Noted Scholar Doc: Watership Down tv show
For the purposes of this ask, we're going to assume you're asking about the 2018 Netflix version, and not the 1999 YTV version.
The 2018 Netflix version is a more modern version than the original novel, and as such has more modern concerns. Whereas the original novel looked at multiple ways that a rabbit might become servile, in both Cowslip's warren and Efrafa, the 2018 version is only concerned with the military fascism of Efrafa.
While the argument has been made by prominent scholars* that Cowslip's warren is often minimized by adaptations due to both the romance of overt brutality and the discomfort of a warren that might mirror the panem et circenses of the modern Western life, this is a shallow reading.
The Netflix version allows so much time for Efrafa--fully 45% of the screen time of the adaptation--in that it sees Efrafa as the modern threat to society, and attempts to communicate that to the viewer. In some moments, this can seem overkill, not unlike Serling's heavy anti-nuclear hand in "Carol For Another Christmas," which was similarly panned for its lack of subtlety, but in the same way the cultural frame has to be considered. Being made during the first Trump administration, concerns about full military dictatorship rose worldwide, while there were little concerns to be had about the risks of losing oneself in entertainments, failing to remember your nature, and accepting your domestication to a power that could cull you.
When we give Woundwort a story filled with its own tragedies, and allow him a full tragic personhood, we allow ourselves to see our enemies as people with their own reasons for seeking strength and safety over freedom. Though difficult, the Netflix version begs that we remember that our enemies might have been our friends, might have been our allies, but for the circumstances that made them feel unsafe, need to protect themselves.
*Doc Holligay, "Why The Fuck Is Everyone So Fixated On Efrafa?" On Her Couch After a Few Whiskies (2018)
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