Scary or Disconcerting Moments in Redwall

[Campanella]

Wasn't exactly scary per-say, but I did find the whole concept behind Gulo pretty disconcerting. I know Redwall is one of those series that has a knack for having material that parents would balk at, but having a villain that ate their enemies after killing them was pretty jarring.

[The Skarzs]

I happened to like that part. Made it all the more serious.

[Gonff the Mousethief]

Wasn't exactly scary per-say, but I did find the whole concept behind Gulo pretty disconcerting. I know Redwall is one of those series that has a knack for having material that parents would balk at, but having a villain that ate their enemies after killing them was pretty jarring.

Yeah, I agree. I was trying to get this one kid to read the books back a few years ago and he asked me what the villain was like in the one I was currently reading. It was of course Gulo and how he ate people. He didn't end up reading them.

[Maudie]

One scene that sticks out in my mind is when the three conjoined snakes were introduced in Triss. I barely remember the scene, but I remember feeling kind of scared and unsettled while reading it.

In fact, one of the more disconcerting parts of the Redwall series was the oft-repeated description of the sickly sweet smell of an adder's poison. Maybe it's because when I was younger I had a bad dream that was accompanied by this pervasive sickly sweet smell, or maybe the description itself was unsettling.

[The Skarzs]

I thought it was just the stink of adder, not the poison.

[Maudie]

You know, that makes a lot of sense. I never was the sharpest child.

Regardless, it's still disturbing. In fact, that may make it more disturbing. What does the smell come from, rotting flesh? Or do adders just naturally stink?

[Jetthebinturong]

I'm pretty sure it was because their tails were tied together and it was either damaged or rotting.

[Maudie]

But that smell is connected with adders throughout the series, not just those three.

[Ashleg]

Probably the smell of slime, death, and poison rolled all into one--those conjoined snakes would have smelled particularly worse because their bodies were rotting as they still lived.

Eesh.

[The Skarzs]

Pretty sure it was just the adders' natural, ehh, musk.

[Maudie]

Just did some quick internet research and, funnily enough, it seems as though the grass snake of the U.K. is able to emit a foul-smelling liquid when in danger. I didn't find anything that said adders carried a foul smell.

Maybe Brian Jacques switched it up a bit for the sake of the story.

[Jetthebinturong]

Well, if you think about it logically, it severely disadvantages a predator such as an adder if they have a foul odour, because that could spook their prey and leave them hungry. Meanwhile a defenceless creature such as a grass snake being able to secrete disgusting liquid helps it greatly as it keeps other animals, including possible predators, away from it.

[Maudie]

I just think it's interesting how Brian took a characteristic of one real life animal and gave it to a different one. It's also interesting how he made up species like wearat and the Slothunog. As a kid I didn't think too much about how close the animals were to real life.

I just think it's interesting that he made up species that don't exist in real life and that he added characteristics to existing species.

[The Skarzs]

Writers' liberty.

[Wylder Treejumper]

In the book Triss it clearly states that the reason the adders smell is because the flesh behind the flail had died and was slowly rotting away while still attached to their bodies. So yeah, pretty gross. However, it also makes sense. Throughout the rest of the series, I do not recall any sort of stink being associated with adders in general, only with their lairs (which were usually full of shed snakeskins and, in at least one case, a corpse). Presumably, the animals in Redwall have a better sense of smell than us, so an adder's layer would stink. But, I am fairly sure that other adders in the series dd not have a scent which personally attended them