User blog:Clockworthy/Essay: Why 'The Sable Quean' Could Issue In The Old Era of Creative Redwall

Warning This is chock-full of spoilers for The Sable Quean further down...and plenty other Redwall stories besides. If you do not wish to be spoiled, you'd best be heading on.



In the beginning, there was creativity.

In what I call 'The First Generation of Redwall'--even though the books may not have necessarily all been published in the space of 10 years--Each tale was something new to the series. There was no choice, you may say, the series was new. True. But think about how the main plot.

Redwall: Defend the abbey from evil beasts--but you have to find the 'magic' scabbard, shield, and sword to do so!

Mossflower: The unanswered questions of Redwall: How did the Abbey get there? Why is Martin The Warrior so special? What's up with that Mossflowerplace?

Mattimeo: Revenge is here, gotta go get your kids back while the hearth defends the home.

Mariel of Redwall: Enslaved you and your father, threw you overboard when he wouldn't comply, you want revenge...possibly, the most swashbuckling and violence-happy book of the series, which makes it almost a personal favorite of mine.

...But, you get the point,right? The only ones even remotely resembling a reused plot were Redwall, Salamandastron, and The Bellmaker--A building has been taken over, and we'd like it back, please.

Next, the second generation, from Marlfox to Doomwyte.

There are quite a few absolute gems (Marlfox, Lord Brocktree, Taggerung) alongside the dull ordinariness of regular old rocks (Triss, Loamhedge, Rakkety Tam, and even a little High Rhulain and Eulalia!)

High Rhulain and Eulalia! are the slight exceptions, the former being Let's go help someone else! and the latter being...sort of like The Long Patrol.

Doomwytes was just a Pearls of Lutra injected with darkness and evil and depression.

Here, the problem isn't the plots are the same--It's formulaic is the main complaint I hear.

Please do not get it confused; I love the Redwall books.

But it seems like that might change in the third gen if The Sable Quean has something to say about it.

From of all twenty of its elder siblings with love
If you look closely (Or, like myself, think too hard about it.), you will find a small chunk of each book inside of The Sable Quean, along with a few more standards of its own its starting.

I'm not listing them all right now, but here are some:

The clear ones

From Redwall, Mossflower, Salamandastron, Lord Brocktree: 'You have taken over our landmark, and we want it back NOW! Oh, you want to do this the hard way? You got it! Eulaliiiiaaaaa!'

From The Legend of Luke: Ambrevina's revelations and dreams about who she is, and where she wants to belong. It's a very slight comparison.

The Petty Ones

From Marlfox: 'Stop breaking into our Great Hall.'

From Doomwytes: 'Stop taking our Dibbuns, please.'. Even though, in Doomwytes, it was a half-baked plan, not a big focus of the story.


 * It also shares the 'crazy hedgehog' with both books. Is there something in the October Ale or what?

What Sable Brought To the Table
Once again, spoilers for The Sable Quean 

Equal Opportunity (For those with funny accents and speech) It took 20+ years for Axtel Sturnclaw, a mole warrior, a chap who is big on "Rush first, think later." The philosophical warriors were starting to annoy me.

ALSO, it was wonderful to see Buckler be a hare who didn't speak in the Salamandastron dialect, which, if truth be told, gives me a bit of a migraine if I read too much of it at once.

The Useless Titular Villan(ess) and the Super Underpaw lackey While reading, I came to the conclusion that if Vilayawas not in the story, this book would have been titled Redwall Number 21. She sits around not being that much of a threat or showing any skills that make us believe she is of an ancient warrior queen line as opposed to someone bestowing silly titles upon their selves. Of course, she had to do SOMETHING to amass such a following. Or maybe Zwilt was just a mercenary for hire.

While Zwilt the Shade was the real enemy here, I can see why he wasn't in charge--All killing and no thinking a typical Redwall story make!

Because Vilaya actually had a pretty bright idea. Pity there wasn't time to act on it.

The Huge, Confusing Prophecy That the Entire Harry Potter series is based off of...Simplified

Buckler's willingness to sacrifice himself for Dubdub, even though Zwilt probably would have just slew every beast eventually.

And Clarinna's bravery, for sure.

Carry Your Tunes

I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were a ton of songs that actually have a fitting rhythm you could put music to. I sung a good deal of them, my favorite being the vengeance dirge and Jiddle and Jinty's song in the cave.

I have to add a bit more, but for now, please, comment with some feedback!