Dark Forest

[Galedeep]

The Dark Forest was a place some of the earlier novels used. It was a place that woodland animals believed dead creatures went. What are your guy's thoughts on this place?

[Osu]

Hard to say. Interesting concept of a place, I think. The characters in the books make reference to dark forest, "hellgates," and a place of sunny streams and hills (or something like that), so there's also the question of whether or not they consider these three different places or just one. If they believe in three, an argument might be made for hellgates/sunny!place being one concept most people are familiar with, and dark forest being something else where, maybe, creatures can come back from the dead... kind of like how Martin and the badger lords do.

Or more than likely they all refer to the same thing - afterlife - and that's all there is to it.

[Tiria Wildlough]

They seem to use Dark Forest very loosely, as a  place where both good and bad animals go, but sometimes they use 'hellgates' for bad ones.

[Matthias720]

If I remember correctly, Dark Forest was used to refer to the afterlife for any creature except for the truly evil (any main baddie or a high level mook).

[Galedeep]

Something interesting I noticed in the books, the dark forest is only mentioned in (correct me if i'm wrong) the novels set in the pre-redwall era.

[Taggerung_of_Redwall]

Dark Forest is mentioned throughout the whole series, if not in every book. Hellgates is similar in appearance

[Captain Tammo]

I always thought that "hellgates" or I'm sure it'd be safe just to use "hell" is, obviously, the bad place, and the "sunny slopes" are inside of dark forest. I think of dark forest is just like Mossflower but minus the vermin.

[Redwall Musician]

Sunny Slopes: Heaven
Hellgates: Hell
Dark Forest: The After Life

[Taggerung_of_Redwall]

Brian Jacques said otherwise. In the Ask Brian Files, he mentioned neither Hellgates nor Dark Forest as being either heaven or hell. Very specifically, and said they were simply an afterlife referred to during the series.

[Captain Tammo]

Brian Jacques said otherwise. In the Ask Brian Files, he mentioned neither Hellgates nor Dark Forest as being either heaven or hell. Very specifically, and said they were simply an afterlife referred to during the series.

That's odd though. I don't understand why mr. Jacques would say hellgates isn't hell. I'd imagine when some of the creatures say "I'm going to send you to hellgates" they mean the gates of hell.

[Wot Wot!]

Brian Jacques said otherwise. In the Ask Brian Files, he mentioned neither Hellgates nor Dark Forest as being either heaven or hell. Very specifically, and said they were simply an afterlife referred to during the series.

That's odd though. I don't understand why mr. Jacques would say hellgates isn't hell. I'd imagine when some of the creatures say "I'm going to send you to hellgates" they mean the gates of hell.

I wonder if "hellgates" was a colloquialism he picked up, just like "blood n' vinegar" and "Hawayyy the braw"...

[Osu]

I think hellgates was something that came up during the first Redwall novel - before he had everything sorted out for the series - and then just stuck. It's something every reader can identify (bad version of the afterlife) but isn't meant to allude to the Christian hell, exactly. It's always referred to as hellgates, one word.

[Galedeep]

I don't get it, how can Hellgates not be a reference to hell? I just don't quite understand your point.

[Taggerung_of_Redwall]

Hellgates is Hellgates, Hell is Hell.

*shrugs* That makes sense to me.

[Wot Wot!]

Well, we know he was a big fan of Homer and the Iliad, perhaps he was a big fan of Dante's Inferno as well, which feature the gates to hell with the inscription "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."