You Dirty Rat: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

== Films -- Animated ==

* [[Disney Animated Canon]]:

** In ''[[The Great Mouse Detective]]'' heroic detective Basil of Baker Street is a mouse, while his arch-nemesis, Professor Padraic [[Meaningful Name|Ratigan]], is a rat, of course (though [[Berserk Button|he hates being called that]]). The book reverses this, having the professor as a mouse.

* Averted in ''[[Ratatouille]]'', where the main character is an intelligent, urbane rat with a gourmand's taste in food and the ability to cook like a classically trained chef. Of course, most of the other rats are classless, tactless layabouts, but at least they aren't ''evil''.

* Again again in ''[[Flushed Away]]'', where the rats are, as a group, no more good or evil than any other random population.

* Averted in ''[[The Brave Little Toaster]] Goes to Mars'' and ''[[The Brave Little Toaster]] To The Rescue'' with Ratso.

* In ''[[Enchanted]]'', the rats do a considerable share of the housework while under the influence of [[Friend to All Living Things|Giselle's]] "Happy Working Song". Only one mouse is seen to help out, and it's only there because a rat wouldn't fit in the bathtub drainhole.

* In one adaptation of ''The Country Mouse and City Mouse'', the bad guy was a rat.

* The Mice in ''[[An American Tail]]'' are all virtuous, loving immigrants. Warren T. Rat, on the other hand, {{spoiler|isn't even a rat, but [[The Mole|a cat]], and one of the bad ones at that}}.

* In ''[[Cat City]]'', the rats are villains (although of the [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain|ineffectual sympathetic kind]]).

== Films -- Live-Action ==

** Although it actually looks a lot more like a giant ''opossum'' than a rat.

* In ''Willard'', the title character has a pack of killer-attack rats who remove anyone who gets in Willard's way.

** This is subverted in the sequel, ''Ben'', wherein the pack of rats defend a small boy from bullies.

* Averted in ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' with Splinter. But then again, there's a villain known as The Rat King who hypnotizes the rats of New York into doing his bidding.

* Averted in ''[[Home Alone]] 3'', in which the kid's pet white rat, Doris, is depicted as a cute friendly companion.

** This sounds fairly close to their behavior in [[Real Life]].

** Similarly in his novel ''House Of Tribes'': the rat, Kellogg, is evil and a murderer.

* ''[[Watership Down]]'' uses this one. Hazel finds and saves a field mouse from a hawk. In return, the mouse tells him where there's a stretch of really good grazing for the rabbits. The rabbits are later attacked by a pack of rats just after escaping from Strawberry's original warren. Then again, later in the book Hazel, during the first trip to Nuthanger Farm, stops to ask a rat for directions and gets a quite civil answer, even if, as the narrative notes, the rat had no particular reason to be friendly.

** Possibly the hostile ones were defending their home, as the rabbits had bedded down in an abandoned barn suitable for rats to live in. The rat at Nuthanger farm was simply walking by.

** The correct answer being: {{spoiler|all of them except the telepathic rats.}}

* Subverted in ''The Roly-Poly Pudding'', where it's unclear whether the rats actually intend to harm Tom Kitten or are just trying to scare him. (Conversely, there's no question that the cats have eaten rats in the past, and continue to eat them in the future.) This relatively even-handed treatment probably occurs because Beatrix Potter kept a pet rat when she was a girl.

* Avram Davidson's short story "The Tail-Tied Kings" deals with a rat warren threatened with destruction by their "slaves" (the humans they steal food from) and the escape of the aforementioned Kings (and Queens). This troper was surprised to discover mention of such Kings in the Mythology section.

* [[Mary Gentle]]'s [[Intelligent Gerbil|Rats]]—who are generally the dominant sapient species of any work in which they appear—tend to be crooked, [[The Chessmaster|manipulative]], [[Ambition Is Evil|ambitious]], [[It's All About Me|self-centered]], and [[Fantastic Racism|bigoted]]—in other words, [[Averted Trope|about as bad]] as [[Humans Are Bastards]]. (And they're ruled by [[Stealth Pun|rat kings]] with their tails deliberately knotted together.)

== Newspaper Comics ==

* In ''[[Pearls Before Swine]]'', Rat is a total [[Jerkass]] and [[Small Name, Big Ego]] that is often out to get a quick buck. However, he is also often a [[Jerkass Woobie]].

* Inverted in ''[[Krazy Kat]]'' with Ignatz Mouse.

== Tabletop Games ==

** However, [[Dark Is Not Evil]], and while many rats are in fact pests, some of the Kamigawa block Nezumi are decent, if anti-heroic.

* In ''[[Warhammer]]'', the Skaven are [[Always Chaotic Evil]] rat-men who practice foul sorcery and use chaos-empowered steampunk technology to wage war on everyone else (even the other [[Always Chaotic Evil]] races).

* The Ferrans of ''[[Talislanta]]'' tend to be nasty, thieving little scavengers. They have no concept of hygiene and can [[Smelly Skunk|spray like skunks]]. However, the Ferran in the ''Talislanta'' tie-in anthology manages to be something of a [[Woobie]].

* The Beshilu of ''[[Werewolf: The Forsaken]]'' are Hosts, spirit parasites that possess humans, hollow them out body and soul, and ride around the resulting meat puppet. They're singularly obsessed with gnawing open holes in the Gauntlet, leaving gaps to [[Spirit World|the Shadow]] that allow pretty much anything to slip through unfettered. The werewolves don't like this.

== Theater ==

** See "rat king" under mythology. Now, imagine ''that'' in place of one guy in a costume with three heads. No wonder all the other characters are terrified of him.

== Videogames ==

* The Qiqirn in ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'' are a race of beastmen rats who are on not-really-hostile-at-all terms with [[The Empire]] of Aht Urhgan. That is, [[Honest John's Dealership|they like the "clink-clink" people carry, and will do anything to get it.]] Essentially the Near-Eastern version of [[Our Goblins Are Different|Goblins,]] just more peaceful.

* The rats in ''[[Little Kings Story]]'' appear quite mischievious, and the narrator seems none to fond of them. {{spoiler|In the end, it's [[Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever|very justified.]]}}

** Rats reappear in Season 4, petty criminals at worst but generally good-natured. None of them are nearly as [[Heroic Sociopath|violent and dangerous]] as [[Killer Rabbit|Max]].

* In ''Majesty'' Ratmen are a milder version of Warhammer's Skaven; they're like goblins, except their habitats are broken sewer pipes, which means they can pop up randomly in the middle of your town rather than some distance away.

== Webcomics ==

* Norveg, Angelika's rat familiar in ''[[Our Little Adventure]]'', completely averts this, being more level-headed than Angelika and acting as her [[Straight Man]] most of the time. Norveg does at one point complain about mice having better PR than rats even though rats are the more intelligent and compassionate species. [http://danielscreations.com/ola/comics/ep0170.html The doctor is afraid that a rat will contaminate his office.]

== Western Animation ==

* [[Biker Mice From Mars]]: The anthropomorphic rat slavers, who are also shown to be cronies of Plutarkians in a flashback episode.

* Inverted in Disney's [[Miscellaneous Disney Shorts|''Goliath II'']] where the villain of the short's second act is a mouse.

* [[South Park]]: The plot of "Bass To Mouth" revolves around the kids trying to stop an [[Visual Pun|evil rat]] named [[Take That|"Wiki Leaks"]] from posting embarrassing personal stories about them online.

** Though since Wiki Leaks is the brother of Lemmiwinks the gerbil, the kids probably just [[I Am Not Weasel|got his species wrong.]]