Name: Brightheart – Sunny's Spiel | Warriors Analysis
Uploaded: 2024-02-18T15:25:16.000Z
Duration: 11 min 50 s
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At this point, I've done videos on many of my favorite cats, but there's one that

Today I'm going to talk about Brightheart.

She's an inspiring and beloved cat in canon alone, and my own experiences in writing for

her have made me love her even more, to the point that she now stands as my third favorite

Brightheart was born to Frostfur along with Thornclaw, Brackenfur, and Cinderpelt.

Although, as is often the case in the first arc, none of them are named and two of her

siblings are made apprentices and go through entire arcs before she and Thornclaw can leave

The first arc really didn't care about kits.

In Forest of Secrets she becomes Brightpaw, apprenticed to Whitestorm, who is quite possibly

the best mentor in the clan, with the possible exception of Bluestar.

She is calm, well-behaved, and kind, but other than playing with Thornpaw and occasionally

Swiftpaw or Cloudpaw, she doesn't have much of a presence, and is pretty generic until…

Cloudtail was made a warrior without any of the other apprentices, and Swiftpaw decided

they should go after the dogs attacking the territory to prove themselves.

Brightpaw was the only one who decided to tag along and before we get into the results

She's the most polite, well-behaved, calm, and hesitant apprentice in the clan, used

explicitly as a contrast to Cloudpaw's brash impulsiveness for Fireheart.

If she was really convinced to leave Thornpaw, her closest connection before now, to go with

Swiftpaw on a hare-brained mission alone at night, maybe there is more to her than we

Maybe, given her small bits of disappointment shown at Cloudpaw's warrior ceremony, she

feels left behind, not even by a denmate, but by *Cloudtail specifically*.

She liked Cloudtail as a friend even at this point, and maybe seeing Cloudtail promoted

where she wasn't left her feeling inferior to him, and more willing to take the sort

of brash actions that she'd always avoided before.

This will be important to keep in mind later on.

Brightpaw and Swiftpaw go after the dogs, and we know from accounts later on that Brightpaw

actually saw Swiftpaw die before her eyes before she lost one of those eyes and was

When her clanmates find her, she is unconscious and yelling out exposition in her sleep.

She keeps repeating these words in her nightmares in the medicine den, a no-doubt harrowing

But through it all, the cat who decides to stay by her and keep her company, even as

she is named Lostface by a Bluestar who is quickly losing touch with reality, is Cloudtail.

Being injured, having cats constantly flinch at the sight of her, being cared for by the

cat she had hoped to emulate, and only being given a warrior name to mark her as broken

in case she died is an enormous blow to an ego that wasn't high to begin with.

With Cinderpelt's help she does get a job with Speckletail who is trying to get over

losing Snowkit but she is aware that she is being used too, and longs to feel like she's

making some sort of good effect on the world.

It doesn't help when she goes to see Cloudtail's mother, who has a startlingly awful reaction,

and finally sees her own reflection in a puddle.

She understands immediately that she is hideous and scary, but Cloudtail is still there to

comfort her and tell her she will always be beautiful to him.

The issue at this point in her story is that every cat who isn't afraid of her is explicitly

She isn't capable of caring for herself, and has still been completely unable to make

a good impact on the clan in the way that she wanted to.

So she instead turns to learning enough so that she can be of assistance.

We know that she learns the basics about herbs so she can help Cinderpelt, and later, once

Firestar is leader and changes her name to Brightheart, she lets Cloudtail train her

in fighting again to learn new moves that she can do with one eye.

As a key part here, it is Cloudtail who pushes for her to learn fighting, Cloudtail who pushes

for her new name, and Cloudtail who continuously shows off how good she's getting in training

Brightheart does become quite skilled, fighting in the Bloodclan battle, but even then she

always has Cloudtail at her side, and from the narrative's perspective, it is usually

Cloudtail who gets the credit and focus, for being such a good mate and helping her get

Through the first arc, Brightheart was always a polite, relatively quiet, compassionate,

and well-behaved she-cat who wanted to prove herself at some level, especially in trying

to reach the same level as Cloudtail, but one who kept falling short and needing to

be cared for *by* Cloudtail and the clan at large.

This is the vast majority of the story canon gives her and it is one that a lot of fans

hold dear, but it is not the ending to her arc at all, which is why it's important

to look at later pieces of the narrative as well…and maybe completely throw out some

bits of canon and add in an ending of your own to give this she-cat some justice.

Because she wanted the ability to care for someone else so badly, it makes perfect sense

to me that she not only had Whitewing, but was very close with her.

I spoke about this relationship more in my Whitewing video but Brightheart and Cloudtail

were both loving parents and they ended up as a close-knit family.

Cloudtail, by the way, is still spending almost all of his time with her and making the decisions

about patrols they should go on or lead, and when Firestar chooses Brightheart for a patrol

or guarding duty, he *always* picks Cloudtail to do it with her.

Even when they are both captured by the twolegs, Cloudtail licks her ear affectionately when

they get out and is glad that she's safe.

Their dynamic is still one where Cloudtail takes care of her even when they're in the

same level of danger, which, while sweet, is a limiting place to be considering her

injuries might have come in the first place because she was jealous that she couldn't

And then we come…to the latter half of The New Prophecy.

Daisy joins the clan, and Cloudtail is immediately protective of her place, since he too was

born a kittypet and doesn't like the claims some cats are making that Daisy doesn't

Brightheart even tells Whitepaw at this point that Cloudtail is right to do that.

However, Cloudtail starts leaving her alone more and more as he spends time with and cares

It is important to note that for these last two books, Cloudtail is *only* seen with Daisy,

and he and Brightheart are only in scenes together if Brightheart is looking in on their

This isn't just Cloudtail helping a new clanmate with a similar background fit in.

He, after spending every book since A Dangerous Path constantly including and caring for Brightheart,

completely drops her to spend time with Daisy instead, and Brightheart is probably justified