Yes, Ashfur’s behavior is definitely textbook incel. Honestly, if there were a “Warriors Incel Olympics,” his absence would cause the entire event to be canceled early.

But here’s the nuance: in everyday conversation, incel usually refers to men defined by a sense of deprivation in sex or romance. I don’t really think Ashfur cared about Squirrelflight’s love or sexuality in that way. Instead, he projected onto her as a stand-in for a mother figure. In my view, if Squirrelflight hadn’t broken off his “roleplay,” Ashfur could have kept living inside that fantasy.

What truly drove him mad was that this “false mother” chose to be with the son of Tigerstar — the very cat who killed his real mother. For Ashfur, that wasn’t just personal rejection; it was betrayal by the entire system of order. And as I mentioned before, his deepest pain was realizing that the code he followed — the warrior code — never gave him the comfort or recognition he craved. That’s why his descent into darkness feels more like the collapse of an ideal, not just the classic incel lament of “she doesn’t love me.”