Remy

Remy is the main protagonist in Ratatouille.

Background
He is a teal rat who loves to cook, and wants to become a chef in Paris, France. He has an imaginary friend who is a representation of the late Auguste Gusteau, Remy's hero. At the end of Ratatouille, Remy's dream comes true - he becomes a chef at the La Ratatouille bistro in Paris.

Ratatouille
In the beginning of the film, it is revealed that Remy possess a very strong sense of smell, able to deduce various ingredients in food. His brother Emile is readily impressed, while his father, rat clan chief, is not but pleased when Remy is assigned as rat poison checker when he almost ate a poisoned apple core, sniffing every bit of garbage for poison, despite the fact that job is essential for the survival of the rat clan. Remy's father is also annoyed about Remy's attitude towards eating garbage, Remy claims that is unhealthy for rats and they ought to try to take the good food found in the kitchens and pantries of the humans. Therefore, Remy makes constant forages to the nearest kitchen, in an old lady's house in the countryside, where the clan is also located. Remy is also able to learn to read and understand the human language. Remy idolizes the famed chef, Auguste Gusteau, with his motto - "Anyone can cook!"

With his sense of smell, Remy slowly realizes how to improve food by combining tastes together. One day, he and his brother Emile were smoking a mushroom by the chimney, before being struck by lightening. Impressed by the popcorned mushroom, the two venture into the kitchen for saffron. The old lady is asleep, but a TV is on where Remy hears the news that Gusteau has died. The old lady awakes, sees the rats and promptly produces a shotgun where she blasts the walls and roof. Her inaccurate shooting however, brings down part of the ceiling where the entire rat clan lives. Remy's father calls for a Dunquerque style evacuation, fleeing out to a stream and paddling off on rubbish. Remy runs back to grab a Gusteau cookbook and flees, trailing behind.

He paddles into the stream, under fire from the old lady but loses sight of the clan in the sewers. The sewers contained rapids and displaying incredible water physics, Remy is alone. Absentmindedly, Remy flicks through his cook book's pages where an illustration of Gusteau comes to life, animated by Remy's lonely imagination. Gusteau instructs Remy to go out and look for food, Remy complies and witnesses aspects of Parisian life before surveying the magnificent night scenery and finding himself located right next to Gusteau's restaurant.

Remy climbs onto the restaurant's skylight and sees the working of a quality kitchen, where he witnesses Linguini, a clumsy garbage boy, spill a pot of soup and stuff water and various random ingredients to make up for it. Remy is horrified by this sacrilege to good food, and falls from the skylight.

Almost getting roast, cooked, chopped and seen, Remy gets to the soup undetected and was about to make good his escape via an open window. He halts and then proceeds to add ingredients into the soup, and was caught red-handed by a stunned Linguini. Remy was hastily hidden away when the restaurant's new owner Skinner sees a soup ladle in Linguini's hand and berate him for cooking. The soup is served to Linguini's dismay, but proved popular to a critic. Remy, pleased, was about to escape but was caught. Linguini was told to hastily dispose of him, trapped in a jar, and he cycled to the River Seine to dump him.

Linguini was about to drop Remy but desists, noticing that Remy could understand him talking. Linguini quickly figures out that he can not cook, while Remy can. Linguini releases him, and takes Remy into his apartment. There Remy learns a way to work with Linguini to cook while Remy can remain covertly hidden.

Personality
Remy is a rat who simply adores food and it's quality. He is shown to have a very good sense of smell, which is probably due to his likeness to food, so Remy's father, Django, gave him a job as poison-checker. Due to his gift with food, he always thinks that whatever he think is always correct, which it always is, and always tries his best to make the food he makes high-standard. He also has an interest in humans, because of how they customize food in an exquisite way, and soon becomes quite close to one particular human, Alfredo Linguini, who affectionately calls him 'Little Chef' and cannot cook.

He is not a typical rat, and his personality is mostly like one of a human, as he walks on two feet instead of four. What he thinks of his talent is a bit of modesty, as shown when Linguini asked him if he could actually cook. Towards the fact that he is not really a typical rat, this concerns his father excessively, and always ends up in argument with him to do with his ways.

His overall dream is to become a chef, and he is always tempted to cook wherever he finds what he needs. When he finds Linguini, and realizes he can control his actions with his hair, he immediately cooks food of extremely high-standard, hiding under Linguini's togue, and everyone buys his dishes by asking for the 'Special Order'.

Trivia

 * In WALL•E, a tribute to Remy is shown as a robot named REM-E, shown onboard the Axiom inside the garbage chute.
 * Remy is the second main protagonist who doesn't have a love interest.