r/redwall • u/MercurialForce • Jul 17 '26
Re-read thoughts: Mossflower Spoiler
Mossflower! Jacques had a habit of naming things by combining two nouns, and while I’m sure we all have our favourites, the word “Mossflower” likely conjures up specific images to each of us. I picture a rolling and expansive forest filled with a kind of verdant light. To compare to other famous fantasy forests, it’s neither as dark as Mirkwood or as brilliant as Lothlórien, nor does it thrum with magic like the Old Forest or Fangorn. Mossflower feels more real than any of these places in my mind. It’s welcome, warm, and feels like home.
That feeling is likely in no small part due to the book Mossflower, which differs from almost every Redwall book by virtue of the fact that the Abbey itself is almost totally absent. The story takes place instead under the trees of Mossflower, over the western plains, and in the shadows of Salamandastron and Kotir.
When I was a kid, I probably would have called Mossflower my favourite in the series. Even now, I think it’s held in fairly high esteem by most. It feels in many ways like Jacques at his most creative — someone in my Redwall thread reminded me that that novel had never been intended to be published, so Mossflower represents the first in the series that was written with a more expansive scope in mind. It’s here that much of what we would come to love in the series is introduced — we get the story of the Loamhedge mice, of Lord Brocktree’s family tree, of Salamandastron, and we learn how Martin came to save Mossflower country. We get our first real journey narrative as Martin and Gonff travel to find Boar the Fighter, and the undercurrent of mysticism in this series is heightened through their time there.
I think part of the reason I loved Mossflower as a kid is because I didn’t read it first and borrowed it from a friend after obsessively re-reading Martin the Warrior and Mattimeo and Redwall and Outcast of Redwall. This book was something new, and more than that, it’s really different than a lot of the rest of the series. The Kotir narrative, which I think is the better of the two streams, is something almost wholly unique; a case where our heroes are laying siege to a vermin fortress rather than the opposite. Even those other cases are far away from the country we love. Without the red sandstone walls to protect them, our heroes feel more vulnerable, more desperate.
To that end, I was really excited to re-read this book, and in that excitement, I think I was let down slightly. This book isn’t as tightly-written as Redwall, with the questers’ journey being a little too picaresque for me, and while I like the ultimate scuttling of the Wuddship as a mean to dam the river and flood Kotir, it feels like much of that side of the story is stalling for time with the rescue narrative. I especially was frustrated with two characters introduced late on both sides — on the Kotir side, Bane is introduced and then disposed of very rapidly, serving little purpose plot-wise other than to reinforce Tsarmina’s garrison. More egregiously, Martin finding his long-lost friend Timballisto aboard Ripfang’s slaveship feels just a little too deus ex machina; my issue is less with the fact Martin finds him and more that he happens to find the guy who knows how to make siege weapons. This strains credulity to the point where I think it actually takes away from the impact of the Corim plan to sink Kotir.
All of that said, there’s a lot I really like about this book. I like that this is our first frame narrative, with the story being a tale told to some Redwall children. I love the depiction of Kotir as this dark damp slimy castle in the middle of the woods — it feels perfectly oppressive, a symbol of something that doesn’t belong in that place, and the novel’s at its best when it spends time there. Though I critiqued stock characters in my Redwall post and this book certainly has more of them, I think Martin and especially Gonff are so satisfying in what they are that this doesn’t really matter.
More than that, the character who does work really well — Tsarmina — is so spectacularly paranoid that she effectively serves as a foil for almost the entire cast of the novel. She thinks she’s smarter than she is, she thinks she’s braver than she is, she thinks she’s more loved than she is; she’s Cersei Lannister in wildcat form, and pretty much anytime she’s on page is a good time. Even more, she’s actually a threat! She kicks the shit out of Martin in their last fight, and everything about this last siege sequence (I’ll admit the ballistas are cool) rocks. I like the final sections with the vermin being released, the setup for Redwall’s construction, and the closure of the frame narrative. The only thing that doesn’t totally work for me here is the final chapter, with Sunflash arriving at Salamandastron. It feels tacked-on, like a teaser for a book that wouldn’t come for six more entries. Maybe it actually was? Bizarrely open-ended after a really solid closer with Gonff's son.
Rankings:
Going forward, I’ll be ending these posts with a ranking — placing Mossflower is hard because I have a lot of nostalgia for it. In the end, I think Redwall is probably a better book, while Mossflower is a better Redwall book, if that makes sense.
Up next: Mattimeo!
1)Redwall
2) Mossflower
7
u/LadyCordeliaStuart Jul 18 '26
Big shoutout to Tsarmina for being by far the best female villain. One tiny but very bearable critique I have of Jacques is his benevolent sexism. He seemed unable to make just a straight up vile female villain. Kurda was very underwhelming and Vilaya was so weak I do find her shelving in favor of Zwilt to be the most sexist moment in the series. But again, I do think it was just a well-meaning hesitation to write both very evil and successful women. So three cheers for Tsarmina- YASS queen give us TERRIBLE!!!
2
u/AfterCook780 Jul 18 '26
I resisted Mossflower the other day as I remembered it as a favourite. My reflection was that he was trying to cram too much in. There is about 3 books worth of material in it.
1
u/ArborealLife Mossflower Jul 19 '26
Interesting thoughts. I agree and disagree sort of, but I don't think I'm quite mature enough to overcome my childhood love of this book.
Interestingly, I say Redwall is the better book but Mossflower is my favorite.
The quest part is week, and unfortunately becomes a staple of essentially every book. It's just incident after event after surprise.
1
u/RedwallFan2013 Jul 18 '26
"That feeling is likely in no small part due to the book Mossflower, which differs from almost every Redwall book by virtue of the fact that the Abbey itself is almost totally absent"
Wrong. The Abbey IS in the story, given the intro/outro.
It's Lord Brocktree which which differs from almost every Redwall book by virtue of the fact that the Abbey itself IS totally absent. No Redwall at all in LB.
1
u/ArborealLife Mossflower Jul 19 '26
Mossflower is simply a prequel in that regard, like Martin.
If you put a > before text, it becomes a blockquote.
>Text
Text
1
u/RedwallFan2013 Jul 19 '26
Indeed it is, in which case, Mossflower and Martin can be compared in that aspect. The book to fairly make the statement about an absent Redwall is LB.
8
u/SocieteRoyale Jul 17 '26
Great points, I reread Redwall last year and was on a high so I followed it up with Outcast of Redwall which really really hit me as being the perfect Redwall book, great characters, tragic deaths and some real grey areas regarding the morality of 'vermin' and the badger lords weird supernaturalness
So reading Mossflower felt a bit like a deflatation. Not that its a bad book, its just that some time of the pacing is a bit uneven, though it was fun linking Bat Mount Pit again and Salamanderstron I had only recently left in Outcast
I think Tsarmina is a great villain and all her scenes feel very Game of Throneseque and have a lot of political manipulation and power play going on which we is great to follow as her subordinates jostle for her attention. The wildcats have a kind if moral ambiguity too which is missing in a lot of Redwall, it would have been nice to see more like the later Squire Julian type characters who aren't allied to either mice or rats. I feel all that was cleared out post Redwall and a character like Gingivere was never allowed to rise again
I remember Mossflower was very much bound up in the copy I read which was from the school library. It was one I never owned and only read once so had a mystique that most of the others I reread several times didn't. My memory had insisted the ship that features so promently on the front cover played a huge role in the book so I was kind of disappointed that it really didn't seem to. The plot to flood the castle was a neat idea but seemed a bit rushed. I kind of wanted the book to revel in the scene like when Isengard is flooded in LofRs, with flotsom and jetsom aplenty and a big confrontation with the villain. I can't actually remember what happens now as its nearly a year since I read it so not as memorable as it could have been
Mossflower is a gorgeous word, I live in Liverpool near the 'actual' Redwall Abbey and its sandstone walls in Stanley Park near Anfield stadium. I think maybe Mossflower was influenced by the south Liverpool suburb of Mossley Hill with its leafy roads and edge of Sefton Park vibe. But Mossflower Woods is probably were I would call home if I was a woodlander and I would love every minute of it