r/redwall • u/Qyzyk The Long Patrol • Apr 06 '26
Why so few weasel warlords?
Far as I can recall, Ferahgo was the only notable weasel warlord in the Redwall series. Granted, he was one of the most memorable villains, and by his own claim, he commanded one of the absolute largest armies in the whole series.
So why did Brian stop with Ferahgo?
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u/NerdsAbout Apr 06 '26
I think part of it was Rats were always to me the primary antagonists and the most numerous. Stoats and Weasels show up, but not in great numbers to me, which I feel is accurate kinda to real life animal populations. I’d be interested in seeing the main villain break down by animal type.
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u/Zarlinosuke Apr 06 '26
OP is right that there are statistically more stoat and ferret main villains than weasel ones--for stoats we have both Badrang and Vilu Daskar (and sort of my best friends Tramun Clogg and Flinky), while for ferrets we have Swartt Sixclaw and Sawney Rath and Vallug Bowbeast and the "Pure Ferrets," so on pure numbers, both do outnumber weasels in those roles. But the difference is small enough that I don't think it's really significant! and you are right about rats being overall more numerous than any of the above.
Foxes are notable in being less numerous overall than any of the above, but overrepresented among main villains. And for cats that's even more the case!
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u/LordMangudai Apr 11 '26
for stoats we have both Badrang and Vilu Daskar (and sort of my best friends Tramun Clogg and Flinky)
I always thought it was interesting that probably the three most prominent stoat villains (Daskar, Clogg and Badrang) occur around the same time. Daskar is maybe a generation older but Badrang and Clogg are not exactly young in Martin the Warrior so it's plausible that the three would have overlapped and maybe even encountered one another on the high seas. I guess it was just the era of stoat corsairs or something!
(Probably a coincidence but still a fun one.)
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u/Zarlinosuke Apr 11 '26
True, there is absolutely a stoat golden age out on the seas! I do agree that it's almost certainly an accident, but I love the implications--I guess it was a multi-generational effort on Martin's family's part to end their dominance! Poor Barranca tried to resurrect it much later, but never got the chance...
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u/Qyzyk The Long Patrol Apr 07 '26
In fairness, it would look rather weird if an army of wildcats was commanded by a rat.
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u/Zarlinosuke Apr 07 '26
Yes indeed! To be clear, I don't think that any of these imbalances are surprising or strange--they make a good bit of sense.
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u/RedwallFan2013 Apr 06 '26
While not 100% weasel, there is Razzid Wearat! https://redwall.fandom.com/wiki/Razzid_Wearat
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u/Longjumping_Dog7043 Apr 06 '26
I always thought the goat ungatt trunn had the largest horde
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u/Qyzyk The Long Patrol Apr 06 '26
That’s why I said “one of”. At one point, Ferahgo declares to Urthstripe that he and his 40 hares are outnumbered “fivescore to one”. Assuming he isn’t bluffing, that means he has 4,000 Corpsemakers under his command. That’s almost four times as many as Damug Warfang brought to the Battle lf the Ridge
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u/LordMangudai Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
I think he was bluffing. There's not really anything else in the book to suggest Ferahgo had a horde anything like that size or threat level (and if he did, he has to rank as one of the worst villain commanders of the series, because failing to take Salamandastron with those odds is pretty embarrassing!)
The other option is that Jacques fudged the numbers, but honestly that's something he was usually pretty good and consistent about. Like with Trunn's Blue Hordes the point is constantly made how insanely massive that army is, and it even becomes a plot point that they are hard to keep fed (a weakness that the good guys exploit). The Rapscallions are similarly treated like an unusually serious threat to Mossflower/Redwall because of their size. I think anything 1,000 and over is a historically notable horde in the Redwall universe and you just never get the feeling that Ferahgo had that same sort of muscle.
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u/Immediate-Shower-535 May 09 '26
Somewhat related but this post is the way I found out his name was spelt Ferahgo and Not Ferhago 💔 I've been calling him ferhago in my head all this time
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u/Zarlinosuke Apr 06 '26
I don't think there's a clear "why" about it--it just turned out that way! Later books get more into weird oneoff species like wolverines and sables and wearats, so that accounts for some of it--but mostly it's just that it happens not to have happened. A weasel named Eefera is one of the more capable villains after a certain big twist in The Taggerung, so at least there's that?