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The Rat Man is a fictional character in the 1978 post-apocalyptic novel The Stand by American author Stephen King. He is one of the antagonists who follows the main villain Randall Flagg, also known as the Dark Man, in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is a pirate-like hoodlum who wears a red sash, a silver dollar necklace, and a sword. His real name is Ratty Erwins, but he is mostly referred to as The Rat Man by other characters.

The Rat Man first appears in the novel when he encounters two of the protagonists, Larry Underwood and Rita Blakemoor, in New York City, shortly after the outbreak of a deadly pandemic called the Superflu. He attempts to rob them at knifepoint, but Larry scares him off by firing a gun. The Rat Man later travels to Las Vegas, where he joins Flagg's army of thugs, criminals, and misfits who survived the superflu. He becomes one of Flagg's trusted lieutenants, along with Lloyd Henreid and the Trashcan Man. He is involved in several acts of violence and cruelty against Flagg's enemies, such as capturing and torturing spies from the Boulder Free Zone, a community of good survivors led by Mother Abagail, breaking Larry's guitar before his execution, and participating in the public crucifixion of Glen Bateman, another protagonist.

The Rat Man dies at the end of the novel when Flagg's regime collapses due to the intervention of the Trashcan Man, who brings a nuclear warhead to Las Vegas. The Rat Man is among the crowd of Flagg's followers who witness the arrival of the bomb and the appearance of the Hand of God, a supernatural force that detonates the device and destroys the city. Flagg himself escapes to another dimension.

The Rat Man has appeared in both the 1994 and the 2020 miniseries adaptations of The Stand. In the 1994 version, he is played by Rick Aviles, who gives him a sinister and menacing personality. In the 2020 version, the character is gender-swapped and renamed Rat Woman, played by Fiona Dourif, who portrays her as a fanatical and sadistic devotee of Flagg. Both versions of the character are faithful to the novel in terms of their appearance, role, and fate.

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