Rodents of Unusual Size: Difference between revisions

* [[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.}}

** 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.

== Live Action TV ==

 

* ''[[The New Avengers]]'' episode "Gnaws".

* ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]'' has it in "Back in the Red"- ''Red Dwarf'' has been built far too large and is returning to normal size. ''Starbug'' encounter a huge rat and ends flying into its backside, propelling it along.

 

* 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]].

*** [[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.

** 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.

** Previous editions of D&D also included giant beavers, giant porcupines, and -- I kid you not -- ''giant carnivorous flying squirrels''.

** [[VG Cats|Rat flail.]]

** 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!"'').

* 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').

* ''[[Ever Quest]]'''s Ratonga are prime examples of what happens when you give a ROUS opposable thumbs and knives. An entire race of automatically Evil aligned ROUSes with a penchant for being thieves and assassins. Throw in Roekillik, their Minime counterpart race, and it seems someone at Sony [[Author Appeal|rather likes this trope]]

* ''[[Parasite Eve]]'' had mutated rodents that tried to kill you. And giant squirrels, too.

* ''Rattus giganteus'' is a common creature in ''[[Beyond Good and Evil (Video Game)|Beyond Good and Evil]].'' While it's not as big as other examples of this trope (nor as its name would suggest), it occurs in such numbers that [[Goddamn Bats|it's still a hindrance.]]

* Played for laughs at the start of ''[[The Bards Tale]]'', where the eponymous Bard goes into the basement of a tavern to kill a rat for the hostess. After some patronising dialogue from the narrator, a giant rat emerges from the darkness, and ''[[Breath Weapon|breathes fire]]'' on the Bard, forcing him to retreat back above ground. Turns out it was all just a prank, which the drunken patrons got a good laugh out of.

* The ''[[Duck Tales (Video Game)|Duck Tales]]'' video game for the NES had that giant rat boss guarding the Green Cheese treasure in The Moon stage.

* ''[[The Tick]]'' had Speak, his pet capybara (see Real Life, below), much to [[Sidekick|Arthur]]'s dismay.

* ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (Animation)|Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]'': Hero example: in one episode, the Rescue Rangers (a fly and four rodents) are enlarged to human size.

* An episode of ''[[Aladdin (Disney)|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.

 

== Real Life ==

* 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.

* 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.

** 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.

* 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.

[[Category:Index of Fictional Creatures]]

[[Category:Rodents Of Unusual Size]]