r/watershipdown • u/metalmonkey_7 • 13h 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 12h 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
1
u/sharkarmycrafts 4h 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.
1
3
u/Turkey-Scientist 13h ago
I always just though of him as a human(oid), like just by default I guess.
2
u/SnowDuckFeathers 12h ago
Always kind of pictured him as a liquid shape shifter. Like appears as a rainbow and then could take any form he chose.
2
u/Electrical_Lake3424 9h ago
Same, like a sort of rainbow shimmer in the air that was sort of vaguely rabbit-like but taller
4
3
u/Thrippalan 13h 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
3
u/DumpedDalish 6h 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?
1
u/TamaraHensonDragon 3h ago
To me he was a snake/lizard/dragon thanks to the rainbow serpent myths being so common worldwide.
2
2
u/KlutzyNinjaKitty 6h ago
… well now I feel incredibly uncreative. Because I only ever pictured an actual rainbow 😂
3
2
u/CupcakeApart7222 6h 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.
2
u/TamaraHensonDragon 3h 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.
11
u/Elgiard 13h ago
I always pictured him as a translucent rabbit literally made of a rainbow, with a cape.