Extract from Reviews from an Evil Ferret Lass

[Sycamore]

Pulling from Ashira's thread because I don't want to completely derail the topic.

When we last left our heros!!!

Why wouldn't they eat woodlanders?

I know I should probably let the author handle this one, buuut...

Vermin are shown eating meat in the books, but it is always the "dumb beasts" of the Redwall universe - fish and small birds. There's kind of a big difference between eating an animal that warbles and hops around and doesn't speak or display any sign of advanced intelligence and eating something that walks on two legs like you, wears clothes and speaks your language.

And yeah, I know BJ isn't always consistent as far as what's sentient and what's not, but it seems to me that in most all the books woodpigeons are considered fair game. ;)

Not entirely true. We see cannibals all the time. Flitchaye, Gawtrybe, all those creatures. But what you said there is reversed. It's the dumb ones that eat the sentient critters and not the sentient critters eating the dumb ones.

Revel is like a nice mix between the two. A sentient critter eating a sentient critter.

well I'd still considered the "primitive" creatures like the Painted Ones, Gawtrybe, etc. to be sentient. They're smart enough to create their own culture, after all, it just happens to be quite a bit different from the one your standard Abbeybeast or vermin is accustomed to.

apologies for taking your thread off on this tangent, Ashira, I just enjoy these little debates too much :P

Well, by dumb I mean not smart and not non-sentient.

But they're just smart in a different wayyyyyy! A killing-and-eating-things way!

I've always had a soft spot for the Painted Ones and all those other crazycannibal tribes myself, even though they generally end up playing either the role of "persisting annoyance" or "temporary obstacle".

Show me a primitive society that is smart.

YES I will open up that can of worms.

[Captain Ashpaw]

[anthropologist]
Well, what's a primitive society?  

And what's smart?
[/anthropologist]

EDIT: I should say I'm posting this from the back of an anthro class that's very much about this sort of thing. 

[Sycamore]

An anthropomorphic class? That is so perfect.

[Cairn Destop]

I too wonder why the idea of cannables never took a hold in the BJ books.  It sure would be an interesting concept having one of the Painted Ones run into Redwall and experience culture clash, or have another beast wind up living for a time with the Painted Ones.  Be a bit of a twist on the Taggerrung theme.  Best of all on that second option, the critter that gets to live with them could be woodlander or vermin.

[Dirgecallers]

Um...Cairn...Painted ones actually DID enter Redwall in 'Doomwyte'.
As I recall that was the first book where a vermin actually made an honourable revenge against a 'goodbeast'.

[Jarrtail]

What about Folgrim? He was most definently non-"primitive," but he did cannibalize at least once during the book.

[Eliza Lacrimosa]

With regard to Sycamore's query for a "Primitive Society That Is Smart", I'm tempted to reference the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy", and the African bushmen therein.  If you've never seen that movie, you are missing out!

"Smart" is a pretty relative term. Tribal cultures have a way of life that "civilized" people probably couldn't relate to terribly well. For instance, they have no cars, so it takes them longer to get places, but they definitely have no flat tires or hit-and-runs...

[Sparrowhawk]

Putting arguments about differing cultural perspectives aside, knowledge =/= intelligence. So even if you assume concrete facts do exist and there are things that are true about the universe, and some people know these things and others are wrong about them...

Painted Ones still eatyourface. :D

but anyway wasn't I arguing about cannibalism in the Redwall universe? with someone? I still don't think "meat is meat". Common vermin may be criminals but they still have standards, even if you could argue they are somewhat arbitrary.

EDIT: ohyeah. "The Gods Must Be Crazy" is a childhood fave.

[Ada Veen]

Take an African art class! Cool fact: many African cultures conceptualized abstract art centuries before the western world did. I don't just mean "ooh, pretty colors," but the idea of "pure" forms and elements not borrowed from the visual sphere. That might not seem very complex, but think about how long it took for folk like Picasso get to that idea.

Lalala, I love art.~

BTW, Eliza, I love that movie.

[Damask the Minstrel]

To be fair, Ada, by saying that it took years for Picasso to 'get to' that idea, you have just qualified abstraction as better than realism or direct representation.

Picasso was disadvantaged as he came from a society that put a premium on realism -- from classicism on, it was seen as the best form of art, and really the only one worth teaching. Since I'm assuming those African cultures don't have documented art history, we don't know if it was encouraged in their society or not.

(And I wouldn't say that Picasso was the first, or even a good example of abstraction. Dada is a much better example, if you want to stick to early Western Abstraction)

If my undergrad had had an art history minor, I so would have been all over it...

[Ada Veen]

Yes, I know, it's my major.

I'm just trying to speak in general terms most non-art nerds will understand, where "get to" = the development and flow of ideas temporally, most certainly not a qualifying term*, and where "Picasso" = easily-accessible example. Because, I mean, really, what do most people think of when they think of abstration? And thanks to frequent trade between West African cultures and the Portuguese, we actually have a vast understanding of their history and the development of their arts. I'm speaking very broadly, but there's a strong emphasis on figurative and representational forms.

* I'm a ho for Sargent, if that tells you anything about my tastes.

[Damask the Minstrel]

Just keeping you honest!

(I loved studying Dada, but one of my personal favorites is Daniel Maclise. Not his little Dickens-related stuff, but his Pre-Raphaelite-100-years-too-late stuff. I'm a sucker for cherub-looking maidens painted with extreme precision. I know it's out of style with the art world, but I can't help it. They're so preddy!)

[Ada Veen]

(I loved studying Dada, but one of my personal favorites is Daniel Maclise. Not his little Dickens-related stuff, but his Pre-Raphaelite-100-years-too-late stuff. I'm a sucker for cherub-looking maidens painted with extreme precision. I know it's out of style with the art world, but I can't help it. They're so preddy!)

OH MY GOD YOU KNOW DANIEL MACLISE OH MY GOD BRB HYPERVENTILATING LOL FOREVER

FRANKLIN BOOTH YES?! YES?!

[Damask the Minstrel]

Yes... I never got around to it, but I started doing research for a paper on symbolism in Maclise's art.

</Artdorkness>

EDIT: One of my favorite pictures, ever: http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=4935

[Revel]

Common vermin /=/ cannibalizing primitive tribes.

We don't see vermin reactions to these tribes very often do we? It's always the woodlanders who get caught and almost eaten. They seem to shrug off the fact they're going to get eaten until they clever their way out of it. There's very little horror at the idea, maybe because they're too busy trying to escape?

But imagine one of your own started eating sentient critters out of the blue. You know they're smart they can think, and you have to wonder what they now think. You'll begin wonder who they're thinking of next. That's where the real horror comes in.

The Gawtrybe weren't cannibals, were they? They were squirrels. It doesn't make sense for them to want to eat Martin and Co. I only remember them playing "games"