Manny the Rat


I'm surprised there's no topic about this. Also, I want to ask if anyone has thoughts about this character. When I saw him using the rock to smash the toys, he looked cruel, but when he saw the results he had done, I think it made him realized that (despite them being toys), he may have been too cruel especially to a child with his father, hence why we see him looking saddened during the partying scenes. That's just my opinion though.

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Man the scene where manny was defeated used to make me cry as a child. The scenes with toys dying scared me, but seeing the big bad, his big rat home destroyed cowering in the corner cluutching his broken teeth just made me sob.

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I also wished there was more of a subplot with the rat Iggy (the big black rat, the one that shoves Manny aside and growls, "Out of the way, you old fool.")
I think he was trying to compete with Manny in being the "boss" of the dump; he was shoving the "We Love You Manny" sign off the platform, not only to crush the protagonists (the mouse and his child, Frog, et al), but to crush Manny's self-esteem. To quote Iggy: ****YYYYYYEEEEEAAAAAOOOWWWWFFFFFFFFFZZZZZZTTTTTZZZZZAAAAAAPPPPP****
(In the book, our heroes flung stones and Iggy met his end that way)

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He was a complex character and I'm glad he was. Too easy to write him as all-bad. As a kid it was like watching someone having a breakdown. It's when I first started to understand what that really meant.

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