User blog:D2r/Unanswered Questions of Redwall

Over time, I've come to realize that there are a number of unaddressed background questions about the world of Redwall. For my own amusement and that of the community, I've posted below a list of whatever implied realities or unanswered plot holes I can think of below. If anyone wants to suggest one in a comment, I'll add it to the list and credit you if I think it "works". I'll organize the list into categories later, but for now here's the full thing...

Unanswered Questions

1. Where do the Redwallers - and everyone else, for that matter - get their bread? There is no mention of any wheat fields, mills, etc. - and you'd need all those in place to produce bread in more than token quantities.

2. Who makes all the weapons? Someone must be outfitting and equipping the Redwallers, Hordes, Corsairs etc. - but who? A centralized trading power? On that note, where does the iron and steel come from?

3. Who builds the ships the corsairs use?

4. For that matter, who mines all the gold and silver used to make treasure? Who makes the treasure, and why?

5. How does anyone get supplies? Corsairs presumably take it by boat, but no reference to any major trade routes is made in the series.

6. There doesn't appear to be an economic system of any kind in the world of Redwall - no money and no trade other than the barter system. So what do they trade supplies for?

7. Why would corsairs and searats bother pillaging the high seas when they can't sell their booty for profit to buy weapons, supplies, food, booze, "company" etc.? Without a monetary system, treasure's essentially without value - so why bother trying so hard to get it? Where does the motivation for piracy lie?

8. How does the Redwall Pond still have fish, if there's no river to feed it? Shouldn't such a small body of water been fished to extinction years ago?

9. Where do all the vermin come from? Presumably some of them would just live in the forst (in Redwall, Cluny conscripts some of them into his army), but are there any other major encampments? The Land of Ice and Snow is a good candidate, but not all of the rats could come from there - and that also leaves open the question of where foxes, ferrets etc. originate from. Where do the hordes get their numbers from?

10. Where do searats obtain seaweed grog? A ship is hardly a good place for a brewery. Is there some sort of centralized brewery? Perhaps that's where the treasure goes...

11. Why didn't Foxwolf and Silvamord ever manage to produce offspring? Admittedly their mate-ship was a dysfunctional one, but still, you'd think they would have...well..."done it" at some point or another. Heck; Swartt Sixclaw managed to produce a kid within a year (with the concurrent implied reality that he must have consummated his marriage with Bluefen within a very short period after Bowfleg died). It could in theory be assumed that the world of Redwall has access to contraceptives, but...still.

12. How did Asmodeus manage to produce offspring (Baliss the Slayer is his descendant)? There aren't any other snakes in the are - and snakes tend to mate in large groups, anyway. So how'd he manage to have children? Did he live somewhere else, mate, and then leave for the quarry?

13. Who built Fort Bladegrit? Where did the stone come from? There was no quarry on Terramort, and it's pretty hard to carry stone on a boat, so...

13a. Similiarly, how was Ublaz' Palace constructed?

13b. Or Fort Marshank?

13c. Or Castle Marl?

13d. Or St. Ninian's Church?

13e. Or Castle Kotir?

14. What happened to the Sparra after Mattimeo? By the next book, they've vanished. Did they move away? Was there a plague?

15. Why didn't Asmodeus eat Chickenhound after biting him? Predators kil things to eat them - so why leave Chickenhound lying there and leave?

16. Why are there so few pine martens? Just Ashleg and Ublaz, really...why are their numbers so few compared to other vermin?

17. What the heck happened to the Beaver? Was it just visiting from Canada (read: Land of Ice and Snow) or something?