Character Poll.

[James Gryphon]

Ninja'd: Well, this is about who your favorite is, not necessarily who would win in a fight.

For what it's worth, I think it's overly simplistic to say that the biggest one wins. I think of character encounters as being potentially in more than one situation. Past just a pure fight, there's also the Jacquesian "duel of wits". In that case, Sawney pretty clearly is better. In a character tournament draft I wrote up, I actually picked Swartt Sixclaw to advance past Gulo, by simply rerunning his poison trick. Now, I admit that particular idea might be a bit of a long shot -- it would take a lot of poison to do this, as wolverines are infamously resistant -- but it isn't totally out of the realm of possibility. There's other options too, like dropping a tree on him. Gulo's armored hide poses a unique challenge, but there's still some scope for imagination.

[Banya]

I pretty much agree with Jet. I also enjoy Sawney Rath's unique relationship to the protagonist, and I don't remember Gulo the Savage well because I didn't like his book and only read it once, ten years ago.

[The Skarzs]

I did like Sawney as a character. He had a goal in mind, he wasn't completely uncaring of Taggerung, he was actually proud of him, and despite being an obviously ruthless killer, didn't seem like too bad of a guy. (That's not something I hope to actually say about someone again.)
Gulo was an incredibly fearsome foe. Though he was outwitted and played for a fool on more than one occasion, he still managed to be quite the threat to anyone who could challenge him.
However, he wasn't as deep of a character as Sawney, and even though Gulo took part in the entire story while Sawney wasn't, my vote goes to the tattooed ferret.

[Ashleg]

I was sad when Sawney died.

[James Gryphon]

The one thing I will say about Gulo as a character is that, due to his species, he broke into the "Hall of Fame" as a new, spectacular example of a physically intimidating villain. Before that, there weren't too many obvious powerhouses in the Redwall villain lineup. There's Cluny, of course, who had been around since the beginning. Tsarmina earns a spot just by virtue of fighting Martin. Ungatt Trunn should probably get in if his niece does, although he doesn't personally really do anything all that impressive that I can think of (besides getting trounced when he attempted to fight a badger one-on-one). Off the top of my head, though, that's about it. There wasn't much in the way of villains that everyone could agree would just physically blow their way through competition. Until Gulo.

After 10+ years of badgers being the be-all end-all larger-than-life epic heroes, I don't think anybody really thought that Mr. Jacques would make a villain that was even in their class. Readers would have settled for an evil badger, but that obviously wasn't ever going to happen in a black-and-white world. So, it seemed totally out of the blue when he one-upped readers' expectations and put the second-largest largest land mammal that had ever been seen in the series in as a villain leader.

Sawney Rath didn't have nearly as much of an impact on the way people perceive the series. He was just an old, smart ferret. He didn't even make it to the halfway point of the book, and couldn't be classified as a main villain. He's a cool character, but not an influential one. Gulo was perceived as a real gamechanger.

[Ashleg]

Haven't read Gulo's book yet, but I've heard there wasn't much personality to him once you looked past that "awe-factor".
Is that right or wrong?

I'll find out for myself eventually, but until then... 

[James Gryphon]

I think that's mostly a fair statement. He doesn't really embody many traits that the others don't just as much. He's mean; so is Gabool. He's tough; so is Cluny. He's crazy; so's Tsarmina. The biggest thing that does stand out about his character is that he's fearless. He never runs away from anyone and goes down fighting. Up until the moment he's actually killed, he's still a threat; there's never a time when he looks wide-eyed at the hero after getting outfought, begs for mercy, or resorts to a trick to try to stave off death.

[Ashleg]

Sounds much better than the villains that came in the books a bit before him (Kurda and whatsisname from Loamhedge). 

But ayye, since the poll didn't ask who was stronger or more threatening I'm stickin' with Sawney, because he also broke some kinds of barriers, but in the opposite way.
As far as I remember, he was the first villain with some positive traits--he loved Tagg ((even though he was a jerk about it and probably wouldn't have if it weren't for the prophecy thing)) and treated him really well, even though most vermin parents have little to no regard for their kids.

Thought I should explain why I voted him rather than just say "he's cool". 

[Hickory]

Raga Bol was built up to be something akin to Damug. He was a powerful rat villain who could assert himself, with a cool hook to boot, but his reputation was quickly tarnished by introducing his failure to kill Lonna straight off. His sword is one-hit-kill - wait a second!

Then again, Damug was fairly one sided.

[Ashleg]

Damung and him were interesting enough while reading their respective books, but give it a month or two and I'd already forgotten their names.

...sigh.

[Delthion]

I voted for Gulo because I don't remember Taggerung very well and I found it immensely boring.

[Lord Daskar]

New Poll.

[Dotti Dillworthy]

Dandin the Swordcarrier for the win!

[CaptainRocktree]

Saxtus! 

[Ashleg]

Don't remember either of them besides the fact that their names ring a bell (Ohhh! Unintentional Mariel Puns!) Would somebeast mind giving me a refresher?