How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Good," said Botticelli. "Do as I say and your life will be full of meaning. This is how to torture a prisoner: first, you must convince him that you are a friend. Listen to him. Encourage him to confess his sins. And when the time is right, talk to him. Tell him what he wants to hear. Tell him, for instance, that you will forgive him. This is a wonderful joke to play upon a prisoner, to promise forgiveness." (16.32)
Botticelli seems convinced that the only way to enjoy life as a rat is to torture prisoners by lying to them and using their weaknesses against them. This tells the reader how limited Botticelli's life really is, that he resorts to this as his only pleasure in life.
Quote #2
"Ha," said Botticelli, "ha-ha-ha! You gain his trust, you refuse him, and—ha-ha—you become what he knew you were all along, what you knew you were all along, not a friend, not a confessor, not a forgiver, but—ha-ha!—a rat!" Botticelli wiped his eyes and shook his head and sighed a sigh of great contentment. (16.35)
Botticelli seems to say that lying is part of rathood—you're just born to lie. But in this discussion with Roscuro, he's hypnotizing him as he tells him about lies and torture. So maybe that suggests that you have to be taught to lie; it doesn't come naturally, even to rats.
Quote #3
And as Mig went singing down the stairs of the dungeon, there appeared from the shadows a rat wrapped in a cloak of red and wearing a spoon on his head.
"Yes, yes," whispered the rat, "a lovely song. Just the song I have been waiting to hear." (31.6-7)
When Mig starts singing her song about being a princess, Roscuro realizes exactly how he can manipulate and lie to her in order to get her to do his evil bidding. People (or rats) who are liars always have to be on the lookout for good targets.
Quote #4
"Gor," she said, "but you're a rat, ain't you? And didn't the old man just warn me of such? 'Beware the rats,' he said." She held the tray up higher so that the light from the candle shone directly on Roscuro and the golden spoon on his head and the blood-red cloak around his neck. (33.6)
Mig isn't the smartest girl in the world, but she still has some fears about trusting a rat like Roscuro. Roscuro's gonna have to do some fast talking.
Quote #5
"My papa had some cloth much like yours, Mr. Rat," said Mig. "Red like that. He traded me for it."
"Ah," said Roscuro, and he smiled a large, knowing smile. "Ah, did he really? That is a terrible story, a tragic story." (33.10-11)
Rule #1 of deceit: get your target's trust by appearing sympathetic. Roscuro learned that from Botticelli. He knows way more then he's letting on about Mig's papa.
Quote #6
"Miss Miggery, there is no need to shout. None at all. And as you can hear me, so I can hear you. We two are perfectly suited, each to the other." Roscuro smiled again, displaying a mouthful of sharp yellow teeth. "'Aspirations,' my dear, are those things that would make a serving girl wish to be a princess." (33.19)
The author uses imagery to add to what we know about the characters. Would you trust someone with "sharp yellow teeth"?
Quote #7
The rat's real plan was, in a way, more simple and more terrible. He intended to take the princess to the deepest, darkest part of the dungeon. He intended to have Mig put chains on the princess's hands and her feet, and he intended to keep the glittering, glowing, laughing princess there in the dark.
Forever. (36.25-26)
Roscuro's behavior is the most deceitful of any character What turned this rat, who longed for light and a better light, into a such a cruel deceiver?
Quote #8
"Do you know me, Princess?"
"No," she said, lowering her head, "I don't know you."
But, reader, she did know him. He was the rat who had fallen in her mother's soup. And he was wearing her dead mother's spoon on his head! The princess kept her head down. (37.28-30)
This honest and gracious princess lies to Roscuro. Why? We know she was freaked out when she recognized him; Roscuro knows that the sight of him must be very, very painful for her. Maybe she doesn't want to give him the satisfaction.
Quote #9
"And more foul play. Gregory dead!" shouted Cook. "Poor old man, that rope of his broken by who knows what and him lost in the dark and frightened to death because of it. It's too much." (39.5)
Roscuro knows that Gregory has way too much experience with troublesome rats to believe any of Roscuro's lies, and so he gets rid of the man altogether.
Quote #10
Reader, was it a trick?
Of course it was!
Botticelli did not want to be of service. Far from it. You know what Botticelli wanted. He wanted others to suffer. Specifically, he wanted this small mouse to suffer. How best to do that?
Why, take him right directly to what he wanted. The princess. Let him see what his heart desired, and then, and only then, faced with what he loved, would Despereaux die. (47.30-33)
Botticelli can't resist the opportunity to lie to Despereaux and trick him into a horrible death. Classic rat behavior.