Swords, Sorcery, and Socialism - Watership Down: Leadership & Existential Dread

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

Time for another classic! Here in part one of our conversation about Richard Adam's "Watership Down" we talk about leadership styles, thinking outside the box, and the existential dread of living while surrounded by the threat of death.patreon.com/swordsandsocialismFollow the show @SwordsNSocPodEmail us at [e-mail]: @Himbo_AnarchistKetho: @StupidPuma69 patreon.com/swordsandsocialismEmail: [e-mail] The Show: @SwordsNSocPodAsha: @Herbo_AnarchistKetho: @MusicalPuma69

Music Hello everyone and welcome back to Sourceords, Sourcery and Socialism podcast about the themes and politics hiding in our genre fiction as always I'm Darius and with me I have my ghost Ketho as a go and Ketho. Howdy. We are back at it today with another classic of terrifying children's literature, watership down by Richard Adams. This is a book written in 1972 and adapted into an even more terrifying movie in 1978. It's a classic, it is fantastic. I read it as a child and loved it, figured it was time to come back to it. Had you read it previously? I had not. I had not. I knew of the movie. I knew that it was based on a book.

But my impression, because I hadn't really looked into it much, was that the movie and the impression that people gave me of the film was like that this was a... that this was not a children's story or at least wasn't intended to be one in any way. Like, like, to me, when I heard about it, I was like, oh, this is like a classic, like, dark novel that just uses anthropomorphized rabbits. Just because that's the impression that some people gave me off of watching the film and then explaining to me that they had nightmares.

So I think this directly I think relates to last week's episode about fairy stories and that this is a classic example of not watering down your story for children and that letting children deal with sort of heavy or themes and such. Because this story, to me, is a very close echo of Brian Jake's writing Redwall, the author explains Richard Adams explains that he had been in the habit of telling his daughter's stories whenever they went on car rides. Because it was the 70s and people didn't have anything else to do. Yeah, my parents would talk about it.

They were like, oh yeah, we were kids on Sundays. We just drive around. And my parents lived in completely different places. But their parents still did the same thing. Yeah. Took them in car rides around in the early 70s. And like, what the hell? Just tootle around and let's just stop. So I rounded the early 70s and like what the hell?

Tuttle around and look just drive around the windows up someone smoking a cigar as God intended Mm-hmm as Lord Frith intended so He explains that he was in the habit of like telling his daughters stories in the car and then at one point They had to make like a hundred mile the car. And then at one point they had to make like a hundred mile trip in the car, which in the UK, I assume means they went from from like London to, you know, to like Edinburgh. It's probably like the entire length of the UK or something. It's a little bigger than that, but yeah. So he had a hundred mile trip and his daughters, he said he sometimes told them stories that were classics and sometimes he made up stories. And his daughters for this trip specifically requested that he tell them a story they hadn't heard before that he invent one for this trip.

And the story he invented was the majority of what became water shipped down. He said he didn't finish it on that trip, and then for a while afterwards, every night at bedtime would tell them a little bit more. And his daughters were the ones that, according to him, his daughters were the ones that told him, Dad, this is too good for you just to keep for us. You should write this down. And he was like, eh, seems like a lot of work.

It seems like it's unnecessary. But apparently his daughters and his wife essentially badgered him into writing it down. And one of his other friends who he talked to, like told them like, no, dude, this is pretty good. You should write this down. And so he did. He eventually wrote it all out into a novel and then

began shopping at around it publishers. And again, relating to what we said at the start of the episode, a lot of publishers were like, like turned it down thing like, nah, this isn't, though, like it's not right. It's too dark for little kids, but older kids won't want to read stories about bunnies. And he was like, he was like, no, I think it's fine. And he kept shopping at a round until he found one very specific small publisher who had published a different, like a different, like fairy tale type story recently.

And he's like, well, if he published that, he might publish my book. And so the original publication run was like very limited because it came from a small publisher who couldn't afford to do more copies and it sold out rapidly. And the small publisher was like, I, this is as fast as I can make them. And then eventually he got, got picked up by one of the major American publishers and it blew up in the US. So in the introduction, the author joke that Watership Down actually sort of got imported to the UK from the US because his story blew up faster in America than it did

in the UK, partly through distribution problems. Yeah, I actually wasn't totally expecting it to be as British as it was. Painfully British. Well, I mean, so just so everybody knows, I listened to the audiobook read by Peter Capaldi, which would be familiar to anyone who's watched post, you know, 2007 Doctor Who. He was the Doctor for a little while, wasn't he?

He was the Doctor for... Was he the one with the big angry eyebrows? Yes. Okay. I see the big angry eyebrows. Yes. Okay. See as big anger eyebrows. Yeah. Clara for his clearer. Clara British accents. It's for his good.

I you told me you listen to that one. So I intentionally listened to a different audio narration because I like to have us listen to slightly different versions because sometimes narrators are pronounced words differently or say things differently. And I think that's fun to have us listen to slightly different versions because sometimes narrators will pronounce words differently or say things differently. And I think that's fun to have that. Mine was narrated by Ralph Kausham. I don't know who that is. He's just an average guy. We went all in on Giffording different people's different accents, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The humans at the end, their West Country accent is so strong as to be almost indecisive herbal.

Oh boy. They remind me of the farmer from Hot Fuzz who has like a sea of niche in a shed, you know, I'm talking about. I know. Is it? Is it? Is it? Yeah, the humans in this book are full on like, what should do it on my arm?

Like they're like, it's, I can't even do it. I won't even pretend that they're Westcatch. It's West Country and it's heavy, heavy accent. Yeah, no, completely. It's not that heavy. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the like Middle Eastern? Because Kasha, I think, made them like Russian. No, I mean, Kasha made them sort of Russian. And my other favorite was Kasha made Keahar the Seagull. Very Scandinavian.

Like Keahar was like human's in-dem port. They get in port, come down, look side, look side of river. Like he gave him this very scan and even inflection and all of his B's were P's, he called them pig wig, all this other sort of stuff, it's fantastic. The Seagull is like the Seagull's Swedish. We listen to different ones because for those sort of fun things, I might listen to Kapali a little bit just so I can listen to Kapali have to pronounce El Akhara. Oh, he does a pretty good job with the the he's like

Al Akhara He does it really well way better than I can so it's like like that and then the way he's the way he just completely seriously Stone faces Absolutely seriously, stone faces, absolutely killed me. Because he rolls the arm. Prudu-duh. Prudu-duh is a great word. We're going to get to, we've gone off on a tangent,

but we're going to get to the rabbit language, because it's fun. So for anyone who, again, I feel like everyone should probably know this book by now. It's a bunch of, it's Gruber rabbits who live in a Warren. One of them, Fiverrr has a vision of the Warren being destroyed. It's like, y'all, we need to, we need to get the fuck out of here. And only a few rabbits like agree and think that, yes, this is, we believe you, this is a good idea. They go through a series, just a, it kind of reminds me of the Odyssey.

In the like, it's just a constant series of like, overcome this trial, overcome this trial, overcome this trial, over, it's like, you go point A to point B, there's gonna be a problem. Well, Alafraba is in a lot of ways. Like, he's both presented as a Trickster God, and there's like a weird element of like, Odysseus.

No Odysseus, too well. Yeah, so the rabbits, we'll get in the pantana in a little hour or hour and a minute. So anyway, they go from point A to point B, they ever come many troubles. They eventually find a place which would be great for a warrant, and then they realize they have a problem, which is that all of them are dudes,

and they're like, we have, we have no bitches. How to house off. And then like the back, I don't know by size either back half or back third of the novel is just the search for more bitches. And the trouble that comes with that. Yeah, part three for all that's fine some bitches. Part one, the boys go on an adventure. Part two, that feeling when no bitches, how much trouble will you put yourself

through to get laid? A lot, apparently, if you're a rabbit, you know, it'll get like shot and run over by a train. Yeah, you get shot, infiltrate an authoritarian state, just to break the prisoner population out. Me and the boys busing in in North Korea to rescue the the boys. Get in North Korea to rescue the women because my country ran out of women. That's so far.

We're going to help with that. It's okay. That's good, though. So I've just had at the beginning of every episode or when we start like a new book, we need to put it through, run it past two screens, two test screens of the rules we've come through, we've come across over the last couple of episodes. These are the the theGuin and Tolkien tests. L'Guin test is at sci-fi. This test is, is it a thought experiment?

Pretty much. More or less, are you doing a thought experiment? So that determines whether or not it's sci-fi. This book is not sci-fi. Yeah, very clearly not. Second test. Is it fantasy? Or is it fairy? I should say. It is fantasy, but is it a fairy story? It's a fairy story.

It's a fairy story. I was talking with say. I mean, it is fairy. Well, he's up until the end where they get the women. I can. So then it goes to sort of all those standards we talked about last week, which in which case I'm not sure, but I think Tolkien would say no, because I think he would just call this a beast story, but I'm not entirely sure, so I wanted to run it by you.

This, I think I sent a thing to you a while ago, I was like, this is a high fantasy story in low fantasy clothing, where the rabbits as they are, this is essentially its own self-contained reality. Like we know that rabbits don't actually behave like this or have like myths, but I guess we don't really know, but we can assume. But it also does clearly take place in our reality. Yes. In our world. It's not a separate world from ours. But there's this layer of mythos.

I don't know. This is a really hard one. I don't know. Probably I'm not as big of a stickler as Tolkien. I would call it fantasy. But yeah, I would definitely call it fantasy. I'm wondering if he would classify it as fair history. Again, these are arbitrary. And I just think it would be fun

to run any book we read through this little gauntlet at the start just because. I'm honestly probably with you. I think he would appreciate the attempted language. Yes, probably. I think what I think his interpretation of this would be is what we call low fantasy. Like we would call it low fantasy, so he wouldn't describe it as a fairy story, but I don't

think he would like be dismissive of it because again, it falls we already mentioned it does a lot of the things that he enjoys, which is like, you know, doing a mythos and having language and like telling a story that is impactful, has a lot of heart, has a lot of hope. There are lots of moments of like rest and recovery in here, like throughout their adventures where they do a thing and then they get to rest and they do a thing and they get to rest. There's a lot of that in here.

And also again, it doesn't water down any of its messages for children. When rabbits just be getting snatched all the time. Dang, I was about to be like, maybe token new about this. Now he, like he died the year after this book came out. Yeah, so he probably was not aware. Um, anyway, again, those not really important. I just think it'll be fun to run every book through the ringer. Just the GWT, the Gwyn's ringer is a lot shorter. Oh, yeah.

You want this? Super pushnickety about it. She's a lot less cantankerist than the Professor was. Yeah. So let's talk about Watership Down. Let's talk about some rabbits, which also the rabbits distinguish themselves from hairs. Hairs are different than rabbits, which is also throw back to me to Redwall where there are hairs and they

get very angry if you call them rabbits, which to me as a child didn't make sense. I thought rabbits and hairs were essentially the same thing. Clearly, they're not. Like through lines between this and Redwall. I wouldn't be surprised if this had some influence on Brian Jake's when he was doing his storytelling. Because there's like prophecies, seers, and visions. Now the rabbits in Watership Down rightfully run away from a badger and don't worship them. Yeah, well, in Redwall badgers aren't predatory. So that's super bizarre, which because they're

omnivorous, right? They'll eat pretty much anything. Yeah, I mean, they say in the book that a badger, if it happened to catch a rabbit, would eat one, but most of the time they're too slow or don't bother, or they'll eat rabbit babies or whatever. This one is much more close to what actual animals are like in terms of their, like food stuffs. Yeah, because they run into you back. Like it's yeah, like in the first. They say when you see, yeah, yeah. And they say you can't smell them, but it just eat so that it didn't chase them.

What do you want to talk? What do you want to talk about first? Do you want to talk about? You want to talk about sears and prophecy first? Do you want to talk about them. What do you want to talk about first? Do you want to talk about, you want to talk about Sears and Prophecy first? Do you want to talk about leadership? What do you want to talk about? Well, I mean, they both serve really strong central functions in the narrative here.

I would say the Sears and Prophecy thing is more of a, like a plot motivator. It's something that has important implied text, whereas leadership is more of a fundamental central tenant of the story in terms of like the themes and what it's trying to say. Okay, well, let's start there then. So in the story, every rabbit Warren is described

as having essentially having a chief rabbit. We do the rabbit that makes decisions for the whole Warren. But it also says right off the bat that this can be the actual, the way the role functions depends entirely on the Warren and the personality of said rabbit. So some are more authoritarian, some are much less authoritarian, some have to dig to everything, some don't do much at all. It depends on the Warren and the rabbit and that sort of thing, which is an interesting take on leadership. Like it's not that the role is defined societally by the rabbits.

It's that it is more the person in the role that defines sort of the bounds of the role and like what the other rabbits will tolerate. And this is, I think we get sort of three points along the line here, or three major ones, at least along this sort of line here from what I want to call sort of authoritarian chief rabbit to as close to non-hierarchical as you can be while still being chief rabbit. So on the one end you have our main character, you have Hazel. Hazel is mostly pretty chill. Hazel's default go to for almost any interpersonal conflict is mediation and like peace and problem solving by and large, right? Like Hazel's go to for like solving anything is let's hear both sides, let's hear it out, let's

work through it, or in case of more active things by leading by example. Hazel is also often like, well, if we need to do this, I'm going to do it first to show that it can be done, because I won't ask them to do anything that I wouldn't be willing to do myself. The other main characteristic of Hazel's leadership is letting other people take charge. When it's passing out responsibility to those who have the most to give in that moment. You know, they have like, oh, fighting needs to be done or we need to do some like tactic stuff. Let's talk to Bigwig or Captain Holly. We need to solve some sort of like what I'll call mechanical problem that's beyond the reasoning of most rabbits. I think these blackberry, yeah, blackberry.

Blackberry. Oh, man. That's a funny implication. Only from the future looking back. Like blackberry, you can solve this sort of thing. You're the smart one here. What do you have to say about it? And now blackberries are the dumb phones.

Oh my God. I haven't thought about a Blackberry phone in years. I had one. Oh my God. It's awful. So Hazel sort of distributes leadership and responsibility to the people that seem to be most suitable for handling it

in most situations. Um, even coming down to are the vibes of this plan bad? Fiverr. Does this plan have good or bad vibes? Fiverr, you're always objectively correct. We should probably just listen to you. Fiverr has actually never been wrong. Never.

Never. Um, or, uh, to, to, to throw it back to other talking nerds, we call this the the million problem to be always right and to have no one listen to your advice ever. So that's on one end of our leadership scale. In the middle, I think we have, a little past the middle, we have the chief rabbit of the war and that they come from, whose name I don't remember. I don't really think they give him a specific name. He has a title that's like,

Threira or something, Threira or something like that. It's the Threira. It's the chief rabbit of the original home warrant. Yeah, but he never give him a name. He's just chief rabbit of their home, of their original home warrant. Yeah, but he never get renamed. He's just chief. Yeah. So the Therara, he like, he's old number one, but it seems to be a little in the middle where like most people are generally left alone, but like his, his house lay, his like soldiers can be a bit domineering. Yeah, to the other rabbits. Everyone seems to generally tolerate it.

I think his dismissiveness comes more from the fact that he's old. Yeah. He's just old and doesn't, he doesn't want to take any risks anymore. He's got more like, I've lived through this, I've lived through that. I don't think I'll live through

whatever comes next to type deal. And then the other, sorry, go ahead. Oops. I just said it. Oops. Yeah. Oops. Yeah. Not. And then on the opposite and the far other end from Hazel, you've got general wound work. Who's go to is I'm going to beat the shit out of you. If you don't do exactly what I say, the second I say it, I will kill any of you at any time for any reason. And that's his entire leadership strategy. Now, we can go into the fact that his backstory has given us, and it's bad. And the author tells us that he got this way partly because he believed it is the

single best way to protect his Warren from being destroyed. Most especially by humans. single best wage protect his Warren from being destroyed. Most especially by humans. Most specifically by humans. However, the author does also tell us that he has made a lot of these decisions because he's just a power hungry dickhead. Yeah, it's funny because in one sentence he'll be like, ah, yes, I need to protect everyone, yes.

And then the next one,'s like, hmm, like describing his backstory at least. And then the next one it's like, he became this way because he was a power hungry asshole, which I find funny because I feel like it should almost be the other way around. If you really want to, he obviously didn't really want to make him that sympathetic, but if he did, like the root would have been to be like, he did this to protect people, and because he did this to protect people, it turned him into this.

Yeah, he became this, like, this dictator. But it kind of makes it out that he, yes, was doing this to protect people, but also always wanted to be a dictator. He always just kind of was this way. Yeah. Just like, he kind of was a giant asshole. Like, yes, he did it to protect the Warren. Yes, he did it because he thought it was best.

But also, yes, he just kind of wanted to be a dick. Well, like, so like, you have these, these sort of opposite ends of leadership styles of, you know, of Hazel and Woonbork. The author clearly comes down on Hazel's side, obviously it's a protagonist, but I think it's an interesting lesson for us to pull the fact that even in a system that has a one rabbit hierarchy, technically I guess the Aosler are like a level in between, but you've basically got rabbits and the chief rabbit in Hazel's warren in Watership Down.

Hazel's style of using his power as chief rabbit is essentially to devolve his authority to everyone else who's better at it than he is in every given situation. And I think, as you know, as Anne or I guess, I think that's an interesting lesson to pull from someone who was explicitly not writing any sort of political polemic here. Yeah. Yeah, this was explicitly,

well, I suppose he doesn't say, he rejects the idea that it's a story for children, but specifically, but even though he invented it for his children. Well, yeah, no, I can pull up the quote. Like I said, because I had an on audio book, I have to pull up the quotes on something else. I always said that water is down.

It's not a book for children. I say it is a book and anyone who wants to read it can read it. Yeah, which is good. Yeah, so like I'm saying, it wasn't like writing a political text. No. But again, as we do, what we can pull here is the fact that he clearly thinks a more unobtrusive, devolved leadership style is preferable. And he goes out of his way to contrast Hazel and the other chief rabbits, but also Hazel

and other rabbits in his warrant as to why Hazel is looked up to and respected the most, especially with Bigwig, where the two of them are pretty often put in scenarios where Hazel will say one thing, Bigwig another and a big will just do the thing anyways and then something bad happens because big would was thinking too small and too much about himself like the Fox thing which was kind of kind of bad and kind of good did it did kill one of the effriffin officers. Yeah, the thing is, is that when he first came back, they didn't know that it was an officer. Like, that was one of the patrols.

So they were like, did you just get a random rabbit killed because you were so confident that that fox could not hurt you that you just ran into the reads and ran smack dab into more rabbits. It's like, dude, stop thinking about yourself. I mean, it happens after they've left Eiffrophone, the way back to the thing where they stopped somewhere and Black-A-Var is like, this is a bad place to stop, there's fox around. And Bigwigg is like, shut up nerd. Yeah. We'll sit here if we want to. And then like six hours later, one of them gets one of the do's because he and by a fox. Yeah. Bigwig is like,

okay, yeah, maybe you were right. Um, this actually that's bigwig's whole arc is like not listening and then being convinced that the person he should have listened to is right. It happens with Hazel, it happens with Fiverr, and it happens with Black-A-Var, where they all say, maybe don't do the thing. And he's like, nah, you're nerds. If I could be here. If I could call maybe he's back back in their hometown and their home Warren, he was the one

who had the most authority out of all of them. Yeah, because he was in the Ausla, like he had authority. And this comes to a head, I think, in the sort of the final showdown when Woundwark and Bigwig are fighting in the tunnels. And again, like Woundwark in his whole style is that the biggest, strongest, fiercest, meanest rabbit is in charge. And he's instilled that in his entire warring. So when he and Bigwig are fighting, and it's like kind of a stalemate kind of bigwig wins.

And when we're talking to him, Bigwig says, my chief rabbit told me to stay here. And I will until he tells me otherwise that like quite literally shocks all the enemy rabbits because in their mind, the only thing they can imagine is a rabbit bigger and stronger and meaner than Bigwig. And not the one that walked out to the Merlea and was like, hey, let's make a communal burrow together and work together. And they're like, what? Oh, what? Yeah, so like Hazel had talked to Bigwig not hours before, but Hazel's like partly, isn't the biggest, is partly lame from getting shot. And so they just, the effriffin or rabbits simply cannot comprehend that there is a different

kind of leader than the biggest and strongest and fiercest. And I'm pulling this out now. That's an important lesson we're looking at the world today and sort of our government, human government, is that I think one of the problems we're looking at the world today and sort of our government, human government, is that I think one of the problems we have when sort of, when you're getting into arguments, when people are asking about, oh, well, how would anarchists organize X or how would anarchists organize Y? Part of the problem you have when talking to people aren't familiar with the theory of it is that they've never seen organizations other than the one

they're in. So they can't picture it. Just as the Eiffriff and Rabbits can't picture a chief rabbit that isn't the biggest and meanest and strongest, I think a lot of people can't picture a world without a government that is the biggest and meanest and strongest. Does that make sense? Or without, you know, like capital essentially dominating our lives in every way and possibly can.

The biggest, meanest, strongest chief in the world right now is capital. Right? Pretty much. Capital is the chief rabbit. And so I, I, again, I think it's this idea of sort of like the scope of what you can imagine. And I think we run into that when talking to people sometimes is that it's not that they couldn't believe in it or follow it because after Woundwurt has gone numerous Eiffrerman rabbits, join Hazel's Warren, right? And they eventually do form this sort of shared Warren halfway between the two.

Which I do find, you know, I do find it funny. And we did kind of mention it off beforehand. But like, it's a little bit like, oh, I tried to kill you, but I was just following orders. Just following orders like the rabbits, like hiding is like Nazi flag in the background, like trying to stay up in front of it and hide it. There's a little bit of that because Woundward is like we're gonna kill these rabbits and his officers are like

all right deal then Woundward dies and they realize they lost their like look Woundward was real scary I didn't mean it. I didn't mean a Hitler told me to I couldn't say no. Rabbit Hitler told me. So like, there's a little bit of that, but my point was just that once they are presented with an alternative and become, and I like, accustomed to seeing it in action, they understand it. But until that, until they see it in action, it's hard for them to picture this thing that's outside of what their imagination has ever like reached for. And that scene is actually speaking a big wig, that scene is actually really

like important in general, I think, like as like a closing character arc for him. Where the moment when he's like, oh, if I die, my body is big enough that it'll at least be a roadblock for them to get further down Mm-hmm, and you're like, oh wow, he's thinking about everybody else now Yeah, it is because he finally Like it's not that he was completely selfish No, no, he kind of was the more or less up to that point and you're right in that moment He's like, oh, I'm defending everyone behind me. And even if I die My body will delay them even longer for my chief who somewhere else doing the doing the plan to like succeed

Yeah, getting the dog Which got to be honest. It's a wicked plan. Oh, yeah, we're just gonna grab the dog for somebody's house We're gonna like we're gonna go get one of our most vicious predators and lead him on to our enemies. That's smart with the with the The only display of humanity in the entire Is that not seen towards the other the humans humans? Yeah, the humans. It's right after that because after Hazel releases the dog, the cat catches him and the daughter saves him.

Yeah, it's like the one moment of humanity. The human's not being shit. Yeah, human's not being awful. And the daughter saves him and the dad's like, I don't know which one I'm going to do with it. And the daughter's like, I don't know. I just want to show them to the doctor because I like the doctor. And dad's like, I don't know which one I'm going to do with it. And the daughter's like, I don't, I just want to show them to the doctor because I like the doctor.

And they're like, okay. And then the doctor's like, yeah, he'll be fine. You want to let him go outside? We can take him a little ways away so he'll dad's not mad. And the girl's like, sure. And then they let him go like real close to the water, ship down, as he gets a ride home.

Yeah, you're right. That is like the one time humans aren't. Just can contrast that with, you know, humans destroying the original Warren. Yeah, so I don't think we, I think that's, you know, enough about the leadership. But yeah, we can let's talk about this interaction between humans and rabbits and ecology, a little bit here.

The original Warren, Sandalford Warren, I believe, because all the places in this are actually real places that you can just go look at. Like he names the cities and like, Watership Down is an actual place like you can go to. It exists. I assume it still exists. I'm assuming haven't been bulldozed or something.

Yeah, well, hopefully. But like the Townsend names and the rivers he names are real, you can go find them. Anyway, the Sandalford warn of the vision that Fiverr has and that what does eventually happen to them is because the land that they live on has been slated for development, for housing, I assume, I think. And so the humans come and have to and kill the rat destroy the rabbit colony and then bulldoze the land to start building houses And from the rabbits perspective this is fucking terrifying And I recommend you watch that scene from the 1978 movie

So you can give yourself nightmares. Yeah, but to say that's that's probably the most terrifying goddamn scene So what happens is the humans plug up basically all the holes they can find in the Warren Almost all of them and then just pump some sort of poison gas into the rabbit Warren To kill the rabbits and then the ones that make it out they shoot. I don't know if this is like a normal strategy for destroying rabbit warrants. I'm guessing it's happened before. I'm assuming Richard Adams didn't just invent it. Yeah, entirely. I'm assuming this has happened at some point. But from the rabbit's perspective like all their holes get clogged up the air goes bad. Most of them die. The few that escape get shot. And then they bring in a tractor to just tear up all the land.

And the one rabbit describes being able to see like the dead bodies of his former friends being churned up out of the earth with the land, which, again, terrifying. Terrifying. It is around the telling of this story as to what happens. The rabbits are sort of talking about why, you know, why did this happen? Because they're accustomed to humans and some of the suggestions throughout it are like,

oh, well, they were mad that we were stealing from their garden. They were mad that we were doing this or that. And one of the rabbits, I think it's Fiverr, says, no, they killed everyone because we were in their way. And it's in this that they distinguish humans from all other allele, from all other enemies, in that humans don't kill the rabbits because they need to live. They do it because they find rabbits inconvenient and a nuisance.

And I think that's a pretty important point that the humans did this not because they needed to, but because we were just in their way. I'm surprised there's not more, rabbit mythology about humans, don't I mean? It's like, it's almost seems like they could be, they'd be like some big, that's a big like, oh, end of the world style shit. Yeah, I mean a couple of the myths have humans in them. They never explain what the king who's garden, Elakirash deals, steals the, gets the

cabages from. They never actually even say what he is. Yeah, they never do. They just have animal servants though, because they talk about their claws, but I don't they don't. They don't explicitly say what kind of animal he is. The other thing is they talk about when they talk about their enemies is that like they understand other illegal because they need to hunt to live until they'll kill one rabbit and leave. Where humans, they're just like don't even need them, they just kill hunt to live. And so they'll kill one rabbit and leave. Where humans don't even need them, they just kill them for sport or for annoyance and destroy the environment.

Or they'll do something particularly like sinister, which is the case with what's the one rabbit leader's name. So there's this like cow. Couselip. Couselip. Couselip, and his world. The one where they leave food out just to keep the worm around so he can snare some of them occasionally. Yeah.

It's like, no, there were other enemies think like that, you know? No. Humans are like a specifically terrifying. Yeah, like a dog or cat will kill one because, well, dogs and cats are a bit more like humans at that point. It's interesting actually that the dogs and cats actually display somewhat characteristics more closer to humans in the enemies. Well, and I think that's because of their proximity to people. So does the council. Yeah. And also shows way more like human-esque qualities.

They do art and existential poetry because they're proximity to people. They're proximity to people and proximity to I do not know who is going to die next. But we know someone will and we know it could be any moment for any reason. And we do not know when, we just know that it will. So death is looming over us all. I'm going to sit here in my hole eating, you know, food that he gave us fattening myself up and fattening him myself on purpose for the slaughter. It, who I thought about that way, but there's like this interesting sort of the psychology of animals changes significantly the closer they are in contact with humans regularly.

So like dogs are described as like aside from humans, dogs are the only other allele that will kill multiple rabbits just because like that's the whole reason they get the dog at the end. They can't get another enemy because the other enemy would come and just like eat one and leave. They get the dog because the dog is recklessly destructive. And the cats, the cats, even though typically won't kill more than one, they will also just hunt for the sport of it. Cats are also way harder to control.

Yeah, but I'm saying again, the cats are like human somewhat human connected creatures and hunt sometimes for food and sometimes simply for sport. But like none of the other enemies do this. And like you said, the counselors wore it close to the humans ends up with this very depressed and weird and human-like society. So there's clearly something going on there in the difference between nature untouched and nature in proximity to humans, creating a much more, for lack of a better word, evil. Yeah, because it, like, you know, destructive, sadistic version of nature nature the closer it is to people. Yeah, there's like Is this is this like a wholesale condemnation of domesticity?

Domesticated animals in general because A lot of them are like council it. Honestly, we do think about it. It's like they're made completely dependent They can't leave because if they do they don't know how to live So they just have to kind of be and wait to die. It's an interesting point. I wonder if that applies to anything in the real world. This idea that like you've become so dependent on the treats that are just given to you that becomes inconceivable that you would leave because number one, where would you go? And number two, how would you survive?

You don't have the skills anymore to survive without the treats being given to you. But what that results in is simply existing in a state of permanent on we while waiting to be murdered. Yeah, that's pretty much, Yeah, that's pretty fucked. The whole council of situations is pretty fucked. I think even though it's not the most viscerally terrifying,

I think having your house turned into a gas chamber is the most viscerally terrifying thing in this book. But I think when you actually think about it, like somewhat more existentially, council of war and I think is you actually think about it, like somewhat more existentially, cow slips war and I think is the most terrifying. No, it's the most depressing, the most like emotionally like, oh, actually, oh.

And then the more you think about it, like this is actually just really disturbing. It is, but like, again, I think there's probably some sort of message you could draw from that because, I mean, you look at humans in the, specifically humans in, you know, in like the US or Europe, you know what I mean? It's highly developed, given that somewhat outdated language, talking about developed versus underdeveloped, you know what I mean?

It's sort of Western post-industrial countries that we have a population of people that are just largely dependent on giving, receiving our treats, and don't have any concept of surviving without them, despite the fact that we are being actively killed on a regular basis, especially specifically in this whole, the whole back to work during the pandemic, 10-deal. Oh, yeah. Like, I don't know if you could find a more accurate,

like direct portrayal of the fact that like, the system provides us with, with our treats, but also says some of you are going to die to keep this going. And then you're like, yeah, yeah, let's do that. That's good. Like we're just, we're expected to have people die and just move on. And so I do think that that CalSlub's war in has a lot to say about how we live now, particularly in pandemic times. I mean, you can do it capitalism generally, but I think the pandemic time is a much

more sort of specific lesson, where it's like, yeah, you go outside, some of you are going to die from going outside. Also, you have to. Yep, also you have to, if you don't know food for you. I think it's also a little bit more excessentially terrifying, because like an enemy like wound war is Fightable. Yeah, that works that works.

You know, you can punch wound war in the face. Digwig does this repeatedly like kicks. Yeah, well, sometimes that claw. So like, the rabbit's head claw, they have claws. Yeah, they have little claws in their feats. Yeah, I see. Yeah, that's what they use them to like, the rabbit's head. They claw, they claw? Yeah. They're the little claws in their feats. Yeah, I didn't realize that. Yeah, that's what they use them to like, dick and stuff. Oh, you're right.

I just, it didn't click in my head that did. Yeah, I mean, it's, they're claws in the same way, you know, they're like more like just toenails, but you know what I mean? I mean, that's all claws really are, right? Yeah. But so like, one more is an enemy that like, you can square up with.

You can like have a plan, you can punch him. It's, it's physical. It's visceral, right? An enemy like the farmer at CalSybs warren is much more existential in a way. Like, obviously, he's a real person. But like the rabbits can't go out and kick him. Like they can't go out and defeat the farmer and free themselves. The only possible freedom for them is to leave. Is to leave the system that they're existing within. But there have been in it for so long that they don't believe that's even possible. Or they've diluded themselves into thinking

that what the system they live in is the best, actually. Yeah, this goes for both, this goes for both CalSlib and the rabbit chief from the beginning. It's very similar if you think about it. This is why it's always bad, this is fine. Where am I? What do you talk about? It's like, oh, some of you will die.

That is a sacrifice that I am willing to make. Yeah. And again, all of this contrasts directly with, like Hazel and his Warren who are specifically constantly thinking outside of what are the typical bounds of what I want to call rabbit thought. You know what I mean? Like a lot of the problems we've talked about are simply a lack of imagination essentially. Like they can't think, wound words rabbits can't think of a system that doesn't have a strong, a strong guy at the top. Cow slips worn can't think of a world

in which they don't have to deal with like snares all the time. The the flail they can't think of a world in which his warren like moves because of a threat. Where Hazel's group is constantly being forced to think outside the box. They're constantly being forced to think outside the box. They're constantly being forced to envision things that no rabbit has ever thought of before, right? And that's part of the role of, I think we mentioned it before, some of the other rabbits

like Blackberry and Fiverr, who are constantly saying, there is another way. Like there is something different that no one's tried before. And actually Hazel does have his own moment of that when his bright idea is, hey, maybe we should be friends with animals that aren't rabbits. Yeah, yeah, he does it twice. And it pays off. It pays off every time.

Just like Fiverr's Visions. It pays off every time. It also gives us one of the best characters in the book, which is Keihar, the seagull. You just like it because that's gay to maybe. Yes, yes, partly. But so, again, to finish my point, we're shown time and time again that the good guys and the people that survive and thrive are those that can imagine scenarios and organizations beyond the ones that everyone else is currently existing in. And I think that's a message that we should take to heart. And it works here both on practical and sort of theoretical levels. For practical things, you get questions all the time

like, well, in the real world talking about, building a better world, you can question the time, well, how will people be fed? Or how will we produce X? Or, you know what I mean, a very like discrete problem. The book has those. That's the plank of wood that Blackberry discovers you can float on. And then later on, the idea of wood that Blackberry discovers you can float on.

And then later on, the idea of using a boat, right? These are discrete problems that no one has had to solve before, but that they need to move on. And they think outside the box, they invent a discrete way of fixing this problem. At a more theoretical level, Hazel's the one who's envisioning a a Warren that doesn't have Ausla that beat the shit out of you for eating at the wrong time. Or envisioning being friendly with non-predatory

animals that live around you because they have things to offer. Not just obviously it's not entirely altruistic, they want our hoping to receive something even even even the concept of mutual aid isn't entirely mutual isn't that's something I think a lot of people just kind of gloss over it's like the reason that you're helping other people is because other people help you it's like you

help other people since the right thing to do but if you build the society of that when it comes your turn someone will help you yeah it's like the reason that mutual aid in as Karpak and what I said mutual aid in animals even is the thing is because working cooperatively led to greater survival it wasn't about Oh, man, I will save you because it's good thing

It's like it's I'll save you because it's a good thing that we have more people because that means there's a higher chance of all of us surviving Hazel is literally doing Karpak Kens mutualism in nature or mutual aid in nature. Because he saves a mouse, the mouse warns him later that tells them there's a farm or whatever, or no, that Kier doesn't but the farm. But like warns him later that the effervescence showed up. Yeah. And the seagull is like, hey, I found the other, found the dose for them. Yeah, Keahar finds the farm and effrotha. Like Keahar, and then Keahar is instrumental

in their like, I don't know, prison rate. Yeah, they're weird plan. Their prison rate of effrothophile, like keyhars instrumental. And again, it comes first off, the aid that he provides physically, like I went and saw the things or I helped attack the rabbits. Also his knowledge, keyhars, the one that understands what a boat is, or how a boat works. Well, I love the fact that he explains what the ocean is

Yeah, he does explain the ocean and everyone's like what the fuck and big weeks the other one is like That is that that is the flip side of we know we were down a big wig earlier for being sort of selfish and like now He's being the past one of other big wigs other great things is like the fact that he and Keah are like best friends. Yeah, he's like, oh god, this bird is so cool. Well, I think in the bird respects him because I think because he's the only one that doesn't seem as scared as the rest of the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But again, Keah provides them with things that they could not have had on their own. Vision, like scouting knowledge. These are all things that they receive because Hazel had the idea that mutual aid might be good. So again, between just like specific instances and sort of big picture ideas, the rabbits here, I think,

are showing things that we should learn from, not that like, I don't know, I'm going to go feed a seagull because he's going to show me where all the hot women are. Like, I don't think that's how it works. The cooperation is. But it's a good thing. Yeah, that like, they live in a world where these things are unknown. And once you introduce like a mutual aid and like,olution of power. They suddenly have the happiest, nicest and coolest society in all of England. Well people accidentally stumble into that

conclusion all the time. Yeah. You know, it's like they don't know that that's what anarchists have been talking about for 150 years, but you know, well for longer than that. Americans have been talking about for 150 years, but you know, well, for longer than that. At this point, almost 200. And like, at the end of the day, it's like, these ideas are actually when you boil it down, just kind of, they just kind of make sense, like kind of common sense, I mean, common sense is a bunkus is baloney nonsense, but it's like at the same time, it just it's like yes, helping people is good and helps you later. You figured it out. Yeah, I mean, again, I think you pointed out it's people that are sort of like stumbling into the fact that anarchism is a good idea because clearly Richard Adams is not writing some

sort of like anarchist text, clearly. But like from our perspective, all of the things that he describes as good are indicative of sort of anarchist principles. Like all of the things that his heroes do that are good, and all the things that are presented as evil are the things that any, like any anarchist is off the street, but yeah, that's a bad idea. Yeah.

Like a strict hierarchy of soldiers policing the, policing the populists at all times. And like completely curtailing their freedom as to when they feed, how they feed, who they associate with, who they mate with, all those sorts of things, control them sort of a military hierarchy. Jesus. It's trying to make Effrifus seem like, like what's his name's thing from Mad Vax Fury Road. Oh, it's it.

from Mad Max Fury Road. Oh, it's it. It's like the only ones who can breathe now, breathe with me and you now have your water. Oh, do not become addicted to the Silphalay. You will miss its absence. Yeah. You will resent the absence of Silphalay. So, yeah, I just find it very interesting that, you know, this is sort of the lessons you're drawing, even without reading that deeply into it about who the good guys are and

like what they believe in. We went a little off the, I want to go back quick just to point out that there is clearly a message in here that humans are bad for animals generally unless you're specifically a pet creature. Yeah, and even then it kind of fucks with you. And even when you're a pet, it really fucks up your psychology. Well, because then the one the way that they present dogs in this I am the lowest worm. I will be the most survival. Well, to be fair, that is a, that is a rabbit interpretation of how they perceive dogs. So it's like the rabbit sea dogs

as being these survival, survival worms. And they don't actually know how dogs think or act or any of that. They just are going based off their observations from the outside and they're just like dogs obviously just are like, I am the lowest of the low. I will, yes, I will be, I will lower myself for you. I will, I will, I will gravel for you. To be fair, we did effectively Breathe that into them. Yeah, we did effectively create a whole another

species Those species and stuff. It's all you know weird the lines between species are incredibly blurry, but like We did essentially create entire species. That's just like you know You put a dog in a room and a wolf in a room and like cages and you put food just out of the reach. It's like the wolf will reach for the food and keep reaching for the food and keep reaching for the food and eventually just stop and not try anymore and just give up and then lay down. But like the dog will keep pushing at the thing and then we'll stop and look at the person like, you can give me a hand here, bro. You're going to give it to me.

Give me a hand here. It's all right. Bro, you're going to give me a hand here. But that, yeah. So we effectively bred an instinct to look to people for food, for help, yeah, for assistance. But what we're putting out though is that like, yeah, the dogs in this story are presented as how a rabbit would

interpret dog behavior. And we're like, as big like three dogs and you're like, we're free. We're free and you're like a survival. You're like a witty servant. But I mean, talking about the psychology, you also have the psychology of the hut rabbits that they rescue. Who like, it's clear as shown, these rabbits have a different psychology because they've never, there's been human pets their whole lives. They don't understand how the outside works. They don't understand how to survive

How to live that one is a little fucked up because they're not like raising those rabbits for food. Um, I mean You don't think so. Yeah, I was about to say. But I mean anyone who's left on a farm. knows that a pet rabbit could become food. Yeah, I was about to say it's like, you know, you're raising an animal long enough. Eventually, you know, the kids will be like, yeah, and then the dad will be like, okay, time for dinner. I know a lot of people who like, you know, raised cows and pigs from like being little to being adults and then still killed and ate them. I know. I knew someone who did that with the turkey. They raised a turkey from a chick. And I'm like, no, no, that would turn me vegan so fast.

There's a reason I did change. I was like, if you put me in that scenario, I'd be like, there's a reason. There's a reason that they try and keep meat production as separate from the world as possible. And then they just take severely, it's part of the reason that they take in mostly undocumented immigrants to work there because it's like the emotional strain

that goes into that job. Yeah, let's say this is the point where I go on a tangent and make some of our listeners angry and calling me like a preachy vegan or something talking about the like absolute mental toll that has taken on slaughterhouse workers because of the cruelty to the animals and all these other things. But I mean, it's not a joke to say that my own personal sort of change from like giving up meat and now trying least by large to give up all the animal products stems from the fact that I in my mind couldn't, couldn't logically draw the line between pet and food in animals. Like I couldn't draw that line for myself, like

logically, like there's no argument I could make to make that line make sense. And so the only logical response for me was to simply not have to have that dilemma, you know what I mean. So we can say those hard drabates were being taken care of but they also still had their freedom reduced to a box. Yes. Like, and they still thought with their sort of quote-unquote natural psychology because they don't get to live the way that the way the nature sort of intended them to live.

So, another message of this book, humans bad, humans, let's face it folks, not that great if you're an animal. Living by humans probably not good for you. Before someone comes in and calls you out for misanthropy and you're at misanthropy. And you're like, wouldn't be the first time. You know, I've heard this before,

but I don't think you can deny the objective harm humanity causes to most animal life. And this isn't even just a, oh, like, just a capitalism thing. Like obviously capitalism is a huge deal. Like, without that, you'd be looking at like 98% reduction in that sort of harm, that sort of willful harm. But at the same time, are you telling me that there are people out there who wouldn't be like, okay, I'm looking for a place I'm just gonna pop down and, and, you know, stay for the rest of my life. Oh, there's some animals here. I guess I'll go five miles to the east. It's like, no, some of them will just be like, eh, let's just gas them out and set up campier anyways. I mean, long, long before there were like, states like people were,

people were hunting animals to extinction. Yeah, it's like we hunted the goddamn Wollienameth to extinction. I mean, obviously the ice age disappearing meant they were less likely to survive anyways, but at the end, at the end of the end, they were all so tuned down. Numerous other species. So I think, again, even if Richard Adams didn't necessarily intend it, this book is somewhat from the animal's perspective, reinforcing the idea that living near people is probably

bad for you. It's, yeah, it's like regardless of how you look at it, humanity as much as there is a food chain and not a food web, there is a food web, obviously. But like, we are the most effective predators on planet Earth by a significant margin. Number one baby. By like an incredibly wide margin. Yeah well I've ever seen a tiger with a gun. It's like the next most effective predators on

earth or anything of the feline family and it's like like they're all solitary hunters. BRB going to watershed down to give Blackberry a high point. Like we can have some rabbits to pregnancy. I just give it bigwagon AR. That is the end of part one of our conversation on watership down. Part two will be out next week. If you enjoy the show, you can follow us on social media. The links are down in the description as always. Also you can sign up for our Patreon for just $3 a month. You get access to a couple bonus episodes every month, where we talk about Don book things like video games or movies or whatever.

Thank you very much for listening and we'll see you next week. Goodbye. Bro. Are you fucking real man? Come on. you