Things Better Left Unvisited:
Exactly What It Sounds Like, Mates
My distinguished readers, we take you now again to the sex life of the average Abbey Sister or Brother...
Well, not quite. I'm not getting into the sexual innuendo thing with naked squirrels and swords pleasing pretty haremaids again. But what I have to say this time has a lot to do with the hanky-panky of anthropomorphized mice and hedgehogs.
Babies. Or Dibbuns, if you're in an Abbey at the moment.
Think about this: What is it like at the Abbey of Redwall?
There's peace, no killing off of beasts randomly (except for the occasional war or accident.)
They have shockingly good medicinal capabilities.
They are completely self-sufficient, producing enough food to have massive excesses come every feast.
They seem to worship children (or at least treat them like they're perfect little angels *retch*).
So now.
What's keeping their population at a steady much-less-than-the-vermin-army-has level? The vermin creatures are often shown scrounging for food just to make it through a day, having shoddy medicine, constantly getting slaughtered by the hundreds, not giving less than a crap about starting families, treating their kids like less than a crap when they do, and... the list goes on.
So why are there always more of them than the woodlanders or Abbeybeasts?
Let's assume even that the mice and squirrels and rabbits and ferrets and rats and whatnot have only the reproductive capacity of a human (Ha. "only". Me, you kill me.) and not the actual real life organisms they represent. Let's say that one pair of dearly beloved Abbey mice can have upwards of ten babies in their lifetime, and most survive given herbal medicine and general well-being know-how. Let's assume that Redwall starts with around one hundred mousey monks and woodlander converts.
In fifty seasons, they ought to have at least, the very freakin' least, risen their number to over six hundred. That's assuming they and their kids and their grandkids, possibly some great-grandkids, only had a measly three Dibbuns per pair. And that's counting a war that wipes out about a third of them. And in another ten seasons, there ought to be at least, again the very freakin' least, over two thousand Redwallers.
So how is it that in Long Patrol, after no great war or anything which killed large numbers of creatures off, that the Redwallers only manage to scrounge up barely three hundred fighters? That's including help from woodlanders. In fact, it's mostly help from woodlanders. That's pathetic!
How are they doing this, you and I may ask?
I have no freakin' clue. The answer cannot be found.
At least Redwallverse creatures breed more like humans and less like what they're based on. Or my head would explode from the mathematical impossibility.
It's things like that that make Jube look like an only child...
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.