Post by Harkovast on Jun 16, 2017 16:54:41 GMT
A few people have commented over the years that Harkovast reminds them of Redwall, a series of books about animals have adventures and sword fights.
Now I hadn't actually read the books and was only dimly aware of them, so when I saw one at the library I gave it a read.
And it was pretty good. Its more like actual animals that cant talk and stand up, rather than humanoid creatures that resemble animals.
The main problem I had with the story was that the villains were described at the start as being a fearsome and terrifying horde of warriors with a lead (Cluny the Scourge) who was the most bad ass killing machine around, but during the story this never seemed to be the case.
The bad guys spend the whole book trying repeatedly to get into the Abbey there the good animals are and fucking it up. By the end there is a serious sense of villain decay, as there is only so many time Cluny can fuck things up and still convince us he is threatening.
His minions incompetent or treacherous (The only one that seems at all good at his job gets pushed out of a tree by another one who wants to take his job!)
At the end the bad guys have all the good animals captured, but decide to gloat rather than just murdering them all, thus allowing reinforcements to show up and kill them all. I kept wanting a scene where Cluny wails on a load of good animals to remind us that he is meant to be scary, but it never happens, until in the end the hero does him in during single combat.
I've looked over some other books in the series, and they generally follow this similar pattern, with some horde of evil animals threatening the peaceful animals, with the horde being lead by a villain that gets bigged up a lot but then seems pretty useless when it comes to getting anything done.
There was one feature of them that struck me as really odd.
The animals are divided by species into various groups with have specific traits. So the Hares are all kind of bonkers, but good fighters, the mice are the normal ones, the badgers are big and gruff etc.
Now what gets weird is that there are several types of animals that are considered evil.
Rats, weasels, ferrets, foxes and a few others are all totally arseholes.
They have differences between the different evil animal groups (foxes are more sneaky, where as rats are more directly war like) but they are all completely evil shits.
This isn't so noticeable when you read just one book, but when you read more it starts to become kind of odd that there are entire racial groups that are entirely evil and seemingly without any virtue at all.
The author Brian Jacques, when asked if there could ever be any good characters from amongst the various "vermin" species he specifically said no. It was his intention that the morality in his story should be pretty clear, with good guys who are good and bad guys who are bad, so he didn't want to muddy the sides.
Now other than the fact that I think weasels, rats, foxes and cats are cool animals that I would want as main characters (though he does have good squirrels and badgers, so at least there is that), I think there are really weird implications to such an arrangement.
If all vermin are always evil, that suggests that any peace with them is hopeless, as they will always ultimately attempt to do evil again. In a world like that, the only way to have peace would be to just kill off the evil races, otherwise they will always be regrouping to start war again.
Fun fact, very early on while working out Harkovast, there were actually intended to be "bad" races who would serve almost exclusively as villains.
Onrapa, Zadakine, Junlocks, Ivos and Golta were all added in with this intention. The idea was that they would have been corrupted by the West and now serve as lesser minions for the forces of evil, so the heroes wouldn't just be beating up Nameless all the time.
As I worked on it, I ended up having more ideas for them and their cultures expanded to the point that I couldn't really view them as just bad guys anymore, and they got represented in a more sympathetic way.
This is what led to the whole concept of different races having different points of view on things, with which faction are evil monsters and which are brave heroes depending on who you ask.
What gets more interesting with Redwall is that there is actually a book that directly addresses whether one of the vermin has the potential for good.
The answer, rather distressingly, is pretty much no.
The son of Ferret warlord gets left behind his army is chased away, and he gets raised by a kindly mouse in they abbey.
Basically he is a complete jerk to everyone, even trying to bite people when he was a baby. As he gets older, he is generally nasty and unlikable to everyone and steals things all the time and lies about it. (I should point out, all the vermin are not just evil, but total jerks, being horrible to each other all the time) His behaviour culminates in him trying to poison someone and getting banished from the abbey.
He heads off in search of his father, followed by his adopted mother, who he a total jerk to.
Now you might be guessing there would be come reconciliation with his adopted mother, but it doesn't really work out that way.
He ultimately jumps in front of speak that is meant for her, which is basically the first nice thing he has ever done in the whole story.
He expresses annoyance with her before dying.
Afterwards, she comes to the conclusion that he probably didn't realise that his father was really going to throw the spear when he jumped in front of her, and so really was just entirely evil the whole time.
A lot of readers came away from this a bit shocked, since to them it seemed like Veil had finally proved he wasn't entirely evil.
Unfortunately, Brian Jacques has passed away, so we can't ask him to clarify his intentions, but its one of the few morally unclear things in the entire series.
Based on the way Jacques normally writes and his intention to be straight forward, it seems likely he meant for us to agree that Veil was just a bad egg the whole time.
But with the death of the author (literally and figuratively) a lot of people came to the alternate conclusion that Veil was actually a victim of circumstances and prejudice.
His name, Veil was chosen because its an anagram of Evil or Vile, and everyone acts like the mouse maid taking him in is being naive, since he is clearly going to be dangerous.
The story takes the Redwaller's side, but left a lot of readers feeling sorry for Veil.
This might be a result of modern sensibilities, when the idea of a group being "racially" evil or having bad blood feels rather uncomfortable.
I think there is also a desire in western cultures to see stories of redemption (maybe that's an influence of the Christian origins on our culture?) so to be told a character was always bad beyond hope feels depressing, and it makes the characters journey feel pointless.
If a group of beings are racially doomed to be evil and unpleasant, can you even call them evil? Don't you have to be capable of making a choice to do good or evil? Someone has to have a potential to do good in order to do evil, and vice versa, in my way of thinking.
A robot built to kill people, or one programmed to help people, are not good or evil. Both robots are just doing the function they were made for.
So if the vermin really can't resist being evil, they don't seem to be evil, as their actions are beyond their control.
There is also the fact that a species that is constantly evil and self serving wouldn't be able to get anything done (and the bad guys in Redwall fall foul of this almost constantly as the leaders treat their minions like shit and they all suffer chronic back stabbing disorder.)
But to end on a positive note, these books are great for gender equality.
There are loads of female characters in loads of different roles, including women on both sides acting as warriors, and getting no different treatment from anyone else.
Female vermin are as evil as the males and get killed off with just as much enthusiasm.
Has anyone else read any of the books?
If so, what did you make of them?
Now I hadn't actually read the books and was only dimly aware of them, so when I saw one at the library I gave it a read.
And it was pretty good. Its more like actual animals that cant talk and stand up, rather than humanoid creatures that resemble animals.
The main problem I had with the story was that the villains were described at the start as being a fearsome and terrifying horde of warriors with a lead (Cluny the Scourge) who was the most bad ass killing machine around, but during the story this never seemed to be the case.
The bad guys spend the whole book trying repeatedly to get into the Abbey there the good animals are and fucking it up. By the end there is a serious sense of villain decay, as there is only so many time Cluny can fuck things up and still convince us he is threatening.
His minions incompetent or treacherous (The only one that seems at all good at his job gets pushed out of a tree by another one who wants to take his job!)
At the end the bad guys have all the good animals captured, but decide to gloat rather than just murdering them all, thus allowing reinforcements to show up and kill them all. I kept wanting a scene where Cluny wails on a load of good animals to remind us that he is meant to be scary, but it never happens, until in the end the hero does him in during single combat.
I've looked over some other books in the series, and they generally follow this similar pattern, with some horde of evil animals threatening the peaceful animals, with the horde being lead by a villain that gets bigged up a lot but then seems pretty useless when it comes to getting anything done.
There was one feature of them that struck me as really odd.
The animals are divided by species into various groups with have specific traits. So the Hares are all kind of bonkers, but good fighters, the mice are the normal ones, the badgers are big and gruff etc.
Now what gets weird is that there are several types of animals that are considered evil.
Rats, weasels, ferrets, foxes and a few others are all totally arseholes.
They have differences between the different evil animal groups (foxes are more sneaky, where as rats are more directly war like) but they are all completely evil shits.
This isn't so noticeable when you read just one book, but when you read more it starts to become kind of odd that there are entire racial groups that are entirely evil and seemingly without any virtue at all.
The author Brian Jacques, when asked if there could ever be any good characters from amongst the various "vermin" species he specifically said no. It was his intention that the morality in his story should be pretty clear, with good guys who are good and bad guys who are bad, so he didn't want to muddy the sides.
Now other than the fact that I think weasels, rats, foxes and cats are cool animals that I would want as main characters (though he does have good squirrels and badgers, so at least there is that), I think there are really weird implications to such an arrangement.
If all vermin are always evil, that suggests that any peace with them is hopeless, as they will always ultimately attempt to do evil again. In a world like that, the only way to have peace would be to just kill off the evil races, otherwise they will always be regrouping to start war again.
Fun fact, very early on while working out Harkovast, there were actually intended to be "bad" races who would serve almost exclusively as villains.
Onrapa, Zadakine, Junlocks, Ivos and Golta were all added in with this intention. The idea was that they would have been corrupted by the West and now serve as lesser minions for the forces of evil, so the heroes wouldn't just be beating up Nameless all the time.
As I worked on it, I ended up having more ideas for them and their cultures expanded to the point that I couldn't really view them as just bad guys anymore, and they got represented in a more sympathetic way.
This is what led to the whole concept of different races having different points of view on things, with which faction are evil monsters and which are brave heroes depending on who you ask.
What gets more interesting with Redwall is that there is actually a book that directly addresses whether one of the vermin has the potential for good.
The answer, rather distressingly, is pretty much no.
The son of Ferret warlord gets left behind his army is chased away, and he gets raised by a kindly mouse in they abbey.
Basically he is a complete jerk to everyone, even trying to bite people when he was a baby. As he gets older, he is generally nasty and unlikable to everyone and steals things all the time and lies about it. (I should point out, all the vermin are not just evil, but total jerks, being horrible to each other all the time) His behaviour culminates in him trying to poison someone and getting banished from the abbey.
He heads off in search of his father, followed by his adopted mother, who he a total jerk to.
Now you might be guessing there would be come reconciliation with his adopted mother, but it doesn't really work out that way.
He ultimately jumps in front of speak that is meant for her, which is basically the first nice thing he has ever done in the whole story.
He expresses annoyance with her before dying.
Afterwards, she comes to the conclusion that he probably didn't realise that his father was really going to throw the spear when he jumped in front of her, and so really was just entirely evil the whole time.
A lot of readers came away from this a bit shocked, since to them it seemed like Veil had finally proved he wasn't entirely evil.
Unfortunately, Brian Jacques has passed away, so we can't ask him to clarify his intentions, but its one of the few morally unclear things in the entire series.
Based on the way Jacques normally writes and his intention to be straight forward, it seems likely he meant for us to agree that Veil was just a bad egg the whole time.
But with the death of the author (literally and figuratively) a lot of people came to the alternate conclusion that Veil was actually a victim of circumstances and prejudice.
His name, Veil was chosen because its an anagram of Evil or Vile, and everyone acts like the mouse maid taking him in is being naive, since he is clearly going to be dangerous.
The story takes the Redwaller's side, but left a lot of readers feeling sorry for Veil.
This might be a result of modern sensibilities, when the idea of a group being "racially" evil or having bad blood feels rather uncomfortable.
I think there is also a desire in western cultures to see stories of redemption (maybe that's an influence of the Christian origins on our culture?) so to be told a character was always bad beyond hope feels depressing, and it makes the characters journey feel pointless.
If a group of beings are racially doomed to be evil and unpleasant, can you even call them evil? Don't you have to be capable of making a choice to do good or evil? Someone has to have a potential to do good in order to do evil, and vice versa, in my way of thinking.
A robot built to kill people, or one programmed to help people, are not good or evil. Both robots are just doing the function they were made for.
So if the vermin really can't resist being evil, they don't seem to be evil, as their actions are beyond their control.
There is also the fact that a species that is constantly evil and self serving wouldn't be able to get anything done (and the bad guys in Redwall fall foul of this almost constantly as the leaders treat their minions like shit and they all suffer chronic back stabbing disorder.)
But to end on a positive note, these books are great for gender equality.
There are loads of female characters in loads of different roles, including women on both sides acting as warriors, and getting no different treatment from anyone else.
Female vermin are as evil as the males and get killed off with just as much enthusiasm.
Has anyone else read any of the books?
If so, what did you make of them?