Character Ages

[MeadowR]

So sorry if this has been done before (it's a pain to click through loads of pages!)!

While reading the books I was never quite sure, when they refer to being 'five seasons' old, do they mean they have so far lived through winter, spring, summer, autumn, winter, or does one season for them equate to one year?

Do the characters live much shorter lives than humans, closer to how long the actual animal lives, or as they are living like humans in 'ye olde times', having constant supply of food, healthcare and decent sanitary conditions, they are in fact living the same length roughly as humans?

Did Brian answer this one? Otherwise, thoughts?

[Free Thought]

I'm not sure if Jacques answered that question or not, but I've always viewed it as one season equals one year (five years is essentially a five year old).  I think they did live decent length of lives- many creatures are described in Redwall as ancient, old, etc.

[Blazemane]

I'm with Free Thought on this. The way I always understood it, seasons were literal seasons as we understand them as far as the amount of days go and how the weather/temperature/plants changed. But at the same time, a season for the creatures of the Redwall series was about as significant as a year for us, and probably the seasons felt longer.

Just as one example, in Taggerung, Deyna is kidnapped as an infant. Brian Jacques titles the second book of Taggerung "Fifteen Seasons On," and then we see that Deyna has basically grown into full adulthood. He's already earned a reputation as the fiercest and fastest of the Juska crew, excepting--just perhaps--Sawney Rath himself, and very soon, he shows enough maturity and moral courage to decide for himself not to kill Felch and to leave the vermin band that brought him up.

Technically, I get the impression that those fifteens seasons literally were only a little under 4 years. But I also think that for the creatures of the story, those seasons felt like what 15 years feels like to us.

[Free Thought]

Exactly.  I think it goes to note here as well that Redwall's a medieval-like society and as such, ages of maturity were quite different then than they are now.  Like Blazemane's example of Deyna- at fifteen seasons old he would have been considered an (I cringe) 'adult' and so it is perfectly acceptable to have him make 'adult-like' decisions.

[Tam and Martin]

I've always wondered the ages too. I like when sometimes they do mention the character's ages. For example: In the Taggerung, Deyna was born at the beggining of the book. Book two is called "Fifteen seasons on", so we find out tht Deyna is around 15 or so in the rest of the book.

BTW, MeadowRabbit, there is a search option at the top of the front page that you could search for a topic with.

[Ungatt Trunn]

You have to understand that animal ages differ greatly from humans. Animals tend to grow faster than humans. That could mean that in the Redwall series, maturity and growth happens faster than is expected.

[Vilu Daskar]

I always thought that one season equaled one Summer.

[Mariel]

I've always been confused with ages too,but I tend to think that seasons count as years because it said(I think) in Redwall that Matthais was 13 seasons and he seemed about 13 years old. 

[Tam and Martin]

I always thought that 1 season= 1 year.

[Romsca]

Honestly, I don't know. I have thought about this for many years, and I've just kinda given up and decided to call everything "years" in my story and have it consistent with human years

[MeadowR]

Interesting thoughts! I do prefer to think of seasons more like years, as I like to think of the characters living long lives. Obviously, however it works out, size must still come into it as the badgers live quite a bit longer.

BTW, MeadowRabbit, there is a search option at the top of the front page that you could search for a topic with.

Didn't think of that... Don't use search buttons often! Thanks for telling me; I'll give it a try soon.

[Lutra]

If we talked about this before, I couldn't find anything on it.  At least not a whole topic about it.

Anyway, this is how I've always seen ages in Redwall (and it disagrees with a lot of people): one season literally means one season--winter, spring, summer, or autumn.  Consider the fact that animals do not live as long as a human and therefore develop at different rates.  You are practically an "adult" in the mouse world the minute you can breed and that's often by year's end, or roughly four seasons.  Someone brought up Taggerrung's age...fourteen seasons is a little more than three years...definitely a proper adult age for an otter.  So when Mr. Jacques wrote ages or time in seasons, I feel he truly meant it as an appropriate way to age the characters given how long these animals typically live.  Given the fact that some badgers live so many seasons nobody could count (lets just say ten years), that's forty seasons, and that's much longer than the typical mouse survives.

[Tam and Martin]

That is one of the best explanations I think Lutra!

[MeadowR]

It is good thoughts there! I still reckon that because they are living a somewhat human lifestyle, always having food and can get healed for injury, that would prolong their lives at least a few years longer, regardless of the animal type.

[Vilu Daskar]

4 season = one year