guess who finished tales ....... it was really great in certain parts and disappointing in others, but i'm still glad that it exists as a sort of afterword to the main story <333 this got extremely long i'm genuinely sorry autism took over
MORE FOLKLORE!!! MORE EL-AHRAIRAH STORIES!!! i loved all of them and i don't really have a reason why other than... i'm really curious about rabbit legends and wanna know as much as possible. the hole in the sky is one of my favorites though, besides being a great lesson for el-ahrairah and a tool for elaborating on his personality, i think it could also be a parallel to hazel's farm raid!!! it definitely wasn't in vain in the end but there's still the same message of "you don't have to put yourself in danger to impress the people that already respect you greatly". my mootie rook also pointed out that el-ahrairah vs king fur-rocious is absolutely a hazel vs woundwort parallel and i'm living for that!!!!
in fact i'm very pleased with how much more ... rabbit culture there is? if that makes sense? it's just great seeing all these other warrens and how each of them is built on a completely different system— parda-rail, thinial, burdock's place, vleflain, even more info on nutley copse!! they're all so different and it adds to the worldbuilding a lot. it's a simple thing but IDK!!!!!! FASCINATING TO ME
THE RABBIT'S GHOST STORY MY BELOVED <3333333 i think it's one of the best chapters in the book if not THE best!! it plainly makes me emotional and fiver's reassurance for coltsfoot left an impact on me as well. it's a great example of how much fiver has grown and matured since the journey, ALSO THE SNIPPET AT THE BEGINNING WITH BLACKAVAR TAKING THE KIDS OUT FOR A STROLL!!! tldr i'm happy coltsfoot's depression let up and he's assimilated into the warren <3
more vilthuril moments yay!!! i love that we actually find out some more about her character. also the closeness and trust between her and thethu + hyzenthlay that shines through <3 it's great that she has a sense for the supernatural just like fiver (shout out to them being the only canon couple)
flyarith is NEAT!!!! i thought she was well written for a come-and-go character (though i wish she wasn't one 💔) and her foreshadowing through the secret river was pretty cool. her origin story also makes sense and i wish we'd gotten to learn about her family!
FUCKING FINALLY HYZENTHLAY-RAH GETS HER FLOWERS AND IS RECOGNIZED AS AN EXTREMELY IMPORTANT PART OF THE GROUP!!!! I CHEERED AND SCREAMED AND CRIED YES YES YES she WAS a leader to her friends in efrafa and SHE'S A LEADER NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! she's so caring and sweet to nyreem ... i would've died if an extremely nice lady who's in charge around here stayed with me and protected me against danger till my injuries healed. or developed a crush. maybe both
love that hazel treats buckthorn n strawberry just as warmly when they become officers in vleflain <333 also good on buckthorn for still referring to him as hazel-rah while groundsel is just. groundsel. it's a very sweet detail that shows just how much the watership band went through together (ALSO GET OWNED GROUNDSEL ((double also— thornberry real? :0 ))
tindra and nyreem being such brave girls!!! <3
campion's chapter was nice, i had a good chuckle out of how awkward he was with hazel and vice versa, and his passion for freedom and exploring, as well as the acknowledgement that he couldn't have changed in a span of just a few months after years of woundwort's influence, made sense!! it was a great expansion on his characterization we saw in the original book. welp least he died doing what he truly loved rip
ACORNNNNN FUUUUCKKKKKK!!!!!! this is not really a criticism i'm just really sad we lost one of the original lads 😔😔😔 whatever i cherry picked only the parts that i liked from tales anyway. he's alive n well in my mind's eye
what the hell was that with flyarith just LEAVING!!!! very anticlimactic and lowkey sad? iunno i felt upset just watching her go, especially after she saved hazel's life and nobody even cared!!! subconsciously i knew that a tiny companion book like tales wouldn't expand on her much at all but still. i am also not a fan of how in some summaries i've read flyarith is described as a "danger" to hazel's warren. she had her own point of view and maybe she was a bit overbearing (which checks out because well. her obsession) but she wasn't trying to take it away or anything!!! she did what she believed was right!!!!!! sigh i hope she found her place in the end
uh. bigwig. bigwig what the shit. why is he angry and sexist ALL the damn time and why does he resort to killing at the first sign of a problem! #NOTMYMAN. he would never doubt fiver (AND BE SO MEAN TO HIM???? AFTER EVERYTHING????) he would NEVER invalidate hyzenthlay like this. he boasted about his mom wounding a cat in the original AND he was the first to know just HOW resilient strong and crafty does are in the efrafa arc, i have no idea what happened in tales. super displeased with it. BIGWIG DOESN'T ACT LIKE THAT
stonecrop???? i'm sorry????? clover and haystack and boxwood are right there. how is his case any different. nobody would try to kill him whuh you've got to be shitting me
i do not think it was a good idea to let campion live on the down with the rabbits who he. explicitly tried to murder. i know that redemption and all that but damn!!!!! hyzenthlay's reaction to him is literally described in the text and all she feels is a bit of surprise. are you j or srs . and what about thethu and vilthuril and blackavar. HUH. i keep coming back to the topic of campion glazing and i really don't want to be overly mean!! but i think they're forgiving him a bit too much a bit too quickly. i never in a million years imagined that he'd be on good terms with the watership down populi— they'd treat each other with respect and wouldn't incite any aggressive confrontations but apparently they're buddies in the future (speaking about campion himself and hazel & co, not efrafa and the down as two warrens)?? well that's quite Strange to me
stonecrop???? i'm sorry???? clover n haystack and boxwood are right there they never had even remotely the same problems. nobody would try to kill him whuh you've got to be shitting me
