Fiction
The popularity of wererats in modern fantasy may have been pioneered by the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser novel The Swords of Lankhmar by fantasy Grandmaster Fritz Leiber. While there is no shapeshifting per se, there is therianthropy aplenty: normal-sized rats with human intelligence, humans who change size to pass between human and rat society, humans who are half-rat, and a rat city below the human one.
Wererats also appear in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton (see wererats in Anita Blake mythology and wererat characters in Anita Blake).
The rats changed into men are characters in the fairy tale Cinderella and star in various adaptations such as the children's book I was a Rat by Philip Pullman.
Yuki Sohma, from a popular manga series, titled Fruits Basket, transforms into a rat when hugged by a member of the opposite gender or when weakened.
In the American Manga Gold Digger wererats were one of several lycanthropic races created by an enchanter named Iceron. Five characters important to several recent events are wererats. Sherissa, the near immortal leader of the wererat clans, Gothwrain her thrall, servant and apparent enemy, and also three young warriors/assassins collectively known by fans as the "Mall Rats" : Lydia McKraken, Romeo Ellis and Moisha Rich.
Splinter from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe is a anthropomorphic rat who learned the ways of ninjutsu from his owner and master, Hamato Yoshi. He is the Turtles' sensei and adoptive father. In the 1987 TV series and Archie Comics series, Splinter was Hamato Yoshi mutated into a rat instead of being just Yoshi's pet.
The "were-rat" is also one of several animals that comes back to life in Tim Burton's Frankenweenie (2012 film). It is explicitly named as such on the promotional cards given out in theaters.
Read more about this topic: Wererat
Famous quotes containing the word fiction:
“It is with fiction as with religion: it should present another world, and yet one to which we feel the tie.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“The acceptance that all that is solid has melted into the air, that reality and morality are not givens but imperfect human constructs, is the point from which fiction begins.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1947)
“A reader who quarrels with postulates, who dislikes Hamlet because he does not believe that there are ghosts or that people speak in pentameters, clearly has no business in literature. He cannot distinguish fiction from fact, and belongs in the same category as the people who send cheques to radio stations for the relief of suffering heroines in soap operas.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)