driving" him to commit all his evil deeds.
• Not Good with Rejection: He is extremely upset over Squirrelflight getting back together with Brambleclaw. It's later revealed that he took Squirrelflight's rejection murderously poorly. In The Place of No Stars, Ashfur is still completely baffled as to why Squirrelflight still doesn't want him after he's done so much to try to win her over.
• Oh, Crap!: Bristlefrost registers panic overtaking him as she drowns them both in A Light in the Mist, the one moment in his reign of evil where he's actually afraid.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Ashfur is completely willing to destroy both StarClan and the Dark Forest if it meets making Squirrelflight his mate, and doesn't care what he has to do in order to achieve it. His hatred of StarClan also plays a factor in this. It is worth noting however, that Ashfur doesn't even seem to be aware of the actual repercussions his actions would have if he follows through.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • In Sunset, Jayfeather appears to Ashfur in a dream and borderline threatens him to not reveal the secret. Ashfur remains indignant, but in the waking world the next morning, Jayfeather notices that Ashfur is notably spooked by him regardless.
  • In Darkness Within, when he realizes the Clans intend to kill him regardless of Bramblestar's ghostly situation, Ashfur begins to panic and quickly manipulates Shadowsight into freeing him. It's important because up until that point, Ashfur knowingly gaslit and goaded basically everyone around him when he was a prisoner.
  • In A Light in the Mist, when Firestar possesses Rootspring while in the Dark Forest and talks to Ashfur in his real voice, Ashfur drops his confident attitude and immediately realizes something's wrong, and races to the border of StarClan and the Dark Forest.
• Pitiful Worms: Refers to Clan cats as "like rats" at the end of Darkness Within and clearly shows no loyalty to the culture he once upheld, let alone his birth Clan.
• Playing the Victim Card:
  • During Long Shadows, he blames and bemoans other cats for "ignoring" his pain and getting what he wants. He does this ignoring that he is extremely good at masking his feelings and isn't entitled to another cat's affections.
  • He keeps this up in The Broken Code, except now he's added being "forced" into villainy as one of his ways to make his Clan suffer.
• Possessing a Dead Body: In The Broken Code, Ashfur is able to manipulate the young Shadowpaw into killing Bramblestar so Ashfur can possess his body in an attempt to be with Squirrelflight. Ashfur, having severed the connection with StarClan prior, leaves Bramblestar stranded as a ghost and unable to reclaim his body.
• Psychopathic Man Child: Ashfur is the most glaring example of this in the series. He feels a massive entitlement to Squirrelflight's affections, and eventually, anything else he wants. Whenever he doesn't get what he wants, he refuses to accept it and responds by trying to manipulate those who have refused him, or outright hurting them, or simply losing his temper.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Ashfur receives many of these from other cats.
  • Veil of Shadows:
    • The normally quiet Alderheart gets enraged after Ashfur, as Bramblestar's imposter, exiles both Twigbranch and Finleap. Alderheart reprimands the false leader for demanding the unqestioned obedience of the Clan, and that sometimes it's right to question orders. Ashfur gets angry at his comments and exiles Alderheart from the Clan, calling him a faithless medicine cat. Alderheart retorts back "what about a faithless leader?", and that ends up making Ashfur scream at him to get out of the Clan. Considering this came from Alderheart of all cats, it's really telling how awful Ashfur's leadership of ThunderClan was.
    • Graystripe tells him off for his poor leadership, demanding the blind obedience of the Clan, and general poor treatment of everyone. This results in Ashfur attacking Graystripe, which Graystripe then uses to proclaim that the real Bramblestar would never have harmed his own warrior, and outs Ashfur as an impostor of Bramblestar.
  • Darkness Within:
    • Lionblaze confronts him while Ashfur is imprisoned in ShadowClan's camp, condemning him for stealing Bramblestar's body and reminding his old mentor that he tried to kill him and his littermates years ago.
    • Squirrelflight condemns him for everything he's done after Ashfur confronts her and pleads that he loves her. She angrily tells him that she could never love him after he killed and stole Bramblestar's body and has nearly torn ThunderClan apart. Ashfur seems to take this a bit more personally, and his immediate reaction is to incapacitate Squirrelflight and drag her into the Dark Forest.
  • In The Place of No Stars, Squirrelflight once again refuses to be Ashfur's mate, disgustedly telling him that, after everything he's done, she wouldn't choose to be with him even if he were the only other cat left in the world. As noted by Shadowsight, Ashfur is angered and genuinely hurt and bewildered by Squirrelflight's rejection, showing just how delusional he really is.
  • A Light in the Mist:
    • Shadowsight denounces Ashfur, telling him that he is nothing but an evil fiend who doesn't understand what love is because if he truly loved Squirrelflight he would accept her decision to be with Bramblestar rather than try to destroy everything she loves.
    • Graystripe confronts Ashfur and delivers a pretty harsh speech given to him from Squirrelflight, once more condemning him for all he has done and how Squirrelflight does not, or ever will, love him. Ashfur at first is bewildered, if not outright confused as to why Squirrelflight would want him to hear this, but as Graystripe continues on, Ashfur's reaction turns to anger and assaults Graystripe.
• The Rival: He views Brambleclaw as his in The New Prophecy, and Brambleclaw doesn't seem to like Ashfur getting along with Squirrelflight very much, either.
• Rival Turned Evil: With Brambleclaw in The New Prophecy, but by the third arc Ashfur has descended into a villain who hates Brambleclaw for "stealing what was his", as Ashfur puts it.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Tries to do this in Long Shadows but ultimately fails. His attempt in The Broken Code is slower, more subtle, and works much better.
• Romantic False Lead: He looks like he might end up with Squirrelflight in Twilight, but she gets back together with Brambleclaw in Sunset.
• Romantic Runner-Up: Squirrelflight chooses Brambleclaw over him, which ultimately sets him off on his Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• Sadist: The Broken Code makes it clear that Ashfur has become one. He takes a rather disturbing amount of pleasure in tormenting Shadowsight, terrorizing Sparkpelt and trying to get her killed by dogs, turning the Clans against one another, torturing his enslaved ghosts, and forcing Rootspring and Snowtuft to fight each other. Most notably, in A Light in the Mist, he outright admiits that he will enjoy making Squirrelflight for rejecting him.
• Satanic Archetype: Ashfur invokes this trope in a rather symbolic way. He started out as a fairly normal individual before Lust combined with Envy led him to betray his leader, and eventually, his fellow spirits in StarClan. His obsession with Squirrelflight and inability to see her as anything more than a possession is similar to Satan only understanding Lust. During his time manipulating the Clans, Ashfur shows himself to be charismatic, deceitful, manipulative, and narcissistic. Also, a lot of Ashfur's scenes involve fire; a motif associated with the devil.
• Secret-Keeper: In Rising Storm, he doesn't tell his Clanmates that Cloudtail is sneaking Twoleg food.
• Single-Target Sexuality: He only ever showed interest in Squirrelflight, even after she chose Bramblestar over him. Unfortunately for her and everyone around them, his interest turns into straight-up obsession.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Downplayed, but still present. Veil of Shadows makes it clear that no matter how unjustifiably cruel, selfish and petty he is, Ashfur's inner torment about Squirrelflight is actually genuine. After he exiles her, he quickly becomes depressed, doing things like putting on weight, not grooming, sleeping in her old bedding because it smells of her, and even taking poppy seeds to dull his "pain."
• Small Name, Big Ego: Ashfur thinks very highly of himself, considering himself entitled to Squirrelflight's affections, being better than Bramblestar, and above the literal law. In The Place of No Stars, Ashfur proclaims himself quite possibly the most powerful cat who has ever lived, with his power and control over the spirits of the dead. Considering he was able to shut off the connection with StarClan by himself, he may be right.
• Spotting the Thread: Ashfur's possession of Bramblestar's corpse initially aroused little suspicion aside from a few comments about how strange "Bramblestar" was acting. However, Ashfur's fatal mistake that led to his downfall was that he genuinely didn't even try to act like Bramblestar, and as time went on, many cats began to get suspicious on how "Bramblestar" had such a sudden change in personality when losing lives, treating everyone like crap, and other various hints that led Squirrelflight to deduce his true identity.
• Start of Darkness: His descent into evil began when he was dumped by Squirrelflight.
• The Sociopath: Ashfur shows many signs of being a low-functioning one. He's a lying Manipulative Bastard who is perfectly willing to hurt and kill others for extremely petty reasons, enjoys it, feels no pity or remorse, and firmly believes everything is about him and his feelings.
• The Stoic: He kept his anger and grief to himself rather than talking about it with someone, which wasn't too good for his mental health.
• Tom the Dark Lord: A lot of the major villains in the franchise have names that are either scary (Tigerclaw, Hawkfrost, Scourge, Slash), ominous (Sol, One-Eye), or related to darkness (Darktail, Mapleshade). Ashfur's name, in contrast, is unthreatening and even normal, but he's one of the greatest and most terrifying threats the Clans have faced.
• Took a Level in Badass: When he becomes the main antagonist of The Broken Code, he has seriously upped his game. Ashfur shows frightening skill in manipulating Shadowsight and the Clans, fools everyone with his impersonation for half the arc, and is an intimidating fighter who makes full use of Bramblestar's larger and more muscular body. Spotfur's Rebellion shows that he personally killed two of his would-be assassins, including Stemleaf, despite being outnumbered five to one for most of the fight.

• Tyrant Takes the Helm: From his treatment of the Clan through control to the way he breaks the code by eating before the elders as the impostor in Veil of Shadows, as well as not caring about the danger he's putting his Clan in by exiling both medicine cats.
• Ungrateful Bastard: StarClan allows Ashfur into their ranks, forgiving him for betraying his Clanmates and trying to murder his own Clan leader and Squirrelflight's adopted kits for purely selfish and spiteful reasons. How does Ashfur repay StarClan? As soon as the opportunity presents itself, he betrays them and traps them in their own territory.
• Unstoppable Rage: In A Light in the Mist, he goes absolutely bonkers when Graystripe delivers Squirrelflight's "message" and mauls the old tom so savagely that his wounds kill him shortly after.
• Villain Episode: He's the POV character for the prologue of A Light in the Mist. Said prologue does not shy away from showing just how utterly deranged he is. He also serves as the POV (albeit, unnamed at the time) for the prologue of Lost Stars, which reveals his intentions for the young Shadowpaw.
• Villain Has a Point: Not about Squirrelflight. He goes on a massive rant about StarClan's pretentiousness, Small Name, Big Ego, hypocrisy, and flawed judgments in A Light in the Mist, and is for once in the right. StarClan display double standards in their decisions of who they let in, injustice in their condemnation of Leafpool and Squirrelflight for following their orders in Squirrelflight's Hope, and place too much importance on the warrior code as an infallible, inflexible thing when it was created by fallible, flexible cats. All of these factors mean Ashfur, while fully responsible for his actions, had the opportunity to take them at all, and The Broken Code ends with several living cats questioning their ancestors' wisdom and discussing reformations.
• Villainous Crush: His completely one-sided obsession with Squirrelflight turned him into a villain. Death, in-universe years, and multiple rejections haven't weakened it.
  "The gray tom’s eyes were full of adoration. Squirrelflight found that more terrifying than open menace would have been."
• Walking Spoiler: The mere reveal of him being the Big Bad of the whole seventh arc is a spoiler-fest.
• We Can Rule Together: In The Place of No Stars, he tells Squirrelflight that they can be together when he rules over both the forest and StarClan.
• We Used to Be Friends:
  • With Bramblestar. After Squirrelflight chooses Brambleclaw over him, Ashfur takes it very personally and ends his friendship with the dark brown tabby. The Broken Code makes it apparent that Ashfur hates Bramblestar, mocking him to Shadowsight in Lost Stars and Veil of Shadows. However, its arguably best displayed in The Place of No Stars, where Ashfur snarls at Bramblestar for "stealing Squirrelfight from him again" and vows to destroy the Clans as revenge, and Bramblestar later outright says that Ashfur's hatred and jealousy of him has twisted Ashfur into the monster he is now.
  • In A Light in the Mist, Graystripe's speech on behalf of Squirrelflight to Ashfur makes it clear that Squirrelflight genuinely did consider Ashfur a friend before his descent into sociopathy.
• Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: A variation. In The Place of No Stars, he asks Squirrelflight how she could pass him up for Bramblestar, who is attacking her at that very moment... because Ashfur is forcing him to do so.
• Woman Scorned: Gender Inverted. Ashfur has had a huge grudge against Squirrelflight ever since she tried breaking it off amiably. This results in him trying to murder Squirrelflight's father Firestar and her children solely out of spite. And when she reveals her children were actually adopted, he decides to humiliate her by announcing this at a Gathering.
• Would Harm a Senior: When Graystripe challenges Ashfur in Veil of Shadows when he is the impostor, he rakes his claws across Graystripe's nose.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Deconstructed. Ashfur certainly views himself as this, believing his "love" for Squirrelflight and the pain it causes him justifies all of his cruel and destructive actions, and means everyone's hearts should bleed for him. But many other cats (Thrushpelt, Bristelefrost, Flipclaw to name a few) have suffered the same tragedy he did (falling in love with a cat who rejected them) but they didn't turn evil like he did. Furthermore, despite his crimes, Ashfur was allowed into StarClan, where he was reunited with his kin; cats who loved him (including his mother), but even after years living with them, he selfishly chooses to betray them for the sake of continuing his obsessive pursuit of Squirrelflight.
• Yandere: Massively. First, after being dumped by Squirrelflight, he plots to kill off her family as "punishment" for leaving him. Then, after dying, he finds a way to possess her mate Bramblestar's body to be with her. He hoards all of her time and attention, to the point Bristlefrost compares it to a kit needing its mother, and becomes violent when she figures out the truth and refuses to be with him. When he exiles her in a fit of rage, he's noted to sleep in the remnants of her bedding. Finally, at the end of Darkness Within, he drags her through the Moonpool to the Dark Forest, and says in The Place of No Stars that he brought her there so they could be together. Basically, his obsession with Squirrelflight is so intense it transcends the afterlife.

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