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* {{Foreshadowing}}: While Bigwig is facing off with the General, he can hear one of the does in the burrow behind distracting the others with a story, The Fox in the Water" in which El-ahrairah pretends to tells a fox his future. "Swift hounds on the scent and my enemy fleeing for his life."
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* ADogNamedDog: A hedgehog character named Yona shows up a few times; "yona" is Lapine for "hedgehog".
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The thing is, the film is notorious in Internet culture for one simple reason: the AnimationAgeGhetto 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 NightmareFuel 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.'' ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids Not For Little Kids]]''.
There is also a far more obscure television series. In the first two seasons, it primarily changes aspects of the characters and story to make it [[LighterAndSofter appeal better to families]] e.g. [[GenderFlip making Blackberry female]] to add more diversity to the predominantly male cast[[hottip:spoiler:In fact, a plot point of the main book is that, when they reach Watership Down, they suddenly discover that they forgot to bring females along!]]. Despite this, has some redeeming qualities, but [[JumpingTheShark that changes]] at the start of season three, perhaps in [[CerebusSyndrome an attempt]] to make it DarkerAndEdgier. [[SoBadItsGood Some people enjoy even that, though]].
There is also a far more obscure television series. In the first two seasons, it primarily changes aspects of the characters and story to make it [[LighterAndSofter appeal better to families]] e.g. [[GenderFlip making Blackberry female]] to add more diversity to the predominantly male cast[[hottip:spoiler:In fact, a plot point of the main book is that, when they reach Watership Down, they suddenly discover that they forgot to bring females along!]]. Despite this, has some redeeming qualities, but [[JumpingTheShark that changes]] at the start of season three, perhaps in [[CerebusSyndrome an attempt]] to make it DarkerAndEdgier. [[SoBadItsGood Some people enjoy even that, though]].
to:
The thing is, the film is notorious in Internet culture for one simple reason: the AnimationAgeGhetto 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 NightmareFuel 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.'' Oh, this movie is really bloody too. ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids Not For Little Kids]]''.
There is also a far more obscure television series. In the first two seasons, it primarily changes aspects of the characters and story to make it [[LighterAndSofter appeal better to families]] e.g. [[GenderFlip making Blackberry female]] to add more diversity to the predominantly male cast[[hottip:spoiler:In fact, a plot point of the main book is that, when they reach Watership Down, they suddenly discover that they forgot to bring females along!]]. Despite this, has some redeeming qualities, but [[JumpingTheShark that changes]] at the start of season three, perhaps in [[CerebusSyndrome an attempt]] to make it DarkerAndEdgier. [[SoBadItsGood Some people enjoy even that,though]].
though]].
There is also a far more obscure television series. In the first two seasons, it primarily changes aspects of the characters and story to make it [[LighterAndSofter appeal better to families]] e.g. [[GenderFlip making Blackberry female]] to add more diversity to the predominantly male cast[[hottip:spoiler:In fact, a plot point of the main book is that, when they reach Watership Down, they suddenly discover that they forgot to bring females along!]]. Despite this, has some redeeming qualities, but [[JumpingTheShark that changes]] at the start of season three, perhaps in [[CerebusSyndrome an attempt]] to make it DarkerAndEdgier. [[SoBadItsGood Some people enjoy even that,
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** "Hatred" is not really an accurate description of the rabbits' feelings towards him. They certainly don't like him, but it's more a matter of extreme fear than anything else - as one would expect with him being a personification of death. If you draw a line from the ''{{Discworld}}'' Death through the GoodOmens Death and extrapolate it to the point where there is ''almost'' no humour remaining, you pretty much end up with the Black Rabbit - terrifying but not evil, and the rabbits react to him as such.
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** "Hatred" is not really an accurate description of the rabbits' feelings towards him. They certainly don't like him, but it's more a matter of extreme fear than anything else - -- as one would expect with him being a personification of death. If you draw a line from the ''{{Discworld}}'' ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' Death through the GoodOmens ''Literature/GoodOmens'' Death and extrapolate it to the point where there is ''almost'' no humour remaining, you pretty much end up with the Black Rabbit - -- terrifying but not evil, and the rabbits react to him as such.
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* CityInABottle: Cowslip's warren and, to a lesser extent, Efrafa. Not quite ''LogansRun'', but close.
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* CityInABottle: Cowslip's warren and, to a lesser extent, Efrafa. Not quite ''LogansRun'', ''Literature/LogansRun'', but close.
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Silver\'s colour, Black Rabbit\'s character
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** Note that he is not the cute albino type of white rabbit that magicians pull out of hats, though. He's grey, rather than pure white; he's a rare, pale and desaturated, colour variant of the normal wild rabbit.
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** "Hatred" is not really an accurate description of the rabbits' feelings towards him. They certainly don't like him, but it's more a matter of extreme fear than anything else - as one would expect with him being a personification of death. If you draw a line from the ''{{Discworld}}'' Death through the GoodOmens Death and extrapolate it to the point where there is ''almost'' no humour remaining, you pretty much end up with the Black Rabbit - terrifying but not evil, and the rabbits react to him as such.
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chaning to more specific sub trope
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* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: Film only, and they have a fun way of subverting the RedEyesTakeWarning subtrope. All the heroes ''have'' red eyes - they're rabbits after all. And we get so used to this over the course of the film that the minute we see the Efrafan rabbits' ''blue'' eyes, we sense something sinister about them.
** 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).
** 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).
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* GoodColorsEvilColors: Film only, and they have a fun way of subverting the RedEyesTakeWarning subtrope. All the heroes ''have'' red eyes - they're rabbits after all. And we get so used to this over the course of the film that the minute we see the Efrafan rabbits' ''blue'' eyes, we sense something sinister about them.
** 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).
** 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).
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Took out a few of the more questionably-relevant points. They seemed like Entry Pimping.
* AuthorAvatar: The doctor who patches up Hazel at the end is meant to be Adams himself.
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*** Dogs aren't dangerous!
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* FantasyPantheon: 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.
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* FantasyPantheon: The rabbits have a fairly standard pantheon of gods - Frith the creator and sun god, his lieutenant Prince Rainbow, Rainbow (who seems to represent humanity), the Black Rabbit of Inlé as a god of death, and El-ahrairah, the heroic prince of rabbits.rabbits. It's implied that other animals have their own patrons in the vein of El-ahrairah as well.
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* FeatheredFiend: 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.
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* FeatheredFiend: Subverted Averted 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.
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* FragileSpeedster: Dandelion.
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* FragileSpeedster: Dandelion. And every rabbit in the book, to an extent, but Dandelion in particular.
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* FolkHero: [[TheTrickster El-ahrairah]], the first rabbit and culture hero; eventually, Hazel becomes ShroudedInMyth and his adventures get retold as if they were El-ahrairah's.
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* FolkHero: [[TheTrickster El-ahrairah]], the first rabbit and culture hero; eventually, Hazel becomes ShroudedInMyth and his adventures get retold as if they were El-ahrairah's.El-ahrairah's, implying the latter to be a CompositeCharacter.
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** ''[[Literature/TailchasersSong Talichaser's Song]]'' (feral cats) and ''FireBringer'' (deer) are in what could be considered the same genre of 'epic adventures told from the perspective of wild animals.' Most works in the TalkingAnimal genre such as ''Literature/GuardiansOfGaHoole'' fall into CivilizedAnimal territory.
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* HeadInTheSandManagement: 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}}.)
** In fairness to him, the rabbits do lampshade the logistical nightmare of the whole warren up-and-leaving above ground, concluding it might be safer to stay down and try to dodge whatever's coming where they can't be seen. Unfortunately, what they ''don't'' anticipate (because they've never met it before) is the humans' use of [[spoiler:poison gas.]]
** In fairness to him, the rabbits do lampshade the logistical nightmare of the whole warren up-and-leaving above ground, concluding it might be safer to stay down and try to dodge whatever's coming where they can't be seen. Unfortunately, what they ''don't'' anticipate (because they've never met it before) is the humans' use of [[spoiler:poison gas.]]
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* HeadInTheSandManagement: 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}}.)\n** In fairness to him, the rabbits do lampshade the logistical nightmare of the whole warren up-and-leaving above ground, concluding it might be safer to stay down and try to dodge whatever's coming where they can't be seen. Unfortunately, what they ''don't'' anticipate (because they've never met it before) is the humans' use of [[spoiler:poison gas.]]
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* {{Honorifics}}: The Lapine language has its own, though only two are mentioned; -roo is an affectionate diminutive (similar to [[JapaneseHonorifics -chan]]), and -rah means "king" or "lord" (usually used to refer to chief rabbits).
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* {{Honorifics}}: The Lapine language has its own, though only two are mentioned; -roo is an affectionate diminutive (similar to [[JapaneseHonorifics -chan]]), diminutive, and -rah means "king" or "lord" (usually used to refer to chief rabbits).
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* IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace: The [[FanNickname warren of the Shining Wires]].
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* WickedCultured: The [[CityInABottle doomed rabbits]] of Cowslip's warren have gotten into poetry, rudimentary cave art, and other human-like mannerisms. And in every dramatization Cowslip speaks with a [[EvilBrit posh accent]].
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* WickedCultured: The [[CityInABottle doomed rabbits]] of Cowslip's warren have gotten into poetry, rudimentary cave art, and other human-like mannerisms. And in every dramatization Cowslip speaks with a [[EvilBrit [[AristocratsAreEvil posh accent]].
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* YouAreNumberSix: Fiver, both in Lapine and in translation.
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* YouAreNumberSix: Fiver, both in Lapine and in translation. A rare case of this trope not being used for dehumanization. Or perhaps, derabbitization.
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* [[ActionGirl Action Doe]]: Flyairth, the former Chief Rabbit of [[LadyLand Thinial]], tackles a (small) dog to save Hazel. Inspired by her example, Hyzenthlay becomes co-Chief Rabbit with Hazel, and her first major task is rescuing a wounded doe, as detailed in the story "Hyzenthlay in Action".
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* [[ActionGirl Action Doe]]: In ''Tales'', Flyairth, the former Chief Rabbit of [[LadyLand Thinial]], tackles a (small) dog to save Hazel. Inspired by her example, Hyzenthlay becomes co-Chief Rabbit with Hazel, and her first major task is rescuing a wounded doe, as detailed in the story "Hyzenthlay in Action".
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* ArtShift: The chapter named "Dea Ex Machina" uses a very different style than the rest of the book. Most of the dialogue (except the doctor's) is written with very heavy FunetikAksent (British Accent), and the non-dialogue parts sounds very British compared to the rest of the book which is mostly in plain non-British English.
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* ArtShift: The chapter named "Dea Ex Machina" uses a very different style than the rest of the book. Most of the dialogue (except the doctor's) is written with very heavy FunetikAksent (British Accent), and the non-dialogue parts sounds very British compared to the rest of the book which is mostly in plain non-British not-specifically-British English.
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* FunetikAksent: 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 [[StarWars JarJar-level]] YouNoTakeCandle, and the animated series follows that convention.
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* FunetikAksent: 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 vater''!). Given his species of translating gull, it's quite likely this phonetic speech literally, so that he ends up speaking in [[StarWars JarJar-level]] YouNoTakeCandle, and the animated series follows that convention.was meant to resemble a German accent.
* FunnyForeigner: Kehaar.
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* SedgwickSpeech: "Come back, you fools! Dogs aren't dangerous! Come back and fight!" (Though this only counts if [[spoiler:you believe Woundwort actually died]].)
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* SedgwickSpeech: "Come back, you fools! Dogs aren't dangerous! Come back and fight!" (Though this only counts if [[spoiler:you [[spoiler: [[NeverFoundTheBody you believe Woundwort actually died]].died]]]].)
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* CompositeCharacter: El-ahrairah is subtly implied to a be a composite of every particularly clever Chief Rabbit who has ever lived.
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[[caption-width-right:300:[[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/movies-dumbed-down.php?page=9 I Just Wanted A Movie About Bunnies]].
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[[caption-width-right:300:[[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/movies-dumbed-down.php?page=9 I Just Wanted A Movie About Bunnies]]. \n]]
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British English *is*, in fact, \'plain, normal English*, and is to be expected in a book written by an Englishman.
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** Any Human in the book gets very thick and heavy British accents with the exception of the doctor (since the story takes place in England). Lucy is particularly difficult to understand unless you say the words aloud while you read them. Also, her ''entire chapter'' (even non-speech) is littered with this and lots of British terminology/dialects whereas the rest of the book is written in plain, normal English.
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** Any Human in the book gets very thick and heavy heavily phonetic British accents accents, with the exception of the doctor (since the story takes place in England). Lucy is particularly difficult to understand unless you say the words aloud while you read them. Also, her ''entire chapter'' (even non-speech) is littered with this and lots of British terminology/dialects whereas the rest of the book is written in plain, normal English.(presumably better-educated) doctor.
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Point already more than made; deleted examples are actually among the more kid-friendly moments.
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The thing is, the film is notorious in Internet culture for one simple reason: the AnimationAgeGhetto 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 NightmareFuel 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.'' ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids Not For Little Kids]]''. Furthermore, if you get through all that, it climaxes with the hero rabbits being forced to apply the equivalent of a tactical nuke to save their warren by luring a dog to tear into Woundwart's forces ''literally'' and the main hero ''dies'' at the very end, albeit peacefully after an extraordinary life with the divine reassurance his colony will be fine without him.
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The thing is, the film is notorious in Internet culture for one simple reason: the AnimationAgeGhetto 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 NightmareFuel 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.'' ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids Not For Little Kids]]''. Furthermore, if you get through all that, it climaxes with the hero rabbits being forced to apply the equivalent of a tactical nuke to save their warren by luring a dog to tear into Woundwart's forces ''literally'' and the main hero ''dies'' at the very end, albeit peacefully after an extraordinary life with the divine reassurance his colony will be fine without him.\n
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Um, it\'s a caption. All of the below is covered nicely in the main header.
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[[caption-width-right:300:[[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/movies-dumbed-down.php?page=9 I Just Wanted A Movie About Bunnies]]. This poster [[NightmareFuel should give you an idea on how dark the movie really is]]. [[GenreBlind Too bad that it is not enough to stop]] AnimationAgeGhetto, [[CaptainObvious and as a result]], [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids it traumatized a lot of children]] despite its U (Equivalent to G) rating.]]
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[[caption-width-right:300:[[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/movies-dumbed-down.php?page=9 I Just Wanted A Movie About Bunnies]]. This poster [[NightmareFuel should give you an idea on how dark the movie really is]]. [[GenreBlind Too bad that it is not enough to stop]] AnimationAgeGhetto, [[CaptainObvious and as a result]], [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids it traumatized a lot of children]] despite its U (Equivalent to G) rating.]]\n
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* AscendedToCarnivorism: 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.
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* AscendedToCarnivorism: 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.
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* DeerInTheHeadlights: The rabbits have a term for it: "Tharn".
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[[caption-width-right:300:[[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/movies-dumbed-down.php?page=9 I Just Wanted A Movie About Bunnies]]. This poster [[NightmareFuel should give you an idea on how dark the movie really is]]. [[GenreBlind Too bad that it is not enough to stop]] AnimationAgeGhetto, [[CaptainObvious and as a result]], [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids it traumatized a lot of children]].]]
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[[caption-width-right:300:[[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/movies-dumbed-down.php?page=9 I Just Wanted A Movie About Bunnies]]. This poster [[NightmareFuel should give you an idea on how dark the movie really is]]. [[GenreBlind Too bad that it is not enough to stop]] AnimationAgeGhetto, [[CaptainObvious and as a result]], [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids it traumatized a lot of children]].children]] despite its U (Equivalent to G) rating.]]
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Changed line(s) 2,3 (click to see context) from:
[[caption-width-right:300:[[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/movies-dumbed-down.php?page=9 I Just Wanted A Movie About Bunnies]][[hottip:*:This poster [[NightmareFuel should give you an idea on how dark the movie really is]]. [[GenreBlind Too bad that it is not enough to stop]] AnimationAgeGhetto, [[CaptainObvious and as a result]], [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids it traumatized a lot of children]].]]
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[[caption-width-right:300:[[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/movies-dumbed-down.php?page=9 I Just Wanted A Movie About Bunnies]][[hottip:*:This Bunnies]]. This poster [[NightmareFuel should give you an idea on how dark the movie really is]]. [[GenreBlind Too bad that it is not enough to stop]] AnimationAgeGhetto, [[CaptainObvious and as a result]], [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids it traumatized a lot of children]].]]
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One quote per page please.
Deleted line(s) 7,9 (click to see context) :
->''"It's about bunnies."''
--> --Sawyer, Series/{{Lost}}
--> --Sawyer, Series/{{Lost}}
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* ArtShift: The chapter named "Dea Ex Machina" uses a very different style than the rest of the book. Most of the dialogue (except the doctor's) is written with very heavy FunetikAksent (British Accent), and the non-dialogue parts sounds very British compared to the rest of the book which is mostly in plain non-British English.
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** Any Human in the book gets very thick and heavy British accents with the exception of the doctor (since the story takes place in England). Lucy is particularly difficult to understand unless you say the words aloud while you read them. Also, her ''entire chapter'' (even non-speech) is littered with this and lots of British terminology/dialects whereas the rest of the book is written in plain, normal English.
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--->'''Dandelion:''' "We go by the will of the Black Rabbit of Inle' and ''only'' by his will... he will avenge any rabbit who many chance to be destroyed without the consent of himself."
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--->'''Dandelion:''' "We go by the will of the Black Rabbit of Inle' and ''only'' by his will... he will avenge any rabbit who many may chance to be destroyed without the consent of himself."
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Changed line(s) 14,15 (click to see context) from:
[[RascallyRabbit Yes, rabbits]]. [[BetterThanItSounds Bear with us]] for a moment. They're not [[MostWritersAreHuman humans in rabbit form]]. Caution is a way of life because [[EverythingTryingToKillYou death is a moment-to-moment possibility]]. They [[{{Xenofiction}} can't count past four]] because they only have four paws (Fiver, the runt of a five-kit litter, gets his name from the Lapine word ''hrair'', [[TranslationConvention meaning "a thousand", but generally just meaning "lots"]], which is usually translated as just "five"). They think ''hrududil'' (cars and other large machinery) are some type of animal.
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[[RascallyRabbit Yes, rabbits]]. [[BetterThanItSounds Bear with us]] us for a moment. They're not [[MostWritersAreHuman humans in rabbit form]]. Caution is a way of life because [[EverythingTryingToKillYou death is a moment-to-moment possibility]]. They [[{{Xenofiction}} can't count past four]] because they only have four paws (Fiver, the runt of a five-kit litter, gets his name from the Lapine word ''hrair'', [[TranslationConvention meaning "a thousand", but generally just meaning "lots"]], which is usually translated as just "five"). They think ''hrududil'' (cars and other large machinery) are some type of animal.
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* SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism: Far non-human end of the spectrum ({{Intellectual Animal}}s).
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* SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism: Far Body Type 6, far non-human end of the spectrum ({{Intellectual Animal}}s).
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The name of the author.
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* ShownTheirWork: One of the biggest examples is the geography. Every little detail noted in the book was present in the location's real life counterpart.
** Also, the Author himself notes at the beginning of the book that he had done a lot of research, using another author's book, ''The Private Life of the Rabbit'' as a basis for a lot of rabbit behavior, instincts, needs, etc found in the novel.
** Also, the Author himself notes at the beginning of the book that he had done a lot of research, using another author's book, ''The Private Life of the Rabbit'' as a basis for a lot of rabbit behavior, instincts, needs, etc found in the novel.
to:
* ShownTheirWork: ShownTheirWork:
** One of the biggest examples is the geography. Every little detail noted in the book was present in the location's real life counterpart.
** Also, the Author himself notes at the beginning of the book that he had done a lot of research, usinganother author's book, naturalist Ronald Lockley's book ''The Private Life of the Rabbit'' as a basis for a lot of rabbit behavior, instincts, needs, etc etc. found in the novel.
** One of the biggest examples is the geography. Every little detail noted in the book was present in the location's real life counterpart.
** Also, the Author himself notes at the beginning of the book that he had done a lot of research, using
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** Also, the Author himself notes at the beginning of the book that he had done a lot of research, using another author's book, ''The Private Life of the Rabbit'' as a basis for a lot of rabbit behavior, instincts, needs, etc found in the novel.
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The thing is, the film is notorious in Internet culture for one simple reason: the AnimationAgeGhetto 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 NightmareFuel 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.'' ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids Not For Little Kids]]''.
to:
The thing is, the film is notorious in Internet culture for one simple reason: the AnimationAgeGhetto 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 NightmareFuel 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.'' ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids Not For Little Kids]]''.
Kids]]''. Furthermore, if you get through all that, it climaxes with the hero rabbits being forced to apply the equivalent of a tactical nuke to save their warren by luring a dog to tear into Woundwart's forces ''literally'' and the main hero ''dies'' at the very end, albeit peacefully after an extraordinary life with the divine reassurance his colony will be fine without him.
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[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/watership_down.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/movies-dumbed-down.php?page=9 I Just Wanted A Movie About Bunnies]][[hottip:*:This poster [[NightmareFuel should give you an idea on how dark the movie really is]]. [[GenreBlind Too bad that it is not enough to stop]] AnimationAgeGhetto, [[CaptainObvious and as a result]], [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids it traumatized a lot of children]].]]
->''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")
->''"It's about bunnies."''
--> --Sawyer, Series/{{Lost}}
An '''epic''' LowFantasy adventure by Richard Adams.
Hazel, our protagonist, has a little brother named [[WaifProphet Fiver]]. Fiver has horrific -- and as later events prove, [[NightmareFuel accurate]] -- visions of the destruction of their [[DoomedHometown home warren]] at Sandleford, but Hazel [[CassandraTruth can't convince their Chief to pay attention to some loony runt]], so he convinces a few of his friends to join him in leaving their homes to escape. Of note are [[TheBigGuy Bigwig]], one of the community's Owsla (guards), and [[TheSmartGuy Blackberry]], who is by the standards of their tribe a mechanical genius. Which is to say, he is the only cast member to even come close to understanding basic physics... like, for instance, "floating on water." Because, see, these are ''rabbits''...
[[RascallyRabbit Yes, rabbits]]. [[BetterThanItSounds Bear with us]] for a moment. They're not [[MostWritersAreHuman humans in rabbit form]]. Caution is a way of life because [[EverythingTryingToKillYou death is a moment-to-moment possibility]]. They [[{{Xenofiction}} can't count past four]] because they only have four paws (Fiver, the runt of a five-kit litter, gets his name from the Lapine word ''hrair'', [[TranslationConvention meaning "a thousand", but generally just meaning "lots"]], which is usually translated as just "five"). They think ''hrududil'' (cars and other large machinery) are some type of animal.
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.
Their journey is long - for a rabbit (about five miles). And it is punctuated by times of rest, during which they regale each other with tales of their FolkHero, the first rabbit: El-ahrairah, the Prince With a Thousand Enemies. El-ahrairah is a [[TheTrickster Trickster hero]] (meet us halfway between Literature/{{Beowulf}} and BugsBunny and you've got the idea), and the legends we hear deal with everything from the rabbit's creation myth to El-ahrairah's [[ToHellAndBack descent into Inle to meet the Black Rabbit.]] And don't think that the stories are separate from the action, because they build up an intricate belief system that rewards us with major character moments, up to and including the very end of the story.
[[Synopsis/WatershipDown Plot Synopsis]] (spoilers)
The novel proved so popular that, decades later, Adams wrote a set of sequel stories. Called ''Tales From Watership Down'', the stories actually take place ''during'' the original novel, though after the resolution of the plot--that is, they expand on the warren's post-battle history that had previously just been given a brief mention in the original [[DistantFinale Epilogue]]. They include what became of [[TheChick Hyzenthlay]]; and additional tales such as "The Terrible Hay-making" and "The Hole In The Sky". Naturally, some fans like the book, others call FanonDiscontinuity.
Also notable is the [[AnimatedAdaptation 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 StudioGhibli-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 TheFilmOfTheBook ''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 AnimationAgeGhetto 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 NightmareFuel 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.'' ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids Not For Little Kids]]''.
There is also a far more obscure television series. In the first two seasons, it primarily changes aspects of the characters and story to make it [[LighterAndSofter appeal better to families]] e.g. [[GenderFlip making Blackberry female]] to add more diversity to the predominantly male cast[[hottip:spoiler:In fact, a plot point of the main book is that, when they reach Watership Down, they suddenly discover that they forgot to bring females along!]]. Despite this, has some redeeming qualities, but [[JumpingTheShark that changes]] at the start of season three, perhaps in [[CerebusSyndrome an attempt]] to make it DarkerAndEdgier. [[SoBadItsGood Some people enjoy even that, though]].
----
!!Examples of the following tropes:
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:All versions]]
* ActionSurvivor and AlmostDeadGuy: [[spoiler:Holly.]]
* AerithAndBob
** 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 "{{translat|ionConvention}}ed" 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 [[ActionGirl Hyzenthlay]] and {{The|Unpronounceable}}thuthinnang.
* AloneWithPrisonerPloy
* AndroclesLion: 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.
* AnimalTalk: the rabbits talk in their own Lapine language, of course, but they can also communicate with other animals using "Hedgerow dialect", which gives other animals {{Funetik Aksent}}s. Naturally, they can't understand human, at least not without extensive contact.
* AngryGuardDog: And imagine ''that'' when you're a fraction of its size.
* AnyoneCanDie
* {{Arcadia}}: Watership Down.
* AscendedToCarnivorism: 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.
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler: As Hazel dies, El-ahrairah comes to make him one of his Owsla]].
* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: The reason why Woundwort is the Chief Rabbit of Efrafa. (He killed the previous chief and a rival, taking the warren by force.)
** Lampshaded effectively in the novel itself: Woundwort presumes this trope is in effect at Watership Down as well, and is shocked into something close to fear when at a climactic moment he learns Bigwig isn't their Chief.
** 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.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: General Woundwort.
* {{Badass}}: Bigwig, especially apparent during his [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome last stand battle]] with the General.
** Hell, the General himself, who doesn't even flinch when he charges a giant (by his standards) bloodthirsty dog trying to kill him.
*** Dogs aren't dangerous!
* BadassArmy: The Efrafan Owsla.
* BeastFable: Popularly thought to be much like ''AnimalFarm'' with a theme about the dangers of appeasement and fascism. The [[ShowWithinAShow Story Within a Story]] is a series of {{Beast Fable}}s that teach the rabbits about death and survival.
** Although if it is a fable or an allegorical tale, it is not at all {{anvilicious}}. It stands on its own as adventure {{xenofiction}}.
* BecauseDestinySaysSo
-->''[+"There is not a day or night that a doe does not offer her life for her kittens, or some honest captain of Owsla his life for his chief. But there is no bargain. What is, is what must be."+]''
* BigBrotherInstinct: 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.
* BigBrotherMentor: Hazel to Fiver, usually when he's picked on by the likes of Bigwig. Also a literal big brother, in this case.
* BringNewsBack: The destruction of the warren, and also the warning about Efrafa. Holly is the messenger in both cases.
* CallARabbitASmeerp: Oddly averted, insofar as most rabbit terms for human inventions are translated, except for cigarettes and cars. We actually never learn what the rabbit word for rabbit is, but then again, perhaps [[OfThePeople there isn't one]].
* CaptainSmoothAndSergeantRough: While Hazel leads by inspiring rabbits and convincing them of his competence, Bigwig acts as a SergeantRock and sometimes as a DrillSergeantNasty.
** 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.
* TheCaptain: Hazel, and every warren has a Captain of Owsla.
* CassandraTruth: Fiver, at first. In fact, the quote of the first chapter in the book ''is'' Cassandra, from the play ''Agamemnon''.
* CatsAreMean: Tab is at first [[CarnivoreConfusion 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.
* CityInABottle: Cowslip's warren and, to a lesser extent, Efrafa. Not quite ''LogansRun'', but close.
* ComeToGawk
* ConditionedToAcceptHorror: All the rabbits of Cowslip's warren. They even have poets who sing about the nobility and dignity of accepting death.
* ConLang: The rabbits' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapine_language Lapine language]], of course.
* CrapsaccharineWorld: 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]].
* CrystalDragonJesus: Averted for the most part with El-ahrairah, as he differs from {{Jesus}} in many ways, but the comparison is inevitable.
* DeathTrap: [[spoiler:Cowslip's warren, indirectly]].
* DefectorFromDecadence: Strawberry. The does of Efrafa are a subversion -- their ''elil''-free warren is meant to be rabbit paradise, but instead it's an oppressive police state that is slowly killing them.
* {{Determinator}}: Woundwort ''will not'' give up his pursuit of the Watership rabbits--and Bigwig will not give up his defense of them, even after taking damage that ought to kill him.
* DeusExMachina: [[spoiler:The farmer's daughter rescuing Hazel from the cat and taking him home.]] The chapter [[LampshadeHanging is even called "Dea ex Machina"]].
** 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.
* DeusExitMachina: Kehaar[[spoiler:, whose aerial support had been essential in the escape from the Efrafans and is big and aggressive enough to deter just about any rabbit except Woundwort[[hottip:*:heck, ''including'' Woundwort on open ground without cover]],]] returns to the sea before the final battle.
* DoomedHometown: Sandleford Warren.
* DreamingOfThingsToCome: Several of the characters have dreams loaded with foreshadowing.
* {{Dystopia}}: Efrafa, and probably [[spoiler: Cowslip's Warren]].
** For those wondering, [[spoiler: Cowslip's warren is situated next to a farm, whose owner has been leaving food out to keep the rabbits there while setting traps for them, giving him a steady food source. This has led to many strange habits for the rabbits, including a taboo against wondering about the location of any rabbit, thus putting the concept of the traps out of their heads.]]
* EarnYourHappyEnding: Hazel's [[spoiler:death of old age]].
* EverythingTryingToKillYou: Such an integral part of the story that it's {{lampshade|Hanging}}d 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... [[FragileSpeedster 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.
* EvilGenius: Woundwort had an advisor named Snowdrop who pretty much designed Efrafa and the marks system by himself.
* FantasyPantheon: 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.
** And at the end, [[spoiler: Woundwort is added as the rabbit version of [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight the bogeyman]].]]
* FeatheredFiend: 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.
* FragileSpeedster: Dandelion.
* FleetingDemographicRule: Literally in-universe, due to rabbits' short lifespan. The main events of the novel are the stuff of legend some five years later, and humans are portrayed as driving cars and smoking cigarettes in the mythic past.
* FolkHero: [[TheTrickster El-ahrairah]], the first rabbit and culture hero; eventually, Hazel becomes ShroudedInMyth and his adventures get retold as if they were El-ahrairah's.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Fiver, unsurprisingly, gets to do a lot of this.
* GeneralRipper: Woundwort. Just... Woundwort.
* GenrePopularizer: There are a number of other "epic animal adventure" stories, but it is difficult to read them without comparing them to ''Watership''.
** ''[[Literature/TailchasersSong Talichaser's Song]]'' (feral cats) and ''FireBringer'' (deer) are in what could be considered the same genre of 'epic adventures told from the perspective of wild animals.' Most works in the TalkingAnimal genre such as ''Literature/GuardiansOfGaHoole'' fall into CivilizedAnimal territory.
* GhibliHills: The Downs.
* GiantFlyer: Compared to the rabbits, Kehaar.
* GoodScarsEvilScars: By the end, pretty much everyone has scars.
* TheGrimReaper: The [[MoonRabbit Black Rabbit of Inlé]]. A [[DontFearTheReaper frightening but dutiful]] Grim Reaper, not a murderous one.
--->'''Dandelion:''' "We go by the will of the Black Rabbit of Inle' and ''only'' by his will... he will avenge any rabbit who many chance to be destroyed without the consent of himself."
* HairRaisingHare: General Woundwort. Also the Black Rabbit.
* HeadInTheSandManagement: 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}}.)
** In fairness to him, the rabbits do lampshade the logistical nightmare of the whole warren up-and-leaving above ground, concluding it might be safer to stay down and try to dodge whatever's coming where they can't be seen. Unfortunately, what they ''don't'' anticipate (because they've never met it before) is the humans' use of [[spoiler:poison gas.]]
* HeroicBSOD: 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.
* HeroicSacrifice: Hazel's prayer.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: Rabscuttle and El-ahrairah are never, ever, not together.
* {{Honorifics}}: The Lapine language has its own, though only two are mentioned; -roo is an affectionate diminutive (similar to [[JapaneseHonorifics -chan]]), and -rah means "king" or "lord" (usually used to refer to chief rabbits).
* HumansAreBastards: A bit of a mixed bag; the rabbits, especially the few refugees from Sandleford, naturally ''do'' think humans are bastards, but the human reader can easily sympathise with their POV (see, again, EverythingTryingToKillYou). On the other hand, the first story in ''Tales'' isn't nearly as subtle.
** 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.
* HumansAreCthulhu: Subverted... maybe. They're generally regarded as just one more of the elil, but some of their stories treat them as elil [[BiggerBad above the other elil]], which is also borne out by Cowslip's warren. Still, Hazel does get an excellent demonstration that we aren't AlwaysChaoticEvil.
* IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace: The [[FanNickname warren of the Shining Wires]].
* IntellectualAnimal: they're about as intellectual as you can get and still be wild animals with an IQ of ''hrair''.
* KillEmAll: See Doomed Hometown.
* KillerRabbit: Woundwort is psychotic even by ''human'' standards.
* LastStand: Bigwig, against [[spoiler:General Woundwort]].
* MeaningfulEcho: ''"There's a large dog loose in the wood."''
* MoonRabbit: The [[TheGrimReaper Black Rabbit of Inlé]].
* {{Mythopoeia}}: The legends of El-ahrairah.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Again, General Woundwort.
** Note that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stachys Woundwort]] is a kind of flower, like Cowslip. (Since woundwort is a healing herb, the name also has a note of irony.)
* NeverFoundTheBody: [[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''.]]
* NeverSayDie: In-universe example: among the rabbits, a dead rabbit is one who has "stopped running." Which emphasizes the [[DeathWorld rabbit world-view]] nicely.
* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: As Hazel would have it; see TrueCompanions.
* NoPronunciationGuide: Partially averted. There's a Fictionary, but Adams says names like Thethuthinnang and Thlayli are to be pronounced with a [[CaptainObvious "wuf-fluffy"]] sound. The pronunciation guide only tells the reader which syllable is stressed (el-a-HRAI-rah, THE-thu-thin-nang).
* NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler:Bigwig, after his battle with Woundwort.]]
* OnlyYouCanRepopulateMyRace: A major plot driver for the second half of the story. The group didn't think (or weren't able) to bring any does with them, so they need to find some or the new warren is doomed.
* PardonMyKlingon: "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".
* RascallyRabbit: El-ahrairah, the rabbits' own mythological/folkloric trickster figure. During their journey the rabbits tell several tales of El-ahrairah's trickster abilities.
* RRatedOpening
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: 'The Threarah', the Chief Rabbit of the Sandleford warren, appears to be the classic ObstructiveBureaucrat when he dismisses [[WaifProphet Fiver's]] warning out of hand. Holly later reveals that his reasoning was actually quite logical -- most prophets are frauds, and even if they're genuine the warren would have lost more rabbits from a mass evacuation than from a flood or hunters. Tragically, the oncoming disaster is more massive than the Threarah can imagine or Fiver can explain coherently.
* SafeZoneHopeSpot: [[spoiler: Cowslip's Warren.]]
* ScarecrowSolution: Kehaar.
* SedgwickSpeech: [[spoiler:Woundwort]]'s FamousLastWords.
* ShownTheirWork: One of the biggest examples is the geography. Every little detail noted in the book was present in the location's real life counterpart.
* SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism: Far non-human end of the spectrum ({{Intellectual Animal}}s).
* SlidingScaleOfGenderInequality: Level 1, in the sense that the female characters are pretty much {{Living MacGuffin}}s (although Hyzenthlay is an exception). The sequel does attempt to address this.
* TheSmartGuy: Blackberry, an innovative-engineer type (who rather unnervingly becomes the Smart ''Girl'' in the TV series).
* SpoonyBard: Dandelion (also a FragileSpeedster).
* [[ShowWithinAShow Story Within a Story]]: The tales of El-ahrairah.
* TheStoryteller: Dandelion, notably in the novels and TV series. More on it in the novels section.
* TownWithADarkSecret: [[spoiler:Cowslip's warren]].
* TranslationConvention: Rather elaborate, as Adams makes extensive use of terms that rabbits care about that have no English language equivalent; see Animal Talk.
* TheTrickster: El-ahrairah, the rabbits' cultural hero.
* TrueCompanions: The eight main rabbits' relationships are based on Adams' {{W|orldWarII}}WII unit buddies.
* TruthInTelevision: People more familiar with cuddly cartoons than wild rabbits are surprised how viciously they can and do attack each other, due to their extreme territoriality. Adams researched most of his protagonists' behaviors in ''The Private Life of the Rabbit'', by naturalist Ronald Lockley.
* UnusualAnimalAlliance: The rabbits enlist the aid of field mice and -- more significantly -- the seagull Kehaar to protect their warren.
* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: [[spoiler: Efrafa. It was designed to be completely and utterly safe from humans. Before that, Cowslip's warren is seen as a perfect utopia for rabbits... [[TownWithADarkSecret provided you never ask where anybody is]]]].
* WaifProphet: Fiver.
* WickedCultured: The [[CityInABottle doomed rabbits]] of Cowslip's warren have gotten into poetry, rudimentary cave art, and other human-like mannerisms. And in every dramatization Cowslip speaks with a [[EvilBrit posh accent]].
* XMeetsY: ''Literature/TheAeneid'' meets ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' [[RecycledINSPACE with]] Rabbits.
* {{Xenofiction}}: Often the go-to example for explaining the genre.
* YouAreNumberSix: Fiver, both in Lapine and in translation.
* YouCantFightFate: If you're a rabbit and Fiver says he has a bad feeling about something, not listening to him is basically suicide.
* YouShallNotPass: Quoth Bigwig: "My Chief Rabbit has told me to defend this run and until he says otherwise I shall stay here."
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Novel]]
* [[ActionGirl Action Doe]]: Flyairth, the former Chief Rabbit of [[LadyLand Thinial]], tackles a (small) dog to save Hazel. Inspired by her example, Hyzenthlay becomes co-Chief Rabbit with Hazel, and her first major task is rescuing a wounded doe, as detailed in the story "Hyzenthlay in Action".
* AndManGrewProud: By the end of the novel, the events in the first part are passing into the rabbit canon of legends. It's easy to imagine the story of the Sandleford Warren's destruction going the same way.
* BavarianFireDrill: A favorite trick of El-ahrairah. Holly and his companions do something similar to escape from Efrafa.
* BerserkButton: Never, ever ask Cowslip where anyone went.
* BookEnds: The first and last phrases of the book.
* BriefAccentImitation: "Ees finish [[spoiler: Meester Voundvort]], ya?"
* {{Catchphrase}}: Woundwort's main assurance to his officers who get spooked by different elil is to simply say they "aren't dangerous." He says this multiple times throughout the novel, such as "Stoats aren't dangerous," or "birds aren't dangerous." It goes to show just how badass the general is since he has the muscle to back up what he says. [[spoiler: These wind up being the last words we hear from him.]]
* ChekhovsGun: At a certain point the author bothers to inform the reader that a certain dog, guarding the farm in which some rabbits are held in captivity, is tied with a rope, rather than a chain, so there won't be any rattling which could wake up the farmer. Said dog and the rope it's tied to will become quite relevant later on.
* ChekhovsSkill: Hazel even notes that the "board floating on water" trick might come in handy later.
* [[ElementalPowers 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.]]
* ElephantInTheLivingRoom: Everyone in Cowslip's warren knows about [[spoiler:the snares]], but they pretend they don't.
* {{Epigraph}}s: Quotes from other epic novels, plays, and poems at the start of every chapter. The first one, naturally:
--> '''[[GreekChorus Chorus]]:''' Why do you cry out thus, unless at some vision of horror?
--> '''[[TheCassandra Cassandra]]:''' The house reeks of [[{{Foreshadowing}} death and dripping blood]].
* EvilCounterpart: Silverweed is the prophet and poet of Cowslip's warren.
* FamedInStory: By the end of the book, enough stories are being told about Hazel that he can't even remember which ones are true any more (though admittedly, his encroaching age doesn't help). Meanwhile, Woundwort has become ShroudedInMyth as a superpowered bogeyman with a touch of KingInTheMountain mixed in.
* FragileSpeedster: 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.
* FreudianExcuse: 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.
* FunetikAksent: 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 [[StarWars JarJar-level]] YouNoTakeCandle, and the animated series follows that convention.
** Mind you, his accent is clearly different from other animals speaking Hedgerow--mice sound a bit stereotypical-Italian for some reason, and the rabbits when speaking Hedgerow have no FunetikAksent, they just use a more limited vocabulary and grammar.
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: See PardonMyKlingon below.
* IWasJustPassingThrough: 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 [[SarcasmMode just happens]] to run into Hyzenthlay and the wounded doe she stayed behind to protect.
* IronicEcho: "Can you run? I think not."
* NeverSayDie: Cowslip's warren. They do ''a lot of'' talking around the subject, though.
* PardonMyKlingon: In one notable example, an entire sentence is left untranslated ("Silflay hraka, u embleer rah!") Careful attention to the {{Fictionary}} explains why...
** For those who want the Cliffs Notes version, that's [[spoiler:"Eat shit, you stinking prince!"]]
*** Given what the oft-mentioned but never explained "chewing pellets" means, this insult is [[FridgeLogic 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."
* PluckyComicRelief: Bluebell, as an intentional tension-breaker, and for the heck of it.
* ProudWarriorRace: It is Woundwort's goal to make ''rabbits'' into a ProudWarriorRace. One Efrafan prisoner says that it was a nice change from running from The Thousand and that Woundwort deserved at least that much credit.
* PunchClockVillain: Campion, Woundwort's second in command. He even shows some lenience with the protagonists, trying to reason with them rather than attack on sight.
* PsychicDreamsForEveryone: Fiver's not the only one whose dreams turn out to be full of foreshadowing. Pretty much every surreal dream depicted on-page [[ItMakesSenseInContext makes a certain kind of sense in retrospect]].
* RefugeInAudacity: In "The Trial of El-ahrairah," the rabbit hero discredits a witness by leading him on a journey so bizarre that no one believes him when he testifies against El-ahrairah.
* TheScottishTrope: '''"The wires...!"'''
* SedgwickSpeech: "Come back, you fools! Dogs aren't dangerous! Come back and fight!" (Though this only counts if [[spoiler:you believe Woundwort actually died]].)
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: After a frightening night journey some of the rabbits credit Hazel with their safe arrival and enthusiastically declare him Chief Rabbit. Bigwig responds sarcastically that he'll call Hazel "Chief Rabbit" [[BloodKnight the day he stops fighting]]! Later on when Hazel is truly accepted as their Chief Rabbit, Bigwig is the only one who doesn't address him correctly (as "Hazel-Rah") until his FacingTheBulletsOneLiner to the Efrafans ("My Chief Rabbit has told me to defend this run, and until he says otherwise I shall do so"). After his unexpected survival Bigwig suddenly starts using the correct title, as well as announcing that he's giving up fighting for good.
** It's worth noting that Bigwig was slated to ''die'' [[WordOfGod in the original version of the story as concieved by Adams]], which also would have worked.
* ShoutOut: Adams' narration references [[TheTrickster Br'er Rabbit]] from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Remus the Uncle Remus tales]] and comments that the origin of those fables were the adventures of El-ahrairah, which eventually trickled into the story telling of humans.
* ShownTheirWork: 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.
* TheSpartanWay: Efrafa.
* SpellMyNameWithAThe: It's noted that the leader of the Sandleford Warren is almost always referred to as ''the'' Thererah ("The Lord Rowan Tree"), either because he's just that awesome or simply because there happened to be only a single rowan tree near the warren.
* TheStoryteller: 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...]] [[InsaneTrollLogic style]] is vastly different from Dandelion's.
* TakeOurWordForIt: The Black Rabbit's terrifying story.
* TownWithADarkSecret: Cowslip's warren.
* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: 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.
* WhiteBunny: Silver is the only white rabbit in the story, while the others are more commonly colored. He agreed to leave with Hazel's group largely because the other young bucks in the Owsla kept making fun of his fur.
* WorthyOpponent: Campion, Woundwort's Captain of Owsla in the original.
** Bigwig [[spoiler: wishes to convince Campion to defect along with the other Efrafa runaways, since he would rather not fight a rabbit he holds in such high regard]]. Even Hazel feels a grudging respect for Campion despite them only meeting once, hastily.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Film]]
* [[ActionGirl Action Doe]]: Hyzenthlay plays a visible role in Holly's and Blackavar's escape attempts, and is one of the runners who lure the dog to the Down.
* AdaptationDistillation: It's only 90 minutes, a tearjerker, and on many best-of-animation lists.
* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: Many of the rabbits are colors like light blue and pale yellow, so the audience can tell them apart more easily, and so that they fit in with names like "Silver."
* AnimalsLackAttributes: Averted with the dog, played straight with the bucks.
* ArcWords / BookEnds: "All the world will be your enemy, Prince With A Thousand Enemies, and when they catch you they will kill you... but first they must catch you."
* ArtShift: The opening myth of El-Ahrairah was animated in the Aboriginesque style of the late John Hubley, the legendary founder of LimitedAnimation. 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 [[SanitySlippage transitions from the real]].
* AwardBaitSong: "Bright Eyes" was a chart-topper performed by Art Garfunkel. The music, lyrics, and scene in which it is featured make it a TearJerker.
* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: Film only, and they have a fun way of subverting the RedEyesTakeWarning subtrope. All the heroes ''have'' red eyes - they're rabbits after all. And we get so used to this over the course of the film that the minute we see the Efrafan rabbits' ''blue'' eyes, we sense something sinister about them.
** 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).
* CompressedAdaptation: The animated movie had to streamline quite a bit of the story, otherwise it'd be hours long.
* ContemptibleCover: The [[http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m128/redXpiXieXblack/Watership%20Down/CopyofWatership_Down_Dutch.jpg child-friendly one]], not the one you see above.
** 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 [[EvilOverlord Woundwort]] is ashamed.
* DeathByAdaptation: [[spoiler: Blackavar]], in all probability. [[WhatASenselessWasteOfHumanLife What a senseless waste of rabbit life]]...
** Even managing to borderline on [[BlackDudeDiesFirst an 80s cliché]] given the name of the character and the fact that he is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the darkest character in the story]].
* DisneyAcidSequence: ''"Following the river of death downstream... or is it a dream?"''
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: [[spoiler:Violet, Blackavar.]] Dropped a hawk / bunny on them respectively.
* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: Lots of it, one of the best examples is when Woundwort tears out [[spoiler: Blackavar]]'s throat.
* FamilyUnfriendlyViolence: It may be a movie about bunnies, but it is ''not'' for young children.
* FamousLastWords: "[[TemptingFate Dogs aren't dangerous!]]"
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Kehaar. ''Piss off!!!'' At several points, rabbits use words from their author-created language to curse: ''Embleer Frith'' and ''Silflay hraka'' would not have cut it in English, for example.
* [[OhCrap Oh Hraka]]: The looks on the Efrafans' faces when [[spoiler: the dog comes charging onto the down with its [[NightmareFuel first victim dangling bloodily]] from its jaws.]] The one that ''almost'' got away, especially.
* PragmaticAdaptation: Forgivable in the movie, less so in the subsequent TV series.
* PrecisionFStrike: See GettingCrapPastTheRadar, above
* SanitySlippage: Fiver during his visions.
* StupidSacrifice: [[spoiler:Blackavar]] at the end of the film. Arguably motivated by TranquilFury.
* StuffedIntoTheFridge: [[spoiler:Violet]] turns out to be the MauveShirt of the group.
* SugarApocalypse: "The field... the field... It's '''covered with blood!"'''
** Also counts as DaylightHorror.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:TV Series]]
* ActionGirl: Spartina.
* AdaptationExpansion: The series at its best did allow for some interesting stories that are true to the original book while reflecting modern attitudes. For example, there is the main plot of episode 2 where Hazel notes that it's unfair that Blackberry, the only doe, has to do all the burrow digging, the traditional task of her sex, and he and Fiver have to find a way to make the other bucks do their bit.
* AffablyEvil: Cowslip.
* ArtShift: The characters were redesigned for season three. Some changes were barely noticeable, others were drastic. Bigwig, in particular, looks like he's been LockedIntoStrangeness... which would make sense since he did just get out of a fight with Woundwort, but nobody says anything about it.
* AscendedExtra: Hannah, Hawkbit, Silverweed, and Campion. Though they dumped several other extras.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Darkhaven.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: In the final few episodes, Hazel fights against Efrafa and Darkhaven. In the final episode he even goes toe-to-toe with Woundwort.
* BrotherChuck: Blackavar was a minor character for the first season, a rarely seen background character for the second season, and disappeared altogether for the third season. And Captain Holly just vanished 2 episodes after his first appearance, though he would sometimes reappear in much later episodes.
* CanonForeigner: Captain Broom, all of the Darkhaven rabbits. Other characters, like Primrose and Captain Moss, are perhaps adapted versions of previously existing characters.
* CerebusSyndrome: After the show runs out of source material from the novel at the end of season 2, the tone of the show... changed a bit. It got [[DarkerAndEdgier much more violent]] and upped the drama quotient, as well as making some downright strange decisions such as giving some characters the ability to control each other's minds and introducing magic.
* ChristmasEpisode: Except they call it [[YouMeanXMas the Feast of Frith]].
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Captain Broom.
* CollapsingLair: Subverted. [[spoiler: The lair is actually a cavern that the Watership Down rabbits use as secret route to Efrafa.]]
* DeadpanSnarker: Hawkbit.
* DefrostingIceQueen: [[spoiler: Spartina.]]
* DidIJustSayThatOutLoud: Of the LoveConfession brand.
* DirtyCoward: Vervain, PlayedForLaughs.
* DisneyDeath
* {{Disneyfication}}: The TV series changes aspects of the characters and story (gender flipping Blackberry and aging Pipkin down for younger audiences, for example). In effect, it radically changes or waters down the original story's drama and conflict.
* DoubleAgent: [[spoiler: Campion, Spartina.]]
* DumbMuscle: Granite.
* FriendToAllLivingThings: Pipkin.
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: Silverweed, Spartina.]]
** Even [[spoiler:Woundwort]] considers a HeelFaceTurn. Too bad it's right before [[spoiler: [[HeelFaceDoorSlam the Watership Down rabbits attack Efrafa]].]]
* HoldingBackThePhlebotinum: The magic subplot.
* IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim
* IndustrialGhetto: Darkhaven.
* IOweYouMyLife: [[spoiler: After being healed by Blackberry, Granite shows her and Campion a way out of Darkhaven (it doesn't work). However, he stays loyal to Woundwort, even when he gets saved by Campion ''en route'' to Watership Down.]]
* ItIsNotYourTime: The Black Rabbit tells this to [[spoiler: Campion]].
* LeftForDead: [[spoiler: Woundwort.]] Also [[spoiler: Campion, and justifiably so. After all, ''a freakin' boulder'' fell directly on top of him...]]
** NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler: ...yet he somehow managed to ''[[FirstLawOfResurrection push it off.]]'' ...Also, Woundwort.]]
* {{Leitmotif}}: Woundwort's theme, which seems to be played everywhere it's even remotely applicable.
* LighterAndSofter: 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.
* LoveAtFirstSight: [[ShesAManInJapan Blackberry]] and [[HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday Campion]]. [[NotThatTheresAnythingWrongWithThat Yeah.]]
** Not to mention Hazel and Primrose and Bigwig and [[spoiler: Spartina]]. It seems to be the generally accepted pattern for bunny romances.
* MindControlEyes: They glow.
* MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: Bark [[TheWoobie is sorry she's a badger.]]
* NoEnding
* NoisyNature: Most of the predators growl or screech all the time while on screen. Woundwort also gets very unrabbity growling noises when he's annoyed.
* PetTheDog: Woundwort, especially apparent in his treatment of Pipkin.
* PropheciesRhymeAllTheTime: Fiver's visions are more Seuss-esque in this adaptation.
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Everyone in Darkhaven, except arguably Spartina.
* RedShirt: Early in the third season, a new rabbit named Aspen is introduced. He is killed off six minutes later.
* TakingTheBullet: [[spoiler: Campion for Woundwort, and Silverweed for Hannah.]]
* ThoseTwoGuys: Hawkbit and Dandelion become this in season 3.
* ThoseTwoBadGuys: Woundwort and Vervain in season 3.
* ViewersAreMorons: 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.
* WideEyedIdealist: Aspen.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Lapine mythology]]
* AnAesop: Half of the rabbit folktales.
* AnimalJingoism: As seen through rabbit eyes, most of the rest of the animal kingdom is either stupid or evil or both. Slightly subverted in that dogs are presented as mindless, slobbery brutes, while cats - bitchy as they may be - are allowed to speak their mind intelligently.
* BagOfHolding: El-ahrairah's ears in ''King Fur-Rocious''.
* BalancingDeathsBooks: Appears in the story of El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit.
* BatmanGambit: El-ahrairah's specialty.
* CallBack: 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.
* ChessWithDeath: El-ahrairah attempts this.
* CreationMyth: 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, [[JustSoStory and a white cottontail]] to signal danger.
* DidYouJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu: El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inlé.
* DudeWheresMyRespect: The not-too-bright dog Rowsby Woof suffers this when [[spoiler:he's tricked into 'saving' his master by causing such a ruckus he's scolded and tied up]].
* EnemyMine: The point of "The Story of King Fur-Rocius."
* FolkHero: El-ahrairah aka (First) Rabbit and "Prince with a Thousand Enemies"
* FoodChains: El-ahrairah knows that eating the Black Rabbit's food will make his secret thoughts transparent.
* TheGrimReaper: The Black Rabbit of Inlé, evidently the lapine version of Hades.
** EverybodyHatesHades: Though how worthy [[DarkIsNotEvil 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.
-->'But he is our protector, too. Anyone who has seen a gamekeeper's gibbet knows the vengeance the Black Rabbit can perform upon elil who think they can do what they will.'
* GuileHero: El-ahrairah, and every other rabbit in his footsteps.
* HeroicSacrifice: 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]].
* [[GambitPileup Hrair-Gambit Pileup]]: El-ahrairah's schemes often work by playing his several enemies against one another. Noticeable especially in "Rowsby Woof and the Fairy Wogdog," "The Trial of El-ahrairah," and "The King's Lettuce."
* JokerJury: Composed entirely of ''elil'' - predators - in The Trial of El-ahrairah. Neatly subverted when [[spoiler: El-ahrairah uses the predators' contempt for rabbits to convince them his accuser is crazy]]. Though this is to a certain extent a BatmanGambit by El-ahrairah, who knew in advance [[spoiler:how important it was to discredit Hufsa, and set things up accordingly]].
* {{Just So Stor|y}}ies: Half of the rabbit folktales.
* TheMole: Hufsa in The Trial of El-ahrairah (that is, he's a rabbit doing spy stuff).
** Used as a metaphor by one of the Watership rabbits to explain the Owslafa, who are essentially [[spoiler:Woundwort's Gestapo]].
* OfThePeople: The rabbits are only interested in their ''own'' origins, and how other animals relate to them.
* [[RedOniBlueOni Red Coney, Blue Coney]]: Rabscuttle and El-Ahrairah.
* ShootTheShaggyDog: "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]].
* ShroudedInMyth: Half the rabbit folktales are half-remembered [[TwiceToldTale legends]] of forgotten rabbit chiefs, now associated with El-ahrairah.
* StrangerInAFamiliarLand: El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle, finally returning from their adventures after meeting the Black Rabbit of Inle, find that most of their generation is dead and the young rabbits who make up the warren have little respect for them.
* ToHellAndBack: El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inle. Echoed a bit in the ''Tales'' story of "The Sense of Smell."
* TooDumbToLive: 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]].
* TheTrickster: El-ahrairah.
* {{Tuckerization}}: [[AngryGuardDog "Rowsby Woof"]] was also the name of a real-life composer and instructor at the Royal Academy of Music.
* YouDontWantToCatchThis: A standard tactic of El-ahrairah in these stories, when trying to avoid a more powerful enemy.
** Funnily enough, when El-ahrairah attempted to actually catch a fatal disease himself (The White Blindness, also known as Myxomatosis, a real-life disease that kills rabbits), he failed to do so.
[[/folder]]
----
As an aside, only ''{{Dinotopia}}'' has gotten even close to using as many AnimalTropes as this novel.
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[[caption-width-right:300:[[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/movies-dumbed-down.php?page=9 I Just Wanted A Movie About Bunnies]][[hottip:*:This poster [[NightmareFuel should give you an idea on how dark the movie really is]]. [[GenreBlind Too bad that it is not enough to stop]] AnimationAgeGhetto, [[CaptainObvious and as a result]], [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids it traumatized a lot of children]].]]
->''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")
->''"It's about bunnies."''
--> --Sawyer, Series/{{Lost}}
An '''epic''' LowFantasy adventure by Richard Adams.
Hazel, our protagonist, has a little brother named [[WaifProphet Fiver]]. Fiver has horrific -- and as later events prove, [[NightmareFuel accurate]] -- visions of the destruction of their [[DoomedHometown home warren]] at Sandleford, but Hazel [[CassandraTruth can't convince their Chief to pay attention to some loony runt]], so he convinces a few of his friends to join him in leaving their homes to escape. Of note are [[TheBigGuy Bigwig]], one of the community's Owsla (guards), and [[TheSmartGuy Blackberry]], who is by the standards of their tribe a mechanical genius. Which is to say, he is the only cast member to even come close to understanding basic physics... like, for instance, "floating on water." Because, see, these are ''rabbits''...
[[RascallyRabbit Yes, rabbits]]. [[BetterThanItSounds Bear with us]] for a moment. They're not [[MostWritersAreHuman humans in rabbit form]]. Caution is a way of life because [[EverythingTryingToKillYou death is a moment-to-moment possibility]]. They [[{{Xenofiction}} can't count past four]] because they only have four paws (Fiver, the runt of a five-kit litter, gets his name from the Lapine word ''hrair'', [[TranslationConvention meaning "a thousand", but generally just meaning "lots"]], which is usually translated as just "five"). They think ''hrududil'' (cars and other large machinery) are some type of animal.
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.
Their journey is long - for a rabbit (about five miles). And it is punctuated by times of rest, during which they regale each other with tales of their FolkHero, the first rabbit: El-ahrairah, the Prince With a Thousand Enemies. El-ahrairah is a [[TheTrickster Trickster hero]] (meet us halfway between Literature/{{Beowulf}} and BugsBunny and you've got the idea), and the legends we hear deal with everything from the rabbit's creation myth to El-ahrairah's [[ToHellAndBack descent into Inle to meet the Black Rabbit.]] And don't think that the stories are separate from the action, because they build up an intricate belief system that rewards us with major character moments, up to and including the very end of the story.
[[Synopsis/WatershipDown Plot Synopsis]] (spoilers)
The novel proved so popular that, decades later, Adams wrote a set of sequel stories. Called ''Tales From Watership Down'', the stories actually take place ''during'' the original novel, though after the resolution of the plot--that is, they expand on the warren's post-battle history that had previously just been given a brief mention in the original [[DistantFinale Epilogue]]. They include what became of [[TheChick Hyzenthlay]]; and additional tales such as "The Terrible Hay-making" and "The Hole In The Sky". Naturally, some fans like the book, others call FanonDiscontinuity.
Also notable is the [[AnimatedAdaptation 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 StudioGhibli-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 TheFilmOfTheBook ''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 AnimationAgeGhetto 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 NightmareFuel 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.'' ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids Not For Little Kids]]''.
There is also a far more obscure television series. In the first two seasons, it primarily changes aspects of the characters and story to make it [[LighterAndSofter appeal better to families]] e.g. [[GenderFlip making Blackberry female]] to add more diversity to the predominantly male cast[[hottip:spoiler:In fact, a plot point of the main book is that, when they reach Watership Down, they suddenly discover that they forgot to bring females along!]]. Despite this, has some redeeming qualities, but [[JumpingTheShark that changes]] at the start of season three, perhaps in [[CerebusSyndrome an attempt]] to make it DarkerAndEdgier. [[SoBadItsGood Some people enjoy even that, though]].
----
!!Examples of the following tropes:
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:All versions]]
* ActionSurvivor and AlmostDeadGuy: [[spoiler:Holly.]]
* AerithAndBob
** 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 "{{translat|ionConvention}}ed" 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 [[ActionGirl Hyzenthlay]] and {{The|Unpronounceable}}thuthinnang.
* AloneWithPrisonerPloy
* AndroclesLion: 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.
* AnimalTalk: the rabbits talk in their own Lapine language, of course, but they can also communicate with other animals using "Hedgerow dialect", which gives other animals {{Funetik Aksent}}s. Naturally, they can't understand human, at least not without extensive contact.
* AngryGuardDog: And imagine ''that'' when you're a fraction of its size.
* AnyoneCanDie
* {{Arcadia}}: Watership Down.
* AscendedToCarnivorism: 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.
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler: As Hazel dies, El-ahrairah comes to make him one of his Owsla]].
* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: The reason why Woundwort is the Chief Rabbit of Efrafa. (He killed the previous chief and a rival, taking the warren by force.)
** Lampshaded effectively in the novel itself: Woundwort presumes this trope is in effect at Watership Down as well, and is shocked into something close to fear when at a climactic moment he learns Bigwig isn't their Chief.
** 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.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: General Woundwort.
* {{Badass}}: Bigwig, especially apparent during his [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome last stand battle]] with the General.
** Hell, the General himself, who doesn't even flinch when he charges a giant (by his standards) bloodthirsty dog trying to kill him.
*** Dogs aren't dangerous!
* BadassArmy: The Efrafan Owsla.
* BeastFable: Popularly thought to be much like ''AnimalFarm'' with a theme about the dangers of appeasement and fascism. The [[ShowWithinAShow Story Within a Story]] is a series of {{Beast Fable}}s that teach the rabbits about death and survival.
** Although if it is a fable or an allegorical tale, it is not at all {{anvilicious}}. It stands on its own as adventure {{xenofiction}}.
* BecauseDestinySaysSo
-->''[+"There is not a day or night that a doe does not offer her life for her kittens, or some honest captain of Owsla his life for his chief. But there is no bargain. What is, is what must be."+]''
* BigBrotherInstinct: 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.
* BigBrotherMentor: Hazel to Fiver, usually when he's picked on by the likes of Bigwig. Also a literal big brother, in this case.
* BringNewsBack: The destruction of the warren, and also the warning about Efrafa. Holly is the messenger in both cases.
* CallARabbitASmeerp: Oddly averted, insofar as most rabbit terms for human inventions are translated, except for cigarettes and cars. We actually never learn what the rabbit word for rabbit is, but then again, perhaps [[OfThePeople there isn't one]].
* CaptainSmoothAndSergeantRough: While Hazel leads by inspiring rabbits and convincing them of his competence, Bigwig acts as a SergeantRock and sometimes as a DrillSergeantNasty.
** 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.
* TheCaptain: Hazel, and every warren has a Captain of Owsla.
* CassandraTruth: Fiver, at first. In fact, the quote of the first chapter in the book ''is'' Cassandra, from the play ''Agamemnon''.
* CatsAreMean: Tab is at first [[CarnivoreConfusion 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.
* CityInABottle: Cowslip's warren and, to a lesser extent, Efrafa. Not quite ''LogansRun'', but close.
* ComeToGawk
* ConditionedToAcceptHorror: All the rabbits of Cowslip's warren. They even have poets who sing about the nobility and dignity of accepting death.
* ConLang: The rabbits' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapine_language Lapine language]], of course.
* CrapsaccharineWorld: 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]].
* CrystalDragonJesus: Averted for the most part with El-ahrairah, as he differs from {{Jesus}} in many ways, but the comparison is inevitable.
* DeathTrap: [[spoiler:Cowslip's warren, indirectly]].
* DefectorFromDecadence: Strawberry. The does of Efrafa are a subversion -- their ''elil''-free warren is meant to be rabbit paradise, but instead it's an oppressive police state that is slowly killing them.
* {{Determinator}}: Woundwort ''will not'' give up his pursuit of the Watership rabbits--and Bigwig will not give up his defense of them, even after taking damage that ought to kill him.
* DeusExMachina: [[spoiler:The farmer's daughter rescuing Hazel from the cat and taking him home.]] The chapter [[LampshadeHanging is even called "Dea ex Machina"]].
** 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.
* DeusExitMachina: Kehaar[[spoiler:, whose aerial support had been essential in the escape from the Efrafans and is big and aggressive enough to deter just about any rabbit except Woundwort[[hottip:*:heck, ''including'' Woundwort on open ground without cover]],]] returns to the sea before the final battle.
* DoomedHometown: Sandleford Warren.
* DreamingOfThingsToCome: Several of the characters have dreams loaded with foreshadowing.
* {{Dystopia}}: Efrafa, and probably [[spoiler: Cowslip's Warren]].
** For those wondering, [[spoiler: Cowslip's warren is situated next to a farm, whose owner has been leaving food out to keep the rabbits there while setting traps for them, giving him a steady food source. This has led to many strange habits for the rabbits, including a taboo against wondering about the location of any rabbit, thus putting the concept of the traps out of their heads.]]
* EarnYourHappyEnding: Hazel's [[spoiler:death of old age]].
* EverythingTryingToKillYou: Such an integral part of the story that it's {{lampshade|Hanging}}d 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... [[FragileSpeedster 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.
* EvilGenius: Woundwort had an advisor named Snowdrop who pretty much designed Efrafa and the marks system by himself.
* FantasyPantheon: 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.
** And at the end, [[spoiler: Woundwort is added as the rabbit version of [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight the bogeyman]].]]
* FeatheredFiend: 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.
* FragileSpeedster: Dandelion.
* FleetingDemographicRule: Literally in-universe, due to rabbits' short lifespan. The main events of the novel are the stuff of legend some five years later, and humans are portrayed as driving cars and smoking cigarettes in the mythic past.
* FolkHero: [[TheTrickster El-ahrairah]], the first rabbit and culture hero; eventually, Hazel becomes ShroudedInMyth and his adventures get retold as if they were El-ahrairah's.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Fiver, unsurprisingly, gets to do a lot of this.
* GeneralRipper: Woundwort. Just... Woundwort.
* GenrePopularizer: There are a number of other "epic animal adventure" stories, but it is difficult to read them without comparing them to ''Watership''.
** ''[[Literature/TailchasersSong Talichaser's Song]]'' (feral cats) and ''FireBringer'' (deer) are in what could be considered the same genre of 'epic adventures told from the perspective of wild animals.' Most works in the TalkingAnimal genre such as ''Literature/GuardiansOfGaHoole'' fall into CivilizedAnimal territory.
* GhibliHills: The Downs.
* GiantFlyer: Compared to the rabbits, Kehaar.
* GoodScarsEvilScars: By the end, pretty much everyone has scars.
* TheGrimReaper: The [[MoonRabbit Black Rabbit of Inlé]]. A [[DontFearTheReaper frightening but dutiful]] Grim Reaper, not a murderous one.
--->'''Dandelion:''' "We go by the will of the Black Rabbit of Inle' and ''only'' by his will... he will avenge any rabbit who many chance to be destroyed without the consent of himself."
* HairRaisingHare: General Woundwort. Also the Black Rabbit.
* HeadInTheSandManagement: 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}}.)
** In fairness to him, the rabbits do lampshade the logistical nightmare of the whole warren up-and-leaving above ground, concluding it might be safer to stay down and try to dodge whatever's coming where they can't be seen. Unfortunately, what they ''don't'' anticipate (because they've never met it before) is the humans' use of [[spoiler:poison gas.]]
* HeroicBSOD: 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.
* HeroicSacrifice: Hazel's prayer.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: Rabscuttle and El-ahrairah are never, ever, not together.
* {{Honorifics}}: The Lapine language has its own, though only two are mentioned; -roo is an affectionate diminutive (similar to [[JapaneseHonorifics -chan]]), and -rah means "king" or "lord" (usually used to refer to chief rabbits).
* HumansAreBastards: A bit of a mixed bag; the rabbits, especially the few refugees from Sandleford, naturally ''do'' think humans are bastards, but the human reader can easily sympathise with their POV (see, again, EverythingTryingToKillYou). On the other hand, the first story in ''Tales'' isn't nearly as subtle.
** 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.
* HumansAreCthulhu: Subverted... maybe. They're generally regarded as just one more of the elil, but some of their stories treat them as elil [[BiggerBad above the other elil]], which is also borne out by Cowslip's warren. Still, Hazel does get an excellent demonstration that we aren't AlwaysChaoticEvil.
* IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace: The [[FanNickname warren of the Shining Wires]].
* IntellectualAnimal: they're about as intellectual as you can get and still be wild animals with an IQ of ''hrair''.
* KillEmAll: See Doomed Hometown.
* KillerRabbit: Woundwort is psychotic even by ''human'' standards.
* LastStand: Bigwig, against [[spoiler:General Woundwort]].
* MeaningfulEcho: ''"There's a large dog loose in the wood."''
* MoonRabbit: The [[TheGrimReaper Black Rabbit of Inlé]].
* {{Mythopoeia}}: The legends of El-ahrairah.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Again, General Woundwort.
** Note that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stachys Woundwort]] is a kind of flower, like Cowslip. (Since woundwort is a healing herb, the name also has a note of irony.)
* NeverFoundTheBody: [[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''.]]
* NeverSayDie: In-universe example: among the rabbits, a dead rabbit is one who has "stopped running." Which emphasizes the [[DeathWorld rabbit world-view]] nicely.
* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: As Hazel would have it; see TrueCompanions.
* NoPronunciationGuide: Partially averted. There's a Fictionary, but Adams says names like Thethuthinnang and Thlayli are to be pronounced with a [[CaptainObvious "wuf-fluffy"]] sound. The pronunciation guide only tells the reader which syllable is stressed (el-a-HRAI-rah, THE-thu-thin-nang).
* NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler:Bigwig, after his battle with Woundwort.]]
* OnlyYouCanRepopulateMyRace: A major plot driver for the second half of the story. The group didn't think (or weren't able) to bring any does with them, so they need to find some or the new warren is doomed.
* PardonMyKlingon: "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".
* RascallyRabbit: El-ahrairah, the rabbits' own mythological/folkloric trickster figure. During their journey the rabbits tell several tales of El-ahrairah's trickster abilities.
* RRatedOpening
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: 'The Threarah', the Chief Rabbit of the Sandleford warren, appears to be the classic ObstructiveBureaucrat when he dismisses [[WaifProphet Fiver's]] warning out of hand. Holly later reveals that his reasoning was actually quite logical -- most prophets are frauds, and even if they're genuine the warren would have lost more rabbits from a mass evacuation than from a flood or hunters. Tragically, the oncoming disaster is more massive than the Threarah can imagine or Fiver can explain coherently.
* SafeZoneHopeSpot: [[spoiler: Cowslip's Warren.]]
* ScarecrowSolution: Kehaar.
* SedgwickSpeech: [[spoiler:Woundwort]]'s FamousLastWords.
* ShownTheirWork: One of the biggest examples is the geography. Every little detail noted in the book was present in the location's real life counterpart.
* SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism: Far non-human end of the spectrum ({{Intellectual Animal}}s).
* SlidingScaleOfGenderInequality: Level 1, in the sense that the female characters are pretty much {{Living MacGuffin}}s (although Hyzenthlay is an exception). The sequel does attempt to address this.
* TheSmartGuy: Blackberry, an innovative-engineer type (who rather unnervingly becomes the Smart ''Girl'' in the TV series).
* SpoonyBard: Dandelion (also a FragileSpeedster).
* [[ShowWithinAShow Story Within a Story]]: The tales of El-ahrairah.
* TheStoryteller: Dandelion, notably in the novels and TV series. More on it in the novels section.
* TownWithADarkSecret: [[spoiler:Cowslip's warren]].
* TranslationConvention: Rather elaborate, as Adams makes extensive use of terms that rabbits care about that have no English language equivalent; see Animal Talk.
* TheTrickster: El-ahrairah, the rabbits' cultural hero.
* TrueCompanions: The eight main rabbits' relationships are based on Adams' {{W|orldWarII}}WII unit buddies.
* TruthInTelevision: People more familiar with cuddly cartoons than wild rabbits are surprised how viciously they can and do attack each other, due to their extreme territoriality. Adams researched most of his protagonists' behaviors in ''The Private Life of the Rabbit'', by naturalist Ronald Lockley.
* UnusualAnimalAlliance: The rabbits enlist the aid of field mice and -- more significantly -- the seagull Kehaar to protect their warren.
* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: [[spoiler: Efrafa. It was designed to be completely and utterly safe from humans. Before that, Cowslip's warren is seen as a perfect utopia for rabbits... [[TownWithADarkSecret provided you never ask where anybody is]]]].
* WaifProphet: Fiver.
* WickedCultured: The [[CityInABottle doomed rabbits]] of Cowslip's warren have gotten into poetry, rudimentary cave art, and other human-like mannerisms. And in every dramatization Cowslip speaks with a [[EvilBrit posh accent]].
* XMeetsY: ''Literature/TheAeneid'' meets ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' [[RecycledINSPACE with]] Rabbits.
* {{Xenofiction}}: Often the go-to example for explaining the genre.
* YouAreNumberSix: Fiver, both in Lapine and in translation.
* YouCantFightFate: If you're a rabbit and Fiver says he has a bad feeling about something, not listening to him is basically suicide.
* YouShallNotPass: Quoth Bigwig: "My Chief Rabbit has told me to defend this run and until he says otherwise I shall stay here."
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Novel]]
* [[ActionGirl Action Doe]]: Flyairth, the former Chief Rabbit of [[LadyLand Thinial]], tackles a (small) dog to save Hazel. Inspired by her example, Hyzenthlay becomes co-Chief Rabbit with Hazel, and her first major task is rescuing a wounded doe, as detailed in the story "Hyzenthlay in Action".
* AndManGrewProud: By the end of the novel, the events in the first part are passing into the rabbit canon of legends. It's easy to imagine the story of the Sandleford Warren's destruction going the same way.
* BavarianFireDrill: A favorite trick of El-ahrairah. Holly and his companions do something similar to escape from Efrafa.
* BerserkButton: Never, ever ask Cowslip where anyone went.
* BookEnds: The first and last phrases of the book.
* BriefAccentImitation: "Ees finish [[spoiler: Meester Voundvort]], ya?"
* {{Catchphrase}}: Woundwort's main assurance to his officers who get spooked by different elil is to simply say they "aren't dangerous." He says this multiple times throughout the novel, such as "Stoats aren't dangerous," or "birds aren't dangerous." It goes to show just how badass the general is since he has the muscle to back up what he says. [[spoiler: These wind up being the last words we hear from him.]]
* ChekhovsGun: At a certain point the author bothers to inform the reader that a certain dog, guarding the farm in which some rabbits are held in captivity, is tied with a rope, rather than a chain, so there won't be any rattling which could wake up the farmer. Said dog and the rope it's tied to will become quite relevant later on.
* ChekhovsSkill: Hazel even notes that the "board floating on water" trick might come in handy later.
* [[ElementalPowers 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.]]
* ElephantInTheLivingRoom: Everyone in Cowslip's warren knows about [[spoiler:the snares]], but they pretend they don't.
* {{Epigraph}}s: Quotes from other epic novels, plays, and poems at the start of every chapter. The first one, naturally:
--> '''[[GreekChorus Chorus]]:''' Why do you cry out thus, unless at some vision of horror?
--> '''[[TheCassandra Cassandra]]:''' The house reeks of [[{{Foreshadowing}} death and dripping blood]].
* EvilCounterpart: Silverweed is the prophet and poet of Cowslip's warren.
* FamedInStory: By the end of the book, enough stories are being told about Hazel that he can't even remember which ones are true any more (though admittedly, his encroaching age doesn't help). Meanwhile, Woundwort has become ShroudedInMyth as a superpowered bogeyman with a touch of KingInTheMountain mixed in.
* FragileSpeedster: 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.
* FreudianExcuse: 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.
* FunetikAksent: 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 [[StarWars JarJar-level]] YouNoTakeCandle, and the animated series follows that convention.
** Mind you, his accent is clearly different from other animals speaking Hedgerow--mice sound a bit stereotypical-Italian for some reason, and the rabbits when speaking Hedgerow have no FunetikAksent, they just use a more limited vocabulary and grammar.
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: See PardonMyKlingon below.
* IWasJustPassingThrough: 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 [[SarcasmMode just happens]] to run into Hyzenthlay and the wounded doe she stayed behind to protect.
* IronicEcho: "Can you run? I think not."
* NeverSayDie: Cowslip's warren. They do ''a lot of'' talking around the subject, though.
* PardonMyKlingon: In one notable example, an entire sentence is left untranslated ("Silflay hraka, u embleer rah!") Careful attention to the {{Fictionary}} explains why...
** For those who want the Cliffs Notes version, that's [[spoiler:"Eat shit, you stinking prince!"]]
*** Given what the oft-mentioned but never explained "chewing pellets" means, this insult is [[FridgeLogic 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."
* PluckyComicRelief: Bluebell, as an intentional tension-breaker, and for the heck of it.
* ProudWarriorRace: It is Woundwort's goal to make ''rabbits'' into a ProudWarriorRace. One Efrafan prisoner says that it was a nice change from running from The Thousand and that Woundwort deserved at least that much credit.
* PunchClockVillain: Campion, Woundwort's second in command. He even shows some lenience with the protagonists, trying to reason with them rather than attack on sight.
* PsychicDreamsForEveryone: Fiver's not the only one whose dreams turn out to be full of foreshadowing. Pretty much every surreal dream depicted on-page [[ItMakesSenseInContext makes a certain kind of sense in retrospect]].
* RefugeInAudacity: In "The Trial of El-ahrairah," the rabbit hero discredits a witness by leading him on a journey so bizarre that no one believes him when he testifies against El-ahrairah.
* TheScottishTrope: '''"The wires...!"'''
* SedgwickSpeech: "Come back, you fools! Dogs aren't dangerous! Come back and fight!" (Though this only counts if [[spoiler:you believe Woundwort actually died]].)
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: After a frightening night journey some of the rabbits credit Hazel with their safe arrival and enthusiastically declare him Chief Rabbit. Bigwig responds sarcastically that he'll call Hazel "Chief Rabbit" [[BloodKnight the day he stops fighting]]! Later on when Hazel is truly accepted as their Chief Rabbit, Bigwig is the only one who doesn't address him correctly (as "Hazel-Rah") until his FacingTheBulletsOneLiner to the Efrafans ("My Chief Rabbit has told me to defend this run, and until he says otherwise I shall do so"). After his unexpected survival Bigwig suddenly starts using the correct title, as well as announcing that he's giving up fighting for good.
** It's worth noting that Bigwig was slated to ''die'' [[WordOfGod in the original version of the story as concieved by Adams]], which also would have worked.
* ShoutOut: Adams' narration references [[TheTrickster Br'er Rabbit]] from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Remus the Uncle Remus tales]] and comments that the origin of those fables were the adventures of El-ahrairah, which eventually trickled into the story telling of humans.
* ShownTheirWork: 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.
* TheSpartanWay: Efrafa.
* SpellMyNameWithAThe: It's noted that the leader of the Sandleford Warren is almost always referred to as ''the'' Thererah ("The Lord Rowan Tree"), either because he's just that awesome or simply because there happened to be only a single rowan tree near the warren.
* TheStoryteller: 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...]] [[InsaneTrollLogic style]] is vastly different from Dandelion's.
* TakeOurWordForIt: The Black Rabbit's terrifying story.
* TownWithADarkSecret: Cowslip's warren.
* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: 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.
* WhiteBunny: Silver is the only white rabbit in the story, while the others are more commonly colored. He agreed to leave with Hazel's group largely because the other young bucks in the Owsla kept making fun of his fur.
* WorthyOpponent: Campion, Woundwort's Captain of Owsla in the original.
** Bigwig [[spoiler: wishes to convince Campion to defect along with the other Efrafa runaways, since he would rather not fight a rabbit he holds in such high regard]]. Even Hazel feels a grudging respect for Campion despite them only meeting once, hastily.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Film]]
* [[ActionGirl Action Doe]]: Hyzenthlay plays a visible role in Holly's and Blackavar's escape attempts, and is one of the runners who lure the dog to the Down.
* AdaptationDistillation: It's only 90 minutes, a tearjerker, and on many best-of-animation lists.
* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: Many of the rabbits are colors like light blue and pale yellow, so the audience can tell them apart more easily, and so that they fit in with names like "Silver."
* AnimalsLackAttributes: Averted with the dog, played straight with the bucks.
* ArcWords / BookEnds: "All the world will be your enemy, Prince With A Thousand Enemies, and when they catch you they will kill you... but first they must catch you."
* ArtShift: The opening myth of El-Ahrairah was animated in the Aboriginesque style of the late John Hubley, the legendary founder of LimitedAnimation. 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 [[SanitySlippage transitions from the real]].
* AwardBaitSong: "Bright Eyes" was a chart-topper performed by Art Garfunkel. The music, lyrics, and scene in which it is featured make it a TearJerker.
* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: Film only, and they have a fun way of subverting the RedEyesTakeWarning subtrope. All the heroes ''have'' red eyes - they're rabbits after all. And we get so used to this over the course of the film that the minute we see the Efrafan rabbits' ''blue'' eyes, we sense something sinister about them.
** 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).
* CompressedAdaptation: The animated movie had to streamline quite a bit of the story, otherwise it'd be hours long.
* ContemptibleCover: The [[http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m128/redXpiXieXblack/Watership%20Down/CopyofWatership_Down_Dutch.jpg child-friendly one]], not the one you see above.
** 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 [[EvilOverlord Woundwort]] is ashamed.
* DeathByAdaptation: [[spoiler: Blackavar]], in all probability. [[WhatASenselessWasteOfHumanLife What a senseless waste of rabbit life]]...
** Even managing to borderline on [[BlackDudeDiesFirst an 80s cliché]] given the name of the character and the fact that he is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the darkest character in the story]].
* DisneyAcidSequence: ''"Following the river of death downstream... or is it a dream?"''
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: [[spoiler:Violet, Blackavar.]] Dropped a hawk / bunny on them respectively.
* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: Lots of it, one of the best examples is when Woundwort tears out [[spoiler: Blackavar]]'s throat.
* FamilyUnfriendlyViolence: It may be a movie about bunnies, but it is ''not'' for young children.
* FamousLastWords: "[[TemptingFate Dogs aren't dangerous!]]"
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Kehaar. ''Piss off!!!'' At several points, rabbits use words from their author-created language to curse: ''Embleer Frith'' and ''Silflay hraka'' would not have cut it in English, for example.
* [[OhCrap Oh Hraka]]: The looks on the Efrafans' faces when [[spoiler: the dog comes charging onto the down with its [[NightmareFuel first victim dangling bloodily]] from its jaws.]] The one that ''almost'' got away, especially.
* PragmaticAdaptation: Forgivable in the movie, less so in the subsequent TV series.
* PrecisionFStrike: See GettingCrapPastTheRadar, above
* SanitySlippage: Fiver during his visions.
* StupidSacrifice: [[spoiler:Blackavar]] at the end of the film. Arguably motivated by TranquilFury.
* StuffedIntoTheFridge: [[spoiler:Violet]] turns out to be the MauveShirt of the group.
* SugarApocalypse: "The field... the field... It's '''covered with blood!"'''
** Also counts as DaylightHorror.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:TV Series]]
* ActionGirl: Spartina.
* AdaptationExpansion: The series at its best did allow for some interesting stories that are true to the original book while reflecting modern attitudes. For example, there is the main plot of episode 2 where Hazel notes that it's unfair that Blackberry, the only doe, has to do all the burrow digging, the traditional task of her sex, and he and Fiver have to find a way to make the other bucks do their bit.
* AffablyEvil: Cowslip.
* ArtShift: The characters were redesigned for season three. Some changes were barely noticeable, others were drastic. Bigwig, in particular, looks like he's been LockedIntoStrangeness... which would make sense since he did just get out of a fight with Woundwort, but nobody says anything about it.
* AscendedExtra: Hannah, Hawkbit, Silverweed, and Campion. Though they dumped several other extras.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Darkhaven.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: In the final few episodes, Hazel fights against Efrafa and Darkhaven. In the final episode he even goes toe-to-toe with Woundwort.
* BrotherChuck: Blackavar was a minor character for the first season, a rarely seen background character for the second season, and disappeared altogether for the third season. And Captain Holly just vanished 2 episodes after his first appearance, though he would sometimes reappear in much later episodes.
* CanonForeigner: Captain Broom, all of the Darkhaven rabbits. Other characters, like Primrose and Captain Moss, are perhaps adapted versions of previously existing characters.
* CerebusSyndrome: After the show runs out of source material from the novel at the end of season 2, the tone of the show... changed a bit. It got [[DarkerAndEdgier much more violent]] and upped the drama quotient, as well as making some downright strange decisions such as giving some characters the ability to control each other's minds and introducing magic.
* ChristmasEpisode: Except they call it [[YouMeanXMas the Feast of Frith]].
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Captain Broom.
* CollapsingLair: Subverted. [[spoiler: The lair is actually a cavern that the Watership Down rabbits use as secret route to Efrafa.]]
* DeadpanSnarker: Hawkbit.
* DefrostingIceQueen: [[spoiler: Spartina.]]
* DidIJustSayThatOutLoud: Of the LoveConfession brand.
* DirtyCoward: Vervain, PlayedForLaughs.
* DisneyDeath
* {{Disneyfication}}: The TV series changes aspects of the characters and story (gender flipping Blackberry and aging Pipkin down for younger audiences, for example). In effect, it radically changes or waters down the original story's drama and conflict.
* DoubleAgent: [[spoiler: Campion, Spartina.]]
* DumbMuscle: Granite.
* FriendToAllLivingThings: Pipkin.
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: Silverweed, Spartina.]]
** Even [[spoiler:Woundwort]] considers a HeelFaceTurn. Too bad it's right before [[spoiler: [[HeelFaceDoorSlam the Watership Down rabbits attack Efrafa]].]]
* HoldingBackThePhlebotinum: The magic subplot.
* IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim
* IndustrialGhetto: Darkhaven.
* IOweYouMyLife: [[spoiler: After being healed by Blackberry, Granite shows her and Campion a way out of Darkhaven (it doesn't work). However, he stays loyal to Woundwort, even when he gets saved by Campion ''en route'' to Watership Down.]]
* ItIsNotYourTime: The Black Rabbit tells this to [[spoiler: Campion]].
* LeftForDead: [[spoiler: Woundwort.]] Also [[spoiler: Campion, and justifiably so. After all, ''a freakin' boulder'' fell directly on top of him...]]
** NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler: ...yet he somehow managed to ''[[FirstLawOfResurrection push it off.]]'' ...Also, Woundwort.]]
* {{Leitmotif}}: Woundwort's theme, which seems to be played everywhere it's even remotely applicable.
* LighterAndSofter: 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.
* LoveAtFirstSight: [[ShesAManInJapan Blackberry]] and [[HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday Campion]]. [[NotThatTheresAnythingWrongWithThat Yeah.]]
** Not to mention Hazel and Primrose and Bigwig and [[spoiler: Spartina]]. It seems to be the generally accepted pattern for bunny romances.
* MindControlEyes: They glow.
* MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: Bark [[TheWoobie is sorry she's a badger.]]
* NoEnding
* NoisyNature: Most of the predators growl or screech all the time while on screen. Woundwort also gets very unrabbity growling noises when he's annoyed.
* PetTheDog: Woundwort, especially apparent in his treatment of Pipkin.
* PropheciesRhymeAllTheTime: Fiver's visions are more Seuss-esque in this adaptation.
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Everyone in Darkhaven, except arguably Spartina.
* RedShirt: Early in the third season, a new rabbit named Aspen is introduced. He is killed off six minutes later.
* TakingTheBullet: [[spoiler: Campion for Woundwort, and Silverweed for Hannah.]]
* ThoseTwoGuys: Hawkbit and Dandelion become this in season 3.
* ThoseTwoBadGuys: Woundwort and Vervain in season 3.
* ViewersAreMorons: 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.
* WideEyedIdealist: Aspen.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Lapine mythology]]
* AnAesop: Half of the rabbit folktales.
* AnimalJingoism: As seen through rabbit eyes, most of the rest of the animal kingdom is either stupid or evil or both. Slightly subverted in that dogs are presented as mindless, slobbery brutes, while cats - bitchy as they may be - are allowed to speak their mind intelligently.
* BagOfHolding: El-ahrairah's ears in ''King Fur-Rocious''.
* BalancingDeathsBooks: Appears in the story of El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit.
* BatmanGambit: El-ahrairah's specialty.
* CallBack: 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.
* ChessWithDeath: El-ahrairah attempts this.
* CreationMyth: 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, [[JustSoStory and a white cottontail]] to signal danger.
* DidYouJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu: El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inlé.
* DudeWheresMyRespect: The not-too-bright dog Rowsby Woof suffers this when [[spoiler:he's tricked into 'saving' his master by causing such a ruckus he's scolded and tied up]].
* EnemyMine: The point of "The Story of King Fur-Rocius."
* FolkHero: El-ahrairah aka (First) Rabbit and "Prince with a Thousand Enemies"
* FoodChains: El-ahrairah knows that eating the Black Rabbit's food will make his secret thoughts transparent.
* TheGrimReaper: The Black Rabbit of Inlé, evidently the lapine version of Hades.
** EverybodyHatesHades: Though how worthy [[DarkIsNotEvil 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.
-->'But he is our protector, too. Anyone who has seen a gamekeeper's gibbet knows the vengeance the Black Rabbit can perform upon elil who think they can do what they will.'
* GuileHero: El-ahrairah, and every other rabbit in his footsteps.
* HeroicSacrifice: 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]].
* [[GambitPileup Hrair-Gambit Pileup]]: El-ahrairah's schemes often work by playing his several enemies against one another. Noticeable especially in "Rowsby Woof and the Fairy Wogdog," "The Trial of El-ahrairah," and "The King's Lettuce."
* JokerJury: Composed entirely of ''elil'' - predators - in The Trial of El-ahrairah. Neatly subverted when [[spoiler: El-ahrairah uses the predators' contempt for rabbits to convince them his accuser is crazy]]. Though this is to a certain extent a BatmanGambit by El-ahrairah, who knew in advance [[spoiler:how important it was to discredit Hufsa, and set things up accordingly]].
* {{Just So Stor|y}}ies: Half of the rabbit folktales.
* TheMole: Hufsa in The Trial of El-ahrairah (that is, he's a rabbit doing spy stuff).
** Used as a metaphor by one of the Watership rabbits to explain the Owslafa, who are essentially [[spoiler:Woundwort's Gestapo]].
* OfThePeople: The rabbits are only interested in their ''own'' origins, and how other animals relate to them.
* [[RedOniBlueOni Red Coney, Blue Coney]]: Rabscuttle and El-Ahrairah.
* ShootTheShaggyDog: "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]].
* ShroudedInMyth: Half the rabbit folktales are half-remembered [[TwiceToldTale legends]] of forgotten rabbit chiefs, now associated with El-ahrairah.
* StrangerInAFamiliarLand: El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle, finally returning from their adventures after meeting the Black Rabbit of Inle, find that most of their generation is dead and the young rabbits who make up the warren have little respect for them.
* ToHellAndBack: El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inle. Echoed a bit in the ''Tales'' story of "The Sense of Smell."
* TooDumbToLive: 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]].
* TheTrickster: El-ahrairah.
* {{Tuckerization}}: [[AngryGuardDog "Rowsby Woof"]] was also the name of a real-life composer and instructor at the Royal Academy of Music.
* YouDontWantToCatchThis: A standard tactic of El-ahrairah in these stories, when trying to avoid a more powerful enemy.
** Funnily enough, when El-ahrairah attempted to actually catch a fatal disease himself (The White Blindness, also known as Myxomatosis, a real-life disease that kills rabbits), he failed to do so.
[[/folder]]
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As an aside, only ''{{Dinotopia}}'' has gotten even close to using as many AnimalTropes as this novel.
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