Character Analysis

Mean Man with a Plan

The first time we see Snatcher, he's leading a cheese hunt. We'll note that cheese hunts are both "cruel and… illegal" (3.8) according to Grandfather, though this fact doesn't stop Snatcher from pursuing helpless cheeses as part of his greater plan to dominate Ratbridge.

When Snatcher notices Arthur spying on them, he sets his goons and dogs after him, saying, "'Get the little tyke!'" (4.17), and when he does, we sense that Snatcher doesn't have nice things planned for Arthur. In other words, within moments of meeting this character, we understand that he's not very nice, and he definitely doesn't want anyone or anything to stand in the way of his plans. So when he calls Arthur a "'little vermin'" (4.21), we add "verbally abusive" to his quickly growing list of undesirable characteristics.

It's not very surprising, then, when Snatcher starts issuing threats. If anything, it seems to be a personal passion of his, whether he's demanding Arthur hand over his wings by saying, "'Get 'em off quick, or I'll be setting the hounds on yer!'" (4.27), or telling his Cheese Guild members to be sure to capture a lot of cheeses on a hunt:

"We must get all the cheese we can tonight. I don't want any slacking. Anybody I catch not pulling his weight may find themselves in 'reduced circumstances.' Get my drift?" (19.36)

The threat Snatcher makes here is to shrink anyone who doesn't work their hardest to bring in more cheeses by using the handy dandy resizing machine he has in this possession. It's a terrible threat to make in its own right, but the cheese Snatcher's so eager to get his hands on is connected to perhaps the most threatening thing about Snatcher: Framley.

What do we mean by Framley? We're talking about the Great One, a.k.a. a resized rat named Framley, who they feed cheese as they enlarge him, turning the rodent into a war machine in hopes of taking over Ratbridge and ruling the town. As Snatcher so eloquently puts it:

"We're going to use the big rat to clobber them what done us down, blow up the council offices, rob the bank, knock down the factories, and then start flogging dodgy cheese again!" (48.24)

We're hard pressed to think of something more threatening than an enormously oversized rat.