Redwall Spicy (hotroot shrimp soup lmao) Take Of the Day:
"Vermin" is absolutely a slur in-universe. The world basically came into English IRL from the Latin word for "worms" and the best I can figure out it sounds like it started being used to describe insect pests and pest animals in general because of being used to describe insect larvae infesting food sources or other important things. And its usage in British English by farmers and gamekeepers (which is the origin of it being used to describe the "bad guy species" in Redwall) can't be disentangled with the Tudor era "vermin laws", which not only placed bounties on killing animals on a list of species but "made it compulsory for every man, woman and child to kill as many creatures as possible that appeared on an official list of 'vermin'" and actively punished communities that didn't meet the quota, and this drove a lot of the UK's native wildlife to near extinction (the reason pine martens and wildcats appear so rarely in Mossflower AFAIK is because at the time the Redwall books were written they weren't really around in England... because they'd been hunted to Extinction in England).
Like, the word literally means an animal that it is socially acceptable to kill, and in the historical context the Redwall usage is based on, an animal that was the target of a state-sponsored attempt to hunt it to extinction, which translated into a world of anthropomorphic animals means using that to describe a species of animal is more or less an endorsement of genocide. Regardless of Redwallers following their vows to provide food and medical care to creatures in need of it (albeit often grudgingly), it's pretty fucked up that this this term is in common use in the setting.
Yeah! All of this!
Especially given all of those Long Patrol songs about walloping weasels and slaughtering stoats or similarā¦
Also, one of the most interesting things about the term is that Martin once uses it to describe the Gawtrybe squirrels, so itās not necessarily species-specific, though itās often used in a species-related way.
Especially given all of those Long Patrol songs about walloping weasels and slaughtering stoats or similarā¦
Yep, although to be fair the Long Patrol is an actual military force, I don't think soldiers in any time or place in human history have ever been known for being polite about the people they were trying to kill.
Also, one of the most interesting things about the term is that Martin once uses it to describe the Gawtrybe squirrels, so itās not necessarily species-specific, though itās often used in a species-related way.
This is a good point, but slurs which are primarily aimed at members of an outgroup also being used against members of the in-group in reference to negative traits that are ascribed to the outgroup is... definitely a thing IRL. Like, at best "vermin" could be considered similar to something like "heathen" I guess (or "savage" but that one is also thrown around a lot in Redwall and in Martin The Warrior in particular). And either way the term is extremely "dehumanizing" (depersonifying?), and, like... it's definitely primarily targeted at certain species. Somebody in the Redwall world couldn't just say "squirrels are vermin" at a feast and be met with widespread agreement the way they could if they said "stoats are vermin." And if the term wasn't species-specific I think you'd see way more rats, stoats, ferrets, etc. using it against the woodlanders they were fighting.
(Although also Martin is pretty early in the timeline. I certainly don't think Jacques intentionally wrote linguistic drift into the series but it's not implausible that in Martin's time the word "vermin" was evolving from a more species-neutral usage to the one that's typical through the rest of the timeline, and/or the historical alliances between species weren't as firmly established).
I think that Brian Jaques wrote a Fairy tale for children and didn't think about the consequences of it. He was changing in the later stories. Having good rats, evil Woodlanders, and a friend, @doctorbluesmanreturns and I both think that if he had been able to continue writing, we might have gotten an Evil Badger with his own legion of Hares. Both of us hoped it would takes place at Salamandastron and have the Long Patrol and the Badger Lord fight their dark mirror.
Oh, certainly. I haven't read any of the later-published books yet (past Taggerung) so I can't comment about Brian's worldbuilding and attitudes changing over time but I have heard there are some more nuanced portrayals of vermin in them. I'm not sure if I can call it "didn't think about the consequences" because, like... Outcast of Redwall and Taggerung show that he did think about questions like "would a vermin raised in Redwall, or a woodlander raised by vermin, still turn out the same way?" and made an active choice to say "It's mostly nature, not nurture, but there are some exceptions I guess."
if he had been able to continue writing, we might have gotten an Evil Badger with his own legion of Hares. Both of us hoped it would takes place at Salamandastron and have the Long Patrol and the Badger Lord fight their dark mirror.
That would certainly have been interesting to see. Personally, I think if there were a Redwall book like that I'd prefer to see the evil Badger and his legion be the lord of Salamandastron and the Long Patrol, and have it be focused on the Redwallers and their ideals of pacifism and mercy being put into genuine conflict with Salamandastron's more militaristic culture. The Long Patrol hares' loyalty to the badger lords seems ripe for a cult of personality situation if they got a truly bad leader - like, Cregga Roseyes was stopped from going down a path of mindless revenge at her people's expense, but she had subordinates who were willing to stand up to her when she made a bad decision and she respected them enough to listen to them.
Having the nasty bad evil villains of the week happen to be badgers and hares is one thing, but I think it would be more impactful to have the actual Long Patrol be the enemy because (a) both the audience and the characters are already primed to sympathize with them, and I think the message of a book like that shouldn't just be "any species is capable of evil," it should be "dehumanizing a culture and treating them as monsters is dangerous and can turn you into the very evil you swore to destroy and protect the innocent from," and (b) a bloodwrath-fueled badger lord backed up by a professional army of hares is a more threatening enemy if the protagonists don't also have a badger lord + army of hares on their side.
Oh that is a tasty idea. Redwall was founded by people that wanted peace. How far would they be willing to fight for it? The Warrior of Redwall has long been an ally to the Lord of Salamandastron, would the sword forged in the heart of the fortress turn against it's maker's heir?
@whumpster-fire And maybe.... just maybe, Martin the Warrior calls a Stoat to wield his sword. Why a Stoat specifically? Because Badrang was a Stoat. And I think we can all agree, if not for Badrang, Martin would have never gone to Mossflower.
Yes! Exactly! Like... I don't want to use the "It takes more courage to stand up to your friends than to your enemies" quote because it's from an author who doesn't deserve credit for it, but it's applicable here. It's one thing to take up swords against a faceless foreign enemy, it's another altogether to do so against the children of beasts who fought side by side with your parents, and even more another to do so in the defense of your former enemies.
Man, on the one hand I know "fascist Salamandastron" is an edgelordy-as-hell concept, but on the other hand the more I think about it the more sense it would make as a definitive conclusion to the Redwall series, because I think the best way to end the series would be with the world truly changing, and with Redwallers and vermin truly allying on a scale beyond just occasional defectors. And Salamandastron is really the only thing in the setting that's powerful enough to force that without bringing in a big external threat out of left field, and I mean its culture is a benevolent dictatorship built around a near-deified figure and standing in opposition to an evil Other, that really is a society that's vulnerable to becoming a not-so benevolent dictatorship.
Actually full-on allying with a vermin faction they only ever had an uneasy, tenuous peace with, and didn't even really like, because they had to admit that actually the vermin were genuinely not the aggressors this time would also be the ultimate test of Redwall's founding ideals.
And oh my god, imagine Martin's ghost slapping beasts who complain about it upside the head and going: "Stop misinterpreting my tapestry and taking it out of context. I expelled an occupying army from Mossflower, I did not call for ethnic cleansing. Seriously, not even Felldoh would go that far. I founded this fucking abbey as a refuge of safety from tyrants and conquerors, not so you could turn away refugees from these gates. Yes they're the descendants of the last army that tried to conquer you, but they've been minding their own business for the last twenty seasons which is exactly what I've been hoping to see happen for like a thousand seasons now."
The Warrior of Redwall has long been an ally to the Lord of Salamandastron, would the sword forged in the heart of the fortress turn against it's maker's heir?
And maybeā¦. just maybe, Martin the Warrior calls a Stoat to wield his sword. Why a Stoat specifically? Because Badrang was a Stoat. And I think we can all agree, if not for Badrang, Martin would have never gone to Mossflower.
Yes, perfect! And actually I kind of think it would be a fitting conclusion to the saga for the Sword of Martin to be broken by a badger lord's paw just as it was forged by one. Not because it turned against its maker's heir and its power was broken, or even because it was wielded by a stoat, but because it had finally fulfilled its purpose and united Mossflower. And the badger lord falls not so differently from how Martin's other greatest enemy did: driven senseless by Bloodwrath, pursuing an unarmed, wounded creature into deep water and being drowned by the weight of his armor.
And so, the pieces of the sword are laid to rest in Martin's tomb, and his spirit departs the Abbey at least, leaving Mossflower at peace. The wars that tore the land apart for generation after generation finally over.
