They Wasted A Perfectly Good Character / Redwall

• Sawney Rath. He was a savvy Disc-One Final Boss who didn't seem like a Dirty Coward or even a Smug Snake. And he even showed that he cared deeply for Tagg (up until he refused to kill Felch). He's killed off very abruptly, and Gruven replaces him as the novel's Big Bad (even though he was a terrible one).
• Antigra. She's the only Starscream (besides Greypatch) who succeeded in overthrowing the Big Bad. And then she's Put on a Bus. And then we find out that she was killed when trying to overthrow Ruggan Bor.
• Veil Sixclaw. He takes a good chunk of the book to even be born, and after growing up, had so many chances to redeem himself, but it wasn't until he saved Bryony from getting killed by sacrificing himself that he showed any signs of being good. Outcast of Redwall was supposed to be all about Veil either trying to redeem himself or joining his father's army, but in the end, none of the Redwallers cared that he saved Bryony; he was still branded as being a typical evil vermin, and his own father was the one who killed him. Even fans who hate Veil will agree that he should've gone through more Character Development.
• Outcast of Redwall should've been called They Wasted a Perfectly Good Villain. Balefur, Zigu, and the Wraith are just a few of several interesting, badass villains who were all unique in their own special way and could've easily become an Ensemble Dark Horse. Not a single one of them lasted more than two or three chapters, and the ones that did, like Aggal, had only a few lines and no Character Development. The only exception was Nightshade.
• Rinkul from The Long Patrol. He was a clever Mauve Shirt and the only Rapscallion smart enough to realize something was off about Midge Manycoats and Tammo. But every time he tried to warn somebeast, the other Rapscallions would tell him to shut up, threaten to kill him, or they physically abused him. When the Rapscallions finally find out that they're both hares and give chase, he's abruptly killed by Tammo when he throws a spear at him. Had Rinkul lived until the end of the story, he and Tammo could've gotten into an epic one-on-one swordsfight.
• Many fans are still pissed over Globby's tragic unnecessary death.
• Some readers felt that Barranca's death was both cheap and unnecessary, especially since it nullified his already interesting subplot and he was replaced with another character (albeit, a character who was just as popular as Barranca) whose goal was exactly the same: trying to take down Ublaz's empire.
• Verdauga Greeneyes stands out among the other antagonists for averting Always Chaotic Evil and Black-and-White Morality. Indeed, his Pragmatic Villainy and hints of being a Benevolent Boss and a Noble Demon make him a rather unique foe in this series. However, he's quickly killed by his much more conventionally evil daughter, Tsarmina, preventing us from seeing the heroes fight against an enemy that isn't evil to the core for once.
• The Gloomer in Mossflower is set up as a big, scary, mindless monster that could have put up an epic battle against the good guys. Instead, the otters simply loose a pike on the thing and the problem resolves itself a chapter after the Gloomer's introduction, denying the possibility of it fighting someone that actually matters to the story (like Martin). It doesn't help that the pike in question is a blatant Deus ex Machina that wasn't mentioned before the chapter and never appears again. However, The Lost Legends of Redwall: Escape the Gloomer fixes this by having the Gloomer survive the pike encounter, and giving it a much bigger role.
• For a book titled after him, and touted in-universe as his story, Joseph doesn't really do anything of note in The Bellmaker. His daughter Mariel is the main protagonist and all of Joseph's journey to bring aid to her is shared by characters who do more, receive far more screen time, and get way more character development than he.
• Ruggan Bor is stoic, calm, practical, and not given to losing his temper or picking unnecessary battles, even when he has a sword to his throat. The narrative promptly shoves the Idiot Ball into his hands by having him pick a completely unnecessary battle, at which point the badger lord and his entire army of hares conveniently swoop in out of nowhere.
• In a similar vein to Joseph, Tiria Wildlough is hyped up by High Rhulain as the possible reincarnation of the titular queen, and a big deal is made of her reclaiming her birthright as queen of Green Isle... and then she proceeds to contribute absolutely nothing to the story other than being there. It takes nearly the whole book for her to actually get to Green Isle while all of the action in both the main plot and the sub-plot take place without her, and the only interaction Tiria has with the Big Bad is to just sucker-punch him from a distance to finish him off, without anything resembling an actual climactic encounter.
• An unfortunate side effect of being introduced late in the series and more characters than a single character, but Doomwyte introducing Baliss, an adder supposedly descended from Asmodeus brings the wish that Jacques had introduced Asmodeus' descendants earlier as recurring villains. Appearing so late and with only one son, the House of Asmodeus deserved more.
• Phantom Thief Shadow is among the most popular of Cluny's horde in the first book but is dead less than a quarter of the way through the book.
• Magnificent Bastard Rasconza from Pearls of Lutra takes a bit to appear and become The Starscream, and once he does, despite opposing the same Big Bad as the protagonists (whose acquaintance with Romsca might have made them more amenable to an Enemy Mine alliance with a vermin in that book), never has a single scene interacting with most of those protagonists, whether positively or negatively.
• Prince Bladd from Triss is an oafish evil prince who nonetheless isn't too invested in going after the heroes, is the grandson of an Ensemble Dark Horse, and develops an interesting Villainous Friendship with the popular Freebooters, but it ultimately leads nowhere, and he suffers a forgettable death that keeps him from rising above mediocrity.
• Lantur the Marlfox's status as a Daddy's Girl who never leaves their island to raid like the others could have been used to make her a morally grey figure and/or Enemy Mine ally of Redwall if her desire to kill her family and usurp the throne was to avenge how Silith killed her mate and none of the other siblings stopped being her enforcers after the death of their father. However, the text indicates that Lantur's actions are driven by simple ambition, and she never meets any of the heroes.
• In the first book, Chickenhoud could have been a good Token Heroic Orc and avoided reinforcing the Always Chaotic Evil impression of the "vermin" that the author was trying to avoid at that point if he really had loved his mother enough to have a genuine Heel–Face Turn after Cluny murdered her and the abbey-dwellers nursed a wounded Chickenhound back to health.

---