With the release of the The Story of a Fox-heart, we get an insight into one of the biggest supposed antagonists of the series: Whiteblaze. In the main The Story of Snow chapters, before these, a lot of us admittedly said some very... violent things about her. Some of us readers still do. But I saw a different side to her in these books - a side that is paranoid about her reputation, fears and wants to please her father endlessly, and reveals all the damage done to her growth by Ashstar. In this analysis, I will be explaining Whiteblaze and how her father put a wedge between her and Snowpelt's relationship and abused her into the cat she is now. We first see the two sisters as kits, still in the nursery, waiting to reach apprenticeship. At this time they seem to have SOME sort of relationship - Whitekit is a bit of a liar and mildly narcissistic at worst, but that seems to be all. However, shortly after Whitepaw and Snowpaw are made apprentices, Whitepaw becomes ruder and more mean to her sister, being straight-up ableist. And come on - we all know that she was Ashstar's apprentice. This doesn't change much after she's made a warrior - but these new additions give an insight into her growth. We now know what she's thinking as she ruthlessly taunts her own sister: she's trying to look confident and, more importantly, please her father. And cats support her because the first reason makes her look better than she is. If Whiteblaze had self-confidence and wasn't influenced as much by her father, then maybe, just maybe, she would have an improved and happy relationship with Snowpelt.
But she doesn't, and there's only one cat to blame: Ashstar. As their father figure, he was supposed to support Snowpelt and Whiteblaze, but instead, he chose to look down on one of them and manipulate the other into doing so with him, while also convincing her that she had to earn his love by being perfect. I'd also like to add that despite the fact that Snowpelt never earned Ashstar's approval, she had Stormcloud, Flowerpaw, and Brightspot, and those three were close enough to family that she's satisfied with them. Whiteblaze, despite being closer to her father, envied her sister - because even though her father supposedly loved her, and she was friends with almost every cat in the Clan, she was never really able to consider her own friends her family, as she thought her toxic father could fill that void alone. In short, we should be hating on Ashstar, for neglecting Snowpelt and abusing Whiteblaze's lack of self-esteem. He alone is the reason why his daughters are both having lots of problems in their lives, because he is toxic, abusive, and manipulative. Whiteblaze isn't the enemy in Snowpelt's story - Ashstar is.
