User blog:ThatScrewyDuck/PE Proposal: Warren T. Rat

Hi there. This character was only voted up for the trope/category on “the other wiki” quite recently, so given the chance, I thought I’d take the time to finally revisit the film he’s from and do a proposal in the hopes of getting the character approved for this wiki. Plus, I can always use some extra experience to familiarize myself with the art of doing shorter, more concise proposals, and since the character in question doesn’t have a lot of screen time, this should be a good opportunity to create one. So here we go…

What’s the work?
An American Tail is an animated film from 1986 by Don Bluth that is often considered a classic and among his best films. It follows a rather young mouse by the name of Fievel Mousewitz, whose family of Russian-Jewish heritage are forced to leave their home in Russia when it gets destroyed during an anti-Jewish arson attack on their village by human Cossacks. Boarding a ship heading for New York City in the hopes they’ll be safer there, as they believe “there are no cats in America”, tragedy strikes when Fievel’s recklessness gets his washed overboard and separated from his family, who depressingly reign themselves to thinking he’s gone. However, Fievel survives and manages to make it there by floating along the sea in a bottle, and soon sets off on a journey to find them… which quickly brings him into contact with the topic of the proposal.

Who is he and what does he do?
Warren T. Rat (later revealed to be Warren T. Cat) is introduced as a sleazy con-artist grumbling to Digit, his cockroach assistant, over being 50 cents short of the total their business brought in the day before. When Fievel crosses paths with him, he quickly gets the idea to take advantage of his naivety and lie to him that he knows where his family is… only to sell him into a sweatshop to do manual labor alongside many other young, orphaned mice for a quick 50 cents. When Fievel asks about his family, he simply sneers “you don’t need a family kid, you got a job here”. Thankfully, he escapes pretty quickly alongside a streetwise and rough-around-the-edges, but good-hearted mouse named Tony Toponi.

Later on, it’s revealed that Warren is exploiting the not-so-well-off mice of New York City by getting them to pay for his protection, only for them to be regularly terrorized anyway by a gang of nasty cats called the Mott Street Maulers, thereby completely disproving the “no cats in America” theory. Plus, as evidenced by a funeral of sorts for a young mouse who was killed by them named Mickey O’Hare, they are even occasionally picked off by them (he’s revealed to be just the latest of several victims). And the worst part of it? It is revealed when Fievel unintentionally comes across their hideout in a sewer later on that Warren is, in fact, a cat disguised as a rat, and is actually the boss/leader of the gang, making him the one behind all of this in the first place.

When he discovers Fievel has learned his secret, he orders his gang to capture, and likely dispose of him, but he escapes with some help from Tiger, the token nice cat of the gang, and flees to an abandoned museum down by the pier where the mice are holed up creating a secret weapon to finally stand up to the cats and chase them away for good. Donning his rat disguise, Warren gives them the ultimatum to hand him all their money along with Fievel in exchange for calling off the cats, but Tony reveals his deception by using his slingshot to shoot off his disguise, as Fievel just told them he is really a cat, as well as their boss. Gussie Mausheimer, a rich German mouse who is the main one responsible for encouraging the mice to finally stand up for themselves, tells him he’s “washed up” and  will no longer “get another cent from any of them”.

Deciding that they’re no longer of value to him, Warren then lights a match and sets fire to the entrance of the museum with the intent of burning it down with them trapped inside, sadistically laughing about it the whole time. Thankfully for them, their secret weapon, a motorcycle-sized, mouse-shaped mechanical contraption dubbed the “Great Mouse of Minsk” extinguishes most of the flames when they unleash it on the cats, terrifying them into fleeing for the pier, then forcing them into the water. This forces them to board a ship bound for Hong Kong like the mice planned, getting rid of them for good, with Warren swearing revenge on them someday and declaring how much he hates mice.

Does he have any redeeming/mitigating qualities or a valid excuse for his actions?
For the most part, this is an easy no. He’s just a greedy, selfish psychopath who does what he does for his own financial gain. It’s also clear that Digit only works for him out of fear rather than out of loyalty or friendship. This is especially evident when he threatens to eat him merely for criticizing his violin-playing skills. He also isn’t shown to have a close or caring relationship with any of his lackeys, so it’s really just a boss-worker relationship that doesn’t in any way imply he necessarily cares for them on a personal level.

Tellingly, the closest thing he has to a mitigating trait are a couple of somewhat comedic quirks he has, namely fancying himself to be cultured and sophisticated by quoting Shakespeare and playing the violin, neither of which he’s very good at (although he may have only been bad at the latter cause his fake rat nose was getting in the way). So yes, he does have a small comedic side, but it’s very, very minor/insignificant next to his exploitation and terrorization of the mice, and it doesn’t at all overshadow or undermine any of that, at least in my opinion. If anything, I’d say there are other characters who have qualified like Archibald Snatcher from The Boxtrolls (who appropriately, also made poor attempts to pass himself off as sophisticated) who have more comedic moments and traits than he does, which is all the more reason I’m pretty sure this shouldn’t be a disqualifier.

Is he heinous by the standards of the work?
Granted, An American Tail, in early Don Bluth-era style, is quite dark and even depressing for a film that’s supposed to be at least partly (maybe even largely?) for younger audiences. Anyone who’s seen films like The Secret of NIMH, the original The Land Before Time and All Dogs Go to Heaven know what I’m talking about.

That said, Warren’s actions are quite dark and severe, especially when you stop to think about it; for starters, it’s heavily implied that he’s duped many young mice like Fievel (who, remember, is the equivalent of a 4 or 5 year old child) into what’s essentially slavery by luring them to the sweatshop to do manual labor for a tyrannical boss, and just to make a little extra pocket change at that. And of course, there’s the fact that he has all the poor mice of New York City in a sort of chokehold by having his gang terrorize them, and even occasionally kill one off every so often to keep them scared and in check. His main reason for this? To wring every bit of cash he can out of them for supposed “protection”, when he’s the one responsible for their awful dilemma in the first place. It’s never stated exactly how long it’s been, but it’s been long enough that there have been at least several mice killed by his gang, so if I had to speculate, I would say at least a few months? And when he’s finally exposed, he essentially decides to cut his losses and tries burning them alive for no real reason other than sadistic spite.

So yeah, in my opinion, especially considering he only has maybe 10 minutes of screen time at most, and that this is a family film, complete with a simple-minded and cutesy main character clearly meant to appeal to children, I don’t think this is unimpressive at all. His actions may not be as pronounced and front-and-center compared to, say, Jenner, since part of it is based on what he’s already implied to have done, rather than it all being stuffed into the present tense of the movie, but the negative effect it’s had on the entire community of mice is very much felt and seen, and I really feel that trying to simply burn them all alive when they finally stand up to him cements him as a psychopath who’s largely played straight.

What’s the verdict?
As evidenced by him only recently getting approved elsewhere, no, I don’t think he’s among the most obvious or standout examples of a complete monster/purely evil villain I’ve ever come across, but yes, I do think he ultimately fits every part of the criteria, especially on close inspection. But as usual, it’s really up to what the majority believes. So, what are your thoughts?