Rodents of Unusual Size: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
▲[[File:big_rat_246.jpg|link=The Food of the Gods|right]]
{{quote|'''Buttercup''': What about the R.O.U.S.'s?
'''Westley''': [[Trope
'''ROUS''': RAGH! (''attacks Westley'')
Are they so named because they are unusually ''small'', you ask? Heh, heh, heh...
Rats, [[As You Know
Incidentally, if you don't find the regular-sized rats particularly worrisome already, then we hasten to point out that they are also world-class swimmers and can hold their breath more than long enough to reach the other end of the pipe leading to your [[The Can Kicked Him|toilet]]. (Thankfully, ''giant'' rats can rarely fit through the plumbing.)
Should you encounter these furry freaks, your best defense is to have a [[Mega Neko]] by your side. Subtrope of [[Animals Not to Scale]].
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
== Anime ==▼
== [[Advertising]] ==
* Several Kia car commercials feature giant hamsters, sometimes complete with giant hamster wheels.▼
* In an ad for Doritos, a man puts a piece of an extra-cheesy dorito on a mousetrap, then sits down to eat some more. A giant mouse (well, a man in a mouse suit) bursts out of the wall and tackles him, presumably not being satisfied with the tiny tip of one chip.▼
* Orkin's series of Giant Creepy Crawly extermination-service ads now includes one in which a family comes home from a trip to find scruffy human-sized rats hanging out in their living room.▼
* There's a commercial for extra-durable work pants which demonstrates their toughness with a giant cartoon beaver, which loses its teeth trying to bite through a pair.▼
▲== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Galaxy Angel (
== Comic Books ==▼
▲== [[Comic Books]] ==
* [[Neil Gaiman]]'s gag biography in ''[[Sandman]]: The Season of Mists'' [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|denies]] that he was found outside a London sewer unable to say anything more than "Powerful big rats, gentlemen". And then goes on to deny that he had a vestigial tail, played a part in the ''obviously fictional'' negotiations between Londons Above and [[Neverwhere|Below]], or that there were any tooth marks on the bones.
* In the ''[[Judge Dredd]]'' universe they have these. After examining the meat from one they decide to farm them in place of the regular rats they used to farm.
* ''[[Beasts of Burden]]'' has a Rat king leading the sewer rats, and his general is a rat larger than the two cats who fight him.
* There's a [[Donald Duck]] comic where Don and his cousin Fethry team up to fight giant rat ghosts. Unusually big rodents shouldn't be a foreign concept to Donald, considering [[Mickey Mouse|whom]] he used to co-star with early on his animated career...
* The [[Spider
* Prince Raffendorf, from Larry Elmore's ''Snarfquest'' comic strip, was a human prince before being turned into a giant humanoid rat by an evil wizard.
* In [[Bone]], the Giant Rat Creatures, despite that they are drawn without snouts and that they cut off their rat tails as a cultural ritual.
* One supporting character from ''[[The Elementals]]'' was a wererat who had a crush on Fathom.
==
* [[Trope Namer|Named]] after the R.O.U.S. from ''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]''.
▲* Several Kia car commercials feature giant hamsters, sometimes complete with giant hamster wheels.
▲* In an ad for Doritos, a man puts a piece of an extra-cheesy dorito on a mousetrap, then sits down to eat some more. A giant mouse (well, a man in a mouse suit) bursts out of the wall and tackles him, presumably not being satisfied with the tiny tip of one chip.
▲* Orkin's series of Giant Creepy Crawly extermination-service ads now includes one in which a family comes home from a trip to find scruffy human-sized rats hanging out in their living room.
▲* There's a commercial for extra-durable work pants which demonstrates their toughness with a giant cartoon beaver, which loses its teeth trying to bite through a pair.
▲* [[Trope Namer|Named]] after the R.O.U.S. from ''[[The Princess Bride (Film)|The Princess Bride]]''.
* The movie adaptation of H. G. Wells' ''[[The Food of the Gods]]'' features giant rats besieging some people in a cabin. Or rather, it features normal rats romping around a miniature set, and a few prop rat-heads that make "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" look like ''Aliens'' by comparison.
* The film ''Altered Species'' has a giant lab rat released by protesters who thanks them by trying to eat them all.
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* The anthology-film ''Nightmares'' had a segment in which a rat the size of an SUV terrorized a suburban family.
* Scrat from ''Ice Age'' is a squirrel with Canine Teeth Of Unusual Size, and is obsessed with Acorns Of Even More Unusual Size. Does that count?
* One appears in the 60s [[B
* ''[[Braindead]]'' (known in the US as ''Dead Alive'') a 1992 "zomedy" by Peter Jackson features the Sumatran Rat-Monkey of Holmsian fame as the carrier of a zombie virus. Peter Jackson later referenced this in his 2005 remake of "King Kong" by having a crate carrying a Sumatran Rat-Monkey located in the cargo hold of the S.S. Venture.
* ''[[Of Unknown Origin]]'' is a surprisingly good movie about a New Yorker who's terrorized by one of these. It's not a mutant. It's not an alien or magical. It's just a big, mean, nasty, and EXTREMELY determined ''Rattus norvegicus'', which figures his apartment is its territory.
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* ''Mulberry Street'' has a virus break out in Manhattan, one that causes people to mutate into homicidial rat creatures.
* The title dollhouse in ''[[The Amityville Horror|Amityville Dollhouse]]'' transforms a regular mouse into a giant one. It dies when the house is tipped over.
* ''[[
== [[Literature]] ==
* ''
* The [[Stephen King]] short story ''Graveyard Shift'' has a lot of rats of usual size...{{spoiler|until you go down to the sub-basement where there are not only rodents of unusual size but they're mutated as well, the "queen" of which is big enough to eat a man}}(appears in the collection ''[[Night Shift]]'').
* The James Herbert trilogy of novels: ''The Rats'', ''Lair'' and ''Domain''.
* Reepicheep (and the other Talking Mice) from the ''[[Narnia]]'' series, who is described to be two feet tall.
** And he knows no fear.
** The squirrels too. For some reason, all the [[Talking Animal
** Given that even Peter could enter their home with ease, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver must've been quite a bit bigger than normal as well.
* The ''[[Goosebumps]]'' book ''Monster Blood II'' had a 10-foot tall hamster in it.
* The speculative pop-biology book ''[[After Man:
* [[Sherlock Holmes|Doctor Watson]] makes a passing reference to the story of the giant rat of Sumatra, for which [[Noodle Incident|the world is not yet prepared]].
** And [[Fred Saberhagen]] picked up that dropped thread in ''The Holmes/Dracula File'', which reveals ''why'' the world was not prepared. {{spoiler|It's not its size that makes it dangerous, but the virulent plague its fleas carry.}}
** In the [[
** And in Rick Boyer's ''The Giant Rat of Sumatra'', it's a {{spoiler|tapir}}.
* The last verse of ''Genesis's All in a Mouse's Night'' has a cat getting beaten up with one blow by a giant mouse.
* The rats from ''[[The Nutcracker (
* ''[[The Underland Chronicles]]'' has these as main characters- not to mention the giant insect and bats....
* Ratmen (and a genius ratgirl) play a part in Glen Cook's ''Garrett P.I.'' series. It seems the wizards of a few generations back had quite a fad for the creation of new sentient lifeforms, and they shared real-world scientists' preference for using rats as research subjects.
* Like other mammals, rodents were well-represented in the ''[[Spellsinger]]'' novels, although rats and mice were treated like second-class citizens, forced to wash floors and so on.
** It seems to be a common subversion that if rats ''aren't'' the monsters or the bad guys, they're the [[Butt Monkey]] race.
* The rats in ''[[Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH]]'' were Rodents Of Unusual ''Smarts''.
** Brutus, while certainly not giant, was described as being rather large as rats go.
* The only non-mutant human creatures seen in the future in ''Mindwarp'' are giant rodents the size of a capybara. It is hinted they are descended from rats.
* The children's novels ''The Castle in the Attic'' and ''The Battle for the Castle'', by Elizabeth Winthrop, are about a kid with a magical miniature castle. Through use of a magic token, he can become small enough to enter the
* Lampshaded in the Russian play "The General Inspector" by Gogol. One character ''dreams'' of two "
* ''[[Redwall]]'': In ''The Long Patrol'', [[Big Bad]] Damug Warfang is a Greatrat, described as twice the size of a normal rat.
* While the titular rodents of Paul Zindel's ''Rats'' are generally of normal size, the book also features the Rat King ([[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|no, not that one]]), which is described as being even bigger than a capybara.
* The race of Rumbles in ''The Borribles'' are described as rat-like, and are the size of human children.
* In the
* ''[[Parrish Plessis]]'' has canrats, rat-dog hybrids that are both vicious and intelligent. One of them, the Big One, is the size of a doberman.
* The H.G. Wells' novel ''The Food of the Gods'' features giant rats, about the size of wolves, as part of the mutated ecology that the titular food's unleashed. Unfortunately for humans, the rats also have the carnivorous temperament of wolves and quickly become the dominant pack hunters in the hot zones.
* The Changelings from ''[[The Amazing Maurice
* The Lemming-Men of Yull from Toby Frost's [[Space Captain Smith]] books have armed and industrialized themselves, but still retain their love of jumping off cliffs.
* The Doormouse is a once-human businessman in the [[Nightside]], who had himself changed into a giant bipedal mouse because he likes being cute and fuzzy. Not a ''dor''mouse; his name came about because he's in the business of renting out use of his [[Cool Gate]] collection.
** [[Alan Dean Foster]] pulled the same pun in his [[Spellsinger]] series, although the doormouse (majordomo in a brothel) was in fact a dormouse. (Spellsinger rodents are ''much'' larger than their Earth equivalents, even more so than in [[Narnia]].)
* ''[[All Quiet
* ''[[Angelina Ballerina]]''
* ''Three Skeleton Key''
* The average rat in ''[[
* The Rh/attes are an aptly-named alien race from ''Chess With A Dragon''.
* ''[[
▲== Live Action TV ==
▲* ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'', "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" (considered a [[Special Effect Failure]] in actual execution though)
* ''[[The New Avengers]]'' episode "Gnaws".
* ''[[
* The theoretical Shagrat, from ''[[The Future Is Wild]]''.
** The poggle, from 45 million years later in the same program, was a Rodent Of Unusual Staying-power, having survived to be the last mammal on Earth. Not that this did it much good...
* The [[Call a Rabbit
* On ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]],'' we hear the Quizmaster on the phone with an exterminator complaining that the rat in his apartment in the Other Realm is making long-distance calls on his phone and listening to his CDs without putting them back. (Whether he pays rent or not is ''not'' the point.) They are apparently unsuccessful since we meet the ROUS in another episode when he introduces himself as the Quizmaster's "roommate."
* SPG, the pet hamster of Vyvyan on ''[[The Young Ones]]'', was usually played by a puppet the size of a guinea pig rather than the size of a real hamster. In one episode, he scarfed down an entire potfull of lentils and swelled up to volleyball size.
== [[Music]] ==
* The ''[["Weird Al" Yankovic|Radioactive Hamsters From a Planet Near Mars]]''.▼
▲* The ''[[Weird Al Yankovic|Radioactive Hamsters From a Planet Near Mars]]''.
* Green Day had an album cover where a gigantic Hamster was attacking society.
* There's a New York punk band named ''Rats of Unusual Size''.
* The [[World War
== [[Newspaper
* This is an [https://web.archive.org/web/20110811203152/http://garfield.nfshost.com/1981/09/20/ occasional] [https://web.archive.org/web/20110811204848/http://garfield.nfshost.com/1983/12/10/ gag] in ''[[Garfield]]''; Garfield will be pretending to mouse, or maybe teasing a mouse and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20111113133145/http://garfield.nfshost.com/1987/11/22/ mouse] [https://web.archive.org/web/20110811202633/http://garfield.nfshost.com/1989/04/03/ will be] [https://web.archive.org/web/20111113134536/http://garfield.nfshost.com/1991/11/08/ larger] [https://web.archive.org/web/20110811205423/http://garfield.nfshost.com/2000/07/21/ than] [https://web.archive.org/web/20110811220935/http://garfield.nfshost.com/2002/11/16/ normal]. Then there's the [https://web.archive.org/web/20111113140923/http://garfield.nfshost.com/1984/12/18/ Training Mouse] from the arc where Garfield got locked out and found his way back to where Mama Leoni's used to be.▼
* In an early issue of ''[[Phil Foglio|What's New? With Phil And Dixie]]'', Phil distracts a giant monster rat by throwing a live cat at it.▼
== [[Oral Tradition]], [[Folklore]], Myths and Legends ==
* There's a Japanese legend called "The Boy Who Drew Cats", in which a city is plagued by a giant demonic rat. Which is eventually killed by the titular drawings of cats. [[A Wizard Did It|It's magical, okay?]]
* Also from Japan: Tesso (Iron Rat), a former human noble with [[Jerkass]], ungrateful parents who was cursed by a monk. He's a man-rat hybrid that raids the temples and the houses with a horde of smaller rats and devour everything on his path.
==
* Some people think that the [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] universe contains the Skaven, three-foot tall ratmen, using giant rats and rat-''ogres'', [[Flat Earth Atheist|but they are of course mad]].▼
** Or form Middenland, since you know you have been attacked by a ''massive'' army of said three-foot ratmen with [[Schizo
▲* This is an [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1981/09/20/ occasional] [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1983/12/10/ gag] in ''[[Garfield]]''; Garfield will be pretending to mouse, or maybe teasing a mouse and the [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1987/11/22/ mouse] [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1989/04/03/ will be] [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1991/11/08/ larger] [http://garfield.nfshost.com/2000/07/21/ than] [http://garfield.nfshost.com/2002/11/16/ normal]. Then there's the [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1984/12/18/ Training Mouse] from the arc where Garfield got locked out and found his way back to where Mama Leoni's used to be.
*** [[Arbitrary Skepticism|Don't be silly, those were just Beastmen. There certainly aren't any giant ra]]-[[Karmic Death|AAAAGH * slumps to ground with glowing green dagger embedded in ribcage*
* The infamous "Moon Hoax", a series of articles in the 19th century New York ''Sun'', included fanciful accounts of giant civilized beavers living on the moon.▼
* The underhive in ''[[Necromunda]]'' (part of the [[Warhammer
▲* In an early issue of ''[[Phil Foglio|What's New? With Phil And Dixie]]'', Phil distracts a giant monster rat by throwing a live cat at it.
▲* Some people think that the [[Warhammer]] universe contains the Skaven, three-foot tall ratmen, using giant rats and rat-''ogres'', [[Flat Earth Atheist|but they are of course mad]].
▲** Or form Middenland, since you know you have been attacked by a ''massive'' army of said three-foot ratmen with [[Schizo Tech|lazer cannons]]
▲*** [[Arbitrary Skepticism|Don't be silly, those were just Beastmen. There certainly aren't any giant ra]]-[[Karmic Death|AAAAGH * slumps to ground with glowing green dagger embedded in ribcage* ]]
▲* The underhive in ''[[Necromunda]]'' (part of the [[Warhammer 40000]] setting) is infested with these. And not just any giant rats - more intelligent, mutated giant rats. Some are spiky, some have two heads, but they all are happy to eat lone humans if they think they can get away with it.
** Of course, humans are more than happy to return the favor. While the uppermost Hive Dwellers might feast on food exported from agri-worlds, the average Underhiver has a distinctly less pleasant variety of foodstuffs to choose between. The most "normal" foods are fungi and edible slime-molds. "Meat" in the Underhive generally comes from rats... or snakes... or spiders... or, really, anything made of meat that fails to climb out of the pot. The nastier folks are even willing to add their fellow man to the list. To say nothing of such delights as "Wild Snake", a popular booze made from a certain species of giant snake.
** The Hrud of the same universe , sometimes called [[Recyled In S Pace|"Space Skaven"]], might also qualify, at least if writers were not trying to [[Retcon]] their appearance.
* "Dire rats" are a common low-level monster in ''[[Dungeons
** You're forgetting rat swarms, skeletal rat swarms, corpse rat swarms (Zombies!!!), spectral swarms (incorporeal undead that typically result from careless fireball-flinging adventurers inflicting large amounts of collateral damage on the local rat population), cranium rat swarms (psychic rats!!!), moonrats (rats that become more or less intelligent depending on the phases of the moon), and the Tamer of Beasts prestige class from the book Masters of the Wild, who is depicted in the artwork as controlling a massive army of rats.
** And there's the Rylkar from Version 3.5's Monster Manual V. They're basically a nest of giant, evil rats who are connected via a hive mind to their harridan, the huge, disease and corruption spreading, blind matriarch of the nest.
** The ''[[Spelljammer]]'' supplement for 2nd edition D&D introduces the infamous [
** Previous editions of D&D also included giant beavers, giant porcupines,
** [[VG Cats|Rat flail.]]
*** [[What Do You Mean
** One highly popular adventure from the early days of ''Dungeon'' magazine shrank the PCs down to the size of gaming miniatures, making ordinary rats appear enormous by comparison. Other humanoids, who'd previously fallen victim to the same magic, used rats as steeds.
* [[
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20081002213358/http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=135236 Relentless Rats] was designed and printed to allow people to enjoy plague rats without the four-of-rule, explicitly stating that it ignores it. Also is much better.
** The original art of [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=153 Giant growth] featured a giant rat. Now it's a bear.
* An enemy from ''[[
** There is also a changing breed in the World of Darkness called the Ratkin, that are sometimes born as humans (that have the ratkin genetics) and contract a disease that, should they overcome it, turns them into wererats. They were given the charge by Gaia to help control the human population by eating their food and spreadin disease.
*** These Ratkin can take a talent to be able to transform into a giant rat that can stand approx. 4
* In [[
* The [[
* In the miniatures game ''[[Song Of The Splintered Lands]]'' (based loosely on ''[[Redwall]]'') all of the "evil" talking animals were cannibalistic carnivores -- ''except'' the rats. The rats just had a bit of a problem with the [[Benevolent Emperor|Druid's]] edicts about population control.
* [[Mortasheen|Morta]][http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen.htm sheen] has a few, including the amoebic; thieving [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/gravesnitch.htm Gravesnitch] , the oddly-toothed [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/gnawful.htm Gnawful], the cold-loving [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/abomignash.htm Abomignash], and the absolutely disturbing [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/vermoeba.htm Vermoeba] (Which is based on the Rat King detailed below)
==
* ''[[Pokémon]]'' has quite a few of these, often [[Com Mons]]. Examples include Rattata, Pachirisu, and of course, the Pikachu family.▼
** ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' has very scary implications if it weren't for the fact that the characters are trophies. Imagine, if you will, dropping a life-sized Pikachu on [[Kirby|Pop Star]] or [[Pikmin|Hocotate]]. A malicious, normal-sized Pikachu
▲* [[Pokémon]] has quite a few of these, often [[Com Mons]]. Examples include Rattata, Pachirisu, and of course, the Pikachu family.
▲** [[Super Smash Bros]] has very scary implications if it weren't for the fact that the characters are trophies. Imagine, if you will, dropping a life-sized Pikachu on [[Kirby|Pop Star]] or [[Pikmin|Hocotate]]. A malicious Pikachu (or however many more) in either of those settings would be a Cthulhuesque horror upon the populations of those worlds, as it fits ALL of the ROUS criteria without the use of [[Super Mario Bros|Super 'Shrooms]].
*** Somewhat justified because they are usually cute, big eyed and not very menacing. Not even those with teeth bared are all that terrifying.
* ''[[Ultima Underworld]] II'' features giant rats of various types.
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** For ''starters''. [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil|Pig rats are the size of the vault dweller's leg, and mole rats, the vault dweller]].
** ''[[Fallout 3]]'' has a robot you can activate in the Old Olney Tunnels that mentions something during its startup sequence about an infestation of rodents of unusual size. {{spoiler|It is usually torn to pieces soon after by the 10 foot tall Deathclaws infesting the tunnels}}.
** ''[[
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind]]'' had giant rats, and in an expansion, tamed giant rats that carried extra stuff for your character.
** ''[[The Elder Scrolls
*** There's also a woman in one of the cities that keeps pet rats. Her rival hated them, and so put out meat to lure them, which had the effect of attracting mountain lions which came and killed a few of the rats. The lions were surprisingly weak in battle compared to the ones you usually fight in the wild.
**** That's because they were starved.
** In ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'' they're called skeevers. They're so big that people lay down bear traps to catch them. One crazy guy underground tried to create an army of them.
* Twitch, a champion in ''[[League of Legends]]'', was a sewer rat who gained sentience and bipedal form from magical runoff. [[Single
* In the 1990s PC fantasy kingdom sim ''Majesty'', giant rats were generally the first monsters to show up in your kingdom.
** And rat-men were another common annoyance, though they were at least one of the few enemies your city guard could handle competently.
* ''Puzzle Quest: Challenge Of The Warlords'' has giant rats, scorpions, bats, and wasps. The first two can be captured and ridden, granting the player a different stat bonus and additional spell, depending on which one you choose.
* ''[[Suikoden II]]'' had a giant, mutated Sewer Rat for a boss. Which could attack twice per turn, and hit all of your party with each attack for a ''lot'' of damage. [[Goddamn Bats|Goddamn]] [[Just for Pun|rats.]]
** ''[[
*** ''[[
* ''[[Shining Force]] 2'' has rat enemies of both varieties as the above examples. On the first battle on the field, the party encounters Huge Rats. Later in the game, the party gets shrunk down as part of the storyline and faces normal-sized rats. Your stats don't suffer the debilitating effects of Mini like in FFIII, but those normal rats are still hella strong. And led by a super-rat named Willard.
** Not to mention Slade the rat thief who started the entire mess in the game by stealing the Jewels of Light and Evil. Including him in the fight with Willard causes instant [[Furry Confusion]] because Slade is anthropomorphic.
* In the "Down the Tubes" and "Tube Race" levels of ''Earthworm Jim'', the only way to get through several corridors full of tiny bruisers who will slam you around and throw you back where you came from is to ride a giant, foe-eating hamster (''"Whoooooooa Nelliiiiiiiie!"'').
* The ''[[Magi Nation]]'' series mostly features decidedly non-real-looking creatures, but the [[
* Mouser from ''[[Super Mario Bros.|Super Mario Bros 2]]'' is a gigantic bomb throwing killer mouse boss. Who has probably the most ironic kind of name ever for such a creature (considering the word 'mouser' means 'cat which catches mice').
* ''[[
* Every roleplaying game Spiderweb Software has ever made, with the exception of the original ''[[Geneforge]]'', has giant rats in it. They're usually the very first enemies you fight before you go on any quests.
* ''[[
* ''[[
** It gets
* ''[[Parasite Eve]]'' had mutated rodents that tried to kill you. And giant squirrels, too.
* ''Rattus giganteus'' is a common creature in ''[[Beyond Good
* [[Project Eden]] features normal sized rats that [[
* Played for laughs at the start of ''[[The
* The ''[[
* Played with in ''[[
* The Kodama Rats in ''[[La-Mulana]]'', which explode.
* The bonus-content version of the credits from ''[[Nancy Drew (
* [[
* The second ''[[Resident Evil]] Out Break'' game features those rats that spread the T-Virus attacking one of HUNK's men after he'd been felled by Birkin. There was also artwork showing muntant rats that didn't make the game.
* ''[[
* In the Human Noble origin in ''[[Dragon Age Origins]]'', you fight a bunch of giant rats who got into the kitchen larder.
* ''[[
* Giant rats were the most basic enemy type in the ''[[Gauntlet (1985 video game)]]'' clone ''Demon Stalkers''.
* The GBC versions of the [[Harry Potter]] games feature giant rats as enemies.
* The Rat-Men from [[Titan Quest]]. You first fight the weak, thin ones in Greece and then meet their larger, [[Demonic Spiders|strongers]] cousins in Orient.
* The Wolf-Rats from [[Drakensang]]. Expecially [[That One Boss|Mother Ratinsky]] and [[Bonus Boss|Great Chief ''Rat''zinger]].
* ''[[
* ''[[Dark Souls]]'' has these. Very predictable and easy to kill but inflict poison.
* In ''[[
** There's also "Big Bad Blag" which is a giant, fat anthropomorphic rat even larger than the toads themselves.
* ''[[Duke Nukem Forever]]'' has regular-sized rats attacking Duke... after he's been hit by the effects of a [[Incredible Shrinking Man|shrinking device]]. Duke then quips "''Talk about your rodents of unusual size!''"
* ''[[NetHack]]'' has giant rats and rabid rats are common early-game enemies, and ROUS are one of the many hallucinatory monsters. Many variants such as ''[[UnNetHack]]'' and ''[[EvilHack]]'' include the enormous rat and actual ROUS as stronger variants, while ''[[SpliceHack]]'' also includes humanoid rats.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Giant mutant rodents are the signature creation of ''[[Narbonic]]'''s Helen Narbon. Of course, Helen being a young girl at heart, they happen to be giant mutant ''gerbils''.
* The trope name is evoked in the title of an ''[[
* The Sturmhalten sewer guides in ''[[Girl Genius]]'' are actually ''surprised'' to learn that sewer rats [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20060501 aren't supposed to be giant and glowing].
** "60 centimeters. Tops."
*** Lars is understandably worried.
*** Even so, sixty centimeters is pretty sizeable for a rat; especially since, during the approximate time period Girl Genius takes place in (assuming sometime during the 1700s, given a couple hints), the most prevalent variety would be the black rat, as the Norway rat was at that point only getting started driving the black rat to warmer areas. Norway rats are noticeably bigger than black rats, and even for them, sixty centimeters (about two feet) tip-to-tail is pretty big.
* Not surprisingly, [[Furry Comic]] ''[[
* ''Secretary'', the second arc of ''[[
* Hamstard, the Bastard Hamster mascot of ''[[Erfworld]]'''s in-character blog, qualifies by virtue of being incredibly fat. Really, Parson should've gotten the little blob an exercise wheel before being swept off to another dimension...
* In the ''[[Blade of Toshubi]]'' we have Toshubi, a human-sized anthropomorphic mouse from a village of human-sized anthropomorphic mice.
* In ''Yamara'', Tim the paladin is turned into a vampire, but messes up his first attempt to turn into a bat, becoming a giant flying squirrel instead.
== [[Web Original]] ==
* Actually older than [[Web Original]], as it goes back to Usenet,
▲* Actually older than [[Web Original]], as it goes back to Usenet, the [http://cgi.cs.indiana.edu/~oracle/ Internet Oracle] has as his arch enemy Woodchucks. The reason is the infamous Woodchuck question he is constantly asked, "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?". Some of his enemy woodchucks were rather large. After ''[[The Princess Bride (Film)|The Princess Bride]]'' came out, they were given the official name of "R.O.U.S.".
* Squirrels are one of the eight [[Insistent Terminology|sentient (i.e., humanoid)]] species in [[Tasakeru]]. They're the only rodent species among sentientkind; the others are canines (wolves and foxes), mustelids (badgers, ferrets, raccoons, and skunks), and lepines (rabbits).
* [http://www.kongregate.com/games/nerdook/monster-slayers Monster Slayers] features these as one of the enemies.
* [[Kizzsprite]] is a chinchilla, resurrected as a kernelsprite. Of course, much weird plot shit surrounds him. We probably shouldn't get any further than that.
* Splinter from ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' is a pet rat who was mutated into a four foot rat-man - or, in the 1987 series, a human mutated into a four-foot sewer rat.▼
▲== Western Animation ==
* [[Classic Disney Shorts|Mickey Mouse]] is a three foot tall mouse. Good thing he's not dangerous. [[Kingdom Hearts|Well,]] [[Epic Mickey|usually]].▼
▲* Splinter from ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' is a pet rat who was mutated into a four foot rat-man.
▲* [[Classic Disney Shorts|Mickey Mouse]] is a three foot tall mouse. Good thing he's not dangerous. [[Kingdom Hearts|Well,]] [[Epic Mickey|usually]]
** [[Robin Williams]] jokes that his son was traumatized by the actor playing Mickey Mouse at [[Disney Theme Parks|Disneyland]].
* Rattrap, of ''[[Transformers]]: [[
{{quote|
** The quote above was said immediately after all the Maximals had a breakthrough of sorts resulting in the merging of their Transformer and animal psyches. Just saying.
* ''[[Biker Mice From Mars]]''.▼
▲** Also overabundance of giant rats is apparently why Mung [[Idiot Ball|keeps poison in the spice cabinet]].
* [[Looney Tunes|Bugs Bunny, Lola Bunny,]] [[Tiny Toon Adventures
▲* [[Biker Mice From Mars]].
▲* [[Looney Tunes|Bugs Bunny, Lola Bunny,]] [[Tiny Toon Adventures (Animation)|Babs and Buster Bunny]] [[Running Gag|(no relation)]], [[Loonatics Unleashed (Animation)|and Ace and Lexi Bunny]], all from Warner Brothers.
** Actually, these are Lagomorphs of Unusual Size, since Lagamoprha is a separate Order from Rodentia. However, this [[Taxonomic Term Confusion]] is not so much [[You Fail Biology Forever]] as [[Science Marches On]]; lagomorphs were considerd to be rodents until the early 1900s.
** Slappy Squirrel, her nephew Skippy, and their neighbor Candie Chipmunk, all from ''Animaniacs'', do qualify.
* ''[[Godzilla:
* ''[[Invader Zim]]'' had Pee-Pee the hamster. Zim used his newfound knowledge of the human weakness to cute things to make Pee-Pee into a virtually unstoppable monster.
** ...of course, then he realized he had no way to control said unstoppable monster, leading to an [[Enemy Mine]] situation.
* ''[[The Penguins of Madagascar]]'' features King Rat, a tall, muscle-bound mutated lab rat who occasionally leaves the sewer to make trouble for the penguins.
* ''[[South Park]]'' was attacked by giant carnivorous guinea pigs. The guinea pig community was quite full of [[Squee]] over it.
* ''[[The Tick (animation)]]'' had Speak, his pet capybara (see Real Life, below), much to [[Sidekick|Arthur]]'s dismay.
* ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (
* That ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode about the world being destroyed by [
* An episode of ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' featured rat people, who were only slightly shorter than Jasmine and Aladdin.
* Ratigan from ''[[The Great Mouse Detective]]'' gets especially scary looking in the climax of the movie.
* An episode of ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' featured a rat bigger than a horse attacking [[Fat Idiot|Beezy]].
* More than one cartoon from ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' involved Sylvester '''thinking''' he's encountered this trope, but it's really a young kangaroo that keeps swapping places with the mouse he's after and smacking him around.
** And of course [[Tom and Jerry
* In ''[[Back
* ''[[Alvin and The Chipmunks]]'' in their animated incarnations. They're chipmunks and are never implied to be anything but chipmunks, but they're generally about four feet tall. The newer CG-animated remake has them at actual chipmunk size.
* Mr. [[Punny Name|Ratburn]] from ''[[Arthur]]''.
* Alcazar's friend Rat Man and his girlfriend, from [[Futurama]].
* [[Godzilla:
* The [[Tex Avery]] classic ''[[King Size Canary]]'' has a cat trying to make a decent meal out of a puny canary by feeding it fast-growth plant food. It works alarmingly well, and soon the cat, the bird, a mouse, and a bulldog are all taking swigs of the stuff, jockeying for size supremacy. The cartoon ends with the cat and mouse waving goodbye to us, standing on a relative beach ball sized planet Earth.
* One episode of ''[[
* In the ''[[Wile E. Coyote and The
* ''[[Courage the Cowardly Dog]]'' has a [[Recurring Character]] named Charlie the Mouse - a humanoid, overweight rat-man with a bad attitude (and a [[Brooklyn Rage|Brooklyn accent]], no less) and an anchor tattoo on his arm who likes to eat rancid cheese. He's actually [[Dark Is Not Evil|a rather charitable guy who has helped Courage more than once]].
* In ''[[The Owl House]]'', ratworms are [[Mix-and-Match Critters| giant worms with the heads of rats]]. Residents of the Boiling Isles use them in equestrian competitions, and Eberwolf (the Beast Keeper Coven head) [[Horse of a Different Color| has one for a mount.]]
== [[Other Media]] ==
▲* The infamous "Moon Hoax", a series of articles in the 19th century New York ''Sun'', included fanciful accounts of giant civilized beavers living on the moon.
== [[Real Life]] ==
* The [
* A "rat king" is the name given to a group of rats whose tails are so mired in muck and filth that they are permanently stuck together. Just as horrifying today as it was back in the sixteenth century.
** One wonders how long a rat king would survive. Counting "survival" as the amount of time between forming a rat king and the number of component rats which are dead being sufficient to noticeably hamper the surviving ones.
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* Trench rats in World War One were often reported to grow to the size of house cats, because of their constant engorging on the corpses in No Man's Land and the soldiers' food. And when feasting on the corpses, these bloated rats [[Eye Scream|ate out the corpses' eyes first]]. [http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/rats.htm This site] has a little article about the trench rats in [[WW 1]]. Imagine sleeping with overgrown, bloated rats the size of a house cat running across your face. Nightmare fuel, no?
** There is an entire episode of the t.v. show ''Monster Quest'' that deals with sightings of cat or even dog-sized rats in major U.S. cities like New York, including a homeless man who reported a 3-foot giant in an abandoned subway tunnel.
* In New Orleans, [
** If you ever see a "giant killer rat" in a sideshow, it's probably a coypu. (They used to use capybaras, but those are incredibly high-maintenence.)
* The Gambian giant pouched rat can grow to over 2' long, and is one of the largest rodents to be formally classified as "rats". They've been trained to sniff out land mines in Africa, which kinda subverts this trope's "feared, flesh-rending predator" aspect.
* The tragically critically-endangered [
* [
* And according to [http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/07/discovery-species-papua-new-guinea this article], the largest known rat of unusual size has recently been discovered in a crater in Mt. Bosavi.
** And it's completely docile, too.
* Prehistoric rodents could get absolutely gigantic: ''Neochoerus pinckneyi'' is a Capybara 40% larger than its modern cousin (200-
* The rodent ''taxon'' is of unusual size, as it contains more than 40% of all mammal species.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Index of Exact Trope Titles]]
[[Category:Bigger Is Better]]
[[Category:Rodent Tropes]]
[[Category:Index of Fictional Creatures]]
▲[[Category:Trope]]
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