Farthing Wood Deaths Revisited: Series 2 - Vole

Okay, so there are some anomalies to the “it’s mainly the female supporting characters who die in Series 2” pattern I’ve identified, but I insist nonetheless that it’s there.

Vole’s death happens entirely off-screen and is implied to be the result of the hardship of winter.  Mr. Field-Mouse shows up and announces that his friend has been found dead.  There's not a lot else that I can really say about this one.

HORROR FACTOR: 2. Following on from his mother’s death in the previous episode, and from Mrs. Field-Mouse's at the start of the series, Vole’s death certainly seems a lot more subdued.  We only hear about it second-hand, and we can assume that he died more-or-less peacefully.

NOBILITY FACTOR: 5. Honestly, I find this one a bit difficult to score in terms of nobility - it just happens, and that's it.  I did say when I started that I award an instant 10 to any animal who dies of old age, although I'm still not certain where I should be placing deaths from other kinds of natural causes (they happen so rarely in the world of Farthing Wood that it's seldom an issue).  For now, I'm just going to give it 5 as an act of compromise and call it a day.

TEAR-JERKER FACTOR: 4. Despite the subdued and off-screen nature of this particular death, I find that I do get a slight lump in my throat later on in the episode, when Fox acknowledges that "the mice and voles are gone."

RATING: 11

Oh, but maybe Vole wasn’t dead after all.  Keen-eyed viewers may have spotted him rejoicing with the other animals at the end of the episode in question.

(It's not even the only weird thing going on in this scene.  Weasel here looks to be about the same size as Badger.  As per events going on around the same time involving Scarface, she should also be avoiding the Farthing animals altogether at this point.)

Also noteworthy that Mr. Field-Mouse makes his last appearance in the same episode.  After this he doesn’t get so much as a mention again, so it’s probably fair to presume that he goes a similar route to Vole.  I will not grant him proper inclusion in this retrospective, however, given that he was never officially “killed off”…he just disappears.  I’m pretty sure this happens to the shrews at some point in the series too, but I forget where.