The scene-a windswept hill in rural England, with a single water source.
In this cornah, we have Hazel's group from Watership Down, with Kehaar as their aerial asset. A tough group of scrappy bunnies that have survived a lot, with the bona fide, certified, uh, gentrified hardcore mutha fucka Thlayli as their anchor, with a damn clever leader in Hazel and a gin-u-ine clairvoyant backing them up with straight up visions of the future. Now thats one group of rabbits equipped for carnage. And Kehaar is no slouch either-he rules the skies with a six foot wingspan, with a proven battle hardened spirit. Its tough to bet against this team of rodents.
And our challengah, in the tacky medieval human cothes with the cold ass stare, the Rats of Mrs. Frisby/Brisby and the Rats of NIMH with Jeremy the Crow as their "eye in the sky." Now, they give up a hefty size advantage, but they have the advantage of an extremely high intelligence, access to technology, and a straight up cold blooded killer (If we use the movie version) in Jenner, along with what seems to be a number of skilled swordfighters. (Again, we are using the movie, because those rats are way more badass.) So don't count out the NIMH boys. They may lack the Clairvoyance, but who is to say that human ingenuity hasn't always substituted in the past? And they have numbers too, about two to one I'll say arbitrarily.
The reason? Both choose to live on that hill but there is only one water source. Each group has an aerial scout and plenty of canny fighters on the ground, but which will emerge with the water hole and at what cost?First off, I give the airspace to the Watership Down crew; I give Kehaar at least 15:1 on the odds that that clumsy crow manages to take him down. He's got the size, he's got the mother fuckin' meanness, and the only reason that he would get taken out of the fight is if the bitch ass clumsy crow gets lucky and tangles him in some pink string while they both plummet to earth. I think that regardless of what the NIMH rats are capable of planning, they will be doing it under constant aerial bombardment. Advantage, Watership Down.
In a close quarter underground fight, which is what I feel it would eventually come down to, if the rats were armed with swords and spears and possibly fire, they would have the advantage here. The rabbits are big and mean, and it would be dodgy, but if cavemen with fire hardened sticks can demolish herds of mammoths I'm sure rats with engineering skills and the viciousness and toughness of, well, rats, they could take them out by swarming one and panicking the others methodically. Bigwig is still going to take out some motherfuckers though, there is no doubt of that.
For leadership I'd give them even odds. The NIMH rats have a pretty human degree of sophistication compared to the rabbits, but Hazel is clever fuck in a society that venerates a clever fuck as the apex of the species and he has an honest-to-Frith psychic on his side. These are the things that make me think this will be a fight for the ages, and also that my brain is too profoundly affected by children's literature.
So who is it gonna be, folks? Who drinks water and who chokes on blood? I leave it to you to discuss. Feel free to ramble, argue minor plot points, and take a break for pizza and Jack Daniels. I'll wait.
Rabbits take notable casualties but have cotton tails and not cotton-mouth come morning: here's why.
ReplyDeleteThe rats have a superior level of technology, this historically denotes they will win i.e. European explorers vs. continental Americans or a... bar fight between a party of drunken dwarfs vs. their 22nd century counterpart; Stim-chipped dwarf street Samurai. Anyway you slice it - low tech gets butchered (pun intended).
But this is based on the assumption of a direct confrontation, which I doubt would happen.
Kehaar and Fiver are the fulcrum and the leaver that turns the war.
Those two provide the conies the best advantages of all. Intel and time. After fixing himself some crow pie, Kehaar becomes the only eye in the sky, and give the rabbits the best real-time surveillance of the rats movements above ground. This combined with his ability to assault the rats from the air, I believe would grant the rabbits enough time for fiver to watch some amine' and have an epileptic vision, while the rats are reassessing weather the fight the bird or try to tunnel the the rabbits warren.
Much like the psychic dreams granted to those good men and women in Denver helped them to overcome the better equipped army of Randall Flagg in The Stand. I see fivers premonitions and clairvoyance combined with the added time they have to implement their plans, the quick thinking rabbits would be able to ambush / use guerrilla tactics on the rats to mitigate the advantages of spears and fire. Plus fivers a total spaz but not half as retarded as tom cullin.
I see big wig handling the loose ends, or rats that escape the rabbits traps tactics etc. Or any squad of rats that manages to break the line, but he'll be joining the owsla of the black rabbit before it's over. Bigwig is a ferocious fighter but with no armouor vs armed assailants, steel's going in his guts, no two ways 'bout it.
If Hazels not careful I see fiver as another possible death should he seize up as he sometimes does under stress and is poorly guarded, the rats clip him for an easy demoralizer. Even in this event I see the rabbits takin several causalities, a fair amount probably not immediately but in a day or two from infection etc., but not enough losses to lose. If the rats are wiped out to the last or if the tougher / less heroic flee is up to them.
That was one damn interesting blog post! Entertaining as well. More please?
ReplyDelete