Batblog

2 Edgy 4 U

I'd like to take a moment to talk about the topic of "subversiveness." I quite enjoy reading fantasy stories that set out to subvert the more prevalent tropes of the genre (A Song of Ice and Fire is pretty awesome, and Richard K. Morgan's Land Fit For Heroes series may in fact be one of my favourite things ever). There is a time and place for it... But I don't think a Redwall fanfiction is one of those places.

That sentiment may be surprising coming from someone whose current project is, in fact, a Redwall fanfiction that stars a fox as the protagonist. Making a vermin character the protagonist might seem to be about as subversive as it gets for Redwall, but that's not the point. I'm not writing this story with the intention of being subversive or of "fixing" Redwall's nonexistent racism problem; I'm writing this story to write the best Redwall story I can. I'm also not writing this story for grown-up, mature adult me. I'm writing this for little me; for the small girl who liked to sit around daydreaming her own Redwall stories about a heroic white rat. I'm also writing this story for the same reason my favourite Digimon characters always seemed to start the series on the bad guy's side (Gatomon, Wizardmon, Ken, Impmon, etc.), which is because I've just always thought that stories about evil characters turning around and becoming good were interesting.

Now, a few blog posts back, I mentioned that I have looked up other Redwall fanfiction in the past. What I didn't mention was that I never actually finished either of the stories I tried to read. In fact, I stopped reading both of them for the same basic reason; they just weren't fun. I won't name either story out of respect for their authors, but I just couldn't stand to finish them. Both stories seemed far too preoccupied with being edgy and subversive to bother to actually tell a proper Redwall story, and that's not what I intend to do with The Krimson Traitor. Does The Krimson Traitor play with expectations a bit? Well, of course it does. If it didn't, it wouldn't be worth writing because it would just be one of the Redwall stories that we already have. But it's not strictly deconstructionist either, and even if it is, at least I'm trying my best to actually build something equally light and fun in place of what I've torn down.