I'm going to keep bugging you guys about this.
“No, but Watership Down isn't a cheerful or hopeful story—the rabbits' lives are never easy, not even when they aren't fighting.”
Are you sure? Are you sure there are no moments of relaxation or play in the story? Are you sure there are no moments where the rabbits sit down to rest and lift their spirits after hearing an inspiring story? Are you sure the rabbits can’t find peace in poems, in honoring their fallen, and drawing inspiration from them to keep on living?
Are we talking about the same story whose most overused line ends with “And your people will never be destroyed”? A promise that is constantly repeated throughout the text, emphasizing the struggle for peace in the face of all challenges.
The same one that is fulfilled at the end with the protagonist dying in PEACE and tranquility under the promise that his people will never perish and will be fine forever... are we talking about this very same story?
Because I don’t know, I’ve seen quite a few people on Goodreads disappointed because they believed Watership Down was an “allegorical” story only to find a story about the lives of some rabbits.
Could it be that “media-literate” people are incapable of grasping the basic messages of a work before delving into its supposed “deep, hidden allegorical messages”?