A list of characters from The Tale of Despereaux.
Despereaux
- Adaptational Attractiveness: He looks less like a real mouse and more like an infant in the movie.
- Good Is Bad And Bad Is Good: Despereaux is not frightened by things that are intended to scare him (such as carving knives) and draws a picture of a cat in his book, nicknaming it “Fluffy.” Such courage and appreciation for cute animals would be considered normal behaviors among humans, but his parents and teachers are all shocked and horrified about this.
- Never Bare Headed: Despereaux keeps his red hat on most of the time, although he does take it off when bowing in front of Pea.
- Opening Shout-Out: Early on in the film, the meager Despereaux becomes enchanted with certain, often-recurred Renaissance notions of heroism: honor, courage, chivalry, and truth. When Despereaux encounters Hovis, the older mouse cryptically references these precise words to reassure the frightened mouse.Hovis: Courage, right?
Despereaux: And truth. And honor.
Hovis: Good. But especially courage.
Despereaux: I'm ready. - Resourceful Rodent: Despereaux uses a sewing needle as a sword and the rodent civilisation often uses junk and trash as objects, clothes, etc.
Roscuro
- Adaptational Attractiveness: In the book, the rats are described to be ugly, and Roscuro's ugly appearance is actually the cause of the Queen's heart attack but in the movie, the rats, including Roscuro, don't look particularly ugly.
- Adaptational Heroism: Roscuro in the book was a common castle rat who was already being trained to steal and trick to stay true to his species' reputation, not the domesticated, bumbling companion of a human sailor.
- Chiaroscuro: He is named after this concept. He was given the name ironically by his parents, as the term refers to dark and light playing off each other and rats far prefer the dark.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Roscuro starts off as a good guy and a Token Good Teammate for the rats, has a Face–Heel Turn after Pea rejects his apology, and eventually settles on the Face side for good when he stops the rats from eating Pea and helps Despereaux defeat Botticeli.
- Token Good Teammate: Roscuro is one for the rats until his (temporary) Face–Heel Turn.
Botticelli Remorso
- Death by Adaptation: He gets eaten by a cat in the film.
- Expy: He looks like the rat version of Anton Ego.
- Shout-Out: His first name is the same as the pen surname of the Italian painter Sandro Botticelli.
