The Tale of Despereaux (film)

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Princess Pea holding Despereaux.

A 2008 CG animated Fantasy film based on the book by Kate DiCamillo which Disneyfied many of the darker elements while still keeping much of the original fairy tale feel of the book.

Tropes used in The Tale of Despereaux (film) include:

• Blind Seer: After Despereaux is exiled for the crime of consorting with humans, he meets the blind mouse Hovil, whose eyes are pearly white. Hovil is charged, among other tasks, with overseeing the gateway into the darkened sewers beneath the dungeon. Early on, he is the only mouse who seems sympathetic to Despereaux's curiosity and fearlessness. It appears to the viewer that Hovis lowers criminals into the sewers using a thread whose color corresponds to their crime. For Despereaux, convicted of courage, the thread is red.

Despereaux: Red? Hovil: Ah, so they tell me. You're the brave one? Despereaux: I guess. Hovil: Wear it proudly. There's no shame.

• Does This Remind You of Anything?: See Nightmare Fetishist, below.
• Evil Albino: Botticelli.
• Expy: Botticelli looks like the rat version of Anton Ego.
• Faceless Masses: Averted. In the scene when the king finally decides to try soup again, there is a MAN with a BEARD who has BOOBS in the crowd! Nightmare Fuel!
• Family-Unfriendly Death: The queen. It's unclear if she suffered a fatal heart attack, or drowned in her soup after fainting and face-planting in it.
• Fisher King: The kingdom goes grey and overcast when the king goes into mourning.
• Hair of Gold: Princess Pea.
• Happily Ever After: Subverted. The narrator remarks that this is normally where everyone lives happily ever after in the epilogue, but "what fun is that?"
• Humans Are Cthulhu
• My God, What Have I Done?: The jailer regrets being so mean to Mig when he realizes she's his daughter.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Despereaux drew pictures of cats in his notebook, much to his teacher's (and parents') horror.
• Opening Shout-Out: Early on in the film, the meager Despereaux becomes enchanted with certain, often-recurred Renaissance notions of heroism: honor, courage, chivalry, and truth. When Despereaux encounters Hovis, the older mouse cryptically references these precise words to reassure the frightened mouse.

Hovis: Courage, right? Despereaux: And truth. And honor. Hovis: Good. But especially courage. Despereaux: I'm ready.

• Prophet Eyes: Hovis the thread-master, but only in the film.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Despereaux.
• Serious Business: Soup.
• Suicidal Gotcha: For the audience. The subversion of the Happily Ever After occurs while Despereaux is hanging from a window and apparently falls to his death. They later reveal him gliding away on his huge ears to his next adventure.
• Unreliable Voiceover:

Narrator: First of all, rats hate the light. They spend their lives in the darkness. (A rat is shown looking right at the sun.) Narrator: They're also terrified of people, which is why they slink and cower all the time. (The rat walks right up to a human.) Narrator: And as far as telling the truth as concerned, well, that is impossible, because as everyone knows, a rat can't talk. (The rat begins speaking to the human.)