Everything I Now Find Problematic about Redwall
I recently made the (perhaps rash?) decision to buy every single Redwall novel I didn't already own (which was all but three) and then read them in order in a short period of time (I am interspersing them with all the Discworld novels in order, so it won't be completely crazy). Last night I finished the original, which I first read at the age of 9 or 10. I will preface this by saying that I loved these books when I was a child, I don't think that I would take steps to prevent my own imaginary child from reading them, and they have many positive aspects as well. For example, the vocabulary is quite elevated and challenges a child to learn many new words. I also don't plan to harp on the breath-taking violence of the book, because it is about war, albeit on a child-appropriate level, and fighting is something that children do want to read about. Not everything can be sunshine and rainbows and lessons about sharing. On the whole, I remember how this book captured my imagination in just the right way all those years ago, and I am grateful for it.
With adult eyes, though, I can now see many, many issues that give me pause, both aesthetically and materially. Here they are, in no particular order.
1) I cannot tell what the relationship is between humans and animals in this world, or whether there is one. This bothered me a touch when I was a kid, too, but I brushed it off in favor of the story in those days. Now I'm kind of obsessed. The book starts with a frighted horse pulling a hay cart full of rats down the road. Who harnessed that horse to the cart? What fellow animal would be interested in doing such a thing? The implication is that a human did it. But where are the humans? Later on Matthias visits an abandoned farm, where a cat and an owl inhabit a barn. A barn built by mice would not be big enough to house cats and owls, so the implication is that it is a human-sized barn. But where are the humans? If humans exist in this world, wouldn't they notice an immense stone abbey populated by animals who talk and work together across species lines? Is the Church of St. Ninian's a human-sized church or a mouse-sized one? As a kid, I thought it was human-sized, but on this most recent read, I thought it might be mouse-sized instead. Which is it? As much as I love this story, the lack of attention paid to these details is sloppy. So much of the world of Redwall is so richly imagined that this blind spot is completely inexplicable to me.
2) I cannot tell why there is an abbey at all. The creatures of Redwall never mention God or religion, and yet the central location is a religious building with a religious order living inside it. I find this sloppy as well, and it is essentially using human tropes without regard for how well they transition into a world inhabited by semi-anthropomorphized animals. That is an issue I have with a lot of things.
3) In a world where all animals are sentient and interact with each other approximately the way different groups of humans do, how is any consumption of animal-derived foods possible, let alone use of objects made of leather? Even the bees are people with a language the other creatures can learn, so why is fishing okay? Why are mice even interested in fishing when that's not part of their diet? Why is a hare interested in eating eggs, and how could anyone in the abbey prepare eggs as a food when they are the children of sentient creatures? Whose eggs are they? Other creatures are portrayed as evil for wanting to eat fellow animals (like the adder Asmodeus) so why is there an exception for fish and eggs? And the belt and scabbard of Martin the Warrior are made of leather--what kind of leather is that?? I shudder to think. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Squire Julian Gingivere, a cat and obligate carnivore, has given up red meat and only eats salad and fish. What??
4) Animals are largely divided into good and evil based on type, and that division is not interrogated. I strongly object to the fact that you can tell whether an animal is good or evil by asking what sort of animal it is. Mice, voles, badgers, hedgehogs, moles, otters, hares, shrews, sparrows=good (even though Matthias has to discover the goodness of the last two). Rats, stoats, ferrets, weasels, foxes, snakes=evil. Period. This subconsciously conveys to children that you can know a person is bad or good by knowing what category they belong to, and that's bigotry. The division also owes a lot to which animals humans like and don't like, and I find that very problematic.
5) Matthias, our hero, is a bigot. Sure, he learns not to be so bigoted, sort of, but he also doesn't suffer any consequences for having been an incredible jerk. He thinks the sparrows are savages and the shrews are hooligans. He tells them so to their faces. Just because they talk differently and organize themselves differently. He makes fun of the shrews for trying to be democratic!! He literally calls one a "rag-head" because she wears a headband!! And even though he does change his mind about them and decide he will never put a collar on a fellow creature again, he's never taken to task for his horrible attitudes and actions. Everybody just abruptly saves each other's lives and becomes friends.
6) Many of the depictions of animal groups are racist or classist. The sparrows speak in a pidgin sort of English, which others them and calls to mind the portrayal of Native Americans or other colonized groups in popular culture. The moles use a "low" kind of speech, which Cornflower the mouse specifically thinks of as such, even though the moles are her friends and allies. Then there's the aforementioned use of the word "rag-head." I doubt that slur had never been used before in the English language when Brian Jacques first wrote Redwall.
7) How is it that tiny mice have iron and steel tools and weapons? Is there a mouse on earth with the strength to wield a blacksmith's hammer and stand that close to a forge? Even if badgers are the ones who do all the smithing, is that really possible? If it was clear that humans don't exist in this world, I'd let it go, but that's not clear, and so I can't.
8) Arranged marriage via dying abbot is apparently a thing that can happen. Abbot Mortimer tells Matthias to become the abbey's Warrior Mouse (never mind that he went from a kid tripping over his own feet to an accomplished strategist and swordsmouse within the space of maybe a few weeks) and then says he'll need a wife so here, take Cornflower. Women are property, right??
9) Matthias takes enormous and profoundly foolish risks that work out just because of luck. Every stupid thing Matthias does, like sneaking out alone multiple times to accomplish incredibly dangerous missions he's thought up by himself and not told anyone about, works out great. Every ingenious thing Cluny the Scourge does, because he is actually a brilliant strategist, ends in ruins because reasons. I know that's just storytelling for kids, conveying that good triumphs over evil, but at the same time it kind of grates on you.
10) The reader is invited to luxuriate in the deaths of the bad creatures, but the deaths of good creatures largely happen off-stage unless it's important to the plot. I know I said I wasn't going to complain about the violence, but there's a very stark division here. The "bad guys" have crushing, pathetic, grisly deaths described in detail, but the "good guys" are dying nearly as much and it's hardly ever spoken of. As a kid, I was barely aware of the all the casualties taken on the abbey's side, because they're hardly mentioned, but there are little hints, like the habit taken off a dead mouse who fell from the ramparts, that are chilling. And yet everybody pretty much carries on like none of that is happening? I think the author is trying to protect his young readers from having to feel grief for every single abbey defender who falls, but the actual effect is a sense that mostly only bad guys die, so death isn't a big deal. I'm not really into that.
I think that just about sums up my objections. Who knew there would be so many??
With adult eyes, though, I can now see many, many issues that give me pause, both aesthetically and materially. Here they are, in no particular order.
1) I cannot tell what the relationship is between humans and animals in this world, or whether there is one. This bothered me a touch when I was a kid, too, but I brushed it off in favor of the story in those days. Now I'm kind of obsessed. The book starts with a frighted horse pulling a hay cart full of rats down the road. Who harnessed that horse to the cart? What fellow animal would be interested in doing such a thing? The implication is that a human did it. But where are the humans? Later on Matthias visits an abandoned farm, where a cat and an owl inhabit a barn. A barn built by mice would not be big enough to house cats and owls, so the implication is that it is a human-sized barn. But where are the humans? If humans exist in this world, wouldn't they notice an immense stone abbey populated by animals who talk and work together across species lines? Is the Church of St. Ninian's a human-sized church or a mouse-sized one? As a kid, I thought it was human-sized, but on this most recent read, I thought it might be mouse-sized instead. Which is it? As much as I love this story, the lack of attention paid to these details is sloppy. So much of the world of Redwall is so richly imagined that this blind spot is completely inexplicable to me.
2) I cannot tell why there is an abbey at all. The creatures of Redwall never mention God or religion, and yet the central location is a religious building with a religious order living inside it. I find this sloppy as well, and it is essentially using human tropes without regard for how well they transition into a world inhabited by semi-anthropomorphized animals. That is an issue I have with a lot of things.
3) In a world where all animals are sentient and interact with each other approximately the way different groups of humans do, how is any consumption of animal-derived foods possible, let alone use of objects made of leather? Even the bees are people with a language the other creatures can learn, so why is fishing okay? Why are mice even interested in fishing when that's not part of their diet? Why is a hare interested in eating eggs, and how could anyone in the abbey prepare eggs as a food when they are the children of sentient creatures? Whose eggs are they? Other creatures are portrayed as evil for wanting to eat fellow animals (like the adder Asmodeus) so why is there an exception for fish and eggs? And the belt and scabbard of Martin the Warrior are made of leather--what kind of leather is that?? I shudder to think. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Squire Julian Gingivere, a cat and obligate carnivore, has given up red meat and only eats salad and fish. What??
4) Animals are largely divided into good and evil based on type, and that division is not interrogated. I strongly object to the fact that you can tell whether an animal is good or evil by asking what sort of animal it is. Mice, voles, badgers, hedgehogs, moles, otters, hares, shrews, sparrows=good (even though Matthias has to discover the goodness of the last two). Rats, stoats, ferrets, weasels, foxes, snakes=evil. Period. This subconsciously conveys to children that you can know a person is bad or good by knowing what category they belong to, and that's bigotry. The division also owes a lot to which animals humans like and don't like, and I find that very problematic.
5) Matthias, our hero, is a bigot. Sure, he learns not to be so bigoted, sort of, but he also doesn't suffer any consequences for having been an incredible jerk. He thinks the sparrows are savages and the shrews are hooligans. He tells them so to their faces. Just because they talk differently and organize themselves differently. He makes fun of the shrews for trying to be democratic!! He literally calls one a "rag-head" because she wears a headband!! And even though he does change his mind about them and decide he will never put a collar on a fellow creature again, he's never taken to task for his horrible attitudes and actions. Everybody just abruptly saves each other's lives and becomes friends.
6) Many of the depictions of animal groups are racist or classist. The sparrows speak in a pidgin sort of English, which others them and calls to mind the portrayal of Native Americans or other colonized groups in popular culture. The moles use a "low" kind of speech, which Cornflower the mouse specifically thinks of as such, even though the moles are her friends and allies. Then there's the aforementioned use of the word "rag-head." I doubt that slur had never been used before in the English language when Brian Jacques first wrote Redwall.
7) How is it that tiny mice have iron and steel tools and weapons? Is there a mouse on earth with the strength to wield a blacksmith's hammer and stand that close to a forge? Even if badgers are the ones who do all the smithing, is that really possible? If it was clear that humans don't exist in this world, I'd let it go, but that's not clear, and so I can't.
8) Arranged marriage via dying abbot is apparently a thing that can happen. Abbot Mortimer tells Matthias to become the abbey's Warrior Mouse (never mind that he went from a kid tripping over his own feet to an accomplished strategist and swordsmouse within the space of maybe a few weeks) and then says he'll need a wife so here, take Cornflower. Women are property, right??
9) Matthias takes enormous and profoundly foolish risks that work out just because of luck. Every stupid thing Matthias does, like sneaking out alone multiple times to accomplish incredibly dangerous missions he's thought up by himself and not told anyone about, works out great. Every ingenious thing Cluny the Scourge does, because he is actually a brilliant strategist, ends in ruins because reasons. I know that's just storytelling for kids, conveying that good triumphs over evil, but at the same time it kind of grates on you.
10) The reader is invited to luxuriate in the deaths of the bad creatures, but the deaths of good creatures largely happen off-stage unless it's important to the plot. I know I said I wasn't going to complain about the violence, but there's a very stark division here. The "bad guys" have crushing, pathetic, grisly deaths described in detail, but the "good guys" are dying nearly as much and it's hardly ever spoken of. As a kid, I was barely aware of the all the casualties taken on the abbey's side, because they're hardly mentioned, but there are little hints, like the habit taken off a dead mouse who fell from the ramparts, that are chilling. And yet everybody pretty much carries on like none of that is happening? I think the author is trying to protect his young readers from having to feel grief for every single abbey defender who falls, but the actual effect is a sense that mostly only bad guys die, so death isn't a big deal. I'm not really into that.
I think that just about sums up my objections. Who knew there would be so many??