Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
116,618
edits
Watership Down/Characters: Difference between revisions
→Humans: tried to fix word salad trope entry
m (revise quote template spacing) |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (→Humans: tried to fix word salad trope entry) |
||
| (4 intermediate revisions by 3 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{work}}
{{Unmarked Spoilers
Characters from ''[[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]]'' include:
== Sandleford Warren rabbits ==
Line 63 ⟶ 65:
=== Pipkin ===
The smallest and most timid of the rabbits, Pipkin is a friend of Fiver who is persuaded to go along on the journey.
* [[Character Development]]: Though it mostly happens in the background, and in small ways, Pipkin does change and develop a lot over the book, starting out as afraid of everything and gradually becoming a loyal and steadfast companion.
* [[Cheerful Child]]: The TV series not only portrays him as very young, but removes his timid nature as well, making him this.
* [[Cowardly Lion]]: Timid and easily scared he may be, but thanks to his fierce loyalty to Hazel and Fiver he'll show surprising courage at times.
* [[Tagalong Kid]]: More in the TV series than in the book.
* [[Took a Level
* [[Undying Loyalty]]: Towards Hazel. At one point Hazel is considering a suicide-mission into Efrafa to rescue Bigwig and Pipkin responds simply "I will go with you."
=== Dandelion ===
Line 100 ⟶ 102:
* [[Ascended Extra]]: He's an extremely minor character who is left out of every single adaptation of the book ''except'' the TV series, where he's one of the main characters.
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Not in the book, but in the TV series he's developed a notable talent for sarcasms.
* [[The Eeyore]]: He grows out of it in the book. In the series, not so much.
* [[Grumpy Bear]]
Line 108 ⟶ 110:
=== Speedwell and Acorn ===
Two outskirters from Sandleford who join Hazel's crew. Apart from a few scenes and lines here and there, they don't get very much attention in the original novel -- though Speedwell got [[A Day in the Limelight]] in the sequel, ''Tales From Watership Down.''
* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: In ''Speedwell's Story'' the [[Insane Troll Logic|story he tells]] makes Speedwell come across as this.
Line 211 ⟶ 213:
* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|He eventually dies saving his subordinates from a ''pfeffa''.}}
* [[My Master, Right or Wrong]]
* [[Punch Clock Villain]]: He is just doing his job in the book, and Hazel and Bigwig grudgingly admire him for it.
* [[Worthy Opponent]]: To Bigwig.
Line 221 ⟶ 223:
* [[The Dragon]]: Not really for the heroes, but in Efrafa he is certainly this.
* [[Evil Chancellor]]: Made out as such in the TV series.
* [[Jerkass]]: Skirting on [[Complete Monster]] at times, he has few, if any, positive qualities.
=== Blackavar ===
Line 238 ⟶ 240:
* [[Heel Face Turn]]: He surrenders to the Watership rabbits towards the end and eventually becomes the Chief Rabbit of Vleflain, a new warren that's established between Watership and Efrafa and is populated by rabbits from both warrens.
* [[Hero Worshipper]]: To Woundwort (even after his [[Heel Face Turn]] he speaks of Woundwort with awe), although he is far more competent and practical-minded than most other examples of this trope.
== [[Mythopoeia|Mythical characters]] ==
Line 288 ⟶ 290:
** Really? Cause at the end of the movie when he comes to take Hazel at the end of his days, he's actually quite comforting and nice.
** In the novel, it was El-ahrairah who came to Hazel and asked him to join his Owsla - although that does beg the question of why the Black Rabbit did not appear... unless [[Wild Mass Guessing|the two are actually one and the same.]]
* [[The Dreaded]]: The Black Rabbit of Inlé is not evil, but in the book he is ''terrifying''. In his presence even El-ahrairah cannot think straight, and therefore loses all of the Black Rabbit's games.
* [[The Grim Reaper]]
* [[Moon Rabbit]]
Line 317 ⟶ 319:
* [[Speech-Impaired Animal]]
=== Humans ===
The most dangerous of the elil and also the most incomprehensible to the rabbits. While the rabbits fear humans they cannot see them as good or evil as humans behave in a way that's completely alien to them with humans on the one hand killing them or destroying their homes but on the other also helping them and showing compassion.
* [[Above Good and Evil]]: Humans are this from the rabbit's perspective. While other Elil like dogs and cats hunt them for understandable reasons and they can judge the actions of their fellow animals as either good or evil, humans are never depicted as either malevolent or benevolent on the whole as humans have both helped and harmed rabbits for reasons the rabbits cannot even fathom. Bluebell claims that humans destroyed their home because they hated the rabbits but Toadflax corrected her by explaining that it was for their own ends and the rabbits weren't even a factor in the decision.
{{Quote|"That wasn't why they destroyed the warren. It was just because we were in their way."}}
* [[Angels, Devils, and Squid]]: In keeping with the incomprehensible nature of humans to the rabbits and other animals, humans are the squid in the story from a figurative standpoint. The angels are the mythological creatures like Frith and the Black Rabbit of Inle; in rabbit-told tales they are helpful and protective of rabbits; [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane|some of them even appear to help the rabbits in-story directly and indirectly.]] The devils are the Thousand Enemies or the elil, who are the rabbits' enemies, who hunt them to eat or simply because they don't like the rabbits. While humans are technically regarded as Elil in that they kill rabbits and destroy their homes, humans are so inscrutable and incomprehensible that the animals see them as something apart and completely different. This is underlined by the frequency with which humans do things like helping hurt rabbits or showing compassion and feeding them -- making them, at times, not elil at all. For the rabbits their mythical figures are angels meant to save them, the other animals are elil as the devils that would hunt and destroy them and humans... humans are a mystery and can be either destroyer or savior.
* [[Blue and Orange Morality]]: From the rabbits perspective, humans seem to follow some kind of behavior pattern or reasoning. It's just completely alien to them. Humans destroyed their homes but never seem to target the rabbits specifically. Some humans will trap them but also leave out food for them. Some humans will hunt them directly while others will show compassion and care for rabbits who are injured. None of this makes any sense to the rabbits who only see the world in terms of predator/prey and survival of the fittest.
* [[Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?]]: When humans show compassion and care for the rabbits, it falls under this trope from the long ear's perspective. While humans are terrifying and unknowable creatures to pretty much all of the animals it's especially pronounced to the rabbits who are entirely a prey species. Hazel is almost killed by the cat Tab when she pounces on him while injured. The farm-girl Lucy then orders Tab to stop and then gathers up Hazel, brings him to a vet to treat his wound and cares for him until he is well enough to go back outside on his own. She then takes him to the fields and lets him go. While Hazel is certainly grateful and feels less scared of humans after, he still has no idea why she helped him.
* [[Humans Are Cthulhu]]: To the rabbits, humans are something beyond their understanding and creatures of great and terrible power. While humans are understood to be elil they far beyond the others and all other elil fear them. They can make other eili obey them, they use items such a thundersticks (guns) and hrududu (automobiles) which the rabbits don't understand but are terrified of. Humans can easily destroy their homes and kill them with traps and poison. Other humans will show them compassion and shelter them or heal their wounds. From the animal's perspective, humans are unfathomable and capable of terrible and wondrous feats.
*[[Outside Context Villain]]: Humans are only technically villains in that they cause death and destruction towards the rabbits. However, even the rabbits understand that this is situational and conditional. Humans cause harm to the rabbits for reasons no other animal does nor can comprehend. While rabbits can tell if humans are dangerous by judging whether or not they are interested in them they also understand that most humans ignore them entirely for the most part. They are even aware that sometimes humans cause them harm without even thinking or caring because the rabbits where never even a consideration in their plans. At the end of the book, a young rabbit of Watership Down is frightened when a human on a horse comes riding by but hazel, now [[Older and Wiser]], recognizes that the human is not even looking at them, is focused entirely on his travels and is riding at a brusque but casual pace. Hazel remarks that there is no need to worry from that human and he'll just ride on past without any trouble which Hazel is correct about.
* [[Token Heroic Orc]]: While the rabbits don't really see humans as evil exactly they do see them as extremely dangerous and incomprehensible. However, lupine mythology tells the tale of a great human who built a great hutch and gathered as many animals as he could to save them all from a great flood and released them after the rains departed. Yes, the rabbits have their own version of the story of Noah and his Ark. Makes you wonder if they have a story of a great human that was full of love and compassion that ended up hung up on a tree for thee days.
** Also Lucy and any human that shows compassion, mercy and kindness to animals count as this. Animals tend to be less scared of these types of humans and find them particularly strange but are grateful to them for their help.
* [[World's Strongest Man]]: Humans as a whole are seen as the elil among the elil and the greatest and most dangerous of the thousand enemies. They can build things like traps, have great earth movers that can destroy the forest and change the land in a matter of hours. They can make other elil like dogs and cats obey them. No other elil can harm them or fight them and none can truly escape them when humans are actively hunting them.
{{worksubpagefooter}}
| |||