Watership Down tweeting | Okay I'm about to livetweet watching the whole miniseries again because I took a long break in the middle of episode 3, if that's gonna annoy you, you can mute me, I don't mind
WEIRD to put the mustard on the phrase "scattering his droppings" Bluebell, but okay, go off
Oh god the baby bunnies in the Sandleford warren, I forgot about them
Something about the viscousness of the animated blood I think turns it into kind of... narm. I know it's hard to convey something reflected in an animated rabbit's eye, but the bones in the warren of the snares are done better than that.
J*hn B*y*g* really brought his best work to this animated rabbit miniseries, like, the man did not come to play, he's 110% invested in his performance and I RESPECT AND APPRECIATE that
"I can feel the danger like a wire around my neck" I think that foreshadowing was a little hamhanded, actually
The great awkwardness of the encounter with the Threarah is, I think, a selling point of the scene, because it's v much Hazel going "yeah my little brother is psychic and our whole complex needs to move tonight" and having made excuses for a little brother before, let me tell you
Oh, Hazel, you serial monogamist you
I LOVE captions where the transcriber was clearly just doing their best. Was watching Letterkenny last night and had myself a few giggles. Just thought of that when Bigwig talks about "towing the line"
WHERE is Pipkin WHERE is my little dude who runs miles with a thorn in his paw without complaint
When you have a piece of fiction as oriented around an ensemble cast and their various strengths and weaknesses, CHANGES ARE MUCH BIGGER THAN YOU GUESS
Listen D*n**l K*l**y* also does a good job with what he's given but book!Bluebell is just better, that's how it is, read Ursula Vernon's reflections: https://www.redwombatstudio.com/2016/11/12/patron-saint-bluebell/
You can't have Bigwig say "I'll stop fighting the day I call you chief rabbit" AND THEN HAVE HIM SAY IT AT THE END OF EPISODE 1, it takes ALL OF THE PUNCH out of Bigwig's character arc
Okay but Bigwig just hitting the deck with the car going over him--that's a mood. I've seen the gifs on tumblr and they're right
I'm not sure that the concept of "tharn" is adequately explained in this adaptation and I think it would improve the Woundwort flashback in episode 4
Bigwig, as a FIGHTER, accepts and contends with death in a way the other rabbits do not and Hazel does not ask them to, which is why his relationship to the Black Rabbit of Inle is so moving, and I'm MAD they had him just go "there's no such thing." Silflay hraka
Listen I just reread Trickster's Queen, I know crows will mob anything, but WHY are they awake and WHY NOT the uncanny valley horror of encountering the badger, an ACTUAL NOCTURNAL THREAT with a surreal smile
Yes, Bigwig, you did realize that the rest of the rabbits had made Hazel chief rabbit, because you said something about it like 2 scenes ago
You know that tumblr art post about how dogs, with their shaped-like-a-friend appeal to humans, must be body horror to wolves? That's what I want to see in the badger scene
I've talked about Hazel's leadership arc already so instead I'm gonna say that was a really good animation shot of the inside of Fiver's ear. Like, there was depth in there, I, a layperson, appreciated it
Not gonna lie Cowslip does give me the correct uncanny vibes I was kinda hoping for from the badger. Like, that rabbit is definitely a serial killer, good job team
With the caveat about how I already feel about natural leader Hazel, I do appreciate how in this adaptation his choice to go to Cowslip's warren is a direct response to accusations of being too dependent on Fiver. Like, that's a legitimate move to retain credibility.
I also enjoy the character design differences between better fed rabbits, fighter rabbits, and hutch rabbits. I know the rabbits of Cowslip's warren is a plot point, and that the hutch rabbits being big and soft but unable to fight is part of their character, but it's good design
Back to the portrayal of art & religion in Cowslip's warren: I feel like the ritualized religion here undermines the folk religion that is such a strong theme throughout WD? Like, compared to Cowslip's warren, Hazel's band are explicitly primitive
They literally cannot comprehend sculpture and abstract art. And I don't know, I feel like making ritualized religion part of the "more advanced" culture takes away from the explicit religious practice the rabbits canonically take comfort from throughout the book
By "ritualized religion" I mean chanting around a sculpted crystal for emotional comfort in an explicitly nihilist society and by "folk religion" and "religious practice" for Hazel's band I mean storytelling and the legend of El-Ahrairah
Like, Bigwig asks for the story of the Black Rabbit of Inlé because he believes he is going to Efrafa to die. But even before then, he goes out to Efrafa because he believes death has called him by name--and he bows to that natural law. None of the other rabbits want to hear it!
I love love LOVE the mechanic of psychics in Watership Down. If psychics develop learned helplessness from not being believed (Kassandra), they turn into poets. I love that. And Hyzenthlay having some psychic power too, and it stoking her towards insurrection.
"You are closer to death than I"--THAT'S how you do foreshadowing, writers. Not surprising since it's canonical from the book.
In a way, having Bigwig in the snare be the cover image for so many print adaptations of Watership Down, instead of Hazel, is very like the Efrafans assuming that Bigwig is chief rabbit and then being ASTOUNDED that he's just in the owsla.
And I'm fascinated by that choice, particularly because the warren of the snares is NOT the central conflict of Watership Down, that's the conflict with Efrafa--but also because I think it's such a compelling plotline.
I think "my heart has joined the thousand, for my friend stopped running today" is such a wonderful mourning ritual and I'm about to analyze WHY
"My heart has joined the thousand": the thousand enemies, my heart is my enemy. WHOA. Dig that.
"My friend stopped running today": When life is built on running, it literally means "my friend died," but it also means "my friend surrendered."
"My heart is my enemy because my friend stopped running, and if I adhere to my heart I will surrender too. I will be my own enemy."
Admittedly in a lot of media it pisses me off when the protagonist has plot armor so that all of their decisions and guesses are correct and validated in the end (*m*r*c*n Sn*p*r, because it's just a deus ex machina defense of American imperialism).
But I LOVE that Hazel going to free the hutch rabbits is EXPLICITLY a bonehead move driven by the fact that he's bored and antsy while Holly's delegation goes to Efrafa. And they're useless in combat, they're liabilities in their own escape.
Re: Captain Holly and "zorn"--we don't see that "zorn" means "all is lost" in this adaptation. We don't see Captain Holly with his Samwise (Bluebell) staggering around so traumatized from the--not genocide, but mass murder of the Sandleford warren--that he cannot see straight
Holly calls out for Bigwig the same way that, in nightmares, I sometimes still scream out for my father to come save me. And Bigwig assuming this is the voice of death and going to him--that is the correct emotional tone for the story of the destruction of Sandleford.
And we don't even understand why or what that means until Bigwig asks for the story of El-Ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inlé later! It's worldbuilding that informs the actions of the characters in retrospect! It's good writing!
I noticed that in the animated version of the destruction of Sandleford, they have omitted the baby bunnies. I forgot about them, and that's why seeing them in episode 1 just hit me like a punch in the gut. But like, yeah, PG rating and all.
Holly is not dogged. Holly is destroyed. Choosing to have Bluebell in Hazel's band from the beginning--while clearly a move to give D*n**l K*l**y* more screentime, which is smart--diminishes the emotional impact of the destruction of the Sandleford warren.
Speaking of the story of the Black Rabbit--and I'll get more into that when I get my turn with the audiobook again--there is nothing more devastating than El-Ahrairah's complete despair at learning he cannot bring the white blindness to save his warren.
The Black Rabbit says, "It took you so much emotional effort to bring yourself to commit biological warfare against your enemies, and you can't even do it. You can't even die for your people. Because I have mutilated you and taken the gifts your god gave your people to survive."
IT IS NOT A SURPRISE THAT TEN-YEAR-OLD HOLLERS DID NOT UNDERSTAND THIS BOOK
I really feel like I need Kehaar to be weirder in this adaptation. And I liked Kehaar and Bigwig's weird friendship in the book, I'm mad they're not closer and Bigwig isn't attached to this blunt incomprehensible violent seagull in the miniseries.
Rabbits born and raised in captivity cannot long for the incomprehensible the way that Clover does in this adaptation. She's far too useful and self-sufficient. And while gender politics of Watership Down are EXPLICITLY BAD, so I see why they changed it, it irks me.
In the human!AU fic that I am not writing (I say through gritted teeth staring into the mirror) Strawberry is a genderfluid dandy rich kid, and all the guys are baffled by their attraction toward them. And Strawberry and Blackberry are the reason Hazel registers as a co-ed org
Last tweet brought to you between the juxtaposition between book!fancy little boy Strawberry and exasperated Bigwig, and miniseries!awkward Amazonian optimist Strawberry and Bigwig getting together and having worm-hunting babies.
The introductory dynamic of General Woundwort doing legwork on the ground and conveying the council's orders I think confuses the fact that Efrafa is an actual dictatorship
Wait a minute was that not Woundwort earlier? I will admit the coloring is different, I just looked for the eye scar.
I also miss the implications that Hazel learned from the warren of the snares--saying that because those rabbits adapted their culture, the was no reason bucks shouldn't learn to dig in the Down; explicitly modeling the honeycomb after their great hall
The warren of the snares was a horrible situation but even so Hazel was able to learn some things from it, and I think that's an important part of characterizing a protagonist. Not just torturing them for torture's sake.
I guess what I mean by that is the events in a story arc--along a hero's journey--should inform and build the characters. Once again, it's good writing.
DRUG MENTION | I remain baffled by this tattooist rabbit with the coke nail
"How do I know you're not one of them?" Uh, because he just showed up here and is explicitly being imprisoned by the General? Like, do rabbits have a concept of comprador intellectuals or THAT level of spycraft?
My cat looked confused and offended when this animated cat meowed.
DRUG MENTION | This ritual scarification is apparently far more detrimental than it needs to be, so the rabbit with the coke nail is apparently not very good at his job.
Oh, I do like when Hazel calls Bigwig his brother here. It's about the found family of it all.
I cannot differentiate between Woundwort and this rabbit who, I presume, will turn out to be Captain Orchis's brother. That's a character design issue and casting choice that needs to be addressed.
BLUEBELL telling HOLLY he can't go on and to leave him? ANATHEMA. How dare you, writers
This hutch rabbit's kicking legs as the farmwife picks her up is a little narmy.
Hazel's animated fall into the ditch with the pipe in the background is very well done, though. There's grace and softness to the way his little body falls down to the bottom.
It looks like all blood in this show is just animated extremely unrealistically. Probably because a faint dark wetness on dirt--especially under a flashlight--is not very visible or arresting.
At some point I'm gonna get up the energy to try and unpack the environmental message behind Watership Down and the rabbits' relationship to humans, but I don't think I'm ready to do that just yet, and probably not in a twitter post
WHO does the voice of the narrator and the human who speaks to Fiver in his vision? Why do I want to assign it to a character? It's so menacing.
"twitter post" I meant tweet, I'm a dumbass.
I do appreciate that they define "impetuous" for the audience, the joke isn't bad.
I am not enchanted by this romance but I guess they're trying to make the anthropomorphism less disconcerting for the audience and not give the PG viewers too many unfortunate implications about rabbit sex.
Clover has a sort of defiant captive thing going on. Which is fine! I guess I shouldn't be making too many complaints about the relative depth of psychology in the PG miniseries adaptation of the bunny book.
It's just that the psychology is SO GOOD in the bunny book.
The audio in this miniseries is good enough that when Kehaar whoops in the background in episode 3 I startled and wondered what the fuck my neighbors were doing
You know, rewatching is informing my experience. I'm understanding better why Orchis is so angry with Hyzenthlay when I can boil it down to, "She hit my brother with a TRAIN."
Also helps me to understand where the random singing scene comes from, because I was BAFFLED earlier today.
I do not see the point in disguising that Bigwig is a fighter. In the book it's what makes him an asset to Efrafa. Getting caught at being bad at being a storyteller is actually more suspicious than being a wandering bachelor who didn't have enough power in his old warren.
I do like that side-by-side shot of Hyzenthlay and Clover together. That's good character design.
"A rabbit of your size? You look like a troublemaker."
It's like they've never heard of the dumb muscle stereotype. Bigwig should be playing dumb powerhungry muscle, not "butter wouldn't melt"
There is absolutely zero reason General Woundwort should take an interest in Clover--OH HE'S ALSO AN EX HUTCH RABBIT
OHHH THAT'S INTERESTING CHARACTERIZATION
OH NOW I UNDERSTAND WHY HE LOOKED SO BIG AND CUTE AND NAÏVE IN HIS FLASHBACK IN EPISODE 4, this dynamic is INTRIGUING, it's another argument towards "learned behavior" instead of "innate behavior"!
He still shouldn't be interested in Clover, but I can see how the audience wouldn't get this information any other way.
I don't think that Woundwort was an ex-hutch rabbit in the book, but I can't remember clearly enough, because I was doing laundry at the time.
Here's a Hollers fact that's gonna be a little concerning: I genuinely do not understand how a person can be bad at lying. I do not comprehend it. I have been caught lying, that's very different. But the idea that Keep It Simple Stupid has to be taught was very surprising to me.
Last tweet brought to you by watching J*hn B*y*g*, excellent actor, play an animal with excellent navigational sense who apparently does not understand cardinal directions or The Sun
AND I'm caught up now.
I don't get why Kehaar just never shows up here? Is it for the drama? Maybe I just wasn't watching closely enough the first time around?
I need tea.
Fruit flies? In my kitchen?
"I know these does like my family."
Okay, Hyzenthlay and Hazel as gender counterparts--Hyzenthlay is the leader of the does of Efrafa, the marginalized (and the implication is that they're sexually abused) group in the larger. Hazel's bucks are all awkward bachelor nobodies.
So what does it mean that Hyzenthlay's found family is fallible--because there IS a spy--when Hazel's isn't?--the "weakness" being Fiver, whose visions and choices are later validated.
And Hyzenthlay's spy isn't forgiven, too. That's a leadership choice as well as a personal one.
Also Hyzenthlay as a foil to Fiver, because she has psychic impulses (less so than Fiver's visions or Silverweed's spirals) but she occupies a position of leadership instead of as advisor or entertainer. But she has to work in collaboration with Bigwig to achieve true power.
Do not let me write a shipping manifesto for rabbits on twitter I'M JUST SAYING their names have such similar sounds, Hazel and Hyzenthlay, that it feels natural that she's his romantic partner at the end of the book.
Okay Woundwort's second encounter with Clover makes more sense characterization-wise
Also I know rabbits IRL are matriarchal but I really don't think that Watership Down rabbit culture has queens. Like, I think they just threw that in there as an excuse to get Woundwort and Clover to talk, so Clover has Actionable Choices and Woundwort has backstory
I am still trying to comprehend the change in this hrududu subplot, and like 65% of my interest is that I enjoy saying "hrududu"
I feel like this traffic scene was needlessly upsetting.
I'm not sure what the psychological motivation behind wanting to break Hyzenthlay before her execution was. Like, this miniseries is either that deep or it's not. Is it trying to have it both ways? I do not know. We understand that Efrafa is evil. Was this just to hammer it in?
One of my least favorite things in any conlang or bilingual conceit is when words are translated in dialogue, because if we're supposed to believe they're speaking Lapine, then when Orchis says, "a homba, a fox," he just said a fox twice in-universe.
And then Hyzenthlay relies on the spy to distribute news of her escape attempt to her network--which is also an interesting choice! Not just because it seems that the new escape strategy is "brute force."
I feel like I would have liked to have seen more of Blackavar in this adaptation. But because they conflated the conflicts with Efrafa into 2 separate escalating ones and not, like, actual warfare, I understand how that got lost a little.
OH Hyzenthlay played her spy, whom she trusted, as a way to trick their oppressors. She banked on the spy being duplicitous. Hyzenthlay doesn't forgive Nettle because she's already dead to her. I wasn't watching closely enough the first time around.
You know what, I'm gonna argue here that cute fat baby Woundwort is a victim of bad leadership here. There's no reason to have the hutch rabbit as the only guard. He could have been placed with a senior guard, experienced and less vulnerable to tharn.
And seeing cute fat baby Woundwort so scared and upset is very distressing. In a way--though I know his conflict with the dog is tragic ("dogs aren't dangerous!")--his reaction when he sees a predator at the end is magnificent in comparison.
Like, there's genuine joy on Woundwort's face when he sees the dog. It's not the audacious and apparently ignorant charge of the book. He's ready for this fight. He's glad that it's happening. I dare say, he's even a bit in awe of Hazel's trick in bringing the dog down on him.
And now I can't decide if it's explicitly a trauma response to contrast his tharn and fear and flight from the fox in the flashback, to EMBRACE the fatal threat; or if it's a mark of how genuinely Woundwort has remade himself and how he COULD have been like Bigwig.
He COULD have been like Hazel and made the right choice for Efrafa by partnering with Watership. The writer explicitly states that he did not, because he is not a true leader. That was a moral failing on his part. If he had been a good rabbit, he would have taken Hazel's offer.
And of course Hazel makes that offer in this adaptation too, because it's both a compassionate decision and a good leadership decision. Woundwort's owsla say aloud for the audience what a good move it would be. Woundwort doesn't take it.
WHY is that cute fat bunny I like so much capable of becoming the despotic General Woundwort? How does a hutch rabbit like Clover, shaped by I guess the rabbit version of masculinity like Bigwig, and a leader like Hazel--become a villain like that?
And trust me, Woundwort is irredeemable. I just see in that flashback a point where he didn't have to be. Because he's cute and fat and soft and round, of course; but also because he was not equipped to stand sentry and a good captain would have known that.
OR maybe that's hindsight. Maybe a good captain would have given him the chance to prove himself. But when the stakes of all choices are as high as they are in Watership Down, it was just one bad decision that led to tragedy.
Hazel uses his rabbits in ways that show their strengths and loyalties but also gives them a chance to rise to the challenge. Maybe that's what Woundwort's captain was doing. Maybe the fact that Woundwort didn't rise to the challenge is, narratively, his fault?
I don't know. I like that cute fat bunny. I'm sad for him. It's a good reminder that Watership Down is not a story of cute fat bunnies, it's a story of nature red in tooth and claw.
Is the scene of Hazel and Clover hopping in synchronicity a character choice, or is it bad animation? You decide!
I just wanna say that for a moment there I was riding the line of being a Woundwort apologist and the fact that it was entirely motivated by a cute character causes me grave shame
Hazel explaining to Woundwort how his forces were detected here is an example of a good leadership choice. He's offering some conciliatory information before he issues his offer of cooperative partnership in a new warren. I just think after Hazel's arc in this series, that's cool
Captain Holly's confession towards Hyzenthlay is good, if simple: first, "I want to make you smile" (relief for a traumatized, sorely-tested character), then "I respect you" (important, even if Hyzenthlay weren't as accomplished as she is), THEN "you're beautiful" (attraction)
I'm almost not clear on who's issuing the order of "no lethal force, just subdue her." It has to be an Efrafan soldier, because only Watership has female combatants. I guess that's evidence of Efrafa's hierarchy breaking down?
The fuck, did I just miss them killing off Holly the first time around? That can't be right, right? Tell me I see him in the epilogue and I just forgot him.
Not sure what it means for his character arc if he is dead for real. Too brainfried.
SHIT I got it, Hyzenthlay says "for my friend stopped running today" because Holly literally did stop running. Instead he stood and fought, and he died for it.
He survived Sandleford by running, despite all the others who were trying to do the same thing, and his friends and family clawed him up in the process.
But Watership is worth holding, so he stops running. He fights and he dies.
Not sure if he died defending Hyzenthlay (which would be the typical move in a show like this) because I was looking at my computer screen at the time, which is why I was so confused when she started shouting for Holly.
OH now I'm getting a sense of Hazel's visions and why he randomly went "oh, rope!" a couple episodes ago. That's actually some good foreshadowing.
I do like this Efrafan rabbit who understands a soldier's legal obligation to refuse an unjust, immoral, and illegal order and dismisses all his subordinates despite threat of personal retribution. And because he just bullies Orchis, and Orchis has that coming.
I forgot to say that I'm glad Kehaar did come back.
Also, did anyone ever explain that Bigwig is a translation of the name Thlayli, or are all the viewers just like "?"
Oh good, they kept the moment of Bigwig going "eat shit, stink lord." And the revelation that Bigwig is NOT the chief rabbit does have some of the emotional punch you get from him calling Hazel his chief rabbit moments before he believes he's going to die.
I'm gonna want to explore that moment of Hazel doing what he thinks is abandoning Fiver to die so that he can save the rest of the warren. But probably on priv, because I'm gonna make sweeping political generalizations about it.
I don't necessarily like the on-screen reveal to Woundwort that Hazel is the chief rabbit. I like the Efrafans assuming that Bigwig's chief must be even bigger and badder than Woundwort.
OKAY OKAY WOUNDWORT SCENE "We fear no elil. I fear no dog. I fear nothing." It's not "dogs aren't dangerous!" like it was from the book, but it's still MAGNIFICENT. "We fear no enemies"--and why should we, when we have the ability to run?
BUT WOUNDWORT LITERALLY STOPS RUNNING. He chooses to stand and fight, just like Holly! It's not the "but first they must catch you" that Frith granted to El-Ahrairah. Watership Down argues that fear is not always a bad thing! In moderation, it is the characters' savior!
Too much fear is devastating. Woundwort's tragedy--the cute fat rabbit--is that he goes to extremes. First extremes of fear--tharn--in the backstory, and then extremes of dictatorship, and then the extremes of "I fear nothing" before his death.
He has no balance. Hazel has balance--Hazel works hard balancing all of his band and their strengths and weaknesses.
Nonsequitur: Oh shit Fiver knows Hazel's dying in this scene, I didn't realize that on the first go-round, I just thought the dialogue felt really weird and heavy-handed for the end of the series.
Back to Woundwort: in the book, they never found the body! Now I've seen what my dog did to a rabbit, and it was bad, but in the book Woundwort ascends into mythology the same way that Hazel does. He's the rabbit as big as a dog who met it in combat, and there's no proof he lost!
Now, I'm not going to say that this is the ideal character arc. I wouldn't want it for Clover, for example. But it's an apotheosis that I think that the cute fat bunny from the flashback would be awed by, and it helps me understand how Woundwort shaped himself through his choices
I do miss the memory issue from Watership Down. Blackavar forgets things faster than the Watership rabbits, and eventually even the Watership rabbits forget the things they did and that they weren't the stories of El-Ahrairah, they were true.
It's an interesting take on mythology and growth of culture. We want Watership to exist into perpetuity, even as I suspect it can't, but it certainly seems to be a utopia for the characters. The best beloved culture is not the most artistically advanced, but the kindest.
The one that balances the need for survival with the need for humanity. Which is part of why I want to unpack Hazel leaving Fiver behind, but I won't just now. I have to reread the book properly first and try and remember what actually happened, when Hazel rode in the hrududu.
Anyway that's the end of my livetweeting thread, I'm gonna watch The Umbrella Academy for the ninth time, respond to comments, and play Story of Seasons. Right now I'm trying to build really powerful chickens as fast as possible.
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