Balefur the Fox by Salvestro on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Redwall's treatment of it's 'vermin' is so weird.

On one hand Jacques seems to actually write the average fox, weasel, rat etc. in the horde as pressganged by force, constantly in state of terror or hunger, underequipped, potentially diseased and generally miserable and impoverished, at the mercy of sadistic psychopathic warlords, and at any point likely to be ripped in half by a badger berserker or something like that.

And on the other hand, he seems to still HATE the poor things, and consider their general mistreatment justified. And whilst the so called 'goodbeasts' seem willing to sometimes show kindness to 'vermin', (sometimes being the keyword) they almost never couple it with respect and seem to go out of their way to humiliate and generally hate on them, in so far as they put up with them at all. Regardless of the situation. And we're often supposed to root for characters who act like crotchety old racists. (Not to mention sometimes 'goodbeasts' seem perfectly okay with bullying eachother around a bit too, or generally insulting eachother.)

I guess it's kind of realistic. Each species WOULD favour their own kind, and in a medieval setting they likely WOULD be extremely racist... But even so!

Balefur though, cool guy him. Badass scottish warrior fox. I kind of figured he hung around those Gorge foxes (Without being a member of that tribe) because maybe Shang encountered him and figured... Well well... You're a fox, big and strong, outsider, fresh blood... Maybe you could sire a few strong offspring for my tribe.

Which'd explain why he was hanging around a group of foxes he wasn't a member of, now wouldn't it?