Commentary on the Book The Rogue Crew

[Wylder Treejumper]

For discussion related to the book The Rogue Crew.

Plot Teaser:
Redwall Abbey has never seen a creature more evil or more hideous than Razzid Wearat. Captain of the Greenshroud, a ship with wheels that can sail through water as well as the forest, this beast is a terror of both land and sea, traveling Mossflower Country, killing nearly everything—and everyone— in his path. And his goal? To conquer Redwall Abbey. From Salamandastron to the High North Coast, the brave hares of the Long Patrol team up with the fearless sea otters of the Rogue Crew to form a pack so tough, so rough, only they can defend the abbey and defeat Razzid Wearat once and for all.

@James Gryphon: If these topics are considered unnecessary please delete.

[belle]

It was ok because it was Redwall. I didn't like the hare protagonist, his fat friend or the shrew maid.

[Cornflower MM]

 @Inquisitor and @Gonff the Mousethief were talking about Rogue Crew in Ash's Eulalia!, so I thought I'd bring it here because I have something to add.
Inq said something about the otter that died. . . .

SPOILER

Were you talking about Kit, Inq? She dies at the end. That made me sad, because she was one of my favorite otters from the book. But what really started the waterworks for me was that hare. . . . I can't remember his name. He was a reformed troublemaker, name started with a D.

[close]

Man, Rogue Crew is one that never fails to make me sad.
(Fun fact: It was also the first one I owned! I got it when it was new. I'd been reading Redwall before that, though. Wait, was it Rogue Crew or Sable Quean? One of the two.)

[Feles]

No, it was Swiffo. I just checked the wiki

[Hickory]

Spoiler

Kit died too, the crossbow bolt speared her right on the gates.

[close]

But yeah Swiffo died.

[Feles]

You got sad over Kit's death and totally forgot she existed until I checked the wiki. ._.

[Cornflower MM]

No, it was Swiffo. I just checked the wiki

Oh! Right! Swiffo! I'd forgotten about him. Yeah, that was sad.

[a crumb]

A persistent take on the Rogue Crew I've seen in various venues since its publication has been that two elements of it substantively differ from the rest of the books. Namely, that the ending is somehow different, odd, from those of the other books, and that the Rogue Crew, the good guys, are more violent and less sympathetic than the goodies tend to be. Having finally read the last book of the series a few months ago, I realized that I didn't find either of these to be true. I never asked before, not having the grounds to do so or wanting to spoil the read, but I want to now. What exactly, if any of you found one or both of those things to be true, led you to think so?

[TheRedSnifit]

It's been a while since I read it, but I recall at the end the protogonists hunt down and massacre the surviving crew. I think they even did it by squashing them under the ship's wheels, which was treated as some horrendously cruel death earlier (I might be wrong about this). It's not necessarily unjustified, but it's a treatment usually reserved for a specific villain who's harmed the protagonist personally.

And didn't the otters eat the vermin they killed? That's also something treated as a crime against humanity (animality?) in the other books. As for the ending, I mostly remember it being the same "Bad guys bust through the gate and get rekt" thing that happens in most of the stories.

Anyways, I recall this being much, much better than the Sable Queen, which I didn't care for. The bad guys feel threatening, even if it was undercut by the inevitable Abbey punch-up, it had a cool gimmick, and the characters were fun, even if I think they tried a bit to hard to be "morally grey" at times. It's one of the more memorable ones for me.

[KoudoawaiaVortex]

I just got done reading The Rogue Crew this evening and no I don't believe the otters ate the vermin they killed. They just had a policy of killing every vermin they saw. I also don't remember reading that they squashed the remaining vermin under the ship's wheels though it wasn't specifically said how they killed them as they chased them down so maybe that was how they did it.

[TheRedSnifit]

Don't they? I must be mixing it up with a different book then. I guess I shouldn't be critiquing stories I haven't read in so long, haha.

I do recall that after reading it that I felt the protagonists were darker and the book was more serious than was typical. I'll have to go back and reread it to pinpoint exactly why I felt that way.

[Gonff the Mousethief]

The Rogue Crew for me was just an odd read for me overall. I knew how it wasn't a 100% complete product but still was well enough to be read, and I had heard of the darker tone it had. But for me, I felt it was all over the place. You have the hedgehog group who is split up all around Mossflower for starters. You meet a lot of their members, but it amounts to nothing. The main hedgehog hardly does any deed, the others are never heard from again, and it felt like a bit waste of a build up. Plus I wish it had gone just a tad slower. With the whole wheels on the ship thing I felt that in some parts the bad guys were always on the good guys' tails, and then out of no where they would be leagues behind. I dunno, overall it was fun to see a darker side of Redwall, but I didn't feel it amounted to much. The Rogue Crew though, they stole the show and I wish we could have seen more of them.

[KoudoawaiaVortex]

Oh yeah. The Rogue Crew were definitely darker protganists than what we're used to. There have been some hardcore heroes in the Redwall books before but I don't remember any that had such a zero tolerance policy on letting vermin live.

[The Skarzs]

Part of it may have been it, I believe, not actually being finished by Brian. That's what it felt like, at least.

[a crumb]

Is there any evidence whatsoever that he didn't finish it? And for that matter, that it affected the book in such specific ways?

That has been Conventional Wisdom for a long time.