Characters / The Plague Dogs

The Main Trio

Rowf

"I'll fight... I'll tear their white coats..."

Voiced By: Christopher Benjamin

• Action Pet: Avoided. He's just a normal dog trying to survive.
• Afraid of Doctors: Expanded to some degree all humans (calling all humans "White Coats"), but while he's unfriendly and aggressive towards most of them, seeing an actual white coat is enough to send him running for his life instead.
• Animal Testing: Drowned and brought to life repeatedly, leaving him with a crippling phobia of swimming.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In the beginning, desires to be feared by humans, which does happen soon after, when he's believed to have been infected with the Bubonic Plague.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: Unlike Snitter, he isn't hopeful about their future, but expresses desire to do anything to avoid being killed, including literally suicidal thoughts.
• The Big Guy: To Snitter's Waif Prophet.
• Blatant Lies: Tells Snitter that The Tod will be fine after his heroic sacrifice, because he's too smart to be caught. Snitter is too crazy at this point to realize what is going on, and even forgets they're being followed by the army, and simply lies down and asks to be woken up once The Tod returns. However, Rowf is strongly implied to very well know that isn't happening, though he never says it outright.
• Break the Cutie: Happens time and time again.
• Classical Anti-Hero: A nice and caring dog filled with PTSD and cynicism.
• Death by Adaptation: Heavily implied to have drowned in the film.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: He is unable to comprehend why the Whitecoats experiment on him, and believes it is a punishment for something.
  Rowf: Are they doing it because I'm a bad dog? I'm not! I've been a good dog!
• Humans Are Bastards: Believes humanity is inherently evil.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed (the jerk part, not the heart of gold). Rowf is gruff and somewhat grumpy, as well as confrontational with the Tod, but he’s generally a nice enough guy, is always polite and friendly to Snitter and the other dogs he meets and does his best to protect Snitter, and apologizes to the Tod for misjudging him.
• Nice Mean And In Between: The grumpy and gruff, but ultimately kindhearted In Between to Snitter’s Nice and the Tod’s Mean.
• Nice Guy: While somewhat gruff, Rowf is a caring and kindhearted fellow who does his best to protect Snitter.
• No Party Like a Donner Party: After starving once it starts snowing, eats a hunter who fell to his death when trying to shoot him.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Basically switches personality with Snitter in the end, trying to convince him everything will be okay and tries to sound optimistic. Both heartwarming and a Tear Jerker.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Has a phobia of swimming in water, as a result of all the testing.
• Straw Nihilist: He never had any nice life outside of the laboratory, and as a result, believes he's predestined to suffer all his life. He is proven right in the film.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Is believed, along with Snitter, to carry the Bubonic Plague.

Snitter

"I'm in my own head now... and it's where I should be."

Voiced By: John Hurt

• Action Pet: Avoided. He's just a normal dog trying to survive.
• Adopt the Dog: All Snitter ever wants is to have a nice master again. The book grants him his wish, the film does not.
• Afraid of Doctors: Though unlike Rowf, his fear is only of humans in white coats and/or with knives.
• Animal Testing: Had a brain surgery to connect his conscious and subconscious mind, which leaves him with hallucinations, suffering from seizures and imagining things, like flies in his head. He also repeatedly expresses desire to put his head in cold water to "stop the burning".
• The Atoner: Subverted. He believes himself to be required to suffer because he feels responsible for the death of his master. It actually helps him in the beginning to handle the harsh reality. However, after he "causes" the death of Ephraim, he starts to believe himself to be Beyond Redemption, and hides for two days to starve in loneliness. Rowf and The Tod manage to find him, but he never truly recovers, at one point allowing himself to be captured, believing he deserves the suffering he's subjected to in A.R.S.E.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: In the end, to run away from the army, "sees" an island and swims towards it. However, it is heavily implied he imagined island from the beginning, allowing himself to be drowned rather than to be shot. Deus ex Machina saves him in the book, whereas the film proceeds with Downer Ending.
• Break the Cutie: Happens time and time again.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Because of the experiments, he suffers from frequent hallucinations, loses trail of thought, suffers from seizures and repeatedly has moments of imagining flies in his head hurting him. The book also describes him as seeing constant raining in one eye.
• The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right: Occasionally, he will predict things in his hallucinations, most notably in the beginning, when a hallucination tells him "The door is not a wall anymore", after which Rowf discovers the janitor didn't close his kennel properly. Also, when he sees military helicopters in the sky, he describes them as the flies from his head, and in his last vision sees a man torture and kill all animals, namely describing whales - of which he had no previous knowledge.
• Death by Adaptation: Heavily implied to have drowned in the film.
• Doom Magnet: Believes he attracts misfortune because he's responsible for the death of his master. After one seizure, he also believes that his death will be the end of the world, and threatens to kill himself to imaginary humans.
• Escapism: His mental state worsens each time something bad happens, with him openly accepting being "inside his own head" after getting caught, and only snaps out of it once he's literally dragged away by The Tod. This suggests that he might be using his hallucinatory state as a way to deal with (i.e. escape) reality.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Is believed, along with Rowf, to carry the Bubonic plague.
• Hero-Worshipper: Idolizes The Tod, even trying to imitate his accent on an occasion.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Accidentally presses a trigger while trying to climb up a hunter who can't bring himself to shoot him and decided to Pet the Dog instead. After this happens, he finally breaks, loses all hope to ever find a new master, and starts to take much more refuge in his hallucinations.
• Nice Guy: A kindhearted, sweet, idealistic, and polite dog who only wants a loving home.
• Nice Mean And In Between: The Nice to Rowf’s gruff and cynical In Between and The Tod’s Mean.
• No Party Like a Donner Party: After starving because of the winter, he eats a hunter who fell trying to shoot Rowf.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Though he becomes less and less optimistic as the story progresses, his sudden loss of any hope in the end is shocking to see, especially how it contrasts with usually pessimistic Rowf, who desperately tries to keep him from giving up.
• Sanity Slippage: His mental state worsens as the story progresses. He starts off as having an occasional vision that even sometimes come true, and is capable of functioning normally. By the end, he basically lives in his own fantasy world.
• Talkative Loon: Snitter contrasts heavily with mostly silent Rowf, and is a bit crazy.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: How he sees the world.
• Waif Prophet: To Rowf's Big Guy.
• Wicked Stepmother: Got sold off to the A.R.S.E. by his master's sister, who didn't want to take care of him.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: He starts off as one.

The Tod

"You? Wild animals? I've never seen anyone dafter!"

Voiced By: James Bolam

"I'm the Tod. Ya know, canniest Tod on moss an' moor."

• All for Nothing: His sacrifice in the film does allow Rowf and Snitter to board a train and run away... only to be seen by a helicopter and forced to run into a sea, where they'll probably die.
• Cunning Like a Fox: A rare case of this trope played literally, The Tod is shown to be much more intelligent than any other animal.
• Deadpan Snarker: He is often makes snarky remarks.
• A Dog Named "Dog": The Tod is a northern slang word meaning fox. Ironically, he's the only one of the trio to not be a dog, while both dogs actually have names.
• Cynical Mentor: He is slimy, selfish and seems to only mentor the dogs to get food easily. He doesn't show how much he cares for them up until the end.
• Funetik Aksent: He's a Geordie and his lines are written to reflect that.
• Good Is Not Nice: He helps the dogs and is ultimately shown to genuinely care about them, but he still is a wild animal, and will act seemingly selfish at many points.
• Heel–Face Turn: It's very subtle and easy to miss, but The Tod that openly exploits the dogs in the beginning is very different from The Tod that sacrifices himself to save the dogs in the end.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the book, he lets himself be chased after by hounds during a hunt to allow Snitter to escape, and one of the hunters is then described as tossing a "fox's body" to his hounds. In the movie, he misleads military dogs after himself, who then proceed to kill him, to allow Rowf and Snitter escape the army.
• Humans Are Bastards: Unlike Rowf, doesn't actively hate humans for the way they are, but sees them as his enemies.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Comes across as a jerk, especially in the beginning, but the truly cares for the dogs.
• Nice Mean And In Between: The Mean to Snitter’s Nice and Rowf’s In Between.
• No Party Like a Donner Party: He causes a hunter to fall to his death when he was trying to shoot Rowf. The starving animals then eat him.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: Comes across as very self-serving and selfish. However, that is only the result of The Tod being a wild animal who's used to care only for himself, and he's shown to genuinely care for the dogs even after Rowf tries to attack him for eating a whole nest of chicken eggs without telling them about it.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: He's usually very confident in his abilities, but loses his calm demeanor when he distracts the hunting hounds (in the book)/military dogs (in the film). In the book, he keeps his posture to say goodbye to Snitter, while in the film, he gives clear instructions to the dogs to run directly no matter what. In both media, once the dogs are gone, his behaviour changes the moment they're gone. He knows he might not be getting out of this.
• Oop North: He's a Geordie.
• Slimeball: A rare positive example. He comes across like this a lot, but his actions slowly show he does have good intentions.
• Spell My Name with a "The": Subverted, Tod isn't actually his name, but a slang word for a fox Oop North. The film portrays it as if The Tod is really his name, but the book contains a scene where he has problems understanding the concept of having a name.
• Token Evil Teammate: Subverted. Initially joined the dogs just to have a influx of food without having to do much work, but at some point, he started caring so much for them he is willing to risk his life to help them.

The Whitecoats

Dr. James Robert Boycott

"Same procedure as last time"

Voiced By: Nigel Hawthorne

• Adaptational Nice Guy: Very, very little, he's still the guy who basically tortures animals, but unlike in the book, he isn't a jerk to his subordinates, isn't responsible for testing on Rowf, and most importantly, his experiments aren't depicted as brutal and pointless, but as simply brutal. It is mentioned several times that other (reputable) centres had shown interest in his research. Boycott in the book isn't nearly as respected, being more of a heartless incompetent moron with a doctorate.
• Bad Boss: In the book, he's presented as basically bullying his assistant Powell. While the animals get the same sadistic treatment in all media, the film drops this aspect of Boycott's personality completely, and he acts rather polite to every human he interacts with.
• Big Bad: In the film. The book switches its focus on Digby Driver very soon, whilst Boycott remains the main source of misfortunes for the heroes throughout the whole movie.
• Deadly Doctor: His experiments often have lethal results.
• Dr. Jerk: While polite, he's cold and uncaring to people around him. Also, his experimentation is notably sadistic.
• For Science!: Zigzagged. He definitely feels like he's doing important research, but most of it is straight up nonsensical.
  • He's presented as much more reputable scientist in the film, with Cambridge showing interest in his research into social deprivation. The same experiment is written off as completely pointless in the book.
• Head-in-the-Sand Management: Tries to ignore the fact two dogs have escaped his research centre. Remains like this in the book, while the film forces him to take action by hiring Ackland to shoot the dogs.
• Mad Doctor: Inverted. His actions are the actions of a madman, but he's very well aware of what he's doing.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Apart from his specialisation (a neurosurgeon instead of a psychologist), he's very clearly based on Harry Harlow, American scientist (in)famous for his sadistic experiments on monkeys regarding love, maternal feelings and social activities.
  • The book even subtly alludes to Boycott's indifference to suffering of others being a result of depression, while Harlow's experiments are believed to have taken an even more sadistic turn after he underwent an electroshock therapy for his depression.
  • The social deprivation experiment done on monkeys is based on Harlow's real life experiments, as all experiments depicted in the story are based on ones that took place in the real world.

Dr. Stephen Powell

"But you don't want it to drown, do you?"

Voiced By: Bernard Hepton

• Adaptational Jerkass: He isn't the guilt-ridden submissive assistant in the film, but rather an animal researcher in his own right. He supports the experimentation, is much more keen on helping Boycott, and even expresses sadness when he hears Rowf and Snitter escaped, because of the information lost.
  • However, most importantly, he's the one doing experimentation on Rowf in the film.
  • Also, he is fully complicit in the social and sensory deprivation experiments (experiments that consists of monkey being stuffed in a container barely large enough to fit it in, and being left there for months and years without any contact with the outside world), which are considered extremely cruel even by people not otherwise concerned by animal experimentation.
• Cruel Twist Ending: For him. He joined the research to help find a cure for a disease that's killing his daughter, only to be assigned to a research that has nothing to do with it.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Subverted, while he is someone who takes part in inhumane experimentation on animals, he's doing it simply so he can support his ill, slowly dying daughter.
• Fridge Horror: His ending in the book might seem happy - he finally gets enough confidence to leave and saves an animal that had cruel testing done to it. One might almost forget he is scarred for life because of the experimentation he witnessed and bound to suffer from PTSD. Also, his daughter is still dying.
• Saying Too Much: Reveals too much about the experiments done in A.R.S.E. to a person that gives him a lift... who turns out to be a reporter.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In the book, being a witness to a pointless sensory deprivation test makes him turn on A.R.S.E., and he leaves to be "a teacher or something". He even takes a monkey that was experimented on with him.

Dr. William Goodner/Dr. Wilhelm Geutner

"I haff done nothing there. I go in, I go avay again-"

• Accent Slip-Up: He speaks like a posh British gentleman... until Digby Driver shocks him by telling him he knows about his history as a Nazi scientist. He also loses the German accent once the shock wears off again.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Has very likely met Ephraim, as Goodner was a "researcher" in Buchenwald, where Ephraim remembers being experimented on.
• Herr Doktor: Was a German Nazi scientinst prior to moving to Britain and becoming a naturalised citizen there.
• Mad Scientist: Inverted, he does the most insane research, but seems actually be the most (coldly) rational of all researchers.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: While he seems to many as based on Josef Mengele, he is actually a mirror image of Shiro Ishii, the "Japanese Mengele". His research is concerned with diseases, rather than genetics (Mengele's subject), it was deemed legitimate by the victors (Mengele's experiments were instead seen as purely sadistic ventures even at the time), he received a pardon for his results (Mengele remained a wanted war criminal until his death) and was even allowed to carry on researching in some capacity, all of which aligns with Ishii's life story.
• Only Sane Man: Disturbingly, the ex-Nazi scientist researching plagues and testing biological weapons on animals is the only one who seems to know what he's doing. Dr. Boycott is doing pointless experiments with no practical use for the sake of it, Dr. Powell isn't even an expert on animal research who got assigned to the animal research basically by accident. Dr. Goodner, while an awful human being, not only does his (admittedly horrible) job properly, he's the only one of the scientists to not screw anything up. He's also the only one to secure his area, correctly telling Digby Driver there's no way the animals could have got infected (who does ignore this part, in order to make a more catchy headline).

Harry Tyson

"Too much for you, was it?"

Voiced By: Warren Mitchell

• Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe: Smokes one in every scene.
• Just in Time: Saves himself by sabotaging the kennel door just before Powell and Boycott come investigating how could the dogs escape.
• Moment of Silence: He's one chatty chap who talks to the caged dogs when attending to them, who in turn won't stop howling and barking. But when a dog dies from earlier experimentation and Tyson has to take his corpse away from the kennel, both he and the dogs become completely silent, with only Tyson's footsteps breaking the soundless moment.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Appears only in the beginning, but the fact he doesn't shut the kennel properly allows Rowf and Snitter to escape.
• The Needs of the Many: In spite of his love for the animals, sees their suffering as acceptable, since the research surely leads to a greater good.
• Token Good Teammate: He's the only one who actually cares about the well-being of the animals. He knows every dog a bit, talking to them when he takes care of them, and expresses genuine sorrow when Kiff dies after being electrocuted. That said, he won't help them escape, as he believes the research is for the greater good.