The Rat King - Tumblr Posts
"FOR THE LAST TIME, LITTLE GIRL
OUR PRONOUNS ARE THEY/THEM!
NOT BECAUSE WE ARE NON-BINARY...
BUT BECAUSE WE ARE LITERALLY A THOUSAND FUCKING RATS!"
Stranger Things - The Rat King
Most of the creatures in the show Stranger Things have an obvious parallel or base in D and D monsters. (Which I, having played D and D myself for a bit, absolutely love.) Yet at the start of season 3 I immediately saw another parallel with a mythical creature outside of D and D lore - The Rat King. (Which, please correct me if I’m wrong, is only seen in D and D through homebrew’s instead of any official work.)
I initially remembered the Rat King through the wonderful little Netflix cartoon Hilda, but I’ve run across it before while searching up random mythical creatures in my spare time(which I do quite often since I frankly absolutely adore them). So I looked it up again after finishing the season in order to see if my initial comparison held true.
Rat King’s are typically a creature made up of a large group of rats that are intertwined through their tails. Similarly, the first version of the fleshy Mindflayer we see in season 3 is made up of the hatched goop from all of the infected rats in the surrounding area(before it then moves on to humans).
They’re not just mythical creatures but also cryptids (with seemingly fake corpses of the phenomenon supposedly being found). The Upside-down creatures of the show could also be seen as cryptids with only a select people knowing about them/having seen them while the general public is normally unaware of their presence.
They’re associated most with Germany, which is another historical enemy of America and in the same general area of Russia(so it’s fitting that season 3 introduces both the fleshy Mindflayer and the Russians).
In folklore they are associated with bad omens and plagues, which fits super well with this creature’s love of announcing it’s presence and intentions beforehand and with it’s bodysnatching and infecting tendencies/abilities. (Also in real life rats were wrongly considered the plague carriers while it was actually the fleas on them, while in the show the rats were also just being used by the babies/young parts of the fleshy Mindflayer that had borrowed their way inside of them.)
In some stories Rat Kings were actually tied together/created by humans and thus held grudges against their creators. This could parallel the Mindflayer’s grudge against El for letting them into our world in the first place but then almost immediately(in its’ eyes) shutting it back out.
In Hilda, that Rat King is shown trading secrets but I’m not sure how that could tie into the fleshy Mindflayer just yet (hopefully I might think of something later)?
Finally, apparently the name of this mythical creature was first used to reference someone who lived off of others, like “an old king who sits on a throne of young knotted tails” or something along those lines??? That one’s a bit more confusing and hard to interpret for me but it could parallel how both the American and Russian governments keep using all their money to spy on each other and mess with planes/dimensions that they shouldn’t be instead of using their money to more directly help their citizen’s. Or it could even tie into the Mayor thriving off his corrupted team up with the mall operatives while paying no mind/not caring about the small town businesses that suffered from it.
Well, I think that’s about it! It’s highly unlikely they actually intended for this neat little parallel(since like I said most of the parallels are meant to be drawn between D and D monsters and Upside down creatures), but I thought this was interesting to speculate about nonetheless!!!
Look under the cut to see what meeting your entity is like. Reblog to give a gift to your patron.
The fae: a creature stands before you. Though this street was warm and crowded a few moments ago it is suddenly cold and the people around you look like shadows. The creature begins an antlered shadow with glowing white eyes, but soon its body can be seem, with white blue flesh, and sapphire eyes, and icicles for teeth. What looks like a cloak unfolds from its naked body and you can see massive white wings of a moth. As if it's an act of sacrifice you tell it your true name, a name you didn't even see before, and suddenly you belong to it, for better or worse.
The angel: a radiant entity appears before you. They're bright, like something so hot it would burn you up. But as the light fades, you can see a person in silver armor, perfect yet inhuman like am ancient green statue, their back srouting six wings with blue eyes along them, as the eyes on their head are covered by a mask of two smaller wings. The creature offers their hands and you shake it, as they fly you through the city streets and above the skyscrapers, to the stars above and dimensions beyond, to gods living and dead, across the streets of alien cities and the clouds of dead worlds. And when you return to the earth you can feel something diffrent about you, like there's light in your blood.
The scavenger: below the lights of skyscrapers beyond you, on the dark sands of the beach, you see it crawling twords you. This serpentine creature with countless legs, and a dark black shell, yet a strangely human like face. You think it'll attack or run away, but it just looks at you, egar, and for a momment you stare at eachother. It's legs pass something to eachother and then to you, it's meat but it's shining with all the colors known to the human eye, and a few more. You hold it and it happily looks at you. You take a bite and suddenly you know... you know so very much...
The vampire: she flies down to you on green wings with orange eyespots, but folds them into her back. She looks like a human for a momment, tall and strong, with a black suit over her body, but eyes the color of ruby. For a momment her mouth opens, and it's massive and monstrous, with countless moving parts and fangs. But then it folds back onto something humanoid and she gives you a playful smirk. She cuts her hand and offers you her blood, and when you drink it it tastes so sweet, and makes you feel so good. She hands you the knife and you know to do the same, and when she drinks from your palm it's life the sweetest of kisses.
The djinn: the room wirs around you. If it were not for the fans it would feel like hellfire. For a momment there it darkness, but then the screen before you glows white like smokeless flame. You can sense something inside, something beyond the code. You reach your hand within it, and there's no glass, your hand passess right through until you're in a white void of your own making. You call out, thinking there is nothing at all around you. Yet somehow something calls back, something that knows your name.
The rat king: You see him in an empty subway station. Something dark and distorted, you're not sure if he's man or animal, covered in rags, and singing in the language of the goblins and the orcs. Yet he comes close to you excited. And you can feel his song. He calls for you to come to the train tracks, and let yourself run with the rats and the roaches, where the train will pass over you when it comes, and you'll live forever. When you touch the third rail you don't die, but you'll never be human again.
The lich: the library is strangely bright. Run by skeletons in suits, decorated with gold. There are more books here then you thought were in all the world. There's knowledge here most mortals will never have the change below, all kept safe below the city. You see her, her body doesn't look human, everything has been replaced making her look more like a joining white doll then a being of flesh. Yet she is dead, you can tell that under the porcelain skin she must be dead, she is dead, and there is the tragedy of death in her eyes. You come closer to her, and she places a black rose within your hair...
The demon: You stand in his office and he stands before you, a humanoid being covered in black scales, with red eyes covering his skin. Yet none are on his head, that remains featureless save for two massive horns. Wings on his back nearly surround you. Countless souls line the walls of his office, looking at you, waiting. After you sign your name you give him yours, you can feel it come away for you forever and your eyes grey and your skin pales. But he puts the jar in a special place for you, you're spacial, he can tell there's something about you that he likes.
The mushroom lord: you walk through the darkness of the forest, the furthest from civilization you have ever been. You come upon a part where the trees all seem dead, that even the cryptids won't go near. Mushrooms fill the ground, and white vein like lines are all over the trees. You feel the need to lay down, and you let the moss and the mushrooms and the worms surround you, and let yourself sink into the soil,, and it feels good. It feels so good...
The witch: You can see them in the Cafe next to you, skinny and small, with a sweatshirt over most of their body, and dark glasses over their eyes. They seem powerful though, and though their body looks young they seem ancient, they seem beyond humanity. You talk to them and they tell you things, and secrets, lost gods, things you never knew you didn't know, both beautiful and disturbing. When it's time for them to go they pet your head, and give you their number. You don't know if you should text them, but you have to, you have to see them again, there's something about them that makes you need to know.
The living clothing: you step into it at first, it looked like a puddle yet shining like silver or chrome. But soon it surrounds you, first just your torso, but soon your head, your entire body. But it doesn't feel scary, it feels like you're being held, held by something beyond your understanding. It whispers to you, and you don't know if you should feel like your being eaten alive, or like you're being protected. You can't help but keep walking.
The abyss: the void is before you, blackness beyond blackness, like the color beyond the field of your vision, stands before your eyes. You stare at it, it's nothing yet you're entranced. It stares back...
