redwall

matsushima posting in

Nobody has updated this community for a very long time. I've been on a Redwall kick lately and I'd love to find some other fans.
Here's my prompt, for anyone who happens to see this: What's your take on the biological essentialism of the worldbuilding?
Personally, I'm OK with saying, "I love Redwall and I can acknowledge that it's not perfect, and this is probably its biggest flaw." I was surprised to see people tweeting about the possible Netflix show and saying they were glad it was maybe-canceled because the "woke mob" would "ruin" it by changing that.

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From:

ysabetwordsmith

>>Nobody has updated this community for a very long time. <<

Go you!

>> I've been on a Redwall kick lately and I'd love to find some other fans.<<

I've read a bit of it. I'm not a fan of Redwall per se, but I am a fan of anthropomorphic fiction and fables in general, thus interested in a wide variety of examples.

>> Here's my prompt, for anyone who happens to see this: What's your take on the biological essentialism of the worldbuilding?
Personally, I'm OK with saying, "I love Redwall and I can acknowledge that it's not perfect, and this is probably its biggest flaw." <<

I actually like biological issues in speculative fiction, including anthropomorphism. When something is hardwired in a given species as written, that reminds us that, no matter how fucked up our local-Earth is, most of our problems are strictly of our own making. We don't have hardwired racism that is difficult or impossible to break. We just have some loosey-goosey instincts that sometimes get in our way, but can be gotten around if we apply our higher brains to the problem; and a bunch of cultural claptrap that some idiots made up and other idiots keep passing around. Addressing such issues in fiction, particularly with characters who really are hardwired to have certain problems, encourages us to think about such things in different ways. And sometimes that illuminates solutions that would work in both worlds, or work for us but not the hapless characters.

Other examples include the Prime Races of World Tree, which is also anthropomorphic; Zootopia made explicit plot points about predatory instincts and biology vs. culture. On a different but related note, see females being unable to become Diagnosticians in Sector General.

I found one fascinating example that I can't remember the name of now, which had characters who shifted between human and animal form. They had to spend some time in each, and most folks went about half and half, but there were subcultures that very strongly favored their human or animal side and spent as much time as possible that way. The need to shift was hardwired; the preference of form was up to individuals or subcultures. And they had to contend with having both predator and prey types living together without killing each other.

In my own writing, I do a fair bit with primals in Polychrome Heroics (people whose superpowers involve animal traits), animal soups (animals with superpowers), and a few other types such as mystic shifters (who can change into mythical and natural animals). For some of these characters, the animal traits are essentially cosmetic and do not significantly influence their personality or instincts. But for others the influence is profound. Very often, instead of having an "ape brain" (along with the lizard brain and human brain) what they have is a "goat brain" or whatever other type of animal they are. They have the set of survival instincts, social dynamics, and other internal programming that goes with their other species rather than human. How hardwired that is typically depends on how many animal trait they have; the more animalistic they look, and especially the more animal body parts and senses they have, the harder it usually is to resist that biological programming. It's usually not impossible altogether, but it is often impossible to resist certain things, like jumping at loud noises or pouncing on things that move.

As a writer and a reader, I find it very interesting to explore the pros and cons of different species, their bodies, their senses, their worldviews. I like exploring the challenges that characters face in dealing with their bodies and their feelings, especially in a mixed society with multiple species mingling. That includes how humans here interact with other species -- I'm fluent enough in Wolf to greet a pack at a zoo and usually get a reply, one of them will look up and greet me as a fellow wolf. I'm fluent enough in Cat to pronounce "Come, kittens, I have brought food" well enough to get a response before they have learned that "Here kitty kitty" means the same thing in English. Thinking about different species and cultures in speculative fiction, what is hardwired or not, makes it easier for me to apply those questions and derive actionable answers here.

So then, when I'm reading a story that has some element of hardwiring in the species, I enjoy mulling that over in psychological or sociological terms. What effects does this have on the characters? Does it make them seem more or less like humans? How does it make their lives easier or harder? What distinctive imprint does it put on their society? Does the author seem to agree or disagree with the premises at play in the story?

>> I was surprised to see people tweeting about the possible Netflix show and saying they were glad it was maybe-canceled because the "woke mob" would "ruin" it by changing that. <<

It doesn't surprise me. I'm often concerned that a screen version will mishandle or remove something that I consider essential to a story. This happens a lot. And the "woke mob" is not well versed in literature, storytelling, screenwriting, or anything else relevant to constructing a cohesive and entertaining narrative. It leads to a lot of box-ticking and preaching that is clunky and off-putting. I love diversity; I enjoy racebending and genderbending. But if you just tack that onto a pre-existing narrative with no support, it rarely works well.

The problem gets exponentially worse if you rip out something that actually is a load-bearing part of the worldbuilding put there deliberately. Then you're not just messing with the surface, you're messing with the infrastructure, and most people don't know how to do that because most work from the surface in, not the core out. Not knowing what you are doing leads to bad results. Say they remove the biological determinism from Redwall. Suddenly everything built on that -- all the cultural stuff attached to it, the problems the characters have because of it, the type of solutions that do or do not work -- it all changes. If people don't map out what that one change does, what else it influences, then the result will almost certainly be chaos and not in a fun way.

Conversely, look at Elementary. That's a favorite example because it doubles up racebending and genderbending, then very thoughtfully examines how a female Asian Dr. Watson differs from a male British Dr. Watson. The challenges the characters face, and the solutions they find, fit with that context. The change becomes a fundamental, load-bearing part of that specific iteration of the Holmes cycle, and it is handled just brilliantly.

Alas, this is the exception rather than the norm. Most screenwriters aren't that good. So if I hear that they plan to change something major, I am often leery of it, especially if it's a thing that I like about the original. If it's a thing I dislike, then I have to wonder if they'll excise the bad part capably or just rip it out and leave the loose ends flapping around. 0_o I'm not against changing things per se, but in my observation, few people have the necessary skills to do it well. It's more often done badly than well, which has the frustrating effect of making folks believe it can't be done well, so they either hate the whole concept or they put up with junk thinking there is no alternative.

From:

matsushima

I think the biological essentialism of Redwall bothers me because it doesn't feel particularly well thought out. One of my favorite things about the series is that it's quite thrown together. Are they mice living in a human-size world or not? It seems to shift scale to whatever is cooler, which I genuinely admire. Where it falls apart for me is when Jacques tries to respond (Outcast of Redwall, Taggerung*) and it becomes clear that the worldbuilding was never particularly sturdy. Why are badgers the "good guys" if badgers eat mice? Rats don't eat mice.

I doubt the Netflix show would change much about it, honestly. The whining about the "woke mob" were not good faith questions that you raised about paranoid and reparative reading, etc., but more in line with the Star Wars fans complaining about ""white genocide"" because a Black man used a lightsaber on screen. Like you said, I think there are ways for thoughtful adaptations to change fundamental aspects of a text (Interview with the Vampire, e.g., engages deeply with questions of race in the original books) but I think the text needs to be sturdy enough to stand up to it.

I genuinely, deeply love Redwall (I'm literally wearing a Tapestry of Martin t-shirt right now!) but one of the things I really like about it is that it doesn't come out of the Tolkien School of World Building. It's much more closely aligned with Narnia, where Father Christmas shows up and there are satyrs and Mrs. Beaver has a sewing machine because Lewis thinks that's neat. (Like I said, I actually prefer that style of storytelling.) That changes how much an adaptation can push back against the original text without toppling the whole thing over. You can question some of the stuff in Narnia but you can't take out the Christ narrative of Aslan's death or it doesn't make sense. I think the biological essentialism in Redwall is less intentional but equally foundational.

I also wonder how much it matters that Dr. Watson and Louis de Pointe du Lac appeared on screen in pretty faithful adaptations before Elementary and the HBO Max versions? There was a Redwall TV show (I watched it!) but it didn't get the same mainstream recognition as the 1994 Interview with the Vampire film.

*It has been a very, very long time since I read either of those, because I didn't particularly care for them, so I'm willing to be wrong about this.

Edited Date: 2023-02-14 12:40 pm (UTC)

From:

rc88

Rats do eat mice, they just don't hunt them: https://www.quora.com/How-do-rats-react-to-mice And the bioessentialism in Redwall is based on folkloric portrayals of the species, not reality.

From:

matsushima

Fair enough, especially the point about how the good:neutral:evil alignments are based more in folklore than biological reality. (I'm thinking also of cats who are, surprisingly, neutral and even good!)