What did Sagewhisker do? All I remember was that she was Yellowfang's mentor, and I used to love YS. (I was a lot younger at the time, though.)
oH Lord, a lot of people who read YS when they were younger kinda don't pick up on how shitty Sagewhisker is. It goes over their heads that she is the one who's actually responsible for Yellowfang being forced to be distant from Brokenkit
From a young age, Sagewhisker is pressuring Yellowpaw to be a medcat, when she doesn't want to
Yellow LIKES the satisfaction of healing itself, but LOVES being a warrior more.
She's a fantastic hunter, has always wanted a family, and is just genuinely filled with a lot of self-satisfaction when she gets to do her warrior duties.
(They also had to retcon the stupidest magic power, super-empathy, into Yellowfang so that she nonsensically wouldn't like fighting. Yellowfang. The cat whose first appearance in TPB is attacking Firepaw and didn't hesitate to blind Brokenstar. THAT Yellowfang.)
In contrast, when she starts healing, she's constantly filled with shame or horror. She also gets bullied viciously by several cats, while others do that Thing that an older family member does when they don't like what you're doing. You know;
"Ohhh that's so good, for you. If it makes you happy it's good!! I mean, but, wouldn't you rather do Other Thing? I mean no, I understand, you like This thing, but Other thing would... no no it's okay, nevermind. I'm happy for you."
This while she's already courting Raggedpelt, and planning a future with him.
So to begin with, she has a lot of negative feelings when Sagewhisker tries to pressure her into this role, especially as Sage insists she "Wants HER" and "It's your destiny." But that's not all;
When Cloudpaw (later Cloudpelt) gets viciously mauled and might not survive, Sagewhisker takes one look and says, "It might be kinder to let StarClan take him now."
Yellowfang is FURIOUS at how quickly Sagewhisker gave up, and Sage just waves this away with "oh I won't stop you but be prepared for heartbreak lol"
Sage continues to tell her shit like "You can't save every cat" after Cloudpaw's mother sees her son all cheese-grated up.
So... either Sagewhisker was going to just leave Cloudpaw there to bleed out or die of infection, OR she was implying euthanasia.
And it's probably euthanasia, because when Yellowfang is pregnant later, she says,
Sooooo... considering how WEIRD WC generally is about abortion, acting like it's not even an option and giving Clear Sky some Angel Fetus Children in DOTC...
Sagewhisker was probably implying that Yellowfang would smother infants. Or do whatever Sagewhisker was planning to do with Cloudpaw.
I don't even know if pressuring Yellowfang into an abortion would have been better... honestly this exchange is uncomfortable no matter how you slice it.
It gets worse ofc. Yellowfang gets this warning from StarClan about how “Only one thing can stop the tide of hatred this birth cursed cat will bring: the courage of a mother to know her destiny.” Silverflame also suggests just being his friend, if she can't be his mother.
Forget that though, because Sagewhisker continues to snap at Yellowfang and remind her that she can't look at him for too long, else people will get suspicious or something.
"It's a woman's responsibility to have children for our glorious war society, Yellowfang, unless they have A RARE GIFT THAT MUST NOT BE WASTED."
In the same conversation she's then like, "Also don't go into the nursery, the child I forced you to give up needs a chance to bond with the abusive foster who hates his little guts."
In general Sagewhisker also prevents Yellowfang from standing up for herself or her position in a way that is absolutely infuriating. Foxheart comes in and starts bellowing about "HOW DARE YOU HAVE APPRENTICES RUN ERRANDS FOR YOU?" and Sage is just like, "Turn the other cheek uwu"
Yellowfang is punished constantly for the sin of being Yellowfang. She is not allowed to be snarky at all. It fucking sucks. This book is MISERABLE
SO basically, Sagewhisker forces her into a role she isn't very happy in, stops her from standing up for herself ever, guilts Yellowfang over "wasting her special gift," gives up on cases that are too hard for her, suggests killing kits, says some wildly misogynistic stuff, prevents Yellowfang from doing anything about Brokenkit, and then dies.
She's the worst and no one ever talks about how fucked up this character is. and I really mean AS A CHARACTER
Because her PURPOSE in the story is to do all of these things and be hailed as a good mentor in the end. But the fandom is REALLY bad at analyzing characters as narrative tools.
She's right to pressure Yellowfang into her role, with the ending comic even trying to have Sagewhisker apologize for pressuring her and Yellow going "d'aww dwai you didn't force me into anything 8) ignore the entire fucking book before this point"
Giving up on a battered teenager is supposed to show Yellowfang's talent and resolve, not reflect poorly on Sagewhisker.
WC fully believes that "wisdom" she espouses about Lizardfang. Lizardfang is a bad woman because she doesn't accept her place as a queen. This kind of guilt and blame is reserved exclusively for mothers in WC, not fathers, note how Mudclaw doesn't help at all but no one gives a shit.
Killing the baby would have been the best option because, again, Brokenkit is BORN. EVIL.
I'm pretty convinced that "Courage of a mother to KNOW HER DESTINY" refers to the fact she is supposed to be a medcat, who kills her child. What FINALLY ends Brokenstar's reign of terror is being poisoned-- not the kindness she was finally able to show him in TPB while he was prisoner.
So Sagewhisker guilt-tripping Yellowfang into a position she doesn't like, keeping her away from her child, suggesting murdering the baby... that's all good, actually. That's something that is framed as correct.
And I think people really sleep on it. Sagewhisker is like this perfect little encapsulation of how shitty clan culture is in WC, an enforcer of the series' misogyny while being a woman herself, someone who makes Yellowfang's wife HELL.
But because she didn't do it violently, no one notices it.
395 notes
·
View notes
Are there any non-humans in Monster High that are not considered a type of monster?
In g1 we have CA Cupid! She used to go to Monster High before transferring and shes a greek goddess, not a monster. Posea isnt a student but she is a part of the franchise and I'd argue shes a godess as well. I dont really consider either of them to be monsters.
I do wonder about mermaids and whether or not they're considered monsters? We have great scarrier reef where the ghouls all turn into mermaids, and also Finnigan exists. With the existence of Meeshell over in Ever After High. To me it kind of implies that mermaids are a kind of monster and shes more the exception than the rule... I wonder if the underwater world has its own cultural distinctions as well, if you consider how the reef dwellers treat the kraken.
Jinafire and Isi as well count more as mythological/magical creatures than they do monsters in my book.
Invisi Billy actually is one where I'm puzzled. MH doesn't really stick to the lore it pulls from in terms of Universal Studio Classics, obvi, but technically Billy's dad was a human man who fell into a science experiment. Billy in my mind fits in a weird grey zone where hes lumped in with monsters and considers himself part of that community but falls out of most peoples definition of what a monster is. But hes different enough to not he counted as human. 🤔
Also, technically speaking, I don't think ghosts consider themselves to be monsters in g1? Like they exist in their own dimension, and Spectra's family choosing to move to the monster world is seen as kinda scandalous. Monster society I'd say views ghosts as monsters but its not a label all ghosts subscribe too.
G3 lore states that everything is a monster type though, even humans. So in that universe the answer is no.
67 notes
·
View notes
Thinking about Thaniel and Halsin reuniting again when he wakes.
Thinking about how Halsin describes Thaniel as having been ripped away from him (just as he was from Oliver). How he was the only one able to see and interact with him; how Halsin is very insistent that Thaniel made him who he became. How Halsin's "very first friend" being an encapsulation of nature itself affected the entire trajectory of his life. How that implies, to me, that Halsin and Thaniel were connected on a level far stronger and more significant than just being unlikely playmates as children - even moreso than just Halsin deciding to become his protector as he aged, or the implication of the relationship becoming more along the lines of a parent and child - to the point of being so interconnected and intertwined, Thaniel evidently uprooted and followed Halsin from the High Forest to its own unpredicted detriment.
Thaniel's being cursed and trapped quite literally *did* rip the two of them away from one another, just as tearing Thaniel's being in two twisted and created Oliver. Halsin feels a hole in his absence - a loneliness and disconnect that eats away at him. He describes losing contact with Thaniel all that time ago as being "worst of all", which is saying a lot considering what else was happening to and around Halsin at the time. And all Thaniel talked about whilst trapped was Halsin, insisting to find him because he was the only one who an entire force of nature itself believed could help it.
Losing Thaniel sent Halsin into a century long spiral; Halsin who blames himself for "dawdling" in his own pain as it suffered. Who could almost place himself in the catalyst of Ketheric Thorm's tragedy of losing his daughter pushing him to the edge. It's the elevated metaphorical adult fear of losing a child and the indescribable sorrow involved in that, mixed with the loss of an important childhood and formative influence, mixed with losing a friend, a piece of oneself, all in one.
I just imagine Halsin twitching in his skin to head immediately back to camp after convincing Oliver to return. Distractedly following behind, but evidently elsewhere, until he is dismissed or the group returns. And he is first to arrive and first to break off to his tent, pulling aside the cloth, lacking any considerable delicacy of action, to see Thaniel sitting up, blinking slowly at his surroundings. Alive; the smell of lavender heavy and sweet. Not dead and rotting, not twisted and empty. Small. Frail. Not quite whole. But alive.
And Halsin...hesitates on the threshold, hands shaking, everything having come to its head at last and he doesn't know what to do with himself. He holds his breath, fearful of any disturbance spooking the life away that they'd worked so hard to revive, until Thaniel turns its eye slowly towards him. Two deer caught in a crosspath of light. A century past and there are hundreds of things to do, hundreds of things he had planned to say to him if they succeeded, but all Halsin can manage is a strained: "It's me."
And he does not need to say who he is; Thaniel knows. All those rehearsed things fizzle away in its face. Halsin is older now, he reasons, much older; perhaps Thaniel will not recognize the century carved upon his brow just as Oliver had not. In a moment of desperation, he needs it to know him. Needs Thaniel to remember - but, fool that he is to underestimate the power of life before him, of course he remembers. Of course Thaniel would recognize him, just as he had recognized him after the long winter had passed - when he had changed so much, and was no longer a little elfling and never would be again. Just as Thaniel had recognized him every springtime after, the thawing of ice bringing another year with it, even as its face did not change at all. It must; his eyes betrayed the centuries beneath his boots, even as the child rubbed fitfully at them.
"It's me," Halsin murmurs again, falling to his knees - as if he could make himself impossibly smaller - bring him back to the beginning, turn back the years before it all went wrong. And Thaniel just nods its head and touches little hands to his face, and when he echos his name, it feels like that first thaw of spring again.
"I heard you calling," it whispers, gentle like summer breezes. "You cried for me to stop hiding. You were frightened and did not wish to play anymore. But when I came out, it had gotten dark. I could not find you."
"I know."
"I called back," he continues, even and intoned, but his lip wobbles. "You could not hear me.
"I know," Halsin repeats, brokenly.
Thaniel blinks a few more times, seemingly working out how to reteach a face long asleep, though there were no muscles to move. A false start later, a twitch of the nose, and he is...smiling. "But I kept trying - I knew you would find me."
A single stick too heavy and the dam breaks. Eyes filled with tears, he hugs Thaniel to him like he hadn't since they were children chasing each other through the underbrush with glitters of gold tangled in his hair. Since Thaniel had guided his hand to make the flowers in his father's garden grow. Since all they'd had was each other under the endless canopy of trees.
"Forgive me," Halsin whispers, a century of pain and loss and loneliness exiting from him in a single rush, the cold empty spaces inside him filling up with warmth. And at last he wakes, dragged violently into the open air after drowning for too long, blinded but alive and whole once again. Interconnected; not alone anymore. The earth sings beneath him and Oliver's spirit hovers just beyond the outskirts of his vision. Halsin chokes on his laugh. "I was never very good at this game."
84 notes
·
View notes