Warriors

My Thoughts: Jayfeather

I hate Jayfeather.

Now hold on, don't get mad yet, hear me out.

I don't hate him as a character. I hate him as a blind character.

Now, what are you talking about, you may wonder. Let me explain.

Jayfeather is constantly angry. He has unrealistically powerful senses. His romantic life is oddly vacant despite having a love interest. These issues don't seem big, but they are in the blind community.

Bitterness about blindness is a thing many blind people struggle with for a lot of their lives. They either hate sighted people or they hate themselves. Jayfeather never resolves his bitterness, and it becomes part of his persona. This should not be how blind people are portrayed. He should get an arc where he learns to accept and be happy with himself and his life. He should not be constantly bitter about it.

Jayfeather has unrealistic narration abilities. He paints a nearly complete for his readers, and normal blind people cannot do that. We can't know what everyone is doing at any given time. It's just not possible. Also, we cannot see in our dreams, and I hate that Jayfeather can. More on that later.

Jayfeather's love for Half Moon is underdeveloped. I hate how, as a blind cat, we never see him having any sort of attraction to her. As Jay's Wing he does but as Jayfeather he doesn't. This is bad because a lot of blind people struggle with realizing their attractions because, in books and movies, most of attraction is portrayed as visual. Of course we still have sexual and romantic attraction, but the myth is that we don't. Jayfeather should not be perpetuating that myth.

Jayfeather's ability to see in his dreams, and the complex that comes with that, are so unhealthy. He wishes to be able to see all the time in his life, which is not realistic, and it's never ever resolved. Some blind people, specifically people who go blind later in life, do struggle with wanting to be able to see again. But Jayfeather needs to resolve that, which he never does.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on Jayfeather.