Zeke Ruffgar
Loyal Dibbun
Right Paw
"Good always wins. Always! Not just in books but in real life."
Posts: 348
Main: Zeke Ruffgar
Alt 1: Tristan
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Post by Zeke Ruffgar on Dec 27, 2016 2:09:28 GMT -5
BOOK CLUB 2 - THE RECKONING:
Book club is back, everybeast! Every two months, we meet to discuss a book of the Redwall series. All are welcome to join, so don't be afraid to share your thoughts and opinions.
In January, we're reading:
Martin the Warrior
See you in February to discuss!
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Post by Isaiah on Feb 24, 2018 3:55:15 GMT -5
I am several months late on this, for which I apologize. However, I've finally finished Outcast of Redwall as of today, so I'm ready to discuss!
This is one of the first things I took note of as well. Outcast is just such an odd book, structurally. There's a fairly major time skip between each act of the story, meaning Veil isn't born until the midpoint of the book, and isn't even a real character until Act 3. Frankly, I can't help but wonder if there is a better way to approach this story.
As Celebes said, the structure of the book does do a good job developing the conflict between Sunflash and Swartt. In the end though, I find their story rather... standard. It's not necessarily boring, in fact it's very well executed. There are some very interesting aspects in the friendship of Skarlath and Sunflash as well as the relationship between Bella and her son. Otherwise, it doesn't feel like a story that brings enough new stuff to the table to warrant making up the bulk of the book.
Perhaps that's unfair. The only reason I say that is because I wanted to see more of Veil. The Veil/Bryony story is sooo interesting to me. As Celebes said, it's a story that has been hashed over countless times, but there's reason for that. In my heart, I want to say Veil is truly good at heart—or at least has the capability to be—and was just pitted against impossible odds by being raised as an outsider within the Abbey. Attempted murder isn't something easily excused, however.
It should be noted, I do think the odds were against Veil from the start.
He is literally a baby and already everyone believes he will grow up to be evil. Sometimes beasts in Redwall do get precognitive feelings, but in this case I think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you name a child an anagram for the word evil, at some point you must blame yourself.
And of course, there is plenty of evidence for prejudice against Veil simply because he's a ferret. In addition, Veil clearly feels that everyone in the Abbey is against him, Bryony being the only one he's willing to talk to and be around. Though Veil pushes her away throughout the book, I don't get the sense he outright hates her like the rest of the Abbey beasts. When she first sees Veil, she sees an adorable little babe, instead of assuming evil.
As the story progresses it becomes clear Veil isn't a good guy. You all know how it ends, and Bryony seems to come to the ultimate conclusion that Veil was Evil after all. This fits in with the entirely black and white view on morality the Redwallers seem to take. Bella and Meriam wanted Bryony to come to this realization, so she could fully mature and become Abbess of Redwall. I'm posit that perhaps this is in fact a rather immature stance that Redwallers tend to take, as the world is very rarely black and white. I know Jacques tends to write the series as black and white, good and evil with few exceptions. I think it's more fun to imagine that Redwall is instead a world with various shades of grey (there is some evidence for this) that the inhabitants take a very militant black and white stance on. For Redwallers, vermin = bad and woodland beasts = good. But, in fact, there can be just kinda bad vermin and only somewhat good woodland beasts. Yet, because of the labeling that occurs, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy simply because no one can distinguish the difference.
Does that make any sense? It's most certainly not what Jacques intended, but I think it's fun to think that the Redwaller's view on the world isn't necessarily as holistic as we'd be lead to believe.
Oh boy that was a tangent. What I'm trying to say, is that Veil isn't wholly evil. Is he a good guy? Obviously not. How much that was due to his environment is up to debate, though in the end it doesn't really matter. Is he an evil guy? Not 100%, because the world doesn't work like that. People point to Veil taking the javelin for Bryony, but look at his reaction as soon as Bryony is discovered in the encampment:
Some part of him cared for her, and was willing to fight for her, whether he really wanted to take that javelin or not. I don't think Veil's last words had to be something corny like "I love you." It wouldn't fit his character anyway. Instead, his last words struck me something that was still filled with care for Bryony, even if he tried to hide it. A frustrated person who is just done with life, someone who didn't want Bryony to follow him because he knows he's not a good guy, and wants her to be happy at the Abbey. But that could be a stretch.
Anyway, I've wasted enough words rehashing the Veil situation. Here are some other random remarks and observations:
- Sunflash's story gave me flashbacks to our Martin the Warrior discussion. Sunflash is the classic masculine bloodlust revenge story, and whadyaknow, he loses Skarlath as a consequence of that, just as Martin lost Rose. Jacques is fairly consistent with punishing pure revenge and bloodwrath.
- It was nice to see the badger family reunion, as well as Sunflash becoming a farmer and poet in his later years.
- The hares worked exceptionally well in this book as a comedic foil to Sunflash's sometimes overly serious revenge story.
- The Wraith seemed kinda useless? He came in for a chapter was hyped up as this ultimate stealthy vermin, and then was killed by accident. Was a bit of a let down and felt like just something to pad out the Sunflash/Swartt story line.
- I want to see an alternate version of this book where Veil is born in Act 1, we see his life in the Abbey and relationship to Bryony during Act 2, and Act 3 is kept mostly the same.
- Bryony is just one of my favorite characters ever. I love her unbridled optimism.
- Definitely a pretty good book. I'm a sucker for "character sacrifices their-self in single redeeming moment at the end of the book" type stories.
EDIT:
Oh yea, Bluefen? Swartt's wife? That felt kinda bad. As a character she appears to marry Swartt, give birth to Veil, then die. Kind of left a bad taste in my mouth.
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Post by Celebes on Feb 26, 2018 22:24:29 GMT -5
First off, shame on me, I never realized that Veil was an anagram for evil. I remembered Bella saying something along the lines of his name having a hidden meaning, but I never really thought out why. Thanks for that little turn-a-phrase.
As you have likely gathered from what I have previously written, I completely agree with your analysis of the classic impossible-odds redemption story that is Veil's. And who doesn't like a story like that? He is the Darth Vader who's last minute confrontation of Emperor Swartt allows the true Return of the King Sunflash, who had just braved the Temple of Doom complete with friendly bats in order to slay his own demon. And so on and so forth.
I'm glad you brought up Bluefen, because I had forgot about her, and I didn't like that I did. It would have been interesting to see how she treated Veil as a youngster, but as I remember it she get's hardly a singly personality trait besides being shy. I felt like it was one of the few chances to see how vermin act in a familial setting, but unfortunately Swartt didn't even give her the time of day. But I feel that is in keeping with the traditional Redwall villain motif. If Swartt had even showed the slightest courtesy to his mate of convenience, it would have given him a redeeming trait, which Redwall villains seem to rarely have. That is why I thought Cap'n Clogg's seeming loyalty to his crew seemed like such a big deal, way back in Martin the Warrior. It was a nice change to have a villain with a few speckles of gray.
Besides rambling off this vague rejoinder, I also wanted to bring up Bryony again. Do you think that she was overly naive in her attitude towards Veil? While I do appreciate the loyalty and love she shows to Veil, at some points she does seem to be in implausible denial of Veil's bad behavior. At some point, after seeing him getting convicted for poison, rob an innocent elderly family, attack her for rescuing him, and attempting to trap or kill her with a rockslide, you would have to think that she would realize that it was better to let him go. I am sure there is no prayer more fervent than a parent's for her wayward child, but golly, Bryony, are you going to let him kill you?
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Post by Isaiah on Feb 27, 2018 15:34:50 GMT -5
While Bryony certainly gives Veil more benefit of the doubt than anyone else, I don't think she's stupid. At first, she's careful not to assume Veil did anything, because she already knows everyone else is the Abbey will do that first. After Veil is caught, it's not like she continues to deny what he did, she just doesn't lose hope in him because of their relationship. As she follows him after he is outcast, I don't think she's under the impression that he's a good beast, but rather following with the hope and optimism that there might be some good in him, that he can be redeemed.
It would be much easier to understand he insistence if we knew more about Bryony and Veil's relationship. This is why I really want to see a version of the book where Act 2 details Bryony raising Veil and the pairs relationship. Instead, we get a condensed snapshot of them in Act 3, with no real evidence to suggest how they may have interacted in Veil's younger years. Depending on how close they were, it might make sense that Bryony wouldn't want to give up on him so easily.
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Post by Aquamarine on Feb 28, 2018 11:10:06 GMT -5
This post comes with the caveat that I only got partway through Book 1 and then skimmed Books 2 and 3. So I'm going off that and things I remember from years ago that are probably colored by time and my opinion of the book.
I'll be honest: I don't particularly like Outcast. I think your discussion has already touched on the main reasons for that. The pacing of the book is odd to me. The time skips mean that so much has to take place off screen, and the characters don’t change that much despite how much time passes. The structure Isaiah proposed makes more sense to me, so maybe that would have helped me.
The other main reason is that I simply don't find the characters very compelling, or not as much as some of BJ's others. I really want to like the Veil/Bryony story, but I don't think it succeeds in doing what it set out to. It's nice to see the good vs. evil lines in the Redwall universe addressed, but I think other books do a better job of it even if they don't explicitly state it (Romsca in Pearls of Lutra comes to mind, although it's been a while since I've read that one). The debate here is a bit too nature vs. nurture for me, and despite Bryony's conclusions, I don't think it has a real answer because Veil never gets to answer the question for himself. The real tragedy of Outcast is not that Veil turns out to be evil or that he turns out to be good but loses his life in the process: it's that while everyone has their eyes on Veil, no one -- even, I'd argue, the narrator -- looks at him for who he is, just for who they want him to be or who they think he is. To Bryony he is good (or must be made good; note her plan to reform him when she leaves Redwall), to the rest of Redwall he is bad, to Swartt he is not even worth considering. No one sees him as simply Veil. He's a kid with a ton of conflicting expectations set on him who's struggling to figure out who he is and where he belongs, but everyone is too obsessed with his morality to see that. Note his response to his exile from Redwall:
We know from previous incidents that Veil can fake remorse and sorrow, but I'm inclined to think this is one of his few honest lines in the book. The other time I think his true feelings come through is in his final words:
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it sounds to me like Veil is just done. He's tired of being followed and being told to be someone he isn't. I'm not condoning his behavior in his attempts to figure that out -- see his encounter with Ole Hoffy -- but he was never really given that chance.
This is why I have a hard time seeing Bryony's optimism as more than stubborn and somewhat blind naivete. She has a mold she wants Veil to fit into, and she never gives him the chance to decide if that's who he wants to be. Bryony's willingness to give Veil a second chance is admirable, but I'd have loved for her to see him for who he really is and then decide if she can truly love him even though he doesn't fit her mold for him. Her impulse to see him as more than an evil vermin is a good one -- as Bella has a lovely comment on it at one point, and I think it's what makes her worthy of being Abbess of Redwall -- but the story falls short when she is unable to see beyond her own expectations. That doesn't get addressed in the book, and I wish it was.
All that said, the book has its moments. The hares are great (especially in their interactions with Sunflash, as has already been said), and I will always love the scene where Sunflash arrives at Salamandastron and his reunion with Bella. The little hedgehog who always wants to "jump on yore thtomach, thir" has stuck in my brain for years, and I enjoy the bats for their unique culture and way of speaking. I was glad to see them make a reappearance, even if it was a small one.
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Post by Celebes on Feb 28, 2018 22:45:21 GMT -5
I think that your point Isaiah about the condensing of Bryony and Veil's relationship is what leads to what Aqua (and most of us) seems to be wanting: more complex characters. Like you pointed out, the small window we get into their adult relationship only lets us see a small part of their life, with only hints of how they acted in the past. This window gets even smaller since that third act also has to be shared with the climax of the Sunflash and Swartt encounter, each of which also have to have their own separate narrative because they aren't in the same setting yet. As it stands, Bryony is only ever defined by her optimism and devotion to Veil, her mole friend is only defined by a fear of heights and a devotion to Bryony, and Veil is only defined by his general jerk-ness and a devotion to himself. A brief glimpse into what any of those three character's actual thought processes at a given time would have been intriguing.
How do you all feel about the first book? I enjoyed the initial introduction of Skarlath to Sunflash, however I do remember feeling that their stay with the mole family felt a little drawn out. I feel this could have been more justified if that family played a bit more into the whole plot, but as it stands it seems a bit like filler. Sunflash and Skarlath's personalities do continue to develop of course, but I felt that this could have been done on the road as well, especially since there was a few month's time lapse where Sunflash and Skarlath are the Robin Hood to Swartt's Prince John.
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Post by Isaiah on Mar 2, 2018 1:51:17 GMT -5
I agree with pretty much everything you said, Aqua. You managed to articulate some thoughts I had trouble formulating in my previous post.
In regards to the first book/act... It was okay. The segment with Sunflash and Skarlath on the run from Swartt was great, but the mole family really puts a damper on the forward momentum. Even though the buddy-cop Sunflash/Skarlath relationship is fun, it isn't really enough to elevate the first book. It's okay, but it's not where the meat of the story is. The outcast of Outcast of Redwall should be—in my opinion—the focus of the book. Instead, we have to wait till Act 3 to get a taste of him. Unfortunately, with the most interesting part of the book contained to Act 3, it doesn't have enough time to fully breathe and develop, losing a lot of its power. I think we've come to a consensus that more time spent with Bryony and Veil would have helped a lot of things.
To be honest, I think the structure I proposed is totally feasible too. It's not like the Sunflash storyline isn't without it's fair share of filler. Veil could have totally been introduced earlier and given equal or more screen time to the Sunflash story. As it is, I wouldn't question it if the book was called Sunflash.
Thinking about it more, I may have to change my stance on the book a little bit. I still have to like it a bit. If nothing else, it's incredibly interesting (as showcased by how much discussion this book tends to generate around the internet), and I'll never pass up a classic ending like that. However, I think I'm more in love with the version of the story I want this to be.
I really really want to love Outcast of Redwall. I want it to be this deep case-study on Veil that reveals a lot of things about the world of Redwall and the creatures within. In reality, Outcast of Redwall doesn't fully commit to this and misses the mark. Perhaps I'm being unfair because I have a preconceived notion of what the book should be, but I can't help it, it feels like a missed opportunity.
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Post by Isaiah on Mar 20, 2018 1:42:50 GMT -5
The DAB book club is reading Taggerung
Discussion will begin April 16th.
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Post by Celebes on Apr 17, 2018 22:22:08 GMT -5
Alright, here it comes. Another long dreaded and long winded book breakdown by Celebes. Consume this post at your own risk.
So per norm, I listened to this story in Audiobook form, and also per norm, the voice acting was spot on. I don't know why more books don't opt for the full cast format rather than the single reader, because it is fabulous. Especially for fiction. Taggerung was one of the two books that I remembered particularly liking when I first read the series while racing my friend trying to do the same, the other being Mossflower. So, when Tag came up as our next book to review, I was excited to take another dive into it, to see if it stacked up well to how I remembered it. And in many ways, it did! The swashbuckling otter hero was just as daring as a character as I remember. But, to me at least, I feel as if the story was hampered by certain choices made while writing, especially in deciding what parts deserved the most time in telling.
The biggest gripe I had with the story as a whole was that I felt there was way too little story in the beginning, and way too much story in what should have been a nice short epilogue. While I was punching away at the keyboard at work listening to Audible, I was surprised at how quickly Book 1 ended. I remember even glancing at the progress bar of the recording to see how far I was in to make sure I hadn't zoned out on the first four hours of story. But nope, there it was, Book 1 being finished at the one hour mark with eleven hours to go. Now, I know the books sections in the Redwall books are not meant to be of strictly even length, but I feel that Book 1 was way too short in this instance. What was the purpose of Book 1? To set up childhood story for the principle characters in the later books. I feel this needed more attention, especially when it came to Tag's time with the clan. We are treated with very little in the way in knowing what Tag's life was like growing up with the Juska. What was his relationship like with the other clan members? How did he develop a moral compass so contrary to that of his peers? Did he ever genuinely care for his step father?
I feel that these questions could have been better addressed if the time-lapse to adulthood occurred within Book 1, rather than as a hard break between 1 and 2. This leads into my other complaint about the story, that being that Tag had too little problem leaving the clan. It was the only thing he had ever known, and yet he had no problem up and leaving when presented with, an admittedly very cruel, moral dilemma. Even the most cursory thought running through Tag's head of regret would have helped make his personality not seem so one-dimensional at this point in the story. From all the information I remember being given, it seemed that Sawney Rath never showed anything but consideration to Tag, so it seemed strange that the one who called him "son" all his life never earned the title "father" in return. Thus, I think that it would have been better if Tag's time spent with the Juska and the immediate fallout of leaving was dealt with in Book 1, with Book 2 beginning with his adventure proper in the woods. But hey, I'm starting to compete with Riv for resident crazy otter with all my ramblings, so I'll give it a rest.
One final point of critique to slip in before you all believe I hate this book, which I don't, is the aforementioned too long of ending. My opinion is that the book should have ended right around when Tag reunited with his family, with a significant reduction in the time spent on his time at the healer. Everything should have wrapped up in a nice "where are they now" bit of an epilogue after that. Instead, an 11th hour vermin hoard shows up just long enough for Tag to say that he is no longer Tag, and then get whooped by an 11.5th hour Long Patrol hoard that shows up. There was none of the usual build up for the two armies approaching Redwall, and they disappeared almost as quickly as he appeared. I realize the point of the segment was to illustrate Deyna's conversion, but it seemed like using a jackhammer of a situation to drive home a nail of a point. A little overkill.
Sorry for all that.
Now, some of the things I did appreciate about this book were the goings-on at Redwall. Mhera was a great character, and I loved the play on the usual treasure-hunt of clues by not having them come from an ancient and dead source, but the very much alive Cregga. It was also interesting that they never really finished the quest, rather having it revealed by Cregga in her dying breath. It was in stark contrast to how Byrony was elevated to the Abbess, with the promotion coming at the very end of the book, whereas Mhera was practically teased about the prospect her entire adult life, and made her election sure some time before the end.
Nimbalo, for being a plucky sidekick character, had quite the backstory. Certainly a darker theme than is usual explored in character's backgrounds, and it plays well into his boisterous, if at times overbearing, personality. The vermin of the story were more on the Mossflower side of the general spectrum of hoard characterization, in that there were several who had unique names and traits. Not too many generic Badnoses here. Antigra was ambitious, Felch was opportunistic, and the various vermin that accompanied Gruven all were distinguishable by more than just a name. When it comes to writing about villain hoards, I appreciate reading about a few quality ones rather than a faceless mass.
Well, I have gone on about this enough, and I'm sure there are a few points in the post that can cherrypicked for conversation. I liked the book, and the personalities were great. I just feel the pacing left the characters seem too flat in the beginning, and too drawn out in the end. For its efforts, I'll award this book the
Celebes Carrot-Chuck of Contentment
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Post by Barkfur on May 23, 2018 0:48:30 GMT -5
Strangely,This book, like the outcast of redwall has parenting problems,in the outcast of redwall veil sixclaw and Swartt sixclaw as our father and son and in taggurung we have sawney rath and deyna. Those four could be on a talk show hosted by SNL.
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Post by Isaiah on Jul 12, 2018 19:47:47 GMT -5
We're reading Triss! Come back August 1st to discuss!
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Post by Celebes on Aug 1, 2018 9:23:40 GMT -5
Celebes' Triss Outline
Synopsis
Triss is a seafaring romp that begins in an interesting local and many potentially interesting characters, but is severally hampered by trying to do too much.
My Outlandish Praise
I’ll start with what I liked. As usual, the story telling narrative was spot on. Each local and seascape visited are lovingly crafted and described, each new piece fitting into the wider world of Redwall as if it had always been there. Scenes in Redwall books are always easy for me to imagine, helped by a thorough but not overbearing description. This descriptive quality is one that I think Jacques had perfected, and is a principle reason of why these books are always page turners for me.
Other things I appreciated were the extra helping of songs this go around, my favorite one being the songs about education. The voice acting, again, was superb. Princess Kurda’s actress was chewing straight through the scenery with her outlandish German-esque accent, rolling the end of every word possible. Probably the best villainess performance since I heard Tsarmina’s. The dynamic between the baddy soldiers and baddy sailors was interesting, with their occasional bits of comradery early on interspaced with much longer periods of rivalry. It reminded me of Badgrang’s garrison and Clogg’s corsairs from Martin the Warrior. I wish that had a little bit more had been done with that relationship, if say there had been enough fellowshipping in the ranks that a few in the end were reluctant to turn on each other.
Also, I can’t neglect to mention the canon appearance of DAB. While their first introduction was a bit embarrassing, I mean you don’t see this illustrious generation of DABers yelling “Dab, dab, dab!”, they did manage a competent kitchen takeover. While also managing to somehow guilt trip the grownbeasts out of properly punishing them. Way to go, dibbuns!
My Humble Critique
This, unfortunately, is where most of my review is going to be. I’ll break it up into two parts.
The Big Problem
The first issue I have with the book leads to most of the others, and that is the four separate storylines. Every other book we have read so far stuck to two storylines for the goodies, and one for the baddies. For instance, Mossflower had Martin and Company, and the Woodlanders as the two goodie groups, and Tsarmina’s Soldiery as the baddie group. Mattimeo had the Slavers, and then the Parents and the Redwallers. Taggerung had Tag and Mhera, and then Gruven. This was a great balance. By contrast, the majority of this book had three goodie groups, the Runaways, Triss, and the Redwallers, and one baddie group with Kurda and Plugg. This seemed overly-ambitious, and the attempt created several problems for me. For one, there are loads and loads of characters. Not only does this lead to barely any time for character development, but this also the first book that I am struggling to remember anybeast’s name besides Tiff and Welfare. And for whatever reason, I felt that names in this book were a lot more unusual sounding, adding to the remembering problem. No Jess, Winnifred, Basil, Mathias, or Julian here. And yes, this is coming from the writer of a “Celebes.”
Back to characterization, this story didn’t have much of it. Starting with the Salamandastron crew, the runaway hare was there just to constantly gripe about scoff, which while funny on occasion, began to become tiring as he never seemed to progress beyond that. At all. His first act of pilferous gluttony with the hedgehogs was amusing, but he just kept doing it. As for his two friends, their only purpose to exist was to make the occasional pithy remark about their friend’s outlandish eating habits. That’s really all they have time for. I think it would have been much better if their story was put into another book and properly explored Their adventure consisted of a hostile lizard encounter, a friendly hedgehog encounter, and then got merged into Triss’ with another friendly shrew encounter.
Triss’ team I think fared even worse. For being the titular character, I can’t really think of any defining personality trait for her beyond being cheerful. Which is made all the more jarring when she suddenly breaks into dark tirades about revenge, only to pop right back into blissful naivety. Not quite what you would expect from her cover depiction. Admittedly, it doesn’t help that her voice actress uses the same voice for her as she did for other wistful characters like Byrony, Mhera, and Cornflower. She never really does anything to earn the heroine moniker that everybeast likes to give her, besides getting improbable sword skills around the end of the book, which she uses exactly twice in-narrative and barely described in detail. As for Sludge, or whatever her otter companion’s name was, he doesn’t have anything that sets him apart from Triss, except for perhaps being a bit more tough or brave. They don’t really have any personality traits that play off each other. Contrast Triss to Mariel, who had much the same background and motivations as Triss, but turned out to be a much more fleshed out heroine. In part this was because of how she played off the different personalities around her, who in turn became more developed. Except for Dandin, he was always kind of boring after leaving Redwall. Their adventure consisted of one friendly hedgehog encounter, one friendly squirrel encounter, one friendly water-vole encounter, one friendly shrew encounter, and one friendly Redwall encounter. With a bit of running and ship sailing in between.
As for the Redwallers, they never really…do anything. They kind of try to solve the Brockhall mystery…but they don’t really progress all that much before they find the hamster with the riddle. I did find it tragically comedic how much the red kite was played up in coming to save the day, only for the owl and he to completely fail to solve the adder problem. Yes it was sad that they died, but it was rather refreshingly unexpected. No outside deux ex machima style help this time. Also, I can’t even remember the Abbot’s name. Honestly, all their names were quite out-of-the-box besides Skipper XXI. Their adventure consisted of a dibbun expedition, a big expedition, a dumb expedition, a warrior expedition, and a fighting expedition, all to the same sickly-sweet smelling tree.
And finally the villains. I don’t have much to say about them, it actually seemed like they had about as much screen time as baddies normally do, at least towards the end. Their plot was more interesting, probably because it had more time devoted to it.
The Nitpicks
As you can probably tell from my highlights, I didn’t really like the huge amount of friendly encounters all the goodies faced in the woodlands. I know they’re a series staple, but there was hardly any trouble that came to Triss besides the main villains. You learn a lot more from a character in a stressful situation than one is just constantly thanking people for favors and feasts. It just didn’t seem like there were all that many unique situations, which is a shame considering all the opportunities the sea could have provided.
Also, improbable skills were prevalent. Besides Triss’ sword skills, which can be paw-waved cuz’ Martin magics, her otter friend was improbably good at navigating for always being a land slave. Is sailing a course they teach at slave school? The hungry hare was improbably good at tactics for always skipping out classes, though in Redwall there are only two battle plans to choose from, frontal assault or fire-by-rank. He also improbably good singing skills after it explicitly saying earlier in the book that he wasn’t a good singer. But that might just be the voice actor. And as usual, the vermin are improbably bad at…well…everything.
Of course, there had to be a riddle in the book somewhere, but where it fell kind of seemed to be a strange place to put one. Why did the fat king’s father left the directions to the back entrance of Brockhall in a complicated riddle that only his son could read? I mean, if he urgently needed backup, why did he write the directions down in such an unreliable way? It’s not like he needed to keep the place a secret from his soldiers, as they were supposed to be coming in that way too. In any case, his son apparently did solve it, just in time to run away and leave his dear old dad to be mummified with an angry adder.
And finally, the ending. I loved the letter wrap-ups from the different character perspectives, but I don’t think it had to be that way. Because there was so much crammed into the book with the four separate stories up until that point, it felt like the actual confrontation with the villains took all of twenty minutes. It just felt super rushed and anticlimactic, especially Triss’ cocky “duel” with Queen Kurdled Milk. I’m torn on whether it would have been worth extending the story to properly go back to the Northlands, it may have drug the book out at that point too far.
Conclusion
So, after reading this book, I decided to glance around old ROC forums to see what others have thought of it. It turns out this is a pretty polarizing book, with fans either loving it or hating it. And for whatever reason, it always was in contrast with Taggerung, people always hated one and loved the other. Tag was middling, but Tiff here was probably at the bottom of our book club reads for me. So I’m curious what everyone else thought, and am prepared to get torn apart with the forum quote tool. I think this book was oozing with potential, but cramming in the extra storyline diluted that. There wasn’t much to each story besides a catalogue of clichés, which is sad because I think the characters had more potential if only given the pages to show it. Unfortunately, I am going to have to leave this book with a
Celebes’ Overly-Layered Onion.
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Post by Barkfur on Aug 1, 2018 19:33:18 GMT -5
I agree Celebes, though the book is good, it still has it's bad parts. A bad factor that i should bring up is how Drufo,Ovus and Bluddbeak were so underrated. Drufo, being a wise mentor, could have guided Triss through her past and taught her many things. Instead we have him being slain by Princess Kurdy whitefur in the first few chapters of the book. Although i believe that the death of Drufo drove Triss to accomplish many things, Triss would still be the same with or without Drufo. Next i bring up Ovus and Bluddbeak. Both were brave warriors and both met their end in a snake den. Although they were only tools in bringing out Mokug the hamster, If they had survived they would have been useful additions to the Redwall defence force. Once again Celebes, I agree with you fully and I feel bad on how underrated Drufo, Ovus and Bluddbeak were.
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Post by Isaiah on Aug 2, 2018 1:08:34 GMT -5
It's late here, so I'm just gonna comment on a few things and return with perhaps a more thought-out post later. Barkfur, your comments about the deaths in the book reminded me that one thing that struck me about Triss was the death toll. While there are a few outliers, generally Redwall books go pretty light in this regard, with only one impactful death outside of villains, if any at all. However, in this book I can count Drufo, Ovus, Bluddbeak, Shogg, and then there's Kurda and Plugg—not to touch on the many nameless shrew deaths. It's fairly bloody, though this may tie in to Celebes' idea about the book trying to do too much. And I sort of agree with that, in that not every idea got fleshed out to its fullest extent. However, I did enjoy how all the different parts interacted with each other and I'd honestly rather just make the book longer to accommodate all the threads without cutting any one. I don't think the amount of ambition in this book is a terribly bad idea. @celebes, I actually had a pretty easy time remembering people's names, though I do admit some of them are little more unusual than typical Redwall fare. I did notice an abundance of names with the last consonant repeated (Triss, Shogg, Plugg, Bladd). I agree with what you said about Scarum. He's exaggeratedly gluttonous and selfish, to the point where he's pretty unlikable, and never really redeems himself. It seems like a missed opportunity for the character to not grow at all by the end of the book. I disagree with your take on Triss, however. Mostly, I never got the impression that she was naive at all. In fact, that's one of the last words I'd associate with her character. My read of her was of someone very hardened and scarred from her time as a slave, loss of father, and loss of stand-in father Drufo—hence the dark, broody, vengeance tangents—who at the same time had the strength of character to be cheerful and jolly despite her tortured life. Perhaps some of this could've been executed better, but enough of it was there that I bought in and was invested. In the same vein, I thought the climax of the book worked fairly well too. I really loved the small interactions between characters throughout the book (Sagax/Kroova, Crikulus/Malbun) particularly Shogg and Triss. Their bond as escaped slaves and the sort of "desperate buddy-cop" feeling they brought to their voyage after Welfo left was interesting to me. Thus, when Shogg died, I found it impactful. Triss has had so many things taken away from her, so when basically her only friend is, that just gives her all the more motivation for her already justified revenge. That then makes the whole Kurda killing herself and robbing Triss of her vengeance all the more thematically powerful, tying in to things we've previously discussed about the series tending to condemn outright revenge. I have more things to say but it's getting late, so I'm going to wrap this up and come back when I can articulate things better.  |
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Post by Celebes on Aug 21, 2018 11:21:17 GMT -5
What ho? A disagreement? We can't have that! One of our opinions must be objectively wrong!  Touching first on Barkfur's comments about our winged friends, Ovus and Bluddbeak, I feel like the choice to make their demise early actually helped out the book. From my perspective, we already have a couple of books where might strong winged warriors are either a.) used to frighten the baddies somewhat needlessly throughout the book, as in Mossflower, or b.) used as a bazooka to shoot one time at your biggest problem with spectacular results, and then discard, as in Mattimeo. I think that having their heroic sacrifice, if a bit anticlimactic, was the best use for them. It correctly placed the emphasis on the Redwallers being intimidated by the adder trio, rather than the adder trio being frightened by the Redwallers with their superbirds. A villain who's scenes consist of just dreadful anticipation of the hero have a tendancy to get stale. After seeing the death toll listed out, I realize that this was a bloodier book than I initially thought. I think the reason for that initial ignorance was that those who died didn't have very much screen time before their ultimate demise, such as the aforementioned birds, leaving them to be less memorable. Even with Drufo, who was seemingly one of the pivotal deaths at the beginning of the book, wasn't very well developed beyond an ambiguous uncle-like figure to Triss. It was clear from her later reactions that he was very important to her, but I don't feel like he had enough pages when he was alive to really endear himself to the reader. It almost felt like a historical death of that happened before the book started, given how little we knew about him. To contrast this with, grabbing the low hanging fruit here, Mellus in Bellmaker, Mellus' sudden death was much more surprising and impactful to me, which is one of the reasons I think of Bellmaker as a bloodier book. Having a giant battle in Southsward helps, too. And Triss. Maybe naïve wasn't the right word to describe her, but I still think that it is some synonym of that. Perhaps not the child-like connotation the word often gets, but certainly in describing how she has a very narrow and inexperienced world view. "Well duh, Celery, she's was a slave!" is what I'm sure you may say, but I just don't think it was pulled off well. It's not like she was blind and deaf to the world while a slave, she had to have learned things. When she says things along the lines of "I didn't know creatures could be happy," when meeting the shrew brood, it makes me face paw. If she didn't know what happiness was, then why did she even try to escape? Again, I think the bigger problem with her storyline is the distinct lack of trying encounters on her quest. I was only mildly exaggerating when I described her quest as a travelogue of friendly picnics with woodlanders. Friendly encounters have their place, of course, and I don't think that the woods outside of Redwall should be all savage, but having Triss encounter just one more problem then having to run away from pirates would have helped her character. It would have also helped to set her more apart from Shogg. The situations they ran into really only provided for one solution, cooperate with the beasts who are trying to help you/give you food, so we never really got to see how they thought differently. Situations like Mariel and Dandin diving into a wave pool for a needed trinket, Mathias and other parents trying to dig out of a cave in, or Martin having to climb the cliffs of despair to save an annoying pygmy shrew, all provided much more insight into how those character act under stress, and how they all act uniquely. And frankly, they are more exciting to read about than Triss meeting a squirrel with a funny verbal tick. That's what I always say. |
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Well, they're in the kitchen now so if you want you can have him end up there maybe? Or near them?
2024 can be the year of your return 