Ripred

Ripred is an abnormally large rat and capable fighter who appears in Suzanne Collins' The Underland Chronicles. He is an important character in all five of the series' books. Ripred is what many people and animals in the Underland refer to as a "rager", or a natural born killer. Even though he is a rat, or a gnawer, as the Underlanders say, he often fights alongside the humans - frequently against other rats. Ripred is usually sarcastic, snide, and overbearing, but he has occasionally shown compassion and tenderness, especially with the main character's younger sister, Lizzie. The books describe him as being just as large as the other six-foot rats of the Underland, having a gray coat, and marked by a diagonal scar across his face.

Ripred is one of the older characters in the series as he has known the human King and Queen of Regalia for many years. Ripred once had a mate and several pups. During one of the rare peaceful periods between rats and humans, they shared a beautiful garden filled with apple trees and other delicious fruit. It was called the Garden of Hesperides. One day while many rats were enjoying the garden, the humans, led by Solovet and her son Hamnet, launched a surprise attack. In an effort to protect them from the attack, the rats herded the pups into caves surrounding the garden. Hoping to wipe out the rats completely, the humans accidentally destroyed the Dike holding back the water and began to drown the rats and pups in the garden and surrounding caves. Though Ripred survived this attack, he decided that the constant warring between rats and humans in the Underland was pointless. These events all transpired before the main character, Gregor, had discovered the Underland.

The first time Ripred appears in the series is in the first book, Gregor the Overlander, to act as a guide for Gregor and other characters attempting to find and rescue Gregor's father from the rats. He fulfills the role of "one gnawer beside", as the Prophecy of Grey foretold. Ripred's goal in this quest was to overthrow the rats' monstrous king, King Gorger, and attempt to gain power.

Ripred appears again in Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane to deliver Twitchtip, another outcast rat with an incredible sense of smell, to Gregor for an upcoming quest. He later attempts to teach Gregor the skill of echolocation, but with poor results.

In the third book, Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, Ripred convinces Gregor to come back down to the Underland for a brief meeting regarding a plague that threatens to wipe all the warmbloods of the Underland out. He ends up being a representative of the rats on a quest to find a cure for the plague, a plant called starshade, in a treacherous jungle. During the trip Ripred is usually condescending and mocking towards Gregor, but he also helps Gregor cope with being a rager like him and is important to the group discovering that the starshade is indeed not the real cure.

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Wikipedia