Warrior Cats / Tropes U to Z

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Due to the series' spoiler-filled nature, including Spoiler Titles and even character names, all spoilers aside from the newest main-series book and side book as listed on the main page may be unmarked.

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U

• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: In Dawn Of The Clans, we have Star Flower, who is the beautiful daughter of the hideous One Eye. Even Thunder wonders how a cat as beautiful as her ever came from someone so hideous.
• Unbalanced By Rival's Kid: Ashfur was in love with Squirrelflight, who ended up dumping him in favor of Brambleclaw. Ashfur had some problems accepting this. He even arranged to have Squirrelflight's father killed so she'd feel the same pain he did. The attempt failed though, and Ashfur was never suspected for the attempted murder for a while. He eventually received an apprentice, though, who managed to flare up his issues all over again by being (supposedly) Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw's son, a living reminder of the mate he couldn't have and the future he was denied. They don't get along. While they are never outwardly rude to each other, Ashfur mostly gives Lionpaw the cold shoulder and doesn't try to bond with his apprentice the way all the other mentors do. When Lionpaw demands more intense training, Ashfur takes this request very specifically...by unsheathing his claws and fighting Lionpaw as if it were a real battle. Ashfur is eager to finish Lionpaw's apprentice training quickly so that they won't have to see each other eye-to-eye anymore.
• Unbroken Vigil: When Brightpaw gets attacked by dogs, after staying with her a full night, Cloudtail still refuses to eat or sleep, until Cinderpelt finally orders him to.
• Uncertain Doom: There are a couple times when a character is mentioned as "lying motionless" during a battle, one of the most notable being Cloudtail in The Last Hope - a somewhat major character, and fans didn't think they'd ever learn if he survived or not (until Bramblestar's Storm, Dovewing's Silence, and a sixth series were announced and he re-appeared in those). There's also the case of the elders who stayed behind instead of going to their new home. Did they eke out a life in RiverClan territory, accept food from humans, or die from starvation or the humans' machines?
• Unconventional Food Usage: This is explicitly banned by the Warrior Code, a rule added after a naughty kit played with freshkill^note newly-killed prey until it was rendered inedible. Due to scarcity being a common problem, all prey is killed only for the purposes of being eaten.
• Unequal Pairing: Pinestar and Leopardfoot: Pinestar is the leader of ThunderClan, while Leopardfoot is a young, newly made warrior. While in the books the only real thing that characters comment on is that Pinestar doesn't seem to have any interest in their kits, the fandom tends to dislike the pairing due to the age gap and notable power imbalance.
• Unexpected Kindness: Longtail had been Tigerclaw's crony and Fireheart's bully since they first met. When Fireheart is on a patrol with both Tigerclaw and Longtail, he's expecting them to try and kill him, like Tigerclaw had been attempting for moons. Fireheart falls into the river thanks to Tigerclaw's sabotage, and is surprised when Longtail goes through the trouble of saving his life. This is one of the first hints that Longtail is loyal to his Clan mates and is more trustworthy than Tigerclaw.
• Unexpectedly Abandoned:
  • In Dawn, Brambleclaw and Squirrelpaw finally return home from their journey, but the camp is entirely deserted, and they have no idea where the Clan is; there's no sign of a fight or anything. Their medicine cat, Cinderpelt, happens to come back to retrieve some herbs from her den, and she explains that the Clan has relocated to Sunningrocks because the humans' deforestation activities had come too close to the camp.
  • Similarly, in the graphic novel trilogy featuring Graystripe, he finally escapes from the humans and finds ThunderClan's territory and camp again, but is shocked to find that all the Clans seem to be gone, as they left for new territory without him.
• Unexpectedly Human Perception: Though the books are told from the point-of-view of cats, they still see things the way humans do. This means being able to make out colors they shouldn't be able to, such as red and green, while not being able to see in the dark.
• Unexplained Accent: In three of the Warrior Cats audiobooks (the original editions of Starlight, Twilight, and Sunset read by Nanette Savard), the (American) actress gives medicine cats a British accent, possibly due to Smart People Speak the Queen's English, despite all the other characters and the narration being read with an American accent. Medicine cats are just normal cats - born and lived with their Clanmates all their lives - and just chose a different job, so where did the accent come from? Are they born with it and for some reason all cats with this accent take the medicine cat's job? Or does healing cats suddenly give you a different accent somehow?
• The Un-Favorite: Crookedstar suffered a childhood injury that left him with a permanently twisted jaw, which led his mother Rainflower to reject him and prefer his brother Oakheart. Unusually for this trope, Oakheart loves his brother and wants their mother to treat them the same. Their father Shellheart averts the trope by loving both his sons equally.
• Unfinished Business: Darkest Night introduces this concept. Tree can see cats that haven't made it to the afterlife yet, who have some sort of tie to the living and something they have to do yet before they can move on.
• Unfortunate Names:
  • Discussed in Outcast when the apprentices joke about what kind of horrible name Firestar could give Berrypaw. They come up with Berrystumpytail.
  • Some characters' names were picked by other characters and meant to be cruel: Lostface and Crookedkit are two examples where other cats pointed out that the name was awful, but the leader/parent choosing the name went through with it anyway.
• Unfriendly Fire: This is one of Tigerclaw's methods, when he's still a Villain with Good Publicity before his exile:
  • After a border fight, he kills the Clan deputy, Redtail, hoping he'll be made deputy himself. He places the blame for Redtail's death on Oakheart, whom Redtail had been fighting against and who had been killed in the battle so he wouldn't be around to deny it. Too bad Ravenpaw had been hiding in the bushes and saw it happen...
  • Wanting to kill his leader in order to become leader himself, Tigerclaw convinces a group of rogues to attack the camp. During the battle, he attacks Bluestar, hoping to make it look like a rogue had killed her.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • Brokenstar plots with Tigerstar to take over ThunderClan, even though the same Clan gave him shelter when he was blinded and saved him from being murdered by two other Clans. Even his own Clanmates don't treat him with the same kindness as ThunderClan.
  • Tigerclaw's Fury shows Jaggedtooth tearing out a claw to make Runningnose believe that Tigerclaw is to be the new ShadowClan leader. When Tigerclaw finds out, he makes Blackfoot the deputy instead of Jaggedtooth, claiming that he doesn't owe the latter anything.
• Universe Compendium: Secrets of the Clans was one for the series at the time it was published.
• Unknown Rival: Tigerstar is Scourge's archnemisis. Tigerstar however, doesn't remember Scourge.
• Unnamed Parent: Leafstar's mother. This is notable because the characters who give a leader their nine lives have impacted the new leader's life in some significant way, and since the leader is almost always a main character, the cats who give them their nine lives are pretty important characters too.
• Unreliable Narrator: In The Last Hope, the author who wrote the book said that Dovewing hallucinated Firestar walking away from Tigerstar, and that he actually died from wounds received fight with him. Then again, Word of God from another of the authors states that Firestar died from the smoke of a nearby tree that was struck by lightning, so this may actually be a case of unreliable God.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Leafpool and Crowfeather in the third series after being forced to "go their separate ways". Also a lot of tension between them in Starlight before Crowfeather confesses his feelings at the end of the book. According to the narrator, the tension literally crackles like lightning.
• Unsuccessful Pet Adoption: While there are plenty of happy house cats, and most examples of pets escaping their owners to live in the wild happen a considerably long time after the adoption, there are a few examples in the series where we see both the adoption and the escape:
  • In Rising Storm, Cloudpaw is caught by the humans who'd been feeding him and is brought to a house near WindClan territory. They've had him barely a month when they open the door to see what he's meowing about (which turned out to be his uncle coming to rescue him), and he escapes.
  • Sometime around the events of Hawkwing's Journey, Frecklewish was captured by humans and brought to live in an apartment building, several stories high. They lost their new cat not long after, when she escaped by jumping from their windowsill to a fire escape and then to a tree that she was able to climb down.
  • In the Graystripe's Adventure manga, Graystripe is caught by humans while trying to free his Clanmates from captivity, and is adopted by a family. Although he lets them pet him, his feral nature means that he's never completely at ease, and he scratches the furniture and shreds a toy at least once. Once he's let outside and gets over all the noise and smells of the city, he runs away with another pet cat to find his Clan.
  • In the SkyClan and the Stranger manga, Leafstar and her kits are captured by an elderly woman. Her Clanmates come to rescue them, and they escape alongside the woman's other cat.
• Unto Us a Son and Daughter Are Born: Naturally this will happen from time to time, since having more than one kit in a litter isn't out of the ordinary for cats.
• Unusual Euphemism: A lot of the swearing is made up of either "mouse dung" (mild) or "fox dung" (more severe). "Mouse-brain" is a mild insult meaning "stupid" or "silly"; a group of cats from the mountains uses "beetle-brain" instead. "Foxhearted" is apparently a heavy insult (based on the reactions when it's used), which makes the cat actually named Foxheart have an unfortunate name.
• Unwanted Rescue: In Fire and Ice, Fireheart realizes that Sandpaw and the enemy warrior that she's fighting are about to fall into the gorge, so he knocks the other warrior away from her (and from the edge) and pulls Sandpaw off the edge and to her feet. Sandpaw's furious at him for "saving" her from the enemy warrior because she already dislikes Fireheart and insists she can fight her own battles, but just then another cat falls over the edge and drowns. That makes Sandpaw realize what Fireheart had actually been saving her from, and she grows more friendly toward him from then on.
• Unwitting Pawn:
  • In The Forgotten Warrior, Sol shows up in ThunderClan for a visit and Firestar decides to let him stay for a bit, despite his evil acts. Later, when Lionblaze is on patrol, Onestar, leader of WindClan shows up and tells the ThunderClan cats to drive out Sol, which they had already been planning to do. However, since Onestar told them to do it, doing so would make ThunderClan look subserviant to WindClan and weaken it, so they are forced to ally with Sol against Onestar rather than driving Sol out.
  • In Lost Stars, Ashfur gives "omens" to the inexperienced young medicine cat apprentice, Shadowpaw, which leads to Bramblestar losing a life so that Ashfur can take over his body, and then gives support to Ashfur's claim that codebreakers need to be punished.
• Uriah Gambit: In addition to Unfriendly Fire, this is one of Tigerclaw's tactics when he's still a Villain with Good Publicity before his exile:
  • Tigerclaw sets his apprentice Ravenpaw (who had witnessed him killing the Clan deputy) dangerous hunting tasks: first at Snakerocks (normally avoided by the cats in summer due to poisonous adders - but Ravenpaw actually killed an adder!), and then in ShadowClan territory.
  • He later suspects that Ravenpaw told Fireheart what he had seen. During battle, when Fireheart is fighting for his life and calling for help, Tigerclaw just sits there and watches; fortunately Fireheart manages to fight his way out.
  • For another attempt at Fireheart's life, Tigerclaw orders him to try and cross a flooded stream using a spindly branch caught in the water. When Fireheart's right in the middle and Longtail isn't watching, he tries to Make It Look Like an Accident by knocking the branch loose from the rock it's caught on. Longtail saves Fireheart from drowning.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid:
  • Tigerstar, big bad of the entire series, is seen in the prequel Bluestar's Prophecy as a sweet, innocent, adorable kit who loves his mother and grows into a well-meaning but aggressive apprentice thanks to his Axe-Crazy mentor.
  • Scourge, who in his backstory was an inquisitive, cute little kitten who had bad things happen to him, turning him into a crazy killer.
  • Same for Brokenstar/kit; "Look! I'm a tree!"
  • Also for Hawkfrost, shown in the Tigerstar and Sasha arc as a cute kit who loves his littermates, and is broken-hearted when his brother Tadpole drowns.
  • Thistleclaw even qualifies, once promising his nursery denmates "I'll make sure the wind doesn't blow you away."

V

• Vagueness Is Coming: Many vague prophecies foretell destruction and danger without actually managing to tell the Clans what exactly is coming. Occasionally lampshaded by the characters.
  • In Yellowfang's Secret: "A poison will spring from the heart of ShadowClan, and spread to the other Clans. A storm of blood and fire will sweep the forest."
  • In SkyClan's Destiny: "Greenleaf will come, but it will bring even greater storms than these. SkyClan will need deeper roots if it is to survive."
  • In Fire and Ice: "A battle is coming, Fireheart. Beware a warrior you cannot trust."
  • In Rising Storm: "Beware an enemy who seems to sleep."
  • In The Darkest Hour: "Blood will rule the forest."
  • In Midnight: "Darkness, Air, Water and sky will come together and shake the forest to its roots. Nothing will be as it is now, nor as it has been before."
  • In The Fourth Apprentice: "Beware, Jay's Wing. Storm clouds are gathering on a dark breeze."
  • In Sign of the Moon: "The end of the stars draws near. Three must become four to battle the darkness that lasts forever."
• The 'Verse: The main series is fairly straightforward, but the Expanded Universe books are made up of several "sagas" that cover completely different parts of the world with a handful of intersecting characters.
• Vibrant Orange: Squirrelflight is an extroverted ginger she-cat who was very excitable and loudmouthed as a young cat. Another character even compared her to fire, while her calmer and quieter sister Leafpool was compared to water. Squirrelflight mellowed out a bit with age, but always retained her impulsive nature.
• Villain Episode:
  • The novella Tigerclaw's Fury shows what happened to Tigerclaw after his exile from ThunderClan and how he became ShadowClan's leader.
  • The manga The Rise of Scourge shows the Back Story of first-series villain Scourge.
  • The novella Mapleshade's Vengeance is a full version of Mapleshade's downfall that she'd briefly summarized at the end of Crookedstar's Promise.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left:
  • The Warrior Code basically requires this, since it forbids unnecessary killing; winning cats have to let the defeated cats escape.
  • At the end of A Dangerous Path, Tigerstar just runs away without putting up a fight.
• Villain Opening Scene:
  • The prologue of The Darkest Hour focuses on Big Bad Tigerstar enlisting the help of Scourge.
  • Later books, such as Sunset and Fading Echoes, show the cats of the Dark Forest planning their revenge on the living Clan cats.
• Villainous Badland, Heroic Arcadia: Downplayed. All the Clans are technically neutral, but ThunderClan is predominantly the protagonist Clan and ShadowClan is the traditional antagonist Clan. In the first arc, ThunderClan lives in a lush forest full of wildlife while ShadowClan lives in a dirty, scraggly, swampy territory full of vermin and next to a garbage tip infested with rats. This is even reflected in their diets — ThunderClan cats typically feed on tasty game such as songbirds, wood pigeons, mice and squirrels, while ShadowClan is frequently noted to chiefly eat frogs, toads and rats, much to the other Clans' disgust.
• Villainous Breakdown: Sol, aka the king of Dissonant Serenity, loses his temper exactly once for less than half a second. It's not pretty. In The Forgotten Warrior, he later snaps and declares that all the Clan cats will kill each other for reasons that aren't worth more than a mousetail.
• Villainous Glutton: In a story in Code Of The Clans, Darkstripe decides to eat some fresh-kill while out hunting instead of feeding his Clan. As a result, Poppydawn, who desperately needed food to fight off her sickness, dies. In spite of Longtail feeling very guilty Darkstripe goes further by saying that Poppydawn was going to die anyway and that the stronger cats should eat first.
• Villain Protagonist: Scourge in The Rise of Scourge, and Tigerclaw in Tigerclaw's Fury.
• Villain Respect: At one point, Tigerstar (grudgingly) admits that Firestar has great strength and spirit and says that he would need both if they met again.
• Villains Out Shopping: Tigerstar spends quite a lot of time hanging out with pretty she-cats. Meanwhile, Magnificent Bastard Sol has a meet and greet with the heroes in The Forgotten Warrior.
• Villain Team-Up: Omen of the Stars features all the villains who were killed off (except Scourge and Bone) teaming up to destroy the Clans.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Tigerclaw in the first series. Firestar and Graystripe are the only characters in all of ThunderClan who suspect that he could be treacherous.
• Violence is the Only Option: As one would expect from the series title, this happens frequently in Warriors. Of note, the side book Battles of the Clans has a short story focusing on this idea, where a leader asks the other Clans to stop stealing prey from his starving Clan instead of fighting back. This only serves as an invitation to them since they know they'll be unchallenged; in the end, the spirit of his lost mate appears to him in a vision and convinces him to let his Clan fight.
  Songbird: "Peace is not the way of the Clans. We prove ourselves in battle."
• Visionary Villain:
  • Tigerstar wanted to unite all the Clans into one, ending the constant war and bringing about a new age of prosperity. Of course, his ego and his methods were less than desirable.
  • Hawkfrost followed his father's vision, but with just as much ego and a lot less success.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: In Rising Storm, Fireheart and Cinderpelt are helping a pair of very sick cats. They bring them food, and after a little bit, the two ill cats stumble away into the bushes, and Fireheart can hear them vomiting.
• Vow of Celibacy: Medicine cats are not allowed to take a mate. It is also often said that female deputies and leaders cannot have kits, but for them it's more of a guideline, as compared to the medicine cats, where it's a very strict rule.

W

• Waif-Fu: Ivypool is a small and slender cat, but thanks to her determination, efficient use of her agility and the training she received from the Dark Forest she is one of the most skilled fighters in the Clans.
• Walking Spoiler:
  • Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf: it's hard to mention them in examples without mentioning the fact that they're actually the result of Leafpool and Crowfeather's forbidden relationship, not Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight's kits. Hollyleaf also later attempts to kill Ashfur and vanishes from the Clan for several books, believed to be dead.
  • Ashfur is a minor character, right up until he gets turned down as a romantic interest, resulting in his attempted murder of the protagonists (which forms the climax of Long Shadows), and then going on to become the Big Bad of the seventh arc. Because what characterization he got was so bound up in his rejection, it's really hard to say anything about his morality or character arc without spoiling it.
  • Most examples relating to Rock have to do with his being an immortal watcher who knows all of the prophecies that ever existed.
  • Any mention of SkyClan, the lost "fifth Clan" that was once disbanded and reformed, whose very existence is a massive spoiler for Firestar's Quest and even the main series starting with the sixth arc.
• Walking Wasteland: This is part of the power of the Dark Forest. If they enter the physical world, everything they touch starts to decay. During The Last Hope, a huge army of Dark Forest warriors appear on WindClan territory and their decay powers start turning it into a second Dark Forest. Fortunately, Ivypool and Hollyleaf chase off the warriors before it can happen.
• Warhawk: Several characters are like this, but Thistleclaw and Tigerclaw are probably the most notable. Bluestar tells Fireheart that she gave up her kits to become Clan deputy instead of Thistleclaw because if Thistleclaw had gone on to become leader he'd have led the Clan into unnecessary wars. When Tigerclaw is exiled, he insists he would have never have been such a soft, peace-keeping leader and speaks of how he would have made ThunderClan great and feared; Bluestar remarks in response, "And how many cats would have died for it?"
• War Memorial: In Crowfeather's Trial, WindClan does the feline equivalent of this by making a cairn to honor those who had died in the battle against the Dark Forest, with each stone representing a specific warrior who gave up their life to save the Clans. The book begins with them adding the last stone to the pile to represent Crowfeather's mother Ashfoot.
• Was Too Hard on Him: Firestar feels upset that his daughter Squirrelpaw (later Squirrelflight) ran away because of what he said. When he realizes that he told her she wouldn't be a warrior if she kept meeting with Brambleclaw (who's from the same Clan but he's keeping them away for a slight reason), he blames himself.
• The Watcher: StarClan very pointedly state that they give advice, and watch over the living cats, but they do not interfere directly (they've bent that rule once or twice, but it's extremely rare). This makes it seem a bit silly when the Clans are constantly worried about incurring the "wrath of StarClan". Cinderpelt even has to remind the ThunderClan cats at one point that not every inconvenient natural phenomena is necessarily a sign from their ancestors: "There are times when a storm is just a storm."
  • Oddly enough, everyone - fans included - seems to hate Sol because he tells them this. True, he does go overboard by telling ShadowClan to ignore the warrior code, and he's got far more villainous actions later on when trying to cause a war between the Clans, but it is kind of weird that everyone hates him just for saying StarClan isn't all powerful, even though that's exactly what they've been telling us for pretty much the entire series.
• Watching Troy Burn:
  • ThunderClan has to watch the forest burn from across the river in Rising Storm.
  • All the Clans face this in The New Prophecy when Twolegs destroy the forest and they have to watch, knowing that there's nothing they can do about it.
  • In Dark River, RiverClan faces this when a group of Twolegs attack their camp. However, they eventually get it back.
  • The SkyClan saga prequel novella Cloudstar's Journey shows this happening to SkyClan while their home is developed to make way for a suburb. Cloudstar is helpless as trees around him are torn down, and it's pretty heartbreaking.
  • Happens in the Warrior's Refuge and Warrior's Return comic book spinoffs when Graystripe triumphantly returns to the forest, only to find it completely destroyed. He wanders around the destruction for a little while before Millie convinces him that his Clanmates are still out there somewhere.
• Wax On, Wax Off: Bluepaw's training in Bluestar's Prophecy. Much of it focuses on boring tasks like gathering moss and cutting into smaller parts, to teach her patience, concentration and good control of her claws. Although, judging by Leopardpaw's reaction, it's possible her mentor just told her that so that the menial tasks would feel more important.
• A Way Out of a Cave-In: In Dark River, while trapped in a flooding cave with his littermates and some young WindClan cats, Jaypaw has a vision that shows him that Rock's notched stick had originated from the cave. Since he'd found the stick by the lake, he realizes that the subterranean river must lead out of the cave to the lake, and they use it to successfully escape.
• We Can Rule Together: Tigerstar convinces RiverClan and ShadowClan to combine into one Clan, and offers the other two Clans the chance to join, saying the all the leaders will rule jointly. Tallstar and Firestar refuse, and Tigerstar snarls to Firestar that he just gave up his last chance to save ThunderClan.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Lots of characters, since most of them are Red Shirts, but one of the more plot-relevant ones is Redtail, who had a scene in the prologue of the first book and was killed offscreen a few chapters later.
• Weirdness Search and Rescue: When Jayfeather is trapped in the past with the Ancients, the mysterious cat Rock shows up to take him back to his time period. This happens twice.
• Welcome Back, Traitor:
  • Graystripe leaves ThunderClan in the first series so that he can raise his kits in their mother's Clan, RiverClan. Once he's exiled from RiverClan for saving his best friend, Fireheart, during a battle, he rejoins ThunderClan. The Clan has divided opinions on him upon his return; half view him as a traitor for joining another Clan (something that is almost never done), while half are welcoming and happy to see him back.
  • In Omen of the Stars, Hollyleaf returns to the Clan after having murdered Ashfur, gone into hiding for over a year, and experienced a change of heart about her birth mother and adopted mother. Upon her return her family covers for her - Brambleclaw claims that he saw Ashfur attack her, and Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Leafpool, who know the truth, keep quiet - and the Clan welcomes her back pretty much with no questions asked.
  • Also in Omen of the Stars, Ivypool is lured into joining the Dark Forest, and even helps guide the Clan into an unnecessary battle that results in a ShadowClan death and Firestar losing one of his nine leader's lives. However, once she realizes that they're actually plotting to destroy the Clans and repents, she is welcomed back to the side of the heroes.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy:
  • Stormtail was this when Bluestar was a young warrior.
  • Rainflower was always this to Crookedstar, despite the way she treated him.
• We Used to Be Friends: Fireheart and Onewhisker were friends ever since they were both young warriors. When Onewhisker becomes leader of WindClan, he is so harassed for being such a close friend to a cat of another Clan that he breaks off the friendship, and comes to view ThunderClan as interfering enemies more than anything.
• Wham Episode: Lots of them. Long Shadows, The Fourth Apprentice, Night Whispers, The Forgotten Warrior...
• Wham Line:
  • From Fire and Ice:
  Yellowfang (About why she can't kill Brokenstar): "He is my son."
  • Long Shadows
  Squirrelflight: "If you want to hurt me, you'll have to find a better way than that. They are not my kits."
  • Sunrise (First one)
  Jayfeather (Putting it all together in his thoughts): "Leafpool! Leafpool is our mother!"
  • Sunrise (Second one)
  Leafpool: (To Hollyleaf) "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone. But first, tell me why. Why did you kill Ashfur?"
  • Sunrise (Third one)
  Jayfeather: "There will be three, kin of your kin...Cloudtail is Firestar's kin, Whitewing is his daughter, and now Dovekit and Ivykit...Don't you see? The prophecy isn't over! We aren't the only kin of Firestar's kin. It doesn't matter which of Whitewing's kits is the one. There are still three of us!"
• What Does She See in Him?: The protagonists often wonder why the arrogant Berrynose attracts Poppyfrost and Honeyfern.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Since the series has many characters, there are often cases where characters just disappear without explanation. For instance, the character Egg in SkyClan's Destiny is one that left fans wondering: he joins SkyClan, but after the book ends, he never appears or is mentioned again - not in the SkyClan and the Stranger trilogy, not in Ravenpaw's Farewell or Hawkwing's Journey, not in the main series once the Clan joins the main plot.
• What Have I Become?: Lionblaze says this almost word for word in Eclipse after he nearly kills Crowfeather, his father (though neither knows at the time that they're related).
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Despite being the sole reason for the Clans' misery, humans are never harmed in the books. In fact, they occasionally get saved by the cats. Graystripe and Millie lead a toddler away from drowning in a pond, for instance. Special mention goes to when a child falls into SkyClan's territory and breaks her leg. The cats go out of their way to help the kid, find her family in the Twolegplace, and bring her home safely, when the more pragmatic approach would be to simply kill her, or leave her to die. It makes more sense why they'd do this, however, when you consider that most of the cats in those situations were kittypets at one point (or still partially are). The reason SkyClan didn't physically harm Petalnose and Shrewtooth's old Twoleg was because they were warned by the kittypets how dangerous it is to attack a Twoleg. Considering how uptight people are about getting rid of pests and potentially rabid animals, this was probably a smart move. Also, it isn't exactly realistic for a group of wild cats to go maul a human to death.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Foxleap's plan to save a group of a cats from a hawk goes wrong and one Tribe cat gets killed. One Tribe cat scolds him harshly for not listening when he was told to not interfere.
  • Also, Echosong did not approve of Leafstar driving Billystorm out of the gorge and had to spell it out for her.
  • In The Sun Trail, Clear Sky calls out Gray Wing for killing Fox... though HE was the one to tell Fox to attack him. Later, Gray Wing calls Clear Sky out for banishing Jagged Peak from the community and refusing to take in his son Thunder.
  • Squirrelflight calls out anyone who messes with or insults Leafpool. The cats she yells at include Brambleclaw, Ashfur, Jayfeather, and Lionblaze.
• When I Was Your Age...: Elders claim this on occasion - for example, Fireheart gets into a small argument with one in Forest of Secrets when the elder claims that young cats nowadays don't know what hardship is.
• Where It All Began: When the Clans leave, they end up settling by a lake. Turns out their distant ancestors (way before the Clans formed) once lived there, and that that's where the Power of Three prophecy originated.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The first series was set in a forest based off of New Forest in southern England, but in the second series, the Clans moved to an entirely fictional new forest and have encountered some wildlife that can't be found in the UK, making it pretty hard to determine where the series is set. Even the authors aren't sure.
• While You Were in Diapers: In Starlight, Mudclaw is told to show more respect to his dying leader, Tallstar, because Tallstar was leader when Mudclaw was a kit mewling in the nursery.
• White Is Pure: Most white cats - and indeed, cats whose names begin with the word "white", are heroic. Of particular note, Whitewing is a gentle, kind mother. When Lionblaze thinks through his Clanmates, wondering which might be traitors training with the Dark Forest, his thought when he gets to Whitewing is "Never. Just... never."
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?:
  • In Crookedstar's Promise, after Stormkit is injured, permanently disfiguring his jaw, Rainflower's decision to rename Stormkit to Crookedkit is met with dismay and anger by Stormkit's father.
  • Similarly, in the first series, Bluestar's decision to give a near-death Brightpaw the warrior name "Lostface", as part of her Rage Against the Heavens, is met with protest from the Clan. Once Firestar becomes leader he renames her Brightheart.
• Who's on First?: In Crowfeather's Trial, this happens a couple times with a cat named Yew. ("You? Like, 'hey you'?")
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Rock has been revealed to be immortal, but unable to interfere with the world.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • Jayfeather is terrified of water ever since witnessing Fallen Leaves' death in a dream and then nearly drowning himself in the tunnels.
  • Can't forget Bluestar. The prophecy about her even said the only thing that could destroy her was water.
  • SkyClan and rats; it was rats that destroyed the original SkyClan, and they intend to kill the re-formed Clan.
• Winter of Starvation:
  • The Clan cats always go hungry during leaf-bare (their term for winter), as prey becomes scarce, and what little fresh-kill there is has to be rationed and given to the most vulnerable members of the Clan first—elders, kits, and nursing queens. Deaths from illness or starvation during leaf-bare are common, especially for elders and young kits. RiverClan has it easier, as they can still catch fish from the river, but sometimes they don't even have that because the river may freeze over or become contaminated by Twoleg garbage.
  • In the side story "A Dark Path Chosen," ThunderClan is enduring a hard leaf-bare, and Poppydawn, one of the Clan elders, has become ill and weak. Darkstripe and Longtail are sent out to hunt, and Longtail manages to catch a fat squirrel, but Darkstripe eats it and convinces him to have some too, reasoning that they need their strength to hunt for the Clan. By the time they get back, Poppydawn has starved to death. Longtail is horrified at what they've done, but Darkstripe shuts him up by threatening to lie to everyone that he chose to eat the squirrel and refused to let him (Darkstripe) bring it back to camp.
  • In Bluestar's Prophecy, during a hungry leaf-bare, Bluefur makes the hard decision to bring her kits to RiverClan, their father's Clan, as during this time the river is full of fish, and RiverClan never goes hungry even when the other Clans do. Her other reason is that with Tawnyspots' illness, Thistleclaw is poised to become ThunderClan deputy and eventually leader, which will destroy the Clan due to his bloodthirsty nature—and Bluefur will not be chosen in his place if she is a nursing mother. She is able to bring Mistykit and Stonekit to RiverClan, but Mosskit dies along the way due to hunger and cold.
• Wise Beyond Their Years:
  • When Clan cats die at a young age and go to StarClan, occasionally they give the protagonists advice in their dreams, and are described this way.
  • Several of the cats destined to become medicine cats are serious as kits and begin training when they are still young, taking their duty very seriously. Pebble Heart from the Dawn of the Clans arc, for instance: even his adopted father Gray Wing would listen to him for advice.
• With Catlike Tread: There's a scene in Eclipse where RiverClan cats attempt to sneak through ThunderClan's territory. Unused to thick undergrowth, they make a lot of noise just walking through, and then they have a whispered argument about how noisy they're being.
• Within Arm's Reach: Hawkfrost tries to kill Firestar by strangling him in a fox trap, and he pins down and tries to kill Brambleclaw as well when Brambleclaw tries to stop him. However, Brambleclaw notices the stake of the fox trap, grabs it, and uses it to stab Hawkfrost.
• Woken Up at an Ungodly Hour: In Bluestar's Prophecy, when Bluepaw is sad and grouchy over her mother's death, she gets annoyed by things like Lionpaw waking her up in the middle of the night just to see how pretty the moon looks.
• The Worf Effect: In The Darkest Hour, the newly-introduced villain Scourge kills Tigerstar when all of the Clans are gathered, for spite, to intimidate the Clans into complying with his demands, and (we learn later) for revenge.
• Worf Had the Flu:
  • In The Darkest Hour, Tigerstar sends Blackfoot to kill Stonefur, who he has in captivity. Blackfoot defeats Stonefur, but only because Tigerstar had been starving him for several days, and because Stonefur was tired from fighting Darkstripe just minutes earlier.
  • In The Lost Warrior, Graystripe is defeated easily by a kittypet named Duke. However, Duke defeated Graystripe so easily because he had been captured by humans and stuck inside a house for two months, leaving him out of practice.
• World of Badass: Nearly every single one of the characters is trained in combat, and puts it to good use.
• World's Best Warrior: Lionblaze, whose special power is Nigh-Invulnerability.
• Would Hit a Girl: Females are functionally equal to males. You'll find females leading Clans, females leading patrol parties, and females suffering the same wounds. The only time they're given special mercy is if they're pregnant. Even the "mercy for the pregnant" has been averted once to give Breezepelt a Kick the Dog moment.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • Brokenstar trained kits at too young an age, and even fought them himself, killing them.
  • Tigerstar kills Gorsepaw in The Darkest Hour for no other reason than to bring fear to WindClan.
  • Darkstripe attempts to kill Sorrelkit because she caught him meeting Blackfoot on their territory.
  • Tigerpaw, under the orders of his mentor Thistleclaw, nearly killed a kittypet kit for straying onto ThunderClan territory in Bluestar's Prophecy. The only thing that stops him is Bluefur.
  • The Dark Forest cats appear to have no qualms about attacking kits or elders, and a ShadowClan kit ends up dead during the final battle.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Firestar's nine lives is quite the Continuity Snarl for various reasons, but when you count how many he lost in the books, it altogether adds up to him having only lost seven lives when he dies for good (or eight if you include the fox trap one in Sunset that the authors/books have flip-flopped on): Scourge in The Darkest Hour, rats in Firestar's Quest, a falling tree in Dawn, potentially the fox trap in Sunset, greencough in Long Shadows, a fox mentioned at the start of The Fourth Apprentice, Russetfur in Fading Echoes, wounds from Tigerstar in The Last Hope.
• The Wrongful Heir to the Throne:
  • In Into the Wild, Brokenstar was the rightful leader of ShadowClan, but he was a completely malicious monster, who attempted to destroy the other Clans and killed kits. He eventually had to be driven out and replaced with Nightpelt, an elder.
  • In Follow My Leader, one of the short stories in Code of the Clans, a dying SkyClan leader, Beechstar, names his son Mothpelt as his successor. However, Mothpelt is totally incompetent, and nearly kills many of his warriors before he is saved by Robinwing, a SkyClan warrior who makes him step down in favour of a better choice: Beechstar's deputy Maplewhisker, who is far more experienced.
• Wrong Line of Work: There are a few cases where a cat starts training to be a warrior and then realizes that they're not great at it and that they'd be more gifted at being a medicine cat, or vice versa. Notably, in The Sight, Jaypaw starts training as a warrior and Hollypaw starts as a medicine cat apprentice, but they come to realize that they'd be better at the opposite job and come to Firestar nearly at the exact same time to request to change.
• Wronski Feint: Fireheart's plan to defeat the dog pack is to lead them to pursue him until they reach the gorge, at which point he will back off at the last minute and let the dogs keep pursuing and fall off. It works for all but one of the dogs, and Bluestar has to intervene to kill the last one.

X

• Xenofiction: The series is about feral cats living in a forest near a human city. It follows several generations, including a grand exodus, and is all through the eyes of cats who see humans only as giant "Twolegs", and automobiles as "monsters". They face horrors such as badgers, dogs, foxes, humans, starvation, disease, and of course rival cat Clans for which each kitten is trained to be a warrior in order to defend his Clan.
• The X of Y:
  • The field guides Secrets of the Clans, Cats of the Clans, Code of the Clans, and Battles of the Clans.
  • A few non-Field Guide books as well: Forest of Secrets, Sign of the Moon, The Rise of Scourge, The Heart of a Warrior.
  • The series names Dawn of the Clans and A Vision of Shadows.

Y

• Yandere: Ashfur is a male version. After being rejected, he decided to pick off his former love's family members so that she could feel his pain.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: As Yellowfang is dying, she says that she fears StarClan will judge her for having kits despite being a medicine cat and feels she deserves it, and that she doesn't deserve to have a cat like Fireheart as her adopted son. Fireheart reminds her of all of the good things she did and how good of a cat she is, but she dies before he can finish speaking.
• You Can Barely Stand: Tigerstar sends Darkstripe to kill Stonefur for his half-Clan heritage and refusing to kill other half-Clan cats to prove his loyalty, after he'd already imprisoned Stonefur and starved him for days. Despite this, Stonefur manages to fight well against Darkstripe and seems to be beating him, so Tigerstar sends Blackfoot to help Darkstripe and the two together manage to kill him.
• You Can't Go Home Again: In the graphic novel trilogies, after Graystripe is captured by Twolegs, it takes him several moons to escape and find his way back to the forest... but that's when he realizes there is no forest - it's been destroyed by Twolegs. He eventually manages to find his way to the Clans' new home.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One:
  • In the Original Series, Tigerclaw had a fairly simple plan. He would kill ThunderClan's deputy Redtail, counting on his reputation to get him appointed the new deputy. Then he would stage a coup and kill the current leader Bluestar so that he could become the new leader. It seems to be subverted when after he kills Redtail, Bluestar appoints Lionheart as deputy instead, but it's double subverted when Lionheart dies in a battle and then Tigerclaw becomes deputy. And despite hero Fireheart's best efforts, the coup starts anyway, and he only protects Bluestar by fighting against Tigerclaw, who is exiled for his treachery after the battle.
  • This trope is shown further in the books after Tigerclaw's exile. He manages to accomplish all his goals anyway by becoming Tigerstar, leader of ShadowClan, and kills Bluestar with a pack of dogs. And while Fireheart fights to stop Tigerstar's new plan to unite the Clans under him, ultimately Tigerstar's Evil Plan isn't foiled until near the end of The Darkest Hour when Scourge kills him and becomes the Final Boss.
• You Did Everything You Could: Cinderpaw gets this lesson from Yellowfang after she fails to prevent Silverstream's Death by Childbirth (though she does save the kittens). In this case, her worries were compounded by the fact that Silverstream is from a rival Clan, and having another Clan's member's death on your hands is not a very good place to be in this world.
  Yellowfang: I've spoken with Tigerclaw. He's furious about the kits, of course, but he's not angry with you, Cinderpaw. He knows you did your duty, just as any medicine cat should.
  Cinderpaw: But I lost her, Yellowfang.
  Yellowfang: I know. And that's a hard lesson to learn. But sometimes, no matter what we do, cats die and there's nothing we can do about it. This is something you must learn to live with if you are to continue on this path. Now come, the elders are complaining of aches.
• You Dirty Rat!: The rats in Firestar's Quest and SkyClan's Destiny are evil. In addition, the rats in Into the Wild, Midnight, and Crookedstar's Promise attack the cats, and ShadowClan has to be careful to not bring infected rats back from the Carrionplace.
• You Fool!: At the climax of Sunset, Hawkfrost informs Brambleclaw that he is a fool... and stupid.
• Young and in Charge:
  • Scourge takes over the city cats when he's only a kit, simply because of his reputed fighting skill and being the most bloodthirsty cat.
  • In the first series, main character Fireheart is noted to be an extremely young leader; Bluestar made him deputy at a young age, and the warrior code states that deputy succeeds leader. If his training had taken the usual six-moons length, he would have been a warrior for only two moons at the age he became deputy.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Twilight opens with an unidentified cat being warned of their impending doom. It's later revealed to be Cinderpelt.
• You're Insane!: In Crookedstar's Promise, Crookedstar calls Mapleshade insane after she explains how she tried to get revenge on him, while pretending to be his mentor, all along.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!:
  • In The Fourth Apprentice, the heroes are about to have their confrontation with the beavers, but there is still a quarter of the book left. Cue the heroes being on the receiving end of a Curb-Stomp Battle and having to find a different way to defeat the beavers.
  • During the Graystripe's Adventure manga, the plot was about getting home to the Clans. At the end of Warrior's Refuge, Graystripe and Millie finally manage to reach Graystripe's forest, but as everyone who was following the series knows, the forest was destroyed and the Clans left to find a new home. This led to the events of the final book in the spinoff, Warrior's Return.
• Your Tradition Is Not Mine: In Tallstar's Revenge, Tallpaw's family has always been tunnelers, and he knows that his father is eager to train him and patrol with him. Tallpaw dreams of being a moor-runner, however - which Heatherstar senses, and assigns him as - but Tallpaw can't help but feeling bad for disappointing his parents.
• You Should Have Died Instead:
  • Crookedstar's Promise, Thistleclaw says that Bluestar should have died instead of her recently deceased twin sister Snowfur, who was also his mate.
  • Inverted in The Last Hope, where Graystripe tells a recently-killed Firestar that he would have taken his place if he could.
• Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb: In one story in Code of the Clans, a group of young RiverClan cats decide to try things such as "jumping into the gorge" for no reason other than youthful stupidity.

Z

• Zorro Mark: In Dawn of the Clans, One Eye leaves an eye-shaped wound on his subjects' paw pads as his mark.

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