Batblog

What Does The Critter Say?

Here's an interesting question to ponder: Why write stories about animals?

Maybe that seems like an obvious answer ("'Cause animals are awesome!"), but to a theme-conscious author, there's definitely a lot more to it than simply loving animals or trying to appeal to my animal story-loving inner child (though that's all definitely a factor).

First, I'd like to talk a little about what it really means to use animals in place of people as characters in a story. Now, a while back, I was looking through the personal blog of Sean Rubin (the artist who did the chapter illustrations for the last few Redwall novels), and one entry in particular stuck out to me, entitled "Redwall: On Racism In Animal Stories." I'd like to borrow a quote from that particular post, since it illustrates the point I'm about to make about as well as I ever could:

"I see and hear a lot of discussion of Brian Jacques' use of animal species in the Redwall stories, and how the "inherent" evil of stoats, rats, ferrets, and other "vermin" amounts to a kind of racism implicit in Brian's writing. Unfortunately, this reading ignores the nature and tradition of the animal stories from which Redwall descends. Foxes in Redwall aren't devious because they're foxes, they're foxes because they're devious. A dirty rat is a dirty rat because he's a dirty rat. And while Brian was neither a satirist nor a preacher, there is a strong moral element to Redwall, where wits and compassion always trump naked force and selfishness. Brian insisted this was the reason mice were his first heroes. Children, who are small and often controlled by others, can relate to mice. Matthias's victory over Cluny is about a kid having more heart and brains than a bully."

In short, animal stories aren't truly about animals at their core. Animal stories are just as much about humans as any other, but they use the traits either natural to or popularly associated with various animals to illustrate some larger human issue. If the practice of making certain animals inherently evil in these stories is irresponsible in any way, it won't be because it "promotes racism," it'll be because it might promote the further stigmatization of the real-life animal involved (especially in the cases of creatures like spiders, rats, snakes, and sharks, which all still get a lot of unfair hatred from large parts of our culture).

Now, to relate this to my own work with my Redwall fanfiction, The Krimson Traitor^{(I'll be mostly talking about things that haven't happened yet in the story at the time of writing. I'll avoid major plot spoilers, but do proceed with caution.)}, the fact that the protagonist is a vermin isn't just for the sake of subverting expectations; it does indeed reflect on his character. Foxes in the world of Redwall are universally sly, treacherous, and deceptive. Nihil, the fox that stars as the "hero" of The Krimson Traitor, will be all that and also cynical, sardonic, and pragmatic (at least that's what he'll be like when he starts his journey; character development is sure to soften some of his more jagged edges as the story goes along). Just because he chooses to use those traits to save Redwall Abbey instead of plunder it doesn't make him any less a fox at heart. He betrays the Krimson Empire that he swears an oath to (hence the title), he'll use deceptive and dishonorable tactics in his fighting, and he'll be rude and snarky to ally and foe alike; in short, he isn't fundamentally different from other foxes, he's just decided that he'd rather have a happy life at Redwall than spend it serving some despot. Where the core Redwall stories are about how good will always triumph over evil, The Krimson Traitor is about how an evil person doesn't have to stay evil (that Skyrim quote over the book's description isn't an accident).

Then there's my original animal-related projects; Mythryn, my planned detective novel about a talking crow, and the two short stories I'm currently working on that use the same setting. Where Redwall uses animal species as an allegory for personality types and morality, Mythryn and it's related stories will instead use animal species as allegories for more complicated human qualities; things like intelligence and education (certain animals are naturally much smarter than others), economic class (animals that are smarter or physically stronger tend to have more economic advantages), and philosophy (less intelligent animals tend to have cultural beliefs centered around emotions and honor, where smarter creatures tend to have philosophies based on objectivity and practicality). Creatures like rats and foxes in the Mythryn world aren't necessarily stupid, of course, but even the smartest of those species is going to have some serious hurdles to jump over if they want to, say, invent some new technology, whereas a crow or a parrot would have a much easier time breaking into an intellectual field (sort of like how a poorly-educated human from a low-income background isn't as going to have as many opportunities as someone who grew up in a wealthy household and went to Harvard).

The plot of Mythryn isn't going to be purely about class struggles, of course; Mythryn is a detective noir story about a sarcastic private eye crow who gets sucked into a crazy conspiracy in the course of investigating some murders, and it wouldn't dream of being anything but fun and intriguing. The class allegory element is merely intended to add a level of depth, realism, and, dare I say, humanity to the setting and its animal inhabitants.