Apologies like the birds in the sky
I have been having an absolutely miserable night, but after venting at length to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch about Brian Jacques' Outcast of Redwall (1995) I spent at least an hour reading about various mustelids online, including several species (tayra, hog badger, ferret-badger, grison) I hadn't known existed, and I think that was good for me.
(I liked ferrets. I found them clever, beautiful, charming creatures. I had had a stuffed animal black-footed ferret since late elementary school. By the time Outcast came out, I even knew several domestic ferrets in person; they were playful and I did not object to their smell. That was the novel where I realized that Jacques' species essentialism was immutable, and I felt painfully betrayed. I understood the long shadow of The Wind in the Willows, but I couldn't understand how Jacques could miss that his readers would at some point identify with Veil, the orphaned ferret kit adopted into a society of mice and voles and moles—the outsider, the one who feels there's something wrong with them for just being what they are—and then fail to see how it would hurt them to have Veil confirmed as irredeemable, genetically evil after all. He went so far as to give a morally ambiguous character a selfless death scene and then retract it a few chapters later. That ending accomplished what endless recipes for damson and chestnut and Mummerset dialect could not: I burnt out on the series on some deep level and have never even now gone back, despite positive memories of the first four books and their unique combination of cozy talking animals and total batshit weirdness. If you can't appreciate ferrets, I'm out of time for you.)
spatch about Brian Jacques' Outcast of Redwall (1995) I spent at least an hour reading about various mustelids online, including several species (tayra, hog badger, ferret-badger, grison) I hadn't known existed, and I think that was good for me.(I liked ferrets. I found them clever, beautiful, charming creatures. I had had a stuffed animal black-footed ferret since late elementary school. By the time Outcast came out, I even knew several domestic ferrets in person; they were playful and I did not object to their smell. That was the novel where I realized that Jacques' species essentialism was immutable, and I felt painfully betrayed. I understood the long shadow of The Wind in the Willows, but I couldn't understand how Jacques could miss that his readers would at some point identify with Veil, the orphaned ferret kit adopted into a society of mice and voles and moles—the outsider, the one who feels there's something wrong with them for just being what they are—and then fail to see how it would hurt them to have Veil confirmed as irredeemable, genetically evil after all. He went so far as to give a morally ambiguous character a selfless death scene and then retract it a few chapters later. That ending accomplished what endless recipes for damson and chestnut and Mummerset dialect could not: I burnt out on the series on some deep level and have never even now gone back, despite positive memories of the first four books and their unique combination of cozy talking animals and total batshit weirdness. If you can't appreciate ferrets, I'm out of time for you.)
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Also, a shout-out to the sad sidekick pirate rat in -- I think it's Joseph the Bellmaker? -- who is actually quite sweet and just wants to babysit the Redwall kids, but instead iirc self-exiles to become a hermit in the woods after helping to defeat the bad guy because Even Nice Rats Just Cannot Hang With The Good Species, It Is Known.
(Unrelatedly, I will take the opportunity to pose question I have asked many, many times and will continue to ask so long as Redwall Discourse exists on the internet: WHERE do the mice get their cream from? WHAT DO THEY MILK.)
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I appreciate the data point. I don't think I've ever had other Redwall readers to compare notes with before. I was the only person in my friend group really reading the series by the time Outcast came out.
Also, a shout-out to the sad sidekick pirate rat in -- I think it's Joseph the Bellmaker? -- who is actually quite sweet and just wants to babysit the Redwall kids, but instead iirc self-exiles to become a hermit in the woods after helping to defeat the bad guy because Even Nice Rats Just Cannot Hang With The Good Species, It Is Known.
I would have said that I remembered nothing of the plot of The Bellmaker except for the villain with the palindromic name, but you're right! He discovers a talent for boatbuilding while living at the Abbey and the kids like him. I think technically he self-exiles to become a hermit by the shore, but your point is otherwise valid.
(Is this the same book with the nerd mole who spends all his time metaphorically digging through obscure manuscripts rather than actually digging through dirt?)
(Unrelatedly, I will take the opportunity to pose question I have asked many, many times and will continue to ask so long as Redwall Discourse exists on the internet: WHERE do the mice get their cream from? WHAT DO THEY MILK.)
They had cows in the first book and after that all options are either vegan or horrifying.
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I didn't know that! I love that shoulder-sitting is just a thing rats do.