I apparently have one hell of a lot of feelings about Redwall, most of which probably belong in a post of my own, if I can process them, but man, these books were super important to me in my pre-teens, and yeah, the thing with Veil's fate really messed me up. I doubt I was particularly articulate about it -- it wasn't until several years later that I even encountered any narratives suggesting society might take some blame for a failed assimilation, let alone anything questioning the ideal of assimilating into mainstream society -- and I still have not met any ferrets or rats personally, though I hear good things about them, but... yeah. Very well put. :-(