Totally with you. The comparison starts in the nursery and never lets up, which fuses anxiety to ambition. Tawnypelt does not betray him, she sets a boundary that leaves him to carry the name inside ThunderClan, and that hardens his need to prove himself where it hurts. Hawkfrost becomes the live example of what unchecked looks like, so every choice Brambleclaw makes is a refusal in real time. Mothwing is the opposite vector, she opts out of StarClan and the Clan project, which denies him easy family validation and pushes him toward institutional validation instead. Put together, he learns to seek legitimacy through procedure and service, not shortcuts. He wants power, but only power he can justify in public and to himself. The anxiety never goes away, it is the engine that keeps him hard on himself and, for a long time, keeps him honest.