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Reviling rodentsInterface
All you need do is look at their clans to realise
this – Clan Pestilens, based on our association
between rats and plague; Clan Eshin, on the
idea that rats are sneaky and treacherous;
Clan Skryre, twisting our idea of lab-rats;
and Clan Moulder, playing on our disgust at
rat survivability. The Skaven are essentially
cartoon villains, caricatures, and their society,
a hierarchical, self-cannibalising monster, that
just won’t stop growing – in many ways they’re
the perfect antagonist. The Vermintide games
sought to take advantage of this – four heroes
facing off against tides of ratmen, slashing and
bludgeoning in a horde-killing frenzy. But the
majority of the rats you kill in the game are
Skavenslaves, the lowest strata of rat society –
ignorant creatures, riled into a frenzy and let
loose. You rarely kill the masters, the Warlords
and Grey Seers pulling the strings. So it begs the
question, are Skaven evil by nature? Or are they
merely victims of their society?
Anders De Geer, game director on
Vermintide, knows the answer. “A Skavenslave
is just a Warlord that hasn’t found a way to
climb or back-stab his way to the top yet.
They are egocentric, greedy, envious, unloving,
cowardly, power-hungry, ruthless creatures.”
The anthropomorphic quality of the Skaven is
one of their most interesting aspects – it’s in the
name: ratmen. But which part is rat? Which part
is man? De Geer insists that what is worst in
them comes from us. “Skaven are not supposed
to be rats acting like humans, but rather humans
acting like rats.” Just as in A Plague Tale, we see
how rats can act as a mirror for “mankind’s worst
characteristics”, as De Geer phrases it. While it’s
absurd to compare Skaven to humanity, it does
draw some uncomfortable parallels. As De Geer
says: “I think the main reason Skaven commit
their worst atrocities against themselves, is that
they live among other Skaven.”THE VICTIM
Dishonored has always been a game series about
victimisation – its protagonists stripped of their
finery and cast into the gutter, alongside the
rats and plague victims. It fosters an almost
sympathetic alignment with rats, which – while
dangerous – become circumstantial allies.
Through its Chaos system, Dishonored shows
an awareness that rats merely feed upon evil- the more bodies you leave in your wake, the
MISUNDERSTOOD CREATURES
“The Outsider was abused, cast out, and murdered in order to unify a community in the
commonality of their hatred. The Outsider is perceived as the source of evil and as an object
of blame in order to displace society’s problems away from themselves,” Monforton explains
of Dishonored’s backing tale. “As such, the Outsider chooses to bestow magic on people
who have been wronged and scapegoated in a similar manner, and watches to see what they
will do when given power over their oppressors. In this understanding, the Outsider shares
an affinity with the rats for the same reasons: they are all hunted, murdered, misunderstood
creatures whose suffering fuels the world.”
Visually, you’re being
pointed in a definite
direction as to what to
think of our ratty
non-friends.
The rats of Dishonored
share an affinity with all
those who have touched
the void. Sometimes it’s a combo,
like the not-so-humble
Mole Rat of Fallout fame.individuals – in their uncountable swarms, they
represent only a unity of hunger. But is hunger
evil? Smash a guard’s lantern with main character
Amicia’s sling, and they’ll be eaten, but drop a
ham into the swarm and the rats will devour it
with the same glee. There is an equality to the
rats’ unscrupulous hunger, which makes it hard
to blame them. Especially when throughout the
game you’ll witness such conscious evil acts –
people being burned at the stake, battlefields
littered with corpses, and more murders than
you can count. Rats feed on evil – it’s one of the
main reasons our society hates them. They act
as a mirror, their prevalence a directly linked
reminder of our own evil acts. In A Plague Tale:
Innocence, Amicia and her young brother Hugo
are the innocent party traversing a brutal world;
but I’m starting to think that perhaps rats too are
innocent in their own way.THE VILLAIN
In the world of Warhammer Fantasy, another
interesting depiction can be found – the Skaven,
a race of villainous sentient rats modelled almost
directly upon our negative cultural associations.Reviling rodentsInterface