Swords, Sorcery, and Socialism - Redwall: Episode 2

Episode Date: September 6, 2021

Part 2 of our discussion on Brian Jacques' Redwall series. Here we discuss communal parenting, the morals of killing, and the achievement of perfect communism.Follow the show on twitter @SwordsNSocPod, Darius @Himbo_Anarchist, Ketho @StupidPuma69, and our special guest Nicole @gi66le_titsEmail the show at [e-mail]/swordsandsocialismEmail: [e-mail] The Show: @SwordsNSocPodAsha: @Herbo_AnarchistKetho: @MusicalPuma69

And I think that can take us into something else I want to talk about when we're talking about the actual, like, the politics of how the Abbey is set up. Yeah. Communal parenting. 100% communal raising of children. They have abolished the family. Yes. To a large extent. To a large extent.

It's not made explicitly clear, but a lot of the Abbey Babes, not all of them, but a lot of them don't have parents. Biological parents that you ever see. Now, some of the Babes do. Like if their family lives in Redwall. Yeah. Or if they live nearby and then the family. Yeah. Or if they're like, yeah, it's like, yeah, it's, you know the from the first book it's the dormice cornflowers family the dormice yeah the dormice from saint ninians who like come and they've got the mischievous little babes

um so most of the the dibbins are orphans question mark or like you said have parents that live nearby and we'll just sort of like drop them off and then fuck off back into the woods for a while but go on vacation or whatever have some like parental alone time and the babes are raised generally communally there are certain people that are like more or less in charge of them at all times, usually like the infirmary sister or one or two other creatures that are more involved with the raising of the children. But everyone takes a turn in these stories. Like the Abbott will take a turn with the children.

You know, a different, like the skipper, the leader of the otters will like show up and like play with the kids. The moles will do things with the kids. And so all the kids of all the various species are raised with each other and by a mixed group of adults all within the Abbey. I think a sort of a very specific way of organizing society that I think to us from like sort of our political backgrounds is it should be incredibly interesting. Yeah. That they're just like, well, we just found these babies and we just raised them now. Like, you know what I mean?

There's no like where are their parents? Can we like, whose kid? It's not like, whose kid is this? Unless it's specifically like you said, like the Dormo, the Dormo mouse family that lives in the gatehouse have their specific kids, but the kids still like live with the other Dibbins by and large. And I think that's interesting, specific inclusion. And even the other good guys who have a radically different society, which is some endastron hairs,

all the hairs are raised communally because they're raised in regiments like it's they're raised in a military so all the good guys that live in sort of organized societies have communal raising of children like i don't know like what is like what is, what is Jakes trying to tell us here? Um, I mean, it, to me, it sounds like one of those things that just, just the simple fact that number one, like, I think, cause like Jakes was what started writing these like back in the eighties and all, which eighties Britain, holy shit. he's britain holy shit would have been like something of a recognition of like hey yeah raising kids is expensive and hard and time consuming and yeah there there might have been sort of like a a little bit of a looking back nostalgically like hey remember when like you know

neighborhoods you know like the kids could all play over at one kid's house and switch around and like the parents and the families, et cetera, in a neighborhood or whatever, were like kind of take turns, like keeping an eye on everything and blah, blah, blah. You're telling me Thatcherite Britain would make people nostalgic for a better past? No way. Make people wish things were better? Yeah. I mean, the only good things that came out of Thatcherite Britain were, like, punk and Alan Moore, essentially. The counterculture to Thatcherism. Yeah.

Yes. Of, like, fuck you, authority, and hey, community. Yeah. Right. He could be remembering his childhood, which would have been in like, I don't know what year he was born in, but would have been like

Britain in like the 50s and 60s. Maybe, yeah. Yeah. Or at least, he was born in the 30s, I think. Maybe, yeah. Yeah. Or at least... He was born in the 30s, I think. So, yeah. I don't have... I don't believe in the internet, so you're going to have to look it up for me.

So, yeah. He was born in 1939. How are we broadcasting this? He was born in 49? 1939. 39. Yeah. He didn't start writing until he was, uh,

a lot older in his forties. Yeah. So he definitely would have remembered being raised more communally. Yeah. I mean, think, uh, war,

wartime Britain, and then even post-war Britain, you probably like a teenager, et cetera, and all, like all the social programs they would have been doing? All the social programs they did do? I was about to say, he was growing up when labor first asserted itself.

That's when like Clement Attlee and guys just came out of the woodwork right after World War II. So it's like the most communally focused Britain has ever been. Um, would have been, which would be fair. Him being raised at that time. Also,

I think lets us let slide the fact that like the analogous British soldiers are good guys. Because he was born at the end of world war two. I think we can let him have that just a little bit. Yeah. It seems like his depiction there, like in Salamandus with the hairs and all is not an uncritical one it's just like hey yeah like there's issues here i'm not saying that it's the best thing ever but it's also not the most horrible thing and yeah i can kind of see that as like understand that kind of like nostalgia tinged, vaguely nuanced depiction.

Well, the whole thing is that like we exist because we have to. There are vermin out there that want to kill us. Yeah. We need to exist to fight them, which I think is somewhat understandable for someone who grew up in post-war Britain. Yeah. Yeah. is somewhat understandable for someone who grew up in post-war britain yeah yeah um but yeah no the the fact that like the the the social structure of the abbey is so communally focused that you know like with the children and all like you know basically the the children and the raising of the

children is a communal obligation of the community itself that if you're going to be a part of the community it's like you you gotta look out for each other and that includes like occasionally fucking interacting with children and all and it's like it's not a bad thing it helps you know keep people from getting too hard and all as like individuals because like hey you're playing with kids and kids are innocent and you know for the most part innocent and and like wide-eyed and not cynical pieces of shit like the rest of us and it can help you from getting too hard and going oh yeah you know what there are good things in life including playing with kids because it can be fun he does that a lot specifically i've noticed in a number of stories with within the

ongoing character of the skipper of the otters. So the otters typically have like a chieftain who's called the skipper. Skippers often are otters generally and skippers specifically are pretty much always portrayed as pretty good fighters. Like they use javelins and slings, right? And they're showed as big and strong, adventurous and rowdy. And they're often the first to step up to have a fight but skipper is also almost always along with other otters the first

ones to drop whatever they're doing and play with the kids and roughhouse like this or will like go from like having a fight to get back in the Abbey to go find a bunch of kids and like wrestle with them on the floor of the in the Abbey and I think that that's what you're just talking about the like interacting with kids keeps you from being too hard is that even like their best warriors like Skipper will come back and like be bullied by like a mole babe that wants to ride on his shoulders you know what i mean it's like very like keeping them grounded yeah and like the the kind of slippery slope that can happen with like especially people who are focused on warfare all the time of like you're not even

talking like like actual ptsd trauma but just like that mindset of like, I always have to be fighting. I always have to be like, you know, on alert. I always have to be, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And all of like, you know what? I can go back. I can play with the kids. I can, you know, focus on that for a little bit and not have to worry about this other shit that is always on my mind and all. And that's a good sort of like self-care sort of bullshit thing to just be like yeah no i gotta go out and touch grass because i'm gonna be

fucking wrestling like you know a pile of children because that keeps you keeps you sane i spent the last like three weeks trying to like track down and murder like rats that wanted to kill me first now i need yeah i need to like go home and like play with a baby well you have something to fight for it's like there's not really that's fighting if if in the end it's just like oh i'm just going to keep doing this forever yeah yeah it's one of those things that like yeah i've talked about with my girlfriend she has a friend who is uh much more conservative leaning and is former military of one kind or another and she's always trying to like just gently nudge him into more leftward you know styles of thought and all and like i you know like there's always a curse on the left like the whole like imperialism

versus you know you know murder and blah blah blah like you know uh the u.s military especially and all it's like it's such a especially especially right now yeah and it's very much a nuanced thing of like my general stance is i like i i understand especially when you're talking about like individual soldiers a lot of them got conned at a very early age. A lot of them thought they were they'd been swimming in propaganda since they were children that they weren't aware that they were swimming in. And they joined up for what they thought were good things like, you know, basically the impulse of like community defense to one degree or another. But it's like the ones that are like, no, no, no. I just want to go to the Middle East so I can kill Hajis.

That's like, okay, yeah, no, no, you have a problem you need to talk to professionals about. Like that's where I draw the line. It's like you just want to murder people. No. So it's like the ones that are like, yeah, no, like I have these reasons. And whether or not they're arguably good or not it's like as long as you're again trying to touch grass and stay grounded and be a human being it's like okay i can i can understand that and kind of work with that and blah blah blah it's like it's one of those important things i'm just

like in your if you're in that mindset of like i i had to hunt down and kill a shit ton of people who were trying to kill me first if you're not trying to like maintain your humanity in that kind of situation by like playing with kids, I'm going to be a little worried about you. And I think Jake's makes that distinction a lot in these books were like the vermin will often not always, but we'll sometimes kill just cause they want to, like they're often shown torturing other animals purely for sport.

Torturing and killing other animals purely for the enjoyment they get out of the torture. They will sometimes kill because they want to steal someone's food. But they will also, and specifically, again, the leaders of these groups will torture simply because they like it. And they can. And they can. And they think that it's going to reinforce shit.

Yeah. Flip side of that, if you look at the good guys, you get a little range there. So you have some of the good guys are essentially pacifists who are like, we shouldn't kill anyone. That seems bad. But then some of the good guys are like, yeah, but they'll kill us first. Like, they're actively trying to kill us right now. We should be allowed to fight back. But he goes to great lengths in these books to show that even the good guys who kill,

number one, often feel bad about it. Or, like, a lot of times you'll have a character will like join the fight because it's the right thing to do and they're young they'll kill an enemy and then immediately go into shock and never fight again that happens in a couple books where like one of the abbey dwellers will be like i'm gonna defend the Abbey and they'll kill one creature and then just like drop their weapon and sit down and cry. Yeah. Immediately. Which, to be fair, it should be your normal reaction to like if you killed somebody. Yeah. But even like even the ones that are more like trained and prepared to fight

like Skipper or the champion or whatever will fight. But like they will go out of their way often to not kill vermin. Even if the vermin are defenseless, they won't do it. Even if, even like this rat five minutes ago, tried to stab me to death five minutes ago, it is now laying without a sword on the ground they won't kill it

because it's not right to kill him while defenseless the exception to this of course are the hares and the badgers who will kill vermin all the time because it's, they see it as their, like literally as like their moral duty to do it, to do it. And you often have, you often have debates in their, their culture. Yeah.

So you have debates between the good guys about how to handle them in a number of books. They'll have like an attack on the Abbey and like, you'll have like skipper and a hair or two and sometimes like one other one who'll be like yeah we just need to kill these rats and move on with our lives to be safe and then you'll often have the abbot or abbess and some other the abbey dwellers be like yeah but we scared them off this time they're not gonna come back we we killed one of them why would they attack us again and i think we're

getting now sort of the good guy side of where the bad guys imagine the good guys will act like they do yeah the a lot of the abbey dwellers also just don't grasp the concept that the bad guys want to kill them just because they can yeah yeah that is kind of like the the tension between like the abbot and some of like the the the redwall order and like uh the squirrels and i think yeah basil sagware or whatever it was yeah so hares hares squirrels and otters are typically way more game to just kill the bad guys outright because it seems like they like they are the ones more frequently actually engaging in roving bands, not necessarily hordes and all,

but just roving bands of vermin. They're much more acquainted, as opposed to these more pastoral, like, dormites and shit. And yeah. Also, those three creatures typically also live outside the abbey yeah in the woods where the enemies are even in the even in the first book the most gung-ho about fighting

all of these um rats is constance the badger oh and again that's a badger thing where the badgers are like i'm gonna kill every vermin i've ever seen and it's like this is before like he was like oh here's you know blood rage badgers and all this stuff like this is long before that but he like it's already present kind of vaguely in the first book to my mind like my under my my understanding of like actual badgers is that they are just very aggressive shits that might just be like the characterization of like the actual species

and all I'm just like they're cantankerous little fucks that's probably why you did the same thing with things like you know ferrets and weasels because they're characterized as being sneaky and they like stealing things that's probably why he did the same thing with things like you know uh ferrets and weasels and yeah yeah it's because they're characterized as being you know sneaky and they like stealing things because they do they'll take things and then hide them in a corner somewhere

anyone if anyone with like pet ferrets knows that they'll like just go into your drawers and steal shit and just stash it away somewhere else and then you'll find like something you've been looking for for like two years under your bed in like the back corner um they just stashed it back there because they like it um you see i've had that happen but usually because i was like hiding stuff because you're a parent no no for very good reasons like i lost i lost the um uh the magazines for my macro for like a year because i had to hide them for a very good reason like safety reasons and all and i just stashed them in like completely like places i i was like oh this is a good hiding spot and i just completely fucking forgot until i was like taking apart something i was like son of a bitch that's where this was this entire time look what i found. God damn it, Nicole of the past. Why did you?

But so I think that like that is it's an important tension that he makes there between good creatures that won't kill even when they should. And then good creatures who are like, no, we need to kill them like right now. And he often makes it like a thing where they'll let bad guys go because one of the more peaceable creatures says it's not right. And those bad guys will come back and do damage later because they let them go. I'm thinking of in Hyrule Lane, there's like a little like a rat band that's like harassing the Abbey like off and on. And like they are continually just sort of after they like fight them off, maybe killing one of them or something. They're continually just like let go because every time like the Abbot's thinking is, well, we beat them and killed one. They won't come back. And then they inevitably come back like two or three times and in the end kill one of the

one of the uh you know side characters and the side character dies because they let these rats go in the past and that's a thing that he brings up sometimes and i wonder if that's a little bit of jake's personal views coming through. That like, even though it's good to be peaceable, there are times when stopping the bad guys should be more important than like your personal moral code against killing. to you too but it feels like that's a little bit of dare i say ideology coming through there that even though he understands the peaceableness there are repercussions for it if you don't stop the bad guys when you have the chance yeah i mean it's one of those things i like for myself personally like is is always like one of those gordian not sort of uh hypothetical situations and all like you don't know like i can understand the you know like we should give this person a

chance like they are defenseless right now it would be morally and ethically wrong to to just fucking kill them outright i I can totally understand that. And there's a lot of situations where that would probably be the correct, you know, course of action and all, but it's also, you're, you're also gambling because they may come back and kill some of the

dubbins and all you don't know. And it's you, you have to fuck around and find out because either you start getting into a mindset of like, we always kill no matter what. you have to fuck around and find out because either you start getting into a mindset of like we always kill no matter what and you cut off any potentiality of growth as a person and going, maybe I don't have to be like this. Maybe I can go back and beg forgiveness

like that one rat and all. Like the one rat, yeah. Yeah. Do you give them all a chance? Yeah. Because you may someday get that one that takes it. Yeah. I think, again, it's a Gordian knot of a question that I don't think can be personally satisfactorily answered in any sort of settled way because it's like a situation by situation.

This is also like I feel like this is an issue that you only really come across in stories that try really hard to paint things in like a or at least it would be more ambiguous if the enemies of

the series were more ambiguous because like these books for the most part uh from how i understand it seem to have a very clear good and bad being presented and because of that it's like the i feel like the moral weight of a decision like should i keep them alive or should i kill them is lessened because it's like obviously in this universe where these vermin are in almost all but the most extreme circumstances irredeemably evil like like what reason would you have to not kill them you know at what at what point how did the how did the red

wall mice even start to see them as like living things at that point if they are so irredeemably evil? Then why – and I don't know. Does that speak to the moral code of the red wallers that even in a world where they know these people would kill them on sight, they still think that they should be treated with respect? Even in such a black and white world? I'm not sure. The first thing I think of in a situation like that, and the idea of like, do we let them stay? Do we let them go?

Like, if we start doing violence now, will that interject into us later um i'll probably bring her up a lot but that reminds me of like like the word for world is forest or something with like leguin or or like even the more vulgar interpretations of it like avatar are like, you know, you, you cast people out from your, that like you, you use self-defense in your peaceable society to keep yourselves alive. But if you don't temper that, if you don't temper the, the, the rage you feel, but you don't like, if you use violence to defend yourselves, when does that violence suddenly become part of your like ideology as a culture? You know, it's like there's a there's a line that sometimes once you cross, you can't go back.

You know, once you've done horrific things in the name of, you know, keeping yourself safe. There's not really going back to a time before you did those horrible things to keep yourself safe. So I don't know. I just think it's something that's really difficult to get across in a setting where things are so binary, black and white, where there,

where for all intents and purposes, there really shouldn't be no moral code in this world that says that you shouldn't be able to kill them because they are just evil by definition. Yeah, and that sort of gets into part of another thing I wanted to discuss about this. We mentioned it at the beginning that these books, even being for children, are rife with violence. Yes.

He doesn't shy away. Pretty casually in some extent. outside of just storytelling, again, imagining it in universe, what does that do to the psychology of living and building a society in a world where literally at any point you could just get got?

Like, to understand the books, the Redwallers, by and large, do not leave the Abbey. Like, at all. If they do leave the Abbey. Like, at all. They are, like, if they do leave the Abbey, they form generally. There's exceptions. Like, in times where it's been peaceful for a long time, there's a little bit more free flow in and out of the Abbey.

But in a lot of the books, you only leave the Abbey in a group and armed. Because there's potential for bad things to happen. And even in more peaceful times, they can leave the Abbey, walk out in the woods, and just be confronted with a predator. Like something that's going to eat you. It's just there.

Not necessarily one of the vermin, but just like a fucking owl or a snake. It's an adder. It's a snake. Which which by the way, snakes are portrayed as like the most base evil creature in the entire series like where even

with like rats in Vermin you do get like, you know a little touch of grey, like they're at least like creatures that you can talk to and reason with you can reason with the bad guys generally not snakes it's usually adders adders and like adders are so terrifying and evil that the vermin are terrified of them because adders make no distinction among any living

creature and they want to eat everyone that's a snake holy shit we're all fucking dead or one of us is dead so like it's interesting that there's like a once you get out of mammals there's a lot less gray the the the snake in in the first book is legitimately the most un like unurban character in it like whenever there's a snake that is the snake because whenever the first whenever i think his name's asmodeus in this and he and when he comes out the first time like you had not seen anything other than mammals up to this point. And you'd heard mention of sparrows at the, like, like they talk about birds and then this weird,

like black and green, I think it's black and blue or black and green snake. I can green. I think. Yeah. It's like, just comes out, just says its own name over and over again.

Like a Pokemon, like, like, like a satanic Pokemon. And, and, and up to this point again like a pokemon like like like a satanic pokemon and and and up to this point like people had been like oh attack yada yada and and there'd been death but like here comes the snake and just eat somebody in the first season like just have you have you looked up a picture of an adder i mean they're i mean if you just just google an adder well i thought you were doing the internet well you know what don't

oh they are they are classic snake like that is like they like if you if you picture like predatory snake like you're thinking of an adder, if you're not imagining like, you know, like a boa constrictor or something like, and like you said, when the snake appears, it's genuinely the most unnerving thing. And it's actually because they have the way they're portrayed and that they

are unnerving to everybody else in the book. And there is at least one other book where a snake is, where snakes are sort of like one of the big bads and eat quite a lot of people. And it's like, it's, I don't know if the reptilian-ness adds the other worldliness to it. Cause snakes can talk.

Yeah. And they, and I've, and like in one of the books, there's multiple snakes and they talk to each other, but mostly when they interact with other animals, they just sort of say their names, but they also say some really dark shit,

like embrace the darkness, allow your eyes to close and slide into the gentle sleep of eternity. Yeah. I'm pretty sure some Asmodeus lines from book one that is some dark shit i just found the first the first scene he comes in he just says its name and then come with me i will show you eternity and you're like he's eating you because like the only reason the man in the club like the only reason... We're not Mr. Man in the Club. Like, the only reason that the rat that he eats here is even there is because, like, Matthias tied him up instead of killing him. Yeah.

Uh-huh. He tied him up because he was like, I don't want to kill this guy. And he moved on. And then the snake came along and did it for him. Because, like, the snake doesn't care. And it comes along and says, let me show you eternity. Yeah. And eats him.

Like honestly, I don't want to say the snake, like even later in the book that the snake is presented in a kind of eldritch way. But they kind of are. but they kind of are because they they almost don't even think of any other living thing in as things as things it's just it's a very we are on a higher level of existence than you i'm not even going to pay attention i'm just going to mock you and then eat you like you are here to be eaten that is your purpose of existence is for me to kill you. It's like I understand all of reality and you know nothing. And you're like, do you really though? It's more self-righteousness than anything because I don't think the snakes actually understand a higher plane of existence.

No, no. It's like pure sociopathic narcissism. It's true. I don't care. The only thing that's worth is... Sorry, we're going to take a time out to look at my puppy who is currently flipped over and is

staring at me from the side of my desk. The longer I'm here and not doing anything else, she'll creep closer to the edge because she thinks if she stares at me really hard, I'll notice her and do something different, like go outside or whatever. No, I'm sorry sorry not right now we had to show the cute puppy as a break from the eldritch abomination that is adders and they do that in other stories too where it's like the whole purpose of yeah the

snake is to be this thing that sees itself above everyone else that is an extant danger to literally everyone. It's like you have vermin and good beasts that are having their own clashes over, you know, food or land or territory. But if a snake shows up, that's extant to both of them and is a danger to all of the above. In the one, the book I just finished, which was, when book I just finished,

which was, when did I just finish? We listened to, um, Tris. There's three snakes that are like essentially stuck together. Cause their tails got like bound together when they were baby snakes. And so the three snakes have to move together. It's a snake King.

What? Essentially. So like the story is that like they were babies and a giant powerful warlord showed up and tried to like raid the treasure that their parent snake had gotten or whatever and the the ferret king died in combat with the the mother snake and they both died literally the scene is is that this ferret king and this full-grown adder were fighting. The adder bit him

and sort of bound him up, but he fought back so hard with his teeth he broke the adder's spine. And they die in a death embrace together. This is a children's story, by the way. Yeah. I remember the

mutual death scene in Dr. Seuss's Oh, All the Places You'll Go. Exactly. So what happened is... Extreme violence and gore. Yeah. So the way it happened is

the Ferret King used a big flail. Like, you know, Witch King of Angmar style flail. And at one point when they got knocked out of his hand, it like, you know, wrapped itself around the tails of the three baby adders that were in the room. And because they're snakes, they don't have hands. They couldn't unbind it. And it's sort of like Chinese finger trap them where if they pulled they got tighter and so they grew up together as essentially three snakes bound together that hunt together in like a triumvirate and the thing about them is that unlike other snakes they can't be completely silent because they have a flail dragging behind them. And also their tails below the flail are essentially dead flesh. So you can smell them because you smell, he literally often describes the sickly odor of death

because you smell their rotting flesh tails. This is some crazy, badass shit. They have rotting flesh tails that you can smell and the smell lingers and you can hear the grass because the flail can't move silently as like a snake on its own could so like in this story there's often a moment where a creature is out in the woods and notices a smell and is like like what do i smell and then we'll hear the swish of grass and then before they see anything the smell and the sound will overwhelm them with terror so much that they run blindly through the woods in terror and it's a plot point that numerous characters encounter this

but then will be so terrified that they won't tell anyone what they saw because they're too scared of what they saw to tell anyone what it was and like i think that's just an interesting point he makes going back like this is how snakes are perceived as this is like yeah eldritch fucking horror holy shit guys i saw a mothman. Yeah, whatever, Matthias. Yeah, whatever. Tell us about Martin the Warrior. Meanwhile, there's like an adder out there that's like, please embrace the sweet nothingness of my mouth. And you're like. Well, I mean, that's the major pickup line I use.

Where it's like, stare into the deep pools of my eyes and enter the void it's like talking to Darius you're just quoting my pickup lines look in the dark

you grasp at minds significantly or greater you're like so I wanted to You grasp at minds significantly or greater. You're like, oh. You're like, oh, okay. So I wanted to – speaking of this conversation with Nix, lead me to one of the other specific points I wanted to talk about, which we've sort of touched on a little bit. Is this sort of like – I don't know a better word besides calling it like species essentialism.

Yeah. Because all the different species have characteristics that are like endemic to their species. Like otters are, are, are rough and dangerous, but playful. Like squirrels are kind of like quick and flighty, but like still like,

you know, good climbers and stuff like ferrets and stoats are all are all like sort of backhanded. Foxes are all tricky, like and backstabby and like rats are all cruel. You know what I mean? There's a very like a sort of race essentialism going on in this world with the different species that that's honestly like something i was like a little concerned with because like obviously in in terms of like a book like this they're they're animals so they are separate species so there is like some reason that it's more okay in a setting like that than if you were to make that statement about people but at the same time uh it that's what they're also heavily personified yeah i was about to say that sort of thing in storytelling always makes me very nervous because you're like

you're you're learning to read this in in a way that categorizes things you know as as being the way they are because of the way they are it's like there's no there is a centralism to that and i and i and i think it can be difficult especially for kids to separate that um i feel like are are all rats evil backstabbers because they're inherently that way or at some point was like that's just how all rats raise other rats because it's like it's a common thing like they talk about how like rats would sell you know would like stab their own mom over food like are they that way inherently or because all rats are raised to behave that way now this is this is sort of like the you know we don't want to get too deep into it because get into like the what I've encountered before, like the Tolkien and orc behavior conversation.

Like, are they naturally this way or are they this way because their societies train them to be this way? I would say at first glance, I think for the most part in Redwall, the creatures are that way because that's just kind of how they are yeah and my example for that is one specific book there's a novel called outcast of red wall i don't think i don't i you know i don't know if that's one you read nicole no outcast of red wall you have vermin horde that's led by a stote it's a stoter a ferret i think it might be a stote um i gotta be honest as a kid that's the only way i knew these things were different was because he labeled them differently between ferrets stoats and weasels i was like those are all different things anyway here's this vermin horde led by a specific warlord who's

you know particularly cruel whatever it's a bog standard jake's, you know, particularly cruel, whatever. It's a bog standard Jake's Redwall villain. But there's a unique twist in this story. They're like traversing the countryside. They never make it to Redwall because the Redwallers like are warned about their coming and actually like send out like a warrior party and like fight hard enough that the vermin horde is like, fuck it. It's not worth the trouble. Besides I have a different objective in mind, but this warlord in this story has a, a partner,

a female companion, a wife, I guess for like, I don't, I wouldn't put it as, as, as genuine as the attachment you might want to give to the word wife, but it's a, it's, but it's a mate.

Jakes does use the word mate a lot, like they're a mated pair or whatever. Who gives birth to a baby, a baby stoat. In the fight on the path near Redwall, in the retreat, the baby stoat gets left behind, gets abandoned. The warlord does not care because he's a vermin warlord. Why would he care about his child? Right? This child gets left behind

and the Red Wallers find it. It's a tiny baby boy stoat. They bring it to the Abbey and then they have a discussion that we just talked about before. What do we do with this baby stoat? The badger is like, chuck it out of here or kill it. I don't care.

It's a stoat. They're bad. One of the protagonists, one of the female characters, I don't remember her name offhand. I could look it up, but she is like, it's a baby. It hasn't done anything wrong. It's not guilty of the crimes of its dad. Or, well, they don't know that they don't know at the time that the baby's dad is the

warlord. But you know what I mean? It's just it's a baby stoat. It's not guilty of any of the crimes of any other stoats. The badger is like, yeah, but it's a stoat. It's going to grow up and be just like them and the main character is like no if we raise it here at red wall it will be a red waller and the story progresses and spoiler the badger was right that stoat grows up in Redwall like with being cared for by Redwallers

and as soon as it's old enough to figure it out begins stealing things from other Redwallers lying to other Redwallers stealing things and lying about stealing them being mean to the other babes because it can just because and so it becomes clear that the St stote is deceitful and violent because it just inherently is and eventually goes to the point where it

nearly it try he tries to poison one of like the friar nearly kills the friar and i think does kill someone else who drinks his drinks the drink on accident and they're like you just murdered a red waller and they have to they have to decide what to do with it and the the character the girl who raised him is like you can't be that like be nice to him he's one of us and everyone else is like no he's not he's a criminal he's been stealing and lying and they eventually the abbot has to lay down the punishment of making him an outcast like they don't put him in jail or anything they say you are banished from red wall abbey do not return and they banish him well the girl who raised him is like so upset by this that she's like, no, I'm going to go out and find him and convince him that he's actually good on the inside and bring him home. Because she's like, no, no, he's going to learn that he's actually good and I'll bring him back.

And the rest of the story progresses. And at the end, she ends up at the mercy. This the stoat ends up meeting his dad, who is the warlord. And they obviously just hate each other immediately for some reason. And then at the end, in the climactic fight, this Stoat warlord throws a spear and tries to kill our female protagonist. And the Stoat that she raised instinctually dives in the way

and takes the spear for her. And subsequently dies. But as he's dying, she gets to talk to him and be like, you've told me repeatedly that you hate me and everyone. Why did you take that spear for me? And he's dying she gets to talk to him and be like you've told me repeatedly that you hate me and everyone why did you take that spear for me and he's basically like you know what i really don't

know why i did that for you and then he dies unrepentant that's kind of fucked he like he's just like i guess i did it for you but like he's not like i did it because i love you and i have a good heart he's basically just like yeah i can't really know why i did that and like that's the end of the story he's like well that was a mistake why the fuck did i do that basically if i'm remembering it right this basically happens and like that's so like what's the the moral of the story there is that like the stoat's bad because he's a stoat and there's no fixing that like he that clearly destroys the nurture argument because he was nurtured at red wall

the most wholesome place on earth and he still came out a murderer and a liar and a cheat like at the end he has a redemptive moment i wonder how it doesn't but it doesn't accept his own redemptive moment he does it but he's like ah it's so stupid i wonder how much of that is jake saying something so much as him trying to find a justification for trying to for make an outcast no well no trying to find a justification for trying to make an outcast. No, well, no, trying to find a justification for all of the, for always presenting the vermin as villains. I don't know how much of that, I mean on – who knows how he himself felt in any way. But like I feel like that probably had more to do with him trying to find a way to make the world building make sense. Trying to create consistency within the world like these notes are bad.

Here's the story that tells you why vermin are always bad. Yeah, almost more like a – Yeah, pre-programmed yeah yeah just so that it makes more sense throughout the rest of the stories as to why the vermin are always the bad ones why the other guys are always the good ones i guess in a story that's essentialist like that that's yeah i just i remember the first even as a kid the first time i read that that book i was like all right that's i don't that's that's the moral i don't think that's like uh how like as even as a kid you're like oh you want this to end happily with

him being like yeah i'm sorry i was a little shithead. You were right, but I have to die now. And then he was just like, that sucked. Dad, Lord Vader, why did you throw the Emperor down that shaft? Fuck if I know. He's like, that was instinct. A little bit of instinctual

affection turned over, but I kind of wish I hadn't done that. Tingling in my mid I kind of wish I hadn't done that. Tingling in my midichlorians, I don't know. That was a massive mistake, Luke. Yeah, I got to be honest with you. Lang, they're dying and being like, yeah, I wish I hadn't saved you. This sucks.

This is really bad. Just pull them down. I just remember that. So I do think that that is like you're putting up sort of an unfortunate undercurrent in the stories because part of what we're doing here is talking about the politics and the stories that aren't directly explained to you, but you kind of osmosis, right? Yeah. That's what we're talking about is like what it's telling you that you're,

it's what it's telling you without telling you and as much as red wall without telling us is talk itself is talking tells us about the goodness of communal life and pastoral like nature worship and communal living it's also telling us that bad guys are bad because they're bad which if you're talking specifically about like nazis maybe sure if you self-identify as a nazi you're probably just a bad person but like i don't think that's a good lesson for generally the world. Anyone that disagrees with me or wants to fight me is just at their core inherently villainous. No, no, no. It's all abusive. They don't care.

Yeah, no. If they disagree with me on Twitter, it is because they're a stick. To be fair, everyone that yells at me on Twitter is a villain. We're just going to put that out there. They're a vermin. Like snakes are on a level of being above us, and we should be constantly terrified of them because they are. Will that be able?

To be fair, I think we should view the Nazis in Redwall are adders. They're the snakes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They only exist to kill you, and they assume that everyone that's not them is a lesser rank of being. That's fair. They're like the classic image of a movie sociopath. Yes. The terrifying child

in like a Law & Order SVU episode where it's like a 12 year old kid who just likes hurting people. And you're like okay. Well aside from the fact that this usually doesn't happen like and if it does happen it ain't happening like this.

But it's ripped from the headline, Teto. The pop culture Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, serial killer, etc., etc. Yeah. I really thought that that was probably as much as i love this series

that it's like in my bones is like a like a fiction a fantasy reader that is always one of the things that has always come across to me as like a not good message in the series that i otherwise like is the sort of essentialism of evil and good that like there isn't really that gray area except for a very few number of instances on an individual level like one or two sea rats that are portrayed as being gentle there's like one or two but given every other situation it's like the bad guys are bad they're just bad there's bad guys there's bad there's bad um you and Fox I swear

and fair it's adorable there's one a very specific thing I wanted to bring up with it is almost why I sort of started

this in the first place changing topics here you're talking about the politics of the thing is in one of the books in mariel of redwall they mentioned the redwall charter now to be fair it's not referenced in a single other book but his world building is consistent enough that you would assume it still exists it's not like in one book they're not like individual books that don't reference each other most of the time

they often reference things that happens in other books. Like, especially when it has to deal with Selim and Astrid, like you can track the, like the badger Lords across time. And you can tell where in the timeline, the story is happening based on who the badger Lord is. It's sort of like the English doing things by the Victorian period or the Edwardian period, right? Where like you can base the timeline of the world based on who's the badger lord is and to a lesser extent

who like, you know, the abbot or abbess of Redwall are, but they change a lot more frequently. So anyway, the point is there's a thing called the Redwall Charter that exists. And reading this is what really got me thinking about how based red wall is and how i think it equates pretty closely to certain political tendencies so i'm going to read out the red wall charter here like one at one at a time obviously you know if you have that comments you poke them in here but here's the red wall charter one to be brothers and sisters of peace and goodwill while living together under the protection of the abbey pretty basic we've talked about that before with their general peaceable nature right um forsake all unnecessary forms of violence not only to moss flower its trees grasses flowers and insects but to all living creatures so it explicitly says

to forsake all forms of unnecessary violence and then the first thing they're talking about is the woods itself yeah nature not they do eventually reference all living things but the the first thing they are forsaking unnecessary violence against is moss flower the woods as an entity and then they break it into its trees its grasses flowers and insects i that tells us a lot about the, if I dare do the ideology of the creatures at red wall, they are specifically avoiding violence against nature. Don't cut down a tree. If you don't have to.

Yeah. Don't hurt grass. If you don't have to. Yeah. Don't hurt grass if you don't have to. Don't like don't hurt insects. Also, don't kill anyone. Yeah. Catch that catch that moth and let it outside. Yeah. The general things I like with them, I'd say they're probably their point of view of persons you know various vermin and you know good animals

etc you know is that yeah and then don't kill people if you don't fucking have to but yeah like the primary importance is like hey yeah um unnecessary violence towards the things that we don't necessarily see as people trees and other etc., insects, that might be a little scary, etc. No, guys, don't fuck with those. It's easy to see that if you regularly engaged in violence towards the things around you,

that might bleed into violence to other things, to other people. It'd be really interesting if there was some sort of political framework that talked about how all violence of creatures, sentient creatures against sentient creatures, stems from the violence of sentient creatures over nature. Be interesting if there was some sort of political philosophy that talked about that sort of thing. Suddenly, you're looking at the abbot of Redwall and you're just picturing a dumpy old Murray Bookchin, like, sitting in the abbot's chair. Because. Yeah, no, I mean mean it's a good point that might be personalization of like kind

of inherent to capitalism and and all i'm just like oh yeah we we've stripped away any recognition of personhood from the rest of the world of things that like can't interact back with us like animals can etc just naturally begin snowballing with well it doesn't matter if the dog is crying out in pain and terror when you're vivisecting it alive it doesn't have a soul it's not it's it's not actually in pain it just thinks it's in pain that there's a difference between because it's not it doesn't have a soul to well you know what the you know what? The African person that we enslaved is going through the exact – like they don't actually have a soul. It's like that continual sort of just like stripping away of personhood from everything that doesn't look like you.

It's like, yeah, we get to a spot where, hey, the world is on fire and a lot of people don't care. So – Yeah, I mean that's like the social like one of the basis of social psychology right is the domination of humans over the hierarchy of humans over humans and as a growth out of the domination of humans over nature and so like well and vice versa like dominating other humans forces to dominate nature so when i first read that like i was like are the red wallers like did they all they'll – have they all read the foundations of social ecology? Listen, they all read social ecology and communalism, at least the first couple essays.

Yeah, the first couple. So let's go on to the next point here. Help and comfort to the dispossessed. That seems good. Yeah. And they do that all the time. Help and comfort to the dispossessed. That seems good.

Yeah. And they do that all the time. Like they'll just come across a random like animal, like another creature that's lost. And they'll be like, you seem like your life sucks. You want to come live at the Abbey with us? Like you just get to come be one of us now. And they're like,

cool. Yeah. I mean, that, that is, you, you do see that in a lot of, I'd say quote unquote traditional societies,

especially like Indo-European ones and all uh there's the the reconstructed concept word of gosty and all which is like the root of a lot of the words for like hospitality guest host etc it's like all those stories of like in in ancient greek uh myths and even in like norse myths i know a lot of Norse myths about being kind to your guests. Yeah, especially like, you know, the idea of like the wandering person who's just out in the world who stops by your farmstead or whatever and says,

hey, can I come to your barn and get something to eat and all? And it turns out it's fucking Zeus and if you be an asshole to him, he's going to like frag your entire family. It's like, just be kind to people unless they're assholes to you. So yeah. Those are like the next couple points on the charter

are offer shelter to all creatures alike. Yeah. Which explains also why they would like bring rats in. Yeah. And the next one is give clothing, warmth, and food to any beast or creature that is deemed in need of such that's the yeah like you're talking about the root of sort of the yeah the indo-european root of like the importance of hospitality and like your obligation as a host

to guests yep and as a guest to the host to like not like take more than you you need and like because a lot of it was like not just like you know like oh you've come to the king's court and they have all these resources it's like no you stop by someone's fucking homestead and they may especially if it's winter time they may have very specifically calculated you know stores and larder to get them through the winter time but they will share with you if you stop they will share what they can and all and that's like usually like sort of like undercutting or under undergirding the hospitality thing is that you are under no obligation to you know bend over backwards and kill yourself for your guests just like the guest is an asshole if they demand you do so because

in in like especially a pre-consumerist capitalism world especially like the first world like here in the west and all where it's like oh yeah no we can just run to the store and get more shit we might be a little light you know on on funds but we're not going to starve you know yada yada yada yeah you can kind of do that but like in a pre-modern pre-industrial society, it's like, yeah, no, especially if it's like a hard harvest, you may not have a lot to share, but it's still important for the bounds of society to care for one another because like, um, like.

It's important for the, uh, for the social fabric that, that is just a behavior that everyone engages in. probably like middle-class suburbanite dipshits who go i'm gonna go live out in the woods like you know it's on golden pond or whatever and they go to alaska and they end up eating the wrong berries and they die because they're all by themselves and they they didn't know everything that's why it's like humans live in groups for that reason and if you are such an asshole that you get cast out of that group for most of human history it's been like well your chances of dying very quickly have just skyrocketed because it's like you don't know necessarily everything and the fucking world is tough and even if you do know a lot and you are pretty survival-oriented and all, you might break your leg.

You might get sick. Yeah. It's just the mutual aid principle work, really. Yeah, it really is. It really is. And that's why – that's another – to go slightly off here, still referencing the chart, but this mutual aid principle, is they do this thing also throughout the books. All societies, no matter where they go

if they run into a random group of good creatures right good guys whatever the species that is they will inevitably be invited to a meal immediately every time be a shrew just really wanted to write about food yeah okay so i know he did release an entire book that is the Redwall Cookbook, so you can make the stuff that he talks about. It's a book that's out there. Well, it's the first book. It's literally like, I was hungry. So if you run – people will just be out walking through the woods,

adventuring, whatever. They'll come across a random group of squirrels or whatever. They are inevitably invited for food and for shelter no questions asked the other part of that that mutual aid bit is what i would call like sort of a communal defense in numerous books but it twice within the span of like one chapter in tris these two are these two characters are running away. They're escaped slaves, and they're running away from their lord with

her slave catchers, right, that are coming to recapture them. They run into, they're like, these rats are hard on their heels. They make it into these woods, and they discover in the woods live a big group of squirrels

with zero hesitation and zero questions when these people like sorry there's a we we can't stay here there's rats chasing us we gotta go you guys should be careful there's rats coming the squirrels go take your time we got it and the rats show up and the squirrels beat the shit out of them no questions asked they just met these people and these people like we have enemies behind us. And the squirrels are like, you got it. No problem. We'll kick their asses for you. Like within the next chapter, the next chapter, these runaway slaves are still like they're like running down a river trying to like to the tracker can't follow their tracks in the river. They happened upon a group of water voles, like a whole group of them.

And they're like, oh, hey, friends. Sorry about this. We're trying to get the fuck away. There's slave catchers behind us. And the water voles are like, hmm, OK. Follow us. This is our river. We know how to mislead them.

Again, no questions asked. No hesitation. They take these escape slaves in, they give them an escape plan, and at some danger to themselves, create an escape plan to foil the slave catchers. And this is an important bit throughout the series, and this goes with the feeding everyone,

is that also at the drop of a hat, anyone is willing to throw down to defend someone that they just met. Like at the drop of a hat anyone is willing to throw down to defend someone that they just met like at the drop of a hat they'll like run into some random like squirrel and the squirrel's like there's people trying to kill me behind me and everyone immediately go all right we're about to have a fight then there's no hesitation like that people are immediately ready to throw down to defend strangers they just met. And I think that should be important to people that come from our political background, something that we should keep in mind. If someone shows up and says, I'm in danger,

your first response would be like, sweet, who's asked who I got to kick to make sure that you're safe, right? So going back to the chart here, going back down the list, there is educate and learn, particularly in the healing arts, comfort the sick, nurse the injured,

and help the wounded. Pretty straightforward. Be healers. Help people. Next one. This is where we're getting a little more of the ideology again. Take food from the earth and replenish the land by caring for it, husbanding crops, living in a harmony with the seasons always.

So feed yourselves, but only in such a way as to preserve the inherent balance of the ecology around you. Take food from the earth and replenish the land by caring for it. Are they permacultures? I would imagine so because Redwall within its own walls is essentially self-sufficient. You know, fucking mouse Juche over here.

Like, except in a good way. Like, they have a pond with fish in it they have garden plots where they grow wheat and barley and vegetables they have an orchard that grows fruits they have berry bushes everything they need to feed themselves on a basically permanent basis exists within their walls and the only way you could keep that going for an uncounted stretch of time is by properly caring for the land within the walls.

Like there's no way the farms within the walls would still be producing good food if they'd farmed them badly for two centuries. Like they have to be caring for the land properly. Final point of their charter is to honor and protect friends and brethren like they have to be caring for the land properly final point of their charter is to honor and protect friends and brethren only raising paw to do

battle when life at Redwall is threatened by treachery and the shadow of war at these times every Redwall creature should show courage, fortitude and obedience to the father abbot the taking of another life must always be justified and never carried out in a wanton manner. That's the final point. That does

also admit like just the little bit of, dare I say the word, hierarchy that the abbey has, is that generally the abbot doesn't make big like important decisions but in times of crisis or for big decisions they will defer to the abbot but i think we have to remember the abbot is basically put in their position through mutual assent of the abbey creatures at the time even do serve for life it is a life well you Well, you can step down, I guess. But most of the time, maybe that happens in one book. The abbot or abbess steps down

because they're old and they don't want to do it no more. They let a younger creature take over. But again, I think it's another important part of the sort of the politics of the abbey there. It's like a lot of things. And I think you saw this this i thought this was pretty

demonstrated pretty well in nicole you probably read this one the book moss flower which is sort of like before red wall gets built but when they're fighting the tyrannical wildcat lord their resistance yeah all decisions are made through unanimous consent of their group they all meet at brock hall and they all say we need to come up with a plan to about x everyone proposed solutions we'll discuss them and then we will go with whichever solution achieves consent of everyone involved and i think that that the fact that it happens like in a prequel shows that that goes achieves consent of everyone involved. And I think that that, the fact that it happens like in a prequel shows that that goes into like sort of the founding principles of the Abbey once they build it. Right.

Is that this unanimous consent is like an essential part of their governing structure or their society, not just the politics, their society. Yeah. I mean, it's very directly democratic and all of like, cause like part of it is like especially i think in redwall itself like yeah everyone sort of like looks to the abbot because he's kind of like the day-to-day leader and all he's figurehead ish almost one degree or another but when it gets to the point where it's like oh yeah no my my understanding of how this is going to play out with the vermin horde outside our walls he's like you know what i am out of my depth here you squirrel and you know order etc etc

you guys know what the fuck you're talking about i'm gonna tend to the sick and the wounded and everything else you guys figure out you know what's going on with the actual defense, stuff like that. And it's like, I can kind of see where it's like, yeah, no, like having someone that is nominally like a decision maker and all not necessarily a bad thing, but yeah, there does seem to be just like in the general culture of the abbey whether or not like the abbot is the sort of like arbiter of certain things at certain times and all it's yeah it's a very direct democratic we all talk about it you know no one is necessarily like

you know just fucking ignored because well you're not in the order you're you're some fucking cumber from outside the walls who occasionally comes in so fuck you it's like no we we all kind of talk and everyone has like some amount of impact and agency and engagement and all and that does seem like even when there's like you know nominal leaders and all it's it still sort of seems to be in that mindset of almost like the Cincinnati, you know, ideal of like, yeah, no, I'm not in this for the power and all it's I'm doing my duty to the community and all.

And it's that sort of orientation of like, okay, uh, I'm going to defer to the people who actually know what the fuck they're doing. And I'm going to step back and tend to the shit that I know. They do that all the time in war. The abbot will be like, yeah, I don't know anything about stabbing people.

So I'm going to take the Redwall champion, Skipper of the Otters, and whatever hair is handy because the hairs all know about stabbing people. And I'm just going to let them be in charge of the war because I don't know anything about that. Or like, are people sick? Well, the infirmary keeper is going to make all decisions regarding that because that is their area of expertise is we need we need drinks for the well go to the cellar keeper that's the cellar hog's job is to know those things and it is it

seems like everyone gets put in positions where they have expertise and then they are respected for it. Like you said, in sort of a, yeah, it's not like everyone, it's not everyone. It's not constant among us meetings, right? Like it's not everyone is involved in every conversation. It is that you sort of assent to people being put in charge of things. And then you trust that person to know what they're doing. Yeah. Because it can get into like almost optionality overload. If you are like the entire community is literally talking about every single small fucking decision. It's, yeah, no, we're not organizations where it's like we have to we have to discuss and agree on literally everything.

Guys, no, it's it's important to like have consent and to be open and communicative and all that shit. But you're not going to get literally anything done if all you're doing is trying to come to consensus on literally every little fucking choice. It's like micromanaging by the community of the community it's like that's no no like trust people you have like what's your thoughts on like their like sort of social and like decision making process here well i mean not much that you all haven't already touched on at this point. Because it is, yeah, it is very unique. I don't really think, you don't see this a lot, I don't think, in fiction. Just this idea of a very, I don't want to say decentralized, because that's kind of a buzzword.

But like, yeah, communal method of organizing themselves in general um because there isn't really like official like who uh who votes i who votes nay you know most of the time they do occasionally it just seems like their specific instances will they'll do like hand votes but it's not like it's not the general vibe yeah it's just oh the group generally comes to a decision they don't necessarily have to take a vote but they come to a decision and then they just do the of you know anarchic leftists in general so it's like i guess it's not something you see very often and i think it was really curious even if it's not totally on like full display here on in the first book um it is

still done because when you know when clooney comes up to – when they initially are like, OK, they're coming. This is what's happening. It wasn't even necessarily like there was a unanimous decision. There were some people who were like, OK, we need to shore up the defenses and prepare for this to happen. And some of them went off and did that. There was no one stopping anyone from doing anything to prepare for this because some people didn't agree like so that's just that's what we think is best and we're going to just go do that now yeah it's very it's very loosey-goosey the way that they the way that they handle it and um i think yeah you made the you made a good point there that's like it's not

and that's maybe why it stuck out to me and where I sort of, that was sort of the origin for this project generally is I was rereading the Redwall books for fun. And I was like, I can't remember another time where like the main setting is a communal society of decentralized decision-making of people that respect the environment. You know what I mean?

Like I remember just rereading it and thinking in my head, I'd be like, did all the Redwallers read book shit? Like what the fuck is going on here? Like, obviously this isn't all, I'm referencing, but it's not all like directly social ecology,

but I feel like a lot of it feels that way. Like in some of the things they say and the way they behave towards the environment and that sort of thing but like you said it's super rare like how many fantasy how many this is essentially high fantasy in a way i mean there's no magic magic but you know what i mean like yeah it's more of a magic you know yeah sword and sandal type deal but like there's like how often do you see this is it we're like our community is a communal one this is we respect the environment and those are just like the good guys you talk you see in every chapter and like it's it i don't know it felt

very unique to me when i started thinking about it that way that that's just not a thing you commonly see throughout fiction unless you're explicitly reading you know like excuse me anarchist fiction like obviously you're expecting it if you pick up a le guin book you know what you're gonna get right but just be like hey this is a this is a story about mice with swords. And then like, also, by the way, here's a really interesting societal setup. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, here's a classless, stateless society. Like moneyless too.

Moneyless too. They are quite literally communists. Redwall is almost the end goal of communism. I'm going to come out and say it.wall is almost the end goal of communism. I'm going to come out and say it. Redwall is the end goal of communism. This is like the peak of low-tech communism. This is like cottagecore permaculture communism. I know, yeah.

permaculture communism right like yeah and i think this is the flower child commune but like legit yeah uh and you you uh consider you kept like you know uh name dropping book chin and all i just pulled up uh his bibliography it's like well he was like you, he'd written like towards an ecological society in 80 and what, uh, Jake's started like the early to mid eighties and all. I think it's an incredibly low probability that Jake's read book in any way, shape or form, but it just may have been like in the water or something like that. It's like in the zeitgeist.

I'm like, Hey, maybe, maybe, maybe we don't fuck up with the planet. Well, that was like towards the eighties. Wasn's like in the zeitgeist of like, hey, maybe we don't fuck up on the planet. Well, that was like toward the 80s. Wasn't that towards the beginning of the week?

Well, yeah. When did the Green Party first emerge? Like in the UK? Because I know there's I think there's in the UK, Green. Of course, Post-Scarcity Anarchism was published in 71, so –

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I just – yeah, that's the final stance of this podcast is that the Red Wall Abbey is like the end stage of low-tech communism. Because, like, they grow their own food the mid-1980s the mid-1980s was the beginning of the green party in the uk because i know that bookshin had a big role in that over here in america like the the starting of the green party here but like so it was definitely in the water like when he was creating this creating ecological was beginning the first book was definitely in the water. Like when he was creating this, creating ecological, the first book was published in 86.

So it's probably like conceived and written during like 84, 85, et cetera. It's, I mean, it makes sense that in the eighties would be when it first like really took like when the concept of like ecological stuff, taking center stage would take off when you had people like reagan and thatcher like essentially taking whatever small whatever small environmental protections existed like

before 1980 were just getting ripped back um so it was like ah yeah maybe maybe there's a renewed interest in keeping the environment. Yeah, yeah. Like people still like being able to like look back like maybe a decade or so to like, hey, remember when the Cuyahoga caught fire because it was too – Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that was a bad thing. Could be. Could be.

Water is not supposed to catch on fire, generally speaking. That's an elder's thing. So I just – I love that. Yeah, that's our conclusion is that it's the low-tech ecological communism that a lot of people should be – that are striving for has already been perfected by some mice. they're striving for has already been perfected by some mice. Like, but you know, they,

they still, it's, it's wild that they did that, but like, they still live in like a dangerous world. Yeah. Like they live in a world fraught with danger. They live in a world fraught with potential imperialism. Yeah.

Potential. Like there's constant imperialism happening all the time. And even within the world of the books, like random warlords have a random like vermin. No red wall exists. They've all heard about it. It's this mythic semi mythical place that they've all heard of and that whenever they all get jumped up with how big their horde is, they're like, we should go take that place we've heard about. That seems like...

Of course, they all assume it's full of riches because it's well defended, so they assume it must be full of money. Yeah. Even Clooney thinks that at the beginning. He's like, oh yeah, they've got to be sitting on a horde. In the first one, Clo sitting on a horde and like in the first

one like cluny cluny and his horde is obviously a caricature of like the the seven and eight hundreds era like viking you know war bands yeah monastery and going oh shit you guys have a lot of gold yeah they wanted to lend us they wanted to lend us foreign red wall yeah yeah it literally is just it literally is just like norwegian raiding bands into the united kingdom like that's what it is if you think all the pirate crews specifically because the the pirates will sail around in the ocean picking picking off other ships. They'll sail up to the coast, and if they see somewhere not well defended, they hop off the boat, run up, kill

people, take their stuff, and the slaves sometimes, throw them back on the boat and fuck off. And occasionally they'll sail all the way up the River Moss to Redwall. It's obvious to me.

Like, I watched some videos again with Jake's in it, and they were all about the same time that Eulalia came out. And it's funny that we mentioned, you know, like the Norwegian, likeiking uh raiding crews because eulalia apparently according to him is an old viking war cry so the man apparently knows his viking history um well i mean considering britain especially during that time period, like, the fucking, um, oh god, was it 1066 in all?

Yeah, that was like, you know, 1066 was the final invasion. You had settled in Brittany, just going across the channel and saying, hey, we like your island, we're gonna take that. And then basically establishing the British monarchy. Yeah, well, I mean, like, the Normans were Yeah, the Normans. island we're gonna take that and then basically establishing the british monarchy yeah i mean like

the norm the normans were yeah the normans yeah were like vikings that had settled in northern france yeah and become somewhat frankified and then we're like yeah but i also want i like england i want that too but at the same time at 1066 why that war was going on was also actual scandinavians trying to conquer the uk with you know harold hardrada or whatever like it's it's like clearly i hadn't put that together but clearly a lot of the vermin in the red wall are just sort of like viking raider analogs yeah and and even the way they're set up like they're all they're all referred to as hordes pretty much always. And it's like one strong leader who brings in a lot of plunder will attract a huge horde that he can then use to conquer bigger things. And the whole point is that you conquer it and everyone gets loot.

Yep. Like, that's the end goal of the vermin life is to conquer somewhere and get loot. I don't know what they use the loot for because you don't buy anything yeah there isn't really a macroeconomics of the red wall universe no you just get the loot because you like having it it's like yeah the only ones that make more sense like you know children's novels it's kind of a caricature of stuff the ones that make slightly more sense are like the villains who are like settled in their own castle and have like slaves because they clearly just want to chill in their

castle and be like king of their little area so those villains make slightly more sense because i'm king of this bubble and i fight and take slaves because i need people to like grow food for me because i'm not good exactly I have a base of power that I want to maintain but then the other ones are just like ah we just want to knock over your place and steal your stuff what are you going to do with the stuff wear it step one steal shit step two question mark? Awesome. Yeah, like that's a very interesting life cycle. Obviously, you don't want to think too hard. You're pretty good on time here.

I think I want to do maybe a couple just like random, any random or interesting, like maybe not big important points that we wanted to cover. cover one fun thing i wanted to mention was that in the first book which does have some of the anachronisms is when you're first introduced to the shrews of moss flower the gowsam shrews which is an which stands for the gorilla union of shrews in moss flower which in the in the first literally have a union steward that they elect. Yeah. The leader, Gowsum, is a name given to their elected leader of their union. Yeah. And in the first book, when they're talking,

they literally have this thing where everyone wants to talk and the only one that can talk is the person holding the talking rock. If you hold the rock, you get to talk. When it's someone else's turn to talk, they get to hold the rock. And if you're not holding the rock, the rock you get to talk when someone else has turned to talk they get to hold the rock and if you're not holding the rock you don't get to talk and they literally like at one point debate helping matthias because it's the charter says that they don't have to literally like he needs help going over there and's like, the charter says our territory is here. You can't make me go outside of this line because it's against the union rules to make me go outside the line. Which I just thought was really funny.

He later changed it to the other person, the other main shrew you're introduced to is Logalog, which is like a title for the shrews that run the ferry. Later on in all the other books, Logalog is just the chieftain of the Gauzen shrews. Whoever the chieftain is becomes like Logalog Pinchface or whatever his name is. Logalog.

Logalog just becomes the title of whoever happens to be the current chieftain of the shrews so he backs off of that incredibly unionist uh talk among the shrews but he did you keep the name the gorilla union of shrews and moss flower he doesn't surprise me as someone who would be you know very unionist given – He's a scouser? Well, his entire history of work history is like 17 different jobs. Let me pull him up again real quick, but I had the page up. It's like all the jobs he had? Yeah, like it's on his official website like about about him he he was a railway fireman a longshoreman a long distance truck driver a bus

driver a postmaster um lifelong union man he he had and it's like he he was a he was a milkman at one point um because he was a milkman when he started delivering the stuff to the School for the Blind. And then the book itself on the back, I have to feel like either they're exaggerating or some of these are lies. I don't know what's going on. Big people do that? Just go in the back of a book and tell lies? Yeah, because this one says former sailor, actor, stand-up comedian, radio host, boxer, bobby,

and bus driver. Fantastic. Literally all except bus driver on here aren't listed on the official bio page. But this is the official bio out of the back of his book. King. King shit.

I appreciate that. Over the course of like 45 years, this man had like 40 jobs. And then... Just creates the myth of like, yeah, no, I was a damn comedian. I hosted a radio. I was a sailor for like two weeks.

I can't help... Well, looking at this photo of him, he was absolutely a sailor for like two weeks. I can't help – well, looking at this photo of him, he was absolutely a sailor. Yeah. That is a picture I always – like I have of him in my mind because that was the one they used on the back jacket of all the books. Yeah, and it's like – Like him with like a gray goatee, a flat cap, just like staring icily sort of half at you and half into the distance he looks like a sailor yeah he does he looks like he would be like be like oh i gotta go out to sea with me darling

you know like which i think makes sense because he goes he goes through a lot of trouble to give a specific like seafaring lingo to otters and sea rats yeah like they specifically have their own dialects that are and shrews to some extent that are specifically water-based i think it's one of the things if if if you haven't read the series you're still probably confused i don't know how you're still listening but like um if you haven't he also writes the characters in dialect so like you can tell their accents by the way he writes them so like all the otters all like talk like oh harmy hardies let's go on over to stern we going out sailing today. Like, that's all the otters.

And like the sea rats are like it too. They're like, blimey, you scuttlebutts. Like they're all like, they're all very, very like nautical. Like they're like old school pirates. Like all of them talk that way. He also does other fun accents that are in the dialect. dialect like you know how long it took me to figure out how the moles were supposed to be voiced because the way they're written like i could read it but i'm like i don't know how this would sound in real life like if someone spoke that way then i eventually listened to the audiobooks i'm like oh they're

just like real weird west country like they're english west country people like i'm just be going over there digging them their holes yeah and i'm the old r you're like it's a very like countryside english accent like you know poor country like they sound like the guy from, the dude from Hot Fuzz that has the sea mine in his shack. Oh, oh my god. You know what I'm talking about?

The other guy who also talks like him to translate. He has to translate for him. Yeah, like, the moles are those guys. Where they're like, I'm there. Marmos or us and molars be us and be digging in the dark. Oh,

like those are the moles in his world. Are those guys from hot fuzz? Like that's what the moles are. They're just like, Oh, by there, sir. And it,

but it's, he points out every time in the books that the mole dialect is considered rustic. All the other characters themselves consider a mole speech to be a rustic dialect, you know? And then you've got, you know,

like I'd say like mice and squirrels tend to have, you know, like your standard, like accent, you know, an air quotes. Then you have hairs who all sound like major, like drill sergeants from Sandhurst.

What, what, what? What did I say, mom? We charge over there. It's like this very, like, you imagine a man with a large mustache. Like, that's who you have to picture is some like crusty British guy with a mustache for like the hares.

And like all of the rats and the vermin have a very uh cockney feel kind of yeah to them to the way they speak it's a very like low lower class uneducated i ain't never had no learning kind of accent and like the the, like the vermin, when they like interact with hairs, we'll refer to them as like, as educated or fancy because of the way the hairs speak. They're like, Oh,

look at this fancy beast over here with his, with his big words. Like the vermin are also very rampantly anti-intellectual in the vermin camp. And then no big love of book learning. To be fair, I think most creatures in their world, a lot of them aren't literate anyway.

It gives a very medieval vibe in the fact that only certain people are literate. Yeah, Redwall has a specific scribe and record keeper because even though a lot of creatures can read, a lot of them can't write. Yeah.

And so it's like a very split that way. Another couple of interesting facts from the Wikipedia here. There are... Across the series, there are 28 named abbots or abbesses across the series, there are 28 named Abbotts or Abbotts across the series. 12 Abbotts, 16 Abbotts. So almost 50-50. And apparently the first Abbot was the one. Abbot Germain.

Yep, Germain. And it says other fun facts. You can see the bias so 14 of them were mice five squirrels three hedgehogs one dormouse and one otter and four that are named but never said what uh species of creature they were but they are named um when it comes to abby like champions the ones that get like get to wield the sword or just champions of red wall they always wield the sword uh there are 13 known you know quote unquote warriors of red wall there are 13 10 men three women and that's

what i mentioned before about the bit of gender disparity and like the heroes like they get to be the warrior 10 men, 3 women 5 of them were mice including the ever present Martin Danden, Matthias Matameo

and Martin II 5 squirrels, 2 otters and 1 hare no mole champions the moles are never the moles never get to wield a sword the moles are never shown as being particularly warlike at all to be fair well yeah if if they're if they're talking like what's his name in hot fuzz they're the moles? The moles are ruled or sort of run by a chief who is called the Fore Mole, which is just a weird way of saying foreman. Because basically his whole job is directing digging projects. Yeah.

Like he's essentially a foreman on a work site at any given time is the Fore Mole. They all just dig. They do. They dig a lot. The whole thing is like if you go in a hole, they can tell who dug the hole or what kind of creature dug the hole. They can just look at a rock and tell you what kind of rock it is. Yeah.

Like I said, they go out to save one of the hedgehogs who went out to scout. Yeah, yeah, yeah. to save one of the hedgehogs who went out to scout. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like they save one by going underneath the wall and coming up and right underneath him and bringing him down. Yeah, they dig out. Like I said, the otters usually have someone in charge of them called a skipper, which then just links into their nautical nonsense.

You know, like the leader is the skipper which then just links into their nautical nonsense that you know like the leader is the skipper um let's see i'm looking at the list of like of like villains the villains the main villains cover the whole gamut of like villains that we've talked about there's foxes stoats ferrets rats wild cats um the whole gamut is sort of covered. Only two villains ever managed to actually capture Redwall throughout the entire series. Two villains. Clooney in the first book. Yeah.

And then Ironbeak, which is General Ironbeak from... Which book was Ironbeak in? It was in Matameo. It's a raven that captures the abbey and there is a weird point in one of the books the villain horde it is specifically pointed out extra scary because they the villain horde itself like the rats and ferrets and stoats engage in cannibalism like they don't just kill good creatures to take their stuff they will kill and eat rabbits and mice and not rabbits hairs and you know mice and squirrels and also if one of their own falls they will eat their own like the rats will eat other rats and

the ferrets will eat other you know what i mean so like it is a specific plot point that that horde particularly engages in they call it cannibalism which doesn't mean just eating rats eating other rats but also rats eating ferrets or rats eating mice yeah basically it seems like sentient creatures eating other sentient animals eating other sentient sapient animals because like the only things like this is I noticed is I like even amongst like a lot of the vermin hordes, you don't see a lot of explicit carnivore activity and all. Except for birds. Most of the food tends to be like nuts and other sort of vegetarian stuff. Well, it's like a vermin leader thing that if you're the leader of the horde, you get to eat like a wood pigeon that someone shot.

Or you get to eat fish. Those are like the meat-eating ranges for vermin is birds. They eat birds a lot. And I do think that there's much of the Redwallers getting fish and stuff like that. But there's not a lot of... Yeah, the Redwallers are the only meat. If you're a good beast, like a good creature, the only meat you eat is fish. Yeah.

They don't eat any other meat whatsoever. Most of the carnivorous activity does tend to be like predatory stuff like the eagle or, you know, the snake, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Or like other reptilians like lizards. Yeah. That are far enough removed from the fuzzy circle of Or as I was going to say, like the fuzzy circle of persons that we recognize fully as persons. So therefore, like any of those

within that fuzzy circle that eats amongst that fuzzy circle, whether or not it's intraspecies or intraspecies, et cetera, is like, yeah, that's fucking cannibalism, bitch. What the hell are you doing? That's weird. It's an interesting place where, like, Jake's had to draw the line.

Yeah. Like, who is personified and is granted personhood and who isn't? And even some of the ones not granted personhood are still sentient. Yeah, because they interact intelligently, et cetera. Like, frogs and toads and snakes and birds can all be spoken to. Yeah, but they're alien enough from like the mostly mammal, you know, good and bad species that's like – Yeah, they're just kind of like on the borders of what we consider personhood and all. Like they're kind of like aliens.

Yeah, yeah. It's a fun little like there's an interesting dichotomy or preparation and all yeah i get that he had to draw the line somewhere just for the storytelling just an interesting place to draw because otherwise you go straight into like frog and toad are friends and that's probably no one if everyone's friends no one gets eaten and there's no drama if no one's getting eaten, apparently. Well, I think what conclusions have we come to? That perfect communism was achieved by mice. Yes.

Snakes are eldritch horrors. Yeah. I mean, that's probably just true in real life. Yeah. And that the British monarchy would be better if the queen had like dream vision sent to her by the nature spirits. The British might not be so bad. Because, I mean, if you really look at the family tree of the Queen,

she's about as English as any German person. That's to be fair. The House of Windsor are foreigners. On the British throne, they're German. Which loops us back around to Stranger Kings.

We're saying the Queen is a badger. I think it would be – I think I could get behind the concept of the British monarchy if it was a literal badger on the ground. If it was an actual – hey, look. Not a anthropomorphic badger, just a badger. Yeah. Look, I take my final – we'll do a quick little round here of final conclusions. I think my final – we'll do a quick little round here of final conclusions. My final conclusion is that I think there is – well, I started this.

There's a lot of politics in here that you wouldn't think about when you're a kid reading these books. Oh, yeah. Like there is a lot going on here that can really influence you if you're not thinking about it. And like did Redwall's setup influence me when I was a kid? Like the beliefs I have right now? Impossible to say, because there's like a billion influences growing up. But I wouldn't be surprised if it did. Like, if you could dig back and look up the fact that I devoured these books and that they stuck with me even through adulthood,

there's probably something to it. The way that it's set up, that did you know influence me to some extent and i this is what proves the rule of our thesis here that like even your kids fantasy can have messages in it that weren't intended for good or uh for ill and my final conclusion is that even if you're an adult and you like fantasy you should probably still give these books a try because they're fun and i think they're my conclusion is that brian jakes is great you should read these books if you want some fun so uh any other final uh final takeaways yeah i i didn't really know what to expect coming in because um i had

honestly i'd never even heard of these books before i um they were just most of them were just a bit before me um by like four or five years like just a bit outside of like them being in the zeitgeist yeah and like even my sisters hadn't read this i was i was really and and both of them are like five ten years in that range older than me. But coming out of it, it is very charming. At least the first one. I can't speak on any of the other ones. Though they all sound very interesting. Some of this lore has made me go to the wiki to just look up some of the stuff.

And I'm still all about this really hardcore three-bodied snake like oh i wasn't expecting this series to get so metal metal three snakes with their tails tied together by a ball and chain coming with how lovecraftian he presents as modius in this book yeah so this is this has been an experience and there are a lot of things in here that not having to come at it from the position of having read it as a kid and just being able to read it essentially unfettered now um that uh i just find super interesting like it makes me want to go back and read some of the stuff i read as a kid with what I know now. It would be crazy if some people were to like kind of do a podcast about that. Yeah, I know.

You're sort of childhood fiction and like seeing what it's about. It would be weird. Because some of the childhood fiction I read was like very explicitly political. Like I've mentioned to you, like his dark materials or something for potentially a future episode. And I like that, that, that one is unapologetically political.

Like there's no mincing words in that one within the first book. They're like, Oh, what if, you know, we deleted the, what if we killed the authority? And you're like,

what's the authority? And I'm like oh shit this is like book one we're talking about killing god i'm like that's okay whatever um but like i've i've went back and i um there's a few books now that i'm really looking at going back and seeing stuff that i really liked as a kid and just trying to see how much my worldview has changed and how much that played a role, how much that fiction played a role in that worldview, whatever that worldview was, because I know that fiction played a massive role in my worldview now.

It's just different fiction that, that did it. So yeah, this was an, it was an interesting intro and I'm excited to do more. Nicole, any final thoughts? Not really.

Aside from everything I've said in the last three and a half hours. No, it was fun. Again, I read these as a kid and all I actually told the one other woman that I'm dating that I was going to be doing this and she was like I think I remember those too I might have to reread those it's just so so yeah no it's yeah like getting the chance to like sort of reacquaint with some childhood fiction was nice and all and yeah just like seeing it through uh i thought your your initial proposal of like doing like a communalist

analysis of like red wall i was like that sounds kind of bitchin yeah awesome so yeah i i think i think my original idea kind of held up i mean i was wondering the more i read my idea that like you know the Redwallers were communalist would eventually be disproven, but I don't know if it really was. I mean, I'm no expert on communalism. I'm not that widely well read, but

I feel like from what I know, it feels like that's sort of the general area that they existed in. At the very least, they are non-hierarchical to an extent, and they are a stateless, classless, moneyless society of Redwall Abbey. Yeah. All right. I think that'll do it for today.

We'll be back eventually next. I think these episodes are going to be coming out. I think we're doing every two weeks will be an episode. That hopefully will be the plan. Yeah, that'll be the plan. I think we're doing every two weeks will be an episode. That hopefully will be the plan. Yeah, that'll be the plan. I don't know for sure what the next one will be. I'm assuming the idea right now is it might be His Dark Materials because that's one that everyone else has read that I've never read.

It's a fiction book that I have not read and don't know anything about. But, yeah, that might be our next one. Yeah, you made me go into this one cold turkey, so I can make you go into it. It's time for me to go in cold turkey. It's fine. I got all the time in the world for audiobooks. My job doesn't require my brain.

Yeah, I think that'll be it. Thanks, everyone, for listening, and we'll see you next time. All right, everyone, Thanks everyone for listening and we'll see you next time. All right, everyone. Thank you for listening. If you want to follow the podcast on Twitter, it is going to be at swords and sock pod.

So swords and sock pod. If you'd like to follow me, I am at himbo underscore anarchist. If you'd like to follow Ketethel he is at stupid puma 69 and our guest nicole can be found at giggle tits which is at g i 6 6 l e underscore tits if you'd like to contact us with questions you you can either DM us, DM the pod, or you can send us an email at swordsandsocialismpod

at protonmail.com Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week. Goodbye.