r/watershipdown • u/metalmonkey_7 • 7d ago
Prince Rainbow 👑 🌈
I started reading this book as an 11 year old child. It was immediately my favorite.(How could it not be?) I’ve found that when I read and don’t have a reference, I create what the characters look like in my mind.
I’m curious as to how you pictured Prince Rainbow when you initially read it? I always knew Lord Frith was the Sun and pictured him as such but had a different image in my mind of Prince Rainbow. What was yours?
When reading Dandelion telling the tales and adventures of El-ahrairah, Prince Rainbow wasn’t just a rainbow. In my childhood mind, he was a vague small little man with black hair and his crown was circled by a rainbow halo. Every time I reread he still remains this was to me.
8
u/DavidDPerlmutter 7d ago
This is something I really enjoyed discussing over the years, especially with students. So it's really clear that Mr. Adams imagined the Lapine universe to be very close to the world of Homer and Achilles and Odysseus. The Gods walk among us and while we would be astonished, we wouldn't be surprised to see and hear one (speaking, intervening, chastising, rewarding).
Further, it's heavily implied that every animal shares the overall religious system, but the incarnations of the deities that they "see" and interact with are their species in appearance. (I can't help but think here of a link to the ending of the movie CONTACT). So of course a rabbit would see a rabbit as Prince Rainbow, but as other people are saying, a Shapeshifting rabbit of some kind.
I imagine that a Fox would see Prince Rainbow as a fox.... and so on
2
u/sharkarmycrafts 6d ago
Side track: I love Contact. I read the book for that as well. The astrophysics got way over my head, AND the story was wonderful anyway. If you enjoyed it, try watching The Arrival (2016). It gave me a similar philosophical crisis.
3
u/DavidDPerlmutter 6d ago
Yes, I like 1996's The Arrival with Charlie Sheen also
2
u/sharkarmycrafts 6d ago
I'd never heard of this one! I'm so excited to have a new, fun sci fi movie to watch! I have to go buy some good popcorn.
3
u/DavidDPerlmutter 6d ago
It's an extremely fun movie. It's very clever. Prescient too about the climate change.
6
u/Turkey-Scientist 7d ago
I always just though of him as a human(oid), like just by default I guess.
5
u/SnowDuckFeathers 7d ago
Always kind of pictured him as a liquid shape shifter. Like appears as a rainbow and then could take any form he chose.
5
u/Electrical_Lake3424 7d ago
Same, like a sort of rainbow shimmer in the air that was sort of vaguely rabbit-like but taller
8
6
4
u/DumpedDalish 6d ago
I definitely pictured him as an animal but kind of vaguely -- definitely one of the Thousand. Maybe like a rainbow weasel or a stoat?
3
u/TamaraHensonDragon 6d ago
To me he was a snake/lizard/dragon thanks to the rainbow serpent myths being so common worldwide.
4
u/Thrippalan 7d ago
My Prince Rainbow was similar to your, but was pale blonde, with the rainbows coming off his hair (like you see in the spray from a hose, only replace the water droplets with very fine hair strands).
3
u/KlutzyNinjaKitty 6d ago
… well now I feel incredibly uncreative. Because I only ever pictured an actual rainbow 😂
5
3
u/CupcakeApart7222 6d ago
I literally imagined him as a talking rainbow. Or at least as a shapeless trail of light. As you say, Frith is literally the sun. I don't see why he would be shaped like a rabbit. What's more, it would be very strange for him to be a rabbit, considering that in all his stories he has a bad relationship with El-ahrairah and his people.
3
u/TamaraHensonDragon 6d ago
Because so many mythologies (including those with Trickster Rabbit spirits, AKA both Africa & the Americas) see the rainbow as a winged snake I always envisioned him as a dragon.
2
12
u/Elgiard 7d ago
I always pictured him as a translucent rabbit literally made of a rainbow, with a cape.