your least fav beast

[rakkety tam]

who is your least favourite beast good or bad

[Nightfire]

For bad, I have to say Agarnu.  For my least favorite goodbeast (I'm sorry to say this, for all of your fans), it is Matthias. He gets too much credit.

[James Gryphon]

I like a lot of the villains, but I didn't have much regard for Princess Pinkeyes... inept, cowardly, completely uncool. I actively supported both Firetail, and then Slitfang after he died.

For the heroes, though, there's a lot more options... I'm not especially fond of many hares, outside of Basil and the hares in The Long Patrol. I don't like Tiria Wildlough, and I don't like Cuthbert either precisely for the same reason everyone else seems to like him -- his final Bloodwrath rampage was far too powerful and in my opinion unrealistically resolved the final battle.

I don't especially like Martin II because he has no real personality, doesn't develop as a character, and is inexplicably immune to hypnosis. I don't like Grath Longfletch either because of how she effortlessly kills an army of Monitors. Besides, although I understand that she would want to avenge her holt, her "kill the vermin" routine got old after a while.

Also, I don't like Rakkety Tam's daughter either, because she is described as being great at everything, and a more skilled swordbeast than her father, even though there is absolutely no reason for this.

[Dotti]

Tugga Bruster, the bankvole guy from Eulalia, Abbot Mortimer, and......probably Viola Bankvole.   It is true that Martin II doesn't have much personality.....He's just kind of goes out and does all the heroic stuff.

[rakkety tam]

for my least fav goodbeast taggerung you never saw him in any real battles and i thought the book was boring least fav bad guy urgan nagru

[James Gryphon]

...it is Matthias. He gets too much credit.

I was posting from the phone earlier, so I didn't have as much time to go into detail on everything as I might have.

Anyway, the way I see it, Matthias accomplished several major things in his career:

1) He saved Redwall Abbey.
It's true that most of the war would have been fought successfully regardless of whether Matthias was there or not. Cluny would still have been injured. Methuselah would have probably still found Martin the Warrior's tomb. They might have even rescued the Vole family, eventually.

However, if Matthias wasn't there, the Redwallers could have never gotten the cooperation of the sparrows. Methuselah would not have been able to go up into the loft to try to find the sword, and thus, because Matthias, the only other creature besides Methuselah who can understand the Sparra dialect, didn't go up on his quest, the Redwallers would have never obtained the alliance of Warbeak or any of her kin.

Furthermore, if Matthias wasn't there, nobody would have gone on a quest to retrieve Martin's sword. Thus, Redwall would not have gained the alliance of the shrews, retrieved the sword, gotten help from either Squire Gingivere or Captain Snow, or killed Asmodeus.

With nobody there to retrieve the sword or ally with the shrews, there would have been no army to rescue Redwall. Thus, when Cluny stood in Great Hall, delivering his judgements, that would have been it -- there wouldn't have been a second wave to turn the tide.

As it was, the Abbey was only saved by three things -- that the sparrows were friendly with Matthias and flew out to warn him about the Abbey's fall, plus provided a way into the Abbey by opening the gates; that Matthias obtained all of Martin's legendary armor and weaponry, thus allowing him to fight Cluny on a more even footing, and that Matthias obtained the help of the shrews, the cat, and the owl.

Without the sparrows, Matthias might have had the sword and the shrews, but the gates would not have been opened in time to prevent Cluny's horde from fortifying their new castle, and he wouldn't have had two-thirds of his army (1,000 out of 1,501 troops) there to help.

Without the sword, Matthias would frankly get thrashed by Cluny, and from there it's entirely possible the rat would have been able to rally his horde and win the battle, even in spite of the superior numbers.

Without the shrews, the cat, or the owl, the final battle would have been a lot bloodier. There are also long-term repercussions to this, even if the Redwallers do manage to defeat Cluny's horde. This will be covered in part two.

2) His previous friendships were critical to saving the Redwallers' children.
If Matthias hadn't done each and every one of the things mentioned above, the help that they had -- five hundred or so shrews, and all of Queen Warbeak's command -- simply would not have been there, and without all of that, even if they previously survived Cluny's attack on Redwall Abbey, there isn't a chance the heroes could have ever freed their children from the kingdom of Malkariss.

As it was many of the Guosim, plus the vast majority of the Sparra, were killed even when they were victorious. If Matthias hadn't done what he already did in Redwall, the entire quest would have been an abject failure. Without both the shrews and the Sparras, they would have never even seen Malkariss' kingdom because Stonefleck's trained army would have butchered all of the rescue party.

---

One might argue that Matthias' combat skills are weak. However, I don't think that's really the case either; in fact, he's probably a bit more powerful than he should have been, given his training, and the extremely high quality of the enemies he had to face. The main reason why other characters might seem to come off in a better light than him is because they generally didn't face enemies that were that powerful.

When you consider the relative sizes, strengths, and experience of the heroes and the villains, I think the only two hero-villain matchups that rank as similar to the ones Matthias went through are Martin against Tsarmina and Rakkety Tam against Gulo. Martin was helped, though, by the fact that Tsarmina had half-way lost her mind, and was hydrophobic, and Rakkety Tam had the Ghost of Martin tell him to sharpen his shield.

Meanwhile, I'd argue that Matthias didn't receive such handicaps; he had the advantage of looking like Martin, but that didn't seem to stop Cluny from fighting him tooth and claw after he got past the initial shock, and Matthias didn't have any advantage over the Wearet at all, except for carrying the Sword of Martin, and the beast's net and much greater strength cancelled that out.

Now, I think those two fights above -- Martin-Tsarmina and Tam-Gulo -- were probably about as hard as the ones Matthias fought, give or take some, but the thing is, they only had to fight an enemy of that caliber once. After Tsarmina died, Martin never faced an enemy as dangerous as her again, and Rakkety Tam practically retired after he killed Gulo. Matthias had to fight at that level twice, years apart, and I don't think that's bound to be easy.

Mossflower could have been saved without Martin, but Redwall Abbey would not have continued to exist without Matthias, and I think that in itself speaks volumes as to how significant he is to the series' history.

I feel that, if we look at the evidence, Matthias is probably underrated, given how critical his achievements were to keeping his friends safe.

[DanielofRedwall]

@Nightfire, he does not! He was a great warrior! Just look at what James Gryphon has said!

BTW, James, I really enjoy reading all your long essays. They're always so interesting and well thought out!

Least favourite "good" beast was Log-a-Log Tugga Bruster from "Doomwyte" and my least favourite villain was all the albino ferrets from "Triss". They just didn't seem bad enough to be the main villains, and they didn't pose enough of a threat.

[Nightfire]

for my least fav goodbeast taggerung you never saw him in any real battles and i thought the book was boring least fav bad guy urgan nagru

I think Deyna's one last battle was far too unrealistic. I mean, he's shot with an arrow, and he somehow takes down a powerful creature who's still in good health, then he chases a really fast weasel across the woods, catches him, and somehow kills him even though the weasel had really great weapons and skills, the otter had been shot with an arrow, and then the otter somehow survives for who knows how long until he's rescued, then is somehow healed to the point where he can throw a huge bouldert into a river several times and fish it out. VERY unrealistic!

[Muse]

Definitely Druggo? from Martin The Warrior. So annoying

[Skalrag of Marshank]

DRUWP!!! Oh, how I hate Druwp. Sooo annoying.

[Tiria Wildlough]

@James Gryphon, whaaaat? You don't like Tiria Wildlough?
What you said bothered me till long after I'd forgotten what was bothering me. Still...it's your opinion.
And I agree with you about Cuthbert. There's no way a single hare can kill all those creatures. But that doesn't stop me from liking him, and it doesn't stop High Rhulain from being an awesome book.
And there isn't enough evidence for me to truly dislike Melanda MacBurl. Apparently she was using swords since she could tumble out of the cradle, so...
And Grath Longfletch didn't effortlessly kill an entire Monitor army. She had help from Inbar, Martin II, and Clecky.
I don't like Martin II either. He is not a really interesting character. It sometimes seems like he is trying to be a copy of the first Martin.
And just for a last word, I reckon Ublaz's hypnotizing only works on creatures who are afraid of him.

[Lutra]

Most of the goodbeasts in the Redwall stories, have extraordinary fighting skills at opportune times.  There are probably many situations where the goodbeast should have been long dead given the wound.  I wouldn't go so far to say that I didn't like these characters because they survived, but I find super unrealistic scenarios rather dull and boring, and a lazy way of writing.  It takes the unexpected out of the story.  Someone mentioned Deyna's ability to fight with an arrow sticking out of him, or arrow wound.  Arrow wounds kill many beasts, but it didn't kill him?  A weakened Deyna in a final battle would've made for a better story.

[James Gryphon]

@James Gryphon, whaaaat? You don't like Tiria Wildlough?

I'm sorry to say so, especially to her namesake, but I really don't -- I can't stand her as a character. The hero I like best in that book is easily Leatho Shellhound.

As for why I don't like her, well, I have said before -- but a lot of my complaints about her also work for Melanda MacBurl, so you can read down and get the same thing.

And there isn't enough evidence for me to truly dislike Melanda MacBurl. Apparently she was using swords since she could tumble out of the cradle, so...

Well, that may be so, but the fact is that I doubt that Rakkety Tam himself was much different when he was that age, so there's no reason to expect that she should be any better... besides, the whole "hereditary skill" thing strikes me as being a bit off. A lot of the time, people do not inherit their father's/mother's skills, and if they do, it isn't necessarily at the same level as the original's. There are realistically very few cases where a son or a daughter gained the abilities of an acclaimed or legendary parent, in any career, and then turned out to be better than they were. Usually, even if they *are* about as good it's still debatable -- for instance, in the world of hockey, Brett Hull had a lot of skill, like his father did, but the jury is still out on who was better because his father was a much more physical and hard-working player, back in his day.

In this case, though, there's none of that balance. She's described as being better than her father, who was previously possibly the best squirrel warrior to ever emerge from the Highlands, or even on the planet. Oh, and not only that, but she's also the youngest Recorder ever! And she's drop-dead gorgeous. And no doubt, although we never get the chance to find out, she also must have a great singing voice as well.

That strikes me the wrong way. She's basically like a Mary Sue, though it doesn't have a chance to ruin the story since she shows up in the very last chapter, and we never see her do anything.

And Grath Longfletch didn't effortlessly kill an entire Monitor army. She had help from Inbar, Martin II, and Clecky.

Well, the point is, one otter killing a Monitor army isn't that much different from two otters, a hare, and a mouse killing a Monitor army  -- especially since it only took *one* Monitor to take Skipper out of action in a fight earlier.

Now, I realize that he wasn't armed at the time, but still... if a Monitor can nearly kill Skipper, and another (albeit much larger) Monitor, that's gravely sick, in a bad climate, on a boat, can kill an experienced corsair like Romsca, the Monitors ought to be nearly unbeatable in their home territory.

And just for a last word, I reckon Ublaz's hypnotizing only works on creatures who are afraid of him.

Well, although that isn't a bad theory, the problem is that it works on a lot of characters that, under those criteria, you wouldn't expect it to work on, or who actually would prey on Ublaz if it wasn't for his vision -- Lask Frildur, for instance, and all of his Monitors are obviously larger and more powerful than Ublaz, and have no reason to fear him at all. Likewise, Rasconza nearly killed Ublaz; he's larger, faster, and in better physical condition. Yet there's no reason to believe, up to and through the very end of the book, that if Ublaz stared Rasconza right in the eyes, that the hypnosis would fail to work on him.

So we don't know why Ublaz's vision doesn't work on Martin, just that it doesn't. The thing is that that's inconsistent, because Asmodeus successfully hypnotized Matthias -- so logically it seems to me Ublaz should be able to do the same thing to Martin II, Matthias' grandson.

[Nightfire]

I still don't like Matthias very much. He was alright in Redwall, but in Mattimeo, I just got sick of him. But this topic isn't a debat to get other people to agree with you on your least fav, okay? We're just supposed to state who we don't like much, and give out reasons for it. Another least fav goodbeast for me is (sorry about this) Boar the Fighter. Another least fav evilbeast for me is Ferahgo the Assassin.

[rakkety tam]

i know alot of u guys wont like me for saying this but i dont realy like the otters there all the same none of them realy  have somthing differant about them i like some of them but not many