Yeah when you look back on those books as an adult, the Redwallers are kind of...full on racist? XD
There's not really any explicit reason that Veil had to be evil just because he was a ferret, and they constantly treated him like an outsider so it's not surprising that he wouldn't feel part of their community

Yes. But the converse of this is also true. Veil did not have to attempt to murder that abbot, nor did he have to stab those foxes in the throat as they slept.

Oh, fuck, he handsome.

I'm not familiar with this specific character, but I only read maybe three of the books and watched the first two seasons of the series. Sounds like he needs a hug, though.

He's the son of a bandit lord who got abandoned, and some of the Redwallers decide to raise him to see if all ferrets are pure evil. He grows up to be a murderer and thief but they never really gave him a fair shot and every person in Redwall was acting like he was a loaded gun every moment of his life, even when he was a baby

Figures. Poor longboi.

That was the book that pretty much made me stop reading Redwall. :P Pretty much all of my favorite species are portrayed as inherently evil no matter what, and that doesn't sit well with me at all.

Although somehow I don't think I picked up on his name being an anagram of "evil" and "vile"....

Nice depiction of him though! :)

Yeah for all that the badger mother was like oooh I'll give him a chance, she wrote a poem about how she chose that name for him because she knew he was going to turn out evil no matter what. Way to give a baby the benefit of the doubt, abbess

It's really frustrating because they gave Veil no chances, and then he sacrifices himself to save the woman who raised him, she goes back to the abbey, says Veil was evil from the beginning, and gets made Abbess. Not to mention, despite being called "Outcast of Redwall", Veil isn't even the primary protagonist - Sunflash the Mace is.

And then Taggerung came around and did the exact opposite situation of Outcast and STILL ended up playing right into Jacques' usual tropes for goodbeasts and vermin. Those two books together pretty much encapsulate the problems of most of the Redwall books. Makes it hard to go back and enjoy what had been one of my gateway series into the Furry Fandom.

This is a really nice rendition of Veil, though!

Yeah the sacrifice thing is insane. Badger mother sees him finally do something good and make the ultimate sacrifice and immediately goes "Huh, guess he was trash after all. Off to run redwall!"
Are you kidding me! And yeah, it's also unfair that they do a reverse-veil and someone who gets raised by "vermin" still ends up good because I guess you're just born with it.

What's frustrating about Veil is that he spent the whole book being a dick, and then died trying to save someone he was too stubborn to admit he cared about. And that's when it was decided "Oh yeah, he was evil all along. Screw him. Happy ending!" WTF dude.

Honestly I would've been fine with this entire subplot if someone at least called out the Redwallers on their prejudiced bullshit. I don't really know why they went this route when The Bellmaker had a rat pirate named Blaggut eventually become good and the Redwallers spared his life when he surrendered himself to them. And they even allowed him to stay and help them from time to time.

I Don't remember the book treating it a a selfless act. I remember it being written that he was trying to kill her, and took a spear in the process.

Veil struck Swartt hard in the face, tearing the captive from his gasp. "Byrony, get out of 'ere. Run!"
Swartt flung himself on Veil and, while the ferrets fought, Bryony ran to where the knife had fallen from her mouth. Grabbing it, she began hacking at the ropes binding the Badger Lord's paws, screaming "Get up! Sunflash! Get up!"
Swartt threw his son down and raised his javelin for a throw he could not miss. 'The badger's mine!', he yelled.

Bryony turned and saw him throw the javelin. Something blurred across the front of her, shouting 'Leave 'er alone! uuuuh!'

Then Veil lay across her footpaws, the javelin protruding horribly where it exited at his back.

Outcast was still pretty early on, so maybe by Bellmaker he had decided the "all vermin are evil" thing could use some softening. But yeah I really wanted Veil to turn out ok, he was my fave

The difference between how Veil and Tagg were treated was sheer fantastic racism. Shit still makes me mad. Why did Tagg get a happy ending, but Veil was irredeemably evil? Ruined the series for me. He looks beautiful in your artwork!

It would be great to see more redwall characters done your style 😳

I know it was a kids book, but I still feel like There wasn't a lot of justification for where his character went and did. I just wish things had been different for him.

I had a lot of fantasies/self-insert concepts as a teenager about how I would have been his friend and things could have turned out better, haha

I get ya. I always found battered and jealous characters more relatable. Veil, or Gilda from MLP for example. This was more than a decade ago I read the book too. Teenage me being a social outcast found Veil the most relatable

Oh lordy, this brings back memories <3 thank you for this pic. Veil was actually one of my favorite character

Mine too! I wanted him to be ok so badly!

Reminds me of the Marlfox book where I love the idea of a species that was hyped up to be these ghosts that can just appear everywhere. Heck, I even tried to emulate them in a few characters I had in the past.

But now that I think back, it was sort of crappy that they were this race that was rumored to be mystical, had an entire castle and armor at their disposal, and then end up going extinct by the end of the book by the most herp derp of ways :/

*army at their disposal.

Marlfox is a cool one yeah. I really want to draw more Redwall.

In all seriousness, I actually would pay a commission for more >_>;

Redwall's got really rich lore. ...and unfortunately a lot of inborn/Calvinist tropes. ...which, oddly enough, is how I also see Biker Mice from Mars.

I remember this book.

I do agree with you, and dang, reading the comments for this image and the description really soured my appreciation for Redwall, though I kind of felt the same way with handling the “wisdom”

Yeah I remember reading that book and being *really* unhappy with how it ended. It made no sense - and I was an impressionable kid who didn't really question what they were reading all that often, so it stood out even then.

I think at one point I tried to join a Redwall dream in Furcadia, as well, and happened to be using the mustelid avatar, only to be informed I'd pretty much *have* to be a bad guy for any roleplaying, purely because of that.

I didn't go back to that dream.

Veil was my favorite character. I don't care what Jacques said, I think he had good inside him