Redwall

A lengthy series of books by Brian Jacques, about a fantasy world in which all kinds of animals are the equivalents of people: they wear clothes, live in buildings, have humanlike societies, et cetera. Yet they also retain some of their animal natures, which usually manifest as specific skills, such as moles being expert workmen especially at digging, and otters being skilled swimmers and shrimp fishermen.

The series centers on Redwall Abbey, a commune devoted to peace, though many who live there are quite capable of defending themselves if attacked. The books take place across a vast time period that may span centuries (it's difficult to tell since the characters measure time in ill-defined "seasons"). Most are complete stand-alone stories, so they can mostly be read in any order. In fact, for a while, Jacques wrote the stories wildly out of chronological order, though in his final years, he has set each book further ahead in time than the last one. Only four books (Redwall and Mattimeo, Mariel of Redwall and The Bellmaker) act as direct sequels featuring most of the same characters. Most others do share a few characters, albeit many seasons apart.

Typical stories consist of some villainous horde laying siege to the abbey, while/or some of its inhabitants have to venture somewhere else. Either way, several exciting medieval-style battles ensue until the book's villains are defeated. Despite the lack of an ongoing story, continuity lovers will find much to admire in the consistency of the world surrounding Redwall; each book's inside cover features a map of the territory the story covers, and they all fit together very well (although forests and such change significantly in size over the years, and for the duration of one book a large lake suddenly morphs into an ocean). Other societies, like the badger lords and hare soldiers of the mountain fortress Salamandastron, or the wandering Guosim shrews, pop up frequently and have a real sense of history to them. As well, some of the most exciting times for fans came with the publications of the books Martin the Warrior and Lord Brocktree, as the eponymous characters are mentioned numerous times in other books as legendary warriors from the past, meaning that with the titles alone Jacques was announcing that we would finally be seeing the real story behind those legends.

The books, by order of publication, are:

1. Redwall (1986)
2. Mossflower (1988)
3. Mattimeo (1989)
4. Mariel of Redwall (1991)
5. Salamandastron (1992)
6. Martin the Warrior (1993)
7. The Bellmaker (1994)
8. Outcast of Redwall (1995)
9. The Pearls of Lutra (1996)
10. The Long Patrol (1997)
11. Marlfox (1998)
12. The Legend of Luke (1999)
13. Lord Brocktree (2000)
14. The Taggerung (2001)
15. Triss (2002)
16. Loamhedge (2003)
17. Rakkety Tam (2004)
18. High Rhulain (2005)
19. Eulalia! (2007)
20. Doomwyte (2008)
21. The Sable Quean (2010)
22. The Rogue Crew (2011)

Jacques died of a heart attack on 5 February 2011, leaving his 22nd novel, The Rogue Crew, finished but unpublished; the book was later released on May 3, 2011.

Has a character page in progress.

Tropes used in Redwall include:

Tropes A-D

• The Abbey Is Always Doomed: Just how many times has it been attacked now?
  • Subverted in Taggerung, where the Genre Savvy leader of the Juska tribe wants to avoid Redwall at all costs.
  • Averted in some of the earlier books, with a literal aversion in Outcast of Redwall.
• The Abridged Series: A YouTube user named Hethrin is in the middle of an abridged series based on the Redwall TV series, which often parodies the many changes that were made in the show, as well as some tropes that appear in the books.
• Abusive Parents: Nimbalo the Slayer's father, whose violent attitude drove his mother away. He then repeatedly beat Nimbalo and treated him extremely poorly until Nimbalo finally had enough one day and ran out. Laser-Guided Karma catches up with him though, but Nimbalo still cries over his body.
• Accidental Murder: In Mossflower, Blacktooth and Splitnose start fighting each other over the food they stole from Martin, Gonff and Dinny. Everything was going fine until Splitnose decided to use his spear...
  • In Salamandastron, Dingeye and Thura start playing with archery equipment inside the Abbey and aim a bow and arrow at the stairs. Cue Brother Hal.
  • A karmic example happens in Outcast of Redwall. Just when the Wraith is about to assassinate Lord Sunflash after climbing up to an open window, Porty throws two rockcreams at Folrig and Ruddle (who were hiding behind Sunflash at the time). The badger and two otters duck, and the rocks end up hitting Wraith, causing him to fall to his death--and also to stab himself in the jaw.
  • Yet another karmic example pops up in Doomwyte. Just when the raven Tarul was about to kidnap a mousebabe, Sister Violet came into the belltower to help the mousebabe ring the bells. She ends up ringing them and crushing the bird in-between them both.
• Action Girl: Quite a few, starting with Jess Squirrel and Constance in the first book. Mariel is probably the best known and most popular of them among the fandom.
• Aerith and Bob: Martin and Gonff, for example. This is more common in the earlier books when a large number of the characters still had human-ish names.
• Affirmative Action Girl: Triss, after fans asked why there had never been a female bearer of Martin's Sword. Sadly, it backfired a tad (probably because they thought Triss was a Mary Sue). Mariel might also count, but she didn't bear the sword and she's far more popular.
• All Monks Know Kung Fu: For a supposedly peaceful bunch, the Redwallers are pretty handy when it comes to war.
  • Peaceful doesn't necessarily mean Pacifist, as many would-be conquerors found out the hard way.
• Exclusively Evil: "Vermin"—the catchall term for rats, stoats, and other carnivorous mammals (other than badgers, otters, or shrews) -- are universally criminals. It borders on Fantastic Racism at times. Only about three named characters have ever pulled a Heel Face Turn, and two of those didn't last long.
  • Averted in Marlfox, which concludes with the rat army, who had hated their lot in life, joyfully tossing out their arms and armor and learning to live as farmers.
  • Somewhat subverted in The Sable Quean. The Quean and one of her Mooks are plotting revenge on The Starscream, Zwilt the Shade. He tried to kill the Quean and sent the Mook's mate to his death. As they talk about their plans, we hear, for the first time, a vermin say the words, "I loved him."
  • It should be noted that the degree of evilness exhibited by vermin varies between books, and even in the same book, there is often a distinction between punch clock vermin, serving primarily as comedic relief, like Flinky and most of his gang in Loamhedge or Lousewort and Sneezewort in Long Patrol; and genuine, murdering villains. Quite a few of the former successfully pull Screw This, I'm Outta Here, and many of those are implied to give up banditry and such for good.
    • In the animated adaptation, and in the first book, there were rats and other vermin who were peaceably living in the area, but Cluny ordered them press-ganged into fighting. Given Cluny's orders: "Smash their dens so they don't have homes to worry about! Kill all who resist!", those that didn't fall in line were probably killed.
  • Averted in the very first novel, where the protagonist encounters a wildcat who conscientiously avoids eating meat, and, bar a few personality quirks, is quite happy to help the heroes.
    • Not to mention his ancestor and namesake was a goodbeast pretty much from the start, and so was his mate. Given the few examples given, it might be able to safely be said that cats are some of the only animals with a real chance of becoming either good or bad, which makes sense considering there are both good and bad Animal Stereotypes for them. It's just that the evil ones tend to be Big Bad.
  • Blaggut became good as well.
  • Deconstructed in Outcast of Redwall. A ferret child was found abandoned and taken in by a resident of Redwall; because he's a ferret, and everyone assumes ferrets are Exclusively Evil, he tends to get the blame for anything that goes wrong, which leads to him becoming a thief and acting out most of the stereotypes placed on him. The only Redwaller that never pointed an accusing finger at him was his adoptive mother; she always argued for his innocence even when it was plain he was guilty and she truly loved him, and he sacrificed himself to save her from a vermin spear.
    • A deconstruction badly botched in the closing pages, when said Redwaller comes home and gives a speech about how the ferret in question was always evil and she shouldn't have bothered trying to change him.
• Always Lawful Good: Just as the vermin are always bad, the woodlanders are always good. Later books subvert this trope, but not before Taggerung took this trope to the ridiculous extreme.
  • People say that Tagg could just have been a very rebellious teen with a bad case of Values Dissonance. After all, what's the most horrifying thing one can do when one's authority figures are evil? And that the same book featured a not-so-nice woodlander in the form of Nimbalo's father.
  • Eulalia has a vole that might have readers cheering when he dies. He threatens to shoot one of the main characters when he's first introduced, then, after the Redwallers take him in and help him after he's nearly killed, decides to steal Martin's sword in exchange for the character he threatened to shoot stealing his dagger. He also kills a Sister when she tries to stop him, though he's killed later on and the sword is stolen by an actual vermin, who manages to get to the end of the book before dying.
    • Voles are very neutral. There are multiple times where they would screw honest woodlanders over to try and save themselves, Druwp from Martin the Warrior is probably the best example.
    • And Doomwyte has a Log-a-Log named Tugga Bruster. Unlike the other Log-a-Logs in the series, who were all good chieftains and relatively Badass in one form or another, Tugga was brutal (even killing the chieftain of a vermin gang when he was begging for mercy), harsh to his crew and a total prick to the Redwallers. At first, it's easy to assume he was acting tough as a leader should, but it's made clear that he's a genuine jerk, a coward and a thief.
  • This is also subverted in the forms of several 'bad' woodlanders, all of them either hedgehogs, voles, or shrews.
  • Don't forget that in Martin the Warrior we have a tribe of pygmy shrews who are slavers, a tribe of squirrels who make a game of hunting an killing strangers and a hedgehog who is known to poison trespassers.
• Ancestral Weapon: The Sword of Martin the Warrior.
• And I Must Scream: Ungatt Trunn is assumed to be dead by the heroes and left on the seashore with a broken back. He's not dead. And the tide is coming in very, very slowly... and then, to make it all worse, a Woobie ex-mook, whose family Ungatt killed years ago, shows up, to speed on his fate.
• Animal Pincushion: Skalrag is hung from the gates of Marshank and used as target practice for Badrang's archers.
• Animal Stereotypes: Obviously. Weirdly, it's averted with the owls; they're almost invariably good-natured but absent-minded, and almost never "wise", as folklore would have it. Possibly Truth In Literature, as owls aren't terribly smart in real life. Also, the bats are fairly cute and harmless with a silly Verbal Tic (verbal tic, verbal tic...), as opposed to the usual portrayals of them as evil in fiction.
  • Also unusual, rabbits are not at all flirtatious, mischievous, or clever. The hares take that role, and the rabbits are universally prissy little weaklings who never factor heavily into the plot.
• Animated Adaptation: Nelvana produced an animated series, which adapted the books Redwall, Mattimeo, and Martin the Warrior.
• Annoying Arrows: Both averted and played straight; Mooks will fall to arrows easily, but major characters can pull them out with their teeth and keep fighting so long as the plot requires it.
• Antagonist Title: Marlfox, Doomwyte, and The Sable Quean.
• Anthropomorphic Shift: Overall, the characters in Redwall are far more like actual animals at the beginning of the series than they are in the most recent novels. Even the cover art reflects this, as some of the earlier books show the characters as far less anthropomorphic than some of the later ones.
• Anticlimax: You would think Mattimeo would end between a big showdown with Slagar and Matthias—or even Mattimeo himself. Instead, Slagar runs and falls down a hole. And dies. Yeah.
  • Triple subversion in Mariel of Redwall. At first it looks like Rawnblade and Gabool are about to get into a massive swordfight...but then Rawnblade disarms Gabool with little effort. Then, after a small chase, Gabool challenges Rawnblade to a fight using nothing but their paws, only for Rawnblade to fall into Skrabblag's chamber. Just when you think the fight will end with Mariel and her friends taking on Gabool themselves, Rawnblade grabs the scorpion and throws it out the hole onto Gabool, where it promptly stings him in the head and kills him. And then Dandin chops the scorpion in half with ease.
  • At the end of Taggerung, Deyna, Skipper, and several otters are seconds away from fighting the entire Juskabor tribe, and shit is about to hit the fan. What happens next? Nothing. Lord Russano pops up out of nowhere (with at least one thousand hares backing him up) and confronts Ruggan Bor. The fox surrenders in a short amount of time, and Russano and his hares force the Juska tribe to crawl away from Redwall. A few pages later the book ends.
  • If you're expecting the fight against Princess Kurda and Triss to be amazing, you're gonna be disappointed. And if you're expecting the fight against King Agarnu and Triss (and the ending to Triss entirely) to be amazing, you're gonna be very disappointed.
• Anti-Hero: Jukka the Sling and her tribe from Lord Brocktree. Even though they help the protagonists, they were mostly just there so they could steal more weapons from their enemies.
• Anti-Villain: Asmodeus is one. Yes, he's a Hero Killer and a source of High Octane Nightmare Fuel, but he isn't really evil, he just eats rodents like any snake would to survive.
  • Actually Word of God says that Asmodeus is evil.
• Anyone Can Die: The deaths of Rose, Skarlath, Rockjaw Grang and Methuselah prove that point.
  • Nah. Methuselah just suffers from Mentor Occupational Hazard.
  • Not to mention the other numerous deaths throughout the series. Generally, at least one important character will die before the end of the book, and he or she is often greatly loved by the other characters and/or readers.
• Apologetic Attacker: Abbot Mortimer, in the Animated Adaptation
• Apron Matron: Badger Mothers.
• Archnemesis Dad: Swartt Sixclaw, Veil's father. He completely neglects him, doesn't even name him, and abandons him in a ditch during a battle. That's not counting what Swartt does to him the next time they meet.
• Armour Is Useless: Armour, mostly mail, is occasionally useful, but its weight, hotness, and restrictiveness is shown either realistically or overplayed. Mostly armor is just rare or absent. Unless it's Plot Armour.
• Arrows on Fire: The fire-swingers in Mariel of Redwall.
  • The traditional kind are aplenty as well. Greypatch burned a ship with flaming arrows in the same book.
• Arrogant Kung Fu Guy: In The Sable Quean, Buckler is a step or two away from this trope. His enemy, Zwilt the Shade is spot on: he likes to challenge any strong warriors, effortlessly evade their assaults while scorning their efforts, and oft-times will kill them with their own weapons.
  • All of the important Blue Hordes members in Lord Brocktree are this, Ungatt Trunn the worst of the lot.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: A hare beats the snot out of an enemy both for killing the hare's friends and for calling him a rabbit.
• Artifact of Death: The Tears of All Oceans. The Sword of Martin could fall into this category since it's fine with the good guys but any vermin who tries to mess with it tends to die very quickly.
• Ass in a Lion Skin: See Wig, Dress, Accent and Dressing as the Enemy.
• Author Avatar: Word of God is that Jacques based Gonff the Mousethief on his younger self.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: Relatively speaking, the strongest fighter in the vermin gangs are almost always the leader.
  • Also, the Badger Lords. You do not screw with them.
    • This Lord Brocktree quote pretty much sums it up, when settling a shrew "debate" "Let me explain the rules. One Badger Lord carries two hundred votes and his sword carries another hundred. Agreed?"
• Author Existence Failure: Due to a heart attack.
• Avenging the Villain: Saltar attempts to avenge his brother Bludrigg by fighting Gabool.
  • In Rakkety Tam, Freeta wanted both to conquer Redwall and to get revenge on Gulo the Savage on behalf of her mate, Shard. And in the newest Redwall saga The Sable Quean, a weasel Mook teams up with Quean Vilaya to avenge her mate, who Zwilt the Shade knowingly sent to his death.
  • Don't forget Conva and Barranca.
• Axe Crazy: Many big bads, but especially Gabool.
  • Badgers. Just... badgers. The majority of them are prone to this thing called the Bloodwrath. Let's just say that it's a good idea to move if you see the red mist.
  • Sparras as well.
  • Also, Gulo.
• Baby Talk: The Dibbuns.
• Babies Ever After: Most of the books' epilogues have the new Abbey Recorder telling about what has happened in the seasons since the books' events, with marriages and babies a common staple.
• Backstab Backfire: Almost constantly. Perhaps the best example was Cheesethief, planning to usurp Cluny's position as leader of the horde. He actually went so far as to try on Cluny's armor, and got mistaken for Cluny himself by Constance and ended up impaled with a giant crossbow bolt.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: The hares' favored battle tactic when outnumbered. Of course, it's more back to back to back to back...
• Badass Adorable: From a human point of view, most of the major cast members.
• Badass Boast: Romsca gets the most significant one in the Pearls of Lutra. Hares, badgers, and eagles often get their own every now and again.
  • Boasting is one of the challenges set by King Bucko Bigbones that all challengers to his throne must face. (Others are Feasting and Fighting.) Dotti wins this one by being almost a Deadpan Snarker, but more cheerful.
• Badass Longcoat: Ruggan Bor.
• Bad Boss: All vermin leaders. Badrang is noted by his own horde as being bad tempered.
  • Exception: Captain Plugg Firetail of the Freebooters.
  • Other exception: Cap'n Tramun Clogg. His former crew agrees that he was good to them; it's just that working for Badrang promises to be more profitable.
  • Gulo the Savage. His response when one of his soldiers complains about his injuries? Kill the guy and eat him.
• Bad Dreams: Tsarmina and Gabool. Mokkan realizes that killing off siblings and becoming king brings bad dreams his first night. Tagg learns of Nimbalo's past through the latter's sleeptalking.
• Barbarian Tribes: The Painted Ones, the Flitchaye, and the Darat.
  • The Gawtrybe might also fall into this category; although they're more articulate than the others on the list, they're basically a tribe of sociopathic children.
• Battle Cry: Eulaliaaaa!
  • Blood and vinegaaaaaar!
  • And, for the abbey-dwellers, Redwaaaaaaaallllll
  • And for those Guosim types, Logalogalogalogalogalog!
  • This is apparently a requirement if you're in a combat situation. Even if you've never fought a day in your life, like Inbar Trueflight from Pearls Of Lutra. He screams "RUDDARIIIIIIING!" (he's from a community of otters who live in a hidden fertile basin) before taking down several corsairs with his arrows.
• Berserk Button: Do not hurt/kidnap a woodlander's kids. Seriously. Even if the kids can take care of themselves.
• Better to Die Than Be Killed: Happens in Marlfox with the rat Janglur captured, who threw himself into a river and drowned because he knew he'd break during Janglur and Log a Log's interrogation.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: Cluny.
  • And Skrabblag the scorpion, obviously.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Almost every peaceful Abbey-dweller can be provoked into extreme violence. With hares, it's a defining trait. In Mariel of Redwall, Redwallers have to be reminded that the smiling, well-spoken, joke-cracking Long Patrol squad are "perilous"; and the Long Patrol proves it by going to their deaths smiling and chatting whilst the three of them (plus a vengeful squirrel) kill thirty or forty sea-rats; Hon Rosie survives, and so that's practically annihilating a force when outnumbered ten to one and joking about it.
  • Zwilt the Shade finds this out the hard way in The Sable Quean.
• BFS: Martin's sword (duh), and the weapons of Badger Lords (who, being the biggest creatures around, wield weapons too heavy for other animals to lift).
  • Actually, Martin's sword isn't really all that big. It's definitely awesome and possibly magical, but it's size is such that pretty much any reasonably fit woodlander can use it.
• Big Bad: In order: Cluny the Scourge, Tsarmina Greeneyes, Slagar the Cruel, Gabool the Wild, Feragho the Assassin, Badrang the Tyrant, Urgan Nagru, Swartt Sixclaw, Emperor Ublaz Mad Eyes, Damug Warfang, Mokkan, Vilu Daskar, Ungatt Trunn, several major villains (with Vallug Bowbeast the most prominent/evil one), Princess Kurda, Raga Bol, Gulo the Savage, Riggu Felis, Vizka Longtooth, Korvus Skurr, Quean Vilaya, Razzid Wearat.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The number of Big Bads in Taggerung is surprisingly high compared to the other Redwall books.
• Bigger Bad: Malkariss acts as this in Mattimeo, as Slagar The Cruel is in fact working for him throughout the novel. And then he turns out to be a misshapen wimp.
  • Also King Agarnu in Triss.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Quite a few rather incompetent vermin 'leaders' fit this trope; notably Badredd and Gruven.
• Big Eater: Hares. Well, pretty much every character becomes one whenever they're given the opportunity, but the hares are the most obvious.
  • Veil Sixclaw ravenously devours any food put in front of him. Bella remarks, "Some creatures are always hungering after one thing or another."
• Big No: Happens Once a Season in the TV series.
  • Season 1 has Cluny, shortly before he's crushed by the Joseph Bell.
  • Season 2 has Log-a-Log, right before he Takes The Spear for Matthias.
  • Season 3 has Clogg, right when he realizes his ship has been set on fire.
  • The novel Mariel of Redwall has Mariel, when she was regaining her memory and remembered Saltar and Ledder rape...err..."assaulting" her.
• Big Screwed-Up Family: The Marlfoxes.
• Bilingual Bonus: "Gonff" sounds remarkably like the Yiddish word for Thief. Confirmed by Word of God. Also Old Norse for "victory" is Yulalya" pronounced (all together, boys and girls) Eulaliaaaa!
• Black Cloak: A few villains, mostly creepy dragon types such as Nadaz, Grand Fragorl, and Grissoul.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Shadow and Zwilt the Shade are described as having dead black eyes.
• Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Hotroot pepper. There is no Real Life British plant known as hotroot, but it seems most likely that the Mossflower variety is a type of particularly strong horseradish.
• Blood Knight: Zwilt the Shade (The Sable Quean), the right-hand sable of Vilaya. He goes out of his way to find any warrior with a strong reputation and challenge them one on one; as others have noted, death always follows in Zwilt's wake. Gulo the Savage (Rakkety Tam) is this trope taken to its extreme; even when chasing his enemies with a badly-depleted horde, he will stop the chase and turn around to attack an entire grove of crows just for receiving a few scratches.
  • Gelltor from Marlfox as well.... well, when compared with his siblings. Raventail from the same book.
• Body Horror: Slagar's deformed face is described very well. As is Riggu Felis's. And Ashleg wears a cloak over half of his body; the half that's twisted and maimed.
• Boring Return Journey: Applies to a number of the books. For instance, in The Bellmaker the characters run into a fair bit of trouble when sailing to Southsward, but there's no hint of any difficulty getting back to Redwall.
• Bowdlerize: In the Animated adaptation, Cluny's tunnel plan is foiled by Redwallers pouring porridge down the hole. In the book, it was boiling water.
  • This is done with several things in the TV series. See Lighter and Softer for more examples.
• Bragging Theme Tune: Taggerung has Nimbalo the Slayer do this. He ends it by telling Tagg "I'm modest, too!"
  • Romsca delivers a more badass boast in Pearls of Lutra.
• Breath Weapon: Jokingly lampshaded in Mariel of Redwall on the subject of Burgo's garlic breath.
• British Accents: A wide variety. Moles are somewhat old-fashioned Somerset, with a bit of Liverpool Scouse thrown in (Brian Jacques was from Liverpool, and based the moles off the speak of local sailors and longshoremen). Hares are mostly Upper Class Twit, except for Rockjaw Grang's Oop North twang. The occasional character speaks the grammatically correct version of Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe. Most vermin are generic uneducated thug with a dash of Talk Like a Pirate, except for Dingeye and Thura in Salamandastron who are noticeably Brummie (especially in the audiobook), and the Big Bad villains tend to use Standard English. Several early books had briefly appearing characters (usually birds) with a Scottish accent, and Rakkety Tam introduced a couple of Highlanders.
  • Generally any character on either side with an Oop North or Scottish accent is likely to be identified as a "Northlander," at least in the early books where such characters are more common, especially hinted in their names, such as the Laird MacTalon. But not all Northlanders have said accent (nobody in Martin the Warrior displays it, for instance, despite the whole story taking place there.
    • As it's coming from a Northlander's point of view, it may be because they can't hear their own accents.
  • Some of the Vermin use pseudo-cockney speech or slang, Random Pseudo-Irish accents pop up amongst both vermin and woodlanders, and the Otters being naturally nautical use either standard English with a hint of Talk Like a Pirate or what looks like Devon or Cornish English which makes sense as the Cornish peninsula is traditionally famed for fishermen, smugglers and sailors.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Lots. By Triss, they're doing song and dance numbers about how "'tis nice to be a villain".
• Carnivore Confusion: See Exclusively Evil and Cats Are Mean.
  • The eating habits of the (almost) Exclusively Evil vermin? They're carnivores who by nature would eat mice, but in a setting like Redwall, that would be cannibalism. Mostly when they kill for meat, it's wood pigeons or sea gulls.
    • To add to the confusion, badgers and otters are always good characters, even though they're carnivores. Badgers even eat mice in real life.
      • And the whole quasi-religious eating of fish by the good guys.
  • Averted hard by Gulo the Savage (a wolverine) and his horde of ermine in Rakkety Tam, who gladly chow down on their defeated enemies. However, if this troper recalls correctly, this is often referred to as cannibalism throughout the book.
• Cats Are Mean: Surprisingly, averted. Some cats are evil, but others are good.
• Circus of Fear: Slagar's gang. They weren't really one, but they posed as a traveling circus.
• Chameleon Camouflage: In Marlfox, this is the ability that marks the eponymous Marlfoxes.
• Character Title: Triss, Mattimeo, Martin the Warrior, Lord Brocktree, Rakkety Tam, Mariel of Redwall... sheesh, it never ends!
• Characterization Marches On: In Mariel of Redwall, it was explicitly stated that Rawnblade was the first badger lord to suffer the Bloodwrath since Boar the Fighter. As of Outcast of Redwall, the Bloodwrath abruptly became something that all badgers got every time they fought.
  • Well, Outcast is set before Mariel—maybe all the badgers with the "berserk gene" hadn't been killed off yet. Or something.
  • Doesn't work, because Outcast is still set a while after the time of Boar the Fighter.
  • Outcast is chronologically both during and after the time of Boar. Sunflash the Mace, the badger in Outcast, actually shows up in one of the final scenes of Mossflower, the book Boar dies in. This scene is replayed in Outcast towards the middle of the book.
  • At various points, it's stated that certain badgers (and sometimes other creatures) have a particularly strong version of the bloodwrath. Presumably, there are plenty of badgers out there who don't suffer from the bloodwrath (Lord Russano comes to mind) -- we just don't hear about them because of Rule of Cool.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Played straight in the case of Vermin being the cheaters, as the goodbeasts normally win the upper hand again, with horrible results for their foebeasts. But it is played straight in the case of goodbeasts being the cheaters like in the case of Dotti vs. Bucko Bigbones; She did not win the first contest, Bragging (spoiler-notouchingorfightingallowed-disqualificationmayfollow), by bragging best. She rather was concentrating on provoking her easily angered counterpart, and neutralising his brags by joking about them. She went so far (which was of course calculated on Dotti's behalf), that Bucko went after her and struck her. Guess what... disqualification followed.
• The Chessmaster: Cluny. Every chapter has him adapting his Evil Plan to exploit some new development or preceived weakness.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Mokkan, full stop.
  • Actually, don't trust any fox.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: What happened to the sparrows?
  • There were only 4 left by the end of the third book. Assuming there are 2 males and 2 females, they would eventually be forced to inbreed to keep the sparrows alive. Possibly, this could have caused some screwed up genes, depending on how anthropomorphic the animals are supposed to be.
  • Another notable Brother Chuck was Mr. Squirrel in Redwall, Jess' husband and Sam's father. He neither appeared nor was mentioned in Mattimeo. Also, Dunwing in Redwall neither appeared nor was mentioned in Mattimeo. Possibly not surprising, considering Mossflower's death rate.
• Clock Tower: The climax of Redwall takes place in a bell tower, but it's close enough.
• Conjoined Triplets: The "three-headed dragon" in Triss is actually a set of adder triplets, bound together by a mace and chain they were unable to remove.
• Co-Dragons: Several Big Bads have these, but most notable is Ungatt Trunn's group: Groddil, Grand Fragorl, and Ripfang.
• Continuity Drift: The first book of the series more or less stated that the stories take place in the "real world" - there's a full-sized church near Redwall Abbey, some vermin arrive stowed away in a horse-drawn carriage, and Big Bad Cluny the Scourge is said to come from Portugal. Three or four books down the line, the Redwall world has its own geography, and neither humans nor Portugal has anything to do with it.
  • Although the cats in High Rhulain imply that their distant ancestors were once pets.
  • Also Salamadastron. In Mossflower Boar the Fighter uses a metal dragon to scare away any searats/vermin, inducing the legend of the fire lizard. In all the other books Salamandastron is just a military fortress.
• Cool Sword: The Sword of Martin the Warrior (which was named Ratdeath at the end of Redwall, but Jacques apparently either forgot or decided that wasn't a very good name).
  • This doesen't even begin to explain HOW cool Martin's blade is. Forged from Meteoric Iron by the Badger Lords? This blade is obviously the Infinity+1 Sword of the setting.
  • And also Rawnblade's sword, "Verminfate", even though it only appeared in one book. (Unless it was previously owned by Brocktree and Boar, but that's speculation).
• Covers Always Lie: The description on the cover of the hardback version of Outcast of Redwall described Redwall coming under attack from Swartt's army and Veil being forced to choose between his home and his father.
• Covers Always Spoil: The back of Outcast of Redwall spoils Veil getting exiled from Redwall. This doesn't happen until the very end of Part 2 of the book.
• Crap Saccharine World: Redwall and Salamandastron are basically little Sugar Bowls, but apparently everywhere else you're in imminent risk of marauding bandits, predatory birds, pirates, cannibalistic lizards...
• Crapsack World: Only and arguably in the later books. Eventually, the world consists of Redwall, Salamandastron...and in between, a wretched hive of Exclusively Evil vermin ready to kill or enslave anybeast who steps outside.
• Creepy Crossdresser: It probably wasn't meant to be read that way, but the evil Emperor Ublaz Mad Eyes has a weird fixation on silk robes, perfume, nail polish, and pink pearls.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Many characters, mostly hares who aren't on the Long Patrol- Basil Stag Hare, Tarquin L. Woodsorrel and most especially Cleckstarr Lepus Montisle aka. Clecky.
  • Basil doesn't really count, he's maintaining a Long Patrol outpost in Mossflower during Cluny's attack and is officially retired as of Mattimeo.
  • Clecky's owl companion Gerul gets a special mention as well for being described by Clecky as "a young duffer" on introduction but turning out to be an absolutely ferocious fighter.

Gerul: Ah well, d'ye see, sir, as me ould mother used t'say, there's not a bit of use shakin' claws with the other feller. If yer goin' t'fight then best get it done with proper so's yer foe don't come back fer more.

• Curb Stomp Battle: Sometimes, the battles are Pendulum War types. Nine times out of ten, however, the heroes will utterly stomp their way through the villains.
  • Famed to the point where there are cross-fandom jokes about the ability of woodlanders to curbstomp: "How do you know when you are fighting Wood Elves? You walk under some trees, a voice 30 foot above you shouts 'fire!', and you die. How do you know when you are fighting Mossflower squirrels? You walk under some trees, die, and then a voice 30 foot above you shouts 'fire!'"
• Cute but Cacophonic: Dotti in Lord Brocktree. Pretty haremaid, appalling singer, worse with instruments. All Hares seem prone to this.
• Cute Is Evil: Baby Veil causes Cuteness Overload in Bryony even when he's biting her. Anyone who's owned a ferret knows this is Truth in Television.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Most notably, Clogg's announcement that he wishes to cut Badrang's head off and throw it in his face.
• Darker and Edgier: According to this SPOILER LADEN Review of Doomwyte, the series went this way with the later novels. Your Mileage May Vary as to whether this actually represents a return to the tone of earlier novels in the series.
  • If any of the later books, Rakkety Tam. YMMV again; the book itself isn't exactly darker or edgier (since the series already has loads of Family-Unfriendly Violence), but the Big Bad is. He and his army are all cannibalistic and (relatively) competent villains. But like every other Redwall book, the amount of Sacrificial Lions only ranges between one and five, and the book still has a rather light-hearted feeling to it.
• David Versus Goliath: Matthias vs. the Wearat (Mattimeo), Tam vs. Gulo (Rakkety Tam); arguably Martin vs. Tsarmina (Mossflower)
• Dead Guy, Junior: Mattimeo's full name is Matthias Methuselah Mortimer. Two out of three are dead at the time of his birth.
• Deadpan Snarker: Several of the heroes, especially hares.

Cluny: "Get him! I want his head!!"
Basil: "What's the matter? Isn't your own head good enough?"

• • A few villains are good at this too, most notably Flinky.
  • Veil unloads on his father near the end of Outcast. "Some warlord you are. I've seen more action from a squashed frog!"
• Death by Childbirth: Bluefen (Veil's mum).
• Death by Falling Over: (Slagar the Cruel, Princess Kurda, Queen Vilaya,)... it is amazing how many Redwall Big Bads never seem to look where they going ( Especially Tsarmina ("UGH! SLIMY, WET, COLD WATER!").
• Death by Looking Up: Cluny.
• Death by Materialism: Flogga. Sure, you should definitely trust Gabool just because he promised you treasure and completely ignore that he's spent the last several days going crazy and thinks you're Greypatch, the rat he's been trying to kill. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
  • Subverted in The Long Patrol with Friar Butty, who fell into an underground swamp due to the weight of the treasure he was carrying and was nearly devoured by toads and mudfish. Luckily, he got saved by Shad at the last minute.
• Death Glare: Sister Alkanet gave such "icy glares" to anyone who discredited her, her infamous physicks or her perceptions of how dibbuns have to behave.
  • Some villains have something like this, almost literally in the case of Ublaz. And it is said that if you stare too long into Farran the Poisoner's eyes, you'll either die or go insane.
• Decapitated Army: The rats in Marlfox do a Heel Face Turn once the Marlfoxes and their captains are dead. As do Flinky's band in Loamhedge and the Brownrats in Eulalia.
• Deceptive Disciple: Slagar to Malkariss (Mattimeo), Klitch to Ferahgo (Salamandastron)
• Deconstruction Fic in the fandom commonly attempts to deconstruct the Exclusively Evil nature of vermin. Success varies.
• Decoy Protagonist: Veil Sixclaw, in large part due to the cover.
  • Gabool is arguably a Decoy Antagonist. You would think with the book's description, he'd be going around causing as much turmoil as he could. Up until the end of Mariel of Redwall, all he does is sit on his throne going crazy and killing his own searats. The real Big Bad is Greypatch, who not only betrayed him with complete success but did what Gabool probably should've been doing in the story: trying to take over Redwall.
  • Inverted again in Taggerung. Sawney Rath is killed not even a third of the way into the story.
  • Bragoon and Saro from Loamhedge. They spend the entire novel looking for something to help Martha walk again, only to find nothing but bones. And on their journey back to Redwall, both of them sacrifice their lives, unaware that Martha had already learned to walk on her own.
• Defector From Decadence: Grubbage
  • And to a lesser degree, Ashleg from Mossflower. After seeing how Tsarmina was beginning to lose her grip on sanity, he decided to get away from and "find new friends under a new sun that knew how to live simply, without dreams of grandeur".
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Even discounting all the species-related stuff, in Mossflower, small children can drink alcohol and get involved in battle, and thirteen-year-olds can marry.
• Deliberately Cute Child: Troublemaking mousebaby Dwopple cries on cue and exaggerates his Baby Talk even more than the rest of the Dibbuns.
• Derelict Graveyard: One appears in The Bellmaker.
• Determinator: Shows up quite often, mostly with badgers, but most especially with Martin the Warrior at the end of Mossflower. He beats Tsarmina by simply refusing to lie down and die.
• Didn't Think This Through: Lampshaded in The Pearls of Lutra, where Ublaz didn't quite realize that his Moniter lizards were a) landlubbers and b) tropical creatures. Half of them are dead before Lask Frildur and Romsca ever reach Mossflower.
• Dirty Communists: The shrews. They even have Russian accents.
• Dirty Coward: Pretty much all vermin.
  • Subverted with Gulo the Savage (Rakkety Tam), who often fought from the front alongside his vermin Mooks. Of course, considering who he is, aside from a badger lord or another wolverine, there wouldn't be too many threats to his person. And the fact he grows increasingly psychotic doesn't hurt either...
  • Cluny (original Redwall), Ferahgo (Salamandastron), Vallug Bowbeast (Taggerung) plus six rebel captains and Romsca (Pearls of Lutra) were fairly Badass as well.
  • Ferahgo was a highly dangerous fighter, but he was still a coward (look at his "duel" with Urthstripe for proof of that).
  • All of the Marlfoxes were not only smart, but very skilled and stealthy fighters. Gelltor in particular had the balls to take on Janglur by himself. The only coward in the entire family was Mokkan, and Lantur and High Queen Silth (although they don't fight anyone in battle).
  • And in a less known case (Triss), the Pure Ferret King Sarengo was a major subversion of this, as he attacked and killed a full grown female adder solo. (Granted, he was only searching for a way to reach and plunder Redwall, and he died from his wounds—though he wouldn't have if his son hadn't deserted him—but it's still a badass feat few others aside from Matthias could replicate. It's a pity that his genes didn't pass on to his descendants...
• Disability Superpower: Simeon from Mariel and Cregga in Taggerung are both Blind Seers. Probably inverted with Lord Asheye, who forced himself into the Bloodwrath so many times that he went blind.
• Disc One Final Boss: The "Big Bad" in Taggerung gets killed off quite early into the story, and several other vermin begin to take his role as the main villain.
• Disney Villain Death: See Death by Falling Over. Also Ferahgo and Swartt Sixclaw.
  • Judging by the disturbing simile provided in the novel, Swartt was probably dead before Sunflash tossed him off the mountain...
• The Dog Bites Back: In Lord Brocktree, the Big Bad is killed by the fortune-telling fox he constantly mistreated.
  • Blaggut's Crowning Moment of Awesome. After his Captain Slipp kills Ma Mellus, Blaggut strangles him to death, goes back to the Abbey to apologize, and then gets to live happily ever after as a carpenter and shipwright.
• Downer Ending: Martin the Warrior. The eponymous character's girlfriend is killed in battle and he goes into exile. This summary doesn't begin to do it justice.
• The Dragon: Rare due to the treacherous nature of most vermin. The straightest examples would be Lask Frildur to Ublaz, and Nightshade to Swartt Sixclaw.
  • Dragon with an Agenda: Zwilt the Shade
  • Dragon Ascendant: Nadaz tried it after Malkariss was slain. He didn't last very long...
• Dreadful Musician: Dotti in Lord Brocktree.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Most notably in The Long Patrol where two hares diguise themselves as vermin seers.
  • Mask from Mossflower.
  • Brome and Keyla from Martin the Warrior.
  • Jukka the Sling from Lord Brocktree as well.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: In Pearls of Lutra, the rebellion against Ublaz was started by a guy named Barranca. Shortly after the rebellion started Rasconza stepped into the plot, stabbed Barranca and took over as rebellion leader.
  • Lantur in Marlfox. Immediately after she becomes the new ruler of Castle Marl, Mokkan conveniently shows up, approaches her, and slyly pushes her into the lake, where a bunch of pikes eat her.
  • Princess Kurda. After her pathetic fight with Triss, she tries to run away...only to trip and stab herself in the chest with her broken sabre.
• Drunk with Power: Mokkan after he becomes the High King of Castle Marl and all the other Marlfoxes die. It got so creepy that it looked like he was having a borderline Villainous Breakdown...
• Dual-Wielding: Finbarr Galedeep's swords. Saltar in Mariel wields a sword in one paw and a hook in the other.
• Dynamic Entry: Done in Mariel with a battering ram.

Tropes E-I

• Eats Babies: Some of the bad guys. Cluny makes a throwaway remark about baby rabbits being "tasty little things". See Carnivore Confusion.
• Elaborate Underground Base: Salamandastron is a fortress built into an extinct volcano.
  • Brockhall, which was dug out under a tree.
  • Also, Asmodeus' quarry.
• Enemy Civil War: This happens repeatedly. Mossflower, Martin the Warrior, etc.
  • Marlfox does it one better with the Big Bad Band stabbing each other in the back.
  • The war between Ublaz and Rasconza is a major portion of the plot in Pearls of Lutra.
• Epic Flail: Ferahgo the Assassin and Vizka Longtooth both use mace-and-chains; the former as a secondary weapon, and the latter as his primary weapon. A few other random villains have used them as well.
  • In Loamhedge, Lonna uses Raga Bol's carcass as a flail. Geez...
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Ferahgo openly states that he'd let Klitch live if he was caught plotting rebellion just because Klitch is his son, Vilaya is very distressed by the death of her confidante Dirva, who was said to be something a mother figure, and a few of the minor vermin are clearly upset when their partners or friends are killed. In The Sable Quean, a vermin speaking of her deceased mate actually says—for the first time in the series—the phrase, "I loved him."
• Even Evil Has Standards: It is said in Mariel of Redwall that alone out of all villains, sea rats are the only ones verminous enough to use fire as a weapon.
  • Although it was acknowledged that, being creatures who live on the ocean, they may simply not understand the dangers of starting fires in a forest.
    • Did Not Do the Research: The rats are bigger assholes than even Jacques suspected. Fire is the most dreaded occurance aboard ship, because it is extremely difficult to stop. Flooding can be contained relatively easily if you're quick about it, and abovewater impacts typically won't put the ship at risk. Fire, however, cannot be contained, and with the tools available at that tech level, cannot be fought. If you start a fire aboard ship you're going to be fishfood shortly. The sea rats more than anyone should fear fire as a weapon.
  • Sawney Rath also refuses to kill a mother nursing a babe. Whether a villain is considered a cannib- eating other speaking animals might also be a clue as to how monstrous they're supposed to be—the threat of Cluny gobbling up beasts is offered as frightening to most inhabitants of Mossflower.
  • Vizka Longtooth's pirate crew deserted him after he murdered two of his own crew members in cold blood and for no reason whatsoever.
  • And during the performer's play in Martin the Warrior, when Ballaw asks the vermin spectators if he should "kill" a pretty squirrelmaiden with a (trick) knife, none of them speak up. Except Badrang.
• Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: Deepcoiler in Salamandastron and Slothunog in High Rhulain.
• Everything's Better with Spinning: The Guosim Windmill maneuver. A regiment of shrews work together to become a rotating shredder of death that cuts down an enemy horde pretty darn well.
• Evil Albino: The Pure Ferrets of Riftgard.
• Evil Is Petty: Ublaz's big Evil Plan, for which he slaughtered entire tribes and put in years and years of work? Was all so he could have a pink pearl crown. He didn't even seem to think the pearls were magical, he just thought they were pretty. He must have way too much empty time on his hands. He is a king, so it's likely he does.
  • This could also apply to Triss. Plugg didn't think King Agarnu would send Prince Bladd and Princess Kurda sailing across the ocean from Riftgard to Mossflower just to find a long-dead skeleton, a gold crown and a pawring; he thought there had to be more to it than that.
  • Ferahgo spends a full season sending trackers after a pair of Mooks who tried to desert. They weren't even competent Mooks. And he'd probably have been better off leaving them alone, as that way the Abbeydwellers wouldn't have got involved ...
• The Evil Princess: Tsarmina.
  • Word of God says that her name came about as a mix of both "tsarina" and "mean".
  • Also Kurda.
• Eviler Than Thou: What tends to result if a book's "A-plot" villian confronts the "B-plot" bad guy (see Enemy Civil War above). A good example is in Loamhedge, when Raga Bol and his searat crew encounters Badredd and his band.
• Evil Laugh: Cluny the Scourge, in the Animated Adaptation
• Evil Plan: Each book has one but they usually involve conquering Mossflower/Redwall/Salamandastron.
  • The Legend of Luke is a inversion as 2/3 of the narrative is actually The Hero searching for the truth about his father's fate and then going home.
• Expansion Pack World: Brian Jacques only expected to write one book when he started out, hence the aforementioned Continuity Drift.
• Eye Scream: Damug Warfang stabs Cregga's eyes, putting them out as she kills him.
• Fail O'Suckyname: Most of the vermin get stuck with unflattering nicknames. One can't help but pity the one who ended up as "Stinky".
• False Reassurance: The scene with Matthias and Cluny in the belltower. It's either awesome or cringe-worthy.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Some characters die in fairly horrible ways. It can be disturbing to some.
  • One of the most horrifying examples took place in The Legend of Luke. Two rats are bullying a seemingly defenseless otter, taunting about how they're going to drown him just because they can. Martin sees this, but Log-a-Log—knowing who this otter is--wisely tells him to keep Trimp and Chugger from seeing what happens next. And for good reason: Once one of the rats got too close, the 'defenseless' otter sinks his teeth directly into the vermin's throat. But that wasn't all bad...at least the otter had some company for dinner...
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: Yep.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: In an odd way, with the moles universally being given broad Somerset accents and the hares talking like WW 2 RAF pilots.
  • Well given the Write Who You Know, with Word of God stating that the moles are all based on two old men in Somerset that Brian Jacques had to ask for directions once when he was a lorry driver, and with Basil Stag Hare based on a former RAF pilot Brian Jacques worked for once, this is hardly surprising.
• The Farmer and the Viper: Veil. Subverted with his dying actions.
  • Also, Chickenhound in the first novel.
• A Father to His Men: Captain Plugg Firetail is the only villain in the series who doesn't treat his troops like crap, and his troops are the only ones who don't try to seize power, going into Heroic BSOD when he dies.
  • "Doesn't treat them like crap"? He picks them up and bangs their heads together! Then again, in vermin terms, this probably translates as fatherly love...
    • And it didn't hurt that the BSOD was also caused by seeing Plugg being taken by a trio of adders.
  • Plugg is not the only one - Bane from Mossflower is an earlier example of this trope. He seemed content to share plunder with his troops, and they all seemed to respect him, while having nothing but contempt for Tsarmina, who did treat her troops like crap. Unfortunately, none of this helped his character survive the book.
  • Tramun Clogg is probably the nicest vermin leader in the series who still manages to remain a villain.
• Feed the Mole: No! This is not related to Deeper N' Ever Turnip N' Tater Pie!
  • Played straight in the first Redwall book, when Cluny the Scourge believed his healer Sela was trying to double-cross him. So when he was sure he'd be left alone, Cluny drew out a map with clearly-written instructions for his next attack on Redwall and its focus on the main gate and left just a corner of it visible under his pillow, knowing Sela would find it and make a copy of it to sell to his enemies. Of course, this was all as Cluny intended, as the attack was going to be from a different position than the one the map indicated and he wanted all of his enemies focused on the main gate.
• Femme Fatalons: Tsarmina. Justified Trope since she's a cat.
• Five-Man Band: There have been a few of these in the series, but the group from Marlfox seems to fit the tropes best.
  • The Hero: Dannflor
  • The Lancer: Dippler
  • The Smart Guy: Burble
  • The Big Guy: Sollertree (for a short time)
  • The Chick: Songbreeze
• Flanderization: It becomes common knowledge that hares have big appetites. This is taken Up to Eleven with Bescarum (who will steal from various hosts when he gets hungry) and Diggs (who simply never talks about anything else.)
• Flaying Alive: This seems to be a favored method of execution/torture/punishment of Ferahgo the Assassin. He even keeps some of his victim's pelts for clothing.
  • Also in High Rhulain, Riggu Felis orders one of his top mooks to do this to one of his son's spies.
• Flower From the Mountaintop: In Salamandastron, one of these is needed to create medicine.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Badgers do this, from time to time.
• Food Porn: Lots in every book. Particularly in the first, where a Redwall feast consists of "tender freshwater shrimp garnished with cream and rose leaves, devilled barely pearls in acorn purée, apple and carrot chews, marinated cabbage stalks steeped in creamed white turnip with nutmeg." Later books stick to a more standard rotation of bread, cheese, soup, pasties, salad, sweets, etc.
  • Jacques said in a meet the author that growing up in a food rationed era, he was always annoyed by the lack of descriptions of food in the books he read, and would often just read recipe books.
• For the Evulz: While the main motivations that drive typical vermin are power and plunder, sometimes revenge, most of them also engage in meaningless cruelties just for the thrill.
• Framing Device: Often used in the books that had their story taking place in the past, where the story is told by someone to an excited group of Dibbuns.
• Freudian Excuse: Slagar the Cruel claims to have one during a conversation with the titular mouse in Mattimeo, though Sam Squirrel is quick to correctly educate the young mouse that not only was Slagar's fate his own fault, but that he killed a Redwaller after stealing a large number of things from the abbey as payment for them saving his life.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Chickenhound aka Slagar the Cruel. Alternately also Chekhov's Gunman.
• Funetik Aksent: Used a lot - to the point that the moles' accent is portrayed as indecipherable in the first book, burr aye! Methuselah has to translate mole dialect into ordinary speech for Matthias!
• Foregone Conclusion: See the Downer Ending above. Since a previous book starts with Martin already on exile alone, it was practically a given that he would either leave Rose behind or she was going to die.
• Frothy Mugs of Water: Averted. Hard. Canon states Matthias is the equivalent of about thirteen during the events of Redwall and you see him drinking ale and cider with the rest, and in British English, there is no such thing as hard or soft cider: cider is alcoholic by definition. In fact the Food Porn has lots of gratuitous drinking, vermin sentries are easily taken out of action by leaving Grog lying around were they will find it, the multiple Poison Chalice Switcheroos only work because of the senior vermin's love of a nice goblet of damson wine, and in earlier novels it is strongly implied that some of the adult good guys are dead drunk at the victory feasts.
  • Granted, during the Middle Ages there was no drinking age and beer was often safer than the water.
• Furry Confusion: Mostly avoided, though there are still a few oddities; lizards and frogs are either savage but sapient carnivores or cute pets with about the intelligence level of real-world monkeys.
  • And the fish.
• Gargle Blaster: The infamous Seaweed Grog favored by pirates and corsairs.
• Gambit Roulette: Subverted. A plan which includes four thugs sneaking into the abbey, spiking everyone's drinks, make them drink them at the same time by calling out a toast and then kidnap all the young ones fails. However, the antagonists still succeeded in their Evil Plan, as they simply killed nearly everyone who was still awake.
  • Ublaz and Rasconza's fight for power in Pearls of Lutra.
• Gender Bender: In one chapter of the first book, Killconey the ferret becomes female for a while.
• Gender Is No Object: In the later books, at least. In the first few books there don't seem to be any female vermin whatsoever, but in the later ones gender seems to be assigned to them at random, and it doesn't really make a lot of difference to their characterisation. As for the good guys, the very first general of the Long Patrol was female, and while only one female has wielded the Sword, females make up a reasonable proportion of the most respected fighters.
• General Failure: While many of the Redwall villains exhibit this from time to time, Gruven from Taggerung seems stuck in this mode. His mother, Antigra, believes that her son is the rightful Taggerung, even though Grissoul and the signs say different, and fills his head with that knowledge. When he finally does go on his journey to kill Tagg, he shows he can't differentiate between left and right, is all but ignored by his group and is outright bullied by self-appointed leaders Vallug Bowbeast and Eefera (who's been given secret orders to kill Gruven if he shows fear). When he and his two remaining allies attempt to kill Vallug and Eefera via ambush, he is reduced to a sobbing, weeping little bitch who manages to escape in a later battle, only to get recaptured by Ruggan Bor. But take heart, for Gruven does technically become the Taggerung... for about all of ten seconds. He does have the excuse of being a spoiled teenager.
• Genre Savvy: Sawney Rath (Taggerung); he's heard all the stories about warlords with great armies and vast hordes trying to take Redwall and dying in the process, and he won't have his name added to that list. Thus, he captures baby Deyna without going within a mile of Redwall, and hauls considerable ass once the deed is done. In fact, many vermin leaders have become slightly aware of Redwall's reputation and won't use head-on warfare anymore.
  • One of the rats in Marlfox was fully aware of what the Big Bad does to subordinates who fail him. After he's captured and starts to get interrogated, he kills himself so the Marlfoxes won't.
• Gentle Giant: Most badgers are portrayed as loveable, valiant, cute creatures who are friendly to almost everyone. Just don't piss them off.
• Give Chase With Angry Natives: Running through hornet's nests or crow-infested trees while making ungodly noise is a common tactic for Redwallers, and the hapless pursuing vermin fall for it every time.
• Go Out with a Smile: Most notably Lady Cregga Rose Eyes.
• God Save Us From the Queen: Tsarmina and Silth
  • And now, Vilaya, the Sable Quean.
• Good Is Bad and Bad Is Good: Some of the vermin's behaviour. See the Villain Song in Triss, "'Tis Nice To Be A Villain".
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Any hare noted to be a good boxer in the series will normally only utilize their paws for combat, with a sling for distance.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Subverted occasionally; Folgrim has terrible facial scarring and a lost eye, but he turns out good.
  • Also includes Lonna Bowstripe from Loamhedge; he has a pretty hefty scar across his face from an encounter with Raga Bol's scimitar, but he's a good guy.
• Gorn: The description of the pus-oozing, festering wounds on Baliss's face are a bit too enthusiastic. You almost feel sorry for it. Also, the infamous searat ballad "Slaughter of the Crew of the Rusty Chain", which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  • In the first book, Cluny has a very vivid nightmare/vision involving the shades of his dead captains—and each ghost still bears the marks of their deaths by crushing, falling, poison, boiling alive, etc.
  • The final duel between Martin and Tsarmina in Mossflower quickly degenerates into a shockingly graphic war of attrition to see who can take the most horrible wounds.
• Gory Discretion Shot: One of the main reasons why the TV series is Lighter and Softer.
• Grim Up North: Allusions to the North being war-torn are made in most of the early books, and the books that take place up there...
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Played straight in the animated series, possibly subverted in the books as prisoners are occasionally stripped as a form of humiliation.
  • I was always slightly disturbed that, in the animated series, all of the characters are dressed well enough...except for the otters, who wear NOTHING AT ALL.
    • A funny note of trivia - this goes back to The Wind in the Willows, where the four main characters Mole, Rat, Badger and Toad were drawn anthropomorphic, but minor character Otter was drawn as a regular old otter.
• Half The Ferret He Used To Be: Killconey.
• Hatedom: Many fans have an intense hatred of Badrang the Tyrant (and with good reason).
• Have a Gay Old Time: "Quean" does not mean "queen", nor does it, as Mr Jacques claimed in interviews, mean "wicked woman". According to the online dictionary, it actually means either "promiscuous woman" or "prostitute". Also, the two meanings of the word "mate" in vermin slang can lead to some unintentional Minion Shipping moments.
• Heroic Albino: Lord Urthwyte the Mighty, from Salamandastron.
• The Hero Dies: Usually averted. The heroes will most likely die of old age in-between books, and their death will only be briefly mentioned in the chronological sequel. Played tear-jerkingly straight with Urthstripe the Strong, and to a lesser extent Luke the Warrior.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The Major from High Rhulain.
  • And so many others, like.... Shogg, Bragoon and Saro, Warbeak, Mask, etc....
• Heterosexual Life Partners: Martin and Gonff especially; Deyna and Nimbalo from Taggerung have this as well.
  • So does Rakkety Tam and Wild Doogy Plum from Rakkety Tam and Sunflash and Skarlath from The Outcast of Redwall. At times, both cases can be borderline Ho Yay.
    • When Sunflash starts writing poetry to Skarlath, that probably goes beyond "borderline".
    • To be fair, he does it after Skarlath dies.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Some of the Big Bads die this way. Which makes their death that much more enjoyable to read about.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs:
  • "the leaf calling the grass green"
  • "I'll bet you an apple to an acorn"
  • "Stop taking a seavoyage to get round a cockleshell"
• Hook Paw: Raga Bol
• The Horde: Pretty much every vermin army is called a horde, and most apply to this trope. Gulo's horde does to a T.
• How Dare You Die on Me!: "No! Don't die! If you die, I'll kill you! Oh, I'm sorry, dear."
  • And from Marlfox: "If you die, I'll never speak to you again, ever!"
• Hypnotic Eyes: The serpents, specifically Asmodeus, have these. A non-serpent character, Ublaz "Mad Eyes", also has this type of gaze.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: See Accidental Innuendo and Have a Gay Old Time. It's very, very hard to believe that some of that stuff actually COULD be accidental.
• Got Me Doing It: The accents can be catching, burr aye.
• Grotesque Cute: The entire series is basically about about cute little fluffy animals wielding bigass weaponry and killing each other in various unpleasant ways. Hell yeah.
• I Am a Humanitarian: Gulo and his horde are infamous for eating anything that moves. The Flitchaye, a tribe a runty weasels, are presumably cannibals too. Also see Carnivore Confusion.
• I Am Not Weasel: Hares hate being called rabbits. Eventually Justified: rabbits are shown to be harmless examples of British Stuffiness antithetical to the one personality most hares share. One vermin soldier in Rakkety Tam gets the crap beaten out of him by a hare that knows boxing, partly for eating several other hares earlier in the book and partly for repeatedly calling him a rabbit.
• Idiot Ball: Passed around occasionally in Triss, particularly when Malbun and Crikulus leave Redwall in the middle of the night, alone, with no weapons or means to defend themselves from danger.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Cludd's death, in particular. Also Cheesethief.
  • Not to mention Badrang, Kurda, Zwilt, Veil, and several others.
• Impossibly Delicious Food: Say what you will about Brian Jacques, but anyone who can make food which consists mostly of vegetables sound so delicious to children that there was demand for a book of recipes from the series has to be doing something right.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: Vilu Daskar finds that the ship Luke is chasing him on is called the Sayna, after Luke's dead wife. He makes a snarky comment about how it would have been "saner" for Sayna to stay away. Cue blank stares from his crew.
• Infant Immortality: While it's nowhere near as bad as Warrior Cats, the series has averted this trope a few times. Anyone who isn't a Dibbun can die at any moment, even if they're described as being "young" in the novel.
• The Insomniac: Gabool the Wild, Tsarmina and Mokkan. Also Mokkan's mother, Queen Silth (Marlfox), Cluny the Scourge (Redwall) and Ungatt Trunn (Lord Brocktree).
• Instant Expert: It seems that any good character who wields the Sword of Martin becomes an expert swordsman and all-around warrior...even if they haven't been shown to wield a sword before (Triss, though some may claim she'd be inherantly skilled because her dad was a swordmaster). Even if, in the case of Laird Bosie (Doomwyte), the user has explicitly stated they are bad at using swords because they're unwieldly.
  • Would have been an obvious case of enchantment that grants Martin's swordsmanship skills to the wielder, but the Sword of Martin was explicitly stated to be totally nonmagical in earlier books.
    • Then again, it's not impossible that either Gingivere was wrong, or technically it's not the Sword that's magical but the spirit of Martin hanging around it ...
      • It is indeed the spirit of Martin that empowers the wielder, so long as they are a goodbeast.
• Instant Sedation: The Flitchaye tribe uses knockout gas (resembling ether or chloroform) to anaesthetise travelers, to rob and to kill them. Oh, and No! You cannot nullify the knockout gases' effect on you by stuffing ramsons or garlic or whatnot up your nostrils!
• Intelligible Unintelligible: Corporal Rubbadub from The Long Patrol speaks only in drum sounds (and one time, with a cymbal crash), but others in his regiment understand him fine.
• Interspecies Romance: Although Bragoon and Sarobando probably come the closest, this never actually occurs. It does, however, show up in songs.
• It's All About Me: Ublaz.
  • As well as Vilaya, who won't think twice about killing those who saved her life.

Tropes J-N

• Jerkass: Tubgutt. He gets better though after his near-death experience with The Deepcoiler.
  • Tugga Bruster is a different story...
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Pakatugg comes off as nothing more than a common Jerkass in Mariel of Redwall. Up until he sacrifices his life to ensure the rescue of a bunch of oarslaves he doesn't even know.
  • Warbeak and the Guosim.
• Jesus Taboo: The characters live in an Abbey up the road from an abandoned Church and several of the characters are Abbots and other religious personages. And yet there's not a single mention of anything resembling God or Jesus or religious services. This may be to avoid the Fridge Logic of just what kind of church these animals have or where in animal history there was a Jesus.
  • Xkcd has something to say about their religious mentions.
  • If the story of Saint Ninian's recounted in one of the books can be believed, then it's not a church at all, just a really big misunderstanding caused by a weathered sign. Even though it's clearly described as having a pulpit and pews.
  • In Redwall (the novel), the Abbey inhabitants were expressly stated to be an "order", with robes and prayers and all that. Of course, a lot of what happened in Redwall has been unofficially declared Canon Discontinuity.
    • For example, Tsarmina's death in Mossflower didn't happen quite the way Redwall's intro described it, but this could be partly due to Martin's legendary status by the time the events of Redwall took place.
• Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Warden, a heron who keeps the reptiles and amphibians of his swamp under control by eating them strategically when they commit a serious disturbance; also a nod to Aesop's fable "The Frogs Who Desired A King".
• Karma Houdini: Despite the fact that nearly every major villain in every book dies, there have been a few exceptions...
  • Juska chieftain Ruggan Bor in Taggerung was humiliated and sent home with his tail between his legs by badger lord Russano the Wise. Possibly justified in that he hadn't actually harmed Redwall yet.
  • In Loamhedge, Badredd and his cronies ran off into Mossflower after escaping from the clutches of Raga Bol. (But seeing as they were Affably Evil Punch Clock Villains, it is doubtful that any readers would want them dead.)
  • Cap'n Tramun Clogg was the sole survivor of the final battle in Martin the Warrior, but went insane and spent the rest of his days hanging around Marshank's ruins and talking to corpses.
  • Also, Agrill in Martin The Warrior. He drugs the protagonists for absolutely no reason other than disliking them, and it's made very clear that, had they not been in the company of Boldred, he would have murdered them. Not only is he not punished for this, no one even seems to care.
  • Any vermin who successfully desert their army, such as Sneezewort, Lousewort, Ashleg, Ripfang, Grand Fragorl, and more.
• Karmic Death: Many of the main villains had very karmic deaths. Examples: Cluny was crushed by the bell that had earlier awakened him from his nightmares; hydrophobic Tsarmina drowned; Gabool was stung to death by his pet scorpion, whom he had used to execute foes previously; Ublaz was bitten by his pet snake; Princess Kurda fell and stabbed herself on her own broken sword; Riggu Felis was killed by the same barbed star that he earlier used to trap Pandion; Vilaya fell on her own poisoned dagger, which she had used to kill numerous characters.
  • Some of the minor villains or Dragons have karmic deaths too. For instance, Brool and Renn are killed by Veil shortly after they tied him up and stole all his food and gear; the Wraith is accidentally knocked off Salamandastron by Porty; Klitch drinks the water Farran poisoned just when he thinks he's survived the gruesome battle at Salamandastron; Karangool was presumably whipped and killed by Bucko Bigbones, whom he had tortured in the past.
  • Tugga Bruster is stabbed in the chest by Tala as revenge for killing her husband Chigid. This is rather interesting case. Unlike all the names listed above, Tugga Bruster wasn't evil or even a vermin. He was just an asshole who made even the Punch Clock Villains look good. Not even the Redwallers missed him.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: Notably Blaggut.
• Kissing Cousins: Arguably. In Doomwyte where two descendants of Gonff get married, but since by this point a couple of thousand seasons have passed since the shared ancestor was alive it probably doesn't count anymore.
• Knife Nut: Ferahgo, in particular. Sawney Rath from Taggerung, Tazzin from Triss, and Rasconza (Pearls of Lutra) fit as well. Bucko Bigbones (Lord Brocktree) is shown having at least four knives on his person when taking back Salamandastron.
• La Résistance: Unless the enemies are an invading mobilized army, there will be one.
• Lame Rhyme Dodge:

"There's worse cooks aboard than me."
"What was that?"
"I said the sky's as blue as the sea."

• Lampshade Hanging: "Wait, you'll never speak to me again if I die?"
  • "We're Marlfoxes, born to stealth and deceit. Only one of us could ever rule the island."
  • "You have lived the life of a coward, now learn t'die like a soldier, sir!"
  • "So, Tugga Bruster's wicked ways finally caught up with him. Got what he deserved, I think."
• Large Ham: Cluny and Ublaz, in particular, are as close to this as you can get in a text-based medium.
  • Some of the hares. For example, Cleckstarr Lepus Montisle, aka Clecky.

Clecky: What ho, the jolly old camp! Rovin' fighter returnin' with tales of derring-do, high adventure, and all that nonsense, wot!

• The Last Thing You Ever See: In The Pearls of Lutra, the Big Bad tells Martin that the last thing he'll ever hear is the Big Bad's name.
• (Left Justified) Fantasy World Map
• Leeroy Jenkins: Felldoh. His rousing nature and ultimate death nearly cost the life of all the Fur'n'Freedom fighters. Idiot.
  • Sadly he never learned his lesson, that leading a small, personal war against the main antagonist, whilst all of his friends fight the big, official war against the main antagonist, does not pay off. And yet he's still an Ensemble Darkhorse.
• Legacy Character: The Log-a-Logs, and the Skipper of Otters.
• Lethal Chef: Cap'n Slipp, Hon Rosie.
  • Also, one of the many random songs in The Long Patrol deals with one of these...
  • The entire crew besides Beau in The Legend of Luke.
• Lighter and Softer: The animated series had very little violence compared to the books.
  • Particularly in the case of Skalrag the Fox. The animated series shows him being tickle tortured; in the books, he's just plain put on the torture rack before being hung from the gates and shot full of arrows.
• Linked-List Clue Methodology: The reason Only Smart People May Pass.
• Little Miss Badass: Mariel, in particular.
• Loads and Loads of Characters: Almost every book introduces a buttload of new characters.
• Long Running Book Series
• Losing Your Head: A lot of villains end this way. Namely Gulo.
• Low Fantasy: There is no magic. The only kinds of supernaturalism are prophetic visions and the appearance of Martin the Warrior to abbeybeasts.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Exactly how Mokkan killed his sister Lantur, in order to become king.
• Mama Badger: In Redwall, for example, Constance nearly crushed Cluny and Redtooth with the grand feast table...
  • And now we've got a Mama Hare in The Sable Quean, Clarinna Kordyne, and a rather awesome display at that. Whether you're some random vermin mook or Zwilt the Shade, you do not threaten a mother hare's kid in front of them. Especially if you're the guy who killed her husband.
• Man Beast Of Wealth And Taste: Vilu Daskar and Ublaz.
• Master Poisoner: Farran the Poisoner
• Manipulative Bastard: Slagar the Cruel.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: A variety of Plot Coupon artifacts and trinkets, notably Martin's sword and the tapestry depicting him. (Easy answer for those two is that they're mundane by themselves but Martin's spirit uses them to reach out to others.)
• Meaningful Name: At the time Veil, the son of a warlord, is taken into the Abbey as an infant, Bella says she named him that because there's a veil over his life - they know nothing about him. Later, it's revealed that her other reason for the name is that it anagrams to "vile" and "evil":

Give him a name and leave him awhile, Veil may live to be evil and vile. Though I hope my prediction will fail, and evil so vile will not live in Veil.

• • Word of God says that Cluny's name was meant to rhyme with "loony".
    • Furthermore, Cluny's name may also somehow be related with Cluny Abbey in Cluny, Saône-et-Loire. This early medieval Benedictine monastery does seem to have inspired some of Redwall's more prominent architectural (if not even cultural) aspects. So why is this Abbey honoured in the novel by providing a name for the Big Bad? Because it's French, naturally.
  • Gabool the Wild ruled over Terramort. Terra= land, mort= death. He ruled over the Land of Death/Deathland. Way to be subtle there, Mr Jacques...
    • It's most probably not meant to be subtle, and more like a typical nickname which was given to this pirate base. Just look at Tortuga.
  • The Latin (taxonomic) name for wolverines is Gulo gulo. So ... the wolverine Big Bad is just named "Wolverine"!
• Medieval Stasis: The time period never changes, and the weapons never improve. Not even rudimentary gunpowder weapons (which were used in the late Middle Ages) are seen.
  • That might partially be due to their measurement of time by non-numbered seasons rather than years, for all we know only a couple centuries have passed.
• Methuselah Syndrome: Badgers live very long lives; it's noted in Outcast that they age in years instead of "seasons".
  • Not to mention Methuselah himself.
• Minion Maracas: Plugg has a habit of picking up crew members who do something stupid and beating their heads together.
• Minion with an F In Evil: Some of the Mooks. Lousewort and Sneezewort are probably the best example.
• Mirror Monologue: Ublaz.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The Wearets (part weasel, part ferret).
• Monster Sob Story: Brian Jacques seems to like this trope.
• Mood Whiplash: Many of the novels are well-known for jumping from a death-laden battle scene to flat-out humor. Mossflower has Martin encoutering a massive crab with giant pincers, and shortly after it begins to attack him, Gonff shoves a stick between its claws and dances with it, joking about it the whole time..
• Mook Promotion: Tends to happen a lot, especially when The Dragon or one of the Co-Dragons is killed halfway through the novel and the Big Bad needs a replacement. But more than likely, said mook will not handle his or her new promotion well and will either get demoted or killed off even faster than said dragon. Just ask Zurgat, Lousewort, Graywort or Hogspit, to name a few.
• Mouse World: Redwall (the novel) seemed to take place in one of these, what with bits like an entire army of rats hitching a ride on a horse-drawn cart and mentions of piglets, town dogs, and Portugal (Part of Cluny's introduction including speculation that he was a "Portuguese rat.") By the second novel, however, all aspects of humanity had been removed.
  • There is a vague hint of humanity or a higher life form of some sort in High Rhulain, where Riggu Felis speaks of his ancestors (the Wildcats) liberating the Feral Cats from some unnamed group that had domesticated them.
• Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls: Averted by the fandom, probably because of heavy crossover with the Furry Fandom at large, which is mostly made up of males.
• Multiple Demographic Appeal: Children like the books because the plots and characters are quite clear-cut; this becomes a liability with adult readers, most of whom like the books rather because of Jacques's clever use of language.
• Multiple Head Case: The adder triplets.
• The Movie: Averted. Literally half a dozen times! Most of the projects failed primarily due to Brian Jacques' general distaste of movie adaptions. The ones who didn't suffer from this actually made it into pre-phase before it was discovered they lacked the rights. Those who had rights and made it into pre-phase turned out to be mere practical jokes or misunderstandings. Currently, however, a Deviant ART group is working on a feature-length adaption of Mossflower, the second book of the series. Not to be confused with another so-called "movie" that was brought out (which was just a re-edited version of the animated series with the Filler episodes removed).
• Murder Ballad: "Slaughter of the Crew of the Rusty Chain."
• Murder by Mistake: It happens a lot...
  • Redwall has Cheesethief, whom Constance thought was Cluny.
  • In Mossflower, Tsarmina fires an arrow at her brother as he, Ferdy, Coggs and Mask escape from Kotir. Mask ran behind them and coincidentally ended up shielding Gingivere and Coggs from the arrow.
  • Happens twice in Salamandastron, with both cases regarding Ferahgo. First, Lord Urthstripe fires an arrow at him, only for Goffa to step in front of him and coincidentally get hit. Later, Forgrin and Raptail kill Sickear because they thought he was a wounded Ferahgo lying on a rock. And then Ferahgo shows up behind both of them...
  • Martin the Warrior also has two cases. First, Badrang conspires with Gurrad to poison Cap'n Clogg, whilst Clogg simultaneously conspires with Oilbeak to have Badrang knifed. So naturally, Oilbeak accidentally chucks his knife at Gurrad's throat, and then proceeds to steal the tainted drink from Gurrad's body, which he later drinks from. Later, Badrang's archers fire arrows at a small group of animals they thought were Fur and Freedom Fighters. They turn out to be Hisk and his four trackers.
  • In Loamhedge, Lonna picks up Raga Bol's body and uses it as a shield. The Searats chuck a few spears at Lonna, but hit Bol instead.
• Mutual Kill: There is quite a large amount of these in the series, between both hero-and-villain, and villain-and-villain. Some notable ones are Urthstripe and Ferahgo, Romsca and Lask Frildur, Sagitar and Rasconza (this makes two occasions in one book), and Argulor and Bane.
• Myopic Architecture: The main gate of Redwall Abbey is large and thick, impervious to even the most dedicated of sieges. Basically, not one invading vermin horde has ever gotten through it. The tiny wicker side-gate, on the other hand, has been breached by countless invading hordes over the seasons, probably accounting for every successful invasion of the abbey. This is presumably intentional, since it would be easy to station three well-armed, armoured guards there during a siege to hack up any single file intruders who tried to get in. Unfortunately, being peaceful monk and villagers, the Redwall inhabitants never think of that.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Some of the Redwallers who haven't experienced war have this reaction after killing someone. Burlop from Rakkety Tam breaks down and starts crying before he decides to head back to Redwall after killing one of Gulo's soldiers.
• Naked People Are Funny: When Badrang's in need of a piece of rope, he cuts a random minion's belt, causing said minion's kilt to drop off and everybeast to start laughing at him.
  • Which is kind of weird considering they're all animals...
• Name's the Same: Friar Bellows in Salamandastron. Probably not intentional.
  • And in a slightly different version of this, there is a Real Life Abbey in France called "Cluny Abbey". When Brian Jacques heard about that, he said he thought it "quite spooky".
• Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Cluny the Scourge. Slagar the Cruel. Emperor Ublaz "Mad Eyes". The list goes on and on.
  • And if you are vermin Martin the Warrior or anybeast carrying the title Champion or Warrior of Redwall
• Narcissist: Ublaz.
• Narrative Profanity Filter: Mention is made of searats using "very colourful language" and hares and otters singing a Bawdy Song, but we never actually see any.
  • Grood in Lord Brocktree. Apparently, he's got quite a tongue on him for being a young squirrel...
    • And apparently, Dotti from Lord Brocktree could give Grood a few lesons in choice language.
• Narrator All Along: In several books.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: Ungatt Trunn's Blue Hordes. They insist that they're "The Chosen Ones" and that every creature that isn't one of them is a member of "the lower orders". Also, Riftgard can only be ruled by Evil Albino "Pure Ferrets", who all speak with ridiculously broad faux-German accents.
• Never Trust A Book Cover: Plenty of covers. But the by far most blatant ones, were made by a German cover artist. The Redwall one, for instance shows all animals nude. And further shows all Redwallers, including Constance and Basil, cowering behind in fear, while Matthias seems to be the only one brave enough to stand up against Cluny. The one for Mossflower, however, is worse. It shows nude Martin and his cronies riding the Salamandastron hares like on horses (apart from the fact that there are only two hares present). And... wait a minute... who is that third mouse?! What do you mean, it's supposed to be a shrew?! And why are the other two mice blue? Artist, are you blind? Or illiterate? Or high? Or everything at the same time? Anyway, it apparently took the publishers three of such covers, before they finally fired that cover artist. For his cover for Mattimeo, he finally managed to draw a creature with clothes on, but apparently still does not know the difference between a combat axe and a spike club. Especially, when the axebearer is explicitly called Orlando the Axe! And Mattimeo was not a baby at that time anymore. And lastly, none of the scenes portrayed on these covers happened (or at least happened that way) in the books (with which I am referring to the actual trope).
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Thank you, Searats, for killing Raga Bol in a stupid attempt to take out Lonna Bowstripe. You guys deserve a medal.
• Noodle Implements: Spriggat, Samkim, and Arula threaten to do something involving "three squashed frogs and those maggoty apples", among other things, to get a captured rat to talk.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: The word "love" is rarely used, and even Rose and Martin hardly even hold paws onscreen, but their relationship is still very clear and a firm favourite with a lot of the fans, possibly because it's subtly handled. Justified Trope in that the target audience seems to consist mostly of ten-year-old boys. There are also no references to any kind of sexuality: no female characters are shown pregnant or nursing for example.
  • In The Legend Of Luke, a late summer song about fruit harvesting has a reference to sweetness being lost "like a faithless lover's kiss." It's one of the most overtly risque moments in the series, which says a lot.
• No One Could Survive That: Stated outright by Log-a-Log when Gulo the Savage went over the waterfall in Rakkety Tam. In the first book, Cluny the Scourge took a tumble from the very top of the Abbey wall, suffering cracked ribs, a smashed claw and countless other brutal injuries; Abbot Mortimer started to invoke this, but Constance told him Cluny would be back.
• Nose Tapping: Done on occasion, such as in High Rhulain.
• Not Drawn to Scale: There are frequent problems with this. In several stories a badger or hare climbs the same flight of stairs as a mouse, or using the same tools. Jacques has HandWaved this by saying that the characters are whatever size you think they are.
• Not Helping Your Case: Veil is treated like a delinquent even when he didn't do anything, so he turns to thievery and eventual attempted murder.
• Not Quite Dead: Skipper from The Long Patrol. He gets sucked down a well with a yellow eel wrapped around him and presumably drowns/gets eaten. A couple chapters later, he's found inside a Mossflower stream safe and sound. Plus he managed to kill the eel.
  • A much more disturbing example would be Ungatt Trunn.
  • Stukkfur, a water rat from Marlfox, survived being slammed into the Abbey wall after a failed attempt at breaching Redwall. But not without getting a massive bruise and losing all his teeth.

Tropes O-T

• Obfuscating Stupidity: King Bull Sparra really is pretty unhinged, but he pretends to be more so than he actually is. Matthias, in turn, fakes Cloudcuckoolander status to avoid Bull Sparra seeing him as a threat.
• Officer and a Gentleman: The Long Patrol hares.
• Off with His Head: It's a fairly common form of death for the villans due to the high Family-Unfriendly Violence. Notable ones include Gulo, Asmodeus, Vallug Bowbeast, and Gruven.
• Oh Crap: Cluny just before being crushed by the Joseph Bell.
• One-Hit Kill: Even some of the burliest of characters will go down quite easily. Just ask Bluggach, who, after his Badass Boast, gets whacked in the head by Gurgan's mallet just once and dies.
• Pendulum War: Almost every military engagement in the series that isn't a Curb Stomp Battle. Let's say, that whenever there is a big battle in the end, vermin usually have an upper hand at the beginning, until heroes manage to close the gap in numbers/invent a better plan. However, smaller skirmishes against named heroes usually are curb stomps in said heroes favor (even if villains manage to bury one or two of them under their own dead). Conservation of Ninjitsu?
• One-Man Army: Badgers, or any creature for that matter, under the Bloodwrath can carve through a horde with ease.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Was a fan assumption about the vermin until Loamhedge, when it was made explicit. Evidently even vermin aren't sadistic enough to inflict names like "Stinky" on their offspring at birth.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: The Marlfoxes have no problem at all doing each other in, but if an outsider kills one of them, hoo boy ...
• Only Smart People May Pass: Every. Single. Book.
• Out, Damned Spot!: Veil suffers from this, which leads to his downfall and capture.
• Overlord, Jr.: Klitch to Ferahgo, and Pitru to Riggu Felis. Mostly subverted with Veil to Swartt.
• Overly Long Name: Jodd's full name. According to him, You Do NOT Want to Know what it is. Captain Tramun Josiah Cuttlefish Clogg also counts.
  • As does Laird Bosie Mc Scutta of Bowlaynee (Doomwyte) and now, Subaltern Meliton Gubthorpe Digglethwaite (The Sable Quean).
  • Bellscut Oglecrop Obrathon Ragglewaithe Audube Baggscut (Boorab the fool)
• Papa Wolf: Matthias is an all around nice person throughout the series, but mess with Cornflower, Mattimeo or Redwall abbey in general and you'll meet the end of his blade. Just ask Cluny, Asmodeus and Slagar to name a few.
• Parental Neglect: Swartt's relationship with Veil. Progresses to Parental Abandonment when Veil is still a baby.
• Perfectly Cromulent Word: "Dibbuns".
• The Pig Pen: The natural state of vermin. Flinky actually sings a song about how bathing is dangerous.
  • There's some Truth in Television/Fridge Brilliance to this. Ferrets, weasels, and stoats, along with foxes, do produce a stronger odor than, say, mice or squirrels. It's completely natural and expected of them. So it stands to reason that vermin consider frequent baths and flowery soaps to be unnatural and unattractive.
  • This is why Simeon (who is blind) knows when Blaggut is coming: the searat is a stranger to bathwater (but he has a good heart, so that's forgivable)
• Pirate Girl: Romsca
• Pirates: Lots of the vermin are pirates - who definitely do do anything. They're often some of the worst of the villains.
• Planet of Hats: Or rather, species of hats. For example, hares have two staple personalities: "old veteran" and "cocky youngster" (which might or might not intersect with "annoying moron"). Besides them, there are Flat Character soldiers.
• Playful Otter: Several.
• Plot Armor: As the series goes on, it gets stronger and stronger, and covers more and more of the heroes. Earlier in the series Anyone Can Die.
  • Taken to extremes in Taggerung. With the exception of Rillflag and Cregga Rose Eyes, the only good guys who die in the novel are nameless Red Shirts or characters who were forgotten shortly after their death.
• Plot Tumor: Salamandastron becomes progressively far more important.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Basil Stag Hare.
• Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo: Lantur poisons her mother in Marlfox. Swartt Sixclaw pulls off a good one in Outcast by poisoning the chalice itself instead of the wine.
  • In the latter case, Balefur even Lampshades this outright when Swartt invites him to sit down and have some food: "Yer a canny creature, Swart, ye drink from the bottle an' ah drink from the silver cup, eh? Is that what yer thinkin'?"
• Poisoned Weapons: A few of the nastier villains. Swartt, especially, had a poisoned chalice he used several times. Wraith used a poisoned dagger so lethal it could kill in seconds with the poison alone, without even letting the victim cry out. In The Sable Quean, Vilaya is shown using a tiny poison dagger against her enemies. Also, the adders fall under this heading by default.
  • Cluny and his tail probably also counts.
• The Power of Rock: In the audio book of Rakkety Tam, "What is fear/I know it not/What is death/The foebeast's lot..."
• Precursor Heroes: Luke the Warrior and Co.
  • As well as Lord Brocktree and his group.
• Prophecies Rhyme All the Time: It's true, they all do.
• Prophecy Twist: Most famously in The Bellmaker.
• Psycho for Hire: Baliss, who was hired by Korvus Skurr to strike fear in the Redwallers. Not his best decision...
  • Most of Cluny's minions.
• Psychopathic Manchild: The Gawtrybe are an entire tribe of Chaotic Neutral squirrels, who do whatever seems like the most fun at the time. Also, Prince Bladd has hints of this, though Vague Age means he may in fact be fairly young.
• Punch Clock Villain: Most of the vermin, if they're not pirates or bandits, just want to live a peaceful life where they don't go hungry.
• Put on a Bus: Some of the vermin characters run away rather than being killed, and are never seen again.
• Pyromaniac: Prince Bladd. "I like playink mitt fire!"
• Pyrrhic Victory: Martin certainly gets one in Martin the Warrior--as if the ending wasn't already depressing. After everything he goes through, the only thing Martin earns is his freedom and his sword. By the end of the book, he probably would've preferred death so he could spend the afterlife with his late girlfriend Rose. And his sword? It got snapped in half early on in Mossflower.
• Raised By Vermin: The entire point of Taggerung.
• Redemption Equals Death: Zig Zagged with Veil, sort of. Subverted because he's still considered a bad guy after Taking the Bullet for Bryony, and inverted because even though he spent practically every one of his scenes being a horrid little bastard, Bryony thought he was good but misunderstood, only "realizing" he was evil after said Taking the Bullet.
  • But played straight with Romsca.
  • Subverted with Blaggut: his Heel Face Turn causes him to strangle Captain Slipp to death.
• Red Right Hand: Swartt and Veil Sixclaw, in Veil's case literally.
• Redshirt Army: The Guosim in Mattimeo.
• Reed Snorkel: In Mattimeo
• Reforged Blade: In Mossflower, Martin the Warrior's sword, which belonged to his father, is broken in his travels. It is then reforged by the great lord of Salamandastron, using a "fallen star" (a meteorite, rather) to rebuild it into a purely unbreakable sword, which also begins its legendary status. All during one book of the series. Martin wears the broken hilt around his neck through most of the book, until he finally gets it reforged and proceeds to kick much ass.
• Reincarnation: Matthias is established to be a reincarnation of Martin, and it's possible that so are all the other Swordbearers. Cornflower might be Rose's reincarnation, but it's not spelled out.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Practically every reptile and amphibian in the series is evil. Frequently, they are depicted as being far worse than the vermin. Nearly all are cannibalistic. Exceptions made for the ones which have occasionally been seen as pets - see Furry Confusion. Some come across a little more as True Neutral, however.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Damug Warfang drowns some traitors in The Long Patrol.
  • In The Bellmaker, Urgan Nagru lampshades this trope to an underling who was serving both him and his wife, Silvamord: "Life is the highest reward of all, my friend. Double dealers and traitors often receive death as their payment. But I will spare you for your treachery to me and my queen. Your reward is that I allow you to live."
  • As far as goodbeast species traitors, Skan the shrew in Mattimeo was put in Slagar's slave line as reward for his treachery, and soon after killed by the Painted Ones.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
  • Grath Longfletch.
  • Most badgers in the series.
  • Swartt Sixclaw, as his sole motivation in the entire book for stalking Sunflash was to kill him for maiming his infamous six-clawed paw.
• Rodents of Unusual Size: Damug Warfang is a "Greatrat", twice the size of a normal rat.
  • Also, some Fanon suggests that—to solve issues with scale and such—most of the animals are human-sized or thereabouts and objects are scaled to in a similar manner, with badgers and such things being around ten feet tall. This doesn't apply to the first book, due to Canon Displacement.
• Romantic Two-Girl Friendship: Piknim and Craklyn.
• Rule of Cool: Salamandastron is a hollowed out volcano fortress ruled by berserker and often seer badgers all of whom Took a Level in Badass with a standing army of posh hares whose job primarily consists of stopping Pirates and Mook Hordes from taking over the world! and they have a catchphrase: Eulaliaaaa!
• Running Gag: Tutty from Outcast sure does love to threaten to cut somebeast's tail off.
• Sacrificial Lamb / Sacrificial Lion: Given the whole Anyone Can Die thing, these are to be expected.
• Same Story, Different Names: Pearls of Lutra is a Shaggy Dog Story about a Big Bad who wants pearls and will torment the Redwallers in any way to get them. Doomwyte is a Shaggy Dog Story about a Big Bad who wants his jewels back and will torment the Redwallers in any way to get them.
  • Many of the novels' plots are very similar. Redwall's in trouble. A hero carries Martin's legendary sword and kicks ass. Family-Unfriendly Violence occurs. Someone important (or not important, but very kind or innocent) dies. More Family-Unfriendly Violence. The Big Bad gets a daily dosage of Laser-Guided Karma and dies. Redwall is saved. The end.
• Screaming Warrior: Again, EULALIAAAAA!
  • "MOSSFLOWERRRRRRRRRR!"
    • "LOGALOGALOGALOOOOOOG!"
      • What, no "REDWAAAALLL!"?
  • Bascially there's at least one in every book. And that's being generous.
• Scary Scorpions: Skrabblag, Gabool's giant (in proportion to the characters) black scorpion that acts as a pet/executioner.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Lousewort and Sneezewort, Fragorl, Ripfang, Greypatch, Wulpp, Ullig, Wilce, etc. Dingeye and Thura started a book's plotline by trying (and failing) to do this, whereas most characters who do this do so at the end.
  • Fragorl pulls what is probably the most impressive desertion in the series, by taking around a third of Ungatt Trunn's massive army with her in the process. Said 300-strong army of deserters is promptly never mentioned again.
  • Mokkan (Marlfox), Slagar (Mattimeo), Vizka Longtooth (Eulalia!) and Quean Vilaya (The Sable Quean) tried to cut and run as well. But unlike the first group, most of whom were either just doing their jobs or were more incompetent than genuinely cruel, these characters relished in evil and wickedness. Fortunately, they couldn't outrun death...
• Sdrawkcab Name: Ballaw poses as "Tibbar the magic rabbit".
  • Urgan Nagru made his name like this on purpose, so that his enemies would know he could come at them from all directions.
• Series Continuity Error: In Taggerung, Sawney Rath has a nicer moment of genre savviness when he swears he won't be one of the many dead vermin lords who've attacked Redwall...except that one of the names he drops is Ferahgo, who never went near Redwall.
• Seldom-Seen Species: Stoats and pine martens, most prominently.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Averted and played straight with Bragoon and Saro. Sure, they committed a Heroic Sacrifice in order to save Horty, Springald and Fenna, but if you get past a moment of Fridge Brilliance, you'll realize they wouldn't have had to sacrifice themselves if they just stayed away from Loamhedge, since Martha wound up walking on her own.
• Sequel Escalation: In the early books, the vermin armies keep getting bigger and the Big Bads' titles more impressive, up to "Emperor" Ublaz (whose domain was actually just an island). In both cases this process stopped when it couldn't go any further.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: The hares, to the point that even other hares sometimes struggle to understand them.

"So, what happens when the bally precipitation ceases?"
"Precipitation ceases?"
"Sorry, I mean what happens when the rain stops?"

• • In The Long Patrol, Perigord refers to trees as "Arboreal Verdance". Rockjaw and Morio then wonder why he didn't just say "trees", the answer being "Why should he when he knows how to say words like arboreal verdance?"
• Shaggy Dog Story: The whole search for the pearls in The Pearls of Lutra.
  • Bragoon and Saro's quest to find something at Loamhedge that'll make Martha walk again. But Martha ends up walking anyway without their help so...subverted?
  • The search for the Doomwyte jewels in Doomwyte, which ended ironically for the very same reason as the pearls.
• Shameful Strip: On two occasions, in Lord Brocktree and Loamhedge respectively.
• Shout-Out: A possible one to Judge Dredd of all people: The self-proclaimed Warden of a marsh with a tendency to use the phrase "I AM THE LAAAAAAAAW!"
  • Or Les Misérables ("I am the law and the law is not mocked!"). It's quite commonly used in media and Older Than They Think.
  • Joseph Bell was the name of the man who inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to create Sherlock Holmes. Redwall has a literal bell named after its maker Joseph.
• Shown Their Work: In a moment of Fridge Brilliance you see why squirrels have bows and arrows but otters almost always use slings and javelins: slings and javelins still work when they are wet!
• The Siege A lot. Or at least in the earliest books...
• Sissy Villain: Ublaz.
• Slipping a Mickey: Done to the entire abbey in Mattimeo, Martin and his companions in Martin the Warrior, and quite unsettingly, to a boat full of rowdy children in Eulalia.
• Smug Snake: Ublaz again; he's possibly the most pathetic Big Bad the series ever had, spending almost the entire book under siege in his castle by his own rebellious pirate crews (constantly outfoxed by their leader Rasconza) before dying when he steps on his own pet snake.
  • Lask Frildur wasn't any better. Which is sad, since he's Ublaz's Dragon. To go into further detail, when Romsca's ship was being attacked by Martin and his friends, Lask ran into his personal cabin and locked the door.
  • Vilu Daskar too. He always acted as though he was the most intelligent creature around (which was true for the most part), and that everything was under his control.
  • Klitch, who tried too hard to be like his father and always smart-mouthed him whenever he could.
  • Zigu. He's an excellent swordsbeast, a Deadpan Snarker, and (arguably) the smartest bad guy in Outcast. Yet when he gets into a swordsfight with Sabretache and realize he's losing, he starts using dirty tactics and turns out to be nothing more than a Dirty Coward.
  • Mokkan is the most smug Marlfox out of his entire family, which is saying a lot.
  • Gruven. He makes all the vermin listed above look as tough as Cluny. Even Ublaz had the balls to at least get into a short sword fight with Martin.
  • Tugga Bruster. Despite being one of the burliest shrews in the series (and, y'know, being a shrew) he's just a cowardly and despicable as the vermin. He can't even insult someone right.
• Sociopathic Hero: Folgrim (The Legend of Luke), though if you learn his backstory, you will see why.
  • Also Major Cuthbert Frunk from High Rhulain. His anti-vermin song was quite bloodthirsty.
• Sole Survivor: Tramun Clogg is the last one left alive in Marshank. He always wanted to rule it, but true to poetic justice, it's destroyed and he's utterly insane, talking to corpses and likely to soon die of exposure.
  • Subverted in Salamandastron when Klitch survives the final battle and is in the middle of escaping, when he comes across some of the poisoned stores, thoughtlessly drinks some of it, and ends up dying anyway.
• Sound Off: Several of the ever-present songs are marching or working tunes.
• Sssssnaketalk: Sssssnakes and, in Pearls of Lutra, monitor lizardz.
• Spank the Cutie: On one occasion, Skipper of Otters beats the stoat thief Globby with an oven paddle.
• Species-Coded for Your Convenience: Played to a T. Vermin are evil; mice, badgers, moles, and so on are good.
• Spot of Tea: Usually of the mint variety.
• The Starscream: The Horde leaders generally have one per horde. Ex: Cluny-Cheesethief, Swartt-Zigu, Sawney Rath-Antigra (subverted, she succeeds!).
  • And then gets killed when she tries to do it again to the new leader.
    • In the newest book, we have Quean Vilaya-Zwilt the Shade
    • It is Standard Operating Procedure on Terramort that the Searat King defends his title with his own blade until meets a superior fighter and is slain. Said superior fighter becomes King.
  • Greypatch is especially notable as he succeeded and split off from Gabool, making himself another Big Bad.
• Start of Darkness: Slagar The Cruel was once known as Chickenhound, up to the point where Asmodeus bit him and disfigured his face.
• Strictly Formula: There are basically four Redwall plots: the siege, the kidnapping, the land quest, and the sea quest. And then there's the "solve the puzzle/rhyme/prophecy." All with lots and lots of Food Porn.
  • Subverted in the latest book; only one relatively minor prophecy, no great siege and no sea quest.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Friar Hugo is killed off not even halfway through Part 1 of Mattimeo. Later on, Warbeak and Log-a-Log also bite the dust.
  • Nutwing from The Long Patrol ended up as a Sacrificial Lamb in Marlfox.
  • Lady Cregga Rose Eyes almost subverted this trope. But then she took an arrow to the chest.
• Suffer the Slings
• Sundial Waypoint: Common in riddles in the series, such as in Mattimeo when the entrance to an underground city is located by following the shadow of a pine tree.
• Super Drowning Skills: King Agarnu died simply because he couldn't swim and because his fat body weighed him down when he was pushed into a lake.
• Supreme Chef: Most Redwallers, small woodland families, Beau (although that may just be in comparison to the rest of the crew), and the hares of Salamandastron.
• Surprise Creepy: Cute fluffy animals! That stab each other messily!
• Surrounded by Idiots: The Armies of most Big Bads consist of hundreds of complete morons who ignore obvious clues and frequently want to take command too.
  • Lampshaded in the very first book: Cluny The Scourge ponders the fact that his underlings generally are dumb as bricks and decides that their inability to think for themselves (and resulting obedience) outweighs their incompetence.
  • In the animated series Badrang screams this, verbatim, from the wall of his fortress after another failure. His minions are indeed phenomenally stupid; the dumbest in the whole show.
• Taking You with Me Cregga Roseyes, Lord Stonepaw, Lord Urthstripe, Luke the Warrior
  • Cregga doesn't die, though. She lasts two more books, and in the second one almost to the end.
• Talking to the Dead
• Talk Like a Pirate: See Funetik Aksent.
• Talking Animal: Every character.
• Terrible Ticking: Tsarmina hears water running constantly. It's real, as the heroes are diverting the lake under her castle; her minions just don't want to go down there to check as they're lazy and it's scary.
• Theme Naming: Most of the mice in the original novel had names beginning with "M".
  • And a lot of female mice in subsequent novels have been named after flowers.
  • In Salamandastron, all of the badgers save one have names beginning with Urth-
  • Also, several badgers have "stripe" in their names.
  • The squirrel warriors as well, "Reguba" is a common bloodline, and last name.
  • And many Big Bads have names like "Verminname the somethingevilsounding," "Verminname Combinationofonesyllableevilsoundingwords," "Verminname Punbasedonactualtraithad" and "Two-syllables one-syllable".
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Do NOT fuck with badgers, especially Lonna Bowstripe. He uses Raga Bol's body as a shield, and he's promptly impaled by a few spears. Afterwards, Lonna uses Raga's carcass as a flail to kill the other Searats. And then he chunks his grotesque body at a tree.
• They Call Him "Sword": Sunflash the Mace from Outcast. Also, Orlando the Axe.
  • Cluny the Scourge is partly named for his whip-like tail.
• Those Two Guys: Sneezewort and Lousewort. Technically Those Two Bad Guys, but they are so ineffectual as villains, they can't pull it off.
• Through a Face Full of Fur: The Redwall critters are constantly turning red from rage, green from seasickness, white with fury or fright, and pink with pleasure.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: In Mattimeo, Log-a-log slays Stonefleck with a sword throw.
• Thud and Blunder: Gruntan Kurdly's Catch Phrase
• Thunderbolt Iron: The Sword of Martin the Warrior was forged from metal taken from a "falling star" (meteorite).
• Tim Curry voices Slagar the Cruel in the TV series.
• Tome of Prophecy: The painted cavern behind the boulder.
• Too Dumb to Live: Ungatt Trunn, the Big Bad of Lord Brocktree. He has the single biggest army in the series, and he attempts to feed them by sending out only a few small foraging parties—with predictable results.
  • Ovus and Bluddbeak, two very old birds—one of whom is borderline blind—try to kill a trio of adders. By themselves. Guess who dies?
• Took a Level in Badass: Matthias, occurring literally as he gets his hands on Martin's sword. All of a sudden he has the strength, stamina, and fighting experience to go toe-to-toe with Cluny, a powerful and experienced rat warlord.
  • Dann too. He spends the first part of Marlfox being a "disappointment" to his father, and he even calls himself a coward when he and Song run away from Raventail (who had captured Dippler and Burble). He immediately decides to rescue his two friends, and when he encounters Raventail a second time, he beats the shit out of him. From that moment on his badassery just got better and better.
  • Martha and Horty Braebuck from Loamhedge. They're quite possibly the only two non-warrior Redwallers to do this without touching Martin's sword.
• Trademark Favorite Food: For the otters, it's hotroot soup. For the moles, it's Deeper-N'-Ever-Turnip-N'-Tater-N'-Beetroot-Pie. For seafaring beasts (good and bad alike) it's Skilly n' Duff. For the hares, it's pretty much anything.
• Training the Peaceful Villagers: Nearly every time Redwall proper is threatened, starting in the first book.
• Tribal Face Paint: In Taggerung, all the Juska clans have tattoos to signify which clan they are from. Tagg has an extra one on his cheek to signify that he is an unusual creature.
• Trrrilling Rrrs: Wrrrrraith.
• Tuckerization: Two fans named Samantha Kim and Laura were featured - with slight modifications - as "Samkim" and "Arula". Oddly enough, the character Samkim is a boy.
• Turtle Power: The "Walking Stone", a pet tortoise, is the symbol of kingship among wolverines. How such a creature (native to deserts and tropical climes) survives in the wolverines' icy homeland is not explained.
• Tsarist Russia: Mossflower, anyone? The villain was named Tsarmina!
• Tunnel King: The moles
• Two-Faced: Slagar the Cruel of Mattimeo, under his mask.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: Along with the usual reasons, this structure takes advantage of previous supporting cast (such as the Guosim shrews or the hares and badgers of Salamandstron) while still allowing for a new and unique party of adventurers to explore a new setting.

Tropes:U-Z

• Uncleanliness Is Next to Ungodliness: Most of the rank-and-file vermin, though a lot of the Big Bad characters avert it.
  • This is addressed in Loamhedge when Badredd gets garbage dumped on him and he takes a bath (his last one being last Spring): "Every vermin knows that bathin' weakens ye."
• Undefeatable Little Village
• Underdogs Never Lose: The good guys just about never have the numbers advantage and always win anyway because Right Makes Might.
• Unfamiliar Ceiling: This happens to the main character at least once a book.
• Ungrateful Bastard: A lot of major villains, thanks to running on It's All About Me, exhibit utter lack of gratitude or obligation to those who just helped them. Vilaya is probably the biggest example, killing a Mook who saved her life and still was on her side more or less just because said Mook refused to grovel before her.
• The Unfavorite: Veil, to the Abbeydwellers.
• Unfortunate Names: "Stiffener Medick"? Probably unintentional on the author's part, but one wonders how that got past the publisher. "Felch" might be even worse.
• Unstoppable Rage: Again, the Bloodwrath
• Unusual Euphemism: "Gorokkah!"
• Unwanted Spouse: Poor Bluefen.
• Verbal Tic: Those bally hares, wot wot?
  • Well, not so much a tic as a "question tag" based, like most of their dialect, on some of the posher Stock British Phrases, Wot?
  • Asmodeus has the habit of hissing his own name between sentences, and the bats repeat the last couple of words of every sentence, every sentence ...
  • Also, moles will say "ho urr", "burr aye", or something similar every few sentences.
  • Many birds make random screeches and squawks before and/or after sentences.
  • Rockjaw Grang tends to say "sithee" a lot.
  • When doesn't Lousewort start a sentence with "er"?
  • Tutty Pollspike has a habit of starting her sentences by shouting out "X 'n' X!"
• Villainous Breakdown: Several examples. Gabool the Wild in Mariel of Redwall does it most obviously and impressively. He goes from being evil but reasonably lucid to a gibbering insomniac who can't tell his followers from his sworn enemies and starts to believe that a plundered bell understands what he's saying and rings itself to mock him.
  • Slagar the Cruel in Mattimeo is already crazy at the start, blaming Matthias and the Redwallers for the horrible scarring on his face. By the end, he's pretty much raving, frantically reassuring himself that however events turn out, he will "win" somehow. He even plans to steal Matthias' sword, now convinced that it is magic and grants victory to whoever wields it.
  • Gulo starts out as being creepy, scary, and menacing, but after he survives falling down the waterfall, he becomes Ax Crazy, starts Laughing Mad, rambles about his dead brother and talks to himself—and inanimate objects, making him even scarier and creepier. Needless to say, his soldiers were scared out of their wits of him.
  • Tsarmina in Mossflower also does this. Granted she's being driven insane by a constant dripping noise and the fact that everything she tries to destroy the resistance fails.
  • Cap'n Clogg's really the only character who had a justified reason for his breakdown. After all, he did suffer a head injury.(Though who KNOWS what happened when Gulo fell down the waterfall - he could have hit his head as well.)
  • Justified with Baliss too, who was already blind and not-so-sane to begin with. After he gets a bunch of hedgehog spikes in his head, he spends the rest of the novel literally losing his mind and thrashing around killing anything in sight and trying to soothe his wounds.
• Villainous Glutton: Many vermin.
• Villain Song: The Pearls Of Lutra: Romsca's Badass Boast. Triss: The Freebooters have three.
  • And Flinky in Loamhedge has about six songs.
• Violence Really Is the Answer
• The Voiceless: Farran from Salamandastron and Muta from The Bellmaker.
• Waif Fu: Mariel Gullwhacker.
• Wacky Wayside Tribe: Used constantly. The Legend of Luke would only be one-third the length without it.
  • The Flitchaye could certainly count for this in Mariel of Redwall'. Their temporary capturing of Mariel and her friends serve little to no purpose but to add a couple of chapters extra padding. And after it's over, the travellers never mention them again.
    • Well, near the end of the book it does mention that the scattered survivors of Greypatch's pirate crew were fleeing towards Flitchaye territory, with the implication that it would be the end of them.
  • Used again in Doomwyte with the Gonflins, a literal tribe of thieves and robbers.
• Weapons Kitchen Sink: One of the major examples in child's fiction. Let's see, finely crafted light fencing rapiers? Pattern-welded meteoric iron broadswords? Giant axes? Tree trunks!? Just running at your enemy with teeth and claws!?!?!
• What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: The Duel of Insults in Marlfox. The characters shout insults at each other and react as if actually wounded.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Didn't some dormice let Cluny into Redwall or something? Some of the sparrows didn't die in Mattimeo, where did they go?
  • It is implied that Plumpen was forgiven for letting Cluny in (probably something to do with his family being threatened and whatnot.) And it would be difficult for 4 sparrows to repopulate the whole thing without some level of Inbreeding.
    • The family of dormice including Plumpen are outright stated to be helping Foremole in the postscript of Redwall, so either forgiven, given a minor punishment, or the Abbeydwellers never found out. The sparrows had also taken up residence in part of the Abbey yet only a handful of characters could speak their language, so they might have simply gone isolationist.
  • What happened to Sneezewort and Lousewort? After they ditch the Rapscallions, they're only mentioned one more time in The Long Patrol. After that it seemed like even the author forgot about them.
  • What happened to Tazzin and Scummy? Were they killed by Triss, Sagax, and their army of Redwallers, or did they escape to safety?
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Even the ones with names almost invariably die.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Toran borderline verbally abuses Martha after she learns how to walk, all because she was upset that Bragoon and Saro went to Loamhedge for no reason.
• Whip It Good: Cluny uses his own tail as a whip in Redwall and attaches a poisoned barb to the tip so he can use it as a lethal weapon. Not to mention the numerous slavedrivers who wield whips, notably Bullflay, whose name even seems to reflect his weapon of choice.
• Wicked Cultured: Emperor Ublaz (Pearls of Lutra), Vilu Daskar (The Legend of Luke), Queen Vilaya (The Sable Quean)
• Wicked Weasel: Weasels are Exclusively Evil, so...
• Wig, Dress, Accent: See Dressing as the Enemy. Jukka Sling, a squirrel, passes for a rat by shaving her tail.
• Wiki Rule: The Redwall Wiki
• World of Badass Adorable
• Would Hurt a Child: Slagar The Cruel, and how.
  • Vilaya actually does. And she doesn't just hurt a child, she kills one.
• Write Who You Know: Word of God is that Jacques based Gonff the Mousethief on his younger self, and Constance the badger was based on his grandmother.
  • If that's true, Jacques must have had an impressively Badass grandmother...
• Yank the Dog's Chain: So Martin's gathered up thousands of warriors, Marshank is slowly being overrun, Badrang is running away from his fortress in shame, and the Fur and Freedom Fighters have been saved. And after Badrang's gone, Martin and Rose will surely fall in love and live a peaceful life. What could possibly go wrong? ...Cue Badrang abruptly killing Rose.
• You Don't Want to Catch This: Keyla helps Martin and some other slaves escape from Marshank this way in Martin the Warrior.
• You Fight Like a Cow: Hares have a tendency to snark at their opponents when duelling. Also, the fight between Dippler and Fenno:

"I'll kill you just like I killed Log-a-log!"
"You can't. I'm facin' you, Fenno, you stabbed Log-a-log in the back!"

• You Have Failed Me...: The villains in the Redwall series sure do have a habit of killing their own henchmen....
• You No Take Candle: Sparrows and some of the more uncivilized vermin.
• You Shall Not Pass: Rockjaw Grang in The Long Patrol. Matthias attempts this in Mattimeo, but his allies refuse to actually leave him. Also Bragoon and Saro in Loamhedge.
  • Jukka the Sling and Fleetscut in Lord Brocktree, which is even more impressive considering they spent most of the book viciously insulting each other and nearly coming to blows more than once.