General Woundwort

General Woundwort is a fictional rabbit villain in the Richard Adams novel Watership Down. He was the hard, brutally efficient Chief Rabbit of Efrafa.

Woundwort in the Novel

Orphaned at a young age when his mother was killed by a weasel after his careless father had been shot by a famer's gun, Woundwort went on to grow into the vicious bully he would become famous for being. He founded Efrafa, and because he felt that the greatest enemy of rabbits was man, he and his Owsla took extra special care to conceal the warren's existence. This included picking up any strangers that the Owsla happened to come upon during their patrols and forcibly adding them to the Efrafan population. Rabbits who attempted to escape were brutally punished; when one, Blackavar, tried to do so, Woundwort had both his ears torn to shreds.

Woundwort was thought to have been killed by a dog following the botched invasion of Watership Down after being defeated in underground battle by Bigwig (who proved to be more aggressive and resillient in combat than Woundwort himself), but because his body was never found his death cannot be confirmed. In the epilogue to the story, it is revealed that, as the years passed, the General assumed the status of a mythic bogeyman among rabbits:

And mother rabbits would tell their kittens that if they did not do as they were told, the General would get them - the General who was first cousin to the Black Rabbit [the Grim Reaper of rabbits] himself. Such was Woundwort's monument: and perhaps it would not have displeased him.

Woundwort in the Movie

Watership Down was adapted into an animated film in 1978, and Harry Andrews provided Woundwort's voice. Woundwort of the movie remained largely the same as Woundwort of the novel with the exception that he is blind in one eye (a detail not mentioned anywhere in the book). He is, in addition, even more savage, killing Blackavar (who had been freed from Efrafa) during the attempted invasion of the Watership Down warren.

Woundwort in the TV Series

In 1999, when Watership Down was adapted into an animated children's series, John Hurt played the evil rabbit in the first two seasons and was replaced by another (unknown) actor for the show's third and final season.

This Woundwort was quite unlike the one in either the novel or the movie, although he did share some traits of both. Like the movie version, he was blind in one eye, and like the novel version he saw his mother killed in front of him by a weasel. In his own words, pain and suffering hardened his heart, turning him into the hateful and fierce rabbit he grew into.

He was the son of Hemlock and Laurel, and still the Chief of Efrafa as in both previous versions. Woundwort was thought to have been killed when a bolt of lightning hit close to him while he was on a cliff in Efrafa overseeing the fighting between his Owsla and the invading Watershippers, causing him to fall into an enormous crack in the ground. He survived, however, and began a campaign of revenge against Watership Down. He and Vervain went to Redstone, using the aliases of Weedstalk and Chaff, and took it over when Hickory (character) made him Chief.

However, after discovering that humans planned to bulldoze Redstone into the earth, "Weedstalk" betrayed the former members of the Warren of the Shining Wire, selling them out to Cowslip in exchange for his seer, Silverweed. He then travelled to his former home of Darkhaven, wresting control of it from Campion after Silverweed used his powers to look into Woundwort's future and predict that he would lead Darkhaven to glory (and, indeed, the Darkhaven rabbits had long been expecting the return of Hemlock's son, whom they called "the Dark One").

Everything seemed to be going Woundwort's way until Campion, who was secretly aiding the Watershippers, finally betrayed him in order to get Silverweed out of Darkhaven and warn his true allies about Woundwort's plans (with some help from Blackberry). Woundwort then sent Spartina to infiltrate Watership Down, but she too turned against him after she fell in love with Bigwig. Following this, an enraged Woundwort ordered the Darkhaven rabbits to invade Watership Down.

After a lengthy battle between the two opposing forces, during which Woundwort bested Bigwig, Woundwort and all of the Darkhaven rabbits were killed by the dark power of the Black Rabbit himself, sucked up into a dark vortex in the sky called forth by Silverweed. Woundwort swore he would return, but has not been seen since.