Watership Down: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''Thlayli (Bigwig) had made his way up the run and was crouching immediately below. Blood had matted the great thatch of fur on his head, and one ear, half severed, hung down beside his face. His breathing was slow and heavy.''|Chapter 47 ("The Sky Suspended")}}

 

 

 

 

 

Only Blackberry, Fiver, and Hazel can really "think outside the hutch," so to speak. Hazel in particular quickly realises that survival as a tribe of ''hlessil'' (nomads) will require atypical problem-solving and teamwork, and thus becomes the ''de facto'' leader of the group, with a particular talent for bringing out the best in his followers and earning their loyalty in return.

 

 

 

 

Also notable is the [[Animated Adaptation|animated feature film]] based upon the book. It's a very well-done [[Adaptation Distillation]], and while it is no excuse at all for not reading the novel, it's well worth watching. As a matter of fact, reading the novel first enhances the film. The [[Studio Ghibli]]-style insanely detailed animation fits the story perfectly, and real effort is made to respect the seriousness with which the rabbits take their quest. (As an aside, it's really hard to imagine a film version working any other way; if you'd like an idea of how Narm-ful a live-action version might have been, look for [[The Film of the Book]] ''Jonathan Livingston Seagull''.) The film is also notable for its voice cast, consisting of some of the best British actors of the day, including John Hurt as Hazel, Ralph Richardson as the Threarah, Nigel Hawthorne as Campion, Richard Briers as Fiver and Zero Mostel as Kehaar.

The thing is, the film is notorious in Internet culture for one simple reason: the [[Animation Age Ghetto]] affects it like almost no other movie. Certainly, DVD cover art like [http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1780259072/tt0078480 this] doesn't help, but what gets us here at TV Tropes is that you'd think more people would have heard of the book. Parents of bunny-obsessed children, please do ''not'' subject your four-year-olds to such [[Nightmare Fuel]] as Bigwig's brush with death and his battle with General Woundwort, General Woundwort ''himself'', the awfully long scene (scored to ''Bright Eyes'') where Hazel is almost certainly dead and Fiver is lost without him, Blackavar's story, or Holly recounting how he barely escaped the destruction of Sandleford Warren. On the off chance you need further convincing, please note that the latter sequence, faithful to the novel, is a semi-hallucinatory depiction of ''cute bunnies clawing out the throats of other cute bunnies as they all slowly suffocate.'' ''[[What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?|Not For Little Kids]]''.

 

 

== All versions ==

* [[Action Survivor]] and [[Almost-Dead Guy]]: {{spoiler|Holly.}}

** The name discrepancies make more sense when you realize that all the names are actually supposed to be Lapine, but that many of them have been "[[Translation Convention|translated]]" into English equivalents for the reader. Pipkin's actual name is ''Hlao-roo''.

*** It also helps differentiate the hutch rabbits (raised in captivity as pets) from the wild ones: Haystack and Clover versus [[Action Girl|Hyzenthlay]] and [[The Unpronounceable|Thethuthinnang]].

* [[Androcles' Lion]]: Kehaar in all versions.

** In the novel, Hazel encourages the other rabbits to help out non-aggressive animals, in case they ever need help, which starts with a mouse. It pays off with the mouse telling the rabbits about a good feeding place, Kehaar acting as their scout and air support, {{spoiler|and the mouse giving them advance warning of the Efrafan attack, which likely saved the warren}}.

** "The Fox in the Water" has El-ahrairah wandering and offering advice, which pays off when a snake he helped, who had heard of his good deeds, grants him temporary hypnotic power to defeat the foxes plaguing the warren.

* [[Angry Guard Dog]]: And imagine ''that'' when you're a fraction of its size.

* [[Anyone Can Die]]

* [[Arcadia]]: Watership Down.

* [[Ascended to Carnivorism]]: In the creation story, all animal species start out as grass-eating herbivores, some of which get transformed into carnivores by Frith to keep rabbits' numbers in check.

* [[Asskicking Equals Authority]]: The reason why Woundwort is the Chief Rabbit of Efrafa. (He killed the previous chief and a rival, taking the warren by force.)

** Watership Down might actually be the exception to this rule. In the Sandleford Warren, the Threarah is noted for being a very dangerous fighter, and when Captain Holly arrives at Watership Down, he too assumed that Bigwig must be Chief Rabbit.

* [[Authority Equals Asskicking]]: General Woundwort.

*** Dogs aren't dangerous!

* [[Badass Army]]: The Efrafan Owsla.

** Although if it is a fable or an allegorical tale, it is not at all [[Anvilicious]]. It stands on its own as adventure [[Xenofiction]].

* [[Because Destiny Says So]]

* [[Big Brother Instinct]]: Bigwig may start out the story on the verge of Jerkassity, but he's very protective of Pipkin right from the beginning, seemingly for no other reason than because Pipkin is the smallest of the group.

* [[Bring News Back]]: The destruction of the warren, and also the warning about Efrafa. Holly is the messenger in both cases.

* [[Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough]]: While Hazel leads by inspiring rabbits and convincing them of his competence, Bigwig acts as a [[Sergeant Rock]] and sometimes as a [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]].

** Their counterparts, Woundwort and Campion, invert the trope: Woundwort is all about courage, brute force, and raw strength; Campion is about intelligence, strategy, and adaptation.

* [[Cats Are Mean]]: Tab is at first [[Carnivore Confusion|no meaner than rabbitkind's other countless enemies]]... until her big scene, where she turns out to be a bitch even by cat standards.

** Averted in two stories in ''Tales from Watership Down'', where the non-aggressive cats featured come off as much more sympathetic than their rabbit opponents.

* [[Come to Gawk]]

* [[Conditioned to Accept Horror]]: All the rabbits of Cowslip's warren. They even have poets who sing about the nobility and dignity of accepting death.

* [[Con Lang]]: The rabbits' [[wikipedia:Lapine language|Lapine language]], of course.

* [[Crap Saccharine World]]: Cowslip's warren, where the rabbits are strong, healthy, have plenty to eat, are developing the beginnings of art and music, and {{spoiler|anyone can vanish permanently at any moment}}.

* [[Death Trap]]: {{spoiler|Cowslip's warren, indirectly}}.

** Also, during one chase scene, the good guys are saved when {{spoiler|their pursuers are killed by a convenient train}}. Appropriately, they take this for an act of Frith.

* [[Doomed Hometown]]: Sandleford Warren.

* [[Dreaming of Things to Come]]: Several of the characters have dreams loaded with foreshadowing.

* [[Earn Your Happy Ending]]: Hazel's {{spoiler|death of old age}}.

* [[Everything Trying to Kill You]]: Such an integral part of the story that it's [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] by the film's tagline: "All the world will be your enemy, Prince With A Thousand Enemies, and when they catch you they ''will'' kill you... [[Fragile Speedster|but first they must catch you]]." One of the story's best features is that it [[Xenofiction|effectively evokes the mindset of creatures]] who live with this trope every moment of their lives.

* [[Fantasy Pantheon]]: The rabbits have a fairly standard pantheon of gods - Frith the creator and sun god, his lieutenant Prince Rainbow, the Black Rabbit of Inlé as a god of death, and El-ahrairah, the heroic prince of rabbits.

* [[Feathered Fiend]]: Subverted by Kehaar, who is aggressive and disagreeable but is an important ally of the protagonists. Played straight by various other predatory birds, such as hawks and crows.

* [[Fictionary]]: One of the most celebrated in literature. You'll be thinking in rabbit language for days afterward.

* [[General Ripper]]: Woundwort. Just... Woundwort.

* [[Genre Popularizer]]: There are a number of other "epic animal adventure" stories, but it is difficult to read them without comparing them to ''Watership''.

* [[Giant Flyer]]: Compared to the rabbits, Kehaar.

* [[Good Scars, Evil Scars]]: By the end, pretty much everyone has scars.

* [[The Grim Reaper]]: The [[Moon Rabbit|Black Rabbit of Inlé]]. A [[Don't Fear the Reaper|frightening but dutiful]] Grim Reaper, not a murderous one.

* [[Hair-Raising Hare]]: General Woundwort. Also the Black Rabbit.

* [[Head-in-The-Sand Management]]: The old Chief Rabbit, played straight. He insists on ignoring Fiver's warnings that the warren is in danger. (Folks who suggest it's an allegory see him as an actual [[Expy]].)

* [[Heroic BSOD]]: In Lapine, it's called ''tharn'' - the state of mind where a rabbit simply breaks and watches blankly as one of The Thousand approaches to take his life.

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: Hazel's prayer.

* [[Honorifics]]: The Lapine language has its own, though only two are mentioned; -roo is an affectionate diminutive (similar to [[Japanese Honorifics|-chan]]), and -rah means "king" or "lord" (usually used to refer to chief rabbits).

** This is subverted at the end of the novel {{spoiler|when a little girl from the farm rescues the wounded Hazel and takes him to a doctor, and later sets him free}}. This somewhat changes Hazel's opinions of humans. The construction workers {{spoiler|shooting the rabbits from Sandleford}} as they try to escape, though, definitely is playing this trope straight.

* [[I Don't Like the Sound of That Place]]: The [[Fan Nickname|warren of the Shining Wires]].

* [[Intellectual Animal]]: they're about as intellectual as you can get and still be wild animals with an IQ of ''hrair''.

* [[Killer Rabbit]]: Woundwort is psychotic even by ''human'' standards.

* [[Last Stand]]: Bigwig, against {{spoiler|General Woundwort}}.

* [[Meaningful Echo]]: ''"There's a large dog loose in the wood."''

* [[Moon Rabbit]]: The [[The Grim Reaper|Black Rabbit of Inlé]].

* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: Again, General Woundwort.

** Note that [[wikipedia:Stachys|Woundwort]] is a kind of flower, like Cowslip. (Since woundwort is a healing herb, the name also has a note of irony.)

* [[Never Found the Body]]: {{spoiler|Of General Woundwort. With the result that he becomes a legendary bogeyman figure in the rabbit mythology: "Such was Woundwort's monument, and perhaps it would not have displeased him." This is even [[Justified Trope]], because he took on a ''dog''.}}

* [[No One Gets Left Behind]]: As Hazel would have it; see [[True Companions]].

* [[Not Quite Dead]]: {{spoiler|Bigwig, after his battle with Woundwort.}}

* [[Pardon My Klingon]]: "Silflay hraka, u embleer rah!" {{spoiler|English: "Eat shit, you king of stink!"}}

** "Embleer Frith", which translates literally to "Stinking God", and is an oath roughly equivalent to "Goddammit".

* [[R-Rated Opening]]

* [[Safe Zone Hope Spot]]: {{spoiler|Cowslip's Warren.}}

* [[Scarecrow Solution]]: Kehaar.

* [[Sedgwick Speech]]: {{spoiler|Woundwort}}'s [[Famous Last Words]].

* [[Shown Their Work]]: One of the biggest examples is the geography. Every little detail noted in the book was present in the location's real life counterpart.

* [[The Smart Guy]]: Blackberry, an innovative-engineer type (who rather unnervingly becomes the Smart ''Girl'' in the TV series).

* [[Spoony Bard]]: Dandelion (also a [[Fragile Speedster]]).

* [[Show Within a Show|Story Within a Story]]: The tales of El-ahrairah.

* [[The Storyteller]]: Dandelion, notably in the novels and TV series. More on it in the novels section.

* [[Translation Convention]]: Rather elaborate, as Adams makes extensive use of terms that rabbits care about that have no English language equivalent; see Animal Talk.

* [[The Trickster]]: El-ahrairah, the rabbits' cultural hero.

* [[True Companions]]: The eight main rabbits' relationships are based on Adams' [[World War II|WWII]] unit buddies.

* [[Waif Prophet]]: Fiver.

* [[Xenofiction]]: Often the go-to example for explaining the genre.

* [[You Are Number Six]]: Fiver, both in Lapine and in translation.

* [[Chekhov's Skill]]: Hazel even notes that the "board floating on water" trick might come in handy later.

* [[Elemental Powers|The Four Elements]]: Silverweed's poem, which has verses about wind, streams, leaves falling to earth, and Frith (the sun). Too bad all four verses are {{spoiler|really about death.}}

'''[[The Cassandra|Cassandra]]:''' The house reeks of [[Foreshadowing|death and dripping blood]]. }}

* [[Evil Counterpart]]: Silverweed is the prophet and poet of Cowslip's warren.

* [[Fragile Speedster]]: Well, all rabbits are. But Dandelion is singled out as the fastest of the rabbits in the book and uses his speed on several occasions.

* [[Freudian Excuse]]: Holly and Silver observe, on separate occasions, that Efrafa's greatest fear is men and that Woundwort felt safer fighting than running. Woundwort's father was killed by a farmer and his mother and siblings were killed running from the farmer and a weasel.

* [[Funetik Aksent]]: Kehaar the gull. In the novel this is clearly the result of his having to fall back on a sort of interspecies pidgin to communicate with rabbits (''Peeg vater''!) The film makes the unfortunate decision of translating this phonetic speech literally, so that he ends up speaking in [[Star Wars|JarJar-level]] [[You No Take Candle]], and the animated series follows that convention.

* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: See [[Pardon My Klingon]] below.

* [[I Was Just Passing Through]]: In the story "Hyzenthlay in Action", Bigwig objects to newly-appointed Chief Rabbit Hyzenthlay going off on her own to look for some missing does; she pulls rank on him and does so anyway. The next day, he goes out for a stroll and [[Sarcasm Mode|just happens]] to run into Hyzenthlay and the wounded doe she stayed behind to protect.

* [[Ironic Echo]]: "Can you run? I think not."

*** Given what the oft-mentioned but never explained "chewing pellets" means, this insult is [[Fridge Logic|somewhat puzzling]]. However, "chewing pellets" can be reasonably assumed to mean the necessity for rabbits to eat cecotrophs or "cecals" from the anus, due to a double-digestive system. This substance is not poop, and needs to be eaten. The dry little poops you might see in fields are real poop and should not be eaten - i.e. "shit."

* [[Plucky Comic Relief]]: Bluebell, as an intentional tension-breaker, and for the heck of it.

* [[Shown Their Work]]: Understated, but definitely present (in a good way) with the book's geography; essentially every location (down to individual trees and hedgerows) really exists and is accurately described as of the time of writing.

* [[The Spartan Way]]: Efrafa.

* [[The Storyteller]]: Dandelion is noted as a gifted storyteller, among the rabbits. Bluebell also tells one to keep some of the rabbits calm in a climactic scene.

** Speedwell, too, tells a story in ''Tales From Watership Down''. However, [[Cloudcuckoolander|his...]] [[Insane Troll Logic|style]] is vastly different from Dandelion's.

* [[Take Our Word for It]]: The Black Rabbit's terrifying story.

* [[Unspoken Plan Guarantee]]: We don't get to hear the details of Hazel's plan to {{spoiler|release the dog}} until it's well underway. And a good thing too.

** Also applies to El-ahrairah's plans.

* [[Art Shift]]: The opening myth of El-Ahrairah was animated in the Aboriginesque style of the late John Hubley, the legendary founder of [[Limited Animation]]. The main film is ultra-detailed naturalistic animation... and then you have the rabbits' horrific visions and recollections, animated by Martin Rosen in a similarly abstract style, but with gradual [[Sanity Slippage|transitions from the real]].

* [[Award Bait Song]]: "Bright Eyes" was a chart-topper performed by Art Garfunkel. The music, lyrics, and scene in which it is featured make it a [[Tear Jerker]].

** Though to be fair, the eye colour is strictly limited to the rabbits' origins, and not their positions in the story. As seen by e.g. Blackavar and Hyzenthlay, who are blue-eyed Efrafans but the protagonist's allies. Alternately, Captain Holly and the late chief rabbit of Sandleford Warren, red-eyed, yet menacing antagonists (at least at first).

* [[Compressed Adaptation]]: The animated movie had to streamline quite a bit of the story, otherwise it'd be hours long.

** As well as including an otherwise-unavailable (at least at the time) commentary, the Australian DVD release, uniquely, provided a reversible cover, allowing one to choose between the child-friendly or dark versions.

** [http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XQZCH7KGL._SS500_.jpg Think that's bad?] Even [[Evil Overlord|Woundwort]] is ashamed.

* [[Disney Acid Sequence]]: ''"Following the river of death downstream... or is it a dream?"''

* [[Family-Unfriendly Death]]: Lots of it, one of the best examples is when Woundwort tears out {{spoiler|Blackavar}}'s throat.

* [[Family-Unfriendly Violence]]: It may be a movie about bunnies, but it is ''not'' for young children.

== TV Series ==

* [[Action Girl]]: Spartina.

* [[Affably Evil]]: Cowslip.

* [[Art Shift]]: The characters were redesigned for season three. Some changes were barely noticeable, others were drastic. Bigwig, in particular, looks like he's been [[Locked Into Strangeness]]... which would make sense since he did just get out of a fight with Woundwort, but nobody says anything about it.

* [[Friend to All Living Things]]: Pipkin.

* [[Heel Face Turn]]: {{spoiler|Silverweed, Spartina.}}

* [[Holding Back the Phlebotinum]]: The magic subplot.

* [[If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him]]

* [[Leitmotif]]: Woundwort's theme, which seems to be played everywhere it's even remotely applicable.

* [[Lighter and Softer]]: Not only do all the major characters survive, it's also in little things like how Fiver is actually allowed to ''smile'' in a sustained manner.

** Not to mention Hazel and Primrose and Bigwig and {{spoiler|Spartina}}. It seems to be the generally accepted pattern for bunny romances.

* [[Mind Control Eyes]]: They glow.

* [[Those Two Bad Guys]]: Woundwort and Vervain in season 3.

* [[Viewers are Morons]]: Primrose and Hyzenthlay are essentially the same character, so one can't help but assume they changed her name to make it easier to pronounce/remember... As with some other Lapine terms and names.

 

== Lapine mythology ==

* [[Bag of Holding]]: El-ahrairah's ears in ''King Fur-Rocious''.

* [[Balancing Death's Books]]: Appears in the story of El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit.

* [[Batman Gambit]]: El-ahrairah's specialty.

* [[Call Back]]: The new El-ahrairah story Vilthuril tells her kits at the end of the book (and Hyzenthlay at the end of the movie), indicating that the Watership warren's adventures have already passed into legend.

* [[Creation Myth]]: Involves the sun-god Frith blessing each animal with its sapient characteristics; by the time he gets to El-ahrairah, the rabbit prince, fearing those who've been given the instinct to hunt his kind, has dived into a hole with only his bottom sticking out...so Frith blesses his bottom, giving him huge back feet to run away with, [[Just-So Story|and a white cottontail]] to signal danger.

* [[Did You Just Have Tea With Cthulhu]]: El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inlé.

** [[Everybody Hates Hades]]: Though how worthy [[Dark Is Not Evil|or not]] of the hatred (mostly thanks to him being the representation of death) depends on the context (he ain't evil in the movie, for instance).

*** Even in the book, it's made clear in the story that he's necessary, and bears no particular malice towards rabbits.

* [[Guile Hero]]: El-ahrairah, and every other rabbit in his footsteps.

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: How El-ahrairah tried to save his people in The Black Rabbit of Inlé. {{spoiler|Failed, however. He ends up getting what he wants from the Black Rabbit simply for his persistence in remaining alive and thus disturbing the place of the dead beyond bearing}}.

* [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]]: "The Story of the Great Marsh"/"The Story of the Terrible Hay-Making" in ''Tales''. {{spoiler|El-ahrairah leads a warren across the marsh to keep them from being wiped out... and once they get to the other side, the rabbits make such a nuisance of themselves to humans that they get wiped out}}.

* [[Shrouded in Myth]]: Half the rabbit folktales are half-remembered [[Twice-Told Tale|legends]] of forgotten rabbit chiefs, now associated with El-ahrairah.

* [[To Hell and Back]]: El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inle. Echoed a bit in the ''Tales'' story of "The Sense of Smell."

* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: In keeping with the lapine theme of using your wits to evade your enemies, many of the El-ahrairah myths that appear in the sequel are cautionary tales involving rabbits/warrens like this. {{spoiler|The warren in The Terrible Hay-Making is an excellent example. Those rabbits were also assholes anyway}}.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Literature]]