66 pages • 2 hours read
Watership Down
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A Great Leader and a Great Team
Great teams need great leaders, but they also need great members who make the most of their abilities. Hazel rewards each of his rabbit’s contributions, with the result that they form a fiercely loyal and cooperative team.
The tone is set by Hazel, who makes it clear that his purpose is to protect and enhance his group. Early on, after they’ve come through some tough challenges, he realizes how good his followers are: “There was no more questioning of Bigwig’s strength, Fiver’s insight, Blackberry’s wits,” or his own ability as a leader (161).
Hazel makes a point of building on the strengths of these and other members of his group. When he returns from being wounded by a farmer’s gun, Hazel makes a point of chatting with everyone he can at Watership: “Hazel talked to almost all the rabbits” (329). He’s interested in everyone’s viewpoints and wants their voices heard.
His brother Fiver chafes when his eccentric predictions get rejected by other rabbits. Hazel listens and encourages Fiver’s strange genius, and the young rabbit thrives, his prophecies becoming more focused, clear, and useful to the group—which, like Hazel, comes to appreciate their value.
Bigwig joins the group and challenges Hazel’s leadership. Hazel respects Bigwig’s power and determination, and he gives the rabbit wide latitude to exercise his strengths. This suits Bigwig, who bows to Hazel’s superior leadership and becomes one of his best officers.
Blackberry, like Fiver, is very smart, but most leaders would reject his innovations as improper for rabbits. Hazel instead listens and usually accepts Blackberry’s new ideas. Thus encouraged, Blackberry exercises his brain regularly on behalf of the group, and many of their best successes stem directly from his creative solutions to problems.
Holly opposes Hazel’s group at first but joins them later. He learns that Hazel can set the past aside and welcome him as a ranking group member. Thus respected, Holly risks himself many times on behalf of his new leader.
Hazel knows a gift when he sees one, and the injured Kehaar is one such present. The bird has hygienic habits that disgust the rabbits, but Hazel sets that aside and nurtures the bird, who rewards him by becoming a friend and ally in both peace and war.
Bluebell, always ready with a quip, can be annoying at times, but Hazel sees past this to the rabbit’s essential good nature and his ability to cheer up the others during stressful times. Bluebell blossoms under Hazel’s leadership and helps keep the warren from panicking during the Efrafan attack.
Dandelion similarly has a way with words: His stories about El-ahrairah enthrall the group and keep it entertained on long nights. Hazel quietly curates Dandelion’s stories, subtly guiding him toward telling the right one at the right time. In this way, Dandelion’s skill flourishes.
Blackavar springs back to life under Hazel’s leadership, and Silver, Hawkbit, and Buckthorn become, like the others, fiercely loyal to the warren and its leader. Hyzenthlay joins them, and Hazel quickly recognizes her intelligent wisdom and partners with her.
Each of these appreciates Hazel’s respect for them, and each pays him back with great devotion and their finest work. They know what they’re good at, and this prevents them from fighting each other; instead, they coordinate their skills and build themselves into an unstoppable team. Without Hazel, their efforts might go nowhere; with him, their strengths grow, and they work effectively with one another to create remarkable results.
Three Oppressions, One Freedom
Hazel’s rabbits interact with three warrens, each beset by a different form of oppression. Each teaches them a lesson, and each reminds them of the value, despite the risks, of an open and free life. A fourth warren, their own on Watership Down, transcends the usual limits and offers them a better way.
The first oppression springs from bureaucratic corruption. The Threarah’s warren is run efficiently, but it’s also corrupt, the officers taking all the best resources for themselves. The Threarah has a bureaucratic mind: He’s smart but rule-bound. He brooks no dissension and won’t let rabbits leave without his say-so. Hazel and Fiver fail to convince the Threarah of the coming danger, and they must defy his Owsla and escape. Theirs is the right move, as those who stay behind and follow the rules quickly die at the hands of men who destroy the burrows to make way for human housing.
The second oppression involves a devil’s bargain. Hazel’s group meets Cowslip’s warren, whose rabbits are large and healthy, safe from predators, sheltered in a large and comfortable set of burrows, yet strangely sad. They enjoy their lush lifestyle at the price of their lives, for the warren is maintained by a farmer who harvests rabbits at will for his dinner. Again Hazel’s group must escape, lest it become ensnared—literally—in the warren’s luxurious death trap, as nearly happens to Bigwig. The allure of false safety is too strong for Cowslip’s rabbits, though, and among them only Strawberry breaks free and escapes from the place’s hypnotic appeal.
The third oppression is tyrannical. Efrafa warren has too many does, but none may leave under the severe regime of General Woundwort. All rabbits must obey a tight schedule outdoors lest humans notice them, and runaways suffer severe punishment. A thorough system of intelligence gathering and patrols reduces risks from predators, but it also suppresses internal protests. The residents are safe from all but their own leaders. Hazel, who needs does to complete his new warren, sends an embassy, led by Holly, to offer to relieve Efrafa of its overcrowding. Woundwort instead has the visitors imprisoned, and they barely manage to escape.
The fourth warren is Hazel’s at Watership Down. It runs on openness and consensus and puts a premium on the members’ satisfaction and freedom. Good lines of communication permit smart ideas to filter upward and prevent corruption from festering in the dark. Though apparently weaker than Efrafa, the Watership group prevails by outthinking them and making innovative use of the resources around them. They befriend other species who then assist them; they fashion a unique escape route after liberating several Efrafan does; and cleverly, they sic a large dog on Woundwort’s soldiers when they try to retake the does.
For all their vaunted tactics and intelligence gathering, the Efrafans never realize that the Watership leader isn’t the strongest rabbit, Bigwig, but the cleverest, Hazel. He hides in plain sight, but their narrow beliefs about war and conquest blind them to his presence. He meets them in parlay, where they assume he’s just a messenger. They decide therefore not to kill him outright: “Since they’ve sent him to ask our terms, he’d better take them back” (546). Their biggest mistake is not knowing whom they’re fighting.
All the troubled warrens share a weakness: They suppress the rabbits’ natural instinct for ingenious trickery. The Threarah’s Owsla simply bully their subjects; Cowslip’s warren loses respect for the stories of El-ahrairah’s ingenuity; and Woundwort’s rabbits obey a rigid hierarchy. Only the Watership warren retains its essential rabbitness, an imaginative mindset that develops imaginative solutions to difficult problems.
The Watership adventurers quickly become legendary, and rabbits begin to tell new El-ahrairah stories that incorporate the cleverness of these rabbits and their great leader, Hazel. Their success serves as a lesson even to humans: It’s better to adapt and innovate than become rule-bound.
From Hostility to Cooperation
Hazel’s leadership features an overriding purpose: He wants peace and harmony for his rabbits. To attain this, he thinks past the usual solutions of violence and dominance, and instead searches for cooperation. He succeeds, but often in unexpected ways.
Hazel’s brother Fiver makes strange predictions that are hard to believe but always come true. Hazel avoids arguing with Fiver or putting him down and instead accepts his prophecies. This helps to save Hazel’s warren several times.
Hazel also thinks ahead. He realizes that, if the rabbits abandon the old way of disdaining other animals and instead befriend them, they’ll gain advantages. He saves a mouse from a hawk’s attack, and the mice reward him with a lead on a source of good grazing. He orders his rabbits to shelter a bird with a broken wing; in gratitude, the bird, Kehaar, becomes a friend and an invaluable ally who alerts them to opportunities in their environment and helps them fend off an attack by Woundwort.
Most chief rabbits would simply punish an underling who causes harm, but Hazel rewards those who apologize and make up for any damage. Strawberry, who helped his own warren lure Hazel’s group into a trap, sees the wrongness of that scheme and begs to be admitted to their warren. Hazel recognizes Strawberry’s sincerity and sees his value, so he accepts. A leader like Woundwort would have punished Strawberry severely, cowing him into uselessness. Holly, who tries to arrest Hazel’s group when it leaves Threarah’s warren, later comes to them with apologies, and Hazel immediately adopts Holly into the group, where he proves invaluable.
Rabbits steal lettuce; the bucks also steal does from other warrens. Hazel instead sends a team to negotiate a transfer of does from the overcrowded Efrafa. It’s a smart idea that would benefit both warrens, but Woundwort nixes it by instead kidnapping Hazel’s team. They escape and bring back valuable intelligence about Efrafan ways that Hazel’s group uses to liberate several Efrafan does.
In the midst of dire danger, Hazel focuses on the best solution. He tells Woundwort, “Rabbits have enough enemies as it is. They ought not to make more among themselves” (545), and he proposes an alliance that would create a third warren made of Efrafan and Watership rabbits. Woundwort promptly refuses, preferring his time-honored use of force to a negotiated peace. His attempt to retake the does, though, fails catastrophically when he’s outwitted by Hazel’s more resourceful group.
Hazel doesn’t abandon his idea but repeats his offer to Efrafa’s new leader, Campion, who joins Hazel in building a third warren. Efrafans suffer great losses when they fight against Hazel, but when they work with him, they begin to thrive. Mere physical power generates costly pushback, but cooperation aligns both sides’ strengths. Together, they can overcome the problems they face.
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