#also! we do get several strong female characters (cornflower in Matimeo comes to mind immediately). yeah there's a male bias. but not 100% | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

neverendingford · 1 year ago

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I'm sure he had some bad takes somewhere (most people have at least a few) but overall when I grew up and did some research on his history and involvement with the communities around him, everything was frankly quite heartwarming. This ncr article from 2002 is a quick one I found where he talks about being raised Irish Catholic (his family immigrated from Ireland to Liverpool) but how Redwall is really a secular institute, based on being an accepting community rather than a specifically religious one. Also his involvement with the Royal School for the Blind in Liverpool and general advocacy for children always stood out to me as exemplary of his values (he advocated for kids a ton).

If you wanna get a better idea of who he was, there's info scattered all over the web and the Wikipedia article has available references. for a start, This Redwall wiki article has a recording of the intro to his radio show which ran for 26 years as well as a link to a page with more recordings of him.

I certainly have no idea what opinions he had on queer people (I did a cursory internet search but no real deep research so maybe there's info out there) but based on the spirit of friendship and community through all the series and his other stories (if you haven't read anything of his outside of Redwall I can highly recommend! the Castaways of the Flying Dutchman series made me cry as a kid and does not get enough love imo) I highly doubt that he would be one to hold onto bigoted beliefs. Did he have some cultural beliefs that never went challenged or educated? Probably. we all do to some extent. would he have been actually secretly (or openly) bad? (think jkr and OS Card) I have trouble thinking so.

(if anyone has extra info or feels the urge to dig up articles or links please feel free to add them!)

Let's be honest with ourselves, the reason Brian Jacques is gently criticized today instead of ripped to shreds is because he never discovered social media, never wrote on anything that wasn't a typewriter, and spent his final years never saying anything or doing anything.

#Redwall #color says shit #text post #the Redwall series has some themes that feel a little yikes (I've written posts about the morality of the vermin/woodlander dichotomy)#and I'm not trying to white knight for my beloved children's author because everyone has some sort of flaw #but the strong spirit of joy and community and acceptance that runs constantly through his works is what I go by #for all we can criticize the “vermin” thing. we got Romsca. we got Blaggut. we've seen redemption arcs and we've seen evil woodlanders #now I wanna go hunt up my old Redwall posts and reblog them again #I used to call myself a lotr fan but tbh I've always been a redwaller at heart. I will absolutely move to my pc to type out a Redwall post #it's very heartwarming that my old Redwall posts still get notes occasionally. it's the community I care about most.#I need to reread all his stuff again. it's been too long since I read the Castaways of the Flying Dutchman series.#also his Urso Brunov stories! very fun and cute. it's sad that only Redwall gets recognition really. he really did just love telling storie #also! we do get several strong female characters (cornflower in Matimeo comes to mind immediately). yeah there's a male bias. but not 100%

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