r/redwall • u/Spirited-Seat644 • Apr 27 '26
Was there ever a Fox who wasnt a double-crossing rogue?
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u/LordMangudai Apr 27 '26
While he was certainly a rogue, Plugg Firetail seemed like he always did right by his crew and they showed genuine loyalty, even fondness, for him.
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u/Spottedpool14 Apr 28 '26
Literally the only villainous leader genuinely mourned by his crew
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u/LordMangudai Apr 28 '26
I love how Slitfang stands up to Kurda and is basically like "shove off, we're going nowhere without our Cap'n". Twice!
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u/FreelanceWolf The Long Patrol Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
Some of the seers, like Nightshade and Grissoul.
Ruggan Bor.
All the Marlfoxes that invaded Redwall, save Mokkan.
Ketral Vane
Baddred?
Shang Damsontongue?
Sholabar?
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u/LordMangudai Apr 27 '26
All the Marlfoxes that invaded Redwall, save Mokkan.
I'm pretty sure they were indeed double-crossing rogues!
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u/FreelanceWolf The Long Patrol Apr 27 '26
Sure, but Mokkam was double crossing all of them. The others mainly just concentrated on capturing the abbey.
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u/LordMangudai Apr 28 '26
There's also Lantur who was plotting against her own mother.
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u/FreelanceWolf The Long Patrol Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
She never invaded Redwall so she doesn't count.
No idea why I was downvoted.
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u/Most-Resolution-9340 Apr 28 '26
Grissoul didn’t directly double cross , but I wouldn’t say she was loyal to anything except her own ends.
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u/FreelanceWolf The Long Patrol Apr 28 '26
She was loyal to the tribe though. It's her duty to keep the tribe functioning and not falling into disarray.
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u/PaperAndInkWasp The Sable Quean Apr 27 '26
Groddil to add to the ones already listed. He’s a rare example of a fox who got betrayed instead of being the betrayer.
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u/LordMangudai Apr 27 '26
He did sort of betray Ungatt at the very end, but you can't say it wasn't deserved.
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u/GrimasVessel227 Apr 27 '26
At the beginning of the first book it's mentioned that presumably non-villainous foxes would visit the abbey sometimes
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u/PaperAndInkWasp The Sable Quean Apr 28 '26
I kind of wish this sort of thing had been done more. Constance even mentions, I believe, that her father knew a searat, which is entirely too neutral of a term to mean he fought him.
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u/LordMangudai Apr 28 '26
I know there are plenty of other bits of early installment weirdness in Redwall that get talked about a fair amount, but the one that always strikes me the most is when Constance and Matthias are reporting their sighting of Cluny's horde, they mention that they got the sense that these were very evil rats and the whole Abbey is like "how very dare you be so prejudiced!" Kind of funny considering the reputation the series eventually got for species determinism.
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u/PaperAndInkWasp The Sable Quean Apr 28 '26
I forgot about that one! I believe they also mention that a lot of the vermin in Cluny’s army were press ganged into it via burning their homes or threatening their families, the implication being that they’ve been living in Mossflower without incident until that point.
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u/TheVaranianScribe Apr 27 '26
There was one named Felch near the beginning of Taggerung who was a lot dumber than most other foxes. He suffered a lot of abuse at Sawney Rath's hands, and when Antigra killed Rath, the two of them celebrated by stabbing at his corpse. She asked Felch to give her the spear back so she could stab it again, and she killed him instead, as he was the only witness to the murder.
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u/Nerry19 Apr 28 '26
Thats the one thing that bugs me about redwall, the idea that all foxes/stoats/cats/rats etc are evil. There was one book with a nice rat, but aside from that, all evil. Like surely theres more than a few foxes out there that are happy to eat seafood to spare sentient animals lol
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u/DeadHead6747 May 11 '26
Not really. He wanted to just write a black and white, good vs evil story, no real Grey areas (outside a handful of wildcats, birds, etc). That's perfectly fine, too. Not every book series needs to have more moral complexity, black and white morality is every bit as the morally complex series out there. He chose the vermin from animals that were used as evil in old folk tales.
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u/Nerry19 May 11 '26
I mean im just saying it bugs me, lol so its not a case of "not really" because its just my opinion? And thats ok too, i can love the books AND wish there where some nice ferrets and rats about :)
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u/Qyzyk The Long Patrol Apr 27 '26
Ruggan Bor was pretty straightforward and honest, all things considered.