Yeah that definitely is the one thing. But its such a huge thing that it totally dominates the entitely of the story. It even is enraging when Jaques portrays the cubs of the good chars to be adorable rapscallions that suddenly exhibit great zeal to want to fight the 'bad guys' and prove how brave they are and how much they want to fight alongside their elders. Its like nobility and righteousness is just instantaneous at the moment of birth and not learned like in true life. And of course they never touch on the existence of vermin cubs.

i only saw the cartoon. i do know there is a game being worked on.

Oh yes, oh yes indeed.

The cartoon thing is pretty obvious; most fanfic is based on the books, most images on the cartoon. Like begets like and both forms of fanwork have their own appeal. The cartoon created visually grabbing characters that appear in art often with little story. The books created gripping stories that often appear in writing with little art. So it goes. It takes a diverse mind to move from one to the other. (I can do visual to written but not the other way around.)

The species issue is interesting. Jacques deliberately did this, focusing, in his own words, on the depiction of said species in European folklore. And if you've rad any folk tales you can see the influences, even when they've changed over the past 150 years of more city-based living.

Every work does this of course, even 'progressive' ones. (Welcome too Zootopia where all minority preds are actual cool. Except for weasels, which universally suck. Welcome to Ralph's arcade, where 'bad guys' are just regular people -except viruses which are mindless death machines!) But Redwall's sheer length turns this from a cliche into something more noticeable, even troubling. This is especially true since Jacques explores a lot of 'what if?' scenarios that remain unaddressed in other works.

For example 'Outcast of Redwall' gives us 'bad raised by good' and we also see the reverse. This is something absent from works like Lord of the Rings (Purposefully so, Tolkein had a strong faith and the idea of things like 'good orcs' raised deep theological questions he wanted kept out of his writing.) Of all the properties that tackle this oddly enough I think Narnia treats the subject the most directly. There, several times, it's made clear that 'bad' people can do good, even in the name of 'evil gods' by action rather than word. (Again a faith based approach, this one committed to teaching such issues to children.)

But Redwall is wedded to the 'innate nature' model, where specism is actually valid and birth DOES determine destiny. By all accounts it seems that he simply didn't intend the tales to be taken as more than a surface reading. Species were shortcuts and little more. No offense was meant and no deeper meaning inended, and this too surfaces in many works, sometimes to a remarkable degree. (Lion king, where the bad guys are dark ski- furred, greedy and violent. Also one has a black voice actor. But it just fits, black is bad and evil and ignoble and...)

Which is why it's so easy to read over them as a child and not pay any mind to such undertones. Only when you're older or wiser can you start picking up on cues and hints that align species with real world counterparts. And stories like Outcast or Taggerung are narratives that are separate from species entirely; their whole core is something that is very relevant to our word indeed.

These issues arise in many works and fandoms, as I've said before. I think they resoante in Redwall because furs themselves are not a mainstream group. A gamer can blast away at nazi zombie communists all day and not need to reflect on it, but foxes are a popular furform and it can be disconcerting for vulpine lovers to read book after book that throws shade on them. (Not so much anymore, we all love foxes now. It's official. We leave our hate for smaller, more perfidious species. It's ok, less people like them.)

Still, at least Jacques eased up, if only slightly in later books. The minions of the Marlfoxes were not that evil in themselves but more misled for example.

As a final note, many fans demand characters have biblical names. I'll note that a man called Bun'ni was in the bible. Indeed the begats can provide a wellspring of curious character names.

I did wonder why the progressive Zootopia opted to make mustelids the standard bad weasel archetype. Though Travis comes accross as just an excusable kid whose on the social low rung and buddies up with the big boy to fit in.

Heres the catch. Even as a teen I saw a problem with this so strict a bad vs good narrative. By making animals I liked evil, I found myself in a discouraging state as a teen and it made me constantly question WHY? Why should any one creature be evil? Is it always that way, what if they are wrong? I even resented some of the good creatures as a result. So even when I was young I felt something was wrong. I read a testimonial of a Latino writer who as a youth felt a great affinity towards the heroic badgers. He identified with them and thought that they were like his own self. Then he had another teen friend tell him that he was not allowed to identify with the badgers because badgers were the "good' species and Latinos were not noble and good like white people.

The Outcast of redwall hit me hard as a teen. Veil is born into a noble world with kind caregivers and struggles with his racial dilemma. It ends with him of course becoming evil. Even his so called selfless act at the end is countered when the mother he saved later tells everyone that "yeah I guess he was just evil after all!" Conversely Taggerung is apparently though entirely raised in a world of vice, violence, and wickedness is magically a moral purist of the great degree with an incorruptible soul. Its ridiculous!

They say and Jacques says too that this elimination of the conflict of morality makes then the story easy to digest and can then focus on its important aspects. But what are those aspects???? Delicious food? Heroic combat? Comedic moments? Shit! I dont see anything that really strikes me as being worth sacrificing the essential spirit of character and the beauty of the complex and nuanced and contradictory nature of the soul. Everything else is just empty without it, ESPECIALLY when spread over a massive stack of novels!

And without any souls in them, there is liberty to do some pretty shocking and appalling things to characters. Take the vermin character Ashleg. Ashleg is a horribly disfigured marten who has a fake leg. He is an advisor to the main antagonist of the book. All he ever seems to do is just try and avoid dying, playing subordinate to his master and avoiding combat. Who could blame him. Theres a scene where his lord makes him run before the marching army with lances drawn, his handicaps causing him to stumble and face death at the ends of a lancepoint, only surviving because his lord looses interest and stops the torture. The marten is most terrified about being eaten by this large eagle. And you totally see it coming from the very beginning of the story: the eagle kills and eats him! Its the most pitiful thing ever, but of course in Jacques world its totally ok cause hes a vermin. Somehow its an expected and just fate. We dont have to worry about feeling sorry? So what else is there to do? Laugh at him?



I dont care now really, Im a vermin lover now and Im gonna love exploring them and living in their world with my new characters. I think drawing realistic predatory mustelids like stoats and martens really helps me tap into the natural viciousness and purity of the animal. A creature who lives by natural instinct and lives and dies as part of the wonderful cycle of life. I want my Redwall 'anti-fan' art to have some of that in it. Not to mention I plan on adding some of our modern human worlds own moral mythology: the concept of the morally depraved underculture. Example being how everyone sees rappers, rockstars, rampant sexual and queer decadence, criminal culture, deviants, and antisocials as the opposition by which decency, faith, and goodness in society must come forth to defeat. In a way im going to be like John Waters for the vermin. Here to make their corruption the heroes of the day.

Ive even gone so far now to have generated a Redwall equivalent to the salacious rockstar. Redwall is so focused on song and bard chars. but they of course are all of the 'good' races and only sing of joy and fun to everyones delight. I on the other hand a bard for the vermin and hes completely based of Marilyn Manson!! His music is visceral and wild and hateful. A sheer delight for the vermin horde and strikes pure horror in the other good critters! I guarantee you this guy is going to be absolutely a pure delight!

I didnt apply Jacques work to real life issues of racism either as a kid, but like you I was put off by the inclusion of fav animals of mine in the evil class. So I always had a sensation of 'do they have to be bad??' in my mind all the time. Now if youre a child who had no major association with any of the vermin species, then the outcome may be different. That example from that Latino author whom I read was pretty evident of how Redwall can be used to enforce the idea of 'evil races'. For the most part, Jacques avoids being actually real life racist because he does not assign any clear modern racial culture to any particualr species of vermin. But in creating a story world where the species of your birth determines your moral character, hes made a world where racism is completely logical and sensible. It doesnt in any way help kids learn how to tackle the concept of finding common ground or tolerance to those who are different than you.

I think to some degree, teens and young adults need to experience some bit of moral shades of grey in order to learn to cope with the real world. If they build their foundations to strictly upon this black and white concept, a lot of bad stuff can happen in their development. Look at me for example. I was raised under a strict religious moral code and a powerful sense of patriotism. But somehow I ended up a resentful ner'do'well who loathes christian institutions and buddies up with Satanists and feels absolutely left out of the national identity and despises the idea of pledging allegiance to any nation. And theres worse than me. Look at the bomber in Austin. A person from a deep classic Christian background, and he goes on a killing spree.

That would be something that was never dealt with in Jacques books. Why is it that some people raised around strong moral codes and wholesome traditional society still come out as they would say... evil?

A lot of Redwall fanart/ fanfics does just that, though. It develops the characters- especially vermin- beyond simple stereotypes and gives them some agency. There is even a whole fanverse called the Vulpine Imperium that builds on this.

Incidentally, when writing my first furry novel, I made sure I had common species on both sides so I could avoid the problematic look of having too many of this or that species on the "wrong" side.

Oh I was certain that there were furries who made developed vermin chars outside of their stereotypes. But do you find them as these alternatively "good foxes" or do they still live as cutthroats and vagabonds?

PS --- I should note, ive only looked at artwork, I havent read any Redwall fanfiction.

I haven't read any of the fanfics either but from the art, I gather that it's a little of both.