This week's theme is to think of and answer three questions that you would ask someone if you were giving a quiz the book you are reading. I have to admit, this was a tough theme to write for. I eventually came up with the following.
What do you think the theme of Rakkety Tam is supposed to be?
In my opinion, the theme is Good vs. Bad. In fact, this is pretty much the basic structure of all the Redwall books. To start off with in this story you have Tam and Doogy, free squirrels who have pledged loyalty to a self-proclaimed king and then end up imprisoned for questioning his controversial rule. While this is going on, enter Gulo, who steals a very important banner and kills many of the other squirrels. Tam and Doogy are promised their freedom if they find and return the banner. They eventually do this and remove the king from. Throughout the book, we see others besides Tam and Doogy -hares and woodlanders- who are fighting against Gulo to avenge friends and rid their homeland from this army that has attacked them. As with most Redwall stories, though there may be losses and hardships, good still manages to triumph over evil.
What humor did you find in the book?
Well, Rakkety Tam is a rather serious book about a warrior regaining his honor, but as with all Redwall stories, there was still humor to be found. One thing in particular that I found to be very funny was the Walking Stone. This object is what Gulo is looking for, as it will give him full authority in his home kingdom. But of course, his brother steals it and hides it. When I read the book I figured that the stone was just that, a stone; but, that would be too ordinary. You can't use an actual stone for the Walking stone, no, you need some thing better...like a turtle! Yes, Brian Jacques went and pulled a fast one on his unsuspecting readers. It actually makes sense to use a turtle, but the way it just popped up out of the blue made me laugh . It also begs a question: What did this poor turtle do that it ended up in a snowy kingdom as a power symbol for a group of anthropophagic wolverines?
If you had to make up a negative ending for this book, what would it be and why?
Given that all of the Redwall stories end with some sort of happy/ good-beats-evil/ woodlanders-outwit-stupid-vermin- kind of ending, this should be fun. First of all, Gulo would ultimately win in the end, that's all there is to it. The Walking Stone would go back to it's miserable life as a symbol of power (Lord, help that poor turtle.) Tam would never regain his freedom as a warrior and die some horribly painful death that I won't go into detail about. As for Doogy, Gulo would actually carry out his threat at the end of the book and burn him at the stake. Redwall Abbey, being that it's inhabitance are either dead or enslaved, would be taken over by albino vermin and completely trashed. I think that's everything... no, wait, its not. To finish it all off, Yoofus the volethief would get away with stealing the sword of Martin the Warrior. Then he'd probobly go and lose it someway or another and Redwall stories would forever lose their meaning.
Total Time Read: 11 hours, 30 minutes
