“The Sable Quean” by Brian Jacques

I really loved this book! It’s similar to the previous one I discussed in that it has a lot of shout-outs to previous Redwall stories. The characters are also excellent, and we have a new villain in the form of a sable. I don’t think there are sables in any other Redwall book, so this is fun!

First of all, there are a lot of references to Mossflower a very early story about Redwall being founded. Not to give too much away, but Corim is mentioned and even plays a significant role in the plot. The Dibbuns Against Bedtime are still at it in Redwall Abbey, it’s wonderful to see that group working their chaos.

Of course, the main aspect of this story that I loved were the characters. We get to see our first warrior mole here, in the form of Axle. He’s also the first creature that we’ve seen who is affected by the bloodwrath who isn’t a badger. Bloodwrath is when the love of battle clouds your judgement and you keep on fighting, until you die basically. It takes a strong creature to bring someone out of it, make them see sense and stop fighting. Moles often get left aside in these books, with their funny accents and love of being underground we rarely see them fight. However, Axle defies these conventions and shows that he can scrap with the best of them!

Another character who defies tropes is Buckley. Buckley is a hare from Salamandastron, but he doesn’t talk like the hares, running around saying “wot wot” and constantly eating everything in sight. That trope is soundly filled by the other hare, Diggs. Personally, I feel as though Diggs deserved a little better treatment. He is constantly made fun of, and even though we are told that he’s a great fighter, we never see him take out any vermin. He wanders into a kitchen with four vermin in it and is knocked out! I think that he probably could have taken down at least one of them. Having said that he does play a key role in some conflicts, so I guess I could forgive this.

The final trope buster that I want to talk about is the mad hedgehog. Hedgehogs are usually the good guys, although it can vary slightly, some are more self-serving. But for all that, I don’t think there’s another hedgehog character out there who is just plain evil. The one we find here is brutal, he kidnaps some kids and tries to make them his slaves. He even threatens to throw a baby mouse to a bunch of pikes!

Finally this isn’t a character, but the ending is rather unconventional for fantasy books (although it does stick with several themes that run throughout the Redwall series). Buckler goes up against the big bad, Zwilt the Shade, an evil sable. He had killed Buckler’s brother previously, so Buckler had sworn to kill Zwilt himself. Zwilt grabs a baby hedgehog as a hostage and threatens to kill him unless Buckler gives himself up, which he does. Zwilt is just about to kill them both when Clarinna, Buckler’s sister-in-law, stabs him with the sword of Martin the Warrior. Clarinna claims that she didn’t remember anything, that it was the spirit of Martin acting through her. This is unusual for several reasons, first of all, the act celebrated here is not defeating an enemy, but Buckler’s willingness to give himself up for the baby. Second of all, it isn’t Buckler, the warrior hare, who deals the killing blow but Clarinna, a hare who has lived on a farm for several years and wants to live a peaceful life. But this killing blow also isn’t really attributed to her either, but to Martin the legendary protector of the Abbey. What this means is that peacefulness and love are celebrated, far above fighting and murder which end up self-destructing in the end.

(This is actually related to the idea of the bloodwrath, which afflicts mighty warriors and indicates that there is something self-destructive in violence. Very insightful for a children’s series. In other books you also see the big bad being killed indirectly, or even at their own hand, just to show how destructive violence and evil wishes can be. Even in this book, the way the Sable Quean of the title dies is with her own poisoned dagger, not directly from any good character.)

Having made it this far into the Redwall series, I think this indicates how Jacques started playing with the conventions and tropes of his books. We clearly went through a bit of a cookie cutter phase, thank goodness that with these two books we have come out of it and emerged into a phase of playing with and even defying his conventions rather than sticking to them. Which makes me love these books even more.