Tear Jerker / Watership Down

NOTICE: Moments pages are Spoilers Off. Read further only if you dare. You Have Been Warned.

The Film

"I've come to ask if you'd like to join my Owsla."

• The "Bright Eyes" sequence and the music thereof.
  Fiver: (calmly) Hazel's not dead.
  • This line from "Bright Eyes" pretty much speaks for itself.
    Art Garfunkel: And nobody ever knows when you go. And where do you start? Oh, into the dark...
• The film's depiction of Hazel's death, as seen in the image.
  Ghostly Rabbit: Hazel... Hazel... You know me, don't you?
  Hazel: (squinting) I don't.
  (The Ghostly Rabbit reveals himself as The Black Rabbit briefly)
  Hazel: (gasps, then reverently) Yes, my Lord... I know you.
  Ghostly Rabbit: I've come to ask if you'd like to join my Owsla. We shall be glad to have you, and I know you'd like it. You've been feeling tired, haven't you? If you're ready, we might go along now.
  (Hazel looks back at the playing bunnies)
  Ghostly Rabbit: (warmly) You needn't worry about them. They'll be all right, and thousands like them. (Beat) If you'll come along, I'll show you what I mean.
  (Hazel lies down, takes two last breaths and dies. His ghostly form arises from his body and joins the Black Rabbit)
  • The tears become Tears of Joy when the viewer sees Hazel and the Black Rabbit happily running through the country, then flying off into the afterlife.

The Novel

• Strawberry begs to come with the Sandleford rabbits. He's told, rather nastily, to go back to his mate—and he whispers miserably, "The wires..."
• "Zorn! All dead! O Zorn!" Zorn is lapine for "finished, destroyed," and it's about all Captain Holly can say as he staggers to Watership to give them the horrible news about their former warren.
• The chapter detailing the destruction of the Sandleford warren, aptly titled "For El-Ahrairah to Cry."
  • "We followed the river down into a big wood; and that night, while we were still in the wood, Toadflax died. He was clear-headed for a short time before and I remember something he said. Bluebell had been saying that he knew the humans hated us for raiding their crops and gardens and Toadflax answered, "That wasn't why they destroyed the warren. It was just because we were in their way. They killed us to suit themselves."
• The night before his extremely dangerous mission, Bigwig demands what is - to the rabbits - a ghost story, "El-Ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inlé." In it, El-ahrairah travels to the land of the dead to beg the Black Rabbit - his mythology's Angel of Death - to save his people from extinction. He is refused, and for once, discovers a foe whom he cannot outsmart...
• The poem of Hyzenthlay the Efrafan doe, quoted here
  The beetles died in the frost and my heart is dark;
  And I shall never choose a mate again.
  The frost is falling, the frost falls into my body,
  My nostrils, my ears are torpid under the frost.
  The swift will come in the spring, crying “News! News!
  Does, flow with milk and dig holes for your litters!”
  I shall not hear. The embryos return
  Into my dulled body. Across my sleep
  There runs a wire fence to imprison the wind.
  I shall never feel the wind blowing again.
• In the end, years after his glorious triumph, Hazel passes away unobserved (though surely not unmourned). A Bittersweet Ending but hard to bear for readers who've followed Hazel so far, through so much.

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