Redwall Legends

[The Skarzs]

Or it may just be a guess or BJ just making a story.

[Izeroth]

I don't think that Redwallers would tell a lie... except tales told to Dibbuns or the 'come inside or the big bad monster is gonna get you!' kind of things

Well, that's what I'm unsure about. Bragoon and Sarobando's death, though arguably canon, wasn't observed by anyone from the Abbey, since they held the line while Horty, Fenna, and Springald escaped. After that, there's very little reason for anybeast to have returned, so how could anyone have known their last moments?

I've always thought that Redwall recorders would have 'read between the lines' and inserted situations or phrases they thought might have plausibly happened. It's highly unlikely, for instance, that a recorder would know exactly what a vermin leader was saying or doing in private company, and yet many such scenes appear in the books.

[The Skarzs]

Which is why I think it's more of BJ writing a story, and not them being part of it.

[SoranMBane]

My assumption has always been that us real-life readers are simply getting a more complete version of the story that's actually being told in-universe. So, those scenes of events that the recorder/storyteller couldn't possibly know about probably aren't actually in the version of the story they're telling. I have to make this assumption, because the only other alternative would be that the character telling the story is a big fat liar (which would be terrible).

[Hickory]

Sometimes such things can be excused, for instance, in Rakkety Tam or the Taggerung, because the story is being cobbled together from multiple sources. In that case a hole in information and a bit of storywriting would be emplyed by the recorder who's putting together the story.

[SoranMBane]

Sometimes such things can be excused, for instance, in Rakkety Tam or the Taggerung, because the story is being cobbled together from multiple sources. In that case a hole in information and a bit of storywriting would be emplyed by the recorder who's putting together the story.

Not really sure I'd call that excusable. A historian who genuinely cares about preserving history would only record what they can be sure of, and acknowledge it when there are things that they just don't know; anything else would be lying. Of course, there are plenty of real-life examples of historical chroniclers just making stuff up where they didn't know all the facts, but those chroniclers generally did that to make events seem more dramatic than they really were, or to idealize or demonize the various sides involved in a conflict. But Redwallers are supposed to be the good guys, and good people (or creatures) wouldn't misrepresent the truth like that for the sake of drama. Even in the cases where it's just a creature telling their story to an audience from memory, it would still be rather morally iffy for them to be talking about events that neither they nor anyone they know actually witnessed. Also, if those unknowable events really are part of  the stories that the in-universe chroniclers are telling, then that would lend a lot of credence to the theory that the Redwall stories are all just lies cooked up by "racist" Redwallers to unfairly demonize the vermin. I don't want that, because that theory is ludicrous and unpleasant.

[Jukka the Sling]

Maybe the parts with the vermin talking together were recorded fairly accurately by a random hordebeast, and lifetimes later, a random creature found the records and combined them with ones from the Abbey, making a complete-ish history.  I think that would make a fascinating (to me, at least) fanfic.

[asmodeus]

Most vermin don't know how to read or write, so could there have been a spy?

[Ashleg]

The Redwallers are telling a true (but general) story, and we as the readers are taken back into the time it is happening and not hearing what the storyteller says but what is being said during the event itself.

[KoudoawaiaVortex]

@The Shade: Uggo was the name of the main hedgehog character in Rogue Crew

[MeadowR]

What Ashleg just said.

[Ashleg]

W00T!

[The Skarzs]

What do you guys in general think about the stories supposedly being written or recorded? Personally, while it adds a certain charm to the story in that we know it will be fine from the get-go, I think it is a bit too "perfect".

[Ashleg]

Well, I think what I said here.

The Redwallers are telling a true (but general) story, and we as the readers are taken back into the time it is happening and not hearing what the storyteller says but what is being said during the event itself.

[Sebias of Redwall]

Well, I think what I said here.

Yeah i agree with that too.