Thethuthinnang is a character who makes me feel depressed—all because she could have been SO much more. Almost all the discussions I see about her almost always focus on the fact that she’s Hyzenthlay’s companion/friend/partner and nothing else, because it’s hard to point out anything else about her. Either that or her particularly strange and complicated name.
And while you could basically say this about many other does, Thethuthinnang in particular bugs me because she was clearly meant to be something more.
Of course, she was the other leader of the does in Efrafa, but it’s easy to forget her because Hyzenthlay is the one who always gets the most recognition—and this is all because, unlike Hyzen’s few moments of screen time, Thethu in particular is much less present. She has fewer lines, and even considering that most of these are either mentions by other characters or her responding to questions or situations, it’s hard to see her being “active” in her own right or taking any kind of initiative on her own.
She has her moments, like when she and Silver help send the signals to Kehaar. But these are things that happen in the space of a single glimpse of text.
Another important moment is when we witness Thrayonlosa’s death and see Thethu affected by it more than anyone else, given her apparent closeness to her.
It’s notable that Thethuthinnang was meant to be relevant—she isn’t simply Hyzenthlay’s “second-in-command,” as we’re led to believe; she was truly her equal—she together with. Hyzenthlay, they made plans, and that bond is evident in things like Hyzenthlay asking Bigwig to tell only her about the plan, as well as Bigwig talking with her in a similar way to how he talks with Hyzenthlay. Bigwig even tells Thethuthinnang to tell the other does to jump onto the ship, because he recognizes her “authority” over them.
Unfortunately, after the escape and a brief exchange, Thethuthinnang disappears from the plot and isn’t even mentioned again in the conclusion leading up to the epilogue.
The situation with Thethuthinnang didn’t improve here, considering that Vilthuril even received more attention than she did.
Now, for a moment, I’ll focus on Vilthuril. In *Tales*, it’s clear they were trying to create a sort of parallel between these three does and the male “protagonist” group (Hazel, Fiver, and Bigwig), with the roles of “leader” and “seer.” Thethuthinnang isn’t a fighter, but at least we could say she’s the “companion,” just as Bigwig is to Hazel. Or well, that’s how it would be if they didn’t handle that concept so half-heartedly. (Aside of people believing wrongly because of this that Thethuthinnang and Bigwig where mates)
The whole thing with Vilthuril leaves me a bit baffled, because it’s so obvious how they’re shoehorning her into the story. Let’s start with something particularly noticeable in the famous “secret river” chapter: the book’s narrative tries to tell us that all this time, Vilthuril was always part of the group along with Hyzenthlay and Thethuthinnang’s group and that the three of them had been close ever since their time in Efrafa.
The thing is, the original book clearly never hinted at that possibility.
Okay, I can infer this from Tales since Vilthuril mentions that she first told Hyzenthlay about it after discovering it, and then Thethuthinnang, and that from there the three of them would gather to look at it. Maybe they weren’t really “that” close, but you can see Thethuthinnang’s lack of a role considering that Vilthuril only refers to Hyzenthlay alone as the “Rabbit who fell out of favor with the council” without mentioning Thethuthinnang, while she’s treated more like some kind of extra who just happened to be there. What’s more, not even the justification for separating them holds up, because we know from the book that that never happened—Hyzen and Thethu stayed at the same mark. And we can guess that Vilthuril too using Tales.
Another point here is that Hyzenthlay never mentions Vilthuril’s name at all during the escape from Efrafa. Vilthuril isn’t even introduced until *after* the escape, when Fiver mentions her for the first time. She's also absent as part of the does which where listening to Hyzenthlay's poem, Bigwig don't talk to her, meanwhile Nelthilta is there, as she was more important latter. Clearly, Vilthuril wasn’t meant to be important in that regard; after that, her appearances are few and far between—such as having a conversation that frightens the captains, and then seeing her at the end as Fiver’s partner, the narrator of a story, and talking about Threar.
I think it would have been relevant that, if she and Hyzenthlay were ever close, she could at least have mentioned her as one of the does she could trust with the plan. Especially considering that Tales tries to imply that Vilthuril was a “strange and enigmatic” rabbit.
If she was a *Fiver*, why couldn't she help with the plan?
Of course, because this is another one of Tales' retcons. We know that it was Hyzenthlay—not Vilthuril—who had those mystical powers; it's Bigwig who compares her to Fiver.
We knew Vilthuril was Fiver’s partner, but the book treats their relationship in a similar way to his relationship with Hazel, who clearly isn’t a seer. Vilthuril was close to Fiver, but she wasn’t just like him.
Another thing: when, at the end of the book, we see Threar demonstrate his abilities, the first thing Vilthuril says is to recount how he had told her about a river he saw in his dream (which makes me think that’s where the idea for the secret river came from), and immediately afterward she compares him to Fiver—not to herself. We’re led to believe that the ability was inherited solely from Fiver, not from her—Vilthuril originally had no powers at all. It’s obvious that Tales also eliminated one of Hyzenthlay’s defining traits just to make Vilthuril more interesting, unfortunately resulting in her becoming a character who fits the stereotype/trope of “the protagonist’s love interest is a female clone of him.” I mean, you could have made Vilthuril something like a storyteller like Dandelion—but maybe her stories were a little “crazier”—or perhaps a historian, but no, since she had to be Fiver’s partner, she had to be just like him.
And Thethuthinnang? Well, in the midst of all this Vilthuril-gazing (which isn’t even that big a deal because later the she doesn't do anything else in the rest of the stories.) Thethuthinnang remained a background character who does little or nothing.
She has more dialogue than in the first book (just a few lines), but it isn’t much different beyond her offering some basic opinions on things—at least she’s able to express her views I guess. We get the impression that she is calm and friendly, and very empathetic; we also know she’s somewhat intelligent, since she realized that the rabbits wanted to rebel against Flyairth. There’s the fact that she’s present when news about certain events is reported at times; for example, she was accompanying Flyairth when Bigwig went to look for her with Hazel, and she’d also heard about the Stonecrop situation. However, in none of those moments does she offer an opinion or speak directly about the matter—she’s just there as if she were an invisible member of the group. Again, it even seems like Vilthuril is more of a leader than she is.
(It really reminded me of that Moral Orel joke where, out of Orel’s three friends, only Doughy and Tommy have names, while the third one is relegated to being just “and him”.)
Thethuthinnang’s only significant moment was when Hyzenthlay asked her to deliver a message from her to Hazel, and it made me think about how cool it could have been if Thethuthinnang had become some kind of messenger—maybe she liked to explore and move around, and we never knew it because she couldn’t (like Blackavar becoming more active)—maybe she had good a good memory; maybe she’s a good speaker.
To begin with, the idea of making Hyzenthlay a leader is so arbitrary—even though we know from the text that she was a leader—but Thethuthinnang is never mentioned as part of that. This makes it even more obvious that this wasn’t done to acknowledge her abilities; she could at least have been an advisor or a support for Hyzenthlay, but no. Her only mention in Hyzenthlay in Action was that line about being sent to deliver a message.
And then there are the adaptations. Yet another character who’s been mistreated in them.
In the movie, she’s completely absent—both in the script and in the dialogue. She isn’t mentioned at all. We can only assume she’s one of the background characters; once again, everything is focused on Hyzenthlay.
In the TV series, there isn’t even an equivalent for her. Because aside from Hyzenthlay/Primrose (regardless of whether you consider them the same character or two different ones) and Heather (who appears out of nowhere), there are no other Doe characters from Efrafa here. And since the former is the only one that matters, there’s little doubt about it.
The miniseries is the only one that not only includes her by name but also gives her dialogue, and it’s the only one that attempts to give her a unique trait. This time, we learn that Thethuthinnang acts as a sort of support for the group; she’s the one who’s kindest to Clover. We see her call Hyzenthlay her “sister,” and there’s also the added detail that she’s a singer and often sings to call out to and encourage Hyzenthlay—she’s the one who sings during the climax of “Ten Thousand Enemies.”
I have to say, that was a really nice touch. Although after that she’s relegated back to being a background character, I appreciate that she appears as someone who was helping Fiver dig through the ceiling of the burrow; it also seems to hint a little that she’s Fiver’s partner, given that there’s a scene with no dialogue featuring the two of them together in Silflay.
Finally, there’s the graphic novel. We know she was in it because a sketch on Instagram showed her, though unfortunately it wasn’t in color. In the final version, Thethuthinnang is once again never mentioned by name, and she appears only as a background character whom we can vaguely identify as her based on the design details, her sparse dialogue, and her passive actions. However, her most significant role is absent, and later on, she meets the fate of becoming a character who fades from the spotlight entirely.
Thethuthinnang is one of those characters who makes me think a lot about how great she could have been, but unfortunately, we don’t live in the right reality where she could have been another example of a remarkable female character.
areudirty
theartofmadeline
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
blakekathryn
kianamaiart
izzy806
