Spoilers for the Power of Three series and beyond below.
There's something about Sign of the Moon that bugs me to no end, and that would be what is stated about Ashfur. He is seen in StarClan, and Yellowfang says that his only crime was to "love too much."
Excuse me, but no.
Out of "love", Ashfur tried to kill 4 cats, one of which was his Clan leader. Jayfeather even points out that Ashfur tried to push him and his siblings over into the stone hollow to punish Squirrelflight, to which Yellowfang replies that he didn't in the end so it wasn't a crime. Again, excuse me, but attempted murder is still attempted murder. And he very nearly succeeded in assisting in the murder of Firestar. The fact that he didn't succeed doesn't magically relieve him of his crime. He might have even been close to killing Lionblaze during the training fight they had.
I see it like this: if a person loved another person and was rejected and tried to kill that person's family out of revenge, or do any of the other things Ashfur did, would failing to do so when they try automatically make it alright? No. Any person found to have done what Ashfur did would go to jail for attempted murder, assault, conspiracy to commit murder, and blackmail.
Long story short, I don't think Ashfur's earned his place in StarClan. Anyone care to discuss?
- Edit- An excellent point Sunfire made: if Ashfur only loved too much, then Tigerstar and Brokenstar only wanted too much, Darkstripe only obeyed too much, and Breezepelt only hated too much. StarClan for all!
- Edit2- Another good point, made by Ivystripe: Ashfur may have been mentally unstable and not completely in control of his actions, considering what he's gone through in his life. However, to me, there are probably several cats in the Dark Forest that were insane as well. Mapleshade, for instance, always struck me as a cat that had lost her mind.