User:Kitsufox/essays/clans are not equal opportunity

This essay began it's life as a Discussion on Children of StarClan on 22 August 2007. This discussion was a frank and honest appraisal of the reality of disabilities in the Warriors World. This essay is really a culmination and more detailed and inclusive version of that self-same discussion.

The Clans Are Not Equal Opportunity
However unkind it may seem to say something like this in the current modern and progressive world, the world of the Clan cats is not equal opportunity. A disability makes you a liability.

My first step in this odyssey will be to classify disabilities, and explain both why they make a cat a liability in the Warriors World, and look into how they might be overcome, if at all. There are four distinct sorts of disability, related to the four distinct abilities that every warrior must posses. A warrior who works at less than about 70% capacity at any of these abilities begins to endanger their clan and the cats who patrol with them.


 * Moving (Running, Jumping, Stalking)
 * Seeing
 * Hearing
 * Speaking (Yelling, Alerting, Reporting )

MOVING Both hunting and fighting, the primary occupations of a warrior, are consumed with motion. Failure to be able to each well wold result in them being poor fighters, poor hunters, and a danger to the rest of their patrol as they would be unable to retreat.

The only way to overcome this disability, seeing as clan cats have no way by which to produce braces or wheelchairs and cats are incapable of using a crutch, is by letting them lean against another cat. As this could not possibly restore the mobility of all but the least limiting of mobility issues to the required level, there is no effective way to overcome such a thing.

SEEING Blind cats are unable to see the enemy coming, or (should they smell the cat coming), they are unable to gage the attacks being leveled at them by that foe. They can't see the prey to fight it, or (in the case the smell it) they are incapable of watching the way it's going to dart. Hearing, however good, will not overcome the requirements of sight in good fighting. A good fighter gets the largest of their clues from watching the small signals the other's body gives off. Tiny shifts of weight, flicks of the eyes, and the like would never be able to be noticed by a cat without vision. Without even considering the simplicity a quiet enemy would have in "blind-siding" such a cat they already pose an incredible amount of danger to other members of their clan.

There is no effective way to overcome this ability with any ability to raise the cats abilities to the level required for Warriorship. To come even close they would need a dedicated cat fighting beside them with their full attention on the foes of the blind cat to restore them to any level of competence. While there are many reports of Blind Martial Artist the only cases I have seen that refer to real-world (non-competition ring) situations involve individuals who belong to full-contact arts such as judo wrestling rather than the most "Touch and Go" arts that would better resemble the sort of combat the cats enter into.

HEARING On the surface one might believe the limits on a cats suitability to the Warriors Role might be small, but that is without the realization that such a cat would not be able to speak or communicate well (particularly if they possessed the condition since birth). Between the limits on their communication (see Speaking) for further discussion of this disability) they are also difficult (if not impossible, to communicate with. Unable to hear the movements of an enemey approaching behind, the sound of the prey in the undergrowth, the voice of their mentor as he or she gives a lesson, the instructions of their betters on what jobs they are to do, the deaf warrior is faced with a difficult, if not impossible, attempt at normal function.

When considering possible ways to overcome this disability, there are few options in a society where hearing aides (even something so simple as the old cornucopia-shaped horns used prior to the advent of electronic amplification devices) do not exist, are few. In cases of partial deafness something as simple as speaking louder could attend to some of the issues, but not all of them. Your enemy certainly won't walk louder for your convince.

SPEAKING I have noticed a tendency in role-playing games for this to become considering the mildest of disabilities, but I must stress that (even when not triggered by another more obviously dehabilitating condition) it is not something that can be brushed off to become a Warrior. Cats who are incapable of speaking cannot give voice to a warning for the cats on patrol with them. They are unable to issue a warning to intruders, or even give something so simple and necessary as a detailed report on a border patrol patrol to their Leader of Deputy.

While sign language might work in some form to restore some semblance of ability to a disabled warrior, it will never effectively overcome their inability to give a warning, or their ability to communicate with cats who do not know the special language that would have to be developed specifically for their use.

Now that we have discussed the various major types of disability, we must consider why these issues have not been openly discussed before this moment. Is it that Warriors Fans worry about the potential problem of hurt feelings from people who might have these challenges to overcome in their real lives? That they might be hurt with an accurate portrayal of a primitive world in which modern convinces that make their lives what they are today do not exist?

I urge Warriors fans to be more honest with themselves, and more true to the world, when they portray and discuss disability in the world of our beloved clan cats. They live harsh lives, and the more challenged a cat might be physically, the harder that world grows.

Bluestar's Honesty

 * Coming Soon (Bluestar & Snowkit)

Firestar's Cruelty

 * Coming Soon (Firestar & Jaypaw)