Things Better Left Unvisited:
Exactly What It Sounds Like, Mates.
The ability of woodlanders to easily curbstomp the vermin foe has been demonstrated again and again (and again and again and again and again...) in each and every book in the series. This is great if you hate the main bad guy and would like to see him get killed in some really horrible way, but does it make sense?
Well, here's a little ditty about armor and weapons. I'm kidding, it's not a song and it doesn't even rhyme. In Redwall the "goodbeast" forces have been openly stated to prefer arrows and javelins and various other pointy weapons made by simply fire-hardening the sharpened tips. Do you see the problem yet? You will.
Well, the "vermin" don't do this unless they're poor as dirt. They put flint, or iron, or steel heads on their arrows, making them real freaking arrows and not just the sharp little twigs I used to shoot from a fake bow made of a maple branch when I was twelve.
...Oooookay, that was off-topic.
Back to the show:
The second part of this weapon junkie talk is the armor junkie talk. How many of the woodlander characters have been described wearing armor? Good armor? Aside from Martin the Warrior and the majority of the Badger Lords the answer is almost NONE. And the mustelid and such? Whole armies of them have chainmail, their Warlords have chestpieces and gauntlets and helms of all metals. That's right, metals. Guess who doesn't put metals strong enough to pierce that kind of armor on their arrows? Guess who doesn't wear armor 90% of the time?
WHY DO THOSE DANGED SQUIRRELS KEEP PUNTING RATS IN STEEL SUITS LEFT AND RIGHT WITH FLIMSY TIPLESS ARROWS?
Want more funny? Here's some of the most iconic scenes in various books rewritten with this set of wierd coincidences in mind, and with an appreciation of Adventure Time:
*Martin Kills Badrang the Tyrant*
The Tyrant was surely screwed. The brave daring wonderful incredibly violent mouse warrior had wrenched his father's mighty (also old and very much used) sword so that it was hovering just an INCH FROM THE STOAT'S RAPIDLY BEATING HEART.
"EEEEK!" Badrang squealed like a little girl, "DON'T KEEEEEEEELL MEEEEEE!"
Chnk! ...Chnk, Chnk, Chnk! CHNK!
The chnk-y noise was that of the mouse's wondrous (and at this point un-mythril) sword dinking off of Badrang's aforementioned shiny new breastplate. The evil stoat grinned and made a smug gesture with his paw.
"Heh. Armor," he pointed out, "Chk-chk!"
*Lady Amber's Squirrels Fighting the Troops At Kotir*
Huge volleys of arrows, none of which actually had anything resembling an arrowhead, hissed by in a way that surely sounded lethal. But when Lady Amber looked up she was shocked (somewhat racistly at that--seriously, why are woodlanders so amazed when vermin are competent?!) that none of the ferrets or weasel had died. Well, except that one flirting with his childhood sweetheart on the end who forgot to raise his shield, but screw that, everyone knows vermin have hearts of raw sewage and don't love anything but plunder.
The line of musteline creatures all made a smug gesture as they picked splintered bits of shattered pathetic wooden arrow from their FREAKING FULL-BODY CHAINMAIL TUNICS. In unison they taunted:
"Armor! Chk-chk!"
Well, no wonder the badgers seem so invincible.
More may follow. If you like, you may leave an as-of-yet unanswered bit of unusual Redwall yore as a suggestion, but it is more than likely I'll cover the grand majority of oddness and unmentioned unmentionableness.