About Watership Down – Richard Adams

Well, it’s not a literature homework so I will write all I want to write. Prepare yourself for some nonsense thoughts.

So Watership Down is widely considered a children book. Judging on the book’s summary in the front page, this novel is about a journey of a pack of cute rabbits looking for a new place called home, it’s surely for kids. But if you look a little bit closer, those wild killer machine rabbits fights each other to the last fur on their tails just for the only sole survival reason: to get laid, you can tell it’s definitely a children classic.

It never be the long ass length, the bloody fights, the gory deaths of several rabbits,… that makes Watership Down is rated R. It’s a glorious melody that only for adults (or mature teenagers) could fully appreciate. Just like The Little Prince is never meant for children, it’s for all the souls in the world happening to lost the way in their lives. There is no way a freaking 8 years old can understand how important a doe meant for the pack, for all they know, boys can bring to each other happiness.

Well, even though you read it and knew the story, I thought it would be fun to recap some parts of it in my words, so that you can see where I stand in the whole thing.

In Sandleford warren, the protagonist’s hometown, there was an old chief rabbits who did all the things he could to maintain a good life for the whole pack and mainly for himself. One day, the protagonist and his weak, weird, nameless brother came and told him that the weird one felt like his warren would be doomed and they had to go immediately. Why was it doomed? He didn’t know. How was it doomed? Just doomed. How the hell that he knew they were doomed? Well, he had a gut feeling of doomed doom.

Being an experience, mature, thoughtful and not hallucinatory chief, it was his fault for not trusting Fiver to take all of the children, women to immigrate to the dangerous, unknown land. Either way, he finally led to the “genocide” of his pack. This is such a sad ending for being reasonable and staying in peace for too long.

Talking about Fiver, the psychic rabbit. There are 2 categories for people who claim they can see the future. One is fortune tellers, who can’t predict for shit but good at convincing people to believe in them. One is prophets, who rap vaguely nonsense verses all the time that everybody just want to slap them once in a while but their words always come true. Well, Fiver happens to have a big “protagonistly” (I made up a word) brother who trusts him, so of course he has to be a prophet.

Sometimes I wonder, if Hazel is bigger and his positions in the pack is higher, will he leave? I mean he does trust Fiver’s vision and all, but they left the warren because they had nothing to lose. Just like all of his pack, they were all outcast or some rabbits who had beef with their superior or needed to prove something. There is no way a stable rabbit with mouths to feed choose to leave his home if he doesn’t have to. I guess all of the rabbits wanted to leave in some points and they just needed a convenient reason to do that, no matter how dumb the reason was.

One of the best thing about Watership Down is even though it has animal characters, it comes hand in hand with reality of human being. I love how united the pack before the trip. They’ve already known so well that the future is dangerous and risky and it was their choice to leave the warren. But when their feet got tired and their tummies were empty, they immediately went full human, they got scared, had doubts, regrets and blaming. In this situation, Hazel took the responsibility to be the chief and led them to safety. This is a great example for how wonderful the story is. In this pack, Hazel is not the smartest, it is Blackberry, he’s not the strongest, it is Bigwig, he’s not the fastest either, it is Dandelion,… The fact is Hazel is good at everything but he’s not the best making him a good leader. With the eyes of a director in a human resource department, a charismatic of a strong, lying politician, a needed amount of “dictatorship” and a lot of dumb luck, Hazel is indeed, a great leader and he proves himself that he’s worth every penny for this title. Otherwise, the whole novel is just wasted and weird.

But in my candid eyes, my favorite is always Bigwig. I don’t like Bigwig because he is the strongest fighter, I like him because his flaws are related and he has the best development character in the whole novel. Being an older, bigger rabbit and has already had a name for himself in the warren, of course Bigwig was arrogant, cunning, aggressive bully, just like most of the powerful ones would do. And “with great power comes great responsibility”, Bigwig does his job as a protector for the pack. He fought, he guarded, he swam, he scolded the weak one, he did everything he could so they survived. Now Bigwig is a fighter and he couldn’t care less about anyone’s feeling, he just says what he thinks no matter how inappropriate the time is. I know a lot of people think Bigwig is an annoying loud mouth but all his doubts and concern were reasonable and they needed to be said. He did have a time not trusting Hazel’s leader skills and Fiver’s feeling but when they proved themselves and earn Bigwig’s loyalty, he paid them back with all he had and never think twice. The character of Bigwig is crystal clear, it’s not perfect and that’s the most wholesome thing about him.

And he’s becoming better with age and challenging. From the beginning till the very end, every step Bigwig took, every blood he dropped, every wounds he had, I can tell he’s changing for the better. While he appeared to be a big baby with all brawn, odd beauty and no brain, he proved he could be as smart and calm as when he wanted it to be. In Efrafa, when he played 007 role and led the does to escape, he surprisingly pulled off all the smart moves and did his job successfully. He did have hesitation and doubts when he plotted his “devious” plan but when it came to action, Bigwig is tough and assertive. And no freaking girls in the Efrafa wanted to be his mate? What? I thought “chicks” dig scars.

In the other hand, Fiver got on my nerve a couple times. He started so good but fell flat in the middle. Being a psychic rabbit with ability to sense the fatal danger, I accept his vision like it’s the absolute truth, and his choice to leave the warren is a bold and smart decision. Even though it didn’t work out but he did warn his chief about his vision before he left. His physical disadvantage made him and Pipkin become the burden of the group but to be fair, they’re all dead meat now if there wasn’t for him. When the pack was invited to live in Cowslip’s warren, it’s natural for them to be happy because after a long exhausted trip, they finally had a hole to sleep and some crops to destroy. Being a normal creature that doesn’t hold the future in his hand, it was a smart call of Hazel to be cheerful and adapted the new rules and new habits to survive. Sure, those highbrow rabbits were acting suspicious as hell but it needed evidence or a conspiracy theory to prove they were assholes.

While all the pack are moving on, of course there was only Fiver who felt death all around. Good, your power was back, let’s help them. Well, all I see is he was doing nothing but upsetting his brother. I know your intuition told you this place was too good to be true so go out there and prove how fake it was. All he did are whiny, silent, to wander in some unknown place alone, refuse to eat and then, decide to leave no matter what. What the heck? A lot people doesn’t like Bigwig to scold Fiver about his behaviors, I beg to differ. To be honest, Bigwig’ nagging is what I would say before I slap the ghost out of this “precious” rabbit. When Bigwig was trapped and faced the death, Fiver suddenly became talkative and lectured them about how right he was. Hey, if you’re so smart, why wait until Bigwig was dying then tell the pack about this slaughter garden, ha? This whole thing defines my love for Bigwig when he talked what he think was right and then when he realized he was wrong, he accepted his fault and apologized. Fiver just act like high and almighty here while he was freaking useless. When Bigwig is nearly dead, there’s no need of his vision for the pack to leave anymore.

The development of the characters are really realistic so it’s ugly sometimes. When Hazel led his pack to Watership and settled down there, everything happened to him was not easy but it didn’t cost him much and everything he did was right. It’s understandable for him to get arrogant and careless. After all the things they’ve been through, Hazel made a big mistake when he thought stealing from human was easy. Joke on him (and on us), human is the worst. His arrogant made him ignore Fiver’s advice (which they should all be taken to heart by now) and caused himself injury in Nuthanger Farm. This injury almost cost Hazel his life twice but it did put Hazel back to the humble and cautious track where he belonged.

Maybe it’s tiny but the most “true” moment in the whole novel was the time two house rabbits came to live with them in Watership, the males started to conflict and fight each other for the right to have sex. The bro before the hoe? No, no. It’s the other way around in the bunny world. That’s the ultimate purpose of any living creature’s existence, to left some of their seeds in the ray of history so their kind could last forever. It’s a fact and the author didn’t try to hide it.

Even the rabbit societies are realistic. So the normal, typical one is Sandleford warren. They had a king and his officers, the “noble” class, the working class and bottom class like Hazel and Fiver. And this nature society is quite fair when a rabbit could change his status just by his ability. If you’re big and you could make the job done, you can be an owsla and have children. If you’re small and careless, you’re dead and no one give a damn about you. I call that natural selection.

In Cowslip’s warren, except for part when all the “smart” rabbits are all coward and selfish, it’s like a liberty kind of society. There is no king, no one in charge and they did everything in their own will. Because they didn’t have to care about the food or predators, they focused their energy to develop their “civilization”. It’s scary true when you thinks about it. When they did lost their instinct to fight, they have time to paint, to write a poem, to be polite and to look down Hazel’s pack for loving their simple folk stories.

Efrafa’s society is what we call a dictatorship. General Woundwort built this kingdom from his bare claws and everybody had to obey him. This community is just like a machine, it’s precise and effective. Everybody has their roles and they has to do their roles or they will be eliminated from the pack. The whole “government” is wonderfully organized, the law was strict like it should be and Woundwort created a perfect system to keep his land away from enemies and human’s hands. It’s a trade game right there. A safe life is not a free life. A free life has risks, foxes and hrududu. A safe life has no air and no space and no choice. A free life has fights, eaten and guns. A safe life is suffocated, one law and only life sentence. There is no perfect place in this world no matter how great the writer describe Watership.

In another world and in another book, Woundwort could be a hero just like Hazel. But in Watership Down, unfortunately, all his greatness are describe as villain’s strength. Growing up with a tragic childhood, Woundwort is alone, skeptical, careful and arbitrary. Being a gifted and fierce fighter, Woundwort won over his rivals and built Efrara all by himself. Let’s be fair, all the things Woundwort had done were above rabbit intelligent. Hazel is a great leader but Woundwort is an extraordinary and he’s the best of his kind. Not only is he ruthless, cynical, determined and strong warrior, but also smart and cunning strategist. Despite being in a bad shape after the battle with Bigwig, Woundwort was still intimidating enough to stop a big dog on the chase, I think he deserved to live another day. Of course, Woundwort is a horrible dictator who acted like a typical dictator but considered his past and the way he took the power, it’s obvious why he is who he is. I love the way Woundwort held his anger and sought for revenge, I love his insidious mind full of hatred and doubts, his egocentric and emotionless decisions and he is a really, really selfish rabbit. But good or bad, Woundwort is a fascinating character and his life was majestic. If Hazel could become one of El-Ahrairah’s Owsla, Woundwort could be a one of Black Rabbit. He’s my second favorite in the book.

It’s a difficult thing to build a whole separated world just by your words. Maybe Watership Down’s world is not as detail and magnificent as Tolkien’s Lord of the Ring, it’s not magical and dreamy like Rowling’s Harry Potter and it’s not diverse and creative like Jin Yong’s wuxia novels, but it holds its own charm for being relatedly different. The beautiful countryside in Watership Down is really appealing and delicate when it’s viewed by animal’s senses. The smell, the dirt, the rain, the rivers,… everything is like a fresh and peaceful place in a desktop wallpaper that you don’t have the money to visit, then when you look closer, there are blood and bodies all over place. There is no way I can explain how poetic this place is because just like Kehaar, I have no vocabulary. I just know when the writing touches the nature, everything is breathing and lively and colorful and dramatic as hell.

Even the outside stories are thrilling too. The folk hero El-Ahrairah and his scams stories added the depth for the novel when it makes this whole world has history and the mind of its own. It’s not a pack of wild rabbits anymore because they has their own land, their own language and their own culture. Their folk hero El-Ahrairah represents of all the things they appreciate about being their own kind: he was a street smart, a super fraud, an arrogant cheater with sharp mind, some tricks and a good heart who was willing to trade his life for his pack. In human’s epic stories, the heroes usually a noble, loyal, kind man who have done the extreme things and they devoted their lives for the greater good. That’s what we value in a human’s moral, to be the one we told the children that we wanted to be but we all know that we won’t. In Watership Down, the rabbits values their best things that mother nature gave them in revolution: the strong legs give them the unbeatable speed and the devious mind can deceive the gods and kings. It’s good to know even though the characters are human-like, they’re still rabbit in the root and the writer didn’t put the human’s standard on them.

After all, Watership Down is truly a great novel with strong plot. It’s amazingly logical, has no plot hole and the flow of actions is fascinating to read. I have goosebumps watching the road that Hazel was running from his old lair to the end of his life and went straight to rabbit heaven. It is like watching a movie, a stylish movie with beautiful camera shot of countryside, a pack of different personalities, a cunning and memorial villains and a big dead or alive fight in the end. It’s a perfect recipe for a classic, which I just realize by the time I wrote those lines, there is absolutely no decent movie about this wonderful journey whatsoever.

Now, I could pretend to be a profound person if I want, to talk about how human race destroys the nature and killing all the animals in the wild for their selfish needs or talking about the aspect of the heroes and a strength to live. There could be the good, the bad, the “psychic” rabbit and more deep messages stuff, but in the end, I’m just a lazy and random young lady who can’t change the world, I think I just ignore the hell out of it and call it a day.