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rainbow-hammock · 3 years

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Ok Redwall fandom, I need to scream into the void for a bit here; there were some posts in the tag awhile back theorizing some elements of Slagar’s past, and thinking about that got me thinking about the Kingdom of Malkariss and, more specifically, the Wearet.

Guys, we need to talk about the Wearet.

Possible spoilers for Mattimeo and Loamhedge, for those not familiar with all the books. I’m gonna put the rest under a cut because this got to be quite long, though a lot of it is just me divulging some personal theories I’ve developed.

So the Wearet is essentially this mutated crossbreed creature, right? By itself, it’s not the most shocking thing in the series, as there are multiple instances where an antagonist has been keeping some monstrous creature in captivity--think the Gloomer from Mossflower, or the Dirgecallers from The Bellmaker, etc. Furthermore, Razzid Wearat (the main antagonist in Rogue Crew) is also a hybrid of some sort*.

(*though he’s specifically listed to be a different sort of hybrid, and we also have very little information as to Razzid’s origins, so I’m really not going to include him in this meta.)

(Apparently there’s also a Wearet in The Lost Legends of Redwall games, but I haven’t played them and I’m not familiar with the game’s lore in relation to the books, so I won’t be discussing him.)

But in the specific case of the Wearet of Malkariss, I feel like there’s reason to believe that this crossbreeding was done on purpose, and it makes for some nasty implications of what goes on behind the scenes in the underground kingdom.

Look, the Redwall series is pretty well known for being quite dark at times for a series aimed at children. The kingdom of Malkariss is without a doubt, a pretty horrible place to be--it’s a secretive but extensive underground kingdom built on the backs of slaves, ruled by a mysterious tyrant who is outright worshipped by his followers. A lot of people in the fandom would agree that the Kingdom of Malkariss is a cult, and personally, I don’t think that’s too much of a stretch.

I could dedicate an entirely separate post to theorizing about the kingdom of Malkariss, but I will say that there is a lot we don’t know; we don’t know where Malkariss came from, how his kingdom came to be, much less how long he’s been there. As already stated, Malkariss and the kingdom he has created are very secretive, and while he does have some level of notoriety in some circles, for the most part he doesn’t seem to be incredibly well known. Slagar’s band of slavers know OF the kingdom, at the very least: in chapter 7 of Mattimeo, Slagar’s henchmen “moan [with] despair” when they find out they’re going to the kingdom of Malkariss because it’s said to be a “realm of nightmares”. However, they don’t seem to know much about what’s involved; they try to ask Slagar about it at several points, and seem genuinely surprised when they encounter obstacles like the Painted Ones and the giant gorge.

Furthermore, in chapter 17, when we meet the Stump family, Jubilation tells Matti and the other young captives that his family never go to the south because it’s where the slavers go. His mother, Rosyqueen, tells Matthias and his company the same thing later in the same chapter, but also says that “no one knows what lies beyond the great Southern Plateau.”

However, on the other hand, it’s referenced multiple times that Malkariss has a LOT of followers at his command, and he seems to have amassed quite a bit of territory, which could indicate he’s been in the area for quite some time and it’s bigger than we think--and you have to consider that all those rats that make up his horde have to come from somewhere. They need spaces to eat, sleep and train.

It’s also a fact that they’re born and raised to serve the kingdom: when Slagar offers up Vitch as a “gift”, Malkariss rejects him because he was “not born of the Host, [and their] ways are not known to him.” (Mattimeo, ch. 43). Based on this information, I think it’s pretty safe to say that there were probably areas of the kingdom dedicated to families and children, though we never see it.

If that’s the case, and Malkariss and his enormous horde have been around for awhile, this could indicate that by the time he appears in Mattimeo, he was working to expand his kingdom, or at least the spaces underground. What does this have to do with the Wearet? When the Wearet is introduced, Nadaz calls him “The Slavemaster”. Sure, Malkariss has got lots of followers, but having a great scary-looking creature under your control overseeing the construction could be a good show of power to both slaves and follower alike, so I think it’s less likely that the Wearet existed before Malkariss created his kingdom underground, especially if the expansion he’s supervising is a more recent project.

But then how did the Wearet come to exist at all? I posit that there were ferrets/weasels/stoats living in the kingdom of Malkariss. There might even have been other Wearets. But they were being kept deep underground, possibly for the sole purpose of creating (and later, maintaining) the Wearet line. Here’s why:

The Wearet is described as “somewhere between a ferret and a stoat.” (Mattimeo, Ch. 46). The thing is, there’s absolutely no mention of any mustelids (ferrets, stoats, weasels) serving within the kingdom; according to the book, the residents of the kingdom of Malkariss (at least, those that aren’t slaves) are made up of entirely of rats.

The only exception is its king, Malkariss himself, who is a polecat (aka a wild relative of the domestic ferret).

You’d think that if having other mustelids around to do things like lead his army and serve him was important to Malkariss, there would have been some evidence of it.

Now let’s fast forward to the book Loamhedge, which takes place many, many years after the events of Mattimeo. As the title implies, a group of Redwallers return to the Southern Plateau, aka where Loamhedge AND Malkariss used to be. Guess who they encounter?

^This guy. Kharanjul.

Another Wearet.

Remember the giant gorge everyone had to cross in Mattimeo? Kharanjul lives in caves along its walls. It makes sense that he’s not in the exact same location, given that there was a giant cave-in, but he is definitely within the same vicinity. If we’re going off the assumption that the kingdom was a lot bigger than what we saw in Mattimeo, it would make sense that there are tunnels and caves everywhere underground along the plateau, so even if one large area had been lost to the collapse, it doesn’t necessarily mean that all of it would have.

In the same line of thought, it doesn’t necessarily mean that all of the creatures living in the kingdom of Malkariss were lost, either. The rats in Kharanjul’s army could even be their descendants.

Speaking of descendants...when his followers are singing his praises, they specifically reference how Kharanjul has “the blood of Wearets” running through his veins. (Loamhedge, ch 36.)

Unlike Malkariss, though, Kharanjul’s army consists of “mainly ferrets and weasels, with a scattering of large rats among them.” (Loamhedge, ch. 42). But if the kingdom of Malkariss had consisted only of rats, then where did the ferrets and weasels come from?

And another thing: we know that in real life, it’s definitely possible to make hybrid animals out of different species--a horse and a donkey make a mule, for example.

(Yes, Redwall is a fictional world made up of anthropormorphized animals and we have to have suspension of disbelief, blah blah blah, but go with me here.)

When I dove into this rabbithole, I found this website, which is essentially a compilation of reports referencing instances of hybridization between different animals (in this case, mustelids).

There was one segment that stood out to me:

Would you believe it, it is actually entirely realistic for something like the Wearet to exist!

Furthermore, this tells us two things:

1. It is possible for a stoat and a ferret to produce fertile offspring. (The Stoat x Ferret hybrid in the referenced study apparently produced four successive generations.)

2. A stoat and a polecat could (hypothetically) produce fertile offspring.

Look, we don’t know very much about the Malkariss Wearet. We don’t know how much Malkariss was involved in his creation. The Malkariss Wearet’s existence could have easily been a fluke. though apparently, and there’s no good way to put this, but polecats can get around, if you know what I mean, so he may have been a lot more “””””involved””””” than is comfortable thinking about.

But if we take into account that a stoat and ferret hybrid is capable of producing multiple generations of fertile offspring in the first place, PLUS the fact that there is another Wearet present in the exact same vicinity, hundreds of years later, AND there is now a notable population of mustelids in the area...it leads me to believe that Kharanjul was not a fluke.

Headcanon time: if we go off of the whole “it was a cult” thing, the shift from worship of Malkariss to worship of Wearets is how the remnants of the kingdom ended up evolving after the destruction of the kingdom, especially if the survivors consisted of the creatures used to create the line in the first place. Aside from the giant statue, we know that his rats carved a mural in his likeness, so there are probably lots of similar likenesses scattered throughout the tunnels and caves that make up the kingdom. I could see creatures interpreting these types of effigies as a tribute to a creature like a Wearet, especially if a lot of what was known about the kingdom of Malkariss was lost over time.

TL; DR: We don’t know exactly where the Wearet from Mattimeo came from, but its existence implies that there might have been mustelids present in the kingdom of Malkariss, possibly for the purpose of making Wearets. When Malkariss and the kingdom were destroyed, some of the rats and the mustelids used to make the Wearet appear to have survived and continued the Wearet line.

#redwall #i've been mulling over this post for two nights #now it's almost 2:30am #we'll see how coherent these theories are in the morning #when this post actually goes up #but do you see what i'm getting at??#or am I overthinking this?

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redwalltournaments · 4 months

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This Is A Lot Of Blood For A Children's Book

Whose death is the most violent?

Round 1:

A Side:

Cluny: Crushed by the Joseph Bell vs Bloods Apis: Stung to death by bees

Cheesethief: Killed by a giant crossbow vs Tarul: Crushed between the Matthias and Methuselah Bells

Members of Cluny's Horde: Boiled alive vs Vizka: Snapped spine, drowning

Skullface: Crushed under a cart vs Gruntan Kurdly: Killed by an angry swan

Scratch: Killed by an angry swan vs Riggu: Metal barb to the head

Cludd: Impaled by a large amount of otter javelins vs Jeefra: Fratricide

Malkariss: Stoned to death vs Gulo: Decapitation by shield

Gabool: Poisoned by his own pet scorpion vs Members of Araltum's Groves: Cannibalized

B Side:

Klitch: Poisoned himself vs Ungatt Trunn: Broken spine, Drowned

Skalrag: Arrow Pincushion vs Bladd: Burned, Crushed by a cauldron

Rose: Skull cracked against a stone wall vs. King Argarnu: Drowned by Riftguards former slaves.

Felldoh: Killed by over a score of Badrang's horde vs Stonepaw: Drowned

Dirgecallers: Buried Alive vs Crew of the Sanya: Shipwreck, Rammed by the Gorleech

Urgan Nagru: Impaled by wolf fangs vs Vilu Daskar/Luke: Shipwreck, Drowning

Conva: Hypnotized into committing suicide vs Mokkan: Chain to the throat/Drowning

Piknim: Attacked by Jackdaws vs Ublaz: Poisoned by his own pet snake

Round 2:

A Side:

Bloods Apis: Stung to death by bees vs Tarul: Crushed between the Matthias and Methuselah Bells

Members of Cluny's Horde: Boiled alive vs Skullface: Crushed under a cart

Riggu: Metal barb to the head vs Cludd: Impaled by a large amount of otter javelins

Gulo: Decapitation by shield vs Members of Araltum's Groves: Cannibalized

B Side:

Ungatt Trunn: Broken spine, Drowned vs Bladd: Burned, Crushed by a cauldron

Rose: Skull cracked against a stone wall vs Felldoh: Killed by over a score of Badrang's horde

Crew of the Sanya: Shipwreck, Rammed by the Gorleech vs Urgan Nagru: Impaled by wolf fangs

Mokkan: Chain to the throat/Drowning vs Piknim: Attacked by Jackdaws

Round 3:

A Side:

Tarul: Crushed between the Matthias and Methuselah Bells vs Members of Cluny's Horde: Boiled alive

Cludd: Impaled by a large amount of otter javelins vs Members of Araltum's Groves: Cannibalized

B Side:

Ungatt Trunn: Broken spine, Drowned vs Felldoh: Killed by over a score of Badrang's horde

Crew of the Sanya: Shipwreck, Rammed by the Gorleech vs Piknim: Attacked by Jackdaws

Semi-Finals:

A Side:

Members of Cluny's Horde: Boiled alive vs Members of Araltum's Groves: Cannibalized

B Side:

Ungatt Trunn: Broken spine, Drowned vs Crew of the Sanya: Shipwreck, Rammed by the Gorleech

Final:

Members of Araltum's Groves: Cannibalized vs Ungatt Trunn: Broken spine, Drowned

#redwall #redwall tournament #brian jacques #round 1 #tialobfacb #tw death #tw drowning #tw decapitation #tw suicide

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