Marianne and the Song of Redwall: Character Page 2

Protagonists:
Marianne: She is a young squirrelmaid in her early teens. Described as plump and pretty, with large brown eyes and auburn fur, she is the assistant cook to Friar Jerome. 
Marianne is unhappy with the glum, dismal, systematic air that has taken over Abbey life. Creatures are distant from one another, faces seem to be sullen, and behavior fluctuates sharply between crisp, formal courtesy and high bad temper. Until Salome and Samuel arrives and she befriends the former, Marianne finds the most peace in the kitchens with Friar Jerome. She seems to enjoy her cooking work and loves to sing.
Marianne is Salome's friend and shares her fascination with what is dreamy and fantasy like about Redwall culture. However, she is not a particularly powerful or dynamic character. Yes, I am going to revise her, along with the rest of the story, but it wont change the fact that Marianne's role in the story must remain somewhat weak.
She is kind, good natured, sensible, just open-minded enough to reject any prejudices that would be detrimental to Salome and Samuel, highly patriotic towards Redwall, feisty, but not courageous enough to be an active heroine, and has no significant flaws. She functions mainly as Salome's friend and companion. Sheis not as close to Samuel, but respects him as a goodbeast and even has affectionate tears for him after he dies. She is visited by Martin the night before Samuel leaves, but only to hold a brief conversation about the fates of Salome and Samuel; Marianne benefited in no way from this vision. She consoles Salome after Samuel's death, in her own way. Not till the end does Marianne function as anything important, namely, symbolizing or implying the healing of the Abbey.
Minor characters :
Abbess Elinor:
Abbess Elinor is a middle aged mouse, who actually became Abbess in her thirties. 
In compliance with the unhappy and dismal air that hangs over the Abbey, Abbess Elinor is stern, strict, self-righteous, and spares no opportunity to give withering lectures on the flaws of the Abbeybeasts and the poor state of the Abbey in comparison to its older and more glorious days. Few creatures, besides prominent Abbey creatures, enjoy her company, and she makes every creature she lectures feel like a Dibbun who got mud on her pinafore. 
In other words, Abbess Elinor is so unpleasant, she's almost stereotypical.
However, when it comes to her role in Salome's and Samuel's arrival at Redwall, she doesn't adhere to the cliche of the mindless, vermin-hating tyrant. She shows only as much caution as a woodlander is expected to when meeting with a vermin, and probably shows more kindness to them than a canon Abbess would have shown. The self-righteous disdain and sternness she shows toward them are typical of her behavior to woodlanders and vermin alike; Salome and Samuel get used to it, as everyone else in the Abbey does, and don't try to act like the reader owes them extra sympathy because they're vermin. 
The Abbess does not jump to conclusions when the two are suspected in Brother Jeremiah's murder. Though she does confine them to their quarters till the problem is resolved, she does not treat them cruelly. Like any Abbess of Redwall, she promptly reprimands any creature who leaps to conclusions and tries to mistreat Salome and Samuel in the heat of grief and panic.
Category:Incisrongirl